CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.
"I WALK IN SHADOW."
Eanswyth was back again in her old home--living her old life, as in thetimes that were past--but alone.
When she had announced her intention of returning to Anta's Kloof, herfriends had received the proposition with incredulity--when they sawthat she was determined, with dismay.
It was stark lunacy, they declared. She to go to live on anout-of-the-way farm, alone! There was not even a neighbour for prettynear a score of miles, all the surrounding stock-farmers having trekkedinto _laager_. The Gaikas were reported more restless than ever, norwere symptoms wanting that they were on the eve of an outbreak. TheGcaleka campaign had fired their warlike spirits, but had failed toconvey its accompanying warning, and those "in the know" asserted thatthe savages might rise any minute and make common cause with theircountrymen across the Kei. And in the face of all this, here wasEanswyth proposing to establish herself on a lonely farm bordering onthe very location of the plotting and disaffected tribesmen. Why, itwas lunacy--rank suicide!
The worst of it was that nobody on earth had the power to prevent herfrom doing as she chose. Her own family were Western Province peopleand lived far up in the Karroo. Had they been ever so willing, it wouldtake them nearly three weeks to arrive--by which time it might be toolate. But Eanswyth did not choose to send for any one. She wanted tobe alone.
"You need not be in the least alarmed on my account," she had said tothe Hostes in answer to their reiterated expostulations. "Even if theGaikas should rise, I don't believe they would do me the slightest harm.The people on Nteya's location know me well, and the old chief and Iused to be great friends. I feel as if I must go to my old home again--and--don't think me ungracious, but it will do me good to be entirelyalone."
"That was how poor Milne used to argue," said Hoste gravely. "But theykilled him all the same."
"Yes," she replied, mastering the quick sharp spasm which the allusionevoked. "But they were Gcalekas--not our people, who knew him."
Hoste shook his head.
"You are committing suicide," he said. "And the worst of it is we haveno power on earth to prevent you."
"No, you haven't," she assented with the shadow of a smile. "So let mego my own way with a good grace. Besides, with old Josane to look afterme, I can't come to much harm."
She had telegraphed to her late husband's manager at Swaanepoel's Hoek,requesting him to send the old cattle-herd to her at once. Three dayslater Josane arrived, and having commissioned Hoste to buy her a fewcows and some slaughter sheep, enough to supply her modest household.Eanswyth had carried out her somewhat eccentric plan.
The utter loneliness of the place--the entire absence of life--the emptykraals and the silent homestead, all this is inexpressibly grateful toher crushed and lacerated spirit. And in the dead silence of thoseuninhabited rooms she conjures up the sweetest, the holiest memories.Her solitude, her complete isolation, conveys no terror--no spark ofmisgiving, for it is there that her very life has been lived. The deadstillness of the midnight hour, the ghostly creaking of a board, thehundred and one varying sounds begotten of silence and darkness, inspireher with no alarm, for her imagination peoples these empty and desertedrooms with life once more.
She can see him as she saw him in life, moving about the place ondifferent errands bent. There is his favourite chair; there his placeat the table. His personality seems still to pervade the whole house,his spirit to hover around her, to permeate her whole being, here as itcould nowhere else. But it was on first entering his room, which stillcontained a few possessions too cumbersome or too worthless to carryaway--a trunk or two and a few old clothes--here it was that that awfuland vivid contrast struck her in overwhelming force.
What an expression there is in such poor and useless relics--a glove, aboot, a hat, even an old pipe--when we know we shall never see the owneragain, parted perhaps by circumstances, by distance, by death. Do notsuch things seem verily to speak--and to speak eloquently--to bringbefore our eyes, to sound within our ears, the vision, the voice of onewhom we shall never behold again? Ah! do they not!
Standing for the first time alone in that room, Eanswyth felt as thoughher heart had been broken afresh. She fell prone among those poor andworthless relics, pressing them passionately to her lips, while hertears fell like rain. If ever her lover's spirit could come back toher, surely it would be in that room.
"O Eustace, my darling, my first and only love!" murmured the strickencreature, lying face to the very floor in the agony of her grief. "Cometo me from the shadowy spirit land! O God, send him to me, that I maylook upon him once more!"
The shadows deepened within the room. Raising her head she gazedaround, and the expression of pitiable eagerness on the white drawn facewas fearful to behold.
