Chapter VIII: Part 8

The very tones of her voice ought to have brought home to Jeffreys the inexpediency of pursuing his subject for the present; but some persons are singularly deficient in a sense of the fitness of things or of times, and he was one.

"No; it isn't that. I want to say something--something about me--and about you," he blunders, lamely; but she will give him no help, "and--I must--say it--to-night--Ethel!" he jerks out.

"For goodness' sake don't say it to-night, or at any other time," replies she, decisively, putting out her hand, with a gesture as if to stop him. It has the desired effect. Even Jeffreys' dull wits are alive to the conviction that his is not merely a losing game, but a lost one; and the reflection exasperates him.

"Oh, I might have known," was the sneering reply. "Of course--no one has been fit to speak to since that fellow Claverton came."

She turned upon him, her face white with wrath in the moonlight. "Wilfred Jeffreys, you are a brave fellow. You have found me here alone, and have taken the opportunity of insulting me. Now what do you think I am going to do?"

"What?"

"I am going in to ask uncle to put away the brandy decanter," said she, in tones of bitter scorn; and without another word she walked away, leaving him standing there looking and feeling, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, a thorough fool.

Within doors the fun is kept up with a zest characteristic of such entertainments. There are no shy ones left now, all are merged in the ranks of the confident.

Crash!

Down comes Hicks like a felled tree, right in the middle of the room. Matters are at a momentary standstill, and the unlucky one slowly and shamefacedly picks himself up, red and wrathful and covered with confusion. He is muttering maledictions on the head of the guileless Allen, which ass, he declares, not content with cannoning against him, tripped him up.

"Never mind, jump up. Lucky it's _before_ supper," laughs jovial Jim Brathwaite.

"Hicks, old man, I _told_ you to draw the line at that fourth glass," says the irrepressible Armitage in a mighty stage whisper as he whirls by, grinning with malicious delight. The truth being that Hicks is the most abstemious wight in the world. But the remark does not pass unheeded, and a laugh, varying in tone from open guffaw to suppressed titter, further exasperates and discomfits the luckless stumbler, who vows vengeance on his tormentor.

Then comes supper, which must be attended to in relays, space being limited. A Dutchman is desperately anxious to make a speech, and is with difficulty quelled; while Jack Armitage, who has a bet on with some one that old Garrett being too far gone to detect the fraud, he will make him drink three tumblers of water under the impression that it is grog, is using the noble spur, emulation, to induce that worthy to swallow the third, and winks and grins triumphantly at the loser as he succeeds. Meanwhile piano and violin never flag, till at length the waning summer night begins to hint pretty broadly that it is time to knock off.

Then a great deal of inspanning and saddling up; of hunting for stray saddle-cloths and bridles which have gone adrift; not a little wrangling among the coloured stable hands belonging to the place or to the guests, and finally most of the latter are gone. The residue will tarry for a shakedown and a rest.

"Good-night--at sunrise!"

A pressure from a soft, taper hand; a sweet glance from a pair of rather tired eyes, and the door closes on a tall vision in soft creamy draperies.

The recipient of that pressure of the hand, that playful glance, turns away like a man in a dream. Half instinctively he makes his way to Hicks' quarters. Here he is enthusiastically hailed.

"Hallo, Arthur. Come and blow a cloud before you turn in. All these chaps are asleep already."

"All right," was the reply, and the speaker, picking his way among several slumbering wights who rolled in blankets had compassed impromptu shakedowns on the floor of Hicks' room, seated himself at the foot of the latter's stretcher. "Give us a fill."

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

BAULKED.

"Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall," is a good and safe maxim in other senses than the theological, for it goes to the very root of human nature.

Here was a man in the zenith of his strength, at an age when the fire of youth would be tempered and steeled by rare physical powers of endurance; a man to whose lot had befallen stirring and eventful experiences beyond the lot of most men, and in befalling had hardened; a man of cool judgment and keen, clear, reasoning powers far beyond his years; a man to whom the other sex would accord a full share of attention, and who hitherto has been utterly unsusceptible to any such excusable weakness, has hitherto never known a quickened pulse in response to soft glance or welcoming smile. And this man has now surrendered at sight--absolutely, and without the smallest reservation.

And it had all come about in a single day.

Just so. It is your apparent icicle that annihilates itself with the most startling rapidity when suddenly touched by the scorching beam of the unlooked-for sun. It is the unsusceptible one who goes down forehead to the earth, not pausing to spread rug or carpet in the way, when the self-constituted idol appears. And oh, how frequently too, not the feet only, but the head, the hands, and the heart of the image prove to be of the veriest clay!

To-morrow!

Who among us ever gives a thought to this commonplace word? Not, I mean, when we are passing through some momentous crisis of our lives, some care, some expectation for good or for ill, which may either make us, or crush us well-nigh out of existence. Not then, but when our lives are flowing on, smooth and undisturbed, then it is that we practically ignore the possibility of to-morrow bringing with it anything eventful, or being, in short, other than a mere twenty-four hours' repetition of to-day.

To-morrow!

We go to bed lightly with the word on our lips, our arrangements for it are all mapped out, all ordered for the next twenty-four hours, ay, and beyond them, as though there existed not in the sublime philosophy of the Wise King that most portentous of all warnings: "Boast not thyself of the morrow, for thou canst not tell what a day may bring forth."

