Blue Aloes Part 18

"Only for a little while," he said gently. "We'll both be back in the game soon, fitter than ever."

"Never!" There was the sound of a shudder in the exclamation. "How can one ever be the same after _that_----"

"You've been a brick! You mustn't give way now, after coming through so bravely."

"How I hate Africa!" she exclaimed fiercely.

Druro could not help smiling.

"Poor old Africa! We all abuse her like a pickpocket and cling to her like a mother."

"I don't cling. All I ask is never to see her again."

"I don't wonder. She has not treated you too well."

The smile faded from his lips, leaving them sombre. It was like looking into a dark window to see Lundi Druro's face without the gaiety of his eyes. At the same time, their absence threw up a quality of strength about his mouth and jaw that might have gone un.o.bserved. He was conscious of her attention acutely fixed upon him, but he could not know with what avid curiosity she was searching his features, or guess, fortunately for him, at the cold, clear thought that was pa.s.sing through her mind.

"How awful to have to drag a blind husband about the world! Still--the money will mitigate. I can always pay people to----" Then a thrill of pleasure shot through that bleak and desert thing which was her heart.

"He will never see me as I am now."

Yes; this reflection actually gave her pleasure and content in Druro's tragedy. He, of all the world, would still think of her as she had been before the leopard puckered her throat and scarred her cheek with terrible scars. At the thought, her vanity, which was her soul, suddenly flowered forth again. Her voice softened; some of the old glamour came back into it.

"Will you take me away from this cruel country, Lundi--as soon as we are both better?"

To leave Africa, and that which Africa held! All Lundi Druro's blood called out, "No," but his firm lips answered gently:

"Yes; if you wish it," then closed again as if set in stone.

"And never come back to it again?"

"That is a harder thing to promise, Marice," he said. "One never knows what life and fate may demand of one. My work might call me back here."

"Yes, yes; that is true," she said peevishly. "The main thing is that you will never expect me to come back. But, of course, if you are blind, it will not be much use your coming either."

The blow was unexpected, but he did not flinch.

She was the first person who had taken such a probability for granted; but he had long faced the contingency himself.

"If I am to be blind, we must reconstruct plans and promises, Marice.

They are made, as far as I am concerned, conditionally."

"No; no conditions!" she cried feverishly. "I am going to marry you, whether your eyes recover or not. Promise me you won't draw back, if the worst comes?"

She could not bear to lose him--this one man in all the world who would still think her beautiful. All her soul which was her vanity cried out pa.s.sionately to him.

"Of course I will promise you, dear, if you think it good enough," he said, "if you still want me and think a blind man can make you happy."

"Yes; I want you blind," she answered strangely. "You can make me very happy." Then she reached for the bell-b.u.t.ton and pressed it. Her nerves were giving out, and she needed to be alone. But the future was arranged for now, and she could rest. She made a subtle sign to the entering nurse, and Druro never guessed that he was being evicted by any one but the latter in her professional capacity. To be deceived is doubtless part of the terrible fate of the blind.

She had succeeded in deceiving Druro in more than this. Confirmed now in the belief that he was necessary to her happiness and that to fulfil his promises to her was the only way of honour, he knew that he must thrust the thought of Gay out of his mind for ever. Even in the grey misery of that decision, he could still feel a glow of grat.i.tude toward the woman who loved him enough to face the future with a blind man.

Because his mind was a jumble of emotions fermented by the humility born of sitting in darkness and affliction, for many days he spoke a little of it to Tryon, who came, as was now his custom, to help pa.s.s away the evening. So Tryon was the first person in w.a.n.kelo to hear of Marice Hading's greatness of heart--and the last person in the world to believe in it. But he did not say so to Druro. He had long ago sized up Marice Hading's subtle mind and shallow soul, and it was not very difficult for him to read this riddle of new-born n.o.bility. Druro and his rich mine were to pay the price of her lost beauty. What booted it if he were blind? So much the better for the vanity of a woman who worshipped her beauty as Mrs. Hading had done. It was certain that, blind or whole, she meant to hold Druro to his bond, and that she would eventually make hay with his life, Tryon had not the faintest doubt.

