Aletta Part 18

"Oh, not on business?" said the magistrate, greatly relieved in his own mind, yet wishing his visitor at the devil, bothering in like that during office hours. But he changed his mind when the Boer explained that he had been shooting a few springbuck lately, and he had brought in a little matter of a saddle and a couple of haunches, which Mrs Jelf might find good for roasting. It was from a young buck, and would eat well--he went on, in his shambling, diffident way.

Jelf thawed at once, and thanked his visitor. Here was another opportunity of getting at the state of Dutch feeling; and by way of preliminary he told the other about Stepha.n.u.s' resignation, adding, with a laugh:

"I thought you had come to resign too, Mynheer Grobbelaar."

But the little man deprecated the possibility of any such idea having entered his head. It was a pity Stepha.n.u.s had resigned, though. In answer to other questions--yes, there was some foolish talk among the Boers around him, but it was only talk, and they were young men. The Patriot? Oh, yes, he had visited some of them, but only on a flying visit. Held meetings? Oh, no--and here Swaart Jan's hands went up in pious horror. What did Mynheer think of him, and those around him, to imagine that he, or they, would countenance such a thing for a single moment?

Jelf felt intensely relieved. Here was loyalty at last, anyhow--another item for his report. And he and his visitor parted with the most cordial of farewells; and Field-cornet Jan Marthinus Grobbelaar, _alias_ Swaart Jan, went out grinning till his tusks nearly came below the level of his chin, as he thought of the cases of Mauser rifles snugly stored in a safe recess within his house, and the ammunition, a quant.i.ty sufficient to blow up half the mountain, which was stowed away in a cleft of an adjacent krantz, conveyed and deposited thither by authority of no permit given under the hand of Nicholas Andrew Jelf, Resident Magistrate.

Here was loyalty at last, anyhow! as that astute official had put it to himself.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

SOLUTION.

How had it all come about? What was there in this girl that had seized and held his mind--his every thought--ever since he had first set eyes on her, all unexpectedly, that evening when he had come in, wet and dripping, having barely escaped with his life? Colvin Kershaw, putting the question to himself twenty times a day, could find no definite answer to it.

No definite answer--no. Therein lay all the charm surrounding Aletta.

It was so indefinite. From the moment he had first beheld her the charm had taken hold upon him. He had been unconsciously stirred by her presence, her personality. Yet it was no case of love at first sight.

A strange, potent weaving of the spell had been on him then, and, gradual in its development, had enchained him and now held him fast.

Day after day in his solitary dwelling he had recognised it, and a.n.a.lysed it, and striven with its influence, yet had never attempted to throw it off--had never shrunk instinctively from the weaving of its coils around him. It was not born of solitude, as perhaps that other coil, from which he would heartily fain be now entirely and conscientiously free, had been. No matter under what circ.u.mstances, or in what crowd they had met, he realised that the result would have been the same; that the spell would still have been woven just the same.

He thought upon the conditions of life, and how such are apt to focus themselves into a very small groove--the groove in which one happens, for the time being, to run. Might it not be that the circ.u.mscribed area into which life had resolved itself with him of late had affected his judgment, and led him to take a magnified, a vital view of that which, looked at from the outside world, would have struck him as a pa.s.sing fancy, and untenable save as such? Judgment, reason, heart, alike cried out to the contrary, and cried aloud.

He might leave this remote habitation on the High Veldt, this region outwardly so unattractive to the casual pa.s.ser-through with a mind absorbed by the state of the share market in Johannesburg or London, but so enriveting to those who make it their home. He might return to the world he knew so well; might do so to-morrow, without inconvenience or loss. What then? He would merely be measuring the length of his chain, or, if he succeeded in breaking it, would be relinquishing the pearl of great price which he had found here in a far corner of the earth when least expecting any such marvellous discovery, any such unspeakable blessing to be obtained by mortal man.

For so he had come to regard it. Yes, the symptoms this time were there. Nothing was wanting to them now. He had been under the delusion that that which they had represented was, for him, a thing of the past, and in his solitary life and unconscious craving for sympathy and companionship--yes, and even for love, had almost acted upon that idea.

But for a timely diversion he would so have acted. Now he could hardly formulate to himself a sufficiency of grat.i.tude to Heaven, or circ.u.mstances, or whatever it might be, that he had not.

The narrowness of his escape he realised with a mental shudder. What if this strange new experience, opening as it did such an irradiating vista of possibilities, had come upon him a day too late, had discovered him bound--bound, too, by a chain he well knew there would be no loosening once its links enfolded him? His usual luck had stood him in good stead once more, and the thought suggested another. Would that luck continue?

