Tween Snow and Fire Part 14

"And then? And then--I don't care--I've got _you_ again," she answered with a gleeful laugh. "You--do you hear? You--you--_you_."

He looked rather grave. A struggle seemed to be going on within him.

"But you won't have me very long, my dear one. I am on my way to the front. In fact, I start this very night. I, and Hoste, and Payne."

No fear of her too happy look betraying her now. It faded from her eyes like the sunlight from the surface of a pool when the black thunder-cloud sweeps over it. It gave place to a stricken, despairing expression, which went to his heart.

"You have come back to me only to leave me again? O Eustace--Eustace!

I am a very wicked woman, and this is my punishment. But how can I bear it!"

Then he calmed her. Strong as he was, his voice shook a little as he reasoned with her, pointing out how this course was in every way the best. He could not remain away down in the Colony, he said, and he had absolutely no pretext for staying on at Komgha. Besides, in a small, crowded and gossipy place, it would be downright madness to attempt it.

Their secret would be common property in a day. He was too restless and unhappy away from her, and at present it was impossible to remain near her. The chances and excitement of the campaign offered the only way out of it. After that, brighter times were in store--brighter times, perhaps, than they dared dream of.

He calmed her--by the force of his reasoning--by the very magnetism of his influence; most of all, perhaps, by the power and certainty of his love. Never again could she doubt this--never--come what might. And she was to that extent happy amid her grief.

Though they were at all times the best of friends, the welcome Eustace met with at the hands of Mrs Hoste on this occasion was of doubtful cordiality. And the reason for this was twofold. First, the fact of his arrival in company with Eanswyth went to confirm her rapidly developing suspicions. Of course, it was a preconcerted arrangement.

Narrowly, she scrutinised the pair, and failed not to discern traces of agitation and anxiety in the demeanour and appearance of, at any rate, one of them. Then, again, she had just learned, to her dismay, the intention of her husband to proceed to the front in a few hours. With this defection she did not hesitate to connect Eustace, and she was right. Wherefore, she regarded him as a treacherous friend at best and scrupled not to tell him as much.

"It's all very well for you, Mr Milne," she said. "You have only got yourself to please. But others haven't, and you ought to have more sense than to aid and abet a couple of responsible fathers of families like Mr Payne there and my stupid husband in any such folly."

"Ought he?" guffawed the stupid husband aforesaid, from another room where he was cleaning a gun. "But I say, Ada? How is he to get to the front by himself? It wouldn't be altogether safe. So, you see, he's absolutely dependent on our escort. Eh, Payne?"

"_Ja_," replied that worthy, laconically.

"You should be more patriotic, Mrs Hoste," murmured Eustace. "You see, you give us precious poor encouragement to die for our country--which process is defined by the poet as a sweet and decorous one."

"Die for your fiddlestick!" was the half-laughing, half-angry reply.

"But, as I said before, it's all very well for you. n.o.body is dependent on you. n.o.body cares what becomes of you."

Did they not? There was one in that room to whom his safety was dearer than a hundred lives, whose heart was well-nigh bursting with unspoken agony at the prospect of the parting which was drawing so near--that parting which should send him forth for weeks, for months perhaps, with peril and privation for daily companions. Yet she must keep up appearances--must maintain a smooth and untroubled aspect. n.o.body cared for him!

The three men were to start an hour before midnight, and with two more whom they were to meet just outside the settlement, reckoned themselves strong enough to cross the hostile ground in comparative safety-- reckoning rather on evading the enemy than on meeting him in battle with such small numbers. And this would be easier, for the Gcaleka country had been swept from end to end and its inhabitants driven beyond the Bashi--for a time. In which process the Kaffrarian Rangers had gallantly borne their part.

As the hour for starting drew near, prodigious was the fussiness displayed by Hoste over the preparations. He couldn't find this, and he couldn't find that--he wanted this done and that done--in short made himself a signal nuisance. Now all this was done in accordance with a crafty idea of Payne's. "The women will be bound to turn on the waterworks. Therefore, give them plenty to do. Fuss them out of their very lives so that they won't have time so much as to think of snivelling--until we're gone, and then it won't matter," had enjoined that unprincipled philosopher--who had sent his own family down to King Williamstown some days previously.

"Do you mind taking a quarter of an hour's stroll, Eanswyth?" said Eustace in his most matter-of-fact way, shortly before they were due to start. "You see, neither Tom nor I can tell how long we may be away, and there are two or three things in connection with our joint possessions which I should like to discuss with you."

Eanswyth's heart gave a bound. The time of parting was drawing very near, and it seemed as if no opportunity would be offered them of seeing each other alone; that their farewell must be made, even as that other farewell, in the presence of half a dozen people. But his readiness of resource had hit upon a way, while she, all unnerved as she was, could think of nothing.

It was a lovely night. The thin sickle of a new moon hung in the heavens, and the zenith was ablaze with stars. Behind, the lights of the village, the sound of voices and laughter; in front, the darkness of the silent _veldt_. Far away against the blackness of the hills glowed forth a red fire.

Thus they stood--alone--and the time seemed all too short. Thus they stood--alone beneath the stars, and heart was opened to heart in the terrible poignancy of that parting hour.

