The Top of the World Part 45

Then there have been several bad _veldt_-fires over to the north.

It isn't only sand that's coming along. It's cinders too. We've got to take steps to protect the fodder, or we're done. It's just the way of this country. A single night may bring ruin."

He spoke with such unwonted bitterness that Sylvia was aroused out of her own depression. She had never known him take so pessimistic a view before. With an impulsiveness that was warm and very womanly, she left her task and went to him.

"Oh, Burke!" she said. "But the worst doesn't happen, does it?

Anyway not often!"

He made an odd sound that was like a laugh choked at birth. "Not often," he agreed. And then abruptly, straightening himself, "Suppose it did,--what then?"

"What then?" She looked at him for a moment, still feeling curiously unsure of her ground. "Well, we'd weather it somehow, partner," she said, and held out her hand to him with a little quivering smile.

He made no movement to take her hand. Perhaps he had already heard what a few seconds later reached her own ears,--the sound of Guy's feet upon the _stoep_ outside the window. But during those seconds his eyes dwelt upon her, holding her own with a fixed intentness that somehow made her feel cold. It was an unspeakable relief to her when he turned them from her, as it were setting her free.

Guy came in with something of his old free swing, and closed the window behind him. "Better to stew than to eat sand," he remarked.

"I've just heard from one of the Kaffirs that Piet Vreiboom's land is on fire."

"What?" said Burke sharply.

"It's all right at present," said Guy. "We can bear it with equanimity. The wind is the other way."

"The wind may change," said Burke.

"That wouldn't be like your luck," remarked Guy, as he seated himself.

They partook of the meal almost in silence. To Sylvia the very air was laden with foreboding. Everything they ate was finely powered with sand, but she alone was apparently aware of the fact. The heat inside the bungalow was intense. Outside a fierce wind had begun to blow, and the sky was dark.

At the end of a very few minutes Burke arose. Guy sprang instantly to his feet.

"Are you off? I'm coming!"

"No--no," Burke said shortly. "Stay where you are!"

"I tell you I'm coming," said Guy, pushing aside his chair.

Burke, already ac the door, paused and looked at him. "Better not," he said. "You're not up to it--and this infernal sand----"

"d.a.m.n the sand!" said Guy, with vehemence. "I'm coming!"

He reached Burke with the words. His hand sought the door. Burke swallowed the rest of his remonstrance.

"Please yourself!" he said, with a shadowy smile; and then for a moment his eyes went to Sylvia. "You will stay in this afternoon,"

he said.

It was a definite command, and she had no thought of defying it.

But the tone in which it was uttered hurt her.

"I suppose I shall do as I am told," she said, in a low voice.

He let Guy go and returned to her. He bent swiftly down over her and dropped a small key into her lap. "I leave you in charge of all that I possess," he said. "Good-bye!"

She looked up at him quickly. "Burke!" she stammered. Burke!

There is no--danger?"

"Probably not of the sort you mean," he answered. And then suddenly his arms were round her. He held her close and hard. For a second she felt the strong beat of his heart, and then forgot it in an overwhelming rush of emotion that so possessed her as almost to deprive her of her senses. For he kissed her--he kissed her--and his kiss was as the branding of a hot iron. It seemed to burn her to the soul.

The next moment she was free; the door closed behind him, and she was alone. She sank down over the table, quivering all over. Her pulses were racing, her nerves in a wild tumult. She believed that the memory of that scorching kiss would tingle upon her lips for ever. It was as if an electric current had suddenly entered her inner-most being and now ran riot in every vein. And so wild was the tumult within her that she knew not whether dread or dismay or a frantic, surging, leaping thing that seemed to cry aloud for liberty were first in that mad race. She clasped her hands very tightly over her face, struggling to master those inner forces that fought within her. Never in her life had so fierce a conflict torn her. Soul and body, she seemed to be striving with an adversary who pierced her at every turn. He had kissed her thus; and in that unutterable moment he had opened her eyes, confronting her with an amazing truth from which she could not turn aside. Pa.s.sion and a fierce and terrible jealousy had mingled in his kiss, anger also, and a menacing resentment that seemed to encompa.s.s her like a fiery ring, hedging her round.

But not love! There had been no love in his kiss. It had been an outrage of love, and it had wounded her to the heart. It had made her want to hide--to hide--till the first poignancy of the pain should be past. And yet--and yet--in all her anguish she knew that the way which Guy had so recklessly suggested was no way of escape for her. To flee from him was to court disaster--such disaster as would for ever wreck her chance of happiness. It could but confirm the evil doubt he harboured and might lead to such a catastrophe as she would not even contemplate.

But yet some way of escape there must be, and desperately she sought it, striving in defence of that nameless thing that had sprung to such wild life within her under the burning pressure of his lips, that strange and untamed force that she could neither bind nor subdue, but which to suffer him to behold meant sacrilege to her shrinking soul--such sacrilege as she believed she could never face and live.