"Oh, dear Lord, if our love is so wicked are we not punished enough! OGod, show him to me again if but for a moment! The ghastliest terrorsof the grave are sweetness to me, if I may but see him once--my deardead love! Eustace, Eustace! You cannot come to me, but I shall soongo to you! Is it a loving God or a fiend that tortures us so? Ah-ah!"
Her heart-broken paroxysm could go no further. No apparition fromanother world met her eyes as they strove to penetrate the deepeningshadows as though fully expecting one. The exhaustion that supervenedwas beneficial to a degree, in that it acted as a safety valve to herfearfully overwrought brain. Her very mind was in danger.
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For nearly a fortnight has Eanswyth thus dwelt, and so far frombeginning to tire of her solitude, she hugs it closer to her. She hasreceived visits from the Hostes and other friends who, reckoning that acouple of days of solitude would sicken her of it altogether, had comewith the object of inducing her to return to the settlement. Besides,Christmas was close at hand and, her bereavement notwithstanding, it didnot somehow seem good that she should spend that genial season alone andin a position not altogether free from danger. But their kindly effortsproved futile; indeed, Eanswyth could hardly disguise the fact thattheir visits were unwelcome. She preferred solitude at such a time, shesaid. Then Mrs Hoste had undertaken to lecture her. It could not beright to abandon one's self so entirely, even to a great sorrow, purredthat complacent matron. It seemed somehow to argue a want of Christianresignation. It was all very well up to a certain point, of course; butbeyond that, it looked like flying in the face of Providence. AndEanswyth had turned her great eyes with such a blank and bewildered lookupon the speaker's face, as if wondering what on earth the woman couldbe talking about, that Mrs Hoste, good-hearted though shallow, haddropped her role of preacher then and there.
One thing that struck Eanswyth as not a little strange was that hardly aKafir had been near the place, whereas formerly their dusky neighbourshad been wont to visit them on one pretext or another enough and tospare, the latter especially, in poor Tom's opinion. She had sent wordto Nteya, inviting him to visit her and have a talk, but the old chiefhad made some excuse, promising, however, to come over and see herlater. All this looked strange and, taken in conjunction with the factthat there had been war-dancing again in Nteya's location, suspicious.So thought at any rate Josane, who gave vent to his misgivings in nouncertain tone. But Eanswyth treated his warnings with perfectunconcern. She would not move, she declared. She was afraid of nobody.If Josane was, he might go if he liked. To which the staunch oldfellow would reply that he feared no man, black or white; that he wasthere to take care of her, and there he would stay, adding, with agrowl, that it might be bad for Nteya's, or anybody else's, peopleshould they attempt to molest her.
It wanted but a day or two to Christmas--but an hour to sunset. It wasone of those marvellous evenings not uncommon in South Africa, as wellas in the southern parts of Europe--one of those evenings when sky andearth alike are vivid with rich colouring, and the cloudless blue of theheavens assumes a deeper azure still, and there is a dreamy enchantm
entin the air, and every sight, every sound, toned and mellowed bydistance, blends in perfect harmony with the changing glories of thedying day. Then the sun goes down in a flaming rainbow of rare tints,each more subtle than the other, each more gorgeous, and withal moredelicate than the last.
The enchantment of the hour was upon Eanswyth to the full--theloneliness, the sense of absolute solitude, cut off from the outerworld, alone with her dead. Wandering down to the gate of the nowtenantless ostrich camp she is going over the incidents of that lastday--that first and that last day, for it was that upon which they haddiscovered to each other their great and all-absorbing love. "The lastday we shall have together," he had said--and it was so. She canvividly conjure up his presence at her side now. Every word he said,every careless gesture even, comes back to her now. Here was the gatewhere they had stood feeding the great birds, idly chatting aboutnothing in particular, and yet how full were both their hearts eventhen. And that long sweet embrace so startlingly interrupted! Ah! whata day that had been! One day out of a whole lifetime. Standing here onthis doubly hallowed spot, it seems to her that an eternity ofunutterable wretchedness would not be too great a price to pay for justthat one day over again. But he is gone. Whether their love had beenthe most sacred that ever blessed the lot of mortal here below, or theunhallowed, inexorably forbidden thing it really is, matters nothingnow. Death has decided, and from his arbitration there is no appeal.
