Bertram Mitford

“ Here and there too the circle of a native kraal surmounted by its inevitable thread of blue smoke, and far-away in the distance the dim peaks of the Drakensberg range.
“Come and look over the Sipazi krantz,” said Edala, at length, when the awed silence with which this stupendous panorama could not fail to strike a newcomer, had been broken.
“Look over it!” echoed Elvesdon. “Why it seems to me that the ground slopes down to its brink at a pretty steep angle. You can’t lie flat there. You’d tilt over head first.” ”

“ No one living was farther removed from the hysterical tendency than Evelyn Carden, but now she required every effort of her will to command her own nerves—not to break down herself. The inconceivable despair with which those last words were uttered was awful. Quickly again Edala looked up.
“If he does not come back to me,” she said, slowly and solemnly, “that I may tell him what a horrible wicked wretch I’ve been to him, I shall go and tell him in the other world. I shall kill myself. As sure as there is a God above I shall kill myself.” ”

“ Assuredly the emissary had no reason to complain of the substantial nature of his reception, and so decided that worthy himself, as he sat within the chief’s hut, tearing the juicy meat from the ribs with his teeth, and washing it down with huge draughts from the bowls of tywala which had been brought in. Ah, it was good to live like this. Meat—everywhere—plenty of it, wherever he went—meat—fresh, and succulent and juicy, as different as day from night to the dried up, tasteless, insipid stuff to which he sat down when in civilisation. ”

“ It was a grey, drizzling afternoon, and the splendour of forest and mountain, lovely in the sparkle of blue sky and dazzling sun, was blotted out by rain and mist, with dreary and depressing effect. Low clouds swept along the base of the heights, whirling back now and then to display some great krantz such as the face of Sipazi, its altitude, multiplied by the dimness, looming up in awful grandeur, to fade again into the murk.
Instinct! Thornhill did not like that word, and it was no mere flash in the pan either. The child was so confoundedly sharp at leaping to conclusions ”

“ Thornhill was a master of veldt-craft, and Elvesdon did not come very far behind him in that line for all that he was professionally an official. The night air blew keen and chill, very chill, but the walking exercise largely counteracted that. And the sense of freedom again was exhilarating in itself—still more so was the sense of the impending reunion.
They did not talk as they travelled—when they had occasion to do so it was in the barest whispers. In ordinary and peaceful times they would not have encountered a living soul, for the native is strongly averse to moving about at night. ”

“ He had caught the faintest possible suspicion of that unique sound—the quiver of assegai hafts.
“Pass the word round ‘Stand by’,” he whispered to each of his neighbours. One ignored it—he recently rated, to wit. Who the devil was young Thornhill, to come here skippering the whole ship? he wanted to know—to himself.
Hyland was sighting his piece. In the fast lightening dawn his keen vision had detected a tongue of dark figures flitting stealthily out of the mimosa bushes some couple of hundred yards away—and striking out a line which should bring them round to the back of the entrenchment. ”

“ Crowning another eminence less than a mile away stood Tongwana’s kraal—its numerous huts forming a circle after the Zulu fashion, though not surrounded by a ring fence, and near it, along a bushy ridge, stood several lesser kraals. In the clear stillness of the air the voices of their denizens and the occasional barking of dogs is distinctly borne hither.
“You’ll see something now, Evelyn,” said Edala. “A Kafir dance is no end exciting. I always long to join in.” ”

“ Thornhill came forth.
“Glad to see you,” he said as they clasped hands. “Going to be hot, I think. Come inside.”
Then a hail having extracted a boy, from somewhere behind the house, Ratels was taken away to be off-saddled, and was soon seen, prancing and neighing in an adjoining paddock, as though in sheer delight at finding himself at home again. Then Edala appeared. Her greeting of the visitor was perfectly frank and self possessed, but Elvesdon was surprised to find himself feeling, for the moment, a trifle disappointed that there was not a little more cordiality about it. ”

“ In about half an hour they had dived down through the broad, shaded valley beneath, now delightfully cool, and stumbling up a rugged bush path had gained the tree-lined ridge, or saddle, which connected the splendid mountain with the opposite range.
“We’ll leave the horses here,” said Edala. “You can ride to the top by the other side but it’s an awful long way round, nearly an hour, whereas here we can climb up by a cleft in the rock in about a quarter of an hour. Can you climb, Mr Elvesdon?” ”

