It was a six-mule mail-coach that bumped and banged along the rough
highroad to Buluwayo, and Vivienne Carlton anathematised the fate that
condemned her to travel by it. Cordially she detested the cheerful
garrulity of certain of her fellow-passengers, quoting to herself Louis
Vance's satirical _mot: "A_ pessimist is a person who has to live with
optimists." Gladly would she have slain the optimists with whom she was
so tightly packed in the hooded body of the cart--for the term "coach"
was merely a polite fiction: the affair was neither more nor less than a
two-seated Cape cart, with the hood thrown back so that the mules might
find the pulling easier and the passengers be more effectively grilled.
Two passengers shared the front seat with the driver. Miss Carlton was
wedged in the back seat between a perspiring Cape Colonial and a tall
lithe man with a deeply tanned complexion and careless light grey eyes,
who was as taciturn as herself. No one looking at her sitting there so
composedly, closely veiled and gloved, violet eyes quietly fixed on the
horizon, her tall khaki-clad figure preserving in spite of its
contiguity with strangers an air of dainty aloofness, would have guessed
her frame of mind. Her companions had her marked down as an English
girl whose beauty and breeding warranted her to put on as much "side" as
she liked, and in this they were not very far from the truth. They were
also certain that she was the daughter of a lord, and wondered how she
came to be travelling alone. The Colonial and the man who came from
Kimberley admired her madly without daring to address a word to her; the
showy blonde who was going up to be a barmaid in Salisbury, would have
given the necklace of diamonds she wore for its safety under her cotton
blouse, to possess that aloof manner and gift of remaining silent
without being offensive. Only the third man with his careless glance
that took in every point of the changing scene of bush, and tree, and
kop, had any notion of what was going on behind the composed lovely face
of the girl next to him. And the reason he knew was that though he
looked like a pirate or a Klondike miner, or anything that was reckless
and disreputable he was really of the same world as herself, and could
very well guess how the discomfort and hateful intimacy of
coach-travelling outraged her. But even he was far from guessing at the
hopeless fury, and bitter disdain of her surroundings and the world in
general that was rankling in the heart so close to him that he could
almost feel its beating.
Vivienne Carlton's hand was against all men as she believed all women's
to be against her; but she had learned to conceal the fact well. Not by
brandishing her scorn and detestation of it could she hope to get back
her own from a world that had treated her badly. Two years of
struggling for a living in the ranks of journalism had taught her
nothing if it had not taught her this!
Ah! what a two years! Instead of enjoying the brilliant peace of the
land about her, she was thinking of them now, turning her eyes inward to
memories that were poisoning her life. Two years of outward kow-towing
to those who had once kow-towed to her, of being cut and ignored by
people who when she was heiress to great estates and an ancient name
would have petted and fawned upon her, had not the natural haughtiness
of her nature rebuffed them. They remembered those rebuffs when the
tide of her family's prosperity turned, and the great law case that had
dragged on wearily for many months came to an end with the verdict that
disinherited her father and gave to an Australian cad all that Vivienne
had been taught from her birth to consider irrefragably hers. Well had
her haughtiness been remembered against her in that hour! It seemed as
though all fashionable society had been poised expectant, stones and
javelins in hand, waiting for the fall of the house of Giffard-Carlton.
Sir Gerald, her gentle, chivalrous father, had not long survived the
loss of his title and position, but Vivienne and her mother of the same
spirit, proud and defiant in adversity, bore the brunt of society's
malignant glee with unbowed heads, contemptuously refusing the charity
of the usurper, and the humiliating favours of so-called friends. They
were obliged to step down from their high places, but they did it with
dignity, and might with dignity have retired into obscurity and been
forgotten by society, like many another before them, but for the fact
that of all her gifts the only one Vivienne could turn to account was
the gift of description and charming phrase which soon gave her a place
and a living in the world of journalism. And in that connection she
came into constant touch with the world of society. For she had been
obliged of course to begin at the very beginning, penny-a-lining reports
of balls and receptions, descriptions of weddings and the gowns of
debutantes. It was at such work that so much that was wounding and
embittering had come her way. Many a cruel insult had she been obliged
to swallow for her guinea a column. Many an old score cherished by _les
nouveaux riches_ against the house of Giffard-Carlton had been paid into
the account of the lady journalist! And the result of it all was a
nature incalculably embittered and corroded. Though she was only
twenty-two, Vivienne did not feel like a girl any longer, but she still
looked like a girl, and a very charming one at that. The fact was one
she meant to use as a weapon in her reprisals against a world that had
mishandled her. Her gift of writing was a weapon that enabled her to
beat a living for herself and her mother out of life, but her beauty was
a far more potent one, and she meant to use it to the hilt as a means of
getting back her own from society. This work she had come out to Africa
to do for the _Daily Flag_--a series of articles descriptive of the
life, inhabitants, and prospects of Cecil Rhodes's country--would, she
hoped, prove to be a means to a very special end. If her articles made
a big hit she would not have to go back to describing ball gowns. But
she did not mean to return to journalism at all if she could help it.
There were plenty of millionaires in Africa--and she had plenty to give
in exchange for the millions of one of them--youth, beauty, birth,
breeding, an intimate knowledge of the social world! There was only one
thing he must not ask of her, and that was a heart. She might be
tempted to reveal to him what she carried instead--a husk with a little
brown dust in it, like a rotten nut! To cry to him as Baudelaire cried
in his bitterness:
"My heart?--the beasts have eaten it!"
She had little fear of being unable to gain her end. Many men had
proposed to her since she became simple Miss Carlton, but none of them
had been able to offer enough in exchange for the rotten nut. The man
destined to receive that precious gift must be very rich indeed, must
have enough to buy back what the world had robbed her of--place, and
power to put her foot on the necks of those who had humiliated her.
