Day dawned, cloudless and golden, in its full African splendour. The
night had passed without any alarm, but, to make sure, the force had
divided the night between it to mount guard, that section of it off duty
sleeping in the open--arms ready to hand.
Their leader appeared to be made of iron. Stirring events, peril,
fatigue, had been crowded into his experience since his last night's
sleep, four nights ago, but all seemed to go for nothing. He was here,
there, everywhere, the night through, seeming to need no sleep. And
with the first sign of a glimmer of dawn, the whole force was up and
under arms, waiting and ready, for that is the hour--when sleep is
heaviest, and vigilance in consequence relaxed--that the untiring savage
favours for making his attack. But no such attack was made, and the
night passed quietly and without alarm, as we have said.
"Dash it all, Lamont! Why don't you turn in, man? You're overdoing it,
you know. You haven't had forty winks for about four nights. You'll
bust up all of a sudden, and at the wrong time, if you don't watch it.
How's that?"
Thus Peters, what time the tired and worn-out men were simply subsiding
on the bare ground, and dropping off into log-like slumber the moment
they touched it; and that under the glorious blue of the heavens and the
sweeping gold of the newly risen sun.
"I couldn't sleep, Peters--no, not if I were paid to," was the answer.
"But I'm going to see if I can scare up a tub and a razor. At present I
must be looking the most desperate ruffian you could _not_ wish to meet
in a lonely lane."
Peters looked after him and shook his head, slowly and mournfully.
"He's got it," he said to himself. "By the Lord, he's got it. I could
see that when, like the blithering ass I am, I interrupted them that
evening. No, it isn't sheer aptitude for tough campaigning that keeps
his peepers open when nobody else can keep theirs."
Peters was absolutely right. His friend and comrade was in a state of
mental exaltation that reacted physically. He could hardly believe in
his happiness, even yet. How had it come about? In his pride and
cynicism it might have been months before he would have brought matters
to the testing point--it is even conceivable it might have been never.
Yet, all unpremeditated and on the spur of the moment, he had done so--
and now, and now--
Good Heavens! life was too golden henceforward, and as the flaming wheel
of the sun rose higher and higher in the unflecked blue, the glory of
the newborn day seemed to Lamont to attune itself to the glow of
happiness and peace which had settled down upon his whole being. The
bloodshed and strife and massacre! of which he had been a witness, was
as a thing outside, a thing put completely behind.
It was decided that no move should be made that day. A bare suggestion
that they should attempt the return to Gandela revived all poor Lucy
Fullerton's terrors. She would sooner die at once, she declared, than
go through the horrors of yesterday all over again.
"Yes, you seemed to have got the funks to some considerable purpose,"
grumbled Fullerton. "Hang it, Lucy, I thought you had more pluck. Look
at Clare, now. She was positively enjoying it."
"Oh no, she wasn't," corrected that young person, who had just entered.
"No, not in the very least. But I suppose different people take on
different forms of scare. Mine took that of a sort of desperate
excitement."
"Yours? Form of scare! By jingo! that's a `form of scare' we could do
with plenty of during these jolly lively days," returned Fullerton.
"Oh, and look here, Dick," went on the girl. "I must ask you not to
talk about it--I mean not to go bragging around to everybody that your
sister-in-law shot twenty or forty or sixty Matabele--or whatever you
are going to make it--in the fight at the Kezane Store."
"Why in thunder not? Why shouldn't you have your share of the kudos as
well as anyone else in the same racket?"
"Because I don't want it. Because I want to forget my share in it. The
consciousness of having taken life, even in the very extremity of
self-defence, can never be a subject of self-congratulation, especially
to a woman. I, for one, don't want ever to hear it referred to."
"Well, you are squeamish, Clare. Let me tell you that the rest of us
don't share your opinions. There isn't a man jack, from Lamont
downwards, who hasn't been blowing your trumpet loud enough to wake the
dead."
A softer look came into her face at the name. Perhaps her
brother-in-law partially read it, perhaps he didn't.
"By the way, Dick," she went on, "I suppose by this time you have found
reason for somewhat altering your opinion of Mr Lamont's courage, have
you? It used to be rather unfavourable, if I remember right."
"Rather, I should think I had. I told him so too, during a lull in the
scrimmage."
"Oh, you told him so. And what did he answer?"
"Nothing. He sloshed a pistol-bullet into a big buck nigger who'd
romped up in the long grass to blaze into us. By George, here he is."
"Who? The `nigger'?"
"Morning, Lamont. Come to have breakfast, of course?" for they had just
sat down. "We were just talking about you."
