Renshaw Fanning

“ Darkness fell, for there is no twilight to speak of beneath the Southern Cross, and the dull, dead silence of the mighty solitude was unbroken, save for the hoarse roar of the river surging through its rocky channel, and the measured hoof-beats of the horse. And as he urged the animal on through the gloom all Renshaw’s apprehensions seemed to renew themselves with tenfold intensity. ”

“ From the Dark River’s Brink.
It was a weird picture. The grey rocks jutting forth into the evening stillness; the spotted, creeping beast, gathering itself together for its deadly spring; the man, weakened, helpless, lying there at its mercy. Even then, so strange are the fantasies that cross the human brain at the most critical moments—even then, with a kind of grim humour it flashed upon Renshaw Fanning how thoroughly the positions were reversed. Many a time had the spotted pard fallen a victim to his sure aim; now it had devolved upon one of the feline race to give him his death stroke. ”

“ The sun was setting in a blood-red curtain of cloud beyond the distant mountain peaks, shedding a fiery glow upon the stupendous chain of iron cliffs which overhung the weird and desolate defile. It came home to Renshaw then, that he must have slept for nearly twenty-four hours.
He still felt terribly weak, and his dazed and dizzy brain was still beclouded as in a fog. The events of yesterday, of his lifetime, in fact, seemed but as a far-away and uncertain dream. At any rate he could die in peace here—in peace with all mankind. He felt no fear of death, he had faced it too often. ”

“ Renshaw, guessing the turn events were likely to take, had quietly dismounted, and, filling his hands and pockets with stones, had advanced to the support of his now discomfited friend.
“Those brutes don’t understand us quite,” he said, after the roar of laughter evoked by this sudden turn in the tide of affairs had subsided. “One shot would have sent them scampering, but we dared not fire it. They are not used to the human form divine in this wilderness, but they won’t forget that bombardment in a hurry.” ”

“ He had felt a real liking for Renshaw, sincere, but dashed with a touch of superiority. A fine fellow in many ways, but soft in others, had been his verdict. And now this man was actually dictating terms to him. Even then, however, some faint stirrings of his better impulses moved Sellon, but greed of gain, selfishness, self-importance, came uppermost.
“I’m not the sort of man to be bullied into anything,” he answered.
They stood there facing each other—there on the brink of that marvellous treasure house—on the brink, too, of a deadly quarrel over the riches which it had yielded them. ”

“ The reptile was quite dead, its head shattered by the hard oaken table, but its hideous length was still undulating with a convulsive writhe. The glare was the result of a continuous succession of vivid lightning flashes. Just then a mighty rolling peal of thunder shook the house, making the doors and windows rattle like castanets. Then followed pitch darkness.
“Strike a light, if you have any handy, but don’t come too near me in the dark,” said Renshaw. “This joker’s fangs may still be of some account, albeit he’s stone dead.”
As though still dreaming, Sellon obeyed. ”

“ These thoughts passing through Renshaw’s mind could not but temper the degree of wild exultation which he felt now that he had conquered at last. Sellon, on the other hand, could hardly restrain the wild hurrahs wherewith, but for the consciousness of probable peril, he would fain have given vent to his feelings.
“How far down is it, old chap?” said the latter, eagerly.
“Impossible to say. We can go forward a little now, and explore. It’s not much of a moon, but there’s light enough. ”

“ Yet how would he take the discovery of its loss?
“I’ve never gone into it with you before, Sellon,” went on Renshaw, holding the pouch in his hand, little thinking what tantalising suspense his friend was undergoing. “You see, when a man holds a secret of this kind—has been treasuring it up for years—he’s apt to keep it mighty close. But now that we are fairly in the swim together things are different.” ”

“ No, assuredly none who know him can ever mistake Renshaw Fanning for a muff.
Such is the man whom we see, solitary, depressed, and in breaking health, contemplating, on his desert farm, the approach of ruin—which ruin all efforts on his part are powerless to avert. ”

