The Crescent Moon

by Francis Brett Young

I

When Eva, resolved on confession, had come to the door of her brother’s room and knocked, she had not been altogether surprised at his anxiety to be left alone. James had always been like that, and she knew that there was nothing to be gained by disturbing him. Through the heat of that peerless afternoon she waited. But when the evening came and he had not yet emerged from his chosen solitude, she began to be more anxious. Even if he were in a state of extreme spiritual depression, starvation wouldn’t improve matters. It had always been a great part of her function in life to see that he was properly supplied with food and raiment and all the physical comforts which his spirit so heartily despised, and even in this extremity her thoughts moved in the accustomed channel. Seeing herself, as from a distance, pursuing these eminently practical affairs, she was even faintly thankful that she had still the distraction of her habitual activities. She went into the garden to find the boys. Onyango was there alone, sleeping in the sun. She woke him, and in a little while he returned, bringing with him a yellow gourd full of the thin milk of the country. She boiled a little of this over her fire of sticks, and took it to the door of James’ room. This time there was no answer. Perhaps, she thought, he was asleep. A blessed relief from all his troubles.

Two hours later she knocked again, and when, again, she received no reply, she suddenly took fright. She wasn’t afraid that he had done anything very desperate: she knew that his religious sense was too strong for this: but she knew that he was the lightest of sleepers, and his silence suggested to her a return of the illness which had robbed him of consciousness before. She remembered so well the ghastly sight which he had presented to her on that day, when he had laid on his back with his eyes staring at the ceiling, breathing stertorously. She listened carefully at the door, trying to hear if he were breathing like that now. She remembered her despair on that terrible night and the callous unconcern of Godovius, and her thoughts turned gratefully to M‘Crae. Now, thank heaven, she was not quite alone. She tried the door and found that it was bolted. The window. . . . It opened on to the stoep at the place where the great bougainvillea hung in thick festoons, mitigating kindly the whiteness of the light. At her passage a flight of nectarinidæ passed with whirring wings. The window stood open. The room was empty . . . that little room of James’, pathetic in its bareness, with no ornamentation but a cabinet photograph of old Aaron Burwarton and the coloured texts which James himself had achieved in his schooldays. On the table lay the open Bible and a sheet of paper on which James had scribbled texts. If she had looked up the references she might have discovered a series of obvious clues to the mystery of his new adventure. But she didn’t. She folded the paper and closed the Bible. She saw that he had lain on the bed, and even while she wondered what could have happened to him, she was smoothing the sheets and putting the creased bedclothes in order. She was only thankful that he was not ill. It didn’t so much concern her where he had gone; for it was a very rare thing for James to invite her confidence in his plans. Even at Far Forest he would often annoy her by an air of secrecy which emphasised his importance. So when she had put his room, that scene of so recent a spiritual anguish, in order, she sighed, and returned to the kitchen with her cup of milk.

All that afternoon she did not go to M‘Crae. Since the day on which Godovius had threatened her she had never been quite comfortable with him. She had felt an awkwardness which it was hard to explain: almost as if M‘Crae were aware of the character which Godovius had given to their relation. In some subtle way it seemed that the frankness of their first friendship had been spoiled. That was how she put it to herself; but the more probable reason for their awkwardness was the fact that he knew that she was excluding him from her confidence and would not say so. She would not admit to herself that she, more directly than Godovius, was responsible for the strained atmosphere.

In a very little while night fell. Still James did not come; and this seemed to her unusual, for the thorn bush about Luguru is no place for a man to wander in at night. From her chair in front of their living-room window on the stoep she watched the rising of the moon. At that very moment James was crossing the M’ssente River. A beautiful slip of a thing she seemed to Eva, and of an amazing brilliance. Even before her shining sickle had floated above Kilima ja Mweze the sky was flooded with a pale radiance, and the outlines of the trees which climbed the sky-line and had already been merged in the soft darkness of the mountain’s bulk grew suddenly distinct. . . . Then the restless noises of the night began. Eva felt suddenly and rather hopelessly alone. She was not very happy in the dark.

Now she would not have to wait very long for James. No doubt, too, he would be hungry. She went into the house and laid the table for supper. After all, one must eat. On the table she placed a single lighted candle. Then she pulled on a pair of leather mosquito boots to protect her ankles, and sat there, waiting, and listening to the night. Far away in the forest she heard the sound of drumming. It did not bring to her mind the sinister suggestions with which it troubled that of James. But she felt unhappy, and, somehow, a little cold. She found herself shivering. And just as she had begun to wonder if she, like James, were on the edge of the inevitable fever, a strong-winged moth, hurling out of the darkness at her candle, put out the flame, with a noise of singeing wings, and left her in darkness.

It was a small thing, but it frightened her. She relighted the candle and settled down again to waiting for James; but now she found it more difficult than before to be self-contained. Indeed this culmination to her long day’s anxiety had been rather too much for her; she had tried too daringly to walk alone. The incident of the empty church, which at first had seemed to her no more than a set-back to be encountered, now returned to her with a more sinister suggestion. All atmospheres of that kind are more formidable by night: and this night of Africa, with its high and velvety sky in which the crescent moon was still ascending, seemed peculiarly vast, and alien in its vastness. All the time, from the recesses of the forest, she heard the beating of drums.

The little clock on the mantelpiece struck eight. The candle on the supper-table was burning down with a steady flame. James had never in all their life at Luguru been as late as this. It occurred to her that perhaps she was feeling nervous just for want of food. She decided that at the very worst she would not have to wait much longer, and that in any case it would be foolish to give way to her fancies. And then, at a moment when she was really feeling more secure, fear came to her, as swiftly and blindly as the moth which had blundered in out of the night, and all her bravery was extinguished. She left the light burning in the room and ran along the garden path to M‘Crae’s banda.

“I was frightened,” she told him, quite simply. And then she told him of the surprise at the church that morning; of how James had left her and locked himself in his room; how he had left the mission and had not yet returned. And when once she had begun to tell him these things, and had heard his grave replies in a voice that was steady and devoid of fear, she began to feel lighter and happier. When once she had managed to talk like this she found it wonderfully easy to go on, and in a little while she had unbosomed herself of the whole story of her meeting with Godovius, his entreaties and his threats. Until she had ended he did not speak; but she knew that it was with difficulty that he heard her through. At the end he said:

“You should have told me. It would have been more like you.”