Wild Honey Part 18

Suddenly it turned to him, and in the same moment the mother raised a pale, warning finger and laid it across her lips in token that he must be silent. So he did not cry out at what he saw.

The little face that promised such flower-like beauty had been transformed into a thing of horror by a piece of diabolically clever tattooing. A monstrous purple and red spider sprawled its bloated form and lobster-like claws upon the delicate rose-leaf skin. Neither tarantula nor octopus, it possessed all the worst attributes of each.

It's puffed-out body crouched in the centre of the face upon the nose and cheek bones, and the child's bright violet eyes seemed the staring strange eyes of the beast. Its claws sprayed and curled about the mouth, reached out to the ears, and lost themselves in tendrils of hair upon the forehead! The thing seemed too hideous in conception to be the work of anyone but a mad devil, yet there was in it some sinister suggestion of human hands.

Carden knew not what supernatural or other power kept him there, staring with agonised eyes at the face of his child, when his every instinct was to turn and run as he had never run from anything in his life. The child broke the spell by dancing away with a pretty elfin laugh to rejoin Grietje by the fire. The quality of her laugh and the light patter of her feet brought home to Carden the realisation that it was a girl whose beauty had been thus cruelly destroyed forever, and a groan broke from him. The woman watching him with her tragic eyes saw sweat standing in little beads on his lips.

"_He did it_," she said. "_That is why he lies dead over there_" Her eyes travelled past Carden once more to where the lonely tree waved an arm in the evening breeze.

"He did not come back for eleven months after you had pa.s.sed," she continued in her sad relentless voice. "My baby was here when he returned--so of course he knew. But he said nothing. I feared terribly for the child at first, but in the end I came to think that he did not care. Then, one day, when my fears were all asleep, he disappeared, taking my baby with him for three days. Grietje and I roamed the veld seeking them, and on the night of the third day as we drew near home again we heard the child crying, and coming in we found it with its lovely little face all swollen and black from the poisons he had put in.

He was lying on the bench laughing, and called out to me as I came in:

"'There is your love child. But _she_ will have to do without love.'"

"I was worn out with weeping and wandering for three days and nights, but when he said those words I rushed over to him and killed him. I killed him with these hands." She looked down on the hands lying on her lap.

"I tore his throat open and his life ran out with his blood," she said softly.

Carden had no words. He stood looking at the little pale strong hands that were used to smell of apple blossom, and listening like a man in a dream. But it was a bad dream. A nightmare that would haunt him for the rest of his days! He was not sure now that those days would be many, that _his_ life too was not pa.s.sing with every word spoken by that gentle, fateful voice.

"Grietje and I buried him over there under the tree. No one else knows but Xsosa who watched us at the burying in the dead of night."

Darkness had suddenly enfolded the land. No stars brightened the vapouring gloom but occasionally the fire threw out a blood-red finger showing Grietje cuddling the child to her bosom, crooning some Kaffir lullaby over its head.

"What is to be done," muttered Carden, in the voice of a man who has come to the end of all ways. He looked at her, but her face was, as ever, hidden in the cappie. He had not seen it once in all this terrible hour and now he knew he would never see it.

"What is there to do?" she said sombrely. "Grietje and I must stay here, with him, until we grow old and die."

"But... the child?"

"Ah!" She sighed her deep sigh. "She will grow up perhaps--and in her turn watch the road."

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE MOLLMEIT OF THE MOUNTAIN.

[Dutch for mad woman or witch.]

When the number of coloured pupils attending the Friend for Little Children School reached one hundred and fifty, it was decided that Sister Joanna ought to have the a.s.sistance of a white pupil-teacher as well as the three half-caste young girls she had already trained. The several High-Dutch ladies of Brandersberg who interested themselves in Sister Joanna's good work, both by collecting subscriptions for it abroad and helping to place the young girls in domestic service after they had left school, determined to advertise in the Free State newspapers for a girl who would not only teach in the school, but also live with Sister Joanna at the school cottage, and help with the simple domestic arrangements. For Sister Joanna kept no servant; she would have considered it extravagant to do so while she had health and strength; besides, she had lived so long in the Colony that there was nothing in the way of domestic and everyday housework she was not able for. She was a good cook, could make her own soap, smoke her own legs of mutton, and grow her own vegetables. She had a neat little garden round the cottage (which stood some hundred and fifty yards from the school), and a corner of it was devoted to herbs, for she was deeply learned in the science of herbal healing, and could cure a headache, a varicose vein, a black eye, or supply you with a sleeping draught that would make you forget you had ever known neuralgia; all out of one little corner of her garden. Besides this, she managed with great skill and discipline the large school of coloured boys and girls which she had started herself with half a dozen children, some fifteen or sixteen years before; and yet found time to tend the sick, hara.s.s the lazy, and manage the affairs generally of everyone in the native Location.

