HOW RALPH CAME BACK TO THE STEAD
For a few moments Swart Piet and his black ruffians stood staring now
at each other and now over the edge of the cliff into the deep
sea-hole. There, however, they could see nothing, for the moonbeams did
not reach its surface, and the only sound they heard was that of the
dripping of the little waterfall, which came to their ears like the
tinkle of distant sheep-bells. Then Swart Piet shivered and laughed
aloud, a laugh that had more of fear than of merriment in it.
“The Englishman called down the everlasting curse of God on me,” he
cried. “Well, I have waited for it, and it does not come, so now for
man’s reward,” and going to where Suzanne lay, he set his arms beneath
her and turned her over upon her back. “She has swooned,” he said;
“perhaps it is as well,” and he stood looking at her, for thus in her
faint she seemed wonderfully fair with the moonbeams playing upon her
deathlike face.
“He had good taste, that Englishman,” went on Swart Piet. “Well, now
our account is squared; he has sown and I shall harvest. Follow me, you
black fellows, for we had best be off,” and, stooping down he lifted
Suzanne in his arms and walked away with her as though she were a
child. For a while they followed the windings of the stream, keeping
under cover of the reeds and bushes that grew upon its banks. Then they
struck out to the right, taking advantage of a cloud which dimmed the
face of the moon for a time, for they wished to reach the kloof without
being seen from the waggon. Nor, indeed, were they seen, for the driver
and voorlooper were seated by the cooking-fire on its further side,
smoking, and dozing as they smoked. Only the great thoroughbred horse
winded them and snorted, pulling at the riem with which he was tied to
the hind wheel of the waggon.
“Something has frightened the _schimmel_,” said the driver waking up.
“It is nothing,” answered the other boy drowsily; “he is not used to
the veldt, he who always sleeps in a house like a man; or, perhaps, he
smells a hyena in the kloof.”
“I thought I heard a sound like that of a gun a while ago down yonder
by the sea,” said the driver again. “Say, brother, shall we go and find
out what made it?”
“By no means,” answered the voorlooper, who did not like walking about
at night, fearing lest he should meet spooks. “I have been wide awake
and listening all this time, and I heard no gun; nor, indeed, do people
go out shooting at night. Also it is our business to watch here by the
waggon till our master and mistress return.”
“Where can they have gone?” said the driver, who felt frightened, he
knew not why. “It is strange that they should be so long away when it
is time for them to sleep.”
“Who can account for the ways of white people?” answered the other,
shrugging his shoulders. “Very often they sit up all night. Doubtless
these two will return when they are tired, or perhaps they desire to
sleep in the veldt. At any rate it is not our duty to interfere with
them, seeing that they can come to no harm here where there are neither
men nor tigers.”
“So be it,” said the driver, and they both dozed off again till the
messenger of ill came to rouse them.
Now Black Piet and his men crept up the kloof carrying Suzanne with
them, till they came to a little patch of rocky ground at the head of
it where they had left their horses.
“That was very well managed,” said Piet as they loosed them and
tightened their girths, “and none can ever know that we have made this
journey. To-morrow the bride and bridegroom will be missed, but the sea
has one and I have the other, and hunt as they may they will never find
her, nor guess where she has gone. No, it will be remembered that they
walked down to the sea, and folk will think that by chance they fell
from the cliff into the deep water and vanished there. Yes, it was well
managed and none can guess the truth.”
Now the man to whom he spoke, that same man with whom the boy Zinti had
heard him plot our murder in the Tiger Kloof, shrugged his shoulders
and answered:
“I think there is one who will guess.”
“Who is that, fool?”
“She about whose neck I once set a rope at your bidding, Bull-Head, and
whose life was bought by those lips,” and he pointed to Suzanne,
“Sihamba Ngenyanga.”
“Why should she guess?” asked Piet angrily.
“Has she not done so before? Think of the great _schimmel_ and its
rider in Tiger Kloof. Moreover, what does her name mean? Does it not
mean ‘Wanderer-by-moonlight,’ and was not this great deed of yours a
deed at the telling of which all who hear of it shall grow sick and
silent, done in the moonlight, Bull-Head?”