She throws herself upon the sward: there in the shade of the mimosatrees where they had sat together. All Nature is calm and at peace,and, with the withdrawal of man, the wild creatures of the earth seem tohave reclaimed their own. A little duiker buck steps daintily alongbeneath the thorn fence of the ostrich camp, and the grating, metalliccackle of the wild guinea-fowl is followed by the appearance of quite alarge covey of those fine game birds, pecking away, though ever with anair of confirmed distrust, within two score yards of the pale, silentmourner, seated there. The half-whistling, half-twanging note of theyellow thrush mingles with the melodious call of a pair of blue cranesstalking along in the grass, and above the drowsy, measured hum of beesstoring sweetness from the flowering aloes, there arises the heavierboom of some great scarabaeus winging his way in blundering, aimlessfashion athwart the balmy and sensuous evening air.
The sun sinks to the western ridge--the voices of animal and insect lifeswell in harmonious chorus, louder and louder, in that last hour ofparting day. His golden beams, now horizontal, sweep the broad androlling plains in a sea of fire, throwing out the rounded spurs of theKabousie Hills into so many waves of vivid green. Then the flamingchariot of day is gone.
And in the unearthly hush of the roseate afterglow, that pale,heart-broken mourner wends her way home. Home! An empty house, wherethe echo of a footfall sounds ghostly and startling; an abode peopledwith reminiscences of the dead--meet companionship for a dead and emptyheart.
Never so dead--never so empty--as this evening. Never since the firstmoment of receiving the awful news has she felt so utterly crushed, sosoul-weary as here to-night. "How was it all to end?" had been theiroft-spoken thought--here on this very spot. The answer had come now.Death had supplied it. But--how was _this_ to end?
The glories of departing day were breaking forth into ever varyingsplendours. The spurs of the mountain range, now green, now gold,assumed a rich purple against the flaming red of the sky. The deepeningafterglow flushed and quivered, as the scintillating eyes of heavensprang forth into the arching vault--not one by one, but in wholegroups. Then the pearly shades of twilight and the cool, moistfragrance of the falling night.
Why was the earth so wondrously lovely--why should eyes rest upon suchsemi-divine splendour while the heart was aching and bursting? was theunspoken cry that went up from that heart-weary mourner standing therealone gazing forth into the depths of the star-gemmed night.
Stay! What is that tongue of flame suddenly leaping forth into thedarkness? Another and another--and lo! by magic, from a score of loftyheights, red fires are gushing upward into the black and velvety gloom,and as the ominous beacons gather in flaming volume roaring up to agreat height, the lurid glow of the dark firmament is reflected dullyupon the slumbering plains.
A weird, far-away chorus floats upon the stillness, now rising, nowfalling. Its boding import there is no mistaking. It is the gatheringcry of a barbarian host. The Gaika location is up in arms. Heavens!What is to become of this delicate woman here, alone and unprotected,exposed to the full brunt of a savage rising--and all that it means?
Eanswyth is standing on the _stoep_, her eyes fixed upon the appallingphenomenon, but in their glance is no shadow of fear. Death has noterrors for her now; at peril she can afford to laugh. Her lips areeven curving into a sweet, sad smile.
"Just as it was that night," she exclaims. "The parallel is complete.Blaze on red signals of death--and when destruction does break forth letit begin with me! I will wait for it, welcome it, for I walk in shadownow--will welcome it here on this spot where we stood that sweet andblessed night--here where our hearts first met--here where mine isbreaking now!"
Her voice dies away in a sob. She sinks to the ground. The distantglare of the war-fires of the savages falls fully upon that prostratefigure lying there in the abandonment of woe. It lights up a verysacrifice. The rough stones of the _stoep_ are those of an altar--thesacrifice a broken heart.
"Here is where we stood that night together," she murmurs, pressing herlips to the hard, cold stones. "It is just as it was then. Oh, mylove--my love, come back to me! Come back--even from the cold grave!"
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"Eanswyth!"
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The word is breathed in a low, unsteady voice. Every drop of bloodwithin her turns to ice. It is answered at last, her oft-repeatedprayer. She is about to behold him. Does she not shrink from it? Notby a hair's-breadth.
"Let me see you, my love," she murmurs softly, not daring to move lestthe spell should be broken. "Where--where are you?"
"Where our hearts first met--there they meet again. Look up, my sweetone. I am here."
She does look up. In the red and boding glare of those ominouswar-fires she sees him as she saw him that night. She springs to herfeet--and a loud and thrilling cry goes forth upon the darkness.
"Eustace--Eustace! Oh, my love! Spirit or flesh--you shall not leaveme! At last--at last!"
'Tween Snow and Fire: A Tale of the Last Kafir War Page 33