However, though she would not admit it, she was beginning to look old and worn, and it was certainly a good idea to get someone to help her in her busy life.

The advertis.e.m.e.nt brought several answers, but none of them so satisfactory as that of a young Bloemhof girl called Mary Russel. Mary it seemed had not only received a good education and pa.s.sed her "Matric"

(a rather unusual thing in a girl of seventeen), but being the eldest of a large and not at all wealthy family was also extremely domesticated.

The Brandersberg ladies thought well of her letter of application, and better still of Mary herself when she arrived, pretty and fresh and kind, with a firm mouth and a courageous glance in her grey eyes.

Though of English extraction she was colonial born, a further qualification for the place, for Colonials though kind and just do not spoil natives by making too much of them as English people are apt to do. No sooner was Mary Russel installed than she became a great favourite with the children, and the Brandersberg ladies feeling that they had done well by so popular a character as Sister Joanna thereafter turned their attention to their own affairs. The large and flourishing town of Brandersberg lay within the shadow of a mighty _berg_ that in any other country would be called a mountain, and that even in Africa was considered worthy of a t.i.tle. Thaba Inkosisan it was called, and when the sun set, its great jagged shadow was flung far across the veld, just missing Brandersberg, but falling full and black upon the native Location; and this was considered a curious and sinister thing by the coloured population, for it was upon their village and in their hearts that the mountain had cast sorrow and fear.

The Friend for Little Children School was close at the foot of the _berg_, and a road ran direct from it to the Location, so that the children could go to and fro between their homes and the school without approaching the Dutch town; and perhaps this was one of the reasons why Sister Joanna's work was as popular with the whites as with the natives, for in the Free State the whites did not care for their children to mix with the natives, and any arrangement to keep the two races apart was greatly favoured. But the situation of the school was a cause of inquietude amongst the coloured parents; not because it was too far from the town, but because it was too near the _berg_. For Thaba Inkosisan was haunted by a mollmeit, and a mollmeit is no friend to little children.

The haunting of the mountain dated from many years back. When Mary Russel heard the story, she knew that the horrible tragedy in which it originated must have occurred about the time she was born, for it was in that year that the Basutoes fought in the Free State, surrounding and putting many a town into a state of siege. Brandersberg had been among the beleaguered towns, and the inhabitants of several farms near by had been put to the a.s.segai by the fierce Basuto warriors.

