Aletta Part 35

He would be better in confinement. There he would find nothing to distract his thoughts in his preparation for the great and solemn change, he was told, as would be the case if he were where he could see and hear everyday sights and sounds, and others moving about him. So here he was, under a strong guard, locked up within a not very clean or sweet-smelling stable for the few remaining hours of his life.

He looked around. Even then he could hardly realise it. More than once he had been in here before, seeing to his horse, on such occasions as he visited Gideon Roux. The worm-eaten and much bitten crib, the pile of old forage ends, and stamped-in grains of stale mealies underneath it, and a curry-comb and brush, and an old headstall or two hanging from a peg--the forage cutter had been taken away--all looked so home-like and everyday. It seemed incredible, incongruous, even absurd to try and realise that this place was for him as truly a condemned cell as the ma.s.sive walls and stone floor of the preliminary living tomb in old Newgate or Holloway.

He could hear the sounds of the camp--the hum of harsh voices, and now and then the tramp of a horse. Sounds, too, redolent of peaceful and everyday life--the clucking of poultry, the bleat of a goat, the fretful yelp of a child, and the now monotonous, now querulous voices of women, for the house was but a few score yards away. Yes, it was hard to realise that these four brick walls const.i.tuted but the ante-room to the far narrower walls of earth, which by that time to-morrow would have closed round his b.l.o.o.d.y and lifeless remains.

Was there no prospect of escape? Again and again, while pacing up and down his strange prison, had he calculated his chances. Frank Wenlock had escaped, but only through aid from without. Who would aid him, and if any would, how could they? As for any efforts of his own, of what avail? The window was strongly barred, and two guards, armed with magazine rifles, were posted immediately beneath, as he was reminded by the frequent appearance of a face at the said bars. Two more were before the door, and as for drilling an aperture in the wall, why he had nothing to do it with. The possibility, too, of tunnelling under the foundation of the further wall occurred to him, and here his eye once more rested on the old curry-comb. But the floor of the place was stone paved, and the noise inevitable to the undertaking would betray him twenty times over, even at night. Moreover, he was only too well aware that in view of the former escape the vigilance of his custodians would be more than doubled.

He remembered Andries Botma's final offer of a.s.sistance, and his first appeal had been that the judgment upon himself should be postponed until he had communicated with the man for whom these here professed such profound veneration. But this proposal Schoeman had curtly negatived, nor would he permit any communication whatever with the outside world.

Such farewell words as the prisoner had to leave for relatives or friends he might remit to the _predikant_, but even these must be written in the presence of Mynheer himself.

Once the thought of sending for Adrian De la Rey crossed his mind. An appeal to Adrian's superst.i.tions and a solemn warning to him to withdraw from this deliberate act of murder might be effectual. But the idea was scouted as soon as conceived. Adrian had everything to gain by his destruction--and was he likely to throw away the crowning triumph of his plot at the very moment of grasping it? Not in the very least likely, and besides, the barrier of pride rose up against any such course.

And what of Aletta? Never now would he get at the mystery which had dictated that enigmatical message, never now ascertain what had caused her great love to fail and waver in distrust and doubt. That Adrian was behind this, too, he was equally certain. He had not been mistaken in Aletta. Her nature was no ordinary one to be disturbed and shaken by a mere ordinary motive for doubt, however craftily suggested. Yet what was the secret of that doubt? Try, rack his brains as he would, he got no nearer to it than before. Her words were always in his mind: 'Remember, _I saw_,' but never suggesting even the feeblest glimmer of explanation. What had she seen--when, where, and how? Nothing that regarded him. On that point his conscience was perfectly clear. Since they had exchanged their mutual love vows his conscience, as towards her, was as clear as the sky above them at that moment. Yes, looking back now upon those long and happy months, he realised that the latter end of his life, at any rate, had contained for him all that was worth living for. And now that he had touched its outer edge, a strange philosophical feeling of satisfaction that she, at any rate, would not have her life spoiled by his memory, if she had already learned to distrust him, came over him--a satisfaction that well-nigh quenched the bitterness and disillusioning that she had done so. Almost, but not quite--for, after all, he was but human.

The hours wore on. His guards thrust food and drink--of the coa.r.s.est description--into his prison, and retired without a word, carefully relocking the door. It was evident that they were under very special orders, and would answer no questions. He was left once more to his own thoughts.

Colvin stood in no greater fear of death than most other men who have more than once seen it very near; yet that helpless sense of being shut up, to meet it in cold blood at a given time, was a trifle creepy and unnerving. More than once, in his dreams, he had been under sentence of death, had even come to the steps of the scaffold, and each time had seemed every bit as realistic as the last, or, if possible, more so.