There were many such in Africa. Even during her short stay in Cape
Town, she had met one who showed himself as heartily disposed as he was
well-equipped to shoulder his side of the bargain. Only for a foolish
and incomprehensible shrinking on her part at the last moment, she would
now have been engaged to marry Wolfe Montague, one of Johannesberg's
great financial kings.
However! She was to see him again in a month or two in Rhodesia and
doubtless by that time she would be rid of all foolish prejudices. This
charming coach journey was one of the things that would help her to come
to a propitious decision! At the thought, she gave a little cynical
laugh that made her companions stare, wondering what she found in the
scenery to amuse her.
Indeed, nothing less amusing than this journey could be imagined. Day
after day of weary crawling across a landscape that changed unceasingly
in outline, though never in detail. Always the undulating grassy slopes
dotted with bush, the eternal kopje ahead, and the eternal kopje left
behind. There was something terrible about the brooding loneliness, the
eloquent stillness, the great unending sameness of it all.
They had been travelling for four nights and days and must continue for
a good many more yet before the end was reached--sometimes putting up
for a night at a rough wayside hotel, more often just outspanning beside
a mule stable during the darkest hours and sleeping as best they could
in the cramped cart, with rugs and mail-bags as a common couch.
Vivienne had never imagined such physical discomfort possible, and
though her body was too strong to suffer by it, her mind was sick, and
her whole being revolted at the sordidness of it all. Sleeping side by
side with strange men, and a common woman, wedged against them,
listening to their snores! Wakening in the morning to the intimacy of
their unkempt faces! Eating and drinking in their company, listening to
their eternal talk!
Thank Heaven! to-night at least was to be spent at a hotel. Even the
others who were seasoned coach-travellers congratulated themselves on
that fact, not so much because there would be beds to sleep in, as
because an obvious storm was brewing. The sunlight had gone suddenly,
and black clouds, lined with pallid green, were grouping in the west,
taking the form of a great monster with brooding wings. Now and then a
quiver of lightning passed across the sky, and a large drop of rain
splashed down into the coach.
On rounding a kopje, they came suddenly upon Palapye, the native village
where the night was to be spent. It was the kraal of Khama, king of the
Bechuana tribe--hundreds of straw thatched huts sprawling up a hill and
across the plain!
Vivienne, since she left Pretoria, had seen many such "hotels" as the
one by which the coach now drew up: a square wattle-and-daub affair with
a number of smaller huts scattered around it. Painfully she clambered
down, and with the others followed the worn woman who kept the place to
one of these small huts which were the guest rooms. For once there were
enough to go round, and no one was obliged to share. That was something
to be thankful for in an odious world!
After she had washed some of the dust from her face and hands and
removed a great deal more from her dark curly hair, which she wore
boy-fashion--short, and parted on one side--Vivienne went and sat by her
hut door to get a little air. The storm had not yet broken, and with
the thermometer at anything over a hundred, the heat was almost
unbearable. Immediately, she became aware of another woman, sitting in
the doorway of a hut opposite--a stone-still woman, whose face, shadowed
by a dark print sunbonnet was pallid as a bone, with sunken eyes staring
absorbedly before her into nothingness. In the listless hands hanging
over her knees, she held a child's little torn shabby straw hat.
After one glance, Vivienne in spite of the heat felt a shiver creep over
her, and presently in the silence, knowledge came to her that she was in
the presence of tragedy. Something terrible was going on behind those
fixed, absorbed eyes, some sorrow too deep for words was brooding with
bowed head in the mind of that silent watcher. The girl felt the heart
quiver in her breast--that heart she supposed the beasts had eaten! And
she longed to put out a hand or speak a word of comfort to the woman.
But she had lost the habit of saying sympathetic things and it is one
that cannot be regained in a moment. The best she could do was to
quietly withdraw from the presence of grief, and stay in the back of her
hut until the hotel-woman came to call her for dinner.
In the square hut, the other passengers were gathered round the usual
meal: goat chops, potatoes, a steaming dish of green mealies boiled on
the cob. Vivienne took her place with her habitual aloof composure,
paying little attention to the general conversation until a question
addressed by the barmaid to the hotel-keeper roused her interest.
"In the name of goodness, what's wrong with that woman I saw sitting
inside one of the huts?"
The hotel-keeper made a hopeless gesture with her shoulders.
"_Ach_! Don't ask me, it's too awful! Her _kindt_ is lost in the
bush."
"My God!" said the Kimberley man abruptly, and his mealie cob fell into
his plate.
"Yes," continued the woman. "Only three and a half years old, and one
minute playing round the waggon in the sight of her pa and ma, and the
next minute... _gone_! That was four days ago, and they never seen her
since." She added in a low voice, "Nor never will!"
"But what happened?" stammered Vivienne startled out of her reserve.
"Goodness knows, Miss... She just wandered out of sight behind a bush,
I suppose, and then--all bushes look alike! You can get lost in three
minutes on the veld. Just think of that _arme kind_ tumbling along,
falling, and sobbing, and wondering why her ma didn't come. And they
hunting like mad things for her! The father's gone cracked as a
Hottentot, and still goes on hunting; but _she_ can't stand on her feet
any more, and they brought her in here to-day for me to mind."
Vivienne thought it the most appalling thing she had ever heard. Her
soul was sick within her. She could eat nothing. She would have left
the hut, but the storm had broken with a roar and a flash, and outside
the rain was swishing down. She was obliged to sit still and hear more
of this story which paralysed her with terror and pity. A love of
little children is a very inconvenient possession for a woman who means
to beat the world at its own heartless game!
