while, when he had warned him very solemnly on the need for
silence, the doctor took him in and showed him Paula, thin
and shorn, sleeping with level breath. The Predikant looked
on her with parted lips and clenched hands, and when he was
outside again he turned to the doctor.
"' I value my soul,' he said simply. 'But it is worth it.'
"'I haven't a notion what you are gibbering about,'
answered the doctor, who had a glass in his hand. 'But
there's long sleep and a dream killer in this tumbler, and
you've to drink it.'
"'I need nothing,' said the Predikant, but at the doctor's
urgency he drank the dose, and was soon in his bed and
sleeping.
"Next day, when he was let in to Paula's bedside, she
smiled and murmured at him, and nodded weakly when he
spoke. The doctor warned him about noise.
"'We've won her back,' he explained, 'and she's going to do
well. But she has had a hard time, and there's no denying
she is very weak and ill. So if you go back to your bell--
ringing or any of those games you'll undo everything. She's
to be kept quiet, do you hear?'
"'I hear,' answered the Predikant. 'There shall be
stillness. Not that it matters for all your words, but
there shall be stillness.'
"'I warn you,' retorted the doctor seriously, 'that it
matters very much. You're off your axle, my friend, and I
shall have to doctor you. But if I hear of any foolishness,
Predikant or no Predikant, I'll have you locked up as sure
as your name's Mostert.'
"He left him there, and started through the garden to his
cart that stood in the road. On his way he stubbed his foot
against something that lay on the earth--a great metal cup.
He picked it up.
"'I am not a heathen,' he said, as he brought it to the
Predikant, 'and therefore a Communion-cup is no more to me
than a sardine tin, when it is out of its place. I don't
want to know what you were doing out here the other night,
my friend; but you had better put this back in the Kerk
before somebody misses it.'
"The Predikant took it from him, but said nothing.
"'And look here,' went on the doctor, 'it was my skill and
knowledge that saved your wife. Nothing else. Good-day.'
"As he drove off, he saw the Predikant still standing on
the stoop, the great cup, stained here and there with
earth, in his hand.
"From that hour Paula mended swiftly. Even the doctor was
surprised at the manner in which health sped back to her,
and the young roses returned to her cheeks.
"'There's more than medicine in this,' he said one day. 'Do
you know what it is, Predikant?'
"'Yes,' said the Predikant.
"'You do, eh? Well, it's clean young blood, my friend, and
nothing else,' answered the doctor, watching him with a
slight frown of shrewdness.
"The Predikant said nothing. For days there had been a kind
of gloom on him, lit by a savage satisfaction in the
betterment of his wife. His manner was like a midnight, in
which a veld-fire glows far off. He had grown thinner, and
his face was lean and gray, while in his eyes smouldered a
spark that had no relation to joy or triumph.
"'Clean young blood,' repeated the doctor. 'No miracles, if
you please.' He thought, you see, he had divined the
Predikant's secret.
'I'm a man of science,' he went on, 'and when I come across
a miracle I'll shut up shop.'
"Paula, from her pillows, heard them with a little wonder,
and she was not slow to see the trouble and change in her
husband's haunted face. So that night, when he came to say
good-night to her, she drew his hand down to her breast,
and searched for the seed of his woe.
"'You look so thin and ill, my dear,' she said gently. 'You
have worried too much over me. You have paid too great a
price for your wife.'
"She felt him tremble between her arms.
"'A great one,' he answered, 'but not too great.'
"'Not?' she smiled restfully, as he lifted his face from
her bosom and looked into her eyes.
"'Never too great a price for you,' he said. 'Never that.'
"'My love!' she answered, and for a while they were silent
together.
"Then she stirred. 'Do you know, John,' she said, 'that you
and I have not prayed together since first this sickness
took me? Shall we thank God together, now that He has
willed to leave us our companionship for yet a space?'
"'No!' he said quietly.
"'Dear!' She was surprised. 'I was asking you to thank God
with me.'
"He nodded. 'I heard you, but it serves no purpose. God
forgot us, Paula.'
"His eyes were like coals gleaming hotly.
"'I prayed,' he cried, 'and yet you slipped farther from me
and nearer the grave. I strewed my soul in supplication,
and there was talk of winding-sheets. And then, in the keen
hour of decision, when you tilted in the balance, I sought
elsewhere for aid; and while I defiled all holiness, ere
yet I had finished the business, comes to me that doctor
and tells me all is well. What think you of that, Paula?'
