"Well?"
"Promise you won't leave me--or I shan't be able to sleep a wink."
"Why, I thought you were fairly off. It's twelve o'clock."
"No--I'm not--Promise!"
"All right--I won't budge."
"Thanks;" and in a few moments her regular breathing told that she had
forgotten her troubles in sleep.
Claverton piled some more wood on to the fire and drew in closer,
shivering slightly, the fact being that he was nearly wet through--
having given up his cloak as we have seen. Then he proceeded to fill
his pipe.
"Poor little thing," he mused, contemplating the slumbering form of his
companion in adversity. "What a fright she was in--and small blame to
her. Wonder what the beast could have been," and getting up, he went
and examined the soft ground by the door to see if it had left any
spoor. "Yes--I thought so: a wolf, and a damned big wolf, too." [Note
1.]
He returned to his seat by the fire and sat dreamily smoking. "What a
pretty picture she makes," he thought; and in good truth she did, as the
long lashes lay in a dark semicircle on the rounded cheek, while the
full red lips were parted ever so lightly, and the firelight danced and
flickered with a ruddy glow on the golden head of the sleeper.
"Very good fun now, no doubt, that is if it were not so infernally
cold," he went on, "but the situation may begin to look awkward in the
morning, when we are besieged by the kind inquiries of friends.
However, the gentle sex knows devilish well how to take care of itself,
that's one comfort. `Self-preservation is the first law of woman,' I
truly believe to have been the original rendering of the proverb--the
reason of its alteration is but too obvious. But assuredly the child
would have been dead, or deuced near it, by morning if we hadn't found
this place, whereas now, in half-a-dozen hours' time she'll wake up
fresh as paint, and probably abuse me like the prince of pickpockets,
and swear it would have been much better to have slept out in the
_veldt_ all night. That's the way of them."
A flash of lighting lit up the room with a fitful gleam, and a loud roll
of thunder shook the old house to its very foundations. The storm, as
frequently happens in those regions, had been travelling in a kind of
circle, and was now returning in all its former fury.
"Will it wake her? She has had enough scare for one night," he thought,
uneasily glancing towards her. But no; thoroughly wearied out, Ethel
never moved as the rickety casements rattled to the fierce gusts which
howled round the building, and Claverton felt relieved. Presently he
got up and went to the window. All was pitch dark outside, but every
now and then the sky would be ablaze with a sudden flash--blue,
plum-coloured, and gold, in its vivid incandescence--the hill tops stood
out as if cut in steel against the misty background, while beneath
yawned the intersecting rifts of black, chasm-like kloofs, every leaf
and twig wet and shining, as clearly definable as at noonday. A
panorama of weirdness and desolation. Then pitchy blackness and the
long heavy roll of the storm king's artillery. Claverton resumed his
seat, and the thunder crashed and roared outside, the lightning played
in vivid gleams, and the rain fell in torrents with a noise like the
rush of many waters; but within, silence, only broken by the soft,
regular breathing of the sleeper, and the plash of a big drop on the
floor, for the tattered thatch was not so watertight as might be wished.
And the night wore on. The fire burnt low, leaving the angles of the
ghostly old room in shadowy darkness, while now and again a scratching
noise might be heard as some creeping thing made its way through the
thatch or along the beams. The storm lulled, and then passed, and, save
for the murmur of falling rain, perfect silence prevailed outside, and
still the chilled watcher sat there, upright and motionless. Then he
fell into a doze. The dismal bark of a jackal was now and again borne
from the lonely bush; but not a sound escaped him as he sat there, till
at last the first faint shiver of dawn thrilled upon the hushened air; a
red glow in the east, then a blood-coloured streak on the few light
clouds which,--but for the soaked earth, were the sole traces of a night
of fierce tempestuousness.
Claverton rose and went out softly, so as not to arouse his companion,
to where he had tied up the horses. Those long-suffering animals
pricked up their ears and whinnied at his approach, and, except that one
of them had got its leg over the reim, were just as they had been left
the night before. Then he went back to awaken Ethel. A smile was upon
her lips, and as he stood over her a gleam of sunlight shot in at the
open door and played upon the beautiful face. He lingered a few
moments, for he could hardly bring himself to arouse her; but time was
flying, the sun was up, and they must be going. So he said, quietly but
distinctly: "Time to be off, Ethel."
The girl started slightly, opened her eyes, then started again in
bewilderment. He watched her with an amused expression.