"They found the kid's hat next day, more than twenty miles from where
they lost her. Think of it! A child of that age wandering twenty
miles!"
"She ran of course," said the light-eyed man briefly. "They always
run."
"Or perhaps... you never know... a Hon--"
"Oh, _don't_!" Vivienne cried out suddenly, and put her hand over her
eyes. The others stared at her moodily, and the subject dropped. But
presently the Kimberley man asked the Colonial if he had ever heard of
the fellow who was lost from the Pioneer Column?
"Ya!" said the Colonial. "Seen him often in Buluwayo. He's got a queer
look in his eye and I don't wonder. Forty days before he found the
Column again--long after they had given him up. And he could never tell
a thing he did in those forty days."
"They never can. A fellow I knew in the B.B.P. got lost out from Tuli
one time. And when they found him again, all his front teeth were gone.
He couldn't remember how it happened. But of course it was lying on
the ground gnawing roots did it."
The barmaid leaned on her elbows, eagerly interested; but Vivienne,
white-lipped, listened because she must.
"The great thing is not to lose your head," said the Kimberley man,
pleasantly conversational. "I've known lots of fellows who've been
lost, and they all agree that the first instinct when you realise you're
lost is to start running. Just run and run till you drop. Then the
madness gets you, and you begin to tear off your clothes and pitch them
in every direction as you run. Nearly every fellow ever found after
being lost is stark naked--begging your pardon, Miss," he added as his
eye fell upon Vivienne. She took no notice. The rain had stopped, and
she fled before she should hear more horrors.
But that night she could not sleep for thinking of the lost little
child, and its desolate mother. The storm commenced again, and raged
round the hut. Lightning streaked through the canvas windows and rain
lashed the earth. She was still wide-eyed on a tear-wet pillow when the
hotel-keeper banged the door to say that the coach would start in twenty
minutes.
The first thing she noticed as they clambered to their places was that
the light-eyed man was missing. She was far too distant to make any
remark, but the others with a kind of road-fellowship that surprised her
refused to let the coach start until some explanation was forthcoming.
The driver, a ferocious looking half-caste, scowled at them.
"_Ach_! He's gone off on some business of his own if you want to
know... and coming on by de next coach. _Now_ will you stop wasting de
Company's time and let me drive my mules?"
So on they went through the fresh dawn. The rain-washed land gave up a
delicious perfume of drenched leaves and growing things, and a scent of
mimosa blew like a caress against the cheeks of the weary travellers.
The sky was a bride in shroudy veils of pale pink that warmed to rose,
until the great spiked sun shot up from behind the horizon, and took her
in a glittering embrace. Then brazen day was on them once more.
They slept in the coach that night, and got little ease of it. All were
thankful enough when next mid-day found them outspanned for an hour or
two beside a mule stable. The driver made a fire, and the passengers
unpacked their baskets. Vivienne was sick to death of tinned food, but
glad to accept a cup of tea made in the kettle. Afterwards she strolled
away to an open pool not far off, while the others snatched the chance
of an hour's sleep in the shadow of the stable.
The little pool or "pan" of water lay glittering in the sunshine and she
sat beside it under a tree shaped like a candelabra with great scarlet
and yellow flowers rising in flames from its branches. She was too
careful of her complexion to attempt to wash in such torrid heat, but
she did not mind her hands getting slightly sunburnt for the pleasure of
laving them in the tepid water. Presently a charming little creature of
the squirrel tribe came out of a bush and looked at her with bright
eyes. She took a pellet of chocolate from inside her camera case and
held it out invitingly, but the tiny creature backed a little, then sat
up on its hind legs and cocked its head at her. She took out her camera
and tried to snap it, but it ran again just at the critical moment. The
same thing happened two or three times, until she got a good picture.
Then she tried once more to beguile it with the chocolate. But whenever
she got close, it bounded away. At last, she gave up, and was suddenly
astonished to find how far she had come from her pool. Glittering there
through the trees it appeared to be quite a quarter of a mile away. Yet
that seemed scarcely possible.
"How silly of me!" she murmured. "This is just the way people get lost
I expect," and at the thought she noticed a distinct inclination in her
feet to hurry, but did not permit them any such foolishness.
"Don't be silly," she repeated to herself. "What are you afraid of?
There is the pool straight in front of you, and as soon as you reach it
you will see the coach."
So she forced herself to walk calmly, and all the time she marvelled at
the distance she had come just in those few little short runs after the
squirrel. And when she got to the pool there was no sign of the coach!
"This is too fantastic!" she exclaimed, and laughed aloud. But her
laugh had such a strange sound that she thought it was some one else's
and turned round violently to see who was there. Then she drew nearer
the pool, and saw that the tree growing by it was a smaller one than the
one she had sat under, and had fewer flowers. At last she realised it
was a different pool. But there was no other in sight! Her heart came
up into her throat.
"I must go back the way I came," she told herself steadily. "When I get
to where I first saw this pool I shall not be far off the original one.
It was probably behind my back all the time, and if I had turned round I
should have seen it!"
So with her nerves well in hand she began to walk back the way she had
come. She could not keep quite straight, on account of the trees dotted
about everywhere, each the exact image of the other, and she kept
turning round because for some reason she could not bear to lose sight
of one pool before she regained the other. Suddenly far off she spied
the gleam of water through trees, and at once she frankly hurried,
telling herself she had been away long enough from the coach and that
the driver would be waiting to start. Her last few steps were very
swift. She was breathing quite heavily when she reached the pool and
glanced round keenly for the coach. It was gone! What was more the
stable was gone too! She gave a wild cry. Her knees weakened under her
and she found herself sitting down.