Now, on the other side of the mountain, about thirty miles from the town, there had stood a little stone farmhouse which an old Boer had built with an eye to defence in case of war. Its windows were small and high, its doors and shutters of iron, and there was nothing inflammable anywhere in its outer structure. When the Boer died, the place was bought by an Englishman with a pretty wife and little daughter. Just before the trouble with the Basutoes, another woman came to supplement the little family, a certain Janet Fink, middle-aged, well-educated, and recently arrived in Africa on an emigrant ship. She had been engaged by an agent at the Cape to come to the farm as a sort of combined nursery governess and mother's Help. The people of Brandersberg who knew the Englishman and his wife and liked them, had not had time to make the acquaintance of the Help before the war with the natives broke out and the town went into _laager_. Unfortunately this family was one of those cut off from the town. The Englishman had indeed been warned, but he pooh-poohed the idea of war, or only heeded it enough to postpone going in as usual to the town to get the monthly supply of provisions. But eventually supplies ran so low that he was obliged one day to set forth after giving careful instructions for the defence of the farm in case of attack. He had, however, delayed too long, and on his way into the town he was met by the Basutoes out for killing, and put to the a.s.segai. A contingent of the main _impi_ then went to the farmhouse and tried to take it, but the women had seen them coming, and received them so resolutely, and with such well-aimed shots from the high windows that having more important things on hand than the taking of two women they presently proceeded on their way, leaving two men behind with instructions to watch the house and kill the women if possible; if not, to starve them out. Being well informed (as Kaffirs always are at such times), they were aware that though there was water in the house there was no meat or meal to speak of, and that the little garrison could not hold out for more than a few days. It held out, however, for ten days, during which time smoke went up every morning from the chimney, and whenever the Basutoes made a feint of approaching they were received with rifle fire. On the eleventh day, however, there was no smoke, and towards evening the two Basutoes feeling pretty sure of their prey crept close, meaning to try for the chimney. Within ten yards of the house one of them was picked off with a bullet through his head, and the other turning to ran got a shot in his leg that put him out of business, but in spite of which he managed to crawl away into the bush, where a day or two later he was found by a troop of Dutch Artillery. Under the lash of the _sjambok_ he was induced to tell all he knew about the farmhouse, and the Dutchmen, at length convinced that the place was not an ambush but really contained the two white women and child, rode up to it and found, not what they expected, but many surprising things. First of all, instead of signs of famine there was every evidence that many meals had been eaten; plates with remains of meat and gravy were scattered about, and a saucepan contained the leavings of a stew that had been curried and flavoured with onions. Plainly fuel had given out, for every wooden thing in the scantily furnished kitchen had been chopped up and burned. The Boers were deeply puzzled until in an adjoining room the body of the farmer's wife was found lying in a corner covered with old sacks. She had been dead for many days, and the manner of her dying was swift and sudden; there was a knife deeply imbedded in her back.

When later the charred skull and thigh bones of a little child were raked out of the ashes in the fireplace the dark tragedy was made clearer still, and the rough men turned from the scene with sick hearts and grim mouths. There were husbands and fathers amongst them, and it would have gone hard with her if in that hour they had come across the mother's Help who in so hideous a fashion had helped herself. But they never found her. Whether after escaping from the house she was caught and killed by the Basutoes, or, lost in the bush had been eaten by wild beasts, or wandering on had reached some town and under an a.s.sumed name told a plausible tale and been taken in and cared for, had never been discovered. Only, presently in some strange way a story got about that she had fled to Thaba Inkosisan, and was living there in a cave, subsisting on wild roots and rock rabbits.

The tale first got credence among others besides the natives on the disappearance from some transport waggons outspanned near the mountain of a little Kaffir child. It was declared by the Kaffirs that the "flesh-eating woman" from the farm had turned into a mollmeit with cravings for human flesh, and that the children of Brandersberg would never be safe again while she lived in the mountain. Mollmeits, according to them, were like tigers which having once tasted human blood find no other so much to their liking; and, though other food must of needs be eaten, the evil craving comes upon them at times like a madness and must be satisfied. Most of the Dutch people scoffed at this ghoulish tale, saying that it was more likely that the Kaffir child had fallen down a ravine, and thereafter been eaten by jackals. But some there were who believed in the mollmeit theory, and spoke of searching the mountain. However, the idea came to nothing. There are too many little _piccaninnies_ in Africa for one more or less to make any difference except to its mother; and the sorrows of a Kaffir woman do not count for much in some parts of the world. Moreover, the searching of Thaba Inkosisan was not an affair to be lightly undertaken; its sides were steep and rough, with great inaccessible cliffs in some parts, and ma.s.ses of bush growing thick and close as moss. There were known to be caves too, and cracks and fissures that led far into the mountainside; but the notion of anyone living in such places seemed to the Dutch impracticable and ridiculous. At any rate, nothing was done, and with the pa.s.sing of months and years, the legend of the mollmeit had almost died out when another child disappeared--a little orphan this time, whom no one missed at first because it was no one's business to look after her; thus some days pa.s.sed before her loss was realised and then it seemed rather late to make more than a perfunctory search, for if she was lost in the bush (and it must be remembered that the bush grows right up to the outskirts of many South African towns) she was probably already dead from starvation or sunstroke. A search was made in a half-hearted sort of way, and mainly because Sister Joanna agitated for it; but no one bothered for long about a little half-caste orphan child.

Besides, the coloured people, whom the matter mostly concerned, said that it was no use looking for what was already eaten and digested up in the caves of Thaba Inkosisan; which clearly showed what their solution of the problem was.