For an exemplification of both warnings behold it perfected in him who rides abroad this morning. A single day, and his life has been cut into two halves. Nor is it even a day that has wrought this change, nor yet an hour, nor a minute. A moment, a brief flash of time, just so long as that presence took to appear before him, and he was conquered. One look, and he fell prostrate, to rise again a slave. And this man, till the day before yesterday, had not a care in the world.

He rides slowly on. On the high ground which will directly shut the homestead out of sight, he turns for a moment to gaze upon the quiet old place sleeping embowered in trees; to gaze upon it with a lingering and reverential gaze, as pilgrim taking a last look at some deeply venerated shrine. Then he urges his horse along a narrow track which leads down into the wildest part of the farm. Dark bush covers the valley on either hand, broken only by a beetling _krantz_, frowning down as it were upon great jagged rocks which, hurled at some remote period from its face, lie embedded beneath. Yonder, in a sequestered glade, a couple of spans of fine trek-oxen are grazing, the sun glistening on their sleek hides; a bushbuck ewe stalks timidly across an open clearing, and the alarmed note of a pheasant sounds close to the horseman; but he who rides abroad thus early is neither on business bent nor on the pleasures of the chase. He is only thinking--ruminating.

Mechanically his hand grasps the reins, as his steed, which he makes no attempt to guide, steps briskly out, skilfully avoiding the sweeping boughs which here and there overhang the path. Monkeys grin and gibber at him among the branches, and a large secretary bird floats away from its nest of sticks hard by. In the dewy webs which quiver from the sprays of the bushes, and sparkle in the sun like strings of gems, he reads but one name, one name written as it were, in delicate gossamer characters, and the breaths of morning in this fresh cool retreat are fraught with a faint but thrilling harmony--the music of low, tuneful notes which are something more than a recollection, so clearly present are they in the fancy of the thinker.

Then he ponders over the three months which have slipped by in such calm, easy fashion since he cast in his lot here, and found among these kindly and genial friends a home in its best and truest sense. It seems to him a marvellous thing that he could have enjoyed, so much contentment until this new star suddenly blazed forth in the firmament of his life. He was not susceptible, never had been. How much had not he and Ethel Brathwaite been thrown together, for instance! Ethel with her sunny spirits and laughing, wayward moods, and her capacity for working havoc among his own sex. They had been thrown daily, hourly, together, from sheer force of circumstances, yet never a pulse of his had been stirred in the faintest degree by any spell of hers.

"Too soon."

He is again seated in imagination by the moonlit pool while that shade of unhappy recollection steals across his companion's beautiful face. Again the longing is upon him to clear up the mystery and learn his own fate. In but a couple of days! Ridiculous! And half aloud he utters his thoughts:

"Too soon!"

Zip!--

A metallic ring on the stones behind him. Something lies gleaming on the sun-baked slope of the hill. It is an assegai.

From the weapon, which has missed his body by about six inches, his glance darts searchingly in the direction whence it came. All his coolness has returned, and now his sole idea in life is the discovery of his hidden assailant. Yet he is unarmed; it is highly probable that there are more spears where the first came from; the spot is a lonely one, and for all present purposes as far removed from human aid as the centre of the Great Sahara.

"Ah, I thought as much. I see you, Mopela, you skulking vagabond. Come down here, you dog, and I'll brain you."

For a head had appeared from behind a low rock some eighteen or twenty yards from the speaker, and after watching him for a moment, half the body of its owner followed. A strip of thick bush lay between him and Claverton, who he guessed was unarmed, as no weapon was levelled at him.

"Whaow!" mocked the savage, as he poised another assegai. "Whaow! Lenzimbi [Note 1]. Yesterday I; to-day, you. What do you say? Can your fists reach me here? You are as good as dead, and then Mopela will hang you to a tree by the hind leg, and in an hour the aasvogels will be tearing away at your carcase;" and springing upon the rock he again levelled his formidable spear.

Claverton never moved in his saddle, but sat confronting his deadly foe as calmly as though he were asking the road; and there, above, stood the athletic form of the huge barbarian, who, entirely naked, and smeared from head to foot with red ochre, which glistened in the sun, looked a very demon of the forest. He knew that the other's words were true, and that the chances were a hundred to one that in five minutes he would be a dead man. He was quite unarmed, and his adversary still had two assegais. Yet he replied quite unconcernedly:

"You're a fool, Mopela. You can't hurt _me_, and, moreover, let me tell you this--you're a damned bad shot."

His coolness rather disconcerted the other, who laughed mockingly. "Can't I? Mopela's assegais are too sharp for Lenzimbi's `charm,' and his God is asleep; _He_ can't help him. Look, I have two more assegais, one for Lenzimbi, and one for his God. His God is asleep, I say."