Presently regaining her courage she got up and looked about her
critically. It was then she saw that there was no candelabra tree by
this pool. That shook her a little.
"Better call out," was her next thought, and she followed it up by a
shout that sounded absurdly like a baby crying from a pin-prick. She
was reminded of the little lost child, and began to tremble in spite of
herself. "I'll get out into the open," she thought. "There are too
many trees here. They shut in my voice."
She moved a little way off and called. Then again she walked on and
called. Mechanically she found herself moving along, calling as she
went. Her voice seemed to grow weaker every moment, but her steps grew
quicker. At last, she began to run.
Something tickled her face, and lazily, for she was very tired, and
there was a rushing noise in her ears, she put up her hand to brush the
irritation away. Then her hand tickled too. She held it before her
eyes and saw that it was covered with little black ants. At that, her
aversion to creeping things galvanised her into movement, and she sprang
up, frantically brushing scores of ants from her face and hands. It was
then she realised that she had been lying face downwards on the ground.
She must have fallen, and lain where she fell. How long ago that was
she had no idea, but the sun was very low. She could see it in the
reddened skies just behind some trees.
The next discovery she made was a still stranger one. When she set out
on her journey she had been dressed in a suit of khaki-coloured duck,
made in three pieces; a Norfolk coat, a short deerstalker skirt that
could be unhooked and taken off like a modern riding-habit, and,
underneath, a serviceable pair of riding-breeches of the same material.
These were met at the knees by leather gaiters. Stout brown shoes, and
a dark silk shirt completed the suit, the whole having been designed and
beautifully made by a well-known man in Bond Street; for with her mental
eyes fixed on millionaires, Miss Carlton had not thought it wise to be
economical in the direction of clothes. She now discovered herself to
be attired only in the silk shirt and riding-breeches. Her boots and
gaiters were scratched and worn almost beyond recognition; her hat,
coat, skirt, and camera were gone. She had absolutely no idea how she
had lost them, but some faint notion of searching for them made her look
in the direction of the sun to see how long it would be before she was
left in the dark. Then she observed another amazing thing. Instead of
disappearing the sun had actually risen above the trees, and was
advancing into the sky. The world was full of surprises. It was
morning!
She had spent a night alone on the veld then! It seemed strange that
she could remember nothing about this, but somehow the fact did not
worry her very much. She felt indeed extraordinarily calm and careless.
A sense of lightness and freedom pervaded her. She would not have
minded anything if only she had not been so horribly tired. Also hungry
and thirsty.
She began to saunter forward in a casual sort of way, and presently
noticed that the rushing sound grew louder, and was not in her head at
all, but in the air. There was a river close at hand, and she was
making straight for it! This pleased her greatly, and when she came in
sight of it she laughed joyously. It was fringed with trees, thick and
tall, and the banks were high, but she had no difficulty in clambering
down into the riverbed which was wide as Piccadilly Circus, and mostly
composed of pure white sand and flat rocks. The stream in the middle
which made so much noise was comparatively shallow and she could easily
have forded it. What she did, however, was to lie down flat beside it
and drink long and deep. At the same time, she experienced the
sensation of having performed this act before.
"But one always has that feeling every time one does anything new!" she
thought. Her face reflected in the water looked very dark, and her
hands were burnt almost black--covered with scratches too. That did not
trouble her much. Her eye was ranging round the trees for something to
eat. In a minute, she spied something yellow that might be fruit.
While she was climbing up amongst the rough branches and foliage, adding
considerably to her stock of scratches, she again had the sensation of
having done this thing before. They were only sour plums, and she
didn't care much for sour things, but the peel was not bad. Later she
found some wild apricots. There were also little flower bulbs sticking
above the ground, with rushes attached to them, and of these she pulled
a number. Some that had an oniony flavour she discarded, but others
tasted as she knew they would, just like nuts. Munching placidly, she
wandered on her way. The rushing sound of the river was pleasant
company.
As she sauntered along, her glance struck something on the ground that
was certainly foreign to the surroundings--nothing less than the remains
of a large canvas sack. Having slept for many nights upon mail-bags,
she was in a position to recognise one when she saw it, besides, round
this one were scattered the remains of many letters, torn, ant-eaten,
and rotted by rain. Musingly, she lifted up the tattered canvas and
examined it. There were sharp teeth marks on it, and it had been ripped
savagely open from end to end. Yet, coyly hiding in a tarry fold, there
remained some residue of what had evidently once been a full bag of
mail--on Her Majesty's Service--a stamped and addressed letter, and a
newspaper. The ants had chewed both a little, but the canvas had kept
them in good condition. Vivienne examined them with interest, and it
being at this time full noon, the pleasant idea occurred to her of
having a little rest, and a little read. Accordingly she seated herself
and opened the newspaper.
It was the Buluwayo _Chronicle_ dated October the 21st (the date she had
landed in Cape Town) and addressed to a lady in Devonshire who would
never now receive it. The contents did not interest Vivienne. The
local news of a town she had never seen would scarcely be likely to do
so. She threw it aside and took up the letter. For a moment she looked
at the blurred address:
George Brain, Esqr.,
Mining Hotel,
Beaconsfield,
Diamond Fields.
(Barkly West.)
Then as if it were the most natural thing in the world to open other
people's letters, she slipped her fingers under the flap of the
envelope, pulled it off and threw it away. Unfolding the letter, she
read it from beginning to end.
"Onder-koppies" near Buluwayo.
October 20th, 19--.
Dear George,
As soon as you get this, raise 500 pounds on the nail, and wire it up.
