The Outspan Part 16

Later in the evening he said:

"I don't really mind so much now that I know. It was the suspense that worried me." And, after a pause, he added in a voice that seemed to let you _hear_ his heart lifting: "I'll be able to tackle work again soon, and will be all right again."

"That was the only allusion," Mrs Mallandane said, "that he ever made to his disfigurement. I believe it was out of delicacy and consideration for my feelings that he never spoke about it. You could not even see that he ever thought of it, for he had that splendid manliness that doesn't know what self-consciousness means.

"Only one thing showed unmistakably that he did feel it, and that he felt he was dead to all the promise of his past. You must have remarked his manner of speech?" she observed, turning to me. "He spoke like a working man. _That_ was his only shield. He deliberately sank himself to that level to be spared the prominence and pity that would be given him as a gentleman. It was his hope to pa.s.s through life unnoticed.

With me, and with me only, he had no disguise, no concealment, no reserve!"

He used always to talk of their affairs as one and the same, in order to keep up the illusion he had encouraged in her from the beginning when he had told her very seriously that "it would never do to liquidate the firm's business now. It would mean sacrificing _everything_." She agreed to do whatever he thought right; and at the end of every month he used to hand to her, scrupulously accounted for, a sum greater or less, according to "the firm's profits for the month."

From his own "profits" he always managed to have something--no matter how little--to spend on Molly, who was his pet and companion always.

The proceeds of the sale of house and furniture--when they had to be given up--were handed over to Mrs Mallandane "for a stand-by," and she went into lodgings because she "would feel more comfortable and have more time to give to Molly there,"--not because he was watchful over her good name and would not stay in the house once he was well enough to walk alone.

When Ca.s.sidy extended the firm's "business"--that is to say, went to the Cape Colony, Natal, and Transvaal, in search of contracts on the various railway lines--he continued to remit the "profits" with the most elaborate statements, which Mrs Mallandane, as a partner, felt bound to study, and, as a woman, often wept over in despair.

This had gone on for several years, and it was not until after she had gone to Barberton, "to be near the business," that something had made her suspicious that the joint capital locked up in the business was all a generous imposition.

"It only needed the suggestion," said Mrs Mallandane, "to show me an appalling chain of evidence--evidence of his generosity and patient tactful help--evidence of my blind content and foolishness. I spoke to him when next he came in. He could see that I knew, and he simply said that 'Ralph would have done the same for him.' G.o.d forgive me! He gave up his life to me! He suffered living death for me! He lived when it would have been a million mercies to have died. He bore all that man could bear and never grudged it. And I--I cut his heart in two when I refused his help! I know it! I wished I had died before I got the look he gave me when I told him that I could not take his help. Month after month went by and he did not come to me--he, who used to be here on the first day of every month. But I knew he was near. Twice I saw him pa.s.sing slowly by at night when he had come to watch over us. The first time I was too surprised to call. The second time I called him and he came to me. He stayed until late that evening; and he went away happy again because we registered our second compact: that if we (Molly and I) were ever in real need I would send for him; that if he were sick or in need of friends the privilege of friends should be ours."

She stopped for quite a while, and when she spoke again her voice trembled and it was all she could do to control it so that she could speak at all. I could not bear to look in her face.

"You two have seen him," she said, and, turning to me, added, "You have known him. I have liked to tell you all about him; and I like to tell you now that I know he loved me--that I think it is the greatest honour a woman can have to be loved by such a man: for not any woman that I have ever known, or heard of, or read of, was good enough for him!"

She left the room for a moment, and returning laid something on the table before us, saying:

"You remember him as you saw him. Try--try to think of him as I do-- like _this_! It is all you can do for the memory of a good and honourable man."

It was the photograph I had seen in her book the day I left to bring him in.

All those things happened some years ago.

Out on the gra.s.s there, in front of my window, there is a little girl trying to dissuade a very small boy from pulling the black ear off an old white bulldog; but the fat little fists keep their grip, and as he staggers under the effort the little chap says:

"Molly mus' pull Danl Conn! olla ear! _Make_ him det up!"

Watching them with the brightest, merriest smile in the world, and looking years younger than when I first saw her, Mrs--

But if I mentioned her name this would not be an anonymous story.

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE POOL.

Everyone remembers the rush to De Kaap some years ago. How everyone said that everyone else would make fortunes in half no time, and the country would be saved! Well, my brother Jim and I thought we would like to make fortunes too; so we packed our boxes, donned flannel shirts, felt hats and moleskin trousers, with a revolver each carelessly slung at our sides, and started. We intended to dig for about a year or so, and then sell out and live on the interest of our money--30,000 pounds each would do. It was all cut and dried. I often almost wished it wasn't so certain, as now one hadn't a chance of coming back suddenly and _surprising_ the loved ones at home with the news of a grand fortune.