Gradually the turmoil subsided, but it left her weak, inert, impotent. The impulse to pray came to her, but the prayer that went up from her trembling heart was voiceless and wordless. She had no means of expression in which to cloak her utter need. Only the stark helplessness of her whole being cried dumbly for deliverance.

A long time pa.s.sed. The bungalow was silent and empty. She was quite alone. She could hear the rising rush of the wind across the _veldt_, and it sounded to her like a thing hunted and fleeing.

The sand of the desert whipped against the windows, and the gloom increased. She was not naturally nervous, but a sense of fear oppressed her. She had that fateful feeling, which sometimes comes even in the sunshine, of something about to happen, of turning a sharp corner in the road of life that must change the whole outlook and trend of existence. She was afraid to look forward. For the first time life had become terrible to her.

She roused herself to action at last and got up from the table.

Something fell on the ground as she did so. It was the key that Burke had given into her care. She knew it for the key of his strong-box in which he kept his money and papers. His journeys to Brennerstadt were never frequent, and she knew that he usually kept a considerable sum by him. The box was kept on the floor of the cupboard in the wall of the room which Guy now occupied. It was very heavy, so heavy that Burke himself never lifted it, seldom moved it from its place, but opened and closed it as it stood. She wondered as she groped for the key why he had given it to her.

That action of his pointed to but one conclusion. He expected to be going into danger. He would not have parted with it otherwise.

Of that she was certain. He and Guy were both going into danger then, and she was left in utter solitude to endure her suspense as best she could.

She searched in vain for the key. It was small and made to fit a patent lock. The darkness of the room baffled her search, and at last she abandoned it and went to the pantry for a lamp. The Kaffirs had gone to their huts. She found the lamp empty and untrimmed in a corner, with two others in the same condition. The oil was kept in an outbuilding some distance from the bungalow, and there was none in hand. She diverted her search to candles, but these also were hard to find. She spent several minutes there in the darkness with the wind howling weirdly around like a lost thing seeking shelter, and the sand beating against the little window with a persistent rattle that worried her nerves with a strange bewilderment.

Eventually she found an empty candlestick, and after prolonged search an end of candle. Sand was everywhere. It ground under her feet, and made gritty everything she touched. Was it fancy that brought to her the smell of burning, recalling Burke's words? She found herself shivering violently as she went to her own room for matches.

It was while she was here that there came to her above the roar of the wind a sudden sound that made her start and listen. Someone was knocking violently, almost battering, at the door that led into the pa.s.sage.

Her heart gave a wild leap within her. Somehow--she knew not wherefore--her thoughts went to Kieff. She had a curiously strong feeling that he was, if not actually at the door, not far away.

Then, even while she stood with caught breath listening, the door burst open and a blast of wind and sand came hurling into the house. It banged shut again instantly, and there followed a tramping of feet as if a herd of cattle had entered. Then there came a voice.

"d.a.m.nation!" it said, with vigour. "d.a.m.nation! It's a h.e.l.l of a country, and myself was the benighted fool ever to come near it at all. Whist to it now! Anyone would think the devil himself was trying for admittance."

Very strangely that voice rea.s.sured Sylvia though she had never heard it before in her life. It did more; it sent such a rush of relief through her that she nearly laughed aloud.

She groped her way out into the pa.s.sage, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from her. "Come in, whoever you are!" she said. "It is rather infernal certainly. I'll light a candle in a moment--as soon as I can find some matches."

She saw a dim, broad figure standing in front of her and heard a long, soft whistle of dismay.

"I beg your pardon, madam," said the voice that had spoken such hearty invective a few seconds before. "Sure, I had no idea I was overheard. And I hope that I'll not have prejudiced you at all with the violence of me language. But it's in the air of the country, so to speak. And we all come to it in time. If it's a match that you're wanting, I've got one in my pocket this minute which I'll hand over with all the good will in the world if you'll do me the favour to wait."

Sylvia waited. She knew the sort of face that went with that voice, and it did not surprise her when the red Irish visage and sandy brows beamed upon her above the flickering candle. The laugh she had repressed a moment before rose to her lips. There was something so comic in this man's appearance just when she had been strung up for tragedy.

He looked at her with the eyes of a child, smiling good-humouredly at her mirth. "Sure, you're putting the joke on me," he said.

"They all do it. Where can I have strayed to? Is this a fairy palace suddenly sprung up in the desert, and you the Queen of No Man's Land come down from your mountain-top to give me shelter?"

She shook her head, still laughing, "No, I've never been to the mountain-top. I'm only a farmer's wife."

"A farmer's wife!" He regarded her with quizzical curiosity for a s.p.a.ce. "Is it Burke's bride that you are?" he questioned. "And is it Burke Ranger's farm that I've blundered into after all?"