Aletta Part 9

He looked around. The clouds had parted a little and the moon was visible through a rift thus formed; indeed it was the sudden flash of the moonlight upon the white stone that had so terrified the horse at first. The light revealed the mountain slopes rising up around, but of his servant there was no sign. He listened intently. No sound, save the creaking of the saddle, caused by the violently heaving flanks of his panting steed, and now and again a mutter of distant thunder away up in the mountains. Where was Gert?

Dismounting, he led the animal a little way off the road, and sat down under a large boulder to think out the situation. The warning of Hans Vermaak again came into his mind. It looked genuine as viewed by subsequent lights, but whether it was so or not, it was useless, for the murderers had altered their original plan, clearly resolving to provide against the contingency of his choosing the other of the two roads, by shooting him before he should come to the point where these parted.

Well, they had not shot him, but it had been a narrow shave--very.

But if they had not shot him had they shot Gert? It looked uncommonly like it. Only the four shots had been fired--of that he felt certain-- but since his horse had taken matters into its own hands, or, rather, legs, he had obtained neither sight nor sound of Gert. Seated there in the darkness, he was conscious of a very considerable feeling of indignation begotten of a dual reason--that he had had a mean advantage taken of him, and that his property, in the person of Gert Bondelzwart, had been interfered with.

What was to be done next? Should he go back? To do so would be to commit an act of fatal rashness, for it would be to expose himself once more to the fire of his concealed cowardly foes, who would not be likely to let slip a second opportunity. True, he had his revolver, but not for a moment would they be likely to come near enough to give him any chance of using it. No--to go back would be simply throwing away his life. Had it been a white man and a comrade, he would unhesitatingly have done so. But Gert was a Griqua, and, though not exactly a savage, had all the cunning and resource and endurance of generations of savage ancestry. If he were alive, why then, amid the rocks and the darkness, he would soon elude his enemies; if he were dead, Colvin did not see any sense in throwing away his own life merely to ascertain that fact.

The moon had gone in, and a misty scud-wrack spreading itself overhead was creeping around the dim crags on high. There was a smell of rain in the air, and a fitful puff of wind came singing down the valley, laden with an icy breath. Colvin shivered, and as he looked anxiously skyward a large drop or two of rain plashed down on his face. There would be a deluge in a moment, and he had nothing to meet it with save the clothes in which he stood up.

Suddenly the horse, which had been standing with its head down still panting after its race and scare, p.r.i.c.ked up its ears and snorted, then began backing away. Colvin had just time to seize the bridle-rein, or it would have been off in wild stampede. And now every vein in his body quivered with excitement. His revolver was in his hand. Let them come.

The chances now were something like equal.

But it is not a pleasant thing to know that you are being stalked in the dark by a persistent and murderous foe; and as for some minutes no further sign occurred the excitement became dashed with something like apprehension, then succeeded a feeling of relief. The horse had been scared by one of the ordinary sights of the veldt--a sneaking jackal-- perhaps a meerkat--in short, anything moving will startle a horse in the dark, let alone one so thoroughly "in the dispositions" for panic as this one now was. But just then a renewed snort, accompanied by a plunge and a violent tugging at the bridle-rein, set all Colvin's pulses bounding again; and though he endeavoured to do so silently, so as not to betray his exact whereabouts, the hammer of his pistol, as he drew it up, gave forth a sharp click upon the stillness.

Out of the darkness came a voice--a beseeching voice--saying in Boer Dutch:

"Nay, Baas, don't shoot. My well-loved Baas, don't shoot."

"Gert, you fool, come here."

"Yes, it is Gert, Baas," answered the voice in a tone of intense delight and relief. "_Maagtig_! I thought it was those _schelm_ Boers. I thought you were shot. I thought I was shot. I thought we were all shot."

"Well, we are not. But where is Pansy?"

"She was shot, Baas. Ah, the poor mare! She just sank down in the road with her legs under her. I had hardly time to roll off when she was up again, gave a stagger, and toppled over into the river bed. I crouched down in the _sluit_ by the roadside and lay perfectly still--still as a hare--until the moon went in again. Then I crept away. _Ja_, it was a fearful time. I thought I could feel the bullets through me every minute. _Maagtig_! but he is a _schelm_ Boer is Gideon Roux."

"Gideon Roux? Why do you think it was Gideon Roux, Gert?"

"It was, Baas. He and Herma.n.u.s Delport. I would swear to it," rejoined the Griqua excitedly. "They looked murder when they were talking to me.

There was murder in their faces, _Ja_, it is those two."

Colvin cursed to himself, and vowed revenge. He was fond of his horses, and these two rascals had shot one of his best. At the same time he owned to himself ruefully that the chance of carrying out such vengeance was remote. At present he was far more an object for their vengeance than they for his.

"Come now, Gert, we must get along. Lay hold of my stirrup-leather and trot alongside."

They got into the road again, but with the moon behind the cloud and the rain that was beginning to fall it became very dark. What if the vindictive Dutchmen, guessing they had failed, were to take a short cut behind the ridge and _voerlij_ them further down? The thought was unpleasant, to put it mildly.

Now there was a whirl and a roar in the air, and, in an icy blast, the rain swooped down in torrents. Colvin, dest.i.tute of macintosh or wrap of any kind, was soaked through and through in about two minutes, and shivered exceedingly. Fortunately the deluge was behind him, or, coming down obliquely as it did, Aasvogel could hardly have made headway against it. Now and then a vivid flash of lightning gleamed forth, showing the sheer of the great crags overhead and the glistening slopes studded with wet stones.

