CHAPTER EIGHT.
"ON THE ROCK THEY SCORCH, LIKE A DROP OF FIRE."
"What are they really doing over there, do you suppose, Eustace?" saidEanswyth anxiously, as they regained the house. The thunder of the wildwar-dance floated across the intervening miles of space, and the mistyglare of many fires luridly outlined the distant mountain slopes. Theposition was sufficiently terrifying to any woman alone there save forone male protector, with hundreds of excited and now hostile savagesperforming their weird and clamourous war rites but a few miles away.
"I'm afraid there's no mistake about it; they are holding a bigwar-dance," was the reply. "But it's nothing new. This sort of fun hasbeen going on at the different kraals for the last month. It's onlybecause we are, so to say, next door to Nteya's location that we hear itto-night at all."
"But Nteya is such a good old man," said Eanswyth. "Surely he wouldn'tharm us. Surely he wouldn't join in any rising."
"You are correct in your first idea, in the second, not. We are rapidlymaking such a hash of affairs _in re_ Kreli and the Fingoes over in theTranskei, that we are simply laying the train for a war with the wholeAmaxosa race. How can Nteya, or any other subordinate chief, refuse tojoin when called upon by Kreli, the Chief Paramount. The trouble oughtto be settled before it goes any further, and my opinion is that itcould be."
"You are quite a politician," said Eanswyth, with a smile. "You oughtto put up for the Secretaryship for Native Affairs."
"Let us sit out here," he said, drawing up a couple of cane chairs whichwere always on the _stoep_. "Here is a very out-of-the-way phenomenon--one the like of which we might not witness again in a lifetime. We mayas well see it out."
If Eanswyth had been rather alarmed heretofore, the other's perfectunconcern went far to reassure her. The wild, unearthly chorus echoingthrough the darkness--the glare of the fires, the distant, but thundrousclamour of the savage orgy, conveyed no terrors to this strong-nervedand philosophical companion of hers. He only saw in them a strange anddeeply interesting experience. Seated there in the starlight, some ofthat unconcern communicated itself to her. A restful calm came uponher. This man beside her was as a very tower of strength. And thencame over her a consciousness--not for the first time, but stronger thanshe had ever felt it--of how necessary his presence was to her. Hiscalm, strong judgment had kept matters straight for a long time past.He had been the one to pour oil on the troubled waters; to allay oravert the evils which her husband's ungovernable temper and ill-judgedviolence had thickly gathered around them. Now, as he sat there besideher calmly contemplating the sufficiently appalling manifestations ofthat night--manifestations that would otherwise have driven her wildwith terror--she was conscious of feeling hardly any fear.
And what of Eustace himself? Lucky, indeed, that his judgment wasstrong, his brain habitually clear and unclouded. For at that momenthis mind could only be compared to the seething, misty rush of awhirlpool. He could see her face in the starlight--even the lustrousglow of the great eyes--could mark the clear outline or the delicateprofile turned half away from him. He was alone with her in the sweet,soft African night--alone with her--her sole protector, amid thebrooding peril that threatened. A silence had fallen between them. Hislove--his concealed and hopeless love for her overcame him. He couldnot command words--not even voice, for the molten, raging fires ofpassion which consumed him as he sat there. His hand clenched the armof his cane chair--a jagged nail, which protruded, lacerating it nearlyto the bone--still he felt nothing of physical pain--mind triumphed.
Yes, the anguish of his mind was so intense as to be akin to physicalpain. Why could they not be thus together always? They could, but forone life. One life only, between him and such bliss that the wholeworld should be a bright and golden paradise! One life! A legion offiends seemed to wrestle within the man's raging soul. "One life!" theyechoed in jibbering, gnashing chorus. "One life!" they seemed to shriekaloud in his brain. "What more easily snapped than the cord of a life?"
