Tween Snow and Fire Part 10

Eanswyth was in favour of the latter plan. And, seated there in the shade of a great acacia, the rich summer morning sped by in a golden dream. The fair panorama of distant hills and wooded kloofs; the radiant sunlight upon the wide sweep of mimosa-dotted plains, shimmering into many a fantastic mirage in the glowing heat; the call of bird voices in the adjacent brake, and the continuous chirrup of crickets; the full, warm glow of the sensuous air, rich, permeating, life-giving; here indeed was a very Eden. Thus the golden morning sped swiftly by.

But how was it all to end? That was the black drop clouding the sparkling cup--that was the trail of the serpent across that sunny Eden.

And yet not, for it may be that this very rift but served only to enhance the intoxicating, thrilling delights of the present--that this idyl of happiness, unlawful alike in the sight of G.o.d or man, was a hundredfold sweetened by the sad vein of undercurrent running through it--even the consciousness that it was not to last. For do we not, in the weak contrariety of our mortal natures, value a thing in exact proportion to the precariousness of our tenure!

Come good, come ill, never would either of them forget that day: short, golden, idyllic.

"Guess how long we have been sitting here!" said Eanswyth at last, with a rapid glance at her watch. "No--don't look," she added hurriedly, "I want you to _guess_."

"About half an hour, it seems. But I suppose it must be more than that."

"Exactly two hours and ten minutes."

"Two hours and ten minutes of our last peaceful day together--gone. Of our first and our last day together."

"Why do you say our last, dear?" she murmured, toying with his hair.

His head lay on her lap, his blue eyes gazing up into her large grey ones.

"Because, as I told you, I have a strong inkling that way--at any rate, for some time to come. It is wholly lamentable, but, I'm afraid, inevitable."

She bent her head--her beautiful stately head--drooped her lips to his and kissed them pa.s.sionately.

"Eustace, Eustace, my darling--my very life! Why do I love you like this!"

"Because you can't help it, my sweet one!" he answered, returning her kisses with an ardour equalling her own.

"Why did I give way so soon? Why did I give way at all? As you say, because I couldn't help it--because--in short, because it was _you_.

You drew me out of myself--you forced me to love you, forced me to.

Ah-h! and how I love you!"

The quiver in her tones would not be entirely suppressed. Even he had hardly suspected the full force of pa.s.sion latent within this woman, only awaiting the magic touch to blaze forth into bright flame. And his had been the touch which had enkindled it.

"You have brought more than a Paradise into my life," he replied, his glance holding hers as he looked up into her radiant eyes. "Tell me, did you never suspect, all these months, that I only _lived_ when in the halo-influence of your presence?"

"I knew it."

"You knew it?"

"Of course I did," she answered with a joyous laugh, taking his face between her hands and kissing it again. "I should have been no woman if I had not. But, I have kept my secret better than you. Yes, my secret.

I have been battling against your influence far harder than you have against mine, and you have conquered." He started, and a look of something like dismay came into his face.

"If that is so, you witching enchantress, why did you not lift me out of my torment long ago," he said. "But the worst is this. Just think what opportunities we have missed, what a long time we have wasted which might have been--Heaven."

"Yet, even then, it may be better as things have turned out. My love-- my star--I could die with happiness at this moment. But," and then to the quiver of joy in her voice succeeded an intonation of sadness, "but--I suppose this world does not contain a more wicked woman than myself. Tell me, Eustace," she went on, checking whatever remark he might have been about to make, "tell me what you think. Shall we not one day be called upon to suffer in tears and bitterness for this entrancingly happy flood of sunshine upon our lives now?"

"That is an odd question, and a thoroughly characteristic one," he replied slowly. "Unfortunately all the events of life, as well as the laws of Nature, go to bear out the opinions of the theologians.

Everything must be paid for, and from this rule there is no escape.

Everything, therefore, resolves itself into a mere question of price-- e.g., Is the debt incurred worth the huge compound interest likely to be exacted upon it in the far or near future? Now apply this to the present case. Do you follow me?"

"Perfectly. If our love is wrong--wicked--we shall be called upon to suffer for it sooner or later?"

"That is precisely my meaning. I will go further. The term `poetic justice' is, I firmly believe, more than a mere idiom. If we are doing wrong through love for each other we shall have to expiate it at some future time. We shall be made to suffer _through_ each other. Now, Eanswyth, what do you say to that?"