Now as we learned afterwards from a man whom Jan took prisoner, and who
told us everything which passed that night, hoping to buy his life,
Piet made no answer to this saying, but turned to busy himself with his
saddle, for, after his ill dealings with her, he was always afraid of
Sihamba, and would never mention her name unless he was obliged. Soon
the horses, most of which were small and of the Basuto breed, were
ready to start. On one of the best of them there was a soft pad of
sheepskins, such as girls used to ride on when I was young, before we
knew anything about these new-fangled English saddles with leather
hooks to hold the rider in her place. On this pad, which had been
prepared for her, they set Suzanne, having first tied her feet together
loosely with a riem so that she might not slip to the ground and
attempt to escape by running. Moreover, as she was still in a swoon,
they supported her, Black Piet walking upon one side and a Kaffir upon
the other. In this fashion they travelled for the half of an hour or
more, until they were deep in among the mountains, indeed, when
suddenly with a little sigh Suzanne awoke, and glanced about her with
wide, frightened eyes. Then memory came back to her, and she
understood, and, opening her lips, she uttered one shriek so piercing
and dreadful that the rocks of the hills multiplied and echoed it, and
the blood went cold even in the hearts of those savage men.
“Suzanne,” said Swart Piet in a low, hoarse voice, “I have dared much
to win you, and I wish to treat you kindly, but if you cry out again,
for my own safety’s sake and that of those with me, we must gag you.”
She made no answer to him, nor did she speak at all except one word,
and that word “_Murderer_.” Then she closed her eyes as though to shut
out the sight of his face, and sat silent, saying nothing and doing
nothing, even when Piet and the other man who supported her had mounted
and pushed their horses to a gallop, leading that on which she rode by
a riem.
It might be thought after receiving a pistol bullet fired into him at a
distance of four paces, and being cast down through fifty feet of space
into a pool of the sea, that there was an end of Ralph Kenzie for ever
on this earth. But thanks to the mercy of God this was not so, for the
ball had but shattered his left shoulder, touching no vital part, and
the water into which he fell was deep, so that, striking against no
rock, he rose presently to the surface, and the pool being but narrow,
was able to swim to one side of it where the beach shelved. Up that
beach Ralph could not climb, however, for he was faint with loss of
blood and shock. Indeed, his senses left him while he was in the water,
but it chanced that he fell forward and not backward, so that his head
rested upon the shelving edge of the pool, all the rest of his body
being beneath its surface. Lying thus, had the tide been rising, he
would speedily have drowned, but it had turned, and so, the water being
warm, he took no further harm.
Now Sihamba did not leave the stead till some hours after Ralph and his
bride had trekked away. She knew where they would outspan, and as she
did not wish that they should see her yet, or until they were too far
upon their journey to send her back, it was her plan to reach the spot,
or rather a hiding-place in the kloof within a stone’s throw of it,
after they had gone to rest. So it came about that at the time when
Ralph and Suzanne were surprised by Swart Piet, Sihamba was riding
along quietly upon the horse which Jan had given her, accompanied by
the lad Zinti, perched on the strong brown mule in the midst of cooking
pots, bags of meal, biltong, and rolls of blankets. Already, half a
mile off or more, she could see the cap of the waggon gleaming white in
the moonlight, when suddenly away to the left they heard the sound of a
pistol shot.
“Now who shoots in this lonely place at night?” said Sihamba to Zinti.
“Had the sound come from the waggon yonder I should think that someone
had fired to scare a hungry jackal, but all is quiet at the waggon, and
the servants of Swallow are there, for, look, the fire burns.”
“I know not, lady,” answered Zinti, for Sihamba was given the title of
Chieftainess among the natives who knew something of her birth, “but I
am sure that the sound was made by powder.”
“Let us go and see,” said Sihamba turning her horse.
For a while they rode on towards the place whence they had heard the
shot, till, suddenly, when they were near the cliff and in a little
fold of ground beyond the ridge of which ran the stream, Sihamba
stopped and whispered, “Be silent, I hear voices.” Then she slipped
from her horse and crept like a snake up the slope of the rise until
she reached its crest, where at this spot stood two tufts of last
season’s grass, for no fires had swept the veldt. From between these
tufts, so well hidden herself that unless they had stepped upon her
body, none could have discovered her, she saw a strange sight.
