Bertram Mitford

“ The interruption came from old Sanna, who at that moment entered, bringing in the dishes. Both laughed.
“See, old Sanna,” said Wyvern. “We are rather tired of that remark. So if you can’t invent a new one don’t make any.”
“Better to be tired of that than of the Missis,” chuckled the old woman, as she withdrew. It will be seen that she was rather a privileged person.
The evening slipped by all too soon for these two, as they sat out on the stoep, watching the suffusing glow that heralded the rising of the broad moon. ”

“ The ground above seemed to shake with it. With each outbreak of roaring, the war-shout would rise in deafening volume—then snarling and hissing, but the sounds would seem to be moving about from place to place. Then arose a mighty shout of triumphant cadence and the roaring was heard no more—instead a hubbub of excited voices, and then Wyvern, partly owing to the tensity of his recent trial, partly owing to sheer exhaustion, subsided into a temporary unconsciousness.
This is what had happened above. The lion-cub which had run across Wyvern’s path had strayed from its parent. ”

“ What happened next Wyvern for one could hardly have told. The whole inside of the scherm was alive with waving shields and savage forms, and glinting blades. Rawson had gone down under a knob-kerrie deftly hurled, but he and Fleetwood still kept their position upon the waggon box, their undischarged weapons in their hands. They saw their native servants ruthlessly speared, all save a couple who had managed to hide beneath the waggon sail, and death was but a question of moments. Should they die fighting or elect to stake all on their only chance? ”

“ The two were standing on a high, scaur-like bank where the Kunaga swept round one side of Le Sage’s farm, and just below the krantz above which its owner and Wyvern had held their somewhat inharmonious discussion. They had strolled down to look at the river. The two youngsters had accompanied them, but now had wandered away on their own account.
The rain had ceased but the sky was veiled in an opaque curtain; the high rand beyond the Kunaga river valley being completely hidden by a grey and lowering murk. The unwonted gloom seemed to add to the terror of the forces of the bellowing flood. ”

“ It is life—life through absence. See now, Lalanté—what a sweet name that is, for I am perfectly certain nobody else in the world bears it—I am looking at you, now in the full glow of the sun at his best light I am looking into and photographing your dear face—as if it needed that—so that it will remain fixed in the retina of memory through day and night when we are apart. ”

“ Were they really going to unearth the rich secret which this savage mountain range had held buried within its lone and desolate heart for so many years, the secret which should make the rest of their lives a time of ease and possession, which should bring to one, at any rate, that which would make life almost too good to live?
“Come on. Let’s get to work,” said Fleetwood. “Where’s this weapon of yours? We can’t have very far to dig, because from what Hlabulana says they can’t have had time to bury the stuff very deep.” ”

“ Out in the roadstead vessels were riding to their anchors, prominent among them the blue-white hull and red funnel of the big mail steamer which had brought Wyvern round the day before. On the right, as they faced seaward, beyond the white boil of surf on the bar, rose the bush-clad Bluff, capped by its lighthouse, and behind, and stretching away on the other hand, the line of scrub-grown sandhills, beyond which rose the wooded slopes of the Berea.
“Now we’re all right,” pronounced Fleetwood, leading the way along the beach. “We’ve got the whole show to ourselves and we know it. ”

“ There was no room for rancour on account of anything so plain and obvious. So Wyvern greatly enjoyed those hours spent in the company of dusky warriors, with a cool bowl of freshly-brewed tywala before him, the clinging cockroaches shimmering in the thatch of the hut overhead, while they vividly recapitulated the stirring times, not so long past, or mapped out with small stones on the floor—and with wonderful accuracy—the scene of more than one pitched battle from the point of view of their own position and tactics. ”

“ And Le Sage had stared, startled, into the moist eyes, and mumbling something, had left the room—hurriedly. But he never abused Wyvern again, at least not in her presence—nor when there was any possibility of her being within earshot. It is even possible that he might have relented, and extended a helping hand to the unlucky one, or at any rate have tolerated a further effort; but the hard, business instinct of the invariably successful man rose, as a bar—as a very bulkhead of hard oak—between him and his more human, and better inclinations. ”

“ Why should a man’s luck always be bad, Le Sage. Why the deuce shouldn’t good times dawn for him? Ah! Look there.”
Even as he spoke the mist, which had been lightening over the river, parted with a suddenness that was almost startling, and from a widening patch of vivid blue the newly risen sun poured down his life-giving beams. It was as an instantaneous transition from darkness to light—to bright, beautiful. ”