Destruction for Druro--shipwreck for Gay! A woman's cruel, skilful little hands had crumpled up their happiness like so much waste paper, and Tryon, with the best will in the world, saw no clear way to save it from being pitched to the burning. The best he could do, for that evening at least, was to shake Druro's hand warmly at parting and tell him that he was a deuced lucky fellow.

Two days later, Sir Charles Tryon arrived, a short, square man with most unprofessional high spirits and a jolly laugh that filled everyone with hope. It was late in the afternoon when he got to w.a.n.kelo, and, after a cursory test of Druro's eyes, he announced himself unable to give a decisive verdict until after a more complete examination the following day. He then departed to his brother's house for dinner and a good night's rest after his long journey.

No sooner had d.i.c.k tucked him safely away than he was back again at the hospital, for he had a very shrewd notion of the brand of misery Druro, condemned to a night's suspense, would be suffering. And he guessed right. Emma Guthrie, just arrived, was in the act of "cheering him up"

with an account of the mine's output from the monthly clean-up that day.

"How many ounces?" asked Druro indifferently. The prosperity of the mine bothered him far less than the fate of his eyes, for he knew himself to be one of those men who can always find gold. If one mine gave out, there were plenty of others.

"Five hundred, as usual," said Guthrie jubilantly. "Here it is--feel it; weigh it."

From a sagging coat pocket he abstracted what might, from its size and shape, have been a bar of soap but for the yellow shine of it, and placed it in Druro's right hand. The latter lifted it with a weighing gesture for a moment and handed it back.

"That's all right."

"All right! I should say!" declaimed the bright and bragful Emma.

"Two thousand of the best there, all gay and golden! I tell you, Lundi, we've got a peach. And she hasn't done her best by a long chalk. She's only beginning. You buck up and get your eyes well, my boy, and come and see for yourself." He began to hold forth in technical terms that were Greek to Tryon concerning stopes, cross-cuts, foot-walls, stamps, and drills. Every moment his voice grew gayer and more ecstatic. He seemed drunk with success and unable to contain his bubbling, rapturous optimism, and that Druro sat brooding with the sinister silence of a volcano that might, at any instant, burst into violent eruption did not appear to disturb him. Fortunately, some other men came in and relieved the situation; when Guthrie took his leave, a few moments later, Tryon made a point of accompanying him to the gate. He was getting as sick as Druro of Emma's perpetual gaiety and came out with the distinct intention of saying so as rudely as possible.

"What do you mean by bringing your devilish good spirits here? Have you no bowels? Kindly chuck it for once and for all."

Guthrie, squatting on his haunches, feeling his bicycle tyres, turned up to him a face grown suddenly rutted and haggard as a j.a.panese gargoyle.

"That drum-and-fife band is only a bluff, d.i.c.k," he said quietly. "The Leopard is G. I., and if that boy loses his eyes as well, neither of us will ever climb out of the soup again."

Tryon came out of the gate and stared at him interestedly.

"What do you mean? How can the Leopard----"

"I mean that the reef is gone--for good, this time."

"The reef gone?" reiterated Tryon stupidly. "Why--good Lord, I thought you'd found it richer and stronger than ever!"

"So we did. But, my boy, mining is the biggest gamble in the world.

It pinched out, sudden as a stroke of apoplexy, a few days after Lundi's accident. We've got a month's crushing in hand now, and when that's gone, we'll have to shut down. We're bust!"

"But what about that five-hundred-ounce clean-up you handed him?"

"All bluff! I drew two thousand quid for native wages and threw it into the melting-pot. That lovely b.u.t.ton goes back to the bank tomorrow. They've got to be bluffed, too, until Lundi's able to stand the truth."

"I don't know if he'll thank you for it, Emma," said Tryon, at last.

"I don't say he will; I don't say Lundi can't take his physic when he's got to, as well as any man. But I can reckon he's got an overdose already. I'll wait."

Tryon stared a while into the shrewd, wizened face, then said thoughtfully:

"I think you're quite right. There are moments when enough is too much, and I haven't a doubt but that a little extra bad luck would just finish what chance he has of seeing again. Keep it up your sleeve anyway, until we hear my brother's verdict."