I know money is tight, but get that pony from somewhere and your pile
is made. Hunt and I have struck it rich. As a farming partner Hunt
is no more good than a dead dog, but he knows the surveying and
mineralogy business like his A.B.C. On the Rand, they used to call
him the fellow with a nose for reef, and only he's lazy as the devil
he'd be rich as Hades by now. Anyway prowling round here he has nosed
out a plum_... the land adjoining ours is lousy with gold_.
Unfortunately the whole 6000 acres belong to de Windt--you know--the
hunter and explorer fellow, who got this farm for his share in the
Matabeleland row. However he's never done anything with it except
stick up a hut, and it's common knowledge here that he'll take what he
can get for his land, for since the railway is on its way he professes
himself sick of this country and is going to make tracks further
north. He's got no money, never has, and will jump at 500 pounds
ready cash, so hustle and raise it George, and we'll keep the loot in
the family. Hunt and I haven't a rap between us, and no means of
getting any except by selling our land, which would look fishy to de
Windt who is no fool. You can trust me there's no mistake. Hunt is
too wise a bird for that. But if you've any doubts, come up yourself
and bring the best surveyor on the Fields. You'll find that
everything is O.K. Only it must be done sharp,--for de Windt will be
up here on his way North about end November. Get busy. _Zachabona_!
Brother Frank.
"Charming fellow, brother Frank!" said Miss Carlton thoughtfully, and
having no pocket, thrust the letter into the front of her silk shirt.
Afterwards she sat shuffling the rags of paper and canvas with the toe
of her shoe, wondering how they had come to this place. The conclusion
was that the bag must have been dropped from the down-country coach,
though clearly not at this spot, for there was no road. Probably some
hungry animal had carried it off and torn it open to see what it
contained. Possibly the coach road was not far off, and by continuing
ahead she would find it. But she felt a curious indifference on the
subject. The heat had filled her with a delightful drowsiness, and she
decided to rest a little longer. With her back against a tree she
stared dreamily at the lovely slope of country over which the sunshine
appeared to be passing in ripples making the long pale grass sway in
waves, though not a breath of wind stirred the air. Everything seemed
wrapped in a pleasant golden haze, but whether the haze was in her mind
or on the golden silent land about her she could not have told. At last
her eyes gradually closed and she slept.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
When she awoke the plain was still simmering under the sun waves, and
leaves and grass crackled and stirred as before in the windless air.
All was unchanged, except that at the top of the slope half a quarter of
a mile away, a dozen or more buck were peacefully grazing among the pale
long grass. Often from the coach Vivienne had seen such herds, and she
knew the great dark creatures, with patches of white gleaming under them
as they moved, to be sable antelope. Lazily she sat watching their slow
graceful movements, as they fed, never dreaming of the presence of a
human being, though sometimes one or another of them would raise its
head and for a moment seem to listen.
Then in an instant with the flash and crack of sudden doom the scene
changed. The antelope terror-stricken, were bounding across country and
the girl leaping to her feet stood with eyes dilated and hand on heart.
A gun had been fired and the dark body of one of the buck lay shuddering
where a moment before it had been happily grazing.
Even as she stood staring, the figure of a man came from behind a far
group of bush into the open--a tall hulking figure, in sloppy trousers
belted at the waist, his gun over his shoulder. He was a long way off,
but he walked straight as a die for the spot where the buck lay, stooped
over it for a minute, then wiped something he held in his hand on the
grass and stuck it back into his belt. Afterwards he tied a little
strip of white rag onto a bush close by. He stood for a while looking
after the rest of the herd, now black dots in the distance, then
leisurely started to walk back in the direction he came. Never once had
he looked towards where Vivienne, motionless as a statue stood in the
shadow of the trees.
As she watched him, his figure momentarily disappeared behind a bush,
and then for the first time immobility passed from her face and figure.
Panic swept over her like a wave. Uttering short sharp cries, she began
to run after the man, and, as she ran, the remembrance came over her
like the memory of some frightful nightmare how she had run like this
before--on and on and on--over rocks, through bush, in blinding sunshine
and heavy darkness. And with the remembrance came such terror as lent
wings to her feet--terror of losing sight of this human creature, and
being left once more to the awful loneliness of the veld.
In a few moments she caught up to within thirty yards of the man, but
long before that he had turned round and was watching her, his hat
pushed back above his dark coarse face, his eyes full of astonishment.
"Hi! young fellah--stop that!"
If he had fired off his gun at her the result could not have been more
effective. She drew up instantly, stopped tearing with both hands at
the collar of her shirt, and stood staring into his eyes, panting
heavily. He ran a shrewd glance over her.
"Where'd you spring from?" he demanded. She continued to stare at him.
His voice which was common and brutal troubled her, and she did not like
his face.
"Crazy!" he mused, looking at her keenly through half-closed eyes. "I'm
not sure it wouldn't be a good thing to give you a crack on the
cocoa-nut and leave you to the _aasvogels_. You'll only be a darned
nuisance."
She understood very well what he was saying, but somehow it did not
terrify her. Nothing terrified her except the thought of being left
alone. He tried her with another question.
"How long you been lost?"
She waved her hand towards the trees that fringed the river bank. Why
she did this she had not the faintest idea.
"_Ach_!" he exclaimed impatiently, and turned on his heel. "Come on to
my waggons, you fool."
Without any indignation at his way of addressing her, she fell into step
beside him. A few paces farther on, two natives bounded into sight,
coming towards the man as though searching for him. He addressed them
in Kaffir, pointing backwards to where he had left the buck. They gazed
at Vivienne with impassive faces. Both parties continued on their way.
At last Vivienne's eyes fell once more upon the broad dusty road, and a
hundred yards or so from it two transport waggons were drawn up and
outspanned. At the sight of them, and the smouldering fires, and a dog
that jumped up barking, and the smell of newly-baked bread, something in
the girl's breast gave a great throb, and she had speech.
