Notwithstanding the splendid courage and quickness of resource she had
shown upon a certain critical and, but for those qualities on her part,
assuredly a fatal occasion, Mona Ridsdale was by no means free from that
timidity under given circumstances, which seems second nature with most
women. She preferred not to be left alone in the dark if possible to
avoid it, and, in fact, had as dread a realisation of what it meant to
be "unprotected" as the most commonplace and unheroic of her sex:
consequently, when Suffield found it unavoidable to be absent from home
a night or two, Mona was apt to conjure up terrors which interfered
materially with her peace of mind. Now, just such an absence on the
part of her male relative befell some few nights after Roden's departure
for the Main Camp.
"Oh, Grace, I do feel so nervous this evening!" she exclaimed, starting,
not for the first time, as one of the ordinary nocturnal wild sounds
from veldt or mountain-side came floating in through the open windows.
"Feel my hands, now cold they are; and yet it is such a hot night that
one wants every square foot of air the windows will admit."
"That is foolish, Mona," replied her cousin. "Yes, your hands are
indeed cold. Why, to-morrow will ring back not only Charlie, but
perhaps somebody else."
"God grant it may!" was the eager rejoinder. "But do you know, Grace, I
have a horrible presentiment on that score too; I believe that is why I
feel so shivery to-night. It is like a warning--I feel as if something
were going to happen to him--were happening!"
There was a wildness in the glance of the dilated eyes, a quick,
spasmodic catch of the voice, which disconcerted the other, who, in
ordinary matters, was the less timid of the two.
"Mona, dear, don't, for Heaven's sake, give way to such fancies. They
grow upon one so. And how you will laugh at them--at yourself--in the
morning, when Charlie comes back, and perhaps somebody else."
"I can't help it. I wish the night was over. I am sure something is
going to happen before the morning."
The two were sitting together, the supper over, and the nursery
department tucked up, snug and quiet for the night. Suffield had ridden
away to attend a sale at a distance, and would hardly return before the
following afternoon. It was, as we have said, a hot night, and both
windows of the room were open; indeed, it would have been well-nigh
impossible to breathe had they been shut. At the black spaces thus
framed Mona would stare ever and again, with a quick glance of
apprehension, as though expecting, she knew not what, to heave into view
from the gloom beyond. It was a still night, moreover, and every sound
from without was wafted in with tenfold clearness--the weird shout of a
night-bird from the mountain-side; the yelp of a jackal far out upon the
plain; the loud and sudden, but musical twanging note of the night
locust, whose cry can hardly be credited to a mere insect, so powerful,
so bird-like is it. Even the splash of a mud-turtle waddling into the
dam was audible.
A rushing, booming, buzzing sound swept past the open window. Mona
started again, and her face paled. It was only some big flying beetle,
blundering past the oblong of light which had half-attracted,
half-scared him; yet so overwrought were her nerves that she could
hardly repress a startled scream. Now, this sort of thing is catching,
and Grace Suffield felt that a little more of it would probably end by
unnerving herself.
"My dear Mona," she said; "this is more than nervousness. You have
caught cold somehow. Come now, you must go to bed; and I will make you
something hot."
"I can't go to bed, Grace, and I couldn't sleep if I did," she answered.
"Let's go out on the _stoep_. The air may make one feel better."
To this the other agreed, and they went forth. It was a grand and
glorious night. A faint moon hung low down in the heavens, and the
great planets gushed their rolling fires in the star-gemmed blackness.
Such a night had been that other, when only the dark willows had
overheard those whispers--deep, pulsating, passionate--welling from the
overcharged hearts and strong natures of those who uttered them.
"Look, look! That is almost bright enough for a meteor!" cried Mona as
a falling star darted down in a streak of light, seeming to strike the
distant loom of the mountain range in its rocket-like course. "There is
something weird, to my mind, about these falling stars. What are they,
and where do they go to?"
"Everything is weird to your mind to-night, dear. Come in now, and go
to bed."
"Not yet, Grace. I feel better already. I knew the air would do me
good. Look there! what is that--and that?"
Her tone now belied her former words--her limbs shook. And now both
stood listening intently.
For there floated upon the still night air a sound--an eerie, wailing,
long-drawn sound--faint, yet clear; very distant, yet plainly audible;
rising and falling; now springing to a high pitch, now sinking to a
muffled, rumbling roar--yet so faint, so distant. Far away over the
darkened waste where the great castellated pile of the Wildschutsberg
rose gloomy beneath the horned moon, there hovered a strange reddening
glow. At the sound the dogs lying around the house sprang up, baying
furiously.
"Grace, I believe the Tambookie locations out yonder are up in arms.
That is the war-cry--they are dancing the war-dance. Listen!"
