The Judgment House Part 63

"I heard his last words about you and--her," she said in a low voice.

"Where is Byng?" he asked anxiously.

"In the kloof near by. He will be back presently."

"Thank G.o.d!"

Al'mah's face was anxious. "I don't know what you are going to say to him, or why you have come," she said, "but--"

"I have come to congratulate him on his recovery."

"I understand. I want to say some things to you. You should know them before you see him. There is the matter of Adrian Fellowes."

"What about Adrian Fellowes?" Stafford asked evenly, yet he felt his heart give a bound and his brain throb.

"Does it matter to you now? At the inquest you were--concerned."

"I am more concerned now," he rejoined huskily.

He suddenly held out a hand to her with a smile of rare friendliness.

There came over him again the feeling he had at the hospital when they talked together last, that whatever might come of all the tragedy and sorrow around them they two must face irretrievable loss.

She hesitated a moment, and then as she took his outstretched hand she said, "Yes, I will take it while I can."

Her eyes went slowly round the room as though looking for something--some point where they might rest and gather courage maybe, then they steadied to his firmly.

"You knew Adrian Fellowes did not die a natural death--I saw that at the inquest."

"Yes, I knew."

"It was a poisoned needle."

"I know. I found the needle."

"Ah! I threw it down afterwards. I forgot about it."

Slowly the colour left Stafford's face, as the light of revelation broke in upon his brain. Why had he never suspected her? His brain was buzzing with sounds which came from inner voices--voices of old thoughts and imaginings, like little beings in a dark forest hovering on the march of the discoverer. She was speaking, but her voice seemed to come through a clouded medium from a great distance to him.

"He had hurt me more than any other--than my husband or her. I did it.

I would do it again.... I had been good to him.... I had suffered, I wanted something for all I had lost, and he was ..."

Her voice trailed away into nothing, then rose again presently. "I am not sorry. Perhaps you wonder at that. But no, I do not hate myself for it--only for all that went before it. I will pay, if I have to pay, in my own way.... Thousands of women die who are killed by hands that carry no weapon. They die of misery and shame and regret.... This one man died because ..."

He did not hear, or if he heard he did not realize what she was saying now. One thought was ringing through his mind like bells pealing. The gulf of horrible suspicion between Rudyard and Jasmine was closed. So long as it yawned, so long as there was between them the accounting for Adrian Fellowes' death, they might have come together, but there would always have been a black shadow between--the shadow that hangs over the scaffold.

"They should know the truth," he said almost peremptorily.

"They both know," she rejoined calmly. "I told him this evening. On the day I saw you at the hospital, I told her."

There was silence for a moment, and then he said: "She must come here before he joins his regiment."

"I saw her last night at the hospital," Al'mah answered. "She was better. She was preparing to go to Durban. I did not ask her if she was coming, but I was sure she was not. So, just now, before you came, I sent a message to her. It will bring her.... It does not matter what a woman like me does."

"What did you say to her?"

"I wrote, 'If you wish to see him before the end, come quickly.' She will think he is dying."

"If she resents the subterfuge?"

"Risks must be taken. If he goes without their meeting--who can tell!

Now is the time--now. I want to see it. It must be."

He reached out both hands and took hers, while she grew pale. Her eyes had a strange childishly frightened look.

"You are a good woman, Al'mah," he said.

A quivering, ironical laugh burst from her lips. Then, suddenly, her eyes were suffused.

"The world would call it the New Goodness then," she replied in a voice which told how deep was the well of misery in her being.

"It is as old as Allah," he replied.

"Or as old as Cain?" she responded, then added quickly, "Hush! He is coming."

An instant afterwards she was outside among the peach trees, and Rudyard and Stafford faced each other in the room she had just left.

As Al'mah stood looking into the quivering light upon the veld, her fingers thrust among the blossoms of a tree which bent over her, she heard horses' hoofs, and presently there came round the corner of the house two mounted soldiers who had brought Krool to Brinkwort's Farm.

Their prisoner was secured to a stirrup-leather, and the neckcloth was still binding his mouth.

As they pa.s.sed, Krool turned towards the house, eyes showing like flames under the khaki trooper's hat, which added fresh incongruity to the frock-coat and the huge top-boots.

The guard were now returning to their post at the door-way.

"What has happened?" she asked, with a gesture towards the departing Krool.

"A bit o' lip to Colonel Stafford, ma'am," answered one of the guard.

"He's got a tongue like a tanner's vat, that goozer. Wants a lump o'

lead in 'is baskit 'e does."

"'E done a good turn at Hetmeyer's Kopje," added the Second. "If it hadn't been for 'im the S.A.'s would have had a new Colonel"--he jerked his head towards the house, from which came the murmur of men's voices talking earnestly.

"Whatever 'e done it for, it was slim, you can stake a tidy lot on that, ma'am," interjected the First. "He's the bottom o' the sink, this half-caste Boojer is."

The Second continued: "If I 'ad my way 'e'd be put in front at the next push-up, just where the mausers of his pals would get 'im. 'E's done a lot o' bitin' in 'is time--let 'im bite the dust now, I sez. I'm fair sick of treatin' that lot as if they was square fighters. Why, 'e'd fire on a nurse or an ambulanche, that tyke would."

"There's lots like him in yonder," urged the First, as a hand was jerked forward towards the hills, "and we're goin' to get 'em this time--goin' to get 'em on the shovel. Their schanses and their kranzes and their ant-bear dugouts ain't goin' to help them this mop-up. We're goin' to get the tongue in the hole o' the buckle this time. It's over the hills and far away, and the Come-in-Elizas won't stop us. When the howitzers with their nice little b.a.l.l.s of lyddite physic get opening their bouquets to-morrow--"

"Who says to-morrow?" demanded the Second.