"Where am I?" she exclaimed, sitting upright and looking round. "Oh, I
remember. I thought it was all a dream."
"Well, we must be getting home. I'm just going to take the horses down
into the kloof and give them a drink, and then we'll make tracks."
He went out, and Ethel got up and looked around. "What a selfish little
wretch I am!" she thought, as her eyes rested on the relics of the
night's doings, the dying embers of the fire, beside which lay the empty
pocket-flask, and the bit of paper and string whence the opportune
sandwich had been extracted, and then on the cloak which she had just
thrown off. "I took everything from him, and left him to sit there all
night, cold and wet and hungry. I wish it had to come all over again,
that I might sit out in the rain and the thunder and lightning all
night. That's what I'd do, I swear I would," she ended, vehemently.
A trampling of hoofs outside showed that the object of her meditations
was returning.
"Now then, I'll just put the saddles on and we shall get home in nice
time for breakfast," he said; "but, first of all, we'll see how our
friend of last night got in."
"What, did that actually happen? I thought I dreamt it."
Claverton laughed. "I intended you should," he said. "It would never
have done for you to have thought about it all night long; but it was a
fact, nevertheless. Come and look here."
He pointed out three great footmarks just inside the doorway, left by
the terrified animal as it rushed out; then bursting open the door of
the other room, they went in.
"There's no outlet," he said, looking around. "Stay--yes, here's a hole
behind the fireplace; but it could never have got in there. No; here's
the key to the mystery," as they came upon the mangled carcase of a
half-grown kid. "This little brute must have got in somehow, and the
wolf, attracted by its yelling, charged through that door," showing one
which opened into the room from without; "then it must have banged to
and caught him in a trap. Pity I wasn't able to shoot the scoundrel!"
Ethel shuddered at the recollection. "Let's start," she said, turning
towards the door.
He put her into her saddle and they left their opportunely-found
shelter. The sun was now up, and, as they ascended the side of the
kloof, the whole landscape sparkled and glowed beneath the scorching
beams, every leaf and blade of grass studded with diamonds; and the
birds carolled forth gaily in the glad morning air, and doves shook out
their soft plumage, and cooed to each other on the wet sprays, and it
was difficult to realise such a culmination to a night of storm and
terror. Just before they reached the road a strange fancy moved
Claverton to turn and look back upon their late haven of refuge, and
then a clump of bush hid it from view. He little thought when and under
what circumstances he should see it again.
"What was the joke just now, when I woke you up?" he asked, as they rode
along.
"Joke? Why--when?" she exclaimed, wonderingly.
"Oh, only that you were having a downright good laugh all to yourself.
I thought it a pity to disturb you, so had the grace to give you a few
minutes longer, in reward for which I claim to know what it was about."
She looked at him curiously for a moment, and a faint flush suffused her
cheek; then she broke into a ringing laugh. "I don't believe I was
laughing at all," she said; "and, if I was, I intend to keep the fun all
to myself this time. But what will uncle and aunt say when we get
home?"
"Say? Oh, that the very best thing we could do was to have--gone back
to Van Rooyen's--got under cover like sensible people," answered he, in
a cool, matter-of-fact tone.
Ethel was silent for a few moments. She was not quite easy in her mind.
"I was in a great hurry to get home last night, but now it doesn't seem
quite so delightful," she thought, with a sort of strange bitterness;
and she wondered how in the world she could ever have allowed herself to
be so frightened. But meanwhile there was Seringa Vale, and the
adventure, or misadventure, was at an end.
Greatly to Ethel's relief, neither anxiety nor surprise were manifested
on their return.
"Hullo!" sang out Hicks. "You were fortunate in being so far behind.
We thought of going back, too; but it seemed no use, so we rode on as
hard as we could, and got here in the thick of the storm, wet through."
"Ethel doesn't like Dutch houses, but she had to sleep in a worse one
than Van Rooyen's once," said Mrs Brathwaite. "There were only two
rooms, and five of us had to turn into one, while all the men took
possession of the other. But it was such a place! We couldn't sleep
all night."
"I suppose not," said Claverton. If they were at cross purposes, it was
not his business to go out of his way to enlighten them, especially as,
in this instance, cross purposes were best.
And Ethel evidently thought so too.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. The large striped hyaena is called "wolf" in South Afrioa, just
as the panther is always referred to as "tiger." Both terms are, of
course, zoologically erroneous.