James Grant

“ These thoughts occurred to him in endless iteration amid his military duties, which were not dull routine, but, so far as the pursuit of the fugitive King Cetewayo was concerned, were arduous, full of excitement and perils of various kinds.
His heart grew heavy, and his future, so far as it was connected with Dulcie Carlyon, seemed dark and uncertain, like the episodes of a dream. But it has been said that most life-histories leave hanging threads that may only be completed in the great web woven by eternity, and eternity had often been perilously close to Florian of late. ”

“ To Dulcie it seemed that they at least were at home.
She leaned for a moment out of the window and drank—for the last time—a deep draught of the pure air that came from the lovely Scottish landscape over which her eyes wandered, as it stretched away down the fertile and peaceful Howe of the Mearns, the corn deepening into gold, the picturesque houses, luxuriant orchards and gardens; and she bade to each and all farewell, with little regret, perhaps, for with all their beauty they were too intimately associated with the idea of Lady Fettercairn and many a humiliation. ”

“ They were out in Park Lane now, and Dulcie cast a despairing glance at the many closed and shuttered windows of the mansions there, as if she would summon aid.
'Look here, gal,' said the detective, for such Mr. Grabbley was, 'I have orders to arrest the original of this fotygraf—you are that original—look! don't you see yourself, as if in a looking-glass?'
Dulcie did look, with a kind of horrible fascination, and recognised in it a very striking resemblance to her face and dress—even to the luckless silver locket and chain.
Mr. Grabbley utilised the moments of her bewilderment. ”

“ It was a dreadful stroke for Dulcie; her only tie to earth seemed to be passing or to have passed away. She had no one to confide in, no one to condole with her, and for a whole day never quitted her pillow; but, 'at twenty, one must be constitutionally very unsound if grief is to kill one, or even to leave any permanent and abiding mark of its presence.' But she had to undergo the terrible mental torture of waiting—waiting, with idle hands, with throbbing head, and aching heart, for the bulletin that might crush her whole existence. ”

“ And he thought of the strange interments of some of the dead in that hollow square when under fire—young soldiers, instinct with boyish, hopeful, and glorious life, ardour and valour, struck down in death, and huddled into a ghastly hole, over which the bullets swept, ere their limbs were cold. 'Death is a surprise—a woeful and terrible surprise—whenever it comes, even though we be by the bedside watching for it, dreading it, as each breath leaves the lips we love.' But death seemed thus doubly grim on that day at Ulundi! ”

“ Florian peeped into the bell-tent, and, by a dim lantern hung on the pole thereof, could see Hammersley lying on his camp-bed asleep, apparently, and pale as marble; and he thought it a sorrowful sight to see one whose splendid physique seemed of that kind which no abstract pain or trouble could crush—who could ever bear himself like a man—weak now as a little child—levelled by the bullet of a cowardly assassin. ”

“ The party reached a lonely little kraal on the summit of the Nenye Mountain, and bivouacked there for the night.
Stretched on the floor of a hut, after drinking thirstily of some weak brandy and water, Florian watched the blood-red disc of the sun, mightier than it is ever seen in Europe, amid the luminous haze, begin to disappear behind the verge of the vast forest—the sea of timber—that spread below, casting forward in dark outline the quaint and grotesque euphorbia trees that at times take the shape of Indian idols. ”

“ With their prisoner strictly guarded, the party passed the night of the 29th August in the forest of Ngome, and Florian, as he flung himself on the dewy grass, with fevered limbs and aching head, felt an emotion of thankfulness that all was over, and it was nearly so with himself now!
The moon had not yet risen; the darkness was dense around the hut where lay Cetewayo, guarded by many a sabre and bayonet; and the jackals and hyenas were making night hideous with their howling, mingled at times with the yells of wild dogs. ”

“ Days and days and long weary weeks passed by—weeks of longing—and no word of hope, of love, or apology came to Finella across the seas from distant Africa, evolved as she hoped by the letter of Dulcie to Florian, and her heart grew sick with hope deferred, while more battles and skirmishes were fought, and she knew not that a vessel with the mail containing that missive which Florian posted at the orderly-room tent had been cast away in the Bight of Benin, and that the bags had been saved with extreme difficulty. ”

