Edala

“ 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.” ”

“ Edala had not taken the remark in good part. She had flashed forth that it was no good having anything in one, if one was to be stuck away on a Natal farm all one’s life with no opportunity of bringing it out. Her father shook his head sadly.
“There may come a day when you will be glad to find yourself back on that same Natal farm,” he said. Then he went out.
Of this he was thinking as he sat in his library a few mornings after Elvesdon’s timely appearance. Why now should he not let her have her way? Why should he not send her to Europe as she wished? ”

“ Oh, you think I’m taking it all remarkably coolly, Evelyn—” she broke off, in the gusty voice she used in moments of excitement. “But—we must keep up—we must keep up.”
“Yes—yes,” came the quick answer.
“There’s just this I go upon,” went on Edala. “If there are two men in the world who could be reckoned on to keep their wits about them and do the right thing at the right time, those two are father and Mr Elvesdon. ”

“ The latter’s presence he hardly noticed as he acknowledged their introduction mechanically. Then Edala gave him all particulars of the semi-tragic termination to Tongwana’s war-dance.
“Why the people have known him all their lives,” said Hyland. “What can be their object? I could understand if they had killed him—them—but to keep them prisoners—Oh Lord! Edala, can nothing be done to rescue them? We can’t sit down and let things slide.” ”

“ Edala said, as he joined them, and there was an unconscious coldness in her tone. Thornhill’s face lost colour.
“You had no business to be where you are,” was all he said whatever he may have felt. “Your position was quite two hundred yards further down. Nothing brings about shooting accidents so much as people changing the positions they arranged to take up.”
“Lucky we did or Manamandhla would have been shot,” she returned, and felt angry with herself for being unable to restrain a certain significance in her tone. ”

“ Soon a fire was started in the kitchen, and coffee brewed.
“I wonder what has become of Ramasam,” said Edala, when they sat down to their meal. “He’s an awful coward, and must have bolted with the others. Yet, I wonder how they first got the alarm. If it wasn’t that old Patolo is as reliable as death I should have thought that he had cleared out all the cattle and goats, for decidedly someone has.”
Evelyn had not noticed this little detail in the excitement and apprehension attendant on their strange home-coming. More and more she wondered at the other’s strength, her almost awful coolness. ”

“ She remembered how her flesh had crept before, when Edala had taken her to see the famous tree, how she had turned away almost faint, as she watched the girl spring out fearlessly on to this dreadful seat—with a careless laugh as though she had just dropped into an armchair. And now she too must sit dangling over the awful height. At that moment she almost preferred to take her chance of the assegais of the savages. But that chance might possibly mean even a worse one, and the thought decided her, as Edala whispered impatiently:—
“It’s got to be done. It’s our only chance. But you can’t fall. ”

“ Thornhill’s face became rigid. He had entertained an angel unawares and had, all unconsciously, done his best to transform him into a devil. Elvesdon, too, began to see through the veil—though not entirely. He recalled the incident in the kloof when his friend had fired straight at this man, and but for his timely interruption and that of Edala would certainly have shot him dead. The Zulu for his part knew exactly how much to render clear to both and how much to keep dark from one. ”

“ Well then, do so, and load up on board the train as soon as you like after receipt of this, and trek down here for as long as you like. Edala is getting a bit hipped. I’m not sure the same doesn’t hold good a little of her—and your—unrespected parent.
“Things here are much the same, except that we’ve got a new man at Kwabulazi in the room of old Carston transferred, as the official letters say—a chap named Elvesdon, an exceedingly wide awake, smart chap, and devilish good company. You’re sure to like him. Old Tongwana often asks after you. ”

“ The kraal was in a state of indescribable confusion; men, women and children pouring forth helter-skelter from the only side left open. In vain. Here, too, those terrible horns closed up, and there ensued a scene of discriminate massacre, to the accompaniment of the most diabolical shouts and hisses. The spectators could scarcely believe it was not real. Evelyn Carden’s face had gone quite white, and even that of Edala looked disturbed.
“What awful creatures!” said the former. “Mr Elvesdon, are you sure it isn’t real? ”

“ I have never seen a stranger in my life by the Edera. Were they anglers?"
"No."
"Or sportsmen?"
"They had no guns."
"How many were they?"
"Three. They went away up the river talking."
"Did they cross the bridge?"
"No. They were not shepherds, or labourers, or priests," said Nerina. To these classes of men her own acquaintance was confined.
"Painters, perhaps?" said Adone; but no artists were ever seen there; the existence even of the valley was scarcely known, except to topographers.
"What are painters?" said Nerina.
"Men who sit and stare and then make splashes of colour." ”

“ A tremor shook his frame from head to foot.
"I knew it was some deviltry," he muttered. "Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! would that I had made the oxen trample them into thousand pieces! They ought never to have left my field alive!"
"Hush, hush!" said the priest sternly. "I cannot have such language in my house. Compose yourself."
Adone raised his head; his eyes were alight as with fire; his face was darkly red.
"What, sir! You tell me the river is to be taken away from us, and you ask me to be calm! It is not in human nature to bear such a wrong in peace. Take away the Edera! ”

“ So they passed the swamps safely; only here that slave whom Eddo had cursed at the kraal of Dingaan, and who from that day onward had wasted till he seemed to be nothing but a great skeleton, sickened and died.
“Did I not tell you that it should be so?” said Eddo to the other slaves, who trembled before him as reeds tremble in the wind. “Be warned, ye fools, who think that the strength of men lies in their bodies and their spears.” Then he kicked the corpse of the dead giant gently with his sandalled foot, and bade his brothers throw him into a pool for the crocodiles to eat. ”