The tumultuous thunder of the fierce war-dance sounded louder and louderupon the night--the glare of the distant fires reddened, and then glowedforth afresh. What if Tom Carhayes had come upon the spoor of hismissing sheep--and in his blind rage had followed it right into Nteya'slocation? Might he not as well walk straight into a den of lions? Thesavage Gaikas, wound up to the highest pitch of bloodthirsty excitement,would at such a time be hardly less dangerous than so many beasts ofprey. Even at that very moment the cord of that one life might besnapped.
Suddenly a great tongue of flame shot up into the night, then anotherand another. From a hilltop the red and threatening beacons flashedforth their message of hate and defiance. The distant tumult of thesavage orgy had ceased. A weird and brooding silence lay upon thesurrounding country.
"Oh, what does it mean? What does it all mean?" cried Eanswyth startingup from her chair. Her face was white with fear--her dilated eyes,gazing forth upon the gushing fires, were wild and horror-stricken.Eustace, standing there at her side, could hardly restrain himself fromthrowing his arms around her and pouring out a passionate storm ofcomforting, loving words. Yet she belonged to another man--was bound tohim until death should them part. But what if death had already partedthem? What if she were so bound no longer? he thought with a fierce,wild yearning that had in it something of the murderer's fell purpose,as he strained his gaze upon the wild signals of savage hostility.
"Don't be frightened, Eanswyth," he said reassuringly, but in a voicefrom which even he could not banish every trace of emotion. "You shallcome to no harm to-night, dear, take my word for it. To-morrow, though,we must take you to some safer place than this is likely to prove forthe next few days."
She made no answer. He had drawn his arm through hers and the strong,reassuring touch seemed to dispel her fears. It seemed to him that sheleaned upon him, as though for physical support no less than for mental.Thus they stood, their figures silhouetted in the dull red glow. Thusthey stood, the face of the one stormy with conflicting emotions--thatof the other calm, restful, safe in that firm protecting companionship.Thus they stood, and to one of these two that isolated position in themidst of a brooding peril represented the sweetest, most ecstatic momentthat life had ever afforded. And still upon the distant hilltops,gushing redly upward into the velvety darkness, the war-fires of thesavages gleamed and burned.
"We had better go in now," said Eustace, after a while, when the flamingbeacons had at length burnt low. "You must be tired to death by thistime, and it won't do to sit out here all night. You must have somerest."
"I will try," she answered. "Do you know, Eustace, there is a somethingabout you that seems to put everything right. I am not in the leastfrightened now."
There was a softness in her tone that bordered upon tenderness--asoftness that was dangerous indeed to a man in his frame of mind.
"Ah! you find that, do you?" he answered, in a strained, harsh,unnatural voice. Then his utterance seemed choked. Their eyes met inthe starlight--met in a long, clinging gaze--then their lips. Yet, shebelonged to another man, and--a life stood between these two.
Thus to that extent Eustace Milne, the cool-headed, the philosophic, hadallowed the impulse of his mad passion to overmaster him. But before hecould pour forth the unrestrained torrent of words which should partthem there and then forever, or bind them more closely for weal or forwoe, Eanswyth suddenly wrenched herself from his close embrace. Aclatter of rapidly approaching hoofs was borne upon the night.
"It's Tom!" she cried, at the same time fervently blessing the friendlydarkness which concealed her burning face. "It must be Tom. What canhe have been doing with himself all this time?"
"Rather! It's Tom, right enough, or what's left of him!" echoed theloud, well-known voice, as the horseman rode up to the _stoep_ and flunghimself from the saddle. "What's left of him," he repeated grimly."Can't you strike a light, Eanswyth, instead of standing there staringat a man as if he had actu
ally been cut into mince-meat by thoseinfernal brutes, instead of having only had a very narrow escape fromthat same," he added testily, striding past her to enter the house,which up till now had been left in darkness for prudential reasons, lestby rendering it more conspicuous the sight might tempt their savageneighbours, in their present ugly humour, to some deed of violence andoutrage.