"She had heard him with no breaking of the little smile
that lay on her lips--the little all-forgiving smile that is
the heritage of mothers,--and now that he was done she
smiled still.
"'I remember the old tales,' she answered.
"'How does the witch call the devil, John? Water in the
Communion-cup, bread and blood and earth--is that it? and
two circles--two, is it?'
"'Three,' he corrected.
"'Ah, yes; three.' She laughed soothingly, 'You poor
muddled boy,' she murmured. 'Do you prize me so much, John?
Poor John. You must let me be wise for both of us, John. I
am not afraid of the devil, at all events.'
"'Nor I,' he answered, 'so long as you are well.'
"'But I am getting well now,' she answered, 'And I do want
you to pray with me, dear. Put your head down, dear, and
let me whisper to you.'
"She soothed him gently and sweetly, buttressing his
weakness with her love. How can I know what she said or
what he answered? She wrought upon him with the kind arts
God gives a woman to pay her for being a woman, and soon
she had softened something of the miserable madness that
possessed him, and he kneeled beside the bed, sobbing
rendingly, and prayed. Her hand lay on his head, and after
a while, when the violence had passed by, he was taken with
a serene peace.
"He bade her good-night, tenderly.
"'Good-night,' she answered, 'and, John--I would that I
could give you half of what you would have given for me.'
"As he went out at the door he saw her face smiling at him,
with a great warmth of love and pity transfiguring it.
"'Nest morning, when the doctor came, he stayed near an
hour in her room, and then came to the Predikant.
"'Just tell me,' he said to him,--'just tell me straight and
short, what you did to your wife last night.'
"The Predikant told him in a few words what had passed
between them, while the doctor watched him and curled his
lip.
"'Exactly,' he said, when the Predikant had done. 'Quite
what I should have guarded against in you. Now you may go
to your wife as quickly as you like. She is dying!'
"It was so. She died in his arms in half an hour, with the
little smile of baffled motherhood yet on her lips."
Katje clenched her hands and looked out to the veld in
silence.
THE COWARD
"After all," said the Vrouw Grobelaar weightily, "a coward
is but one with keener eyes than his fellows. No young man
fears a ghost till it is dark, but the coward sees the
stars in the daytime, like a man at the bottom of a well,
and ghosts walk all about him.
"A coward should always be a married man," she added, "You
may say, Katje, that it is hard on the woman. It is what I
would expect of you. But when you have experience of
wifehood you will come to the knowledge that it is the
man's character which counts, and it is the woman's part to
make up his deficiencies. With what men learn by practicing
on their wives, the world has been made.
"If you would cease to cackle in that silly fashion I would
tell you of Andreas van Wyck, the coward--a tale that is
known to few. Well, then."
"He was a bushveld Boer, farming cattle on good land, not a
day's ride from the Tiger River. His wife, Anna, was of the
de Villiers stock from over the borders of the Free State,
a commandant's daughter, and the youngest of fourteen
children. They were both people of a type common enough.
Andreas was to all seeming just such a Burgher as a hundred
others who have grown rich quietly, never heard of outside
their own districts, yet as worthy as others whom every one
nods to at Nachtmaal. Anna, too, was of an everyday
pattern, a short plump woman, with a rosy solemn face and
pleasant eyes--a sound Boer woman, who could carry out her
saddle, catch her horse and mount him without help. You
see, in her big family, the elders were all men, and most
had seen service against the Kafirs, and a girl there won
esteem not by fallals and little tripping graces, but by
usefulness and courage and good fellowship. She saw Andreas
first when he was visiting his mother's aunt in her
neighborhood. There was shooting at a target, for a prize
of an English saddle, and no one has ever said of him that
he was not a wonderful shot. He carried off the prize
easily, against all the Boers of those parts, and Anna's
father and brothers among them. A few months later they
were married.
"They drove from Anna's home to Andreas' farm on the
bushveld in a Cape cart with two horses, and sat close
under the hood while the veld about them was lashed with
the first rains of December. It was no time for a journey
by road, but in those days the country was not checkered
with railway lines as it is now, and Anna had nothing to
say against a trifle of hardship. For miles about them the
rolling country of the Free State was veiled with a haze of
rain, and the wind drove it in sheets here and there, till
the horses staggered against it, and the drum of the storm
on the hood of the cart was awesome and mournful. Towards
afternoon, after a long, slow trek, they came down the
slope towards Buys' Drift, and Andreas pulled his horses up
at the edge of the water.