“ She was not without her occasional chateaux en Espagne—dreams of relations, rich but as yet unknown, who would seek her out and cast a sunshine on her life; but how sordid seemed all her surroundings after the comfort and luxury, the splendour and stateliness, of Craigengowan!
Dulcie had once had her girlish dreams of life in London, at a time when the chances of her ever being there were remote indeed—dreams that were as the glittering scenes in a pantomime ”

“ With a little stifled cry that broke from her quivering lips, Dulcie rushed down the steps of the terrace and fled through the shrubberies like a hunted animal, looking neither to the right nor left, till she reached the sequestered spot where stood Queen Mary's Thorn, and, flinging herself face downwards in the grass, she uttered again and again her father's name, as if she would summon him to her protection and aid, amid a flood of passionate tears—tears from the depths of her despair and intense humiliation. ”

“ Villiers coloured, and lapsed into silence.
'I always look upon flirtation as playing with fire,' said Gore; 'never attempt it, but I get into some deuced scrape.'
'How much money is muddled up with matrimony in the world nowadays!' said Villiers, thinking probably of the heiress's thousands; 'I suppose it was different in the days of our grandfathers.'
'Not much, I fancy,' said Gore.
Hammersley had now occasion for much and somewhat bitter thought. Finella and this officer were evidently the subjects of club gossip and not very well-bred banter; the conviction galled him. ”

“ But the twenty men only poured in a rifle fire, wheeled about by fours, and, galloping back, won the shelter of the square, the four faces of which were fringed by steel and garlanded with jets of fire and smoke, while the roar of artillery shook the air, and high overhead was heard the fierce rush of the red rockets as they were shot into the royal kraal of Ulundi and fired it in many places. ”

“ The circumstance that Finella was undoubtedly still wearing his engagement ring made Hammersley, amid all his misery and anger, long for some more certain information than mere Club gossip and banter afforded, and for that which was due from her—an explicit explanation. He thought, as a casuist has it, 'that to know her false would not be so bitter as to doubt. To mistrust the woman we love is torture. To have a knowledge of her guilt is the first step towards burying our love. ”

“ With all this earnestness of preparation and of purpose she had no settled plan for the future—no very defined one at least; her sole desire was to anticipate the final mortification of dismissal, and to get away from the vicinity of Lady Fettercairn, of Shafto, and of Craigengowan.
Save the Rev. Paul Pentreath, far away in her native Devonshire, and the vicar in London through whom he had befriended her, she had no one to whom to look forward, and, save for Florian's sake, she felt at times, as if she cared little what became of her. ”

“ He could only think of the generous and chivalrous Vivian Hammersley, that good officer and noble Englishman, shot down thus in the pride of his manhood by the felon hand of an assassin, whose bullet was meant for himself—Hammersley, whose form stood with a kind of luminous atmosphere amid the dark surroundings that beset them both since he (Florian) had come as a soldier to Zululand; and then he thought of Dulcie's friend Finella, whom he only knew by name. ”

“ Sooner or later one runs up against every one in this whirligig world of ours; thus Hammersley, still lingering aimlessly in London, coming one day from the Horse Guards, in crossing the east end of the Mall, found himself suddenly face to face with her of whom his thoughts were full—Finella Melfort! ”

“ So, whether she had, as she threatened she would do, fled from Craigengowan, or remained there, found friends elsewhere with happiness or grief, Florian could not know, and the doubt was a source of torment to him.
Horseback has been considered a famous place for reflection, but one could scarcely find it so when serving as a Mounted Infantry-man, scouting on the outlook for lurking Zulus, with every energy of ear and eye watching donga, boulder, bush, and tuft of reedy grass. ”

“ Believing that if ever he returned to camp it would only be to find his friend dying or dead, Florian, plunged in grief, maddened by rage and a thirst for dire vengeance, rode furiously yet silently on, closely followed by his four infantry men.
His horse—Hammersley's—was a fine English charger, and soon outstripped those of his comrades, who erelong began to drop rearward one after another, though Tom Tyrrell continued to head the rest; but after a time Florian found himself almost alone; thus it was fortunate for him that those he pursued were without ammunition. ”

