A Vendetta of the Desert Part 3

Uncle Diederick gave a long, low whistle. "Well, I always said it would come to murder between those two. Here, Danster,--saddle up my horse.

Is the bone broken?"

"The bone is coming out in big lumps," said Gert, with the exaggerative rhetoric of his race, "he has lost about a bucketful of blood and there is a hole in his shoulder you could put your fist into. Baas must make haste and bring his very best medicine."

"H'm.--If all that is true, it is the Field Cornet that they should have instead of me. However, I suppose I must go."

By this time the horse had been driven into the little kraal at the side of the homestead. Uncle Diederick went to the shelf and took down a few bottles, bundles of dried herbs and bandages. Then he selected from a camphor-wood chest a few home-made splints and rough surgical appliances. All these he packed carefully into his saddle-bags. After bidding a very matter-of-fact farewell to Jacomina, and telling the Hottentot to rest his horse for the night and return home quietly next day, he started on his long, lonely ride.

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE TRIUMPH OF GIDEON.

Gideon, suffering great agony, had been carried home and laid upon his bed. He adhered firmly to the false accusation which he had brought against his brother, and the whole world, or that portion of it which knew the van der Walts, believed in Stepha.n.u.s' guilt.

The Field Cornet, who lived only some twenty miles away, was sent for, and arrived during the night. He took down the wounded man's statement in writing and then went over and arrested Stepha.n.u.s. When the written statement was read over in Stepha.n.u.s' presence to the wounded man, he adhered to it still and, having by that time somewhat rallied from the shock, gave a supplementary account of what had transpired in such clear, circ.u.mstantial and deadly detail, that all present were convinced of its truth. Stepha.n.u.s maintained absolute silence. Uncle Diederick did his duty as well, and probably as successfully, as if he had been a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. After removing every splinter of bone and carefully cleansing the gaping wound, he laid a cooling, antiseptic compost of herbs all over the injured parts. As Gideon's const.i.tution was perfectly clean and healthy, he made a rapid recovery.

The shoulder joint was, however, so seriously injured, that the arm was henceforth of little use.

Marta and Sara were thrown into terrible distress by the arrest of Stepha.n.u.s. Elsie, taking her impressions of the situation from her father's mental state, retained her serenity, but was puzzled at the turn things had taken.

Stepha.n.u.s remained quite unmoved when the Field Cornet announced that he would have to make him a prisoner and take him to Cape Town, there to await his trial.

A day's delay, to enable him to put his affairs in order, was all that he asked for. This was granted, so he counted his sheep and cattle, a.s.sembled his servants,--whom he made promise to serve their mistress faithfully during his absence,--and wrote to the husband of his eldest sister to ask that his nephew, a lad of seventeen, whose services had recently been offered to him, might be sent to a.s.sist in managing the farm. The letter was sent off by a special messenger, as his brother-in-law lived only a little more than a day's journey away.

The Field Cornet having acquainted Marta with the main facts of the case, she shared in the general belief in her husband's guilt.

On the evening before Stepha.n.u.s' departure for prison, the family sat down to their last meal together, and at its conclusion Stepha.n.u.s did a thing which he had left undone for years past: he called upon those a.s.sembled to kneel down and pray. Then he offered up a pet.i.tion that G.o.d might forgive him his many misdeeds and grant him and all present patience to bear whatever punishment might be justly meted out to him.

Elsie then took his hand and the two went out to the seat under the mulberry tree, where they sat until half the night was spent. Few words pa.s.sed between them, and the parting which was to take place on the morrow was hardly referred to.

The unhappy women broke down completely at the leave-taking in the grey of the early morning. Stepha.n.u.s maintained his composure until it came to bidding farewell to Elsie. The child clung to him convulsively, and her clasp had to be detached by force. Then the father's anguish was terrible to behold.

The trial took place at the criminal sessions of the Supreme Court in Cape Town, some four months afterwards. The prisoner's family went down in their wagon to be present at it.

Gideon gave his false evidence with composure, and Gert Dragoonder, the Hottentot, corroborated him strongly. Stepha.n.u.s pleaded "not guilty,"

but otherwise made no defence. When the court found him guilty not a muscle of his face betrayed the least emotion. After the judge had sentenced him to be imprisoned for ten years with hard labour, he quietly remarked that he had been justly punished. When he was removed from court it was noticed by those present who knew him that his step had a spring and his eyes a brightness which had never been noticed before.

Gideon enjoyed one wild moment of exultation when his brother was led away to a living grave. Then he turned to leave the court-room, from which the people were emerging in a struggling crowd,--the trial just concluded having closed the proceedings for the day. In the vestibule he stood aside to let the congested crowd flow past. A woman whose bent head was concealed in a long "cappie," and who led a young girl by the hand, was forced against him. The child, frightened by the crowd, seized his hand and held it fast. When the crush slackened he turned, looked down, and found himself gazing into the glowing, sightless eyes of little Elsie, the blind girl he had d.a.m.ned his soul to orphan. Then he glanced up and met the eyes of the woman whom he loved still, although he had not seen her face for years. There was something different to the reproach he expected in her look; he seemed to read in it an appeal for forgiveness of the wrong which she imagined her husband had done him, and to see the flicker of a love answering his own, which filled him with dismay. The mute appeal in her eyes was worse than any reproach could have been, and the fact that his perjury had made her worse than widowed seemed to crush him to the earth.

In another moment Marta and Elsie had followed the last of the crowd and Gideon found himself alone. Then the n.o.bility of the mien of the man whom, innocent, he had sent forth to a doom more sorrowful than death came back to his mind with such dread distinctness that it excluded everything else.

