The Fire Trumpet Part 47

"Yes, I know. 'Afric's sunny fountains,' and all that kind of thing.

The only 'fountains' we see here are after a jolly big rain, and then they're not sunny, but precious muddy. Those poetic fellows do talk awful bosh."

Lilian smiled. "Don't try to be satirical, it doesn't suit you at all,"

she said. "And now tell me what have you been doing all day?"

"Oh, I went down and counted at Umgiswe's. He's a regular old humbug, and is always losing sheep. I'm certain he kills them. Don't I wish I could catch him, that's all. I thought I had, the other day. Anyhow, the _Baas_ ought to give him the sack."

"I shouldn't have thought it. I thought he had such a nice old face, and he always says, 'morning, missis,' to me, so prettily, whenever he comes up here."

"A bigger humbug than him couldn't help doing that," said Hicks, gallantly. "Well, then, I went on to Driscoll's, to see if I couldn't beat him down in what he asks for that place of his. He wants a great deal too much, the beggar does; far more than he offered it to Clav--"

and then honest Hicks, suddenly remembering that this very place was the one Claverton had started to inspect on that day which, somehow, seemed connected with his abrupt departure and Lilian's simultaneous depression, waxed very red in the face, and, bending over the fire, began stirring it and banging it about, as if he would pulverise the charred, smouldering f.a.ggots.

"And did you succeed?" asked Lilian, so quietly that he thought the reminiscence involved by the a.s.sociation of ideas had pa.s.sed unnoticed by her.

"N-no," replied Hicks. "But I think I'll manage it in time. He's a tight fist, is old Driscoll."

"You will like settling in the old locality, I should think. You are not one of those who are always longing for change just for the sake of change."

"No. In fact, as it is, I hardly like leaving the old place."

"What--not even with Laura?" said Lilian, with a smile.

"Well, of course. But you know, when a fellow has been long on a place like this, and had such a rare good time of it, as I've had, he's bound to cut up a little rough when it comes to leaving it, no matter how."

"Naturally. But one must look forward--not back, unless it is for a pure, strengthening recollection. One might look longingly back from the rough, toilsome ascent of a steep hill into the sunlit, peaceful valley one had rested in behind; then to keep on and on till the ascent was conquered, and an easy road led smoothly down into another restful calm. That is how you must look at life, when things go the reverse of smoothly with you at first--as perhaps they will."

Poor Lilian! Not yet could she realise this herself, and she knew it.

Yet she laid it down in theory to her companion, for he had told her that he liked that sort of talk--that it did him good, in fact--and its remembrance encouraged him when he was inclined to take a gloomy view of things. They had become great friends, those two, thrown together thus by force of circ.u.mstances; and Lilian had never tired of listening to her companion's hopes and fears, any more than he had ever tired of confiding them to her--it must be confessed, with something of wearisome reiteration, the more so that he had found so gentle and sympathetic a listener.

"But I forgot. I must not talk like that, or you will say I'm getting poetic; and 'those poetic fellows do talk awful bosh,'" concluded Lilian, looking up at him with a bright, arch smile.

"Oh, I say! As if I should think anything of the kind!" exclaimed Hicks. "It was I who was talking nonsense. I suppose the firelight makes a fellow get sentimental. The firelight in winter is pretty much what the moonlight is in summer, I suppose."

But the sentimental side of this firelight talk was brought to an end by the entrance of Mr Brathwaite, followed almost immediately by that of his wife.

"Sharp evening!" he said, joining the two on the hearth. "We must expect winter now, at the end of May; and this year it'll be a cold one.

I see there's a little snow on the mountains already--just a sprinkling."

"When shall we have a good fall?" asked Lilian. "The mountains must look perfectly beautiful, all covered, and with such a sun as this upon them. It must be very cold up there."

"Cold? I believe you. I was nearly frozen to death up there myself once. It was some years ago now. I was coming over the Katberg road with a waggon-load of mealies--I and Ben Jackson. He had three waggons.

We were caught in a snowstorm, and had to outspan. Couldn't see ten yards in front of us. Ten yards! Not one; for the wind whirled the powdery stuff into our eyes till we were nearly blinded. It was no joke, I can tell you. There are some lively _krantzes_ about there; and it's the easiest thing in the world to drop a few hundred feet before you know where you are."

"And how did you manage?"

"Well, we outspanned, and tied the oxen to the yokes. We couldn't make a fire, so we turned into our blankets and piled up everything in the way of covering; but that wasn't enough, and I was quite frozen.

Nothing to eat all the time, except a bit of frozen bread to gnaw at.

One of my Kafirs was nearly dead, and thirteen out of sixteen oxen died from cold and starvation. Ben was more unlucky still, and lost two whole spans. Yes, that was a time!"

Then came the lamp and supper.

"You were asking when we should have a good fall?" went on Mr Brathwaite. "The first rains we get here will leave the mountains white as a sugarloaf down to their very foot."

Thus, with many an anecdote and reminiscence, the evening wore on.