Here indeed was a potential peril, a tangible one, and removed from the
spheres of mere bogeydom. There had been uneasy rumours in the air of
late--that the Tembu locations on the confines of the district were
plotting and restless, and more than ready to rise and join their
disaffected fellow-tribesmen now in open rebellion beneath the slopes of
the Stormberg. No wonder if these two unprotected women felt a real
apprehension chill their veins, as they stood upon the _stoep_ of their
lonely homestead gazing forth with beating hearts, listening to these
ominous sounds rising upon the stillness of the night. The distance
which separated them from the disaffected savages was not great, hardly
more than half a score of miles.
"Even if it is so, I don't think we have anything to fear," said Grace
at last. "They would go in the other direction if they moved at all;
either cross over to join Gungubele's people, or Umfanta's, or perhaps
move down to league forces with the Gaikas. They would hardly venture
so near the town as this."
"Move down to league forces with the Gaikas?" echoed Mona,
horror-stricken at the suggestion. "Why, that would mean that they
would cross the very belt of country over which lay Roden's return
route."
Grace Suffield was quick to grasp her meaning.
"No, no; not that, dear," she said. "I don't believe myself there is
anything to be alarmed at. I believe they are only making a noise;
possibly they have a big beer-drinking on, or something. Kaffirs, in
their way, are just as fond of jollification as we are, you know; and I
think I remember more than once hearing something of the kind before,
only as there was no war on, or even dreamt of, we hardly noticed it at
the time, I suppose. Yes, I am perfectly certain that is all it means;
so now come in, and we'll go to bed. You shall sleep in my room if you
like."
Mona suffered herself to be led in, and to be given wine, and generally
taken care of: but curiously inconsistent, for all her nervous fears,
she preferred to be alone. Then, bidding her relative good-night, she
retired to her room, and having fastened the shutters and locked the
door, she sat down to think.
Her thoughts flew straight off to one who now was the main object of
them. Where was he at that moment? Returning to her, travelling at all
speed over a peril-haunted region to return to her, alone perhaps, as he
had hinted might be the case; and more than one unspoken prayer went up
that it might not be so, or for his safety if it were. Then her
recollections went farther back. She recalled many to whom she stood in
the same light as she now did to that one--from their point of view,
that is--yet none had succeeded in stirring her heart, in causing her
pulses to beat quicker, or, if so, for no more than a moment, so to say.
She recalled many an impassioned pleading, many a haggard face,
grief-stricken, disappointed, down to that of Lambert only the other
day, and wondered if they had felt as she would feel were any evil to
overtake that one now. How cold, how callous, how inconsiderate she had
been to others, she recognised now; and as her thoughts turned to him
she felt that, but for the certainty of seeing him again, of all the
blissfulness of their reunion, and that in a day or two at the furthest,
her life would have been lived--lived and done with for all time.
The house was in dead silence, as in the solitude of her room at last
she began to prepare for bed. She had just finished brushing out the
thick waves of her hair, when a dull rumble, as of many feet, not far
from the window, turned her pale and tottering. Her heart beat like a
hammer, and the splendid outlines of her breast, now uncovered, rose and
fell with the quick regularity of the roll of surf upon a level beach.
Then with the stamping tread there arose a low moaning noise, long-drawn
and unspeakably dismal in the dead midnight silence.
"What a despicable coward I am!" she exclaimed, now with a faint smile.
Then, with a glance at her magnificent limbs, "I am large framed, and
strong, yet the least little thing makes me quake and quiver like a
scared child."
She threw open the shutters, and, as she did so, again went up that
unearthly, deep-throated moaning, ending in a short shrill bellow. But
she knew the sound. The cattle had returned about the homestead, and
were collecting at the spot where a sheep or goat was daily slaughtered
for the use of the household and the farm hands. In the faint moonlight
she could see the beasts bunched together, their noses down to the
blood-soaked spot, sniffing and pawing up the ground as they emitted
their dismal mutterings; then they would start off, with tail in air and
horns lowered, and career a little way across the veldt, and return, as
though the fell fascination was greater than the terror which had first
appalled them, to resume their weird, hollow groaning as before. The
dogs, well accustomed to this performance, forbore to notice it, beyond
a low growl or two. Besides, they held the horns of the excited beasts
in wholesome respect.
Closing the shutters again, Mona returned into the room. Just as she
was about to get into bed, her glance was attracted by something. A
great dark object was moving across the floor. Repressing an impulse to
shriek aloud, she lowered her candle so as to dispel the shadow in which
the thing moved, for it was under the table, and then with a shuddering
horror she saw that it was a huge tarantula.
The evil-looking beast was of enormous dimensions. Outspread, it was
the size of a man's hand, and its great hairy legs and dull, black,
protruding eyes gave it the aspect of a demoniacal looking animal rather
than a mere insect, as it came shoggling across the floor; then stopped
suddenly, as its instincts warned it of danger.
All in a quiver of loathing and repulsion, she snatched up a large book
of bound-up music, and dropped it upon the hideous insect. She left it
where it lay, not caring to investigate farther; knowing, too, that the
thing would be crushed and flattened out of all life and shape beneath
the heavy volume. Where did it come from? Tarantulas were quite rare
in that high, open, bracing veldt, though plentiful enough in the lower
and hotter bush country. But even there she had never seen one anything
like this for size.