Would it? It should. He would soon put it to the test. He went over in his mind the whole period of his acquaintanceship with Aletta. It was short enough in actual fact--only a matter of weeks, yet viewed by the aspect of the change it had wrought it seemed a lifetime. He recalled how he had first beheld her, and indeed many a time since, bright, laughing, infecting everyone, however unconsciously, with the warmth of her sunny light-heartedness. No outcome was this either of a shallow unthinking temperament. She could be serious enough on occasions, as he had more than once observed during their many talks together, that, too, with a quick sympathy which pointed to a rich depth of mind. He reviewed her relationship towards her own people, which, as an intimate friend of the house, he had enjoyed every opportunity of observing, and here again he found no flaw. It was clear that the whole family came little short of worshipping her, and through this ordeal too she had come utterly unspoiled. The idea brought back the recollection of the sort of good-humoured, faintly contemptuous indulgence with which he had listened to the singing of her praises by one or other of its members, what time her personality represented to him simply the original of those unprepossessing portraits which adorned the sitting-room; and he acknowledged that the laugh now was completely turned against himself.

Then his thoughts took a new vein, and he seemed to hear the comments of those among whom he had sometime moved--"Colvin Kershaw? Oh yes.

Married some farm girl out in Africa and turned Boer, didn't he?" and more to the same effect, uttered in a languid, semi-pitying tone by this or that unit of a society whose shibboleth was the mystical word "smart," a society he had been in but not of. Well, so be it. Let them drawl out their ba.n.a.l inanities. In this case he hoped they would do so with reason.

Hoped? For he was not sure, far from it; and herein lay one of the "symptoms," Not that he would have loved Aletta one iota the less had he been sure. He was not one of those to whom the joy of possession is measured by the excitement and uncertainty of pursuit; and there are some of whom this holds good, however difficult it may be to persuade, at any rate the ornamental s.e.x, that such can possibly be the case. On the contrary, he would feel grateful to one who should spare him the throes and doubts calculated to upset even an ordinarily well-balanced mind under the circ.u.mstances, and proportionately appreciative. But whatever of diffidence or anxiety might take hold upon his own mind, Colvin Kershaw was not the man to display it in the presence of its first cause. The cringing, adoring, beseeching suitor of not so very old-fashioned fiction struck him as somewhat contemptible, and as of necessity so appearing to the object of his addresses, no matter how much she might really care for him at heart. He must run his chance to win or lose, and if he lost, take it standing. There was none of the _ad misericordiam_, wildly pleading element about him.

"_Pas op, Baas_! The bird!"

The words, emanating from his henchman, Gert Bondelzwart, brought him down to earth again; for the occupation in which he had been engaged during the above reverie was the prosaic one of attending to his daily business, which in this case consisted in going round the ostrich camps and inspecting such nests as he knew of, or discovering indications of prospective ones. To a certain extent mechanical and routine, it was not incompatible with reflection upon other matters. Now he turned to behold a huge c.o.c.k ostrich bearing down upon him with hostility and aggressiveness writ large all over its truculent personality.

"Here, Gert. Give me the _tack_!" he said. "That old brute is properly _kwaai_."

Now the c.o.c.k ostrich resembles the aggressive and nagging human female, in that the respective weakness of either protects it, though differing, in that in the first instance the said weakness may be read as "value"

and, in the second, proportionately the reverse. For a creature of its size and power for mischief there is no living thing more easy to kill or disable than an ostrich, wherein again comes another diametrical difference. A quick, powerful down-stroke or two with the sharp-pointed toe may badly injure a man or even kill him, if surprised in the open by the ferocious biped, tenfold more combative and formidable during the nesting season. And this one, which now came for its lawful owner, looked formidable indeed, towering up to its great height, the feathers round the base of its neck bristling at right angles, and flicking its jet-black wings viciously. It was a grand bird, whose pink shins and beak, and flaming, savage eye proclaimed it in full season, as it charged forward, hissing like an infuriated snake.

Colvin grasped the long, tough mimosa bough not a moment too soon.

Standing firm yet lightly, so as to be able to spring aside if necessary, he met the onrush in the only way to meet it. The sharp p.r.i.c.king of the cl.u.s.ters of spiky thorns met the savage bird full in the head and neck, but chiefly the head, forcing it to shut its eyes. For a moment it danced in powerless and blinded pain, then backed, staggering wildly. Forward again it hurled itself, emitting an appalling hiss, again to meet that inexorable cl.u.s.ter of th.o.r.n.y spikes. In blind rage it shot out a terrible kick, which its human opponent deftly avoided, the while holding his thorn _tack_ high enough to avoid having it struck from his hand--a precaution many a tyro in the ways of the gentle ostrich has been known to forget, to his cost. Again it charged, once more only to find itself forced to shut its eyes and stagger back giddily. Then it came to the conclusion that it had had enough.

"I think he will leave us alone, so long, Gert," said Colvin, panting somewhat from the exertion and excitement, for even the thorn-tack means of defence requires some skill and physical effort to wield with effect against a full-grown and thoroughly savage male ostrich.