"Is he? Look there!" exclaimed Claverton in a sharp, warning tone, pointing behind the other. The superstitious Kafir turned his head, for the moment completely thrown off his guard; quick as thought Claverton slipped from the saddle, and, wrenching off one of the stirrups, dashed into the bush and made straight for his enemy. He was just in time, for the other, having recovered himself, launched an assegai with such unerring effect as to graze the seat of the saddle; the horse, startled by the unwonted proceedings, threw up his head, snorted and backed, and finally trotted off by the way he had come. The Kafir, secure in his point of vantage, awaited the onset, grasping his remaining assegai. Claverton knew better than to hesitate, and, rushing at his adversary, dealt him a violent blow on the leg with the stirrup-iron. Maddened by the pain, Mopela sprang upon him with a wild beast's roar, but Claverton was ready. Dropping the stirrup he clutched the other's wrists, and they struggled like fiends. The athletic savage, twice the Englishman's match for sheer muscular strength, strove with might and main to free the hand which held his assegai; but the other, knowing full well that his very life depended on his not doing so, held firm--firm as iron. Their breath came in quick, short gasps, and every muscle was distended and rigid. Then the savage, with a hyaena-like howl, opened his great teeth and made a mighty snap at his antagonist's face, but Claverton lowered his head and the other's teeth met in his slouch hat; then, taking advantage of Mopela being off his guard, he drove his right knee with all the force he could muster into the Kafir's stomach. The game was now his own. His gigantic foe staggered back ten or a dozen yards, then fell gasping for breath, and dropping his weapon as he rolled and writhed among the bush below. With a fierce shout, Claverton seized the spear and rushed upon his enemy, but it was too late. Mopela had had as much as he could stomach in more ways than one, and hastened to make himself scarce; moreover, the trampling of approaching hoofs was heard and a horseman appeared, leading Claverton's defaulting steed.

"Hullo! What the very deuce is the row? Is that you, Claverton?"

"It is. Five minutes ago the chances in favour of the same being fact were infinitesimal."

"Well, you _are_ a cool hand," began the new arrival, when a shout far above them in the bush interrupted him and drew both their attention. They looked up and beheld Mopela.

"Gough, have you got a revolver?" asked Claverton in quick, eager tones. "He's a long way off, but I think I can pink him. No? Haven't you? I'd give 50 pounds for a single shot at the beast." Then, raising his voice: "Aha, Mopela, you dog; whose god is asleep now, eh? Come down here again," he went on, jeeringly; "come down and have another thrashing; I'll give you one--I alone. The other _Baas_ will see fair play. You won't? You're not such a fool as I thought, then. Only, look here, the next time I come across you, wherever it may be, I'll kill you--kill you, by God. So keep out of my way."

The savage shook his hand towards the speaker with a menacing gesture. "Whaow!" he called out. "The next time we meet Lenzimbi will sing to a different tune. When the land is red with the blood of the _abelungu_ [whites], and their sheep and cattle are in our kraals, Lenzimbi shall yet hang by the heels, and Mopela will, with his own hand, put out his eyes with a red-hot firestick before he is roasted--Haow! Then the warriors of the Amaxosa will have great sport in hunting out the last of the whites from their hiding-places, and all the white men will be dead; but there will be plenty of white women--ha! ha! ha!--plenty of white women," went on the savage, in his great mocking tones. "And the dark lily of Seringa Vale," (jerking his thumb in the direction of that locality), "when Lenzimbi's body and spirit is burnt up in the slow fire, she and Mopela will--Ha!" He disappeared suddenly, for with a furious oath Claverton plunged into the bush in pursuit; but he might as well have searched for the proverbial needle as for the crafty savage, who simply dodged him in the thick covert, laughing in his sleeve the while. In less than half an hour he returned to his wondering companion.

"Where are you bound for, Gough?"

"Thorman's--I'm thinking of buying that horse of his."

"All right. I'll go part of the way with you and get back round by the _vij-kraal_ [Note 2]. But let's pick up these carving-knives first." He gathered up the three assegais, all well-made weapons with keen blades and long, tapering handles; then, as they mounted and rode off, he told his companion what had happened.

John Gough was a young man of about twenty-three, who had migrated to the colony about a year before in search of employment. This he had found in the capacity of tutor to Naylor's children--four healthy young romps, as disinclined for their books as frontier children usually are. He was of a quiet and retiring disposition, but a good fellow. For some reason or another he rather disliked Claverton, but was too good-natured to show it; and now, as they rode along in silence--for Claverton had relapsed into a fit of taciturnity--he began to think he had done him an injustice.

"Well, I think I shall turn here," said that worthy, when they had gone a little way further. "Gough, I'm going to ask you to do me a favour."

"What is it?" inquired the other, somewhat surprised.

"To oblige me by not mentioning this little shindy to any one--will you?"

"Yes, certainly, if you wish it," answered Gough, rather reluctantly. He was disappointed as well as surprised; topics of conversation were scarce, and such a jolly row as Claverton had just had would be nuts; even as it was, he had been thinking how he would entertain the Thormans with an account of it, and now it was to be kept dark. Well, Claverton was a queer fellow, but it was his own business. So he gave the required undertaking.

"Thanks; I knew you would. I don't fancy that scoundrel will come near me again. Good-bye." They shook hands, and went their respective ways.

A few hundred yards further, and a blue smoke reek above the bush betokened a dwelling. In an open space stood two huts, dome-shaped, and constructed of thatch, and hard by, a thorn enclosure at that moment full of sheep. This was one of the out-stations, where one of the flocks was wont to be kept. A mangy and spindle-shanked cur rushed yapping forth, roused by the tread of the horse's hoofs. A mighty crack of the rider's whip, however, caused it to beat a precipitate retreat, and also had the effect of bringing a head to the small, beehivelike entrance of one of the huts. The head was promptly followed by its owner, who stood up and saluted Claverton.

