ERNEST RUNS AWAY
When Alston left the room, Ernest sat down on the bed again.
“I am not going to be domineered over by Alston,” he said excitedly;
“he presumes upon his friendship.”
Jeremy came and sat beside him, and took hold of his arm.
“My dear fellow, don’t talk like that. You know he means kindly by you.
You are not yourself just yet. By-and-by you will see things in a
different light.”
“Not myself, indeed! Would you be yourself, I wonder, if you knew that
the woman who had pinned all your soul to her bosom, as though it were
a ribbon, was going to marry another man to-morrow?”
“Old fellow, you forget, though I can’t talk of it in as pretty words
as you can, I loved her too. I could bear to give her up to you,
especially as she didn’t care a brass farthing about me; but when I
think about this other fellow, with his cold gray eye and that mark on
his confounded forehead—ah, Ernest, it makes me sick!”
And they sat on the bed together and groaned in chorus, looking, to
tell the truth, rather absurd.
“I tell you what it is, Jeremy,” said Ernest, when he had finished
groaning at the vision of his successful rival as painted by Jeremy;
“you are a good fellow, and I am a selfish beast. Here have I been
kicking up all this devil’s delight, and you haven’t said a word. You
are a more decent chap than I am, Jeremy, by a long chalk. And I
daresay you are as fond of her as I am. No, I don’t think you can be
that, though.”
“My dear fellow, there is no parallel between our cases. I never
expected to marry her. You did, and had every right to do so. Besides,
we are differently made. You feel things three times as much as I do.”
Ernest laughed bitterly.
“I don’t think that I shall ever feel anything again,” he said. “My
capacities for suffering will be pretty nearly used up. O, what a
sublime fool is the man who gives all his life and heart to one woman!
No man would have done it; but what could you expect of a couple of
boys like we were? That is why women like boys: it is so easy to take
them in—like puppies going to be drowned, in love and faith they lick
the hand that will destroy them. It must be amusing—to the destroyers.
By Jove, Alston was right about his ideals! Do you know, I am beginning
to see all these things in quite a different light. I used to believe
in women, Jeremy—actually I used to believe in them. I thought they
were better than we are,” and he laughed hysterically. “Well, we buy
our experience; I sha’n’t make the mistake again.”
“Come, come, Ernest, don’t go on talking like that. You have got a blow
as bad as death, and the only thing to do is to meet it as you would
meet death—in silence. You will not go after that fellow, will you? It
will only make things worse, you see. You won’t have time to kill him
before he marries her, and it really would not be worth while getting
hanged about it when the mischief is done. There is literally nothing
to be done except grin and bear it. We won’t go back to England at all,
but right up to the Zambesi, and hunt elephants; and as things have
turned out, if you should get knocked on the head, why, you won’t so
much mind it, you know.”
Ernest made no answer to this consolatory address, and Jeremy left him
alone, thinking that he had convinced him. But the Ernest of midday was
a very different man from the Ernest of the morning, directing the
erection of “parasols” over melons. The cruel news that the mail had
brought him, and which from force of association caused him for years
afterwards to hate the sight of a letter, had, figuratively speaking,
destroyed him. He could never recover from it, though he would
certainly survive it. Sharp indeed must be the grief which kills. But
all the bloom and beauty had gone from his life; the gentle faith which
he had placed in women was gone (for so narrowminded are we all, that
we cannot help judging a class by our salient experiences of
individuals), and, from that day forwards, for many years, he was
handed over to a long-drawn-out pain, which never quite ceased, though
it frequently culminated in paroxysms, and to which death itself would
have been almost preferable.
But as yet he did not realise all these things; what he did realise was
an intense and savage thirst for revenge—so intense, indeed, that he
felt as though he must put himself in a way to gratify it, or his brain
would go. To-morrow, he thought, was to see the final act of his
betrayal. To-day was the eve of her marriage, and he as powerless to
avert it as a child. O, great God! And yet through it all he knew she
loved him.
