The Fire Trumpet Part 30

Breaking up into twos and threes the Kafirs rapidly dispersed, eager to be gone from the dreaded spot when no longer under the protecting presence of the powerful magician who communed with the spirit in the unknown cave. They were impatient, but not disheartened. They must continue to deceive the hated and masterful whites with soft words and lying promises. These superst.i.tious souls, with their faith in the a.s.surances of their wizards, saw their triumph ahead. What they did not see was their broken and decimated tribes hunted and starving, driven out of the land of their forefathers, utterly cowed and submissive.

What they did not see was the flower and pick of their manhood strewing their native hills and kloofs with stiffened corpses in thousands, to the advantage of the _aasvogel_ and the jackal.

There was something else that they did not see. They did not see a rec.u.mbent human figure which, from the very brow of the sacred cliff, had watched the uncanny and repulsive rites from beginning to end. They did not see this figure, snugly concealed and motionless, watch till the last of their outlying scouts finally left his post and moved away, and then descend from the airy vantage ground with the dry chuckle of one who has stolen a march on an uncommonly shrewd adversary, and going to where a horse was securely hidden, mount and ride off. Even their keen vision failed to descry this.

By sunrise these fierce warriors, who had borne such eager part in the wild war-dance and the hideous and cruel rites of the night through, would be once more so many quiet, civil herds and waggon-drivers, for, with few exceptions, they were all in farm service in the surrounding neighbourhood. But how came they here, how did they preserve so inviolate the secret of the nocturnal gathering? The whole thing is very simple. Two or three natives, inoffensive of aspect and deferential of manner, provided moreover with unimpeachable pa.s.ses, had gone the round of the various employers of labour seeking for work here, come to visit a relative there, anxious for a day or two's job in another place, and so on. And wherever they had been they had delivered their "word" among all fellow-countrymen there employed, provided these were to be trusted, that is to say. That "word" was brief if slightly obscure to the uninitiated. Moreover, it occurred quite incidentally in the thick of conversation on ordinary topics. But those to whom it was addressed understood perfectly its import.

"At the full of the moon."

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER NINETEEN.

"WHAT HAS THE WORLD BEEN SINCE?--THEE ALONE!"

One of the most blissful delusions, and unaccountable withal, under which a man desperately in love invariably labours, is the profound unconsciousness of his state wherewith he credits those among whom he lives and moves. What renders the delusion all the more inexplicable is the certainty that its victim himself in his unsmitten days must have frequently spotted more than one of his friends labouring under the ravages of the intoxicating malady, or at any rate his feminine kinsfolk and acquaintance were not slow to make the discovery for him. Yet when his own turn comes he may, with absolute certainty, be counted upon to imagine that his own incoherencies of speech and action, in short, all the symptoms of acute delirium entirely escape the multifold optics of the Argus feminine; and that his Beeret remains all his own, so effectually has he guarded it. Which thing, by the way, no _man_ ever succeeded in accomplishing yet.

Lilian was singing; a sweet pathetic ballad, rendered with infinite feeling. The song ended; a final chord or two; and the singer threw it aside and turned away from the piano.

"Thanks, Lilian. Why, my child, you sing like an angel," said her hostess, moved almost to tears by the full, rich voice which, keeping well within its compa.s.s, fills the room just so much as it will bear and no more, while every word is as distinctly enunciated as though the singer were reciting it. Even Mr Brathwaite had forgotten to fall into his post-coenal doze, and sat upright in his arm-chair, wide awake and listening.

The three above mentioned are alone in the room this evening--yet stay-- there enters a fourth. He had been standing quietly in the doorway during the song, and refrained from entering, for fear of disturbing the singer. He had been obliged to go out after supper to give some orders to Xuvani about the morrow, and returning, was surprised and entranced by the sound of Lilian's voice in song. So he stood in the doorway, drinking in every note.

"Why, you vowed you never sang," he exclaimed, reproachfully, advancing to the piano. "And then you wait until a fellow is out of the way, and this is the result."

She turned to him with the most bewitching of smiles. "Well, I don't,"

she replied, in a deprecatory tone. "At least, I haven't for a long, long time, and now I'm only trying over something I picked up the other day. Just by ourselves, you know."

