A Veldt Official Part 14

"In that case I am in no hurry to get well, dear," was the answer, in a tone strangely soft as coming from the man who, not much more than a dozen hours ago, had been haunted by an uncomfortable dread, lest she should claim and exact this very proprietorship in the life she had saved. And indeed, if Roden Musgrave was in some danger of losing his head it is little to be wondered at--remembering time and place, his own weakened but restful state, the warm and sensuous surroundings, and this magnificent creature bending over him, with the light of love in her eyes, a caress in every tone of her voice. With all his clear-headedness and cynical mind, his was by no means a cold temperament; indeed, very much the reverse. But what kept his head level now was the ice-current of an ingrained cynicism flowing through the hothouse temperature, the intoxicating fragrance of what was perilously akin to a long-forgotten feeling--namely, love. The present state of affairs was delightful, rather entrancing; but how was it going to end? In but one way of coa.r.s.e--when she was tired of it, tired of him. This sort of thing never did last--oh no! He had seen too much of it in his time.

To his last remark, however, Mona made no direct rejoinder. There was nothing unduly effusive about her, and this went far towards enhancing her attractiveness in his eyes. In the tendernesses she showed him there was nothing overpowering, nothing of gush; and keenly observing her every word, every action, he noted the fact, and was duly impressed.

About her there was no jarring note; all was in perfect harmony.

Now sitting there they talked--talked on matters not limited by the boundaries of the district of Doppersdorp, or those of the Cape Colony, but on matters that were world wide. And on such Mona loved to listen; for of the world he possessed far greater knowledge than falls to the lot of most men, and of human nature likewise--this man who at middle age, for some reason, found himself compelled to fill a position usually occupied by youngsters starting in life. But while delighting in his keen, trenchant views upon men and matters, Mona failed not to note that there was one subject upon which he never dwelt, and that subject was himself.

"You give me new life," he said, dropping his hand upon hers as she sat beside him. "What a pity we did not come together before--before I had made such a hash of the old life. But," with a queer smile, "I am forgetting. You would have been in short frocks then, in very short frocks. I am quite an old fogey, Mona."

"You are not," she replied closing her fingers upon his with something of the strong supple grip, in which she had held his hand when to relax her grasp of it meant death--his death. Now it seemed as though that same grasp was in accord with her thoughts, holding him back from something else; from the Past, perhaps; from the effects of that marring of his life to which he had made so direct an allusion. Yet to what nature did that allusion apply? A chill seemed to hold her heart paralysed for the moment. Should she ask him? Here was her opportunity. Would it not be wiser--nay only in accord with the very first dictates of common sense? Confusion to the dictates of common sense! Let the past take care of itself, and the future too. The present was hers--was theirs, and the present was very good, very fair, very sunny; glowing, golden, enchanting with the strong wine of love.

Do we refuse to take advantage of a cloudless day because the morrow may be black and overcast, and furious with rolling thunder and volleying squalls of rain? No. The cloudless day was hers--was theirs. Let the morrow take care of itself.

"You are nothing of the sort," she continued. "So I give you new life, do I? Roden dear, I might say the same--I love to talk with you like this. I knew I should from the first moment we met. And Grace had said the very thing you have just said of yourself, when I asked her what you were like, 'Quite a middle-aged fogey.'"

"Oh, the mischief she did! I shall have a row with Mrs Grace about that."

"Ah, but wait. She only said she had heard so, for she hadn't seen you, and of course had no idea of your ident.i.ty with her knight errant during the post-cart journey. In the latter capacity you should have heard all the nice things she said about you. Charlie declared himself sick of the very name of the unknown, only he didn't know it, for that she seemed to have got him on the brain; which I amended by saying I rather thought she had got him on the heart. Then Grace was cross."

Roden laughed queerly.

"Well, Mona, and so ought I to be, for that was the very way to prepare me the most unfavourable reception. Come now, isn't it an invariable rule that the individual much-belauded in advance turns out a sure disappointment on acquaintance?"