"Since yesterday," she said, answering the question the man had asked
her some twenty minutes past.
"Oh! you've found your tongue have you," said he. "Since yesterday
what?"
"Lost."
"Lost since yesterday?" he stared at her wonderingly. "Oh! you're mad,
right enough, young fellah. The sun's done _your_ business for you.
Here! come and eat."
She was not too mad to understand that at any rate. There were some
loaves of newly-made dough bread lying on a box, each broken in two to
let the steam out. Several other boxes were scattered about and the man
motioning her to one handed her half a loaf. She took it eagerly, and
began to eat at once, almost wolfishly. When she had finished she
looked longingly at the other loaves.
"No, you don't," said the man, "you've had enough for one go." He had
called out an order to some young native boys squatting by the fire, and
they now set a tin kettle full of coffee and two beakers before him. He
handed her one of the beakers full of hot black liquid and she drank
even to the last drop.
"Now," said he, speaking roughly and emphatically as if to a child with
no intelligence. "What you want is _sleep_. Go and get up into that
waggon tent, and _sleep_, do you understand? No use turning in on the
ground for we're going to _trek_ in an hour. Get off with you now, and
sleep till you burst." His tone was the tone of a born bully, but the
girl did not resent it. She climbed on to the waggon-brake as easily as
if she had been doing so all her life. A rude, but not unclean mattress
surged up to meet her, and she sank into it and slept.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The waggon was moving when she awoke, a delicious slow movement which
softly swung the mattress suspended on a wooden frame across the tent,
from side to side, and was accompanied by strainings and rumblings,
musical creakings as of a ship at sea, but without any of the malaise
incidental to ships, for the level of the mattress was always
maintained. When the wheels jolted over stones, Vivienne got no more
discomfort of it than a bird snug in its nest. From the horseshoe
opening of the tent, she could see a light haze of dust rising
perpetually from under the wheels, and through it, the landscape rolling
out and retreating in changing panorama. Everything was wonderfully
peaceful. Sometimes she could hear far ahead the crack of a whip, and a
long-drawn-out native cry; then the waggon would lumber more hurriedly
through the dust for a while, only to return to the slow even movement
of serenely pacing oxen.
Lying idly against her pillow, she watched the sun fall swiftly behind a
kop, and the whole land become suffused with orange-coloured light.
Then the silver-green of bush and tree turned black and kopjes were
etched in India ink against the tinted skies.
Her eyes wandered round the tent in which she was lying. There was
hardly anything in it except the bed, but from the hoops supporting the
canvas various odds and ends of things were hanging; a lantern, a cheap
clock, a small tin-bound square of mirror, several coarse canvas bags,
evidently stuffed with clothes.
"I suppose they belong to the man who found me," she thought, and
instantly recalled the coarse thick-lipped face, the peculiar sneering
way his mouth drew up at one side under the ragged dark moustache, the
sharp half-closed eyes. She recalled too his brutal way of speaking to
her. No one had ever spoken to Vivienne Carlton in such a fashion, and
it had impressed itself on her memory. In fact, it was the only thing
that stood out since she knew she had lost herself by the pool. The
rest was darkness.
"_Hi! Young fellah_!"
Her memory began from those words! But why "young fellah?" She had
understanding now to marvel at such an address. Was it because of her
short hair? The idea inspired her to kneel up on the bed and reach for
the tin-backed mirror. She peeped in and, at the sight she met there,
almost reeled backwards out of the waggon. A face which under dirt and
tan was darker than a Hindoo's, scratched cheeks, sunken eyes, lips that
were dried and cracked. A mop of short curly hair full of dust and bits
of grass and dried leaves! A neck that was burnt almost black right
down to where it met the ragged shirt collar. She could not even be
sure that the eyes were her own, so deep were they in her head.
The shock sent her back to her pillow, and she lay there a long time
very still. But her mind was clear enough now to realise why the man
had mistaken her for a "young fellow." She was a tall, athletic girl
whose love of outdoor exercises had conformed her figure to a boyish
flexibility and litheness rather than feminine plumpness. Moreover,
such superfluous flesh as she had once possessed was now gone. The veld
had turned her into a lanky, dirty, hungry-looking lout of a boy. She
could not help laughing, but a moment later her face grew stern to
consternation. The feeling of safety engendered by being once more in
touch with people was dispersing the terror of the veld, but another
horror now took its place! Her beauty was gone! The one great wand she
possessed, the pivot round which all her plans revolved. It would take
months to get back her complexion and contours--if she ever got them
back!
She stared at her dark hands, blistered and torn, with black rims to
them.
"How awful if this ever gets known!"
So far, the world with all its cruelty and malice had never been able to
touch her spotless reputation, or Mrs Grundy heave a brick at her for
outraged conventions. But now? If this became known? Lost on the
veld! Picked up by a strange man, kept in a waggon, travelling alone
with him on the veld! What tit-bits to be rolled round the tongues of
her enemies!
"It must never be known," she whispered to herself. "This man must go
on believing me a boy. The whole business of my being lost must be kept
dark, and I must get back to my world as soon as I can. I wonder if
this man is bound for Rhodesia or going down-country!"
Ruefully, she examined her garments. Her riding-breeches and gaiters,
though dirty and worn, would last a good while yet, but the soles of her
boots were almost gone.
Daylight passed, and was superseded by a great white moon that diffused
mother-of-pearl light. Hour after hour the waggon rumbled forward, but
at last the wheels creaked over grass and shrub and came to a stop.
There were native cries and shouts, the clatter of falling yokes, the
low moo of tired oxen. Then newly lighted fires began to crackle and
presently a ravishing odour of meat grilling over embers came stealing
into the waggon tent. A head showed at the opening.