“ But he deigned no answer.
“I say, Fanning,” came the voice from overhead again. “Hang it, man, say you agree.”
“Never,” now replied Renshaw, speaking coldly and deliberately. “I have never been a grasping man, and I defy my worst enemy to charge me with a single instance of taking advantage of anybody. But—I have always tried to be a man of principle—to act on principle. And in utterly refusing to play up to your villainous hand I am following out that line consistently. And now, Maurice Sellon, I will just add this. I am alone in the world, and having no ties my life is to that extent my own. ”

“ I had started to look for you in quite the wrong direction, and fell in with that queer fellow, Fanning. Came down here with him, as you know.”
“Did Mr Fanning talk about—er—tell you about—me?” she said hesitatingly.
Maurice Sellon was not the man to betray poor Renshaw’s involuntary and delirious confidences, even to Violet herself—at least, not unless some strong motive existed for doing so, which at present was not the case. So he answered—
“Talk about you? Not he! He’s much too deep a dog. ”

“ Then he wondered when it had been recovered—when Fanning had discovered its loss—and whether he had entertained any suspicion of himself. If so, it was marvellous that all this time he should have let drop no word, no hint, either of the incident or his suspicions regarding it. The enhanced respect which his tranquil, self-contained companion had begun to inspire in Sellon, now turned to something like awe. “You’ll never make an adventurer, Sellon,” said Renshaw, with his quiet smile, “until you chuck overboard such inconvenient luggage as nerves. ”

“ They could never be anything closer to each other; but, dog-in-the-manger like, he had no idea of surrendering her to one who might freely occupy a closer place. Conscience suggested that had he himself not turned up Renshaw Fanning’s suit might in time have prospered. Well, what was that to him? He would give up Violet to no man living ”

“ Most men, brave enough in actual danger, would have felt the “creepy” effect of those silent hours as they strained their eyes upon the surrounding veldt, now construing a shadow into an enemy—now hearing a whisper of voices, the tread of a stealthy footstep—in the varying and spectral sounds of the night. But Renshaw’s solitary and wandering life had inured him to these things. His chief considerations now were, firstly lest the drowsy feeling, which he was doing his utmost to combat, should tend to dim his vigilance; secondly, the stilling of his cravings for just one carefully guarded pipe. ”

“ Again Renshaw did the best thing he could. Mastering a desire to turn and brain the ruffian before he could rise, he rammed the spurs into his horse’s flanks and set off down the road at a hard gallop; not, however, before he was able to recognise in his assailants a Hottentot and a Bastard. Luckily, too, for three more flashes belched forth from the hillside a little way above the scene of the conflict, but the bullets came nowhere near him. Then upon the still silence of the night he could hear other and deeper tones mingling with the harsh chatter of his late assailants. ”

“ They have enough, and life is better than inordinate wealth. Is he not content with the grisly risk he has run, so narrowly escaping with his life? And Renshaw, with a laugh, is fain to answer that he is. Yet peradventure, some day, when the quiver is full—but we must not anticipate.
Not a word more has been heard of Maurice Sellon or the partner of his flight—not a word beyond the brief reassurance on the score of her bodily safety which Violet had had the grace to forward to poor old Mrs Aldridge by the last boat which left the New Zealand steamer. ”

“ Renshaw, on the other hand, deliberately sat down, and, producing his pipe, proceeded leisurely to fill and light it.
“It isn’t on the face of the rock we’ve got to look, Sellon,” he said, when this operation was completed. “It’s here.”
He rose, advanced to the cleft, and gazed eagerly inside. It was just wide enough to admit a man’s body. Just then the first arrowy gleams of the risen sun shot over the frowning rock walls, glowing athwart the grey chill atmosphere of the crater. They swept round the searcher’s head, darting into the shaded cleft. ”

“ Perfectly unmanageable, frenzied with pain and terror, the horse shot past Renshaw, his rider vainly endeavouring to restrain him. One stride—two—three—the horse was among the loose rubble on the cliffs brow. There was a prodigious plunging of hoofs—a cloud of dust and gravel—a slide—a frantic struggle—then with a scream, which even at that stirring moment curdled the listeners’ blood, the poor steed disappeared into space—while his rider, who, in the very nick of time, had slipped to the ground, stood bewildered and pale at the thought of the frightful danger he had escaped. ”