"It is the rule. But every rule has its exceptions."

"Meaning me. Thank you. I can appreciate the delightfulness of the compliment, for I believe it is sincere. Nevertheless, my dear child, you will find few enough people to agree with you--precious few."

"I know, Roden. You are one of those whom a few people would like very much indeed, but whom the general run would rather dislike."

"Perhaps. And now, disclaiming all idea of being ungracious, how about quitting so profitless a topic as my own interesting self? And indeed here comes that which will a.s.suredly divert all attention from it, or any other matter."

Mona subtly and imperceptibly somewhat widened the distance between them--indeed, in whatever situation or dilemma she had been surprised, she might have been trusted to get out of it gracefully--just as the whole brood came running up. Their mother, having pacified the disturbance, and forthwith taken the whole lot for a walk, whence they were returning.

"Well, what was all the grief about?" said Mona. "Frank, I suppose, teasing somebody again."

"It wasn't me, Cousin Mona," said the accused urchin resentfully. "I had nothing to do with it. Bah! It was Alfie, as usual. He'd let another slate pencil fall on his toe, I suppose." And the wrongfully accused one marched off in high dudgeon.

Roden laughed unrestrainedly.

"That fellow's a wag, by Jove!" he said. "You'll have to entrust him with the care of the humour of the family, Mrs Suffield," as Grace came up, and was delighted with the answer repeated for her benefit, for Frank was rather the favoured one in her eyes, probably because he was the most mischievous and unmanageable. The while Mona was watching with a jealous eye lest any of the small fry in their restive exuberance should come near imparting to the invalid chair a sudden and unpremeditated shake.

"I saw that, Mona," he said, after they had all cleared out. "I have seen the same kind of watchfulness, though in different ways, before, since I have been lying here. Believe me, dear, I keenly appreciate it."

Her eyes lighted up. She seemed about to reply, but thought better of it and, said nothing. In her heart, however, she was echoing gladsomely that resolute, pa.s.sionate murmur which she had uttered in the silent midnight as she stilled his pain in slumber by the very restfulness of her presence; echoing it with such a thrill of exultation as to tax all her powers of self-command, "Darling love--my love--you are mine! I have won you, and now I hold you!"

CHAPTER TWELVE.

BREATHING OF WAR.

The town of Doppersdorp was in the wildest state of excitement and delight. We say delight, because anything which tended to stir the soporific surface of life in that centre of light and leading was productive of unqualified satisfaction, and the tidings which had now arrived to effect this result were of no less importance than the announcement that hostilities had actually broken out in the Transkei.

At the street corners men stood in knots discussing the news; in the stores, swinging their legs against counters, and blowing out clouds of Boer tobacco, this was the topic of conversation, while semi-nude and perspiring natives rolled the great wool bales in and out, and those at the receipt of custom dispensed wares or took payment in listless, half-absent fashion; of such enthralling interest was the turn events had taken. But it was in the bars, where gla.s.ses filled and emptied to-day with abnormal briskness, that the Doppersdorp tongue wagged fast and free.

True, the Transkei was a long way off, but the ruction would never stop there. It was bound to spread. The Gaikas and Hlambis in British Kaffraria were bound to respond to the call of the Paramount Chief. The contagion would spread to the Tembus, or Tambookies, within the Colonial territory, and were there not extensive Tembu locations along the eastern border of the district of Doppersdorp itself? This was bringing the matter very near home indeed. The enterprise of Doppersdorp was aroused, its martial spirit glowing at white heat. This indeed has its disadvantages; for at such a rate, with every citizen burning to sally forth and distinguish himself in the tented field, Doppersdorp would be deserted; and it was clear that with all its male inhabitants occupied at a distance, subduing Kreli and his recalcitrant Gcalekas, that ill.u.s.trious Centre of the Earth would be left at the mercy of all comers.