"Hurry up, Gert. Put your best foot forward, man. We have to race the river this shot. The Ratels Hoek drift will be running twelve feet deep before we get there if we don't look smart."

And the Griqua, puffing and perspiring, did put his best foot forward.

Stepha.n.u.s De la Rey, having just finished his supper, had come out on to the stoep to look at the weather. The deluge of the last hour had subsided, but the clouds, black as ink and unbroken, gave promise of a repet.i.tion of the same.

"Aha!" he said, gleefully to himself. "The drought is at an end. The river is already coming down well, and the dams must be overflowing. I shall pump a lot of water on to the lucerne beds to-morrow. But--What is that?"

The clink of shod horse hoofs came upon the wind through the swirl and roar of the fast-swelling river. He stood listening intently. The sound ceased, then arose again, now on this side of the drift. The next moment a very soaked and dripping horseman emerged into the light of the windows, and beside him trotted a pedestrian, no less soaked and dripping, but very much blown.

"Why, Colvin, where are you from? _Maagtig, kerel_! but you are wet,"

he cried. Then raising his voice: "Windvogel, Swaartbooi. Turn out, you _schepsels_, and take the Baas' horse."

"Wet? I'm nearly dead with cold, Stepha.n.u.s. So bring along a _soepje_, old chap, and let's get to a fire and dry myself."

"Dry yourself? It's dry clothes you have to get into. Come this way.

My _volk_ will see to your horse. Here now, what can we get you into?

My things are too wide for you, Cornelis' and Jan's are too small. You will have to get into some of mine."

And having dragged out of a drawer a complete refit for his guest, whom he had marched straight into his own room, the genial Dutchman went out and reappeared in a moment with a decanter of excellent "dop" and gla.s.ses.

"That's grand!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Colvin, fortifying himself with a liberal _soepje_ during the changing process. But not yet was he going to impart his adventures to his host. The latter had a great laugh over his attempts to carry off the fit of clothes that were both too long and too wide.

"Well, no matter," he said. "You are dry, at any rate, and by this time warm. So come along in and have some supper."

Colvin followed his host into the dining-room. The evening meal was just over, but already a place had been cleared and laid for him. As he shook hands with Mrs De la Rey, he noticed a girl--one he did not recollect ever having seen before. She was just receiving a dish from a Hottentot servant, and arranging it on the table at the place laid for him. Then, turning, she came up to him, with outstretched hand, and a bright smile of cordial welcome on her face.

"Oh, I had forgotten," said Stepha.n.u.s. "You two have not met before.

Colvin, this is my eldest girl--Aletta."

CHAPTER NINE.

"ONLY A BOER GIRL."

A vision of the portraits flashed through Colvin's mind--the portraits at which he had so often looked, with but faint interest, representing as they did a heavy-looking awkward girl, with hunched shoulders, whom he had set down in his own mind as a mere squat, ugly replica of Condaas. One of the portraits itself stared him in the face even now, over and beyond the shoulder of its original. And this was the original! He saw before him a tall and graceful girl, straight as a dart. Her head, slightly thrown back, as she greeted him with frank and self-possessed composure, was beautifully poised, and crowned with a bounteous coil of silky brown hair. She had l.u.s.trous hazel eyes, which could light up in a wonderful way when animated, and a fresh and delicate colour. He noticed, too, that the hand which he took in his was long and soft and tapering--in short, she looked thoroughbred from head to heel, and yet, judged by the most ordinary canons of beauty, he recognised that Aletta De la Rey was not even pretty.

Her features were lacking. They were not regular, and the mouth was somewhat too large. But it was redeemed by white and even teeth, and a way of rippling into a sudden, whole-hearted, and very musical laugh; indeed, the whole expression of her face would light up in a way that rendered it subtly but most unequivocally taking and attractive.

Now, as she greeted Colvin Kershaw for the first time a gleam of just that sudden mirth shot from her eyes. He, reading it aright, became alive to the fact that he did not show to his best advantage, rigged out in a suit of her father's clothes, which was both too long and too wide for him, and, for once in a way, he owned, within his inner self, to a consciousness of feeling ever so slightly disconcerted. But he said quietly:

"Be merciful, Miss De la Rey. At any rate, I am dry and warm after my soaking, for which I feel devoutly grateful."

The colour rushed into Aletta's face as a very wave, but the laugh did not go out of her eyes; on the contrary, it intensified in its struggle not to break forth.

"What a thought-reader you are, Mr Kershaw!" she answered. "But, don't--please don't think me very rude, but--I've--I've heard so much about you that--I seem to know you well already--"

And then the laugh would no longer be kept down. It broke forth in a merry, hearty, silvery peal.

"Aletta!" cried her mother, horror-stricken. "How can you be so rude?

What will Mr Kershaw think of you? And when are you going to begin and pour out his coffee for him?"

But, whatever Colvin thought or did not think, there was something so entirely infectious in that laugh that he was joining in it himself with a whole-heartedness which left nothing to be desired; and there was the strange spectacle of two people who had just met for the first time, laughing--as they afterwards put it to each other--like a pair of idiots, one at the other, and that other joining heartily in the joke against himself.

"It's--it's all right, Miss De la Rey," said the latter, when sufficiently recovered to be able to speak coherently. "I am glad to hear you say you seem to know me so well already, because in that case you wilt know that I like nothing better than to be treated as one of the family."