"I'll change the subject to a more interesting one then," was the
answer. "How are you, Mrs Fullerton, and did you have a restful night,
for I'm sure you deserved one?"
"Not very. I'm a shocking coward, but I'm afraid it's constitutional,"
answered poor Lucy. But he laughingly reassured her, and talked about
the fineness of the day, and the extent of the view around Kezane, and
soon got away from yesterday's battle entirely.
Lamont's morning greeting, as far as Clare was concerned, was a fine
piece of acting, for they had arranged not to make public their
understanding until safe back at Gandela. Yet the swift flash as glance
met glance, and a subtle hand-pressure, were as eloquent as words to
those most concerned.
Watching him, though not appearing to, Clare's heart was aglow with
illimitable pride and love. The emergency had brought out the man
beyond even her estimate of him, and that had been not small. She had
read him from the very first, had seen what was in him, and her instinct
had been justified to the full. She was proud to remember how she had
always believed in him, and that the more detraction reached her ears
the more did it strengthen rather than sap that belief. And now--and
now--he was hers and she was his.
Others dropped in--Peters, and Jim Steele, and Strange the doctor, and
two or three more, and soon the talk became general. At a hint from
Lamont the subject of the fight of yesterday was left out, and they got
on to others, just as if nothing had occurred to disturb the peace in
the midst of which, a short twenty-four hours back, they had imagined
themselves to dwell. But it seemed to Lamont that Grunberger's wife, a
pleasant-looking Englishwoman who was taking care of their wants, was
eyeing him with a mingling of covert amusement and interest. "Shall we
stroll about outside, Miss Vidal?" he said, a little later, when they
were out in the air again. "What do you think, Mrs Fullerton? A
constitutional won't hurt us."
But Lucy protested that no consideration on earth would induce her to
set foot outside the gates--as they knew she would. No, no. These
horrible savages had a knack of springing up out of nowhere. Clare
seemed to know how to take care of herself, but she, assuredly, did not.
It was in vain for Lamont to impress upon her that the ground around
the place was quite open, and that there were pickets posted at
intervals where the not very thick bush began. She was obdurate--as he
knew she would be.
The question of making some sort of patrol had been discussed, but it
had been decided that it was not worth the risk. Their force was none
too strong to defend the place if attacked by numbers, which was very
likely to happen, for the Kezane was one of the largest and most
important stores along the line of coaches, and was always well supplied
with everything likely to tempt the cupidity of the savages. A patrol
might venture too far and in the wrong direction, and get cut off; then
what a serious weakening of their forces that would mean. So pickets
were posted instead.
"Then you haven't awoke to the conclusion you were rather hasty last
night, Clare?"
"Have you?" she answered sweetly.
"Good God! Need you ask? But it is a fitting reply to an idiotic
question."
"Don't be profane, and don't call yourself undeserved names, dearest.
But you don't look as if you had had any sleep. Have you?"
"Oh, I don't know. I suppose I couldn't have slept if I'd tried," he
said, the soft caressing solicitude of the remark stirring through his
whole being. "But that'll all come right. I'm hard as nails,
remember."
"I should think you were," flashing up at him another admiring glance.
"Oh, darling, I loved to see you yesterday. The sight of you went far
to neutralise all the horrors of the situation."
"Don't, don't," he said, rather unsteadily, positively intoxicated with
the sweetness of her tones, her looks. "Don't quite try to give me
`swelled head' as those good chaps were trying to do last night.
Because _you_ might succeed, you know."
"You could never get that. But--I have something to say to you, and I
don't believe you're going to grant me the very first thing I've ever
asked you."
"And that--?"
"I want you not to run into danger any more. You belong to me now--we
belong to each other. If this is going to be a regular war--perhaps a
long one--there can be no necessity for you to take part in it--I mean,
to join expeditions, and all that. You will be helping quite enough by
staying to defend Gandela, and taking care of me."
He looked troubled.
"Oh, Clare, my darling one, what shall I say? Do you know, last night
all these good fellows formed themselves into the nucleus of a corps on
condition that I should lead them. And I promised. How can I climb
down now?"
She looked at him, for a moment, full in the eyes, and her own kindled.
"You can't. No, of course you can't. I am not such a selfish idiot as
to dream of expecting such a thing. Why, it is a distinct call to
usefulness, to distinction. I would not try to hold you back from it
now, no, not even if I could."
"But, understand this," he went on. "I will not move in the matter
until I have seen you in safety--in entire and complete safety. Then--
it is a duty. What would you think of me if I shirked that sort of
duty? Would it not be to put a stamp of truth on the lies some of my
kind friends have been spreading about me?"