At Jones' hospitable board, as the shades of evening fell, the tidings were discussed far more eagerly than the painted yellow bones and rice to which allusion has been made. From Jones himself in the pride of office at the head of the table, through the manager of the local bank and a storekeeper's clerk or two, down to the journeymen stonemasons and waggon-maker's apprentices at the lower end, the same topic was on every tongue. The Gcalekas had attacked and routed a strong body of Police in the Transkei, and had killed several men and an officer. Indeed, the Inspector in command had undergone a narrow escape, having turned up at a distant post the following day without his hat. Such was the report which had come in; every word of which, especially the latter circ.u.mstance, being implicitly believed by the good burgesses of Doppersdorp--probably because Inspectors in that useful force, the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police, did not at any time, when on duty, wear "hats." But it was all the same to Doppersdorp.

"Any more news, Mr Musgrave?" said Jones eagerly, as Roden entered.

"If there is, for the Lord's sake wait until we've all done," struck in Emerson, the bank-manager, who was of a grim and sardonic habit of mind.

"As it is, we can scarcely any of us get through our oats, we are all in such a cast-iron hurry to start for the Transkei."

"There isn't any."

"Good. Then we needn't prepare for the siege of Doppersdorp just yet-- we poor devils who can't rush forth, to death or glory."

"We could hold out for ever, for we should always have Emerson's Chamber of Horrors to fall back upon," laughed a storekeeper opposite; "that is, if it is not already dead of fright from the _schrek_ it got last week."

While others guffawed the bank-manager grinned sourly at this allusion.

It happened that the premises provided by his Corporation for the housing of its employe's contained a s.p.a.cious backyard, with an open shed and some stabling. This yard Emerson had seen fit to populate with the most miscellaneous of zoological collections, comprising a young _aasvogel_, two or three blue cranes, an owl and a peac.o.c.k, besides a few moulting and demoralised-looking fowls, a tame meerkat, a shocking reprobate of a baboon--whose liberty and influences for evil were only restricted by a post and chain--several monkeys; item, Kaffir curs of slinking and sinister aspect; and, in fact, innumerable specimens which it was impossible to include within the inventory with any degree of a.s.surance, for the inhabitants of the menagerie were continually being added to, or disappearing, the latter according to the degree of watchfulness maintained on their own part, or that of aggression on the part of their neighbours. This collection was known in Doppersdorp as Emerson's Chamber of Horrors.

"You weren't here that night, Musgrave. Away at Suffield's place, I think," went on the last speaker, with a wink at the others. "Well, some fellow got hold of a cur dog in the middle of the night, and thinking it had escaped from Emerson's Zoo, reckoned it a Christian duty to restore the wanderer. So he took it to the street leading to the bank-yard, tied one of those detonating squibs to its tail, and headed it for the gate. Heavens! you never heard such an awful row in your life. Phiz! bang! went the cracker, and there was the mongrel scooting round and round the yard, dragging a shower of fiery sparks, and every now and then bang would go the cracker like pistol-shots. You can just imagine the result. Everything kicked up the most fearful clamour--the dogs, and the cats, and the peac.o.c.k, and the _aasvogel_, and the monkeys, all yelling at once; and the more they yelled, the more the thing seemed to bang off. It didn't hurt the cur though, for it was a long way behind him. But the best of the joke is that the banging of the crackers started the notion that the town was being attacked, and Lambert and some other fellows--myself among them--came slinking up gingerly with rifles. The squib had long burnt out by the time we got there; but the sight that met our astonished gaze was magnificent.

Emerson was standing on the top step, clad in a short nightshirt, emptying all the furniture into the backyard, and, oh, his language!

Well, I can only give you some idea of it by saying that it was so thick, that the chairs and tables he was hurling out stuck in it. They could not even reach the ground."

