The Shadow of the Past Part 39

In the farmhouse when they reached it commotion reigned. Leentje Nel was talking in loud excited tones, and two of the children, who were frightened by the noise and whom their mother had slapped soundly in her anger, added their cries to the uproar which greeted Honor's arrival.

Mrs Krige was doing her utmost to restore peace. When Honor entered she found her mother with one wailing child in her arms and another clinging to her skirt, soothing them as best she could, while Leentje held forth bitterly on the pestilential English--the English who had promised to protect them, and who instead had set English magistrates over them to hara.s.s them with fines, and make life intolerable, so that they couldn't flog a native even without having to pay for it in hard cash. Such a state of things could not be endured. The South African Dutch would not submit to being ruled any longer by the pestilential English. The English would be beaten by the Germans, and then South Africa would belong to the Boers.

It struck Honor while she listened as a wholly inadequate and very paltry reason for which to risk valuable lives. It was not any reason at all; it partook rather of the nature of a long-cherished revenge for past wrongs which later events had ceased to justify. Matheson had summed up the situation correctly: the country was governed for the benefit of the white races impartially and for the good of the native community. That state of affairs could not in any event be improved upon.

Leentje turned eagerly as Honor entered, followed by her husband, and, confident of her audience, broke forth anew.

"Here's a pretty letter from Cornelius," she cried, and flourished the paper in Honor's face. "His commando is retreating. They run like buck before the hunter. Naturally they expected the South African Dutch to stand as one man to crush this unholy scandal. When they find through the unG.o.dly policy of Botha that they are opposed to their own people they give way. The men are surrendering, Cornelius says, individually and in small parties. Pah! May the Almighty desert these cowards in their hour of need. May they die and rot and be prey for the jackals.

And those Dutch who won't give up their horses to them, and everything else they possess, may they rot likewise and die miserably. Our men are short of mounts, short of ammunition, short of everything." Her voice rose to a shrill scream. "For years we have been planning this, and when the hour strikes nothing is ready. Every horse on this farm is commandeered. There is only the miserable horse the cursed Englishman brought with him. That must be taken. If you had the courage of Jael, Honor, the Englishman would never leave the rondavel to fight against us."

Swiftly, on an impulse, she turned towards Holman, the fire of inextinguishable hate in her eyes.

"Why don't you shoot this English dog for us? We are only women; but if you won't do this thing, I will."

Holman shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

"You will have the English magistrates after you, Leentje," was all he said, purposely goading her.

She smiled grimly.

"The English magistrates won't frighten me," she said. "They are set over the districts to cow the men."

She folded the letter in her hand and thrust it savagely in her bosom, and stared meaningly at Honor.

"'She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer,'" she quoted softly. "'Blessed shall she be above women in the tent... The mother of Sisera cried through the lattice. Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariot?' ...

There is work here worthy of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite."

Slowly, without speaking, Honor left the room. She pa.s.sed through into the kitchen, and from the kitchen went out into the hot unshaded yard.

For a minute or so she waited, as one who expects to be followed, then, with steps as light and fleet as a fawn's, she sped away in the direction of the rondavel.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

b.u.t.ter Tom was busy outside the rondavel shaking the dust from the skin mats which covered the floor. He glanced up at Honor's approach, and smiled with a cautious deference that concealed his vague distrust of her more effectually than it hid his nervousness. The missis with the face of a lily in the moonlight possessed the cunning of a devil.

Already she had worked evil towards the baas he served. Her appearance now he believed portended further evil. He was afraid of her with the unreasoning fear of a man who realises his inability to resist a superior will. If she commanded him to do a thing, he would do it because he dared not refuse. He likened her to the fleet-footed powers of evil which outdistanced the chameleon, the tardy messenger of the G.o.ds, who failed through its dilatoriness to deliver the World from the ills which afflict mankind. She came towards him swiftly, as evil travels, with the speed of the wind, and halted beside him, warmly flushed and panting for breath. b.u.t.ter Tom gathered up his mats, and, grinning nervously, prepared to retreat with them; but Honor stayed him with a gesture.

"Put those down," she said authoritatively, "and go to the stable quickly, and fetch out the old spider which Baas Herman uses. Inspan Baas Matheson's horse without loss of time. The baas will drive to the town, and you will drive him there and bring the spider back. Do you understand?"

"Ja, missis. Me take the mats inside, then me go."

For a second it seemed as though she would not permit this delay; then with another gesture she signified her consent to the disposal of the mats, but bade him be quick as she would wait for him.

b.u.t.ter Tom retired within, and spread his mats carefully on the floor.

The baas was attempting to shave himself with the razor grasped in his left hand, and was making a sorry business of it. He looked round at b.u.t.ter Tom's entrance to inquire who it was he had heard talking outside the hut.

"Young missis will send b.u.t.ter Tom to the stable," the Kaffir vouchsafed, with an appealing look at the baas in the hope that the latter would raise some objection to his obeying the strange behest.

But the baas, letting the razor fall, and receiving it without comment from the dark hand which hastily forestalled his request by returning it to him, merely said:

"If the young missis wants you, go at once."

Then he resumed the business of shaving himself with a hand considerably less steady than before. What need had Honor for employing Nel's servant? And why had she returned?

As if in answer to his unspoken questions. Honor entered the rondavel, having satisfied herself that b.u.t.ter Tom had departed to do her bidding.

She entered with a certain hesitation, and seeing Matheson's occupation, advanced with greater a.s.surance and took the razor from his unresisting hand.

"There isn't any time for this," she said. "You can get this done in the town. In a few minutes b.u.t.ter Tom will have the spider ready. It's a long drive for one horse, but you must do it, and you must start at once."