"Well, Umgiswe, it's some time since any of us have been down here to count, so I'll do so now. Turn them out."

"Ewa 'nkos," (yes, chief), replied the Kafir, curiously eyeing the assegais which the other carried; and opening the kraal he threw off his red blanket and began driving out the sheep, while Claverton stood at the gate and counted.

"Eighty-one--eighty-three--eighty-seven--ninety--ninety-two-- ninety-three--six hundred and ninety-three. Why, how's this, Umgiswe? There are three missing?"

The old Kafir shrugged his shoulders and muttered something to the effect that they had died in the _veldt_. Then he fumbled about with the fastenings of the gate.

"Now, look here, Umgiswe! When sheep die they don't melt into air. If these three are dead, I must see their skins. Do you hear? If they are not dead they must be found. I shall come down to-morrow and count again; then they must be here," said Claverton, decisively, looking the man straight in the eyes.

He was a quick linguist, and, during the short time he had been on the frontier, had mastered enough of the Kafir language in its tortuous verbosity, combined with what he had picked up during his former sojourn in the colony, to be able to converse with tolerable ease, an acquirement which added in no small degree to his influence with the natives, who always hold in greater respect a European who can discourse with them in their own tongue.

"Ewa 'nkos," said the Kafir again. "They shall be found." Then he asked for some tobacco.

"You shall have some, Umgiswe, you shall have some--when the three sheep are found."

The man's countenance fell. Then he asked, quietly and respectfully enough, where the assegais came from.

"I picked them up. Good spears, are they not? Do you know the owner, Umgiswe? If you do, tell him to come and claim them, and the sooner he comes the better." Then nodding in response to the other's farewell greeting, Claverton touched his horse with the spur and struck into the bush path. The Kafir stood gazing after him.

"He is a wizard; he knows everything," said Umgiswe to himself; and then he turned away, intending to restore the two sheep he had hidden away so securely till it should be safe to send them off to his kraal in the Gaika location, there to swell the fruits of his pickings and stealings, and planning how he could doctor up the skin of the one which he and a boon companion had devoured two nights ago, so as to make it appear that the animal had died a natural death.

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Note 1. One with the qualities of iron. Kafirs are fond of bestowing nicknames, though frequently of a less complimentary nature than this.

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Note 2. An outlying fold for flocks whose range is at a distance from the homestead.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

"AT THE FULL OF THE MOON."

Midnight.

The silence of desolation. The river, plashing on its sandy bars, makes faint, tuneful murmur. At intervals the wild weird hoot of an owl, high up on the wooded hillside, breaks startlingly upon the dead, solemn stillness. The air hangs heavy down here in this silent hollow, and above, the dark face of the haunted cliff rises, stern and tremendous, in clear outline against the stars.

What are those shadowy figures ranged in a semicircle round the hollow, motionless as the grave? Are they of earth? Not a whisper, not a movement in that terrible phalanx. Only two hundred pair of eyes fixed upon vacancy, with strained and expectant stare, show that these ghostly shapes have life, or had. But what are they? Grim phantom warriors gathered there to re-enact the tragedy of blood which the dim legend of savage tradition associates with the spot.

And now a glow suffuses the sky, faint at first, then spreading nearly to the zenith. A great golden disc peers above yonder bush-clad height, and slowly mounting upward, soars majestically into space. Half of the valley beneath is flooded with light, but the face of the haunted cliff is still in gloom, casting a long black shadow upon the plashing river whence the mist is rising in white wreathe.

"At the full of the moon."

A dull, moaning sound is heard in the cliff, seeming to come from the very heart of the rocky wall, now rising, now falling, awesome and mysterious. It is as the voices of the spirits of the dead. There is an overpowering and mesmeric influence in the very atmosphere. Then gleams forth a flickering green light which plays on the face of the rock like a corpse candle. Suddenly the whole of that crouching phalanx starts up erect. A deep-toned murmur, sounding like a muffled roar, goes forth from the throats of two hundred dark warriors, and the ghostly light glints on a forest of bristling assegais.

"At the full of the moon."

Small wonder that the orb of night, about which poets love to rave, should be constituted the presiding goddess at the gruesome rites of savage and superstitious races all the world over; that its changing quarters should be endued with power to sway their weightiest undertakings in war or in the chase. It would be strange if the great lustrous disc stamped with a cold, impassive, remorseless-looking human countenance, floating silently over the darkened earth, did not appeal powerfully to the spiritual side of untaught and imaginative races. And then, just think of the myriads upon myriads of scenes of violence and treachery--fraud, rapine, murder, and wholesale massacre--upon which that cold, spectral countenance has looked down, and still looks down; ay, and will continue to do as long as this miserable world shall be peopled with countless generations of the tailless and biped demon known as Man.

"At the full of the moon."

And now the black shadow passes from the cliff, revealing a shape--a shape which seems to have arisen from the earth itself, or peradventure to have sprung from the smooth wall of rock behind, so sudden is its appearance. Amid dead silence it glides into the midst of the expectant semicircle. Truly an appalling monster. The moonlight, now well-nigh as clear as day, plays upon a pair of glittering, wolf-like eyes and a lean, gaunt figure, about whose long limbs are dangling ox-tails and strings of beads. The grinning head-piece of a hyaena rests helmet-like upon this creature's skull, and from between the open jaws of the beast starts forth the horrible head of a live serpent, whose sinuous coils are wound about the wearer's body. The latter, smeared from head to foot with a glistening pigment, is hung about with birds' claws, reptile heads and festoons of entrails. A horrible and disgusting object. The right arm of the wizard is red to the elbow with blood, and in his hand he carries nothing but one short, broad-headed assegai.