There beneath her, within a few paces indeed, for the ground sloped
steeply to the stream, men were passing. The first of these was white,
and he carried a white woman in his arms; the rest were Kaffirs, some
of whom wore karosses or cotton blankets, and some tattered soldiers’
coats and trousers, while all were well armed with “_roers_” or other
guns, and had powder flasks hung about their necks. Sihamba knew at
once that the white man was Swart Piet, and the woman in his arms her
mistress, Suzanne. She could have told it from her shape alone, but as
it happened, her head hung down, and the moonlight shone upon her face
so brightly that she could see its every feature. Her blood boiled in
her as she looked, for now she understood that her fears were just, and
that the Swallow whom she loved above everything in the world, had
fallen into the power of the man she hated. At first she was minded to
follow, and if might be, to rescue her. Then she remembered the
pistol-shot, and remembered also that this new-made wife would have
been with her husband and no other. Where, then, was he now? Without
doubt, murdered by Bull-Head. If so, it was little use to look for him,
and yet something in her heart told her to look.
At that moment she might not help Suzanne, for what could one woman and
a Kaffir youth do against so many men? Moreover, she knew whither Van
Vooren would take her, and could follow there, but first she must learn
for certain what had been the fate of the Baas Ralph her husband. So
Sihamba lay still beneath the two tufts of grass until the last of the
men had passed in silence, glancing about them sullenly as though they
feared vengeance for a crime. Then, having noted that they were heading
for the kloof, she went back to where Zinti stood in the hollow holding
the horse with one hand and the mule with the other, and beckoned him
to follow her.
Very soon, tracing the spoor backwards, they reached the edge of the
cliff just where the waterfall fell over it into the sea pool. Here she
searched about, noting this thing and that, till at last all grew clear
to her. Yonder Suzanne had lain, for the impress of her shape could
still be seen upon the grass. And there a man had been stretched out,
for his blood stained the ground. More, he had been dragged to the edge
of the cliff, for this was the track of his body and the spoor of his
murderer’s feet. Look how his heels had sunk into the turf as he took
the weight of the corpse in his arms to hurl it over the edge.
“Tie the horse and the mule together, Zinti,” she said, “and let us
find a path down this precipice.”
The lad obeyed, wondering, though he too guessed much of what had
happened, and after a little search they found a place by which they
could descend. Now Sihamba ran to the pool and stood upon its brink
scanning the surface with her eyes, till at length she glanced
downwards, and there, almost at her feet, three parts of his body yet
hidden in the water, lay the man she sought.
Swiftly she sprang to him, and, aided by Zinti, dragged him to dry
ground.
“Alas! lady,” moaned the Kaffir, “it is of no use, the Baas is dead.
Look, he has been shot.”
Taking no heed of the words, Sihamba opened Ralph’s garments, placing
first her hand, then her ear, upon his heart. Presently she lifted her
head, a light of hope shining in her eyes, and said:
“Nay, he lives, and we have found him in time. Moreover, his wound is
not to death. Now help me, for between us we must bear him up the
cliff.”
So Zinti took him on his back as a man takes a sack of flour, while
Sihamba supported his legs, and thus between them, with great toil, for
the way was very steep, they carried him by a sloping buck’s path to
the top of the precipice, and laid him upon the mule.
“Which way now?” gasped Zinti, for being strong he had borne the
weight.
“To the waggon if they have not yet stolen it,” said Sihamba, and
thither they went.
When they were near she crept forward, searching for Swart Piet and his
gang, but there were no signs of them, only she saw the driver and his
companion nodding by the fire. She walked up to them.
“Do you then sleep, servants of Kenzie,” she said, “while the Swallow
is borne away to the Hawk’s Nest and the husband of Swallow, your
master, is cast by Bull-Head back into the sea whence he came?”
Now the men woke up and knew her. “Look, it is Sihamba,” stammered one
of them to the other, for he was frightened. “What evil thing has
happened, Lady Sihamba?”
“I have told you, but your ears are shut. Come then and see with your
eyes,” and she led them to where Ralph lay in his blood, the water yet
dripping from his hair and clothes.