"I say, amen. I say that the future can take care of itself, that I defy it--no--wait!--not that. But I say that if this delirious, entrancing happiness is wrong, I would rather brave torments a thousand-fold, than yield up one iota of it," she answered, her eyes beaming into his, and with a sort of proud, defiant ring in her voice, as if throwing down the gage to all power, human or divine, to come between them.

"I say the same--my life!" was his reply.

Thus the bargain was sealed--ratified. Thus was the glove hurled down for Fate to take up, if it would. The time was coming when she--when both--would remember those defiant, those deliberate words.

Not to-day, however, should any forebodings of the Future be suffered to cloud the Present. They fled, all too quickly, those short, golden hours. They melted one by one, merged into the dim glories of the past.

Would the time come when those blissful hours should be conjured forth by the strong yearnings of a breaking heart, conjured forth to be lived through again and again, in the day of black and hopeless despair, when to the radiant enchantment of the Present should have succeeded the woe of a never-ending and rayless night?

But the day was with them now--idyllic, blissful--never to be forgotten as long as they two should live. Alas, that it fled!

Tom Carhayes returned that evening in high good humour. He was accompanied by another man, a neighbouring settler of the name of Hoste, a pleasant, cheery fellow, who was a frequent visitor at Anta's Kloof.

"Well, Mrs Carhayes," cried the latter, flinging his right leg over his horse's neck and sliding to the ground side-saddle fashion, "your husband has been pretty well selling up the establishment to-day. What do you think of that? Hallo, Milne. How 'do?"

"I've made a good shot this time," a.s.sented Carhayes, "I've sold off nearly three thousand of the sheep to Reid, the contractor, at a pound a head all round. What do you think of that, Eustace? And a hundred and thirty cattle, too, heifers and slaughter stock."

"H'm! Well, you know best," said Eustace. "But why this wholesale clearance, Tom?"

"Why? Why, man, haven't you heard? No, of course he hasn't. War!

That's why. War, by the living Jingo! It's begun. Our fellows are over the Kei already, peppering the n.i.g.g.e.rs like two o'clock."

"Or being peppered by them--which so far seems to be the more likely side of the question," struck in Hoste. "A report came into Komgha to-day that there had been a fight, and the Police had been licked.

Anyhow, a lot more have been moved across the river."

"Wait till _we_ get among them," chuckled Carhayes. "Eh, Hoste? We'll pay off some old scores on Jack Kafir's hide. By the Lord, won't we?"

"_Ja_. That's so. By-the-by, Mrs Carhayes, I mustn't forget my errand. The wife has picked up a cottage in Komgha, and particularly wants you to join her. She was lucky in getting it, for by now every hole or shanty in the village is full up. There are more waggons than houses as it is, and a lot of fellows are in tents. They are going to make a big _laager_ of the place."

Eanswyth looked startled. "Are things as bad as all that?" she said.

"They just are," answered Hoste. "You can't go on staying here. It isn't safe--is it, Carhayes? Everyone round here is trekking, or have already trekked. I met George Payne in Komgha to-day. Even he had cleared out from Fountains Gap, and there's no fellow laughs at the scare like he does."

"Hoste is right, Eanswyth," said Carhayes. "So you'd better roll up your traps and go back with him to-morrow. I can't go with you, because Reid is coming over to take delivery of the stock. Eustace might drive you over, if he don't mind."

Eustace did _not_ mind--of that we may be sure. But although no glance pa.s.sed between Eanswyth and himself, both were thinking the same thing.

To the mind of each came back the words of that morning: "_A sort of instinct tells me it is the last day we shall have to ourselves for some time to come_!" And it would be.

They sat down to supper. Tom Carhayes was in tremendous spirits that evening. He breathed threatenings and slaughter against the whole of the Xosa race, chuckling gleefully over the old scores he was going to pay off upon it in the persons of its fighting men. In fact, he was as delighted over the certainty of an outbreak as if he held half a dozen fat contracts for the supply of the troops and levies.

"I'll keep a tally-stick, by Jove; and every n.i.g.g.e.r I pot I'll cut a nick," he said. "There'll be a good few notches at the end of the war!

It was a first-cla.s.s stroke of luck doing that deal with Reid, wasn't it, Eustace? We shall have our hands entirely free for whatever fun turns up."

Eustace agreed. He had reasons of his own for wanting to keep his hands free during the next few months--possibly, however, they were of a different nature to those entertained by his cousin.