“ Then the sun sinks down behind the further ridge in ruddy sea, leaving the impression that, the whole world is on fire, until the lustrous afterglow fades into the grey shades of gloaming.
“No time for the beauties of Nature,” went on Renshaw, as his companion, rising from his prostrate posture, rejoined him. “Look. There is our way up, if we are to get up at all. And a precious cranky staircase it is, too.”
It was. A steep, stony gully, looking as if, in past ages, it had served for a water-shoot round the extremity of the razor-backed ridge. ”

“ With which remark the speaker characteristically dismissed the affair from his mind altogether.
“I’ve had a letter from Renshaw,” said Mrs Selwood, as they sat down to dinner.
“A letter!” cried Violet, suddenly interested. “Why, it isn’t post-day! How did you get it?”
“Theunis Bezuidenhout brought it out from Fort Lamport. He says the drought up there is something fearful—”
“Who? Theunis Bezuidenhout?” struck in Christopher.
”—Something fearful,” went on his wife, clean ignoring this flippant remark. “There isn’t a blade of grass left on the place, and hardly a drop of water. ”

“ As a matter of course, his friends and acquaintances vote him a fool, but deep down in their hearts lies a mine of respect for the only thoroughly unselfish man they have ever known; and even the unscrupulous ones who have traded upon and profited by his failing did so with compunction.
But with all his soft-heartedness and sensitive and retiring temperament, none who knew him have ever for a moment mistaken Renshaw Fanning for a muff. ”

“ A dead, sultry, boding stillness reigned over everything, productive of that strange nervous depression which is wont to afflict mankind prior to an approaching convulsion of Nature. Every door and window of the house stood open, as if to keep up the fiction that there was any air to come in.
“I believe there’s going to be an earthquake, at least,” said Sellon, as he turned in.
“Or a big thunderstorm, only—no such luck!” answered Renshaw.
It was not the night to bear the weight of a blanket, or even of a sheet, had the latter luxury been among the resources of the establishment. ”

“ And in the cities and turmoil of civilisation so striking a personality as that of Renshaw Fanning was not likely to go unnoticed. For the man who owned that noble, refined face, bronzed with exposure, and when in repose never altogether free from a touch of saddened gravity—all manner of pitfalls were laid. ”

“ But, Renshaw—how much do you know of this Mr Sellon? Who is he?”
“Well, the fact is, I don’t know much—beyond that he’s knocking around here on the look-out for anything that may turn up trumps—like a good many of us. He’s a man who seems to have seen a good deal of the world—and, as you say, he’s good company. Seems well bred, too.”
“Oh yes,” acquiesced Marian, half absently. “But we had better forget that I ventured an unfavourable opinion on him.” And as at that moment they were invaded by twelve-year-old Effie, the subject perforce dropped.
“Is Violet inside, Effie?” asked Marian. ”

“ I have heard men say, not once, not yet twice, that in any undertaking involving peril or enterprise there is no man they would rather have at their side than Renshaw Fanning. And he is the most unselfish of men. ”

“ Still deliberately, Renshaw unrolled the last fold of the wrapper, and produced—a scroll of frayed and yellow paper.
Heavens and earth! It was the identical document! In his wild amazement Sellon could not refrain from a violent start.
“What’s the row?” said the other, quietly. “Keep cool. We want steady nerves over this undertaking.”
“You’re right, old man. I own that mine are a little too high-strung,” answered Maurice, with something of a stammer. “By Jove, what if we should go back practically millionaires! Only think of it, old chap! Isn’t it enough to turn any man’s head? ”

“ In the background some hundred yards distant, and about eighty feet in height, rose a perpendicular wall of rock, being one of the spurs of the main ridge.
“Oh, you’ll sleep soundly enough once you’re off, never fear,” laughed Renshaw. “And now, as we are fairly embarked upon our undertaking, we may as well go over old Greenway’s yarn together. Two heads are better than one, they say, and a fresh mind brought to bear upon the story may bring into it a fresh idea or two.”
Putting his hand inside his shirt, he produced the buckskin pouch. At last had come the moment Sellon had long dreaded. ”