Was this, too, a dream? Should he wake up directly and find himself back again at Pretoria, or at Ratels Hoek, or his own farm? He looked around. Was he really awake--or was this, too, only another nightmare?

Ah no. It was very real.

About his worldly affairs he felt but scant anxiety. They were all in order. He was a fairly methodical man, and before leaving for the theatre of battle and hourly risk he had seen to all that. After all, some would be the gainers by his end--some perhaps who needed to be, very sorely--some who would even in consequence remember him with a little kindness and grat.i.tude. Yet there was but little of the last in this world, he reflected, tolerantly cynical.

The sun dropped, and the shadows of evening darkened his place of confinement, and then with the deepening gloom a feeling of great desolation came over the man, a feeling of forsakenness, and that never again would his ears receive a word of sympathy or friendship, let alone love. He hungered for such then. It was the bitterest moment he had known yet. Seated there on an old wheelbarrow in the close, fusty smelling stable, with the long night before him, he well-nigh regretted that he had been allowed the extension of time. It would all have been over by now. He would have sunk to rest with the evening's sun. Then upon the black gloom of his mind came the consciousness of approaching voices--then the rattle and rasping of the padlock, and the door was opened. One of the guards entered, ushering in three men. He was bearing, moreover, a lantern and a chair, which having set down, he retired.

By the somewhat dingy light of the lantern Colvin recognised his visitors: Schoeman, Jan Grobbelaar, and the _predikant_. He greeted the last-named, with whom he was already acquainted. Then a thrill of hope went through his heart. Had they thought better of it and were here to offer him deliverance?

"We have given your case every consideration, nephew," began the Commandant in his dry, emotionless, wooden tones. "You have professed yourself one of us, and by way of proving yourself to be so have committed the act of a traitor, in that you have set one of our enemies at large."

"Pardon me, Mynheer Commandant," interrupted Colvin. "I have done no such thing. I deny it here on the brink of the grave. I will be candid enough to say that I might have done so had it been in my power. But you know perfectly well it was not."

"You have committed the act of a traitor," went on Schoeman, ignoring the protest as completely as though the other had not spoken, "and therefore you have been adjudged to meet a traitor's doom. But our good brother Mynheer Grobbelaar here and others have pleaded for you, and so we have decided to remit that judgment upon you, subject to one condition. You are to have a chance of proving your good faith. You are to undertake to serve in arms with the Republican forces where and whenever required, until it shall please the good G.o.d to bring this cruel and unrighteous war to an end and give victory unto those who serve Him. And to this end you will sign this declaration."

Colvin took the paper, and by the light of the lantern closely scanned it--not without eagerness. It was written in Dutch and contained an oath of submission to the South African Republics and an undertaking to bear arms on their behalf even as Schoeman had set forward.

"And if I sign this your sentence is not to be carried out, Mynheer Commandant?" he said quickly.

"In a word, this is the price of my life?"

"That is so," said Schoeman.

"Then I refuse the conditions. I will not sign it. I refuse to draw trigger on my own countrymen!"

"_Toen_, Colvin. Sign it, man. Sign it!" broke in Swaart Jan eagerly.

"We don't want you to be shot, _kerel_."

"Thanks, Oom Jan. I don't believe _you_ do. But I can subscribe to no such declaration, be the consequences what they may."

Then Jan Grobbelaar, who was really well disposed towards the prisoner, became voluble. Why would he persist in throwing away his life in that foolish manner? He was one with them now, why not throw in his lot with them openly? It did not matter in the long run. The Republics were bound to win, since G.o.d and justice were on their side--and so on, and so on. All in vain.

"It is of no use, Oom Jan. I'm grateful to you all the same. But under no circ.u.mstances whatever can I consent to fire on my own countrymen."

The little man was really distressed, and was pouring forth his volubility once more. But Schoeman interrupted.

"Then you refuse the chance we offer you?"

"On those terms--absolutely."

"Be it so. Your blood be upon your own head. And now we will leave you with Mynheer, for your hours are but few indeed."

And the two went out--Swaart Jan shaking his head lugubriously over the astonishing obstinacy of the man he would fain befriend.