"Having carefully waited till I was out of the room."

"Perhaps I was just a little bit shy, from being so long out of practice," answered she, with a glance that would have melted a stone.

But her auditor, though stony enough in all other respects, was wax in her hands, and her glance thrilled through him like an electric shock.

She had penetrated the one weak joint in his armour most thoroughly.

Did she know it?

"Shyness, like all other weaknesses, should be conquered," he rejoined.

"The best way of conquering it in this instance is to sing that over again. Just by ourselves, you know."

"But Mrs Brathwaite won't thank me. She must have had enough of it,"

objected Lilian, with a laugh.

"Enough of it!" exclaimed the old lady. "My dear child, I would have asked you myself but I didn't quite like to. Now do. Arthur hasn't heard the first part."

Thus adjured, she gave way; but this time the shyness to which she had pleaded guilty, made itself manifest by an occasional slight tremor in the sweet, clear voice. Which, however, rendered the pathetic ballad all the more entrancing to her new auditor.

There was silence for a minute when she had ended Claverton broke it.

"That's the loveliest thing I ever heard."

"What! Did you never hear it before?"

"Never. But I don't care how soon I hear it again."

"Now we must have something cheerful," said Lilian.

"But it will counteract the other."

She laughed.

"Just what it should do. What, Mr Claverton? _You_ get the dismals over a song? Won't do at all." And without giving him time to reply, she rattled off a lively little ditty, doing full justice to the spirit and archness of the composition.

Ethel and Laura were away, spending two or three days with the Naylors, and to-night Hicks had taken himself there, too; thus these two and the old people had the house to themselves. To one of the quartett that afternoon was to be marked with the traditional white stone. A deliciously long walk with Lilian, unhindered and unrestrained by the presence of any third person. She had talked freely about the old home, and her eyes had brightened, and her cheeks had glowed with the loveliest flush, while on that most congenial of topics. Yet a thorn beneath every rose. Never could she revert to the favourite subject without that indefinable moment of restraint coming in. Again this afternoon it had gone home to her companion, strengthening the resolve which he had already formed.

The door stood open. Attracted by the beauty of the night, Lilian went out on the verandah.

"Better have a shawl, my child; you'll catch cold," said Mrs Brathwaite.

"A shawl!" she echoed. "Dear Mrs Brathwaite, I should be roasted.

It's as warm almost as at midday."

"Yes, it's a regulation summer evening," said Claverton, following her on to the _stoep_. "And a light one, too, considering that there's no moon."

"I do think you get such glorious starlight here," continued Lilian.

"An English starlight night is the feeblest of misty twinkles, in comparison. What's that?" as a luminous spark floated by. "A firefly?"

"Yes. There are lots of them about. Look! there's another."

"What do they look like, close? Couldn't we catch one?"

"Oh, yes; nothing easier. I'll get Hicks' b.u.t.terfly net, it's only in the pa.s.sage. Now then," he went on, returning with the implement, "which shall it be? There's a bright one. We'll go for him." So saying he made a dexterous cast, ensnaring the shining insect. Their quest had led them some twenty yards from the house.

"They are not so brilliant as I thought," remarked Lilian, as they inspected the captive. "It's rather an insignificant-looking thing,"

she continued, allowing the insect to crawl over her delicate palm.

"Let's take it to the light."

This didn't suit Claverton's purpose at all. "It won't shine there," he said, "and you'll be disenchanted with it, and--Ah! It's gone." For the creature, evidently thinking it had instructed them enough in a new branch of entomology, suddenly opened its wings and soared off among the orange trees.

"It's a perfect shame to go indoors on such a night as this," murmured Lilian, half to herself.

"No earthly reason exists why we should," replied her companion. "At least not just yet. Let's stroll round the garden."

"Shall we? But what will Mrs Brathwaite say?" added Lilian, dubiously.

"Say? Oh, nothing. The dear old couple generally drop off in their arm-chairs of an evening, when Ethel isn't here to make a racket; but to-night you have charmed them back from the land of Nod with those delicious songs. Come along."

She yielded, and they wandered down the garden path in the starlight.

But Claverton was out of his reckoning, for once. The "dear old couple"

in this instance happened to be wide awake, and were discussing him in a manner that was very much to the point.