Ernest, like many other pleasant, kindly-tempered men, if once stung
into action by the sense of overpowering wrong, was extremely
dangerous. Ill indeed would it have fared with Mr. Plowden if he could
have come across him at that moment. And he honestly meant that it
should fare ill with that reverend gentleman. So much did he mean it,
that before he left his room he wrote his resignation of membership of
the volunteer corps to which he belonged, and took it up to the
Government office. Then, remembering that the Potchefstroom post-cart
left Pretoria at dawn on the following morning, he made his way to the
office, and ascertained that there were no passengers booked to leave
by it. But he did not take a place; he was too clever to do that.
Leaving the office, he went to the bank, and drew one hundred and fifty
pounds in gold. Then he went home again. Here he found a Kafir
messenger, dressed in the Government white uniform, waiting for him
with an official letter.
The letter acknowledged receipt of his resignation, but “regretted
that, in the present unsettled state of affairs, his Excellency was, in
the interest of the public service, unable to dispense with his
services.”
Ernest dismissed the messenger, and tore the letter across. If the
Government could not dispense with him, he would dispense with the
Government. His aim was to go to Potchefstroom, and thence to the
Diamond Fields. Once there, he could take the post-cart to Cape Town,
where he would meet the English mail steamer, and in one month from the
present date be once more in England.
That evening he dined with Mr. Alston, Jeremy, and Roger as usual, and
no allusion was made to the events of the morning. About eleven o’clock
he went to bed, but not to sleep. The post-cart left at four. At three
he rose very quietly, and put a few things into a leather saddle-bag,
extracted his revolver from under the bed where he had thrown it when,
in the first burst of his agony, he had been interrupted in his
contemplated act of self destruction, and buckled it round his waist.
Then he slipped out through the window of his room, crept stealthily
down the garden-path, and struck out for the Potchefstroom road. But,
silently and secretly as he went, there went behind him one more silent
and secret than he—one to whose race, through long generations of
tracking foes and wild beasts, silence and secrecy had become an
instinct. It was the Hottentot boy, Aasvögel.
The Hottentot followed him in the dim light, never more than fifty
paces behind him, sometimes not more than ten, and yet totally
invisible. Now he was behind a bush or a tuft of rank grass; now he was
running down a ditch; and now again creeping over the open on his belly
like a two-legged snake. As soon as Ernest got out of the town, and
began to loiter along the Potchefstroom road, the Hottentot halted,
uttering to himself a guttural expression of satisfaction. Then,
watching his opportunity, he turned and ran swiftly back to Pretoria.
In ten minutes he was at Ernest’s house.
In front of the door were five horses, three with white riders, two
being held by Kafirs. On the verandah, as usual smoking, was Mr.
Alston, and with him Jeremy, the latter armed and spurred.
The Hottentot made his report and vanished.
Mr. Alston turned and addressed Jeremy in the tone of one giving an
order.
“Now go,” he said at last, handing him a paper; and Jeremy went, and,
mounting one of the led horses, a powerful cream-coloured animal with a
snow-white mane and tail, galloped off into the twilight, followed by
the three white men.
Meanwhile Ernest walked quietly along the road. Once he paused,
thinking that he heard the sound of galloping horses, half a mile or so
to the left. It passed, and he went on again. Presently the mist began
to lift, and the glorious sun came up; then came a rumble of wheels
running along the silent road, and the post-cart with six fresh horses
was upon him. He halted, and held up his hand to the native driver. The
man knew him, and stopped the team at once.
“I am going with you to Potchefstroom, Apollo,” he said.
“All right, sar; plenty of room inside, sar. No passenger this trip,
sar, and damn good job too.”
Ernest got up, and off they went. He was safe now. There was no
telegraph to Potchefstroom, and nothing could catch the post-cart if it
had an hour’s start.
A mile farther on there was a hill, up which the unlovely Apollo walked
his horses. At the top of the hill was a clump of mimosa-bush, out of
which, to the intense astonishment of both Ernest and Apollo, there
emerged four mounted men with a led horse. One of these men was Jeremy;
it was impossible to mistake his powerful form, sitting on his horse
with the grip of a centaur.
They rode up to the post-cart in silence. Jeremy motioned to Apollo to
pull up. He obeyed, and one of the men dismounted and seized the
horse’s head.
“Tricked, by Heaven!” said Ernest.
“You must come back with me, Ernest,” said Jeremy quietly. “I have a
warrant for your arrest as a deserter, signed by the Governor.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then my orders are to take you back.”
