Forging the Blades Part 32

"Good G.o.d, no!" he answered vehemently. "At least," he added, sadly doubtful, "that depends on yourself."

The colour came back to her face and her eyes lit up, sweetly, radiantly.

"Depends on myself," she repeated. "Why, in that case nothing in the world can part us--nothing!"

"Are you sure?"

"Nothing. Nothing," she reiterated. "Alaric, my darling, you have not been yourself of late. There is something on your mind, and that is what you are going to tell me now. Am I right?"

He nodded. Then, after a pause--

"Tell me again, Verna. Is there anything that could separate us, anything I may have done--not against yourself, mind!--in this wide world that could cause you to shrink from me? Is there? Think it out."

"Why, of course not," she answered, boldly serene now that the whole question lay in her own hands, almost laughing, in fact, although knowing full well she was on the verge of something tragic.

"But--what if I have killed a man?"

"What if you have killed twenty men? Some people have, and they brag about it."

He looked hard at her.

"Yes; but what if I have--what the law calls--committed murder?"

Now she looked hard at him, then shook her head.

"You have not murdered _me_--nor father."

There spake the natural woman in Verna Halse. He had not injured her or hers, consequently who ever this man had injured it was nothing to her.

In all probability he was justified in so doing, certainly was, in that in her eyes he could do no wrong.

"But do you quite understand, Verna?" he said gently. "I am in danger of--of the rope."

"Are you? Well, we shall make it our particular business to see that that danger pa.s.ses off. Why, there are places about here where you could hide for years. Listen, Alaric"--suddenly waxing grave, while a pa.s.sion of tenderness came into her voice--"You saw fit, goodness knows why, to love me. Do you think, then, I am going to shrink from you because you are in a difficulty? I am only an ignorant sort of girl, but I have seen something of one side of life, at any rate, and the power does not exist--law or anything else--that shall take you from me.

But, tell me all about it."

"I will, Verna. You remember the first time we came to this spot, and I was telling you things? I said there was one thing I hadn't told you, but that I might some day. This was it."

She nodded.

"You remember, too, on that occasion, my saying what a splendid thing it was to feel quite easy in one's mind, and that I had not always been able to by any means?"

"Yes."

She was gravely attentive now. Her quick mind, not at ease itself, was rapidly piecing two and two together; wherefore his next remark caused her little if any surprise.

"That beastly thing young Stride sprung upon us the other day was an exact likeness of the man, only, of course, it exaggerated his villainous expression. He's dead now; but what I suffered at that blackmailer's hands--good G.o.d! Verna; when I think of it I could wish he might come to life so that I could kill him over again."

Then a new experience came to Verna. This man, so strongly self-possessed, upon whom an easy dignity sat so well, had suddenly become a different being. His eyes glowed and his features were set.

He seemed completely to have lost sight of her and her presence for the time being; to be "reconst.i.tuting" the tragedy of horror and revenge.

This was a side of him--a tigerish side--of which she had never dreamed, but she did not shrink from it, not one atom. She put forth a hand into his, and the touch calmed him.

"Tell me, Alaric," she said. "Why did you kill him? I dare say he deserved it. In fact, judging from that villainous-looking face he must have."

He looked at her in some amazement. The cool, matter-of-fact tones in which she discussed what to most women would have come as a very disquieting shock, astonished him a good bit.

"Love," he said in an uneven voice, placing the cool, shapely hands round his neck and against his face, "I place my life within those dear hands. I will tell you the whole thing."

Then he told her how the dead man had systematically blackmailed him for some years past, acting on the knowledge of a former business secret, which if divulged would not merely have spelt ruin, but worse; a transaction into which he had been led by others, in the days of his comparative inexperience. Then he told her of the tragedy on the river bank in the Makanya forest; told her minutely, omitting no detail. She listened intently, breathlessly.

"When I rode away from that spot," he concluded, "it was with an unspeakable load lifted from my mind, a load that had weighed upon it for years. Everything was favourable. We had not been seen together, for we entered the country by different ways, and our meeting was entirely a chance one. He had found out somehow that I was bound for Ezulwini, and had started to catch me there, in order to squeeze out some more blackmail. He had missed his way and had wandered to where we met. I had not missed mine, for I had mapped out a way through all that wild part. When we did meet the first idea that flashed through my mind was that now and here was a chance such as I should never get again.

Everything was favourable--the wild loneliness of the spot, seldom if ever travelled, and the fact that we had not been seen together. I would force him to sign a declaration which should put it out of his power for ever to harm me. But he flatly refused, and the rest you know. It was only afterwards that it occurred to me that the sequel was the best that could have come about, for the declaration, being unwitnessed, would probably have been worth nothing at all. I must have been a bit off my head, or that would have occurred to me at the first.

Now, Verna, why don't you shrink from me?"

"Shrink from you?" and the clasp of her hand tightened on his. "It would take a great deal more than this to make me even begin to think of doing that. In fact, I can't see anything so very dreadful about it at all. A blackmailer is the most pestilent vermin on earth, and shooting's too good for him. Let me think. Ah! He tried to shoot you, you said?"

"He certainly would have if I'd given him the slightest chance. Still, there's no getting over the fact that I fully intended to shoot him in the event of his persistently refusing to sign that paper."

"And he deserved it. Moreover, didn't you try to get him out of the water?"

"Yes. I couldn't stand seeing even him finished off in such a beastly manner. Afterwards it occurred to me that it was the best possible thing that could have happened in that it would destroy all trace. You understand?"

"Perfectly. But now, if the worst came to the worst, couldn't you make it out a case of self-defence?"

"A very poor plea," he answered, with a gloomy shake of the head, "especially under all the circ.u.mstances. Besides, no end of things would be raked up and a motive established. But nothing more would have been heard of the affair if that infernal Stride hadn't picked up the saddle. Then, when he heard I had come through the Makanya just about that time, he put two and two together. He more than hinted as much one evening in the club before them all. Before them all, mind! Of course I made some joke about it, but as sure as we are sitting here, Verna, I could see that two, at any rate, more than half believed there might be something in it. Those two were James and Hallam."

Verna's brows knitted. She did not like this feature in the case.

"Do you know why Stride is so vindictive in the matter, Verna?" he said, after giving her an account of his interview with the young prospector and the latter's threats.

"I think I can guess." Then she fell to thinking whether she could not turn Stride's weakness for herself to account. But it was too late, she recognised. He had set the ball rolling--at first all innocently, it was true--but it had now rolled too far.

"Who did you first meet after you had left the river?" she asked.

"I struck a small kraal, and, incidentally, the people were none too civil. But it was a long way from the spot where it happened."

Not even to her could he break his word of honour pledged to the strange, sinister-looking fellow-countryman who had shown him hospitality, to respect to the uttermost the latter's secrecy.

Verna thought for a moment. Then she said--

"Alaric, do you remember the time that we killed the _indhlondhlo_, down in the forest, Mandevu's sudden appearance?"

"Yes," eagerly. "What then?"

"Do you remember his reference to your power of snake-charming, not once but twice?"

"Good G.o.d! I should think so. I thought it strange at the time."

"Well, could he--or anybody--have witnessed the whole affair?"