“ You cannot know! Live elsewhere? My mother and I? Sooner a thousand times would we drown in Edera!"
The water was golden under the reflections of the sun as he spoke; the great net was swaying in it, clear of the sword rush and iris; a kingfisher like a jewel was threading its shallows; there was the fresh smell of the heather and the wild tulips on the air.
"You do not know what it is to love a thing! — how should you? — you, a priest!" said Adone.
Don Silverio did not reply. He went on down the course of the stream. ”

“ They concern only myself."
"None of our rights concern only ourselves. What are those which you claim in special on the Edera water?"
Adone was silent for a few moments; he was astonished and embarrassed; he had never reflected on the legal side of his claim to the river; he had grown up in love and union with it; such affections, born with us at birth, are not analysed until they are assailed.
"You are strangers," he replied. "But what right do you question me? I was born here. What is your errand?"
"You must be Adone Alba?" said the person, as if spokesman for the others. ”

“ I fear, sir, that if it be ever put into execution we shall have trouble in your commune. Your council has been over hasty in allying itself with these speculators. You and they have not taken into account the immense injury which will be done to the valley and to my own village or town, call it as you will, of Ruscino. The people are quiet, patient, meek, but they will not be so if they are robbed of the water of the Edera. It is the source of all the little — the very little — good which comes to them. So it is with Adone Alba. ”

“ Eddo heard, and his yellow face grew white with rage, or fear. He stamped upon the ground, he shook his small fat fists, and spat out curses as a toad spits venom. Nya did not stay to listen to them, but walked up the cave and sat herself down upon her mat.
“Why does he hate thee so, Mother?” asked Rachel.
“Because those that are bad hate those that are good, Maiden. For many a year Eddo has sought to rule through me, and to work evil in the world, but I have not suffered it. He would abandon our secret, ancient faith, and reign a king, as Dingaan the Zulu reigns. ”

“ He dared not tell his friend of the passionate propaganda which he had begun up and down the course of the Edera, striving to make these stocks and stones stir, striving to make the blind see, the deaf hear, the infirm rise and leap.
"Let us go and make music," said the priest at last. "That will not harm any one, and will do our own souls good. It is long since I heard your voice."
"It will be longer," thought Adone, as he answered: "Excuse me, sir; I cannot think of any other thing than this great evil which hangs over us. ”

“ He did not want the grandeur, he did not envy the power which they had possessed; but he wished that, like them, he could own the Edera from its rise in the hills to its fall into the sea.
"Oh, dear river!" he sang to it tenderly, "I love you. I love you as the dragon-flies do, as the wagtails do, as the water voles do; I am you and you are me. When I lean over you and smile, you smile back to me. You are beautiful in the night and the morning, when you mirror the moon and play with the sunbeams, when you are angry under the wind, and when you are at peace in the heat of the noon. ”

“ That Adone could for one fleeting moment have harboured so vile a thought filled him with nausea and amaze. Betray them! He! — who would willingly have given up such years of life as might remain to him could he by such a sacrifice have saved their river and their valley from destruction. There was nothing short of vice or crime which he would not have done to save the Edera water from its fate. But it was utterly impossible to do anything. Even men of eminence had often brought all their forces of wealth and argument against similar enterprises, and had failed in their opposition. ”

“ Then while he followed his magic path through the darkness of the forest we seized and bound him, knowing well that if he could not come to thee, thou wouldst come to him. And thou hast come.”
“I understand. What now, Eddo?”
“This, Inkosazana: Thou hast been named Mother of the Trees by the people of the Dwarfs; be pleased to come with us that we may instal thee in thy great office.”
“This lord here,” said Rachel, “is my promised husband. What of him?”
Eddo bowed and smiled, a fearful smile, and answered:
“The Mother of the Trees has no husband. Wisdom is her husband. ”

“ The long neglect of these precious records of our heathen ancestors is not the fault of the material in which all that survives of their religious belifes is enshrined, for it may safely be asserted that the Edda is as rich in the essentials of national romance and race-imagination, rugged though it be, as the more graceful and idyllic mythology of the South. ”

“ When we inquire whom Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday are named after, and press questions in reference to Tyr, Odin, Thor and Freyja, we get at best but a wise and knowing look. Are we, then, as a nation, like the ancient Jews, and do we bend the knee before the gods of foreign nations and forsake the altars of our own gods? What if we then should suffer the fate of that unhappy people—be scattered over all the world and lose our fatherland? In these Eddas our fathers have bequeathed unto us all their profoundest, all their sublimest, all their best thought. ”

“ To all young men of courage and sensibility and enthusiasm the vindication of a clear right seems an act so simple that it is only through long and painful experience that they realize that there is nothing under the sun which is so hard to compass, or which is met by such strong antagonism. To Adone, whose nature was unspoilt by modern influences, and whose world was comprised in the fields and moors around Ruscino, it seemed incredible that such a title as that of his native soil to the water of Edera could be made clear to those in power without instant ratification of it. ”

“ A faint red colour came over Don Silverio's colourless face.
"One may be both," he said simply. "You are distraught, my son, by a great calamity. Try and see yourself as other see you, and do not lead the poor and ignorant into peril. Will the Edera waters be freer because your neighbours and you are at the galleys? The men of gold, who have the men of steel behind them, will be always stronger than you."
"God is over us all," said Adone. ”

“ The Dragon legend of the Edda is much fuller and more elaborate than that of any other mythology. As a rule tradition is satisfied with the existence of the monster “old and proud of his treasure,” but here we are told its full previous history, certain features of which (such as the shape-shifting) are signs of antiquity, whether it was originally connected with the Volsungs or not.
As usual, Völsunga gives the fullest account, in the form of a story told by Regin to his foster-son Sigurd, to incite him to slay the dragon. ”