"The rains had swelled the river to a flood, and it ran
with barely a ripple where ordinarily the bushes were clear
of the water. Full a hundred and fifty yards it spanned,
and as they looked, they saw it carry past a dead ox and
the rags of uprooted huts.
"'We can never cross till it goes down,' said Andreas. 'I
am sorry for it, but there is no choice. We must go back to
your father's house.'
"Anna pressed his arm and smiled.
"'You are joking,' she said. 'You know well that I will not
go back there tonight for all the floods in ten years. No
girl would that valued her husband and herself.'
"'But look at the drift!' he urged.
"'It is a big head of water,' she agreed. 'I was once
before upset in such a flood as this. You must head them
up-stream a little, and then strike down again to the
opposite bank.'
"'Not I,' he answered. 'I am not going to drown myself for
a trifle of pride, nor you either. We must go back.'
"She shook her head. 'Not that!' she replied. 'Give me the
reins and the whip.' Before he could resist she had taken
them from his hands. 'Put your feet on our box,' she
directed, 'or the water will float it away. Now then!'
"She drew the whip across the horses' quarters, and in a
minute they were in the river, while Andreas sat marveling.
"'You understand that it was first necessary to move up-
stream to a point in the middle of the river. She steadied
the horses with a taut hold on the reins, for her young
wrists were strong as iron, and spoke to them cheerily as
the flood leaped against their chests, and they stood and
hesitated. The rain drove in their faces viciously:
Andreas, his face sheltered by the wide brim of his hat,
had to rub away the water again and again in order to see;
but Anna knit her brows and endured the storm gallantly,
while with whip and rein and voice she pushed the team on
towards the place of turning.
"The rushing of the water filled their ears, and before
them, between the high banks of the Vaal, they saw only a
world of brown water, streaked with white froth, hurling
down upon them. It rose above the foot-board and swilled to
the level of the seat. The horses, with heads lifted high,
were often, for an anxious moment or two, free of the
shifting bottom and swimming. A tree, blundering down-
stream, struck the near wheel, and they were nearly
capsized, the water rushing in over their knees. As they
tilted Andreas gave a cry, and shifted in his place. Anna
called to her horses and knit her brows.
"At last it was time to humor them around, and this, as I
need not tell you, is the risky business in crossing a
flooded drift. With somewhat of a draw on the near rein,
Anna checked the team, and then, prodding with her whip,
headed the horses over and started them. They floundered
and splashed, and Andreas half rose from his seat, with
lips clenched on a cry. The traces tightened under the
water, a horse stumbled and vanished for a moment, and, as
the cart tilted sickeningly, the man, ashen-faced and
strung, leaped from it and was whirled away.
"The water took him under, drew him gasping over the
bottom, and spat him up again to swim desperately. His head
was down-stream, and, as there was a sharp bend half a mile
below, he had no extraordinary difficulty in bringing his
carcass to shore. He lay for a minute among the bushes, and
then ran back to see what had become of the cart, the
horses, and his wife. He found them ashore, safe and
waiting for him, and Anna wringing the wet from her hair as
she stood beside the horses' heads.
"'You are not hurt?' she asked, before he could speak. Her
face was grave and flushed, her voice very quiet and
orderly.
"'No.' he said.
"'Ah!' she said, and climbed again into the cart, and made
room for him in the place of the driver.
"That was how he discovered himself to his wife. In that
one event of their wedding-day he revealed to Anna what was
a secret from all the world--perhaps even from himself. He
was a coward, the thing Anna had never known yet of any
man--never thought enough upon to learn how little it may
really matter or how greatly it may ruin a character. When
her brothers, having drunk too much at a waapenschauw,
wished to make a quarrel quickly, they called their man a
coward. But for her it had been like saying he was a devil--
a futile thing that was only offensive by reason of its
intention. And now she was married to a coward, and must
learn the ways of it.