A lamp was quickly lighted, and then a half-shriek escaped Eanswyth.For her husband presented a ghastly spectacle. He was hatless, and histhick brown beard was matted with blood, which had streamed down theside of his face from a wound in his head. One of his hands, too, wascovered with blood, and his clothes were hacked and cut in severalplaces.
"For Heaven's sake, Eanswyth, don't stand there screeching like anidiotic schoolgirl, but run and get out some grog, for I want an `eyeopener' badly, I can tell you," he burst forth with an angry stamp ofthe foot. "Then get some water and clean rag, and bandage me up a bit--for besides the crack on the head you see I've got at least half a dozenassegai stabs distributed about my carcase."
Pale and terrified, Eanswyth hurried away, and Carhayes, who had thrownhimself on the sofa, proceeded growlingly to give an account of therough usage he had been subjected to. He must have been stealthilyfollowed, he said, for about half an hour after leaving Nteya's kraal hehad been set upon in the darkness by a party of Kafirs. So sudden wasthe assault that they had succeeded in snatching his gun away from himbefore he could use it. A blow on the head with a kerrie--a whack whichwould have floored a weaker man--he parenthesised grimly and withill-concealed pride--having failed to knock him off his horse, thesavages endeavoured to stab him with their assegais--and in fact hadwounded him in several places. Fortunately for him they had notsucceeded in seizing his bridle, or at any rate in retaining hold of it,or his doom would have been sealed.
"The chap who tried it on dropped under my stirrup-iron," explainedCarhayes. "I `downed' him, by the living Jingo! He'll never kickagain, I do believe. That scoundrel Nteya promised I shouldn't bemolested, the living dog! There he was, the old _schelm_, he and ourfriend of to-day, Hlangani--and Matanzima, old Sandili's son, andSivulele, and a lot of them, haranguing the rest. They mean war. Therecouldn't have been less than six or seven hundred of them--all holding abig war-dance, got up in their feathers and fal-lals. What do you thinkof that, Eustace? And in I went bang into the very thick of them."
"I knew it would come to this one of these days, Tom," said Eanswyth,who now reappeared with the necessary refreshment, and water and towelsfor dressing his wounds.
"Of course you did," retorted her husband, with a savage snarl. "Youwouldn't be a woman if you didn't, my dear. `I told you so,' `I _told_you so,'--isn't that a woman's invariable parrot cry. Instead of`telling me so,' suppose you set to work and see what you can do for afellow. Eh?"
Eustace turned away to conceal the white fury that was blasting him.Why had the Kafirs done things by halves? Why had they not completedtheir work and rid the earth of a coarse-minded brute who simplyencumbered it. From that moment he hated his cousin with a secret andbitter hatred. And this was the life that stood between him and--Paradise.
Tom Carhayes was indeed in a vile humour--not on account of the woundshe had received, ugly as some of them were; for he was not lacking inbrute courage or endurance. But his wrath burnt hot against theinsolent daring of his assailants, who had presumed to attack him, whohad, moreover, done so treacherously, had robbed him of his gun, as wellas of a number of sheep, and had added insult to injury by laughing inhis face when he asked for redress.
"I'll be even with them. I will, by the living Jingo!" he snarled as hesat sipping his brandy and water--while Eanswyth, still pale andagitated from the various and stirring events of the night, bathed hiswounds with rather trembling fingers. "I'll ride into Komgha to-morrowand have the whole lot arrested--especially that lying dog, Nteya. I'llgo with the police myself, if only to see the old scoundrel handcuffedand hauled off to the _tronk_."
"What on earth induced you to run your head into such a hornet's nestfor the sake of a few sheep?" said Eustace at last, thinking he ought tosay something.
"Hang it, man!" was the impatient retort. "Do you suppose I was goingto let these scoundrels have the laugh of me? I tell you I spoored thesheep slap into Nteya's kraal."
"Well, they seem to have the laugh of you now, anyhow--of _us_, rather,"said Eustace drily, as he turned away.
'Tween Snow and Fire: A Tale of the Last Kafir War Page 8