Renshaw Fanning's Quest Part 16

"Am I?" he echoed. "I really beg your pardon, but I am afraid I must be."

"First of all, where are you going to take me?"

"We had better ride up to the head of the Long Kloof. It is only a gradual ascent, and an easier ride for you."

This was agreed to, and presently they were winding between the forest-clad spurs of the hills; on, leisurely, at a foot's-pace; the great rolling seas of verdure, spangled with many a fantastic-hued blossom, sweeping down to the path itself; the wild black-mouthed gorges echoing the piping call of birds in the brake, and the sullen deep-throated bark of the sentinel baboon, squatted high overhead.

But the ride, so far from doing her good, seemed, judging from results, to be exercising a still further damping effect upon Violet's spirits.

It had become her turn now to answer in monosyllables, as her companion tried to interest her in the scenery and surroundings. All of a sudden she wildly burst into tears.

Down went Renshaw's wise resolutions, the result of a painful and severe course of self-striving, like a house of cards. The sight of her grief seemed more than he could bear.

"Good heavens! Violet--darling--what is it? Why are you unhappy?"

The tone was enough. The old tremor of pa.s.sion struggling to repress itself. Had she forged this weapon deliberately, Violet must have rejoiced over its success. But this time the outburst was genuine.

"Oh, I sometimes wish I could die!" she answered, as soon as she could control her voice. "Then there would be a peaceful ending to it all, at any rate."

"Ending to what? You have been very much shaken, dear--since that unfortunate skirmish the other night. But you must try and forget that and become your own bright self again. It cannot be that you have any real trouble on your mind?"

"Oh, Renshaw--you have been so hard to me of late--so cold and silent, as if you didn't care so much as to speak to me--and I have felt it so-- so much. Ah, but you don't believe me."

The man's face grew white. What did this mean? Had he been deceiving himself all this time? While he had thought she was trying once more to whistle him back to her lure, to amuse herself with him and his most sacred feelings as a mere pastime during the other's absence--could it be after all that she had merely been playing off the other against him--piqued at the outward cooling of his attentions? A tumultuous rush of feeling went through his heart and brain. But like a douche of cold water upon the fainting patient came her next words, bringing him to with a kind of mental gasp.

"You have felt it so much?" he echoed, quickly.

"Yes. I could not bear the thought of losing such a staunch, true-hearted friend as you would be--as you are. You don't know how I value the idea of your sympathy."

Crash went the newly born resuscitation of his hopes--scattered to fragments--shivered into empty nothingness by just one word. "Friend!"

Hateful word in such conjunction! His voice seemed numbed and strained as he rejoined--

"I am sorry you should think of regarding me as anything less than a friend--and you must know that you could never lack my sympathy. Then there is something troubling you?"

"Now you are angry with me. Oh, Renshaw--and I am so miserable. You speak in such a cold, severe tone. And I thought you would have been so different."

"G.o.d forgive me if I should have seemed to be angry with you," he replied. "But--how can I help you? You have not told me what your trouble is."

"Renshaw, I believe you can be as secret as the grave. It concerns myself--and another. But nothing that you can do can remove it.

Nothing but misery can come of it, if I do not die myself, that is."

"One word, Violet. You are sure nothing I can do will help you? I do not wish to force your confidence, remember."

"Nothing," was the despairing answer. "Only this, Renshaw. Promise that you will stand my friend--Heaven knows I may need it and do need it--whatever others may say or do. Promise that if ever you can help me you will."

Their eyes met--then their hands.

"I promise both things," he answered gravely.

But, as they turned their horses' heads to ride homewards, there was a heavy heart within Renshaw Fanning's breast; a heart full of sad and heavy despair. His love for this girl was no mere fleeting pa.s.sion, but the terribly earnest and concentrated abandonment of a man of mature years and strong feelings. Now there was an end of everything. He had as good as heard from her own lips that her affections were bound up with another, and who that other was his perceptions left him no room for doubt. But why, then, should all the misery ensue at which she had hinted? Could it be that her preference was but inadequately returned?

Or was there some obstacle in the way--lack of means, opposition of parents, or similar difficulties, which are apt to seem to those most closely concerned so insurmountable under the circ.u.mstances? In his own mind, he had no doubt but that things would all come right sooner or later, and said as much.

But then, you see, they were at cross purposes, as people who deal in veiled hints and half-confidences well-nigh invariably are.