Ernest drew his revolver.
“This is a trick,” he said, “and I shall not go back.”
“Then I must take you,” was the reply; and Jeremy coolly dismounted.
Ernest’s eyes flashed dangerously, and he lifted the pistol.
“O yes, you can shoot me if you like; but if you do, the others will
take you;” and he continued to walk towards him.
Ernest cocked his revolver and pointed it.
“At your peril!” he said.
“So be it,” said Jeremy, and he walked up to the cart.
Ernest dropped his weapon.
“It is mean of you, Jeremy,” he said. “You know I can’t fire at you.”
“Of course you can’t, old fellow. Come, skip out of that! you are
keeping the mail. I have a horse ready for you, a slow one; you won’t
be able to run away on him.”
Ernest obeyed, feeling rather small, and in half an hour was back at
his own house.
Mr. Alston was waiting for him.
“Good-morning, Ernest,” he said, cheerfully. “Went out driving and come
back riding, eh?” Ernest looked at him, and his brown cheek flushed.
“You have played me a dirty trick,” he said.
“Look here, my boy,” answered Mr. Alston, sternly, “I am slow at making
a friend; but when once I take his hand I hold it till one of the two
grows cold. I should have been no true friend to you if I had let you
go on this fool’s errand, this wicked errand. Will you give me your
word that you will not attempt to escape, or must I put you under
arrest?”
“I give you my word,” answered Ernest, humbled; “and I ask your
forgiveness.”
Thus it was that, for the first time in his life, Ernest tried to run
away.
That morning Jeremy, missing Ernest, went into his room to see what he
was doing. The room was shuttered to keep out the glare of the sun: but
when he got used to the light he discovered Ernest sitting at the
table, and staring straight before him with a wild look in his eyes.
“Come in, old fellow, come in,” he called out, with bitter jocularity,
“and assist at this happy ceremony. Rather dark, isn’t it? but lovers
like the dark. Look!” he went on, pointing to his watch, which lay upon
the table before him, “by English time it is now about twenty minutes
past eleven. They are being married now, Jeremy, my boy, I can feel it.
By Heaven, I have only to shut my eyes and I can _see_ it!”
“Come, come, Ernest,” said Jeremy, “don’t go on like that. You are not
yourself, man.”
He laughed, and answered:
“I am sure I wish I wasn’t, I tell you I can see it all. I can see
Kesterwick Church full of people, and before the altar, in her white
dress, is Eva; but her face is whiter than her dress, Jeremy, and her
eyes are very much afraid. And there is Florence, with her dark smile,
and your friend Mr. Plowden, too, with his cold eyes and the cross upon
his forehead. Oh, I assure you, I can see them all. It is a pretty
wedding, very. There, it is over now, and I think I will go away before
the kissing.”
“O, hang it all, Ernest, wake up!” said Jeremy, shaking him by the
shoulder. “You will drive yourself mad if you give your imagination so
much rein.”
“Wake up, my boy! I feel more inclined to sleep. Have some grog. Won’t
you? Well, I will.”
He rose and went to the mantelpiece, on which stood a square bottle of
hollands and a tumbler. Rapidly filling the tumbler with raw spirit, he
drank it as fast as the contractions of his throat would allow. He
filled it again, and drank that too. Then he fell insensible upon the
bed.
It was a strange scene, and in some ways a coarse one, but yet not
without a pathos of its own.
“Ernest,” said Mr. Alston, three weeks later, “you are strong enough to
travel now; what do you say to six months or a year among the
elephants? The oxen are in first-rate condition, and we ought to get to
our ground in six or seven weeks.”
Ernest, who was lying back in a low cane-chair, looking very thin and
pale, thought for a moment before he answered:
“All right, I’m your man; only let’s get off soon. I am tired of this
place, and want something to think about.”
“You have given up the idea of returning to England?”
“Yes, quite.”
“And what do you say, Jeremy?”
“Where Ernest goes, there will I go also. Besides, to shoot an elephant
is the one ambition of my life.”
“Good! then we will consider that settled. We shall want to pick up
another eight-bore; but I know of one a fellow wants to sell, a beauty,
by Riley. I will begin to make arrangements at once.”