Suddenly it seemed all unreal;--could it be a dream? No--there was the court-room--he could see it through the open doorway before which he was standing. He stepped forward on tip-toe and looked in. Involuntarily his eye sought the prisoners' dock--the spot where his twin-brother had stood with rapt, unmoved face and heard the p.r.o.nouncement of his doom.

His strained brain easily conjured up the figure in all its menacing n.o.bility, and before the vision he felt abased to the dust.

Had there been another human creature present, Gideon would have cried aloud a confession of his sin, but he stood alone with the hideousness of his own transgression.

Then a reaction set in and he staggered from the room grasping wildly at the shred of comfort which lay in the realisation of the fact that the man whom he had hated through so many bitter years had now been taken out of his life. A strange duality was set up in his consciousness:--it seemed as though the man he had seen undergoing sentence, although still his brother, was no longer the Stepha.n.u.s who had used him so despitefully. Thus his mind was buffeted hither and thither by a gusty storm of conflicting emotions.

So the long-looked-forward-to triumph of Gideon van der Walt sank foully smouldering upon its own ashes, and he entered into that h.e.l.l out of which there is seldom redemption.

CHAPTER SIX.

GIDEON AND MARTA.

Night had almost fallen when Gideon reached his homestead on the seventh day after the trial. He had been, throughout the whole journey, a prey to the keenest misery. In the short and broken sleep which visited his distracted brain the image of Stepha.n.u.s as he had last seen him, haunted his dreams. The dauntless mien and the n.o.ble courage with which his brother had met his doom; the puzzled, pathetic expression upon the face of the blind child; the belated revelation of love combined with a terrifying appeal for forgiveness which he had read in the face of the woman for whom his pa.s.sion had never died, swept over the field of his consciousness like clouds across a storm-swept sky. He felt no remorse for what he had done; on the contrary, his inability to enjoy the revenge he had long panted for, was the cause of redoubled resentment against his enemy.

After greeting his family with forced cheerfulness, Gideon drank a cup of coffee and at once retired to bed, saying that he felt fatigued after his long journey. His wife, Aletta, was not deceived by his demeanour, but there was that in his face which caused her to forbear asking any questions.

Next morning Gideon tried to avoid everybody, and it was not until midday that Aletta contrived to satisfy her painful suspense in regard to the result of the trial. He was then standing at the back of the wagon-house with bent head and an air of painful preoccupation. He did not hear her approaching footsteps. When she laid a hesitating hand upon his arm he started as though he had been struck, and looked at her with troubled eyes.

"Gideon," she said in a low and hurried tone--"tell me about Stepha.n.u.s."

"The wolf is in a trap," he said with a savage laugh--"for ten long years he will have to bite the door before it opens."

"Ten years"--repeated Aletta in an awed whisper--"_poor_ Stepha.n.u.s; I did not think it would have gone so hard with him."

"Aletta," he broke out wrathfully, "are you taking the part of this wolf--this jackal in a man's skin, against me?"

"No--no--Gideon,--I do not take his part;--but ten years is such a long time.--And I was thinking of Marta and the children; they will never see him again."

"And a good thing too. The murdering wild beast should have been hanged."

In reality the wives of the brothers had, all through the weary course of the feud, been inclined to take the parts of their respective brothers-in-law against their husbands. Each, brought into daily contact with the black rancour displayed by her husband, had thought that the feeling could not possibly be so bad on the other side.

Weary as had been the days to Aletta and Adrian, those which followed were wearier still. A black cloud seemed to brood over the household.

No one ever smiled. Each avoided the eyes of the others as though fearful of what the eyes might read or reveal. At each cheerless meal the silent, invisible presence of Stepha.n.u.s seemed to take its seat; in the brightest sunlight its shadow seemed to darken the house.

More than once Aletta had been on the point of suggesting that advances might be made to Marta in her loneliness, but Gideon had lately got into the habit of bursting into such fury on the slightest provocation, that Aletta was afraid of irritating him and held her peace.

Gideon, also, had more than once thought of going to visit his sister-in-law, but the dread of again meeting what he had read in her eyes on the day of the trial held him back. It was currently known that Marta was in bad health and that Uncle Diederick had been called in to prescribe for her more than once.

Thus the weary days dragged on through three weary years, but the stricken household kept no count of time. In material things Gideon prospered. Each season the years came with unusual regularity, and his flocks and herds increased until he became rich among his fellows.

One day two figures were seen approaching from the direction of Stepha.n.u.s' homestead. They turned out to be those of the blind girl, Elsie, and a very diminutive Bushman lad named Kanu, who had grown up on the farm. Kanu had been captured as a child, years before, in the course of an exterminating raid upon some Bushman depredators at their stronghold in an almost inaccessible part of the Roggeveld Mountains.

Kanu was about sixteen years of age. From her early childhood he had devoted himself to the service of the blind girl; at last his devotion had grown to positive worship. In Kanu's company Elsie would wander far and wide, over mountain and plain, in perfect safety.

The Bushman had picked up a smattering of Dutch, but still spoke his own tongue fluently, for there were a number of semi-domesticated Bushman servants on the farm--captives from different raids. Such raids were, no doubt, sometimes rendered necessary by the plundering propensities of the pygmy sons of Ishmael, but there was another side of the question:-- where Bushmen were plentiful the Boers did not, as a rule, find it necessary to purchase slaves.

The blind child was led by her guide to the front door of the house, which stood open. The day was hot and the family were sitting at table, trying to hurry through their dismal midday meal. Elsie crossed the threshold without knocking and stood at her Uncle's side. Her hair hung below her waist in a rich, yellow ma.s.s, and her eyes gleamed as they always did under the influence of excitement, and in appropriate light.

The three sitting at the table sat and gazed at her in silent and startled surprise.

"Uncle Gideon," she said in a clear, piercing voice.

"Well," said Gideon in a voice of forced roughness, "what do you want?"