"Oh, my darling, what if I were never to see you again! What if you were never to come back to me!" burst forth Eanswyth in a wail of anguish. "You are going into all kinds of danger, but oh, my loved one, think of me through it all--think of me if you are tempted to do anything foolhardy. My heart is almost broken at parting with you like this. Anything--anything more, would break it quite."

"I wish to Heaven mere danger was the only thing we had to trouble about," he said, rather bitterly. "But let this cheer you, my sweet-- cheer us both. You doubted me before--you cannot again. We are both so strong in each other's love that beside such a possession the whole world is a trifle. And better and brighter times may be--must be, before us--"

"Hallo, Milne," shouted the voice of Hoste in the distance. "Where are you, man? Time's up!"

Both started--in each other's embrace--at this horribly jarring and unwelcome reminder. "The fellow needn't bawl like all the bulls of Bashan, confound him!" muttered Eustace with a frown.

"Eustace--dearest--must we really part now?" she murmured in a broken sob, clinging to him more closely. "First of all, take this," slipping a small, flat, oblong packet into his hand. "Open it--read it--when you are on your way. I got it ready, thinking we should have no opportunity of being alone together again. And now, love--dear, dear love-- good-bye. Heaven bless you--no, I must not say that, I am too wicked.

It would be of no avail coming from me--"

"I say, Milne! Are you coming along with us or are you not?" roared Hoste again from his front door. "Because if not, just kindly say so."

"You are under no precise necessity to cause the dead to rise, are you, Hoste?" said Eustace tranquilly, a couple of minutes later, as they stepped within the light of the windows. "Because, if you had whispered I should have heard you just as well. As it is, you have about woke up the whole of British Kaffraria, and we shall have the sentries opening fire upon the _veldt_ at large in a minute. There--there goes the Police bugle already."

"Don't care a hang. We are waiting to start. Here come the horses.

Now--Good-bye, everyone, and hurrah for old Kreli!"

A couple of native stable-hands appeared, leading three horses, saddled and bridled. Then there was a good deal of tumultuous leave-taking between Hoste and his family circle, mingled with sniffling and handkerchiefs, and of quieter farewells as concerned the rest of the party. But the torn heart of one in that group suffered in silence.

Eanswyth's sweet, proud face was marvellously self-possessed.

"Extraordinary creatures, women," said Payne, as the three men rode out of the settlement. "I believe they positively enjoy the fun of a good snivel. It's just the same with my own crowd. When I left home I was obliged to send a note by a boy to say `ta-ta' to escape it all, don't you know."

Hoste guffawed. It was just the sort of thing that George Payne, philosopher and cynic, would do.

"Some few of them are sensible, though," went on the latter, flaring up a vesuvian to light his pipe. "Mrs Carhayes, for instance. She don't make any fuss, or turn on the hose. Takes things as they come--as a rational person should."

Hoste guffawed again.

"Now, George, who the very deuce should she make a fuss over or turn on the hose for?" he said. "You or me, for instance. Eh?"

"N-no, I suppose not. Milne, perhaps. He's a sort of brother or cousin or something, isn't he?"

If Eustace had felt disposed to resent this kind of free-and-easiness he forebore, and that for two reasons. He liked the speaker, who, withal, was something of an original, and therefore a privileged person, and again the very carelessness of the remark of either man showed that no suspicion as to his secret had found place in their minds--a matter as to which he had not been without a misgiving a few minutes back.

On opening the packet which Eanswyth had put into his hand at parting, Eustace found it to consist of a little antique silver tobacco-box, beautifully chased. This contained a photograph of herself, and a letter; the last a short, hurriedly penned note, which, perused there alone, with all the desolation of the recent parting fresh upon him, was effectual to thrill his heart to the very core.

"And now," it ended--"And now, oh, my precious one, good-bye--I dare not say `G.o.d bless you.' Coming from me it would entail a curse rather than a blessing. I am too wicked. Yet, is our love so wicked? Could it be so divinely, so beautifully sweet if it were? Ah, I neither know nor care. I only know that were anything to befall you--were you never to come back to me--my heart would be broken. Yes, broken. And yet, it would be only just that I should suffer through you. Good-bye, my dearest one--my only love. We may not meet again alone before you start, but I want you, in all your dangers and hardships, to have always with you these poor little lines, coming, as they do, warm from my hand and heart--"

The writing broke off abruptly and there were signs that more than one tear had fallen upon the silent, but oh, so eloquent paper.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY.

"Hi, Hoste, Eustace! Tumble up! We are to start in half an hour."

It is dark as Erebus--dark as it can only be an hour or so before daybreak. The camp-fires have long since gone out and it is raining heavily. The speaker, stooping down, puts his head into a patrol tent wherein two sleepers lie, packed like sardines.

A responsive grunt or two and Hoste replies without moving.

"Bosh! None of your larks, Tom. Why, it's pitch dark, and raining as if some fellow were bombarding the tent with a battery of garden hoses."

"Tom can't sleep himself, so he won't let us. Mean of him--to put it mildly," remarks the other occupant of the tent, with a cavernous yawn.