“ James's Square, she, like Lady Fettercairn on the other occasion, put great faith in cousinship and propinquity.
What a different kind and style of cousin Ronald Garallan was from Shafto, Finella naturally thought; not that as yet she loved him a bit, as he evidently loved her, but he was such a delightful companion to escort her everywhere.
She had received plenty of admiration and adulation during her short season in London before, and to suppose that she was blind to the young Major's attentions would be to deem her foolish; no woman or girl is ever blind to that sort of thing. ”

“ Nodding in his saddle, Florian felt spiritless and sick at heart, wishing intensely that the last act was over.
Far in the distance around extended a range of mountains that were purple and blue in their hues, even against the greenish-blue of the sky, and vast tracts of wood, tinted with every hue of green, red, and golden; in the foreground were brawling streams dashing through channels of rock to join the Black Umvolosi, under graceful date palms, mimosa trees, and the undergrowth of baboon ropes and other giant trailers. ”

“ Here she was sometimes joined by Finella, who could no longer persuade her to ramble as of old in the grounds, and never again to accompany her in the saddle when she took Fern for a spin along the country roads.
'Are you not sick of crewel work, and embroidering sage birds of shapes that never existed upon brown bath-towels?' asked Finella. 'I know you do it by grandmamma's wish; but what tasteless folly it is.'
'I would rather, as I did at home, knit stockings for the poor,' said Dulcie. ”

“ I got your address from good old Paul Pentreath, procured leave of absence, and came on here without a moment's delay, my own darling.'
For some minutes neither could find words to speak, so supreme was the mutual happiness of the sudden reunion.
'How brown you are! but how thin, and how much older you look!' said Dulcie, surveying him with bright but tearful eyes. 'I can scarcely believe you to be the same Florian that left me only a year ago or so.'
'Ay, Dulcie, pet; but soldiering, especially soldiering in the ranks, takes a lot out of a fellow. ”

“ Service and exposure had now made deep the bronze of Florian's face and hands; but the former had matured its expression, and the fine manliness of it; a careless, not precisely a rackety life—but a camp life, with perils faced in the field—had made his features and bearing less boyish than they were when Dulcie bade him farewell at Revelstoke.
'A generous friendship no cold medium knows,' says Pope; thus, when active operations were resumed, Florian became painfully conscious how much he missed Hammersley at the head of the squadron, a charge that had now devolved upon himself ”

“ A man of honour, indeed!'
Garallan burst into a fit of scornful laughter, and Shafto, mad with rage and disappointment, was rushing to grasp the poker, when the former, in a moment, and before the apparently helpless Kippilaw could interfere, if able to do so, in any way, had struck his would-be opponent down, and wrenched from his left hand, which he tore open by main force, something that Shafto had attempted to put in his mouth, and which, on examination, proved to be—a loaded die. ”

“ As a souvenir of the latter—for Dulcie, perhaps—he desired Tom Tyrrell to cut off one of the hoofs, and Tom polished the hoof and burnished the iron shoe till the latter shone like silver—the hoof that never again would carry Florian across the wild karoo, or to the front in the face of the enemy.
The Second Division now began its march to encamp on the fatal hill of Isandhlwana—that place of ill omen.
Hammersley was conveyed with other wounded in an ambulance waggon, and it was decided that if he recovered sufficiently he should be sent home on sick leave to Britain. ”

“ And when Lady Fettercairn took the trouble to be ill, which was pretty frequently now, as she was worried by being kept away so long from London and London gaieties, for no purpose or end, apparently, so far as Finella and Shafto were concerned, she established a headache as a domestic institution, during the prevalence of which no one was to address her on any subject whatever—more than all, no one was to cross her. But Shafto's extravagance and growing evil habits were becoming a source of perpetual thought to the Craigengowan household now. ”

“ Dulcie was painfully sensible that the lady of the house had become cold, stiff, and most exacting in manner to her, even condescending to sneer at times, with a well-bred tone and bearing that some high-born ladies can assume when they wish to sting dependants or equals alike.
Finella's other grandmother, my Lady Drumshoddy, had ceased to be quite so indignant at her repulsion to Shafto, as she had a nephew—son of a sister—coming home on leave from India ”

“ Finella thought she would like to run away too; but with all her wealth it was less easy for an heiress of position to do so than for the poor and nameless companion; and now that Dulcie was gone, Finella felt that the link between herself and Hammersley was cut off. ”