The Fire Trumpet Part 74

she replies. "But in the former event, it all happened years ago, and the bare word of these people would go for nothing here. The idea is absurd."

"Ha, ha, ha! Really I shall have to retract what I said just now about your having a judicial mind," sneers Truscott. "The bare word of these people would go for just this much here. It would make out a strong _prima facie_ case for the committal of this precious scoundrel--bail refused, of course--pending the making of inquiries and the procuring of more witnesses at Zanzibar, when he would be put upon his trial for piracy--piracy in its worst phase, mind--and murder. What do you think of that, Lilian Strange? In either case a conviction is certain, and in either case with the same result--the rope. So that is the fate in store for our gallows-bird before six months are over--a dance on nothing--and I shall get a pa.s.s to go into the gaol-yard and witness the fun."

He has risen and is standing before her, his features working with a livid rage that is absolutely devilish. Suddenly the full, awful force of the situation sweeps across Lilian's mind, and with a low cry, like that of a stricken animal, and a shrinking motion, she drops her face into her hands.

"Ah, good G.o.d! Spare him!" she moans. "Why will you harm him? _He_ never injured you!"

Heaven help her! She has let down her guard, and the enemy is prompt to rush in over it. From that moment she is completely at his mercy.

"Never injured me? What is she dreaming of? Good heavens! hasn't he robbed me of you--of you? Isn't that enough?" is the harsh, pitiless reply. "Ha, ha! Six months about will do it. It'll be winter then-- June or July. The mornings are cold then. Perhaps, as a last kind act, I'll give the poor wretch a 'nip' out of my flask, before he's swung off, just to keep his spirits up, you know."

"Demon," whispers Lilian, hoa.r.s.ely, gazing at him in set, stony despair.

"I am just what you and he have made me. It is your own doing. You know I was never one of your G.o.dly lot. If a man does me an ill turn I repay it with interest, that is, if I am in a position to do so, which, in this case, fortunately I am. Five o'clock"--glancing at his watch--"I shall just have time to beat up my informant and take him round to the Public Offices before the magistrate goes away, or the Clerk of the Peace will do as well; and by making his deposition this evening we can get a warrant out and save the whole night by it. So you will soon see our friend again, Lilian, sooner than you expected, eh?

Now good-bye for the present. I am sorry you have driven me to this, but--" and he moves towards the door. Before he can reach it, she throws herself in front of him. He cannot leave the room without actual violence.

"Stop! Have you no mercy? No pity--for me--for me whom you once professed to love?" and the clear accents of her voice are wrung with despair--with a sense of her utter helplessness.

"None for _him_. None. Less than none. I _hate_ the man who has robbed me of you. He shall die, and I will go and witness his last struggles."

"No. Spare him, Ralph, spare him! In killing him you will be killing me. Ah, G.o.d! Why was I ever sent into this world? I am the destruction of all whom I would gladly die for!" and she presses her hands tightly upon her temples, and a tremor of hopeless agony shakes the tall, beautiful figure.

Even the heart of that fiend in human shape smites him as he witnesses her awful grief, listens to her wild, despairing accents. But she is playing into his hands now--perfectly. At one time he almost thought the game a lost one, and was about to throw it up, when lo! one false move, and it is entirely his own.

"All whom you would gladly die for," he repeats, echoing her words.

"Would you, then, die for this fellow?"

"G.o.d knows I would--a hundred times over," she wails.

"Well then, listen. I will not require you to do that. What I require you to do is to live for him."

She looks up quickly--her face transformed in wonderment, which is on the point of breaking out into joy. He is relenting.

"I mean, to live for him by living without him. That is the only way in which you can save his life."

Her head droops again, and a shudder runs through her frame at this alternative, and Truscott, watching her, gloats over her anguish, remembering how she defied him at first.

"The conditions are not so hard as they might be," he continues. "I only stipulate that you shall never see him again, never hold another word of communication with him, either orally, on paper, or through a third person, henceforth from this moment. On those conditions I spare his life--otherwise--well, you know the alternative."

"May I not even write him one line of farewell?" she asks, with a look in her dry, tearless eyes that would melt a stone. Her tormentor sees it, and turns his glance away, fearing for his resolution. One word of communication might undo the whole plot. At all costs he must separate them now and for ever. So again he invokes the demon of jealousy to his aid, and goads and lashes himself to his fiend-like work.

"No. I will spare his life, but nothing else. Those are my conditions.

Accept them or not. In three minutes it will be too late," and he stands holding his watch in his hand.

Lilian is beside herself. An awful numbing sense of fatalism creeps over her. Is it to be? Ah, well, she will give her life for his, for this will kill her.

"Well? In another moment it may be too late."

"I give in," she says, in the same dreamy, hopeless tone.

"And you promise to hold no further communication whatever with Arthur Claverton from this day forward?"

"I promise!"

The agony of that moment, as with her own lips she dooms herself and him!

"If I were inclined to be hard, Lilian, I might remind you that you are not wholly superior to the weakness of breaking your promises; but let that pa.s.s. You will find my conditions are not so hard. I only ask that one thing." By-and-by he intended to ask one other thing--and to obtain it, too. For the present she had been tried as much as she was capable of bearing. She would get used to the idea in time, and then, with the same hold on her as he had now, he would s.n.a.t.c.h the prize for which he had risked so much and plotted so wickedly.