"_Ja_, Baas. He is real _schelm_," returned Gert, who had been standing behind his master throughout the tussle. "But he has had enough."

It seemed so. The defeated monster, baulked and cowed, sullenly withdrew, and, shambling off, promptly encountered a weaker rival in the shape of one of his own kind, which he incontinently went for, and consoled himself for his own rout by rushing his fleeing inferior all over the camp, and then, gaining the wire fence, went down on his haunches, and wobbled his silly head and fluttered his silly wings in futile challenge to another c.o.c.k-bird on the further side of that obstruction, whose attention had been attracted by the row, and who was coming down to see what it was all about.

"Now to look at that jackal-trap, Gert. Ah, here it is--and, sure enough, here's Mr Jack."

There came into view an iron trap, which, when set, had been level with the ground, deftly covered with loose earth, and baited with half a hare. It was placed in the thick of a bush so as to be inaccessible to ostriches, to protect whom it was there, and as they came up, a jackal, securely caught by the forelegs, struggled wildly to get free, snarling in fear and pain, and displaying all its white teeth.

"Poor little brute," said Colvin. "Here, Gert, give it a whack on the head with your kerrie and send it to sleep. _Toen_! look sharp.

"That's the worst of these infernal traps," he went on, as a well-directed blow terminated the destructive little marauder's hopes and fears. "But it has got to be, or we shouldn't have an egg left."

"_Ja_, Baas. That is quite true," a.s.sented the Griqua, to whose innermost mind, reflected through those of generations of barbarian ancestry, the idea of feeling pity for a trapped animal, and vermin at that, represented something akin to sheer imbecility.

"Gert," said Colvin, as they got outside the ostrich camps, "get up one of the shooting-horses--Punch will do--and saddle him up. I am going over to Ratels Hoek."

"Punch, sir? Not Aasvogel?"

"_Jou eselkop_! Did I not say a shooting-horse? Aasvogel would run to the devil before if he heard a shot. He'd run further now since the joke up yonder with Gideon Roux."

"_Ja_, sir. That is true"; and the Griqua went away chuckling. He had been poking sly fun at his master, in that Aasvogel was by far the showiest horse in the place. Gert had been putting two and two together. For about once a week that his master had gone over to Ratels Hoek formerly, now he went thither at least twice or three times. Of course it could only be with one object, and with that object no Boer would have thought of riding any other than his showiest horse.

Wherefore Gert had suggested Aasvogel.

Likewise, no Boer would have thought of riding forth on such an errand without getting himself up with much care and all the resources at his disposal. Colvin, needless perhaps to say, did nothing of the kind. He got into a clean and serviceable shooting-suit, and with his favourite shot-gun, a sufficiency of cartridges, and a few trifling necessaries in a saddle-bag, he was ready.

Just then his housekeeper, Katrina, Gert's wife, met him in the door with a note. It had just been brought, she said. Baas Wenlock's boy was waiting for an answer.

He opened the note. It was in May's handwriting, wanting to know if he would come over and spend Sunday with them. What should he reply? This was Friday; yet, one way or the other, he was under no doubt whatever that in forty-eight hours he would not be precisely inclined to put in the day at Spring Holt--no--no matter how things went. Yet to refuse would seem unfriendly, and, viewed from one aspect, somewhat brutal. So he left the matter open, pleading hurry in his reply.

Then as he pa.s.sed out of his door a chill feeling came over him. How would he re-enter it--elate, happy, or--only to calculate how soon he could make arrangements for leaving it altogether, for shutting down this volume of the book of his life? And with a sense of darkling superst.i.tion upon him the delivery of that message as he pa.s.sed the threshold seemed to sound a note of ill augury.

He was destined to meet with another such. When nearly half-way on his ride he came in sight of another horseman cantering along the flat at some distance off, travelling towards him. A few minutes more and he made out Adrian De la Rey.

It was rather a nuisance, he decided. He did not want to meet Adrian just then. Adrian was too addicted to making himself disagreeable in these days. Formerly they had been very friendly, but now, since Adrian had come upon them that morning in the garden, his manner had changed.

It had displayed towards Colvin, upon such occasions as they had met, a brusqueness akin to rudeness.

"_Daag_! Adrian!" cried the latter, reining in.

"_Daag_!" answered the young Boer gruffly, without reining in, and continuing his way.

"You want a lesson in manners, my young friend," said Colvin to himself, feeling excusably nettled. "Well, well!" he added. "The poor devil's jealous, and of course hates me like poison. I suppose I should do the same."

Thus lightly did he pa.s.s it off. He would not have done so perhaps could he at that moment have seen the other's face, have read the other's mind. A savage scowl clouded the former, black and deadly hatred seethed through the latter.