"Well! how d'you feel now, hey?"
"Better, thank you," she answered politely. Her voice was a contralto
and quite deep enough to pass for a boy's.
"Oh! better, thank you, hey?" he rudely mimicked. "Ready for a buck
steak, I bet!"
She did not at all like this man's ways and manners, but it seemed
politic at this time to disguise her feelings. For one thing, she was
horribly hungry. For another, she realised that it was in his power to
be intensely disagreeable if she offended him. Just how disagreeable a
man with such a mouth could be she did not care to contemplate.
"I am certainly very hungry," she answered quietly.
"Come on down, then. You don't expect me to bring it to you, do you?"
"Of course not!" She made haste to descend, and take her place before
the packing-case on which the supper was laid. She thought she had
never tasted anything in her life so delicious as that chunk of
antelope-steak, gritty with cinders, and flavoured with smoke. At the
end of twenty minutes or so, the man remarked:
"Nothing wrong with your appetite, I see, whatever the sun has done to
your _kop_."
Vivienne did not know what a _kop_ was, but her guessing powers were
unimpaired.
"I'm afraid my behaviour was rather strange when I first met you," she
said stiffly. "My excuse must be that I am not accustomed to being
lost, and the experience had--er--slightly unbalanced me."
"You were cracked as an over-ripe watermelon," he sneered, "and are
still, for all I know." He lounged on his elbow, smoking a pipe of
atrocious tobacco.
"At any rate I thank you for your hospitality," said she, longing to box
his ears instead.
"Pugh! What I want to know is where you come from and whereabouts you
left your party, hey?"
"My party?"
"Yes; the waggons you got lost from."
Something inspired her to leave it at that, and answer quietly:
"Our last stopping-place was Palapye."
"Palapye! Why, that's ten days' _trek_ from here."
"Oh, no," she said. "I was at Palapye three days ago--two days before I
lost myself."
"Look here! Have you any idea of the date you got lost on, hey?" She
made a rapid calculation.
"But of course, it was the twenty-first of November--yesterday."
"That's all right," he said grimly. "This is the thirtieth." She sat
staring at him, lips apart.
"You were lost in the bush nine days, and this is the tenth. I thought
as much when I saw you."
"Nine days!" she muttered. "Is it possible!"
Nine days,--alone on the veld--forever unaccounted for!--gone out of her
life.
"Yes, nine days," he repeated grimly. "I suppose you got rid of most of
your outfit--that's the usual game. I wonder you have on anything at
all."
She wondered too, remembering the tales she had heard of lost people and
thanked God for the unconscious feminine modesty that had remained to
her even in madness and panic--restraining her from that last horror! A
warmth crept into her face, but fortunately through the darkness of her
skin the man could see nothing though he was studying her keenly.
"I had a camera--and a hat and coat," she muttered, trying to remember.
"_Ach_! Shut thinking about it or you'll go off your top again." She
bit her lip at his rude tone, but it at least had the effect of bracing
her.
"Where were you bound for, hey?"
"Buluwayo."
"Oh, indeed! We may run into your party then, for I'm bound there too."
She knew that the coach from which she was lost must have reached
Buluwayo long ago, even if they had delayed a day or two looking for
her. But she did not say so. The hatefulness of the man made her wish
to keep up as long as possible the fiction of friends close at hand.
"What's your name?" was the next question. She told him, "Carlton," and
he repeated it contemptuously.
"A beastly swell, of course. I suppose you lost your eye-glass in the
bush, hey? Well, Carlton, my fine fellah, just you understand this: If
I've got to board and lodge you from here to Buluwayo or until your fine
friends pick you up, I shall expect to be well paid for it; and don't
you forget it."
"Of course you will be paid," she said coldly. "But I must ask you in
the meantime to treat me with a little civility--"
He stared at her with sullen eyes. "Civility be blowed! And don't you
give me any of your cheek, you young snook, else you'll find yourself in
the wrong box. Clear out now, I've had enough of you. You're welcome
to the waggon tent as I never use it,--but don't you come near me again,
except by special invitation."
This was the unpropitious beginning of Miss Carlton's new adventure.
Often during the next two weeks she wondered whether she would not have
been wiser to have stayed in the bush. The man Roper, as she discovered
his name to be, was an insufferable brute, and she went in mortal terror
of his ever finding out that she was a woman. He ill-treated his boys
shamefully, thrashing them on the smallest provocation, and never spoke
to Vivienne except in a bullying tone. What nationality he was she
could not imagine. From his constant use of such colonialisms as _Ach_!
and _Hey_! he might have been a South African, but his accent was
distinctly English, and he scoffed equally at both British and Boer, and
seemed to have the good qualities of neither.
The one thing to be earnestly thankful for was that he had such a
dislike to her that she was rarely troubled by his society. He
invariably took his mid-day meal alone, the greater part of the day
being spent in sleep, for like most transport drivers he never slept
during the night _treks_. The hour of danger for Vivienne was at the
night outspan, for it was then that Roper usually sent her a gruff
message to join him at the meal that was both supper and breakfast in
one--afterwards the whole camp would sink into slumber until nearly
mid-day, except Vivienne who invariably utilised this time to wash and
tidy herself, though she never went far from the waggon, having a horror
of once more losing herself.