Eventually the lights were extinguished in the slumbering house, one by one, till all was dark and silent. And shining upon upland and valley, and upon homestead and fold, cleaving the frosty sky with a broad path of pale incandescence, gleamed the Milky Way, with many a brilliant constellation flashing around its track. Hour follows upon hour, but the calm influences of the peaceful night bring no relief to that broken-hearted woman lying there with her face buried in the pillows, sorrowing as one who is without hope. And every now and then a great anguished sob shook the prostrate form, for a very torrent of long-pent-up grief had come over her this evening, fresh and poignant as on that terrible day when the glories of the radiant summer world were as staring mockeries.

Lilian rose and threw open the door. The cool night air flowed in refreshing waves upon her burning brow, and, oh! how solemnly the golden stars twinkled in the far blue vault as though the eyes of their Creator Himself were visibly looking down upon her woe.

"Come back to me, darling!" she wailed, her br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes fixed on the cold, star-spangled sky. "Only come back. Ah, love! I sent you away from me, drove you away with hard, cruel, bitter words, and now my heart is breaking--breaking. My life is done. I killed it when I sent you away."

A ghostly beam streamed in through the open cas.e.m.e.nt. Above hung the pointed moon, pale, gla.s.sy, and cold.

"My life, my love, come back!" she continued, sinking into a chair by the window, with her hands tightly locked, in the extremity of her anguish. "Come back, and we will never part again, never. I will abjure my word, which I have pledged by a dying bed. I will risk everything. We will never, never part again, no, not for an hour. Only come back. Oh! What am I saying? I shall never see you again.

Perhaps even now you are--dead, and it is I who killed you. Ah, love, my heart is broken! If you are not in life, come and look at me in death--in pale, cold, still death--and take me with you. Only let me look upon you once more!"

The moonbeam crept further along the polished floor, and a puff of air entered. Ah! What was that? Was it a voice--a name--faint, dreamy, more felt than heard--a voice from the awesome, mysterious spirit world?

Quickly Lilian raised her head.

"I thought you would come to me, darling," she murmured, in low, firm tones, as though she had nerved herself for an effort. "I thought you would come to me, even though dead. But let me see you! I can hear your voice. I can hear you call me, once, twice. But, oh! let me see you. Ah--!"

She sat upright and rigid, gazing in front of her. For a form floated upon the shadowy moonlight, seeming to rest everywhere, yet nowhere.

And the features of the rec.u.mbent figure she knew too well--pale, haggard, and drawn as they were.

"Ah, come to me, my love, my life!" she wailed, stretching out her arms in wild entreaty, but the apparition vanished. She rushed to the open window. Only the eyes of a myriad gleaming stars met hers, and a filmy dark cloud pa.s.sed over the moon, veiling it for a moment.

"I have seen his spirit," she exclaimed, pa.s.sionately, her eyes fixed upon the dim horizon. "I have seen him, but he is gone. Ah, Christ!

Thou hast a tender and a pitying heart. Let me see my love again--my sweet lost love!"

Look out into the still night, Lilian. Fix your eyes upon those distant mountain-tops, and then can your gaze travel many hundreds of miles beyond them, you may see--what it is better that you should not see.

Far away on the wild border of Northern Matabililand, night draws on.

In one of a group of neat, circular kraals lying in a hollow between two great mountains, it is evident that something momentous has either happened or is going to happen this evening, for the chief men are standing together in a knot, talking in low tones and with an anxious look upon their grave, dignified faces. From the eastward, a mighty black cloud is rolling up along the rugged, iron-girded heights, and upon the fitful gusts is borne, ever and anon, a low, heavy boom. Down the mountain paths the cattle are wending, the shrill whoop of the children driving them, sounding loud and near, while the chatter of two or three withered crones, gossiping outside one of the domed huts, is strangely, distinct in the brooding atmosphere, hushed as it is before the gathering storm. The shades deepen, and the red fires twinkle out one by one in the gloaming; but still the men keep on their earnest discussion.

"He will die," one of them is saying. "It will bring us ill-luck. The king, when he hears of it, will visit it upon us--he wants to stand well just now with the whites. And if this stranger dies here, he will say it is our fault. Haow!"

And, with true savage philosophy, the speaker and his auditors refresh themselves with a huge pinch of snuff.

"There is a white man living away beyond Intaba Nkulu," says another.

"He might be able to do something to save the stranger."

"No, he is only a trader--not a medicine-man," exclaim two or three more, simultaneously.

A flash; a peal of thunder, loud and long, and one or two large drops of rain. The Matabili start, look upward, and adjourn to carry on their discussion inside a hut; but they are soon interrupted by the entrance of a young Natal native, who, with anxiety and fear on his countenance, cries:

"Mgcekweni--Sikoto--come quick and look. My chief is dying."

With a hurried exclamation the two addressed rise, and, following the speaker, stoop and enter an adjoining hut. Lying on some native blankets on the floor, is the form of a man--an Englishman. A rolled-up mat serves him for a pillow, and he lies tossing about in the wild throes of fever. A saddle and bridle, a waterproof cloak, a gun, and one or two small things are scattered around; a bit of candle stuck in the neck of a bottle, throwing a ghastly flickering light upon the whole, and making the c.o.c.kroaches which swarm in the thatch, glisten like scales.