“ Nxala, watching, could scarcely restrain himself. The first part of his diabolical scheme had miscarried. Was it time for the second act? And there before him sat the old chief, the fine assegai in his hand—yet held in a firm grip, he did not fail to notice—crooning words of sibongo to it, as he recalled its deeds in past times. Had the scheme succeeded all would have gone so easy. This kraal of Zavula’s was an insignificant cluster of a dozen huts, whither the old chief loved to retire. He was old—what more natural than that he should die in retirement? ”

“ Elvesdon felt immeasurably relieved. Now, more than ever; now that he was separated from her; might never even see her again; he realised what Edala had become to him. She had fascinated him from the very first, and of late had become part of his life. But it would not do to give way to depression. If Thornhill, who knew these people better than he did, had no anxiety about his daughter’s ultimate safety, why surely he himself need have none. ”

“ Daylight was streaming into the hut through the wicker-door, but what had really awakened him, and the other two as well, was a hubbub of voices outside.
“What the devil is that infernal racket?” he growled—a man awakened in the soundness of a much needed sleep is apt to growl.
“Don’t know. I’m listening,” returned Thornhill. And the purport of the said listening made the listener grow rather grave. Then the door was violently banged against, and excited voices ordered those within to come forth.
“What is it?” exclaimed Parry, springing up eager and alert. “Are we rescued?” ”

“ He felt a trifle unsteadied, a trifle thrown off his balance.
“It’s of no use belittling the thing,” she went on, her words tripping over each other’s heels, as it were. “You men who do things are too fond of doing that—”
“Are—they?” rejoined Elvesdon, with a touch of humour. “I’ve sometimes noticed it’s rather the other way on.” And then a sudden whirlwind of feeling seemed to sweep him off his feet. “Edala, when your father and I were in that very tight fix together—I mean just before either of us knew that we were going to have the feeblest chance of escape—I put a question to him. ”

“ Elvesdon rode on, his pulses keeping pace with every elastic bound of his steed. He was in the very heyday of his prime, and in the full health and strength of his physical being rejoiced in the sheer joy of living. Higher and higher mounted the flaming wheel of the sun above the roll of those golden plains; and sheeny winged birds, flashing from frond to frond, seemed to echo in their gladsome piping the exaltation which thrilled through his own heart. ”

“ Strong man as he was the strain was beginning to tell upon Elvesdon. He looked pale and fagged, and his spirits became depressed. His conversation with Thornhill in the hour of their mutual danger was fresh in his mind, but although he saw a great deal of Edala there was nothing in the girl’s look or manner to show that she regarded him in the light of any other than an ordinary friend, a jolly good chum with no nonsense about him, and whom she could treat with the same free, frank camaraderie as her own brother. ”

“ The outline of the cliff above was visible now, plainly visible, and devoutly thankful did Edala feel that this lightening had been deferred as long as it had.
“My ‘aerial throne’ has its uses, Evelyn—eh?” she whispered.
Then something moved her to look up again. Her exaltation was dashed, shattered to the ground. On the brink, calmly gazing down upon them, stood the tall figure of a man—a dark man—and the outline of his figure and head-ring stood out against the sickly murk. ”

“ So catching was the latter that the European spectators found themselves beating time with their feet. The stamping of the excited warriors shook the earth, sending up long streams of yellow dust into the sunlit air. Young warriors would dart from the ranks, and leaping nearly their own height from the ground volley forth a torrent of words as they went through an imaginary pantomime of their prowess, their eyeballs white and rolling, seeming to burst from their faces, the flash of their bright blades like zig-zagged lightning. ”

“ The chief returned no answer, save for a sullen grunt. The armed men however made up for his silence, for they crowded up, in a kind of war-dancing step, and their clamour was for blood, to make up for the blood that had been shed, to make the múti which should put into those who tasted it the strength that should enable them to avenge that blood. ”

“ The place where they rested was an ideal of sylvan loveliness, the green glade overhung by the rugged face of the cliff, from whose ledges and interstices jutted here and there the spider-like spikiness of sprouting aloes, or the slender stiff stem of the Kafir bean. Away on three sides swept the tumbled masses of bush verdure; here a ridge, there a rift; in whose cool, shaded depths the melody of bird voices made music without ceasing. ”

“ The other was interested at once.
“What’s her name?”
“Edala. Peculiar name isn’t it?”
“Rather. Do you think we shall get on?”
Elvesdon burst out laughing.
“I should think it highly probable that you would. She is very unconventional—and you—well if you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Carden, I should think the same held good as regards yourself.”
“Of course I don’t mind your saying so; and it happens to be true. I like being talked to rationally, and not talked down to—as you men are too given to talking to us women. You know—a sort of humouring us, as if we were a lot of spoilt children.” ”