Since she must see Roper then, evening was much the best time for the
ordeal. Flickering firelight and the beams of a waning moon were less
inimical than broad daylight to a role that became daily more difficult
to play. For Vivienne was beginning to outgrow her disguise! True, few
people would have recognised in the dirty, if healthy-looking young man
in khaki, the erstwhile lovely debutante of a London Season, and more
recently lady-correspondent of the _Daily Flag_. But life in the open
with rest and food, were doing their work upon a healthy physique, and
her beauty was rapidly returning. The heavy sunburn wearing off showed
the skin beneath clear and tinted; her violet eyes had come out of
retreat; her lips no longer cracked were a smooth and healthy red. Her
hair, for the most part hidden under a primitive hat of plaited grass
made for her by one of the _umfans_ [Young native boys] curled and
glistened in the sun as though it were alive. It was with increased
anxiety that she looked every day into the tin-backed mirror.
During the long afternoon _treks_, lying in the waggon tent her usual
occupation was the study of a letter she had found inside her blouse
with no clear idea of how it came there. She wondered if it were
possible that during that extraordinary period of mental aberration she
had deliberately opened the letter of another person, but she preferred
not to believe this.
At any rate, before she had solved the mystery of its origin she knew
the thing off by heart, and now for lack of any better thing to do she
daily pondered the matter of de Windt's farm. And one day the thought
flashed into her mind. "If I were to get 500 pounds and buy it instead
of letting those two rogues at Onder-Koppies have it!" Instantly she
dismissed the question with another--"Is this country utterly
demoralising me?"--reminding herself sharply of who she was, and the
obligations of her birth and honourable training. But later the thought
came again, and with it extenuating arguments. After all, would such an
act on her part be any more dishonourable than the one she
contemplated--marrying some man for his money? The one was no more than
a piece of sharp practice, such as business men did every day of their
lives. The other--well at any rate it would be a far _pleasanter_ way
to fortune than the other!
Cogitating the matter until it made her head ache, she fell asleep at
last. It is wonderful how much sleep can be put in on the veld where
the air seems charged with mingled ozone and wine!
At outspan time, which seemed to come earlier than usual, she descended
to Roper's call, and slipped unassumingly into her place. Everything
seemed much the same, but the moment she glanced at Roper she knew that
something untoward had happened. The look she had so long dreaded was
in his eye. _He knew_.
The discovery nearly suffocated her. She felt her face scorch as if by
a swift flame, then all the blood drain from it, and tighten like a band
round her heart. Opposite her, dark half-closed eyes full of malice and
some other hateful quality passed over her in a gloating enveloping
stare. If she had suddenly lost her appetite, so, too, it seemed, had
he. It was with his eyes he feasted.
Utterly wretched and terrified, hardly knowing what she said, the girl
made some attempt at conversation. He laughed strangely, answering her
remark with another.
"The mail-coach passed this afternoon, and I had a few minutes' talk
with the driver. He gave me a bit of news."
"Oh?" she faltered enquiringly, sick with mingled fear and curiosity.
Why, oh why, had not she been awake when that coach passed?
"It appears that a young lady was lost off the coach, week before last--
much about the same place as you were--you didn't happen to meet her I
suppose?" he leered at Vivienne with indescribable malice. She made no
answer,--only with her hand sheltered her pallid face as best she could
from the gleam of the fire.
"They were out looking for her some time--nearly a week--have given it
up now, though--but all the coach drivers have orders to keep their eyes
open. They wanted to know if I had seen anything of her? But of course
I said no."
_Brute_! was what her sick heart cried, though her lips made no sound.
There was a silence. He leaned on his elbows, smiling his slow evil
smile at her, and she sat perfectly still looking through her fingers at
the fire and the forms of the two _umfans_ beside it, rolled in their
blankets and already sleeping. No use calling to them, she knew, and
the other boys were away with the oxen. In any case, all were too much
under the dominion of Roper to stand by her. She realised that she was
in deadly danger--and alone. For the first time in the last two years
of proud and bitter defiance, she felt the need of some stronger spirit
than her own, and in her extremity her heart turned to God with a silent
cry for help.
"I forgot to tell you," said Roper softly, "that _her_ name was Carlton,
too. Isn't that a funny thing now!"
"I don't think so," she found courage to say, though her eyes were the
eyes of a hunted thing.
"No? Now I thought it the funniest thing I ever heard," said he
laughing softly, "and ever since, I have been saying to myself, `What a
pity it wasn't the young lady I found!' It would be so pleasant on an
evening like this for instance, to have the society of a nice young
lady! So very pleasant," he repeated, and leaned on the table looking
into her eyes with some horrible meaning. "Quite alone on the veld,
with no one to know or care what we did--no one to--interfere--all alone
with love and the daisies." With a swift movement he caught hold of the
girl's hand which was lying on the table. But the next instant he had
loosed it and was on his feet.
"Who the devil--"
A man had come into the camp. Swift-footed and noiseless as a ghost,
neither the dog nor the sleeping _umfans_ had heard his coming. It was
almost as if he had sprung from a neighbouring bush and Vivienne,
startled as Roper by the sudden apparition, rose to her feet. But apart
from his quietness, and the gleam of his light clothes, there was
nothing supernatural about the tall lithe shirt-sleeved figure which
with rifle on shoulder and revolver on hip, came into the firelight.
Nothing supernatural either, but something indescribably soothing to the
nerves of Vivienne Carlton in the sound of that cheerful, careless
voice.
"Ah, gentlemen! Hope I did not startle you? I'm delighted to come upon
your camp, having mislaid my own by a few miles. I shall be glad to
spend the night here if you have no objection?"
Roper turned his back and with a sullen scowling face sat down again,
muttering some words that sounded anything but inviting. The stranger
took no offence. He also sat down opposite the girl, and began to
relate how he had left his boys and gone after a buck and got too far
away to bother to return that night--and all the time he was looking
steadily across the packing-case at Vivienne and she saw that he
recognised her, even as she recognised him as soon as she saw his light
grey eyes. It was the silent, tanned man who had left the coach at
Palapye.