Tween Snow and Fire Part 32

"Where our hearts first met--there they meet again. Look up, my sweet one. I am here."

She does look up. In the red and boding glare of those ominous war-fires she sees him as she saw him that night. She springs to her feet--and a loud and thrilling cry goes forth upon the darkness.

"Eustace--Eustace! Oh, my love! Spirit or flesh--you shall not leave me! At last--at last!"

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

FROM DEATH AND--TO DEATH.

She realised it at length--realised that this was no visitant from the spirit-world conjured up in answer to her impa.s.sioned prayer, but her lover himself, alive and unharmed. She had thrown herself upon his breast, and clung to him with all her strength, sobbing pa.s.sionately-- clung to him as if even then afraid that he might vanish as suddenly as he had appeared.

"My love, my love," he murmured in that low magnetic tone which she knew so well, and which thrilled her to the heart's core. "Calm those poor nerves, my darling, and rest on the sweetness of our meeting. We met-- our hearts met first on this very spot. Now they meet once more, never again to part."

Still her feeling was too strong for words; she could only cling to him in silence, while he covered her face and soft hair with kisses. A moment ago she was mourning him as dead, was burying her heart in his unknown and far-away grave, and lo, as by magic, he stood before her, and she was safe in his embrace. A moment ago life was one long vista of blank, agonising grief; now the joys of heaven itself might pale before the unutterable bliss of this meeting.

Unlawful or not as their love might be, there was something solemn, almost sacred, in its intense reality. The myriad eyes of heaven looked down from the dark vault above, and the sullen redness of the war-fires flashing from the distant heights shed a dull, threatening glow upon those two, standing there locked in each other's embrace. Then once more the wild, weird war-cry of the savage hosts swelled forth upon the night. It was an awesome and fearful background to this picture of renewed life and bliss.

Such a reunion can best be left to the imagination, for it will bear no detailment.

"Why did you draw my very heart out of me like this, Eustace, my life?"

she said at last, raising her head. "When they told me you were dead I knew it would not be long before I joined you. I could not have endured this living death much longer."

There were those who p.r.o.nounced Eanswyth Carhayes to be the most beautiful woman they had ever beheld--who had started with amazement at such an apparition on an out-of-the-way Kaffrarian farm. A grand creature, they declared, but a trifle too cold. They would have marvelled that they had ever pa.s.sed such a verdict could they but have seen her now, her splendid eyes burning into those of her lover in the starlight as she went on:

"You are longing to ask what I am doing here in this place all alone and at such a time. This. I came here as to a sanctuary: a sacred spot which enshrined all the dearest memories of you. Here in silence and in solitude I could conjure up visions of you--could see you walking beside me as on that last day we spent together. Here I could kneel and kiss the floor, the very earth which your feet had trod; and--O Eustace, my very life, it was a riven and a shattered heart I offered up daily-- hourly--at the shrine of your dear memory."

Her tones thrilled upon his ear. Never had life held such a delirious, intoxicating moment. To the cool, philosophical, strong-nerved man it seemed as if his very senses were slipping away from him under the thrilling love-tones of this stately, beautiful creature nestling within his arms. Again their lips met--met as they had met that first time-- met as if they were never again to part.

"Inkose!"

The sudden sonorous interruption caused Eanswyth to start as if she had been shot, and well it might. Her lover, however, had pa.s.sed through too many strange and stirring experiences of late to be otherwise than slightly and momentarily disconcerted.

A dark figure stood at the lowest step of the _stoep_, one hand raised in the air, after the dignified and graceful manner of native salutation.

"Greeting, Josane," he replied.

"Now do mine eyes behold a goodly sight," went on the old Kafir with animation, speaking in the pleasing figurative hyperbole of his race.

"My father and friend is safe home once more. We have mourned him as dead and he is alive again. He has returned to gladden our hearts and delight our eyes. It is good--it is good."

"How did you know I had returned, Josane?"

Had there been light enough they would have detected the most whimsical smile come over the old Kafir's face as he replied:

"Am I not the _Inkosikazi's_ watch-dog? What sort of a watch-dog is it that permits a footstep to approach from outside without his knowledge?"

"You are, indeed, a man, Josane--a man among men, and trust to those who trust you," replied Eustace, in that tone of thorough friendship and regard which had enabled him to win so effectually the confidence of the natives.

The old cattle-herd's face beamed with gratification, which, however, was quickly dashed with anxiety.