"Hear the words of Sefele, the spirit of this place, speaking by the mouth of his descendant, Nomadudwana, the son of Mtyusi."

Silently the whole phalanx of dark warriors sank back into a crouching attitude, gazing upon the speaker, expectant and motionless.

"There are voices above and voices beneath. There are voices in the air and voices in the water. Lo, I see a mighty host; an army gathered for battle; an army which fills the earth and the air; many warriors with their chiefs and leaders; and their right hands are even as this," (holding up his gore-stained fingers), "and their shields are dinted and their assegais are broken. And the warriors are angry and they are sad, for they have fought and fought, always bravely, and now they are tired and may not rest. And I see another army--an army not of warriors but of women--and they, too, cannot rest; they must take weapons and go forth to battle, for there are no men left."

A deep murmur from the listeners, who, squatted on their haunches, with bodies bent eagerly forward, drink in every word the wizard speaks.

"Again, I look. This time I see another army--differing tribes, but all one host--thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of fighting men; the land is red with them, but they are all asleep. They have arms-- they have the sharp weapons which their fathers had, but they have forgotten how to use them. They have more--they have the fire-weapons of the whites, but they know not how to use them. The white fools put their weapons into our hands willingly, joyfully, for money, but we do not know how to use them. We drink of the white men's poisoned strong waters and our hearts melt away--we become children--we wallow like swine upon the ground. The fighting men of the Amaxosa have become dogs and slaves."

A fierce ejaculation here went round the circle, while many a sinewy hand grasped the tough wood of assegai hafts. The grim prophet continued, his deep tones waxing more and more ferocious like the savage growl of a beast:

"We are the dogs and slaves of the white men, even as the cowardly Amafengu were our dogs. Not to the white men only, also to their women. Do not our warriors drop their weapons, and take service, and plough the land, and hoe corn, and milk the cows, and drive waggons for white women? Ha! We, a free, a brave nation, whose fathers conquered the land ages and ages before one accursed white-foot trod these mountains and valleys--our _men_ to be dogs to the white _women_! Ha! Ask Ncanda, there, who, at the word of a white woman, was tied up and lashed with whips! Ask Mopela, the brother of Nxabahlana of the house of Sandili the Great Chief, who was beaten and kicked like a dog in the presence of a white woman--Hah!"

A frenzied howl burst from the audience at these words of the wily wizard, while the two savages referred to by name, gnashed their teeth with rage.

"Who are these people that rule us? Who are they? As a calabash of water is to the Nxumba River in flood, as five stones are to the pebbles on the sea-shore, so are the whites in this land to the fighting men of the Amaxosa, to the warriors of the Amanqgika, and of the Amagcaleka, and even of the peace-loving Abatembu. And we call ourselves men!"

Then, raising his voice: "Let the omens be sought."

A stir among the throng. Two stalwart savages rose and stood before the orator. They were magnificent specimens of their race, prior to its deterioration in morale and physique through the destroying agencies of ardent spirits and contagious disease. Of commanding stature and herculean build, these men represented a type, once common enough, but now becoming more and more rare among the border tribes. The wizard muttered an incantation over each, and the two betook themselves to the bush. A moment of dead silence and they reappeared, dragging with them two goats--one spotlessly white, the other, jet black.

The animals were thrown upon the ground in front of the wizard, and securely tied; even their mouths being bound up, lest the sound of their agonised bleatings upon the still night air, should reach unwelcome ears. Then, still chanting his hellish incantation, the cruel monster bent down, and, with his keen assegai, gashed and mutilated the wretched creatures in a manner too shocking for detailment, beginning with the white one. A hoarse rattle, smothered by the precautionary gag, burst from their tortured throats, and their convulsive struggles were frightful to behold. Yet they aroused no spark of compassion in these merciless breasts.

In silence the Kafirs contemplated the barbarous performance; then, unable to contain themselves any longer, they sprang to their feet and burst into a low war-song, rattling the shafts of their assegais as they beat time to the savage rhythm. It was a weird and gruesome scene, such a sight as a man might witness once and remember all his life long. Above, the great beetling cliff looming up against the midnight sky; around, the shadowy sleeping heights; in the midst that band of demon warriors, the green light of the magic fire touching their grim countenances with an unearthly hue as they circled round the hideous wizard and the quivering bodies of his tortured victims, chanting their terrific war-song. Every now and again a convulsive shudder would heave through the bodies of the miserable animals, whose glazing eyes rolled piteously as they writhed their necks and bared their jaws in their terrible agony.

For upwards of half an hour the dance went on, the chief men deeming it necessary from time to time to put in a restraining word, lest the suppressed excitement of their followers should break bounds; for sound travels far at night, and it would never do to attract attention. Suddenly several voices exclaimed:

"The omen! The omen!"

In a moment all gathered round the gory and mangled carcases. One of the goats had ceased its struggles. The wizard pricked it with his assegai, but without producing the smallest sign of sensibility. The poor creature was stone dead. _It was the black one_.