The nervous fears which had beset her throughout the evening had brought
something like exhaustion in their train. No sooner was the light out,
and her head upon her pillow, than she was fast asleep. Yet sound
though her slumbers were, a thread of uneasiness ran through them.
Outside, in the faint moonlight, the cattle still clustered about the
bloodstained spot, and even in her sleep she could still hear the pawing
of their hoofs, and the unceasing refrain of their dismal and hollow
groanings, half-soothing, half-terrifying in the mesmeric effect which
they produced upon the ever-changing waves of her consciousness, that
hovering border-line between wakefulness and the dream world. She
murmured the name of her absent lover, and again, in her sleeping
visions she was soothing him to rest in the still midnight, as he lay in
feverish pain, but a few hours after she had drawn him back from death.
Then the great tarantula she had slain seemed to come into her slumbers.
She saw the upheaval of the broad book under which it lay crushed, and
the hideous thing step slowly forth; and as it did so it spread itself
out, black, gigantic, to ten times its original size. It advanced to
the side of the bed, and leaped up on to the counterpane and crouched
there, glowering at her with its dull black eyes, its great hairy
feelers moving, its nippers working threateningly. She felt as one
under a demoniacal spell, without even power of movement enough to
tremble. Then she feared no longer for herself, for that which the
grisly monster threatened seemed to be her absent lover. Now she sees
him, sees him faintly and dimly as through darkness; and he, too, is
unconscious. It is as though she sees him in a grave, amid the gloomy
shadows of the nether world, far down in the dim depths of the black
river of Death.
And now it seems that the whole room is full of shadowy, hairy shapes,
like that which holds her in its demoniacal spell, that the dim darkness
is astir with writhing tentacular legs, and they are closing round
something--the pale countenance of a sleeping man. There is the glare
of blood in their eager eyes, and oh, Heaven! the face of each crawling
horror is a human one, dark, savage, bloodthirsty. And he?--Oh, God!
oh, God! The countenance of him who now sleeps there, ready for their
blood-drinking fangs, is that of her absent lover! She can almost touch
him, yet the terrible spell upon her holds her bound. Horror of
horrors! she must snatch him again from this grisly peril or he is lost.
Too late! too late! no, not yet too late--one moment will do it! This
chain that holds her, can she not break it? If she is powerless to
touch him, still can she cry aloud in warning? No, she cannot. The
gnome-like fiend crouching there has power over every faculty she
possesses. Now these appalling shapes are upon the sleeping man, and
now their eyes dart fire as from flaming torches. They seem to burn
him, for he moves uneasily. Will he not wake? will he not wake? Too
late! Then by some means the spell is broken, and with a wild, ringing,
piercing cry, she utters aloud her lover's name in a clarion call of
warning, and adjuration, and despair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Mona, what is it? Mona! Mona! What in the world is the matter? Good
heavens!"
And Grace Suffield, startled from her bed by the loud ringing cry,
stands, candle in hand, within her cousin's room, shaking with
apprehension and alarm. And small blame to her.
For Mona is standing at the open window. The shutters are thrown back,
and her tall, white-clad form, half shrouded in her streaming hair, is
framed against the oblong patch of bright stars. And she is gazing out
upon the midnight waste, with eyes dilated in a wild, wistful, anguished
look, as though she were striving to pierce the darkness and distance,
and would give her life for the power to do so. It was a weird sight,
and chilled Grace Suffield with an eerie and awesome creep, for it was
evident that, in spite of her erect attitude and open eyes, Mona was not
awake.
What was she to do? Mona had never been given to sleep-walking. Some
appalling and powerful dream must have disturbed her. To wake her might
be dangerous--the shock would be too great. But in this dilemma Mona
turned round suddenly, and her eyes catching the glare of the light, she
shut them. Then passing her hand over them two or three times she
opened them once more--and beyond a slight start no sign was there that
this was other than an ordinary awakening.
"Is that you, Grace!" she said wonderingly. "Why, what's wrong? Any of
the children ill?"
"No, dear. But you--I thought I heard you call for something."
Thick and clear the waves of recollection flowed back upon Mona's mind.
She started, shuddered, and again that scared look came into her eyes,
but she quickly recovered herself.
"It was more than a dream," she said, speaking half to herself. "Yes,
it was not a mere dream--it was a warning. Grace, _he_ has been in
danger, and I have warned him. Yes, I have, and I feel confident now.
He is safe. My warning has been heard."
Had it? Had the temporarily released soul, hovering above its
slumbering tenement, the power to bridge over such material matter as
distance and space? Was it given to the dream-voice, winged by the
will-power of the strength and despair of love, to dart forth through
the midnight spheres until it should thrill upon the unconscious ears,
which a moment later might be beyond hearing aught again in this world?
Who can say?