"Look yonder," he said. "There is trouble in the Gaika location to-night. Take the _Inkosikazi_ and leave--this very night. I know what I say." Then, marking the other's hesitation, "I know what I say,"

he repeated impressively. "Am I not the _Inkosikazi's_ watch-dog? Am I not her eyes and ears? Even now there is one approaching from Nteya's kraal."

He had struck a listening att.i.tude. Eustace, his recent experiences fresh in his mind, felt depressed and anxious, gazing expectantly into the darkness, his hand upon the b.u.t.t of his revolver.

"Halt! Who comes there?" he cried in the Xosa tongue.

"A friend, Ixeshane!" came the prompt reply, as a dark form stepped into view.

Now that life was worth living again, Eanswyth felt all her old apprehensions return; but she had every confidence in her lover's judgment and the fidelity of her trusted old retainer.

"_Hau_, Ixeshane! You are here; it is good," said the new arrival in the most matter-of-fact way, as though he were not wondering to distraction how it was that the man who had been reported slain in the Bomvana country by the hostile Gcalekas, should be standing there alive and well before him. "I am here to warn the _Inkosikazi_. She must leave, and at once. The fire-tongues of the Amaxosa are speaking to each other; the war-cry of the Ama Ngqika is cleaving the night."

"We have seen and heard that before, Ncanduku," answered Eustace, recognising the new arrival at once. "Yet your people would not harm us. Are we not friends?"

The Kafir shook his head.

"Who can be called friends in war-time?" he said. "There are strangers in our midst--strangers from another land. Who can answer for them? I am Ncanduku, the brother of Nteya. The chief will not have his friends harmed at the hands of strangers. But they must go. Look yonder, and lose no time. Get your horses and take the _Inkosikazi_, and leave at once, for the Ama Ngqika have responded to the call of their brethren and the Paramount Chief, and have risen to arms. _The land is dead_."

There was no need to follow the direction of the Kafir's indication. A dull, red glare, some distance off, shone forth upon the night; then another and another. Signal fires? No. These shone from no prominent height, but from the plain itself. Then Eustace took in the situation in a moment. The savages were beginning to fire the deserted homesteads of the settlers.

"Inspan the buggy quickly, Josane," he said. "And, Ncanduku, come inside for a moment. I will find _basela_ [Best rendered by the familiar term `backshish'] for you and Nteya." But the voice which had conveyed such timely warning responded not. The messenger had disappeared.

The whole condition of affairs was patent to Eustace's mind. Nteya, though a chief whose status was not far inferior to that of Sandili himself, was not all-powerful. Those of his tribesmen who came from a distance, and were not of his own clan, would be slow to give implicit obedience to his "word," their instincts for slaughter and pillage once fairly let loose, and so he had sent to warn Eanswyth. Besides, it was probable that there were Gcalekas among them. Ncanduku's words, "strangers from another land," seemed to point that way. He put it to Josane while harnessing the horses. The old man emitted a dry laugh.

"There are about six hundred of the Gcaleka fighting men in Nteya's location to-night," he replied. "Every farmhouse in the land will be burned before the morning. _Whau_, Ixeshane! Is there any time to lose now?"

Eustace realised that a.s.suredly there was not. But inspanning a pair of horses was, to his experienced hand, the work of a very few minutes indeed.

"Who is their chief?" he asked, tugging at the last strap. "Sigcau?"

"No. Ukiva."

An involuntary exclamation of concern escaped Eustace. For the chief named had evinced a marked hostility towards himself during his recent captivity; indeed, this man's influence had more than once almost turned the scale in favour of his death. No wonder he felt anxious.

Eanswyth had gone into the house to put a few things together, having, with an effort, overcome her reluctance to let him out of her sight during the few minutes required for inspanning. Now she reappeared. "I am ready, Eustace," she said.

He helped her to her seat and was beside her in a moment.

"Let go, Josane!" he cried. And the Kafir, standing away from the horses' heads, uttered a sonorous farewell.

"What will become of him, dear?" said Eanswyth, as they started off at a brisk pace.

"He is going to stay here and try and save the house. I'm afraid he won't be able to, though. They are bound to burn it along with the others. And now take the reins a moment, dearest. I left my horse hitched up somewhere here, because I wanted to come upon you unawares.

I'll just take off the saddle and tie it on behind."

"But what about the horse? Why not take him with us?"