The savages stared at each other in awed silence, then their astonishment found words.

"Ha! The black goat dies! The black goat dies and the white goat lives! Ha!"

This patent fact established, they troubled themselves no more about the other wretched victim, which showed unmistakable signs of lingering for some time to come, but turned attentively to the wizard in subdued and eager expectancy. Nomadudwana's tone was now no longer one of fiery exhortation. When he spoke it was with deliberation, even solemnity.

"The omen is sure. The black goat dies and the white goat lives. This night I have heard a voice--the voice of Sefele whom his brethren cast from yonder height and thought to slay. To slay! One who holds converse with the spirits! This night I have talked with Sefele in that cave which none can find but he who is loved by the shades of our ancestors. These are the words of Sefele: `The fulness of time is not yet. Though it be long in coming, let not the fighting men of the Amaxosa fall asleep; let them watch the whites with sure and wakeful glance; let them take of their flocks and of their herds, when they can. Let them go and work for the whites and cast dust in their eyes--even as we have led away on a false search the fool who lives yonder,' (pointing to Armitage's homestead, lying silent and deserted on the other side of the river) `and have made helpless with drink the wallowing Hottentot, his dog. But above all, let them acquire the fire-weapons of the whites and plenty of ammunition.' Thus speaks Sefele. Take his words with you. The fulness of time is not yet, but the omen is sure. Lo, the dawn is not far distant. Return as you came."

An awed murmur went round the band. The magic fire disappeared. They looked wonderingly at each other. Nomadudwana had vanished.

Breaking up into twos and threes the Kafirs rapidly dispersed, eager to be gone from the dreaded spot when no longer under the protecting presence of the powerful magician who communed with the spirit in the unknown cave. They were impatient, but not disheartened. They must continue to deceive the hated and masterful whites with soft words and lying promises. These superstitious souls, with their faith in the assurances of their wizards, saw their triumph ahead. What they did not see was their broken and decimated tribes hunted and starving, driven out of the land of their forefathers, utterly cowed and submissive. What they did not see was the flower and pick of their manhood strewing their native hills and kloofs with stiffened corpses in thousands, to the advantage of the _aasvogel_ and the jackal.

There was something else that they did not see. They did not see a recumbent human figure which, from the very brow of the sacred cliff, had watched the uncanny and repulsive rites from beginning to end. They did not see this figure, snugly concealed and motionless, watch till the last of their outlying scouts finally left his post and moved away, and then descend from the airy vantage ground with the dry chuckle of one who has stolen a march on an uncommonly shrewd adversary, and going to where a horse was securely hidden, mount and ride off. Even their keen vision failed to descry this.

By sunrise these fierce warriors, who had borne such eager part in the wild war-dance and the hideous and cruel rites of the night through, would be once more so many quiet, civil herds and waggon-drivers, for, with few exceptions, they were all in farm service in the surrounding neighbourhood. But how came they here, how did they preserve so inviolate the secret of the nocturnal gathering? The whole thing is very simple. Two or three natives, inoffensive of aspect and deferential of manner, provided moreover with unimpeachable passes, had gone the round of the various employers of labour seeking for work here, come to visit a relative there, anxious for a day or two's job in another place, and so on. And wherever they had been they had delivered their "word" among all fellow-countrymen there employed, provided these were to be trusted, that is to say. That "word" was brief if slightly obscure to the uninitiated. Moreover, it occurred quite incidentally in the thick of conversation on ordinary topics. But those to whom it was addressed understood perfectly its import.

"At the full of the moon."

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER NINETEEN.

"WHAT HAS THE WORLD BEEN SINCE?--THEE ALONE!"

One of the most blissful delusions, and unaccountable withal, under which a man desperately in love invariably labours, is the profound unconsciousness of his state wherewith he credits those among whom he lives and moves. What renders the delusion all the more inexplicable is the certainty that its victim himself in his unsmitten days must have frequently spotted more than one of his friends labouring under the ravages of the intoxicating malady, or at any rate his feminine kinsfolk and acquaintance were not slow to make the discovery for him. Yet when his own turn comes he may, with absolute certainty, be counted upon to imagine that his own incoherencies of speech and action, in short, all the symptoms of acute delirium entirely escape the multifold optics of the Argus feminine; and that his Beeret remains all his own, so effectually has he guarded it. Which thing, by the way, no _man_ ever succeeded in accomplishing yet.

Lilian was singing; a sweet pathetic ballad, rendered with infinite feeling. The song ended; a final chord or two; and the singer threw it aside and turned away from the piano.

"Thanks, Lilian. Why, my child, you sing like an angel," said her hostess, moved almost to tears by the full, rich voice which, keeping well within its compass, fills the room just so much as it will bear and no more, while every word is as distinctly enunciated as though the singer were reciting it. Even Mr Brathwaite had forgotten to fall into his post-coenal doze, and sat upright in his arm-chair, wide awake and listening.

The three above mentioned are alone in the room this evening--yet stay-- there enters a fourth. He had been standing quietly in the doorway during the song, and refrained from entering, for fear of disturbing the singer. He had been obliged to go out after supper to give some orders to Xuvani about the morrow, and returning, was surprised and entranced by the sound of Lilian's voice in song. So he stood in the doorway, drinking in every note.