"They spoke no more of the matter. Anna shrank from a
reference to it. She could not find a word to fit the
subject that did not seem an attack on the man with whom
she must spend her life. They settled down to their
business of living together very quietly, and I think the
commandant's daughter did no braver thing than when she
recognized the void in her husband, and then, holding it
loathsome and unforgivable, passed it over and put it from
her mind out of mere loyalty to him.
"The years went past at their usual pace, and there
occurred nothing to ear-mark any hour and make it
memorable, till the Kafirs across the Tiger River rose. I
do not remember what men said the rising was about.
Probably their chief was wearied with peace and drunkenness
and wanted change; but anyhow the commando that was called
out to go and shoot the tribe into order included Andreas,
the respected Burgher and famous shot. The feldkornet rode
round and left the summons at his house, and he read it to
Anna.
"'Now I shall get some real shooting,' he said, with bright
eyes.
"She looked at him carefully, and noted that he lifted down
his rifle with the gaiety of a boy who goes hunting. It
brought a warmth to her heart that she dared not trust.
"'It is a pity you should go before the calves are weaned,'
she said.
"'Pooh! You can see to them,' he answered.
"'But you could so easily buy a substitute. It would even
be cheaper to send a substitute,' she urged half-heartedly.
"You see she had no faith at all in his courage. The years
she had lived with him had brought forth nothing to undo
the impression he had left in her mind when he sprang from
the cart and abandoned her in the middle of the Vaal River,
and this emergency had awakened all her old fear lest he
should be proclaimed a coward before the men of his world.
"'I dare say it would be cheaper and better in every way,'
he answered with some irritation. 'But for all that I am
going. This is a war, the first I have known, and I am not
going to miss the chance. So you had better get my gear
ready!'
"With that he commenced to tear up rags and to oil and
clean his rifle.
"She bade him adieu next day and saw him canter off with
some doubt. He had shown no hesitation at all in this
matter. From the time of the coming of the summons he had
been all eagerness and interest. It might have led another
to think she had been wrong, that the man who feared water
feared nothing else; but Anna knew well, from a hundred
small signs, that her husband had no stability of valor in
him, that he was and would remain--a coward.
"Next day the fighting had commenced, and Anna, working
serenely about her house, soon had news of it. There was a
promise of interest in this little war from the start. The
commando, under Commandant Jan Wepener, had made a quick
move and thrust forward to the crown of the little hills
that overlook the Tiger River and the flat land beyond it,
which was the home of the tribe. Here they made their
laager, and it was plain that the fighting would consist
either of descents by the Burghers on the kraals, or of
attacks by the Kafirs upon the hills. Either way, there
must be some close meetings and hardy hewing, a true and
searching test for good men. The young Burgher that told
her of it, sitting upon his horse at the door as though he
were too hurried and too warlike to dismount and enter,
rejoiced noisily at the prospect of coming to grips.
"Anna puckered her brows. 'It is not the way to fight,' she
said doubtfully. 'A bush and a rifle and a range of six
hundred yards is what beat the Basutos.'
"'Pooh!' laughed the young Burgher. 'You say that because
your husband shoots so well, and you want him to be marked
for good fighting.'
"She frowned a little, inwardly accusing herself of this
same meaning. She would gladly have put these thoughts from
her, for brave folk, whether men or women, have commonly
but one face, and she hated to show friendship to her
husband and harbor distrust of him in her bosom. When the
young Burgher at last rode away, galloping uselessly to
seem what he wished to be--a wild person of sudden habits--
she sat on the stoop for a while and thought deeply. And
she sighed, as though pondering brought her no decision,
and went once more about her work, always with an eye
cocked to the window to watch for any rider coming back
from the laager with news of affairs.
"But there was a shyness on both sides for a week. The
Kafirs had not yet ripened their minds to an attack on the
hills, nor had the Burghers quite sloughed their custom of
orderliness and respect for human life. There was a little
shooting, mostly at the landscape, by those whose trigger-
fingers itched; but at last a man coming back with a hole
in his shoulder to be doctored and admired halted at the
door and told of a fight.
"He sat in a long chair and told about the pain in his
shoulder, and opened his shirt to show the wound. Anna
leaned against the door-post and heard him. Outside his
brown pony was rattling the rings of the bit and switching
at flies, and she perceived the faint smell of the sweat-
stained saddlery and the horse-odour she knew so well.