"Now I must go. Don't look like that, Lilian," he says in a kinder tone. "You have gained one great object at any rate, and in this world we must be thankful for small mercies. So keep up your spirits."

She makes no answer to this, at best, cruel mockery. She is leaning against the wall, with her hands still clasped over her face. Not a tear falls, her grief is too great for that. He glances uneasily at her again, for he is anxious to get away. He has already been here more than two hours; and it would never do, under the circ.u.mstances, for him to be here still when the Paynes return. Besides, she might faint, and that would still further complicate the situation.

"Good-bye," he repeats. "Remember, now--everything depends on you."

And she is left alone.

How long she stands thus she cannot tell. At length the sound of familiar voices, with many a happy laugh, approaching down the street, warns her of the return of the party, and gaining her room with staggering, uneven steps, she locks herself in, and, throwing herself on the bed, yields herself unrestrained to her terrible, hopeless agony.

"Oh G.o.d!" she prays, "let me die! let me die!" And beneath, the house is filled with merry voices, laughing and talking all at once; and there in the golden eventide, while the soft flush gathers in its purpling suffusion over the western mountains where fades the sun, the riven heart quivers and throbs in its voiceless despair.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

"THERE IS ONE AMONGST US MISSING."

Meanwhile at the seat of war, events were developing. Several weeks had now gone by, during which the rebellion had spread. With the insane fatuity which was luring these people to their destruction, it seemed that to every disaffected tribe hitherto peaceful, the news of a crushing blow sustained by its brethren was the signal for itself to take up arms. There was a lack of cohesion in the enemy's councils and undertakings that was simply incomprehensible. And now Emigrant Tembuland had broken out into revolt, threatening Queenstown; and the Hlambi section of the Gaikas, under the chiefs Ndimba and Seyolo, were making common cause with Sandili in British Kaffraria, while within the colony, the clans under Tini Macomo, from their rugged fastnesses in the Blinkwater forest--famous battle-ground in days gone by--defied the colonial authorities. Yet as each rose in succession, tribe after tribe, it seemed as though in their very half-heartedness, they were fighting against their will.

For several weeks, then, have the colonial forces been occupied in clearing out the Gaika location from end to end by a series of well-arranged patrols--sometimes meeting the wily foe in pitched battle--or as near approaching it as Jack Kafir deems wise to venture-- more often exchanging shots in desultory skirmish, with the result of dispersing the savages after a few of their number had been laid low.

Much cattle has been taken, too--thousands of head--which though an effective deterrent to the enemy aforesaid, is by no means an unmixed blessing to the captors; at least, so say more than one of their leaders. For large numbers of captured cattle in the camp can be nothing less than a nuisance of the first magnitude; leading to confusion and worry, the telling off of a considerable body of men as guards or as escort who might be better employed in the field; and conducive to much friction and irritability among the various native levies, each only too anxious to suspect and accuse the other of quiet purloining from the herds under their charge.

It was only yesterday that Jim Brathwaite, with feelings of intense relief, watched the last of a large herd, as it made its way over the hill under a strong escort, en route for Komgha; and now, with an air of semi-disgust, he is pondering over a despatch which has just arrived, bidding him push forward at once, for that a body of rebels, in considerable force, are known to be on their way through at a point some fifteen miles lower down, to join Sandili in the Perie forest. Not that this is the fact which calls an expression of disgust to the brown face of the dashing and fearless commander; on the contrary. But the sting of the doc.u.ment--like that of the scorpion--is in its tail, and is to the effect that an immense number of cattle are with them, which, can they but be taken, by thus cutting off their resources, a heavy blow will be struck at the concealed foe, even if he is not so seriously crippled as to be compelled to surrender.

"Oh, blazes," growled Jim. "Even the glorious fan of a good old rough-and-tumble--if the beggars stand, that is--is dashed by the certainty of the camp being turned into a cattle-market for the next week or so. Naylor--Claverton, get the men into the saddle at once. No need to take rations. We shall be back to-night or to-morrow at the latest, and, if not, we shall find plenty of beefsteaks down there.

Sharp's the word, or we shall have those lumbering Dutchmen away before us."

The door of the tent is darkened, and one of "those lumbering Dutchmen"

enters--a tall, strong, but awkward-looking man, who, in that way, seems to deserve the slightly contemptuous epithet. It is the Commandant of one of the troops of Dutch Burghers, and he is anxious to confer with Jim anent the despatch he has just received, and of which, by the way, being ignorant of English, he cannot make out one word.

"What have you got to do?" echoes Jim, somewhat impatiently--for he foresees delay. "Why, you've got to hang it all, Arthur--you're good at lingo. Translate the orders to him as sharp as you can."

Gladly the Boer relinquishes the sheet of blue foolscap which he has been turning over and over in his great hands with a pitiably puzzled expression to Claverton, who translates it for the benefit of him and his four "field-captains," who stand round eagerly listening.

"This is what it says," goes on Claverton, having translated the first part, which is in all particulars similar to Jim's. "Your troop must keep on about four miles ahead of us, so as to cut them off from the pa.s.s over yonder. The Fingo levies will also work with it."

"Ja, kaptyn."

"We shall keep on this side and drive them into you," and then followed a few rapid details.

"Ja, kaptyn, ja, ja!"