It was long before the mollmeit was heard of again. True, the superst.i.tious and fearful tried to make out that little Anna Blaine, the youngest of a large coloured family, had fallen a victim to the witch; but to all sensible people it was plain that the child had been drowned at the Sunday-school picnic. She was not missed until the children got home, and then it was remembered that when last seen she was throwing stones into the _spruit_ swollen with recent rains near whose banks the picnic had been held. Sister Joanna, with whom the child had been a special favourite, worried the police until they consented to drag the _spruit_ for some six miles; but the body was never recovered.

The fourth disappearance created more stir than any of the others. For one thing it _was_ the fourth, and when four children have mysteriously disappeared within the s.p.a.ce of fourteen years it is time to be up and doing, said both the Dutch and the coloured population of Brandersberg.

Further, it was no orphan or unwanted child this time, but Susie Brown, the pet child of a highly respectable coloured carpenter. The little thing had started for school one morning, and had just simply never arrived. From the time she set out, an hour late, on the long empty road that skirted the foot of the _berg_ no one had seen her. It was as though some great _aasvogel_ had swooped down from the skies and carried her off. Indeed some people were inclined to think this the answer to the riddle. Possibly, they said, a great bird of prey had its nest in a secret place of the mountain, and fed its young thus! At any rate it was time for the mountain to be searched and the mystery made an end of.

And the mountain _was_ searched, from end to end, by a large band of men. It is true that all the inner crevices could not be explored, nor the highest cliffs, but the searchers were satisfied if others were not, that neither monstrous bird nor human monster occupied Thaba Inkosisan.

So again with the pa.s.sing of years, the weird legend died away, and at the time of Mary Russel's coming to the school it was almost forgotten, except by loving mothers who warned their children to keep as far away from the mountain as possible, and the children themselves who never wearied of embroidering and embellishing the fearsome tale, handing it on to one another, and sometimes frightening a timid child into a fit with it.

Mary one day in the schoolyard came upon a little group who having finished their tiffin were seated in a ring listening with scared eyes and parted lips to the story (with variations and improvements) of Susie Brown's disappearance.

"--And the mollmeit chose her because she had such nice, fat, round arms and legs... just like Rosalie Paton's there," announced the historian, and a chubby pale-brown maiden of five gave a howl of terror. Mary sat down and took the child in her arms, roundly scolding the story-teller while she cuddled the soft fuzzy head against her breast. For it must not be supposed that these little coloured children are not just as sweet and pretty and attractive as white children. Hardly any of the inhabitants of the Brandersberg native Location were real negroes. The negro races mostly live in kraals far from the towns, speaking no language but that of their tribe, and being cla.s.sed under the general heading of "Kaffirs." The scholars of the Friend for Little Children School were mostly the offspring of pale-brown people--"Cape folks" who have long hair and Malay blood in them, and natives of Saint Helena, who are also long-haired, but rather dusky; some were of Koranna or Hottentot breed (and these were not beautiful), but many were the children of mixed marriages between "poor whites" and Cape natives, and these were nearly always pretty and charming-looking. The language used generally amongst themselves was a kind of Low-Dutch patois, but all spoke English well, and were taught in that language.

Little Rosalie Paton's mother was a Cape woman, and a very disreputable one, the drunkard of the village, in fact; but it was probable that the child's father was a white man, for except for the fuzziness of her long black hair and the brilliance of her great dark eyes, she was as like a pretty little white child as she could be.

When Mary had thoroughly scolded the children for talking about the mollmeit, she carried the still weeping Rosalie with her up to the cottage and her own room there. A little petting soon dispersed the tears, and then Mary produced her trinket-box, and allowed the child to look at its contents. A poorly brought-up colonial girl possesses little in the way of jewellery beyond a necklace and bracelet or two made by her own clever fingers from the seeds of the _sponspeck_ melon and a few imitation pearls; but Mary had been a favourite wherever she went and had received many little presents. There was a necklace of jagged red corals which her mother had put round her neck as a baby, and that Rosalie gurgled so joyously over that Mary, after a moment's hesitation, clasped it round the little dusky neck and told the child that she might wear it that night at the magic-lantern entertainment.