“Alas! he is dead,” they groaned and wrung their hands.
“He is not dead, he will live; for while you slept I found him,” she
answered. “Swift now, bring me the waggon box that is full of clothes,
and the blankets off the cartel.”
They obeyed her, and very quickly and gently—for of all doctors Sihamba
was the best—with their help she drew off his wet garments, and, having
dried him and dressed his wounds with strips of linen, she put a
flannel shirt upon him and wrapped him in blankets. Then she poured
brandy into his mouth, but, although the spirit brought a little colour
into his pale face, it did not awaken him, for his swoon was deep.
“Lay him on the cartel in the waggon,” she said, and, lifting him, they
placed him upon the rimpi bed. Then she ordered them to inspan the
waggon, and this was done quickly, for the oxen lay tied to the
trek-tow. When all was ready she spoke to the two men, telling them
what had happened so far as she knew it, and adding these words:
“Trek back to the stead as swiftly as you may, one of you sitting in
the waggon to watch the Baas Kenzie and to comfort him should he wake
out of his swoon. Say to the father and mother of Swallow that I have
taken the horses to follow Swart Piet and to rescue her by cunning if
so I can, for as will be plain to them, this is a business that must
not wait; also that I have taken with me Zinti, since he alone knows
the path to Bull-Head’s secret hiding-place in the mountains. Of that
road Zinti will tell you all he can and you will tell it to the Baas
Botmar, who must gather together such men as he is able, and start
to-morrow to follow it and rescue us, remembering what sort of peril it
is in which his daughter stands. If by any means I can free the
Swallow, we will come to meet him; if not, who knows? Then he must act
according to his judgment and to what he learns. But let him be sure of
this, and let her husband be sure also, that while I have life in me I
will not cease from my efforts to save her, and that if she dies—for I
know her spirit and no worse harm than death will overtake her—then if
may be, I will die with her or to avenge her, and I have many ways of
vengeance. Lastly, let them not believe that we are dead until they
have certain knowledge of it, for it may chance that we cannot return
to the stead, but must lie hid in the mountains or among the Kaffirs.
Now hear what Zinti has to say as to the path of Bull-Head’s den and
begone, forgetting no one of my words, for if you linger or forget,
when I come again I, Sihamba, will blind your eyes and shrivel your
livers with a spell.”
“We hear you,” they answered, “and remember every word of your message.
In three hours the Baas shall know it.”
Five minutes later they trekked away and so swiftly did they drive and
so good were the oxen, that in less than the three hours we were
awakened by the barking of the dogs and one knocking on our door, and
ran out to learn all the dreadful tidings and to find Ralph bleeding
and still senseless, stretched upon that cartel where we thought him
sleeping happily with his bride.
Oh! the terror and the agony of that hour, never may I forget them!
Never may I forget the look that sprang into Ralph’s eyes when at last
he awoke and, turning them to seek Suzanne, remembered all.
“Why am I here and not dead?” he asked hoarsely.
“Sihamba saved you and you have been brought back in the waggon,” I
answered.
“Where then is Suzanne?” he asked again.
“Sihamba has ridden to save her also, and Jan starts presently to
follow her, and with him others.”
“Sihamba!” he groaned. “What can one woman do against Piet Van Vooren
and his murderers, and for the rest they will be too late. Oh! my God,
my God, what have we done that such a thing should fall upon us? Think
of it, think of her in the hands of Piet Van Vooren. Oh! my God, my
God, I shall go mad!”
Indeed I, who watched him, believe that this would have been so, or
else his brain must have burst beneath its shock of sorrow, had not
nature been kind to him and plunged him back into stupor. In this he
lay long, until well on into the morrow indeed, or rather the day, for
by now it was three o’clock, when the doctor came to take out the
pistol ball and set his shattered bone. For, as it chanced, a doctor,
and a clever one, had been sent for from the dorp to visit the wife of
a neighbour who lay sick not more than twenty miles away, and we were
able to summon him. Indeed but for this man’s skill, the sleeping
medicines he gave him to quiet his mind, and, above all, a certain
special mercy which shall be told of in its place, I think that Ralph
would have died. As it was, seven long weeks went by before he could
sit upon a horse.