Before her, the tall grimy man, with bandages looped about
him, his pleasant face a little yellow from the loss of
blood, babbled boastfully. It was a scene she was familiar
with, for of old on the Free State border the Burghers and
the Basutos were forever jostling one another, and--I told
you her father was a commandant!
"'But tell me about the battle,' she urged.
"'Allemachtag!' exclaimed the wounded man. 'But that was a
fight! It was night, you know, about an hour after the
dying of the moon, and there was a spit of rain and some
little wind. The commandant was very wakeful, I can tell
you, and he had us all out from under the wagons, though it
was very cold, and sent us out to the ridge above the
drift. And there we lay in the long grass among the bushes
on our rifles, while the feldkornet crawled to and fro
behind us on his belly and cursed those who were talking. I
didn't talk--I know too much about war. But your man did. I
heard him, and the feldkornet swore at him in a whisper.'
"'What was he saying?' Anna asked quickly.
"'Oh, dreadful things. He called him a dirty takhaar with a
hair-hung tongue, and--'
"'No, no!' cried Anna impatiently. 'What did my husband
say, I mean? What was he talking about when the feldkornet
stopped him?'
"'Oh, he was just saying that it would be worth turning out
into the cold if only the Kafirs would come. And then he
cried out, 'What's that moving?' and the feldkornet crawled
up and cursed him.'
"'Go on about the fight,' said Anna, looking from him, that
he might not see what spoke in her eyes.
"'Yes. Well, I was just getting nicely to sleep, when
somebody down on my left began firing. Then I saw down the
hill, the flashes of guns, and soon I could hear great
lumps of pot-leg screaming through the air. They are firing
a lot of pot-leg, those Kafirs. I fired at a flash that
came out pretty regularly, and by and by it ceased to
flash. Then, as I rose on my knees, a great knob of pot-leg
hit me in the shoulder, and I cried out and fell down. Your
husband came to me and helped me to go back to the rocks,
and soon after all the shooting stopped. The Burghers found
three dead Kafirs in the morning, so we won.'
"'You were very brave,' said Anna.
"'Yes, wasn't I? And so was your husband, I believe,' said
the wounded man. 'I couldn't see him, but I've no doubt he
was. They'll try to rush the drift again tonight.'
"'What makes you think so?' Anna demanded, starting.
"'Oh, they've been gathering for some days,' answered the
other. 'It's what they are trying to do. You see there are
no farms to plunder on the other side of the river, so they
must cross.'
"'I see,' said Anna slowly.
"When he was ready, she helped the wounded man again to his
saddle, and saw him away, then turned, with the light of a
swift resolution in her eyes, to the task of getting ready
to go to Andreas. The river and the hills were but a short
six hours from her farm, and on a horse she could have
ridden it in less. But it was no wish of hers to bring any
slur upon her husband, so she prepared to go to him in a
cart, taking shirts and shoes and tobacco, like a dutiful
wife visiting her husband on commando. And for a purpose
she took no trouble to name to herself, she put in her
pocket a little pug-nosed revolver which Andreas had once
bought, played with for a while, and then forgotten.
"A Kafir came with her, to see to the horses and so on, for
she was to travel in no other manner than that in which
Burghers' wives travel every day; but once clear of the
farm she took the reins and the whip to herself, and drove
swiftly, pushing the team anxiously along the way. So well
did she guide her path, that by evening they were slipping
down the road towards the drift of the Tiger River, and
when the light of day began to be mottled with night, they
had crossed the drift and were passing up the right bank.
When at length the darkness came, they were at the foot of
the hills which the commando held.
"Here Anna alighted, and left the 'boy' to outspan and
watch the cart. In a basket on her arm she had a bottle of
whiskey and a bottle of medicine for rheumatism, that would
make her coming seemly, and with the little revolver in her
pocket knocking against her knee at every step, she faced
the dark and the empty veld, and began the ascent of the
hill alone. She was come to be a spur to her husband. This
she knew clearly enough, yet as she went along, with the
thin wind of the night on her forehead, she wasted no
thoughts, but bent herself to the business of finding the
laager and coming to Andreas. About her were the sombre
hills, that are, in fact, mere bushy kopjes, but in the
darkness, and to one alone, portentous and devious
mountains. Veld-bred as she was, the business of path-
finding was with her an instinct, like that of throwing up
your hand to guard your eyes when sparks spout from the
fire. Yet in an hour she lost herself utterly.