“ Beyond it now something was standing—a something which seemed to have risen out of the very earth itself—and it took the black figure of a man. And Wyvern was conscious of the cold shuddering thrill that passed through his own system, for the hideous pock-marked countenance turned upward towards him with deathlike stare, was that of the big Kafir whom the puff-adder had bitten—had bitten again and again and who was, of course, long since dead.
How could it be otherwise? No human system could survive an hour with all that deadly venom injected into it. ”

“ The man, who seemed to have gone completely mad, was plucking and tearing at the snake, uttering the most hideous howls, and literally foaming at the mouth, as he strove to free himself from those terrible coils. He must have been bitten again and again, as now with his hands within the reptile’s very mouth he strove to tear its head asunder. The struggle had brought him to the brink of a much deeper part of the donga, and now, as Wyvern looked, puzzled what to do next, seemed to be weakening or to lose his balance. ”

“ The threatening clamour increased, and amid it there were murmurs of death by fire, or the black ants. The chiefs word had gone forth that no swift and easy death should fall on those who withstood his terms. How could a chief go back on his word? It must stand. Thus they murmured.
Fleetwood glanced at Wyvern to see if he had understood, and he hoped not. But his own heart sank. He knew this Laliswayo, as one of the most prominent and relentless leaders of the Usútu faction, a man bitterly hostile to the whites since the war, and, worst of all, a man who loved popularity. ”

“ Warren had goaded this savage beast to a point past endurance. As Fleetwood had said, Bully Rawson’s pluck was beyond question, but even it paled before the vision of a beam and a swinging noose. Now, beside himself with fear and rage, he turned on Warren, and reviled him with epithets that we cannot reproduce here. The whole aspect of the man was rather terrific, especially to one who knew his character and repute. But Warren sat calmly through the outburst, turning over a paper here and there. ”

“ Lalanté was not a Catholic, but human instinct is ever the same, and if ever prayers went up that a soul should have its eternal reward, one went up—none more fervent—from her during those awful moments on behalf of Warren.
The rain had begun again, and was now a steady downpour, while lower and lower the murk descended, blotting out the opposite rand. Great shiny songo-lolos, or “thousand legs,” squirmed among the mimosa sprays in repulsive festoons, and in the splashy softness of the thoroughly soaked ground—ordinarily so hard and arid—the foot sank or slipped. ”

“ He, Warren, would have moved heaven and earth to obtain it, yet why should that other gain it with no effort at all? He himself had all the advantages that Wyvern had. He was a clean-run, strong, healthy man, whom more than one girl of his acquaintance would think herself surpassing lucky to capture. Moreover he had made money, and knew how to go on making it, which was a thing Wyvern never had done and never would. Why the deuce then should Wyvern be where he ought to be? he thought bitterly as he walked dripping beside Lalanté, in the gloom of the now fast-darkening night. ”

“ A grand spectacle those seething red waves, hissing and rearing as they encountered some obstacle, then the crash as this gave way, and the mighty current, unchecked, poured onward with a savage roar. Great tree-trunks rolled over and over in the flood, and now and then, bodies of drowned animals, sheep, cattle, horses, swept helplessly down.
“Someone’s the poorer for the loss of his whole span,” remarked Warren, as a number of drowned oxen were whirled by. ”

“ Le Sage came to a halt. They had reached the brink of a krantz, of no great height and railing away now in slabs, now in aloe-grown boulders, to the Kunaga River, the swirl and babble of whose turgid waters they could hear, as it coursed between its willow grown banks—could hear but not see, for a morning mist hung over the land, shutting out everything beyond a radius of twenty yards. ”

“ But there was with Dabulamanzi’s force an old induna named Untúswa, a scarred old battle-dog whose whole life had been spent in a laughing acquaintance with Death, by the side of whose crowded experience such a crisis as this was as the merest child’s play; a born strategist, moreover, whose rapidity of plan had turned the scale of more than one hard fought and bloody struggle. ”

“ In the tumult of rushing the scherm he had been overlooked as one of themselves, and now, with the discovery, a clamour arose that he should be killed. He, a Qulusi, the son of a chief ilke Majendwa, to go over to the Sibepu and Hamu faction, and take sides against the King, why death was the least he deserved. Thus they raved, and a ring of spears and infuriated countenances threatened him. But Mtezani sitting on the ground, got out his snuff-horn, and passed it on to Hlabulana as calmly as if they were not there. ”

“ Le Sage’s first instinct was to examine the ground. He looked up again, baffled.
“No trace of any spoor whatever,” he said irritably. “No living being could have stood there and left none—let alone coming here and getting away again. Your imagination is very much on the warpath to-day, Lalanté.”
“Just as you like,” she answered, piqued. “Only, I was never credited with such a vivid imagination before.”
She felt hurt. She really had been badly frightened. The comforting pressure of Wyvern’s hand was inexpressibly sweet to her at that moment. ”