"I won't say I would think nothing of you, for I can't imagine, let
alone contemplate, such a contingency. But--now we are on the subject--
I would like to hear your side of--of--all these stories. Don't think
that I doubt you--never think that, dearest--but I would like to be able
to fling the lie in their faces."
He was silent for a few moments as they paced up and down. They were
out of earshot of the stockade but in full view of all within it. To
all intents and purposes they were only two people walking up and down
in ordinary converse, as a couple of ship-board acquaintances might walk
up and down the deck of a passenger ship.
"Some years ago," he resumed, "I had a quarrel with a man--a man who had
been my friend. He had played me a dirty trick--a very dirty trick--the
nature of it doesn't matter, any more than his identity, now. I am not
an angel, and have my share of original sin, which includes a temper,
though since then I have tried my level best to keep it within bounds.
Well, from words we got to blows, and I was a fair boxer--" here Clare
half smiled, in the midst of her vivid interest, as she remembered the
tribute her brother-in-law had paid to his powers in that line, even
while decrying his courage.
"In the course of the scrimmage I struck him a blow that felled him. He
lay motionless, and I and others thought he was dead. We brought him
round though, but he had a bad concussion of the brain, and for weeks
hovered between life and death. Moreover, he has never been the same
man since. If I lived for a thousand years I could never forget what I
went through during that time. Well, in the result I made a vow, a most
solemn vow, that never again, even under the extremest of provocation,
would I lift hand in anger against anybody, except under the most
absolute necessity of self-defence--or in defence of others. And I
never have."
Clare's colour heightened and her eyes shone. Instinctively she put
forth her hand to take his, and withdrew it instantly as she remembered
that they were in full view of everybody.
"Once, not long ago, up here, I put on the gloves with another man, a
first-rate performer, for a friendly spar. But even with gloves on you
can do a good deal of grim slogging. Somehow it came upon me--I believe
I was getting the best of it, I'm not sure--that the thing was getting
too real, and a vivid recollection of that other affair seemed to rise
up like a ghost, and then and there I chucked up the sponge. Again they
said I had funked."
"Yes, I heard about that," she said. "But it didn't make any difference
to me. I knew better all along, and told them so."
"You told them so?"
"Of course I did. You see, I knew you better than that--even though we
hadn't done very much talking together, had we? And so that was your
reason. Well you have adhered to your resolve--yes, grandly."
"Do you remember that morning up on Ehlatini, you were warning me about
Ancram? Well, that story was nearly all true. I did think my life was
too good to put in pawn for the sake of that of a peculiarly abominable
specimen of the _genus_ gutter-brat--a specimen which was bound to be
hung sooner or later--probably sooner. I think so still."
She shook her head, trying to look solemn.
"All life is sacred," she began.
"Is it? Mine wasn't--not much. But I'm pretty sure that the immersed
gutter-snipe's was less so."
No, there was no keeping up the solemnity line. Clare went off into a
rippling peal of laughter.
"I can't help it," she exclaimed. "But don't imagine I approve. It was
very wrong indeed to let slip an opportunity of saving life."
"Oh, for the matter of that, if the wretched little beast had been quite
alone the case would have been different. As it was, there were plenty
of others to haul him out if they chose, so I let them. Then I was
insulted and abused by the last person in the world who should have done
so, and that in front of a gang of gaping clodhoppers. I hope Ancram
didn't leave that part of the story out, because then you will know I
have been engaged before."
"Yes, I knew that," answered Clare, who was secretly admiring the
straightforward, unhesitating manner in which he told his tale. No
stuttering or beating about the bush. He had something to say, and he
said it in the most natural and concise manner possible. And she liked
that.
"I'm glad. That makes it easier," he returned.
"But," she went on, "are you sure you have no lingering regrets on that
score? Not even a little one deep down in your heart?"
"Not the very ghost of one. I am a vindictive animal, I suppose, but
that sort of treatment leaves no room for lingering regrets, though it
does for lingering resentment. But even of that there is none left now.
You will never turn against me, darling?"
"Never," she answered decisively and without hesitation, although
startled by the sudden directness of the question.
"No matter what I did? Even to a repetition of the incident I have been
telling you?"
"Not even then. No--nothing could ever make me turn from you," she
repeated, with a sudden burst of passion.
It was a strange contrast, these two walking there, talking, thinking of
love. Down by a stagnant water-hole in the nearly dry river-bed, the
horses and mules were grazing, under an armed guard, and yonder the
gleam of rifles where vedettes were posted. Outside and within the
stockade men lounged and chatted, all ready to fly to arms at the first
alarm.
So to these two it was as an oasis--this peace of a great happiness.
They had found it between the lurid storms of war, and good--very good--
was it for them that they had.