"Why, you vowed you never sang," he exclaimed, reproachfully, advancing to the piano. "And then you wait until a fellow is out of the way, and this is the result."

She turned to him with the most bewitching of smiles. "Well, I don't," she replied, in a deprecatory tone. "At least, I haven't for a long, long time, and now I'm only trying over something I picked up the other day. Just by ourselves, you know."

"Having carefully waited till I was out of the room."

"Perhaps I was just a little bit shy, from being so long out of practice," answered she, with a glance that would have melted a stone.

But her auditor, though stony enough in all other respects, was wax in her hands, and her glance thrilled through him like an electric shock. She had penetrated the one weak joint in his armour most thoroughly. Did she know it?

"Shyness, like all other weaknesses, should be conquered," he rejoined. "The best way of conquering it in this instance is to sing that over again. Just by ourselves, you know."

"But Mrs Brathwaite won't thank me. She must have had enough of it," objected Lilian, with a laugh.

"Enough of it!" exclaimed the old lady. "My dear child, I would have asked you myself but I didn't quite like to. Now do. Arthur hasn't heard the first part."

Thus adjured, she gave way; but this time the shyness to which she had pleaded guilty, made itself manifest by an occasional slight tremor in the sweet, clear voice. Which, however, rendered the pathetic ballad all the more entrancing to her new auditor.

There was silence for a minute when she had ended Claverton broke it.

"That's the loveliest thing I ever heard."

"What! Did you never hear it before?"

"Never. But I don't care how soon I hear it again."

"Now we must have something cheerful," said Lilian.

"But it will counteract the other."

She laughed.

"Just what it should do. What, Mr Claverton? _You_ get the dismals over a song? Won't do at all." And without giving him time to reply, she rattled off a lively little ditty, doing full justice to the spirit and archness of the composition.

Ethel and Laura were away, spending two or three days with the Naylors, and to-night Hicks had taken himself there, too; thus these two and the old people had the house to themselves. To one of the quartett that afternoon was to be marked with the traditional white stone. A deliciously long walk with Lilian, unhindered and unrestrained by the presence of any third person. She had talked freely about the old home, and her eyes had brightened, and her cheeks had glowed with the loveliest flush, while on that most congenial of topics. Yet a thorn beneath every rose. Never could she revert to the favourite subject without that indefinable moment of restraint coming in. Again this afternoon it had gone home to her companion, strengthening the resolve which he had already formed.

The door stood open. Attracted by the beauty of the night, Lilian went out on the verandah.

"Better have a shawl, my child; you'll catch cold," said Mrs Brathwaite.

"A shawl!" she echoed. "Dear Mrs Brathwaite, I should be roasted. It's as warm almost as at midday."

"Yes, it's a regulation summer evening," said Claverton, following her on to the _stoep_. "And a light one, too, considering that there's no moon."

"I do think you get such glorious starlight here," continued Lilian. "An English starlight night is the feeblest of misty twinkles, in comparison. What's that?" as a luminous spark floated by. "A firefly?"

"Yes. There are lots of them about. Look! there's another."

"What do they look like, close? Couldn't we catch one?"

"Oh, yes; nothing easier. I'll get Hicks' butterfly net, it's only in the passage. Now then," he went on, returning with the implement, "which shall it be? There's a bright one. We'll go for him." So saying he made a dexterous cast, ensnaring the shining insect. Their quest had led them some twenty yards from the house.

"They are not so brilliant as I thought," remarked Lilian, as they inspected the captive. "It's rather an insignificant-looking thing," she continued, allowing the insect to crawl over her delicate palm. "Let's take it to the light."

This didn't suit Claverton's purpose at all. "It won't shine there," he said, "and you'll be disenchanted with it, and--Ah! It's gone." For the creature, evidently thinking it had instructed them enough in a new branch of entomology, suddenly opened its wings and soared off among the orange trees.

"It's a perfect shame to go indoors on such a night as this," murmured Lilian, half to herself.

"No earthly reason exists why we should," replied her companion. "At least not just yet. Let's stroll round the garden."

"Shall we? But what will Mrs Brathwaite say?" added Lilian, dubiously.

"Say? Oh, nothing. The dear old couple generally drop off in their arm-chairs of an evening, when Ethel isn't here to make a racket; but to-night you have charmed them back from the land of Nod with those delicious songs. Come along."

She yielded, and they wandered down the garden path in the starlight.

But Claverton was out of his reckoning, for once. The "dear old couple" in this instance happened to be wide awake, and were discussing him in a manner that was very much to the point.

"Walter," began Mrs Brathwaite, when the voices outside were out of earshot, "I'm greatly afraid Arthur has lost his heart in that quarter."

"Bah!" replied her husband, with a good-natured laugh; "not he. Arthur's made of tougher stuff than that. And," he added, "you women think of nothing but match-making."

"But I tell you he has," persisted she, ignoring the latter insinuation. "Now look here. For the last fortnight he has been a changed man. I can see it, if you can't. Why, he hardly speaks to any one else when Lilian is there. Every moment that he is not at work he is in the house, or in the garden, or wherever she is. For some days he has been looking pale and worn, and no wonder, for he doesn't eat enough to support life in a child of three years old. And he has become, for him, quite captious and irritable. Now," she concluded, triumphantly, "do you mean to tell me all this is only my imagination?"