For the Michaelmas holidays were approaching, and Sister Joanna was going to celebrate the break in the school term by giving one of her frequent little entertainments, only this time a new and up-to-date magic lantern, sent by admiring friends across the sea, was to make its _debut_, and all the children were wildly excited about it. In the midst of Rosalie's joyful caperings, the voice of Sister Joanna was heard calling:

"Mary, Mary, where are you, my child? Isn't it time for the school bell?" And Mary jumped up guiltily (she had forgotten that the bell was to be rung a quarter of an hour earlier that day), just as Sister appeared in the doorway filling it with her plump, large presence. She was a short woman who in spite of her great activity could not keep down stoutness. Her large round face was pallid with the dead pallor peculiar to people who have lived long in hot climates, but lighted by an unfailing smile of cheerfulness and sky-blue eyes. She wore a quaint garb of black alpaca made in somewhat monk-like fashion, long and full, and confined by a cord at the waist, while on her head was an arrangement that resembled a cross between a coal-scuttle and a Turkish woman's _yashma_. She belonged to no Order, but was an Order unto herself, and made her uniform with her own hands; and if it was a quaint and funny one no one laughed, for Sister Joanna was both liked and respected.

When Mary had told the tale of Rosalie's trouble, Sister burst into her jolly laugh.

"The poor little thing! Was it afraid for its nice little fat brown body," she said tenderly, and taking Rosalie on her knee rolled up the child's cotton sleeves, looked at the plump pale arms, and pinched the soft neck.

"Let me catch any old mollmeit trying to eat my Rosalie!" she said fondly. "Run along, Mary, and ring the bell. Get lessons over early.

Tell the children I am letting them off an hour earlier so that they may have time to curl their hair for to-night." She laughed merrily at her own little jest, well knowing that hair curling is an unnecessary item in a coloured child's toilette. She was always full of merry little jokes of this kind, and the natives being a laughter-loving lot rejoiced in them as much as she did.

Mary hurried away leaving Rosalie sitting happily on the old woman's knees, and did not see her again until during the afternoon Sister carried her into the schoolroom fast asleep.

"Oh, Sister! How can you carry that great fat thing! You'll be tired out before to-night," said Mary reproachfully, for she thought Sister looked even paler than usual. And sure enough that night the old lady was too tired to eat any supper before starting for the entertainment.

She looked as haggard as death, though her sky-blue eyes were brighter than ever and full of excitement; but the beautifully broiled mutton chop Mary had prepared, with potatoes baked in their skins lay on her plate untouched. Even when Mary made a cup of foamy coffee according to Sister's own famous receipt it was wasted. Mary, in all the months she had been at the cottage, had never known Sister with anything but an excellent appet.i.te, and was troubled, and before leaving for the school she cut the meat from the uneaten chop and made it into a sandwich, while the potatoes she sliced into a nice salad with a tiny onion chopped over it. This little repast she put on a table in Sister's room. They were simple in their ways at the cottage.

Down at the school, the children were buzzing like bees outside the closed door, while Sister and the pupil-teachers within put the final touches to the magic-lantern arrangements. Mary fished Rosalie out of the crowd, and found that though she was still wearing her torn, school frock, she had been washed, her hair was braided, and she was proudly sporting the coral necklace. She still seemed more than half asleep, but she blinked happily at Mary.

The entertainment was an enormous success. The magic lantern worked like magic indeed, and there were howls of regret when at nine o'clock the last slide was shown. Sister Joanna made an announcement that during holiday week she would give another exhibition for the parents, and the children then danced and partook of the repast of buns and ginger-beer that kind Sister had provided. They were to go home at half-past nine punctually, but before that time Sister who was very tired left Mary in charge and went home.

"I'll see the children safely off," Mary promised.

"Oh, the children will be all right," said Sister. "It's my lantern and slides I'm thinking about;--pack them safely and put them away in the cupboard, Mary, or sure enough those rapscallions who come to clean up in the morning will be fiddling with them and break something."

Mary promised not to leave until everything was locked up safely, and all the lights put out.

"You needn't worry about anything, Sister. Just get to bed and have a good rest."

Yet when about an hour later she came up the slope to the cottage, she saw by the faint red and purple gleams shining from one of the windows that Sister was still in the Oratory. She felt vexed to think that the old soul was at her prayers instead of being in bed, but knew better than to disturb her; and being very tired herself was not long getting into bed. She went to sleep thinking happily of the coming week of holidays to be spent with her family at Bloemhof. There were only two more days of school, and then on Sat.u.r.day morning she was to leave by a carrier's cart and would reach her home by Sat.u.r.day afternoon.