Her anger rose as the horses sped along. To her excited nerves their rapid pace was too slow, and she whipped them into a wild galop all the way, for she must be home before sun up.
Her fury was intense, and she would turn to the Fingo cowering in the corner of the seat, in a sort of mad way, that made him shrink with terror. Every time she looked at him she would urge her horses to additional speed by lashings of the whip, until they were nearly as mad as their mistress.
Chapter Twenty.
One of Eve’s Daughters.
At last, in the dead of night, she reached the house of an Afrikander whom she had once befriended, and on whom she could rely. Him she awakened by blowing a bugle which had lain at her feet.—He came out to her, and listened to the strange tale which she hastily repeated, with the usual unmoved countenance of the Afrikander. He was ready enough to help her to dispose of her terror-stricken prisoner. These Cape people have a way of their own of disposing of anything disagreeable, which strikes the stranger as peculiar, but effective.
Obeying her orders, he took him to a lonely hut, and chained him fast. It was the Fingo’s fate to remain there until danger to Donald was past. When she saw that the captive was where he could do her husband no harm, she handed a purse to the Afrikander and turned her horses’ heads homeward, with a sense of relief.
Her fury had abated, but not her courage. Alone, and fearless, she returned over the veldt, until, exhausted, she arrived on the outskirts of the town, just as the day was dawning, and descended from her cart, leaving it in the hands of her tireless waiting servant. She then turned homeward, now on foot. The fatigue of the watch had relaxed the vigilance of the guard, and they expected nothing from beyond the premises. So by care she was able to regain the shadow of the house and to make safe entrance.
Closing the door, the graceful Malay became transformed into a tearful, trembling, exhausted woman. She doffed her male attire, donned a soft, silken, clinging robe, and sunk on a couch with a feeling of utter weakness. Fate, she thought, had overtaken her, and she felt herself hopelessly entangled in the intricacies of Donald’s possible disaster. But she had shown her devotion as a wife, in her wild and dangerous midnight ride. Why had she ever met Donald? Why had she not been left to live her uneventful life? “Oh,” she sighed, “to hide in the depths of some great forest and there lie down in peace to die.” Then her thoughts reverted to Schwatka, who was seldom out of her mind. Donald with his hidden secret had estranged her. When we are no longer worthy of confidence, we lose confidence in others.