Full of excitement (certainties notwithstanding) we went down to Kent's Forwarding Store, and there met Mr Harding, whose waggons were loaded for the gold-fields. This was our chance, and we took it.

On November 10, 1883, we crossed Little Sunday's River and outspanned at the foot of Knight's Cutting. The day was close and sultry, and Harding thought it best to lie by until the cool of the evening before attempting the hill. It wasn't much of a cool evening we got after all; except that we had not the scorching rays of the sun beating down upon us, it was no cooler at 10 p.m. than at mid-day. We were outspanned above the cutting, and the oppressive heat of the day and the sultriness of the evening seemed to have told on our party, and we were all squatted about on the long soft gra.s.s, smoking or thinking. Besides my brother and myself there were two young Scotchmen (just out from home) and a little Frenchman. He was a general favourite on account of his inexhaustible good-nature and unflagging high spirits.

We were, as I have said, stretched out on the gra.s.s smoking in silence, watching the puffs and rings of smoke melt quietly away, so still was the air. How long we had lain thus I don't know, but I was the first to break the silence by exclaiming:

"What a grand night for a bathe!"

There was no reply to this for some seconds, and then Jim gave an apathetic grunt in courteous recognition of the fact that I had spoken.

I subsided again, and there was another long silence--evidently no one wanted to talk; but I had become restless and fidgety under the heat and stillness, and presently I returned to the charge.

"Who's for a bathe?" I asked.

Someone grunted out something about "no place."

"Oh yes, there is," said I, glad of even so much encouragement; and then, turning to Harding, I said:

"I hear the water in the kloof. There is a place, isn't there?"

"Yes," he answered slowly, "there is _one_ place, but you wouldn't care to dip there... It's the Murderer's Pool."

"The what?" we asked in a breath.

"The Murderer's Pool," he repeated with such slow seriousness that we at once became interested--the name sent an odd tingle through one. I was already all attention, and during the pause that followed the others closed around and settled themselves to hear the yarn. When he had tantalised us enough with his provoking slowness, Harding began:

"About this time last year--By-the-by, what is the date?" he asked, breaking off.

"The tenth!" exclaimed two or three together.

"By Jove! it's the very day. Yes, that's queer. This very day last year I was outspanned on this spot, as we are now. I had a lady and gentleman with me as pa.s.sengers that trip. They were pleasant, accommodating people, and gave us no trouble at all; they used to spend all their time botanising and sketching. On this afternoon Mrs Allan went down to the ravine below to sketch some peculiar bit of rock scenery. I think all ladies sketch when they travel, some more and some less. But Mrs Allan could sketch and paint really well, and often went off alone short distances while her husband stayed to chat with me. She had been gone about twenty minutes when we were startled by a most awful piercing shriek--another, another, and another--and then all was still again. Before the first had died away Allan and I were running at full speed towards where we judged the shrieks to have come from.

Fortunately we were right. Down there, a bit to the right, we came upon a fair-sized pool, on the surface of which Mrs Allan was still floating. In a few seconds we had her out and were trying restoratives; and on detecting signs of returning life we carried her up to the waggons. When she became conscious she started up with oh! such a look of horror and fright. I'll never forget it! Seeing her husband, however, and holding his hand, she became calm again, and told us all about it.

"It seems she had been sitting by the side of the stream sketching the pool and the great perpendicular cliff rising out of it. The sunlight was playing on the water, silvering every ripple, and bringing out every detail of the rocks and foliage above. Feathery mosses festooned from cliff to cliff; maidenhair ferns cl.u.s.tered in every nook and crevice; the drops on every leaf and tendril glistened in the setting sun like a thousand diamonds. That's what she told us.

"She sat a few minutes before beginning, watching the varying shades and hues, when, glancing idly into the water, she saw deep, deep down, a sight that horrified her.

"On the rocks at the bottom of the pool lay the body of a gigantic Kaffir, his throat cut from ear to ear, and the white teeth gleaming and grinning at her.

"Instinctively she screamed and ran, and in trying to pa.s.s along the narrow ledge she slipped and fell into the water. Had her clothes not buoyed her up she would have been drowned, as when the cold water closed round her it seemed like the clasp of death, and she lost consciousness."

"Well, what about the n.i.g.g.e.r?" I asked, for Harding had stopped with the air of one whose tale was told.

"Oh, he was dead right enough--throat cut and a.s.segai through the heart.

A fight, I expect."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Raked him out and planted him up here somewhere. Let's see--yes, that's the place,"--indicating the pile of stones my brother was sitting on.

Jim got up hurriedly; perhaps, as he said, he wanted to look at the place. Yet there was a general laugh at him.

"Did you think he had you, Jim?" I asked innocently.