"Well, perhaps you are right," answered the old settler, reflectively. "But somehow I've almost thought, of late, he was rather fond of Ethel."

"That's because you're not a woman," rejoined his wife. "Now I never thought so. And I've noticed what I've been telling you ever since the night of the dance, that is, ever since the day after Lilian's arrival. You'll see I'm right."

"Not sure I don't hope you are. It would be a good thing for both of them. She's one of the sweetest girls I ever saw, as well as the prettiest. And to be thrown upon the world like that, gaining her livelihood by hammering a lot of dirty, uproarious brats into shape-- it's abominable; and if it is as you say I heartily congratulate Arthur."

Mrs Brathwaite laughed rather dubiously. "Not so fast," she said, "I'm by no means sure that Arthur will find it all plain sailing. Mark my words, that girl has a history, and she isn't to be won by any chance comer. Ah, well; we shall see."

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Meanwhile the objects of their discussion are wandering on beneath the orange trees, even as they had done barely a fortnight ago for the first time.

"You are highly entertaining, I must say," remarked Lilian, amusedly, when they had strolled some hundred yards further in absolute silence. "I suppose I ought to offer you the regulation penny."

"You must make a much higher bid, then. I was thinking of what you have just been singing."

"Really now? I should never have thought you were so easily impressed."

"I don't know. There is a world of pathos in that composition. Those few lines contain the story of two people who might have been happy. Why weren't they? Because it pleased a beneficent Providence-- beneficent, mark you--to decree otherwise, and so Death put in his oar. Now if all hadn't been going well with them, it isn't likely that Providence would have been so accommodating."

There is a brusque harshness in his tones which causes his listener to glance up at him in surprise and dismay, and she can see that his features are haggard. She is even alarmed, for she remembers hearing vaguely that her companion's life had been a stirring and chequered one. Has she now unwittingly rasped some hidden but unforgotten chord? It must be so, and she feels sorely troubled.

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They are standing on the brink of the little rock-bound pool where they lingered and talked on the night of the dance. Almost mechanically they have struck out the same path and wandered down it, but this time no deadly foe dogs their footsteps. They are alone; alone in the dim hush of the African night. Overhead the dark vault is bespangled with its myriads of golden eyes, which are reflected in the still waters of the pool, and the Southern Cross flames from a starry zone. Now and then a large insect of the locust species sends forth a weird, twanging note from far down the kloof, but no sign of life is there among the _spekboem_ sprays, which sleep around them as still as if cut out of steel.

He picks up a pebble and jerks it into the pool. It strikes the surface with a dull splashless thud, and sinks. A night-jar darts from beneath one of the fern-fringed rocks and skims across the water, uttering a whirring note of alarm.

"Hadn't we better be going back?" hazards Lilian, at last. Anxious to withdraw from the dangerous topic, she takes refuge in a commonplace. "It was rather late when we came out."

Claverton is standing half turned away from her--his face working curiously as he looks down into the water. For a minute he makes no answer; then he faces round upon her, and his voice, hoarse and thick, can scarcely make its way through his labouring throat.

"Lilian, Lilian--my darling--my sweet--my own sweetest love. For God's sake tell me what I would die at this moment to know?"

He has taken both her hands in his and is gazing hungrily down into the lovely eyes. She gives a slight start of unfeigned surprise, and he can see the sweet face pale in the starlight. Trying to speak firm she gently repeats her former question: "Hadn't we better be going back?"

Can he read his fate in her eyes? Do those gentle tones echo his sentence? It seems so.

"No," he replies, with all the vehemence of a foregone cause--the passion of shattered hope. "No--not until you have heard everything." His arms are around her now, and she cannot stir from the spot if she would, but she does not try. "Listen," he goes on, speaking in a low, quick, eager voice. "Since the very first day I saw you I have loved you as no woman was ever yet loved. From the first minute, from the first glance I caught of you that day you flashed upon me like an angel of light. Stop. It is true, so help me God, every word of it,"--for she started as if in surprise. "From the very first moment. Couldn't you see it? Couldn't you even see it that first day?"

"No--I could not," is her earnest answer. "I vow to you I could not. I had no idea of--of anything of the kind. I would have gone away from here at once--anywhere--sooner than have wrecked your peace! And now this is what I have done. Heaven knows I never intended it!"

The sweet eyes are brimming with tears as she stands with bent head before him, and Claverton is convulsed with a wild, helpless yearning. The first thought is to comfort her.

"Don't I know that? Heavens! The intention is a mere superfluity. One has only to see you to love you. Can the sun help shining?"

She looks up at him. "Then you believe me? It would be dreadful to me--the thought that you could imagine I had trifled with you."

"I could not think so. It would be an impossibility," replies he. For the moment he almost forgets the death blow which she has dealt to his own hopes, in his great eagerness to set her at ease with herself, to reassure her. Forgets? No. Rather he rises above himself.

"Listen, darling. Every day since you came here I have only seemed to live when with you. I have never been a fraction of a moment away from you if I could possibly have been near you. Night after night through I have lain awake, restlessly longing for morning that I might look upon you again, and then when I have left you to go about the day's work, how I have treasured up the last glance of those dear eyes, the last ring of that sweet voice, till the very air seemed all sunshine and music. Lilian, darling, I never can live again without you, and--by God, I never will."