A Vendetta of the Desert

by W. C. Scully

Early in the morning after the arrival of Stephanus, the mob of cattle was driven in and with the assistance of some of the Hottentots a fairly good span of oxen was sorted out. Then the wagon was loaded with provisions and water, and Stephanus started in pursuit of the brother who had fled before his accusing face. Elsie insisted on accompanying her father; Stephanus, full of the trust in Providence which he had attained to through suffering,—imbued with that sublime confidence which had come to him in his nine years of repentance, prayer and watching,—made no objection.

A great happiness welled up in Aletta’s heart and seemed to transfigure her, body and soul. She felt that her dark hour had indeed been the prelude to a day brighter than her starved soul had known for many years. With feverish haste she completed the preparations for departure, and when the wagon rolled away up the steep kloof-track, its fresh team of sixteen drawing it with hardly an effort, she watched it until her sight grew dim with happy tears. Then she and Stephanus knelt down and he breathed forth a prayer as humbly exultant as ever the rapt singer of Israel uttered like trumpet blast whose sound still fills the centuries.

Afterwards, Stephanus followed the wagon on horseback, and Aletta turned to the joyful task of garnishing the dismal, unkempt house in preparation for her husband’s return.

At the top of the saddle the oxen were outspanned and driven to the spring to take their last drink before entering the region of thirst. Stephanus, like Gideon—but with what different feelings—looked back and let his eye luxuriate upon the fertile valley. How sweet and peaceful it all looked.—How the frowning krantzes shut it in on each side, their stark forms accentuating the soft slopes that billowed away from their bases. He could see the patch of scrub that hid the spring,—and the silvern water issuing from it,—like a jewelled pendant. The forenoon sun took the foliage at an angle which turned its usual hue to a rich, full tint. That spot was the pivot upon which his life and that of his brother had turned, and from which they had been whirled off into such strange regions.

He turned his gaze until it swept the blackened desert across which his course lay, but the prospect had for him no dismay. He knew by experience the dangers that lay before him, but his faith was to him as a strong shield and a buckler of might against all evil. Elsie stood at his side and held his horny, toil-worn hand between hers that were so soft and white. Few words passed between the father and daughter; they were content just to be together. She, happy in the fulfilment of her long-deferred hope,—he, exultant with the feeling that he was fighting Satan for his brother’s soul and confident of victory.

The thoughts of Stephanus moved upon a stage higher than Elsie’s could attain to. To Stephanus the presence of his beloved child was enough to fill his heart with joy. She seemed to be the embodiment of peace,—the dove that had come back across the troubled waters of his life. But over and above this towered high the realisation of the task laid upon him,—the lifting of his brother’s life from the slough in which it had been so long sunk. To Elsie happiness and duty were one; to her father his great happiness and his burning responsibility were different and, as it were, filled separate chambers of his mind.

It was noon by the time the oxen again stood in the yoke. The trail of Gideon’s wagon lay plainly marked across the sand, far below. Stephanus could see between the stones—close to where he stood, the clear print of his brother’s large veldschoen; Gideon had here paced restlessly to and fro. Yonder was the spot where he had stood gazing back into the valley which he deemed he had left for ever; there he had paused to cast his haggard eyes across the desert which he meant should be his dwelling-place henceforth. It seemed to Stephanus as though he could enter into all the phases of his brother’s mind at this spot where the physical conditions seemed to suggest appraisement of the probabilities of the future as well as of the results of the past. He felt as though standing on the boundary-line between two worlds.

Then, with brake-shoe fixed to the wheel the wagon jolted heavily down the mountain side until it reached the red and burning sand-waste which seemed to stretch northward to infinity.

At every outspan place could be seen the remains of the fires lit by the fugitive. These places were far apart; it was clear that Gideon had made desperate efforts to put as many miles as possible between himself and his injured brother.

The wilderness was in a frightful state of aridity, so the unhappy cattle suffered much from thirst. Stephanus always let them rest in the heat of the day; in the evening he would inspan and then push on through the cool hours of the night. The leader had no difficulty, by the diffused light of the stars, in following the wheel-tracks.