Colvin was not one of those who sneer at religion, though his views upon the subject were broad enough to have earned the thorough disapproval of the professors of more dogmatic creeds. As we have already hinted, his motive in sending for the _predikant_ was primarily one of policy, partly in order to gain time, partly to placate those in whose hands he was. Yet now that Mynheer had come he was not sorry, in that he had someone to talk to, and, as we have said, his loneliness had been getting terribly upon his nerves. So he listened while _the predikant_ read some Scripture and said a few prayers, and when the latter asked him if he forgave those at whose door lay his death, he answered that he had no feeling against them; that if they were doing him to death unjustly--well, he supposed he had done things to other people some time or other in his life, which they didn't like, and this might go as a set-off against such. Adrian De la Rey was the hardest nut to crack, but, on the other hand, he had a grievance which he, Colvin, ought to be the first person to make allowances for. No--he didn't think he wanted Adrian to come to grief, although he had said so that morning. It didn't matter to himself anyhow.

Then he wrote some final letters relating to his worldly affairs, the _predikant_ having obtained for him, at some difficulty, the requisite materials. He left a few lines for Stepha.n.u.s De la Rey, and more than a few for Aletta. Even then of the girl's presence in the camp Mynheer Albertyn did not inform him, and the reason lay in Aletta's own wish.

She had decided not to see him. She had saved him--as she thought--and it were better not to see him. It was part of the bargain with Adrian, likewise it would bring back all too forcibly the last time she had seen him.

"Well, Mynheer," said Colvin at length, "now we have put all that straight we can chat for a little. It seems rather selfish keeping you up all night like this, and it was very good of you to come. You won't regret it either. But you don't have to sit up every night with a poor devil who's going to be shot at sunrise anyhow."

This cheerful calmness under the circ.u.mstances was clean outside the _predikant's_ experience. He felt as though he must be dreaming. It was unreal. Here was a man whose life had reached the limits of a few hours, who was to be led forth to die in cold blood, in the full glow of his health and strength, yet chatting away as unconcernedly as if he were at home in his own house. Jesting, too, for Colvin had touched on the comic element, not forgetting to entertain Mynheer with the joke about old Tant' Plessis and Calvinus. So the night wore on.

The doomed man slept at last, slumbering away the fast waning hours that remained to him of life.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

LOVE'S TRIUMPH.

The sun had mounted above the eastern end of the Wildschutsberg, and now an arrowy beam, sweeping down from the gilded crags, pierced like a searchlight the cold grey mists of early dawn.

The burgher camp was astir, roused by no bugle call or roll of drum; opening the day by no parade of flashing accoutrements or inspection of arms. Yet every unit in that force was alert and ready, prepared to receive the orders of the day and act upon them with unparalleled celerity and absence of fuss.

This morning a solemn and awed tone seems to pervade the camp, a demeanour perhaps to be explained by the approach of a great and terrible battle; yet not altogether, for most of these men have been through such and it has not so affected them. There is, however, another explanation, for among the first of the orders of the day is that decreeing the taking of the life of Colvin Kershaw.

The life of one man! But they have counted their own dead by dozens already in battle, those of the enemy too. Yet the antic.i.p.ation of the extinction of this one man is sufficient to move the whole camp to awe.

Ah! but there it is. The excitement of the strife is wanting: the combative instinct dashed by the loftier motive of patriotism. This man is to be done to death in cold blood.

Beyond Gideon Roux' homestead, on the side furthest from the tents, is an open s.p.a.ce, backed by the steep slope of the hillside. Here the whole camp is collected. The burghers, all armed, are standing in two great lines, not in any order except that the ground between these lines is kept rigidly clear for about twenty yards of width, and the reason thereof is now apparent. The doomed man, escorted by half a dozen guards with loaded rifles, is drawing near.

Colvin's demeanour is calm and self-possessed, but entirely free from bravado or swagger. His clear searching eyes wander quickly over the a.s.semblage, and a faint, momentary surprise lights them as he notices the presence of a few women among this crowd of armed men. They are placed, too, at the further end, quite close to where he himself shall stand.

As he enters the avenue thus left open for him, every head is bared. He lifts his own hat in acknowledgment of this salutation, and proceeds to the place pointed out, which is marked by a _reim_ placed on the ground.

It is the line which he is to toe. The _predikant_ is not beside him, in compliance with his own wish.

As he stands facing his slayers, a dead hush of silence is upon the crowd. Through it rises the voice of Commandant Schoeman, hard, emotionless, yet crisp and clear.

"Even now, Colvin Kershaw, even now, as you stand upon the brink of your grave and are about to pa.s.s into the presence of Almighty G.o.d, even now we have decided to offer you one more chance. Will you sign and abide by the declaration which was tendered you last night?"

"I refused to purchase my life at such a price last night, Mynheer Commandant, and I refuse again. Here, as you say, upon the brink of my grave, I will die rather than draw trigger on my own countrymen. My sympathies with the Republics and their cause are great, as many here know. But I will not fight against my own countrymen."