And the promise thus deliberately uttered during that sunny morning's ride in the Long Kloof, will he ever be called upon to take it up?

We shall see.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

A GOOD OFFER.

Time went by, and weeks slipped into months. Amid congenial surroundings and magnificent air, Renshaw had completely shaken off all lingering remnants of his fever attack. He began to think seriously of starting in quest of "The Valley of the Eye."

Sellon, too, had begun to wax impatient, though with any less tempting object in view he would have been loth to exchange this delightfully easygoing life for a toilsome and nebulous quest, involving possible risks and certain hardship and privations. Moreover, a still lingering misgiving that the other might cry off the bargain acted like a spur.

"It's all very well for you, Fanning," he said one day, "but, for my part, I don't much care about wearing out my welcome. Here I've been a couple of months, if not more, and I shouldn't wonder if Selwood was beginning to think I intended quartering myself on him for life. I know what you're going to say. Whenever I mention leaving, he won't hear of it. Still, there's a limit to everything."

"Well, I don't mind making a start, say, next week," Renshaw had answered. "I've got to go over to Fort Lamport on Sat.u.r.day. If it'll suit you, we'll leave here about the middle of the week. We shall have roughish times before us once we get across the river, mind."

"Right you are, and hurrah for the diamonds!" was the other's hearty response; and then he turned away to seek a favourable opportunity of breaking the news to Violet.

If Renshaw had succeeded in shaking off the effects of his fever attack, no such complete success had attended his efforts with regard to that other attack. There was not much healing for his wounds in the sight of the more than ordinarily good understanding existing between Violet and Sellon, and being, in common with the remainder of the household, ignorant of their former acquaintanceship, the thought that he himself had been instrumental in bringing them together, was indeed a bitter pill. And then his disciplined nature would seek for an antidote and find it--find it in the promise Violet had extracted from him to befriend her to the utmost of his power. Well, he was going to do this.

He was going to be the means of enriching the man who had, though not unfairly, yet no less certainly, supplanted him. His sacrifice on her account would be complete. Through his instrumentality the pair would obtain the means of happiness. And in this reflection his mind found a degree of consolation.

"Cold consolation this--very much the reverse of consolation!" cries the ordinary mind. Yes, but Renshaw Fanning's was not an ordinary mind.

Christmas had come and gone--bringing with it much festivity--the visits of friends and relatives, till the house was crammed to the extent of holding no more by any means short of "shaking down" the excess members in the verandah, even as many were already "shaken down" on the floors of the bedrooms. There had been dances and riding parties, and a buck-hunt or two, though the time of year was unfavourable to venatorial pursuits--the sweltering midsummer heat being ill-conducive to scent in the matter of rousing the quarry, though very much conducive to the same, after the slaying of the said quarry, which indeed would hardly keep two hours. There had been much fun and flirtation among the younger section and much jollity among all. Jovial Chris Selwood was never so much in his element as with a crowd of friends about him, and the more the merrier, he would say.

Then as the corner of the year turned, the party had broken up and gone its respective ways--one to his farm, another to his merchandise--the bulk of it, however, literally to the former. And Renshaw began to think a great deal about "The Valley of the Eye."

"So your faith in this Sindbad valley is as strong as ever, is it, Renshaw?" said Selwood, in comment on a remark of the other's as they were returning homeward together after a day of riding around the veldt, looking after the flocks and their keepers, and giving an eye to things in general.

"Well, yes, it is. I'm as convinced the place exists as I am that I exist myself. But it's weariful work, hunting a will-o'-the-wisp."

"Rather. Throw it up, old man. Now, why on earth don't you make up your mind to come and settle near us? There are good enough farms around here to be had."

"For those who have the means," supplied the other, gaily. "And I'm not one of them. That last drought 'busted' me--lock, stock, and barrel.

All the greater necessity to find the 'Eye.'"

Selwood made no immediate reply. He flicked the heads of the gra.s.ses with his whip as he rode, in a meditative and embarra.s.sed manner wholly foreign to his genial open nature.

"See here, Renshaw," he burst forth at last; "we were boys together, and ought to know each other pretty well by this time. Now, I think you're a touchy fellow on some subjects--but, hang it all, what I want to say is this--you've been cursed by ill-luck of late; why not try fresh ground? Now, if a thousand pounds would--er--pull your train back on to the rails again, why, there it is, and you've only got to say so. Eh?

What? Obligation, did you say?"--the other having said nothing at all.

"That be hanged! The boot's all on the other foot!"