"It looks as if you had a finger in the pie yourself, Smith. You seem to know all the details," said Roden. But Emerson merely grinned sardonically. He did not think the recital worthy of comment. Besides, he had heard it so often.

"I? Not I. It only came in at the end, as I tell you," protested Smith.

At this juncture a note was handed to Roden. It was from Mr Van Stolz.

"Here's a little more excitement for Doppersdorp to-night," he said when he had read it. This was its burden. "One hundred and thirty-three mounted men from Barabastadt, _en route_ for the front, are pa.s.sing through. They will camp here to-night. Volunteers and band going out to meet them. Tell everybody."

This was news indeed. In a trice the table was deserted. All who heard it were in first-rate spirits--those who belonged to the newly formed Volunteer Corps, because it would afford an opportunity for a lively game of soldiers; those who did not, because it meant more excitement; while Jones, perhaps, was in the greatest feather of all, for would there not be a prodigious consumption of drinks in the bar of the Barkly Hotel that night? Roden and Emerson were left alone at the table.

"Come along, Musgrave; let's go and have a look at these Barabastadt heroes," said the latter. "The Light Brigade is nothing to them. We are sure to see some first-cla.s.s fun."

"Not a doubt of it," was the reply. And these two cynics rose to follow the crowd, but with a different motive.

Outside, in the starlight, the whole town was astir. The two men who had ridden in to notify the arrival of the main body were beset with questions--and drinks. What was the latest news? Had Government called out the burgher forces all round; and if not, would it do so? and so on, and so on. Meanwhile the local Volunteer Corps, numbering about sixty of all ages and sizes, had formed in marching order, and, preluded by a few sounding whacks on the big drum, the band struck up, and that doughty force marched off to quick-step time, accompanied by a moving ma.s.s of humanity; even the inhabitants of Doppersdorp and its 'location'--some mounted, the larger proportion on foot, amid much talking and laughing and horseplay and lighting of pipes; a squad of ragged Hottentots of both s.e.xes, chattering shrilly, hanging on the rear.

"Here come the heroes," said Emerson satirically, as, having proceeded about a couple of miles out, a cloud of dust and a dark, moving ma.s.s came indistinctly into sight. So the Volunteers were halted, eke the civilians; and Mr Van Stolz rode forward to welcome the leaders of the Barabastadt burgher force. Then forming into double file, and preceded by the band, the new arrivals resumed their route for Doppersdorp.

Now it happened, unfortunately, that the band of that doughty corps, the Doppersdorp Rifles, was very much in a state of embryo. Its available repertory consisted of but two tunes, for the simple reason that it knew no others. These were "Silver Threads among the Gold," and "Home, Sweet Home." The first of these had enlivened the march out; and although it was started to effect the same object on the return, it would hardly last over a s.p.a.ce of two miles. The second, though admirably adapted for welcoming the returning warriors, as a G.o.d-speed was clearly inappropriate. The bandmaster--our old acquaintance Darrell, the attorney, whose persuasive eloquence had not availed to save the mutton thief, Gonjana, from the just reward of his crime--was in a quandary.

Music they must have. Music, however, repeated to endless iteration point, was worse than none. In this dilemma he bethought him of "John Brown." Surely they could play that. The inspiration was a happy one.

No sooner did the well-known air bray forth--with somewhat discordant and quavering note it is true--than those nearest seized upon the chorus. It was caught up, and went rolling along the whole line. Then it occurred to somebody to alter the chorus to, "We'll hang old Kreli to a sour apple-tree," an idea received with the wildest enthusiasm, having the effect of redoubling the volume of song.

But over and above, and throughout all this rollicking jollity, there was a something about those dark, mounted figures filing here in the starlight, the gleam of the rifles, the sombre simplicity of the accoutrements, which told of the sterner side, which seemed to bring home the idea that this was no toy contingent; that the task of quelling a barbarian rising was not all child's play; and that some of these might return with strange experiences, while some might not return at all.