"But why?" he asked, amazed. "It is early. Half an hour can't make much difference anyway; and I look such a ruffian."

She closed the razor with a snap. As she did so Leentje's words recurred to her with a new and more sinister meaning. "She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer." ... A razor was quite as effective a weapon as a hammer in the hand of jael.

Quickly she returned the razor to him, contemplating him with thoughtful anxious eyes. Instinctively she knew that she must not apprise him of his danger. He would not flee before a German, nor even from a modern Jael.

"There is no time to lose," she said. "They might raise objections to my lending the spider. I am giving you the only chance of a conveyance.

If you don't take it now you will have to wait until you can ride into town; and quite possibly your horse will be commandeered. All the horses on the farm have been taken."

"Nel's horses--yes," he said. "But they can't take mine."

"They won't ask your permission," she answered. "Please do as I ask you. The spider belongs to Herman; you need not scruple to use it.

b.u.t.ter Tom will drive you... Reward him well; he will possibly be blamed when he returns."

She did not think it necessary to inform him that b.u.t.ter Tom would most probably be flogged for obeying her orders. Holman would wreak his vengeance on the Kaffir because he would not dare to reproach her. She had known him flog a Kaffir before; it was his method of enforcing a discipline he could not otherwise maintain.

"But such haste partakes of the nature of flight," he objected. "I don't really see the need for it."

"You wanted to get away before," she reminded him. "You asked me to help you. This is the only way in which I can help. If you delay it will be embarra.s.sing for me. You are well enough to travel, aren't you?"

Again she scrutinised him closely, with renewed anxiety in her gaze. He did not look equal to a great deal of fatigue. Never before had he felt so painfully conscious of weakness; but he made light of it.

"I'll be all right," he said. "It isn't that... Of course, if you think it best, I am ready to start at once."

Her relief at his compliance was manifest. She was nervous and unstrung, and the sudden reaction shook her fort.i.tude. She turned her face aside to hide its emotion from him; but he saw the tears in her eyes, and was immensely disconcerted at the sight of this distress which he failed altogether to understand. He advanced a few paces towards her, hesitated, and stood irresolute, regarding her with an exasperated sense of his own inadequacy.

"I say!" he said awkwardly. "Don't! ... Please, don't... I'm awfully sorry that my presence has so upset you. I'll go. I'll go at once, Honor." Then a doubt crept into his mind. He approached quite close to her and put out a hand and touched her sleeve. "You want me to go?" he asked.

"Yes," she cried quickly--"yes... Of course." She moved away. "Drive straight for the town," she added. "And don't spare the horse."

Without once looking at him she left the rondavel, hiding her tear-wet face from him, and hurrying away in the sunshine with steps as fleet as those she had used in coming, but followed a less direct route for the purpose of allaying suspicion as to where she had been in the event of meeting any one on the way back. She had done her utmost for him; his safety was now his own affair.

Matheson remained for a while inactive, watching her retreating figure.

He followed her to the doorway, and stood in the brilliant sunshine, looking after her, as she sped away with never a backward glance, the gold of the sunlight upon her and the morning wind ruffling her hair.

Innumerable doubts troubled him while he stood there, doubts which she had set fermenting in his brain. She was not happy. The change in her was very marked. When he had first met her she had been afire with enthusiasm and eager interest in life; now she was a woman, grave and thoughtful, on whom cares and responsibilities pressed heavily. She had sold her birthright of joy, sacrificing it to a long-cherished dream of vengeance; and already she was discovering how unsatisfying was the bargain she had made. Nel was right. There was a predestination in these matters beyond human control.

A sense of utter futility gripped Matheson, a sort of sick disappointment more distressing than physical nausea. His pa.s.sion for Honor a.s.sumed a new significance: it became less personal--more of a formal worship of beauty for beauty's sake than the love of man for woman for simple and primitive ends. He realised that temperamentally they were entirely opposed, as the north wind is opposed to the south, the east to the west. In no circ.u.mstance could they have mated with felicitous results. He had loved her beauty and the quick fire of her imagination; she had attracted him as the fierce untamed land she loved attracted him, by reason of its untrammelled freedom, its unconquerable savagery and beauty. But these qualities do not make for the sublime happiness of domestic peace. The human need demands something more satisfying than pa.s.sionate discords in its relations with life. A man may enjoy climbing to exalted alt.i.tudes; but he lives preferably in the valleys among quiet and orderly things.

It seemed to Matheson that he saw life clearly for the first time. He was regarding things from the detached standpoint of an unbia.s.sed onlooker--regarding himself, as a person takes note of some acquaintance and determines his place in the scheme of the universe. He had a place, quite unimportant and prosaic, but with certain clearly defined duties and work to perform. Always he came back to that. There was work for him to do--work for every one. He had been idling in the backwaters of good intentions long enough. Too often a man idles away his best years in dreaming, and overcrowds his middle age with much that might have been accomplished during his youth. Youth is the period for activities; and most surely is youth the time for marriage--useful marriage for the raising and rearing of healthy and beautiful children.

Then, breaking in sharply upon his musings, came the sound of wheels and the noise of b.u.t.ter Tom's guttural exhortations to the recalcitrant bony horse which Matheson had hired at De Aar, and which, accustomed to the saddle, displayed mule-like tendencies between the shafts. b.u.t.ter Tom sawed at the reins and swore at it in Kaffir, while Matheson looked on with apathetic indifference, thinking drearily of the long drive before him in the heat, with his wounded shoulder and the useless right arm for which Honor had improvised a sling from a scarf of her own.