"AH, LOVE, BUT A DAY!"
Pondering over what the old Kafir had said, Eustace busied himself over
two or three odd jobs. Then, returning to the storeroom, he filled up a
large measure of mealies and went to the house.
"I'm going down to the ostrich camp, Eanswyth. Do you feel inclined to
stroll that far, or are you too tired?"
"Yes and no. I think it will do me good."
Flinging on a wide straw hat she joined him in the doorway. The ostrich
camp was only a couple of hundred yards from the house, and at sight of
them the great birds came shambling down to the fence, the truculent
male having laid aside his aggressive ferocity for the occasion, as he
condescended, with sullen and lordly air, to allow himself to be fed,
though even then the quarrelsome disposition of the creature would find
vent every now and again in a savage hiss, accompanied by a sudden and
treacherous kick aimed at his timid consort whenever the latter ventured
within the very outskirts of the mealies thrown down. But no sooner had
the last grain disappeared than the worst instincts of the aggressive
bully were all to the fore again, and the huge biped, rearing himself up
to his full height, his jetty coat and snowy wing-feathers making a
brave show, challenged his benefactors forthwith, rolling his fiery eyes
as though longing to behold them in front of him with no protecting
fence between.
"Of all the ungracious, not to say ungrateful, scoundrels disfiguring
God's earth, I believe a cock ostrich is the very worst," remarked
Eustace. "He is, if possible, worse in that line than the British
loafer, for even the latter won't always open his Billingsgate upon you
until he has fairly assimilated the gin with which your ill-judged dole
`to save him from starving' has warmed his gullet. But this brute would
willingly kick you into smithereens, while you were in the very act of
feeding him."
Eanswyth laughed.
"What strange ideas you have got, Eustace. Now I wonder to how many
people any such notion as that would have occurred."
"Have I? I am often told so, so I suppose I must have. But the grand
majority of people never think themselves, consequently when they happen
upon anybody who does they gaze upon him with unmitigated astonishment
as a strange and startling product of some unknown state of existence."
"Thank you," retorted Eanswyth with a laugh. "That's a little hard on
me. As I made the remark, of course I am included in the grand majority
which doesn't think."
"I have a very great mind to treat that observation with the silence it
deserves. It is a ridiculous observation. Isn't it?"
"Perhaps it is," she acquiesced softly, in a tone that was half a sigh,
not so much on account of the actual burden of the conversation, as an
involuntary outburst of the dangerous, because too tender, undercurrent
of her thoughts. And of those two walking there side by side in the
radiant sunshine--outwardly so tranquilly, so peacefully, inwardly so
blissfully--it was hard to say which was the most fully alive to the
peril of the situation. Each was conscious of the mass of molten fires
raging within the thin eggshell crust; each was rigidly on guard; the
one with the feminine instinct of self-preservation superadded to the
sense of rectitude of a strong character; the other striving to rely
upon the necessity of caution and patience enjoined by a far-seeing and
habitually self-contained nature. So far, both forces were evenly
matched--so far both could play into each other's hands, for mutual aid,
mutual support against each other. Had there been aught of
selfishness--of the mere unholy desire of possession--in this man's
love, things would have been otherwise. His cool brain and consummate
judgment would have given him immeasurably the advantage--in fact, the
key of the whole situation. But it was not so. As we have said, that
love was chivalrously pure--even noble--would have been rather elevating
but for the circumstance that its indulgence meant the discounting of
another man's life.
Thus they walked, side by side, in the soft and sensuous sunshine. A
shimmer of heat rose from the ground. Far away over the rolling plains
a few cattle and horses, dotted here and there grazing, constituted the
only sign of life, and the range of wooded hills against the sky line
loomed purple and misty in the golden summer haze. If ever a land
seemed to enjoy the blessings of peace assuredly it was this fair land
here spread out around them.
They had reached another of the ostrich camps, wherein were domiciled
some eight or ten pairs of eighteen-month-old birds, which not having
yet learned the extent of their power, were as tame and docile as the
four-year-old male was savage and combative. Eustace had scattered the
contents of his colander among them, and now the two were leaning over
the gate, listlessly watching the birds feed.
"Talking of people never thinking," continued Eustace, "I don't so much
wonder at that. They haven't time, I suppose, and so lose the faculty.
They have enough to do to steer ahead in their own narrow little groves.
But what does astonish me is that if you state an obvious fact--so
obvious as to amount to a platitude--it seems to burst upon them as a
kind of wild surprise, as a kind of practical joke on wheels, ready to
start away down-hill and drag them with it to utter crash unless they
edge away from it as far as possible. You see them turn and stare at
each other, and open an amazed and gaping mouth into which you might
insert a pumpkin without them being in the least aware of it."
"As for instance?" queried Eanswyth, with a smile.
"Well--as for instance. I wonder what the effect would be upon an
ordinary dozen of sane people were I suddenly to propound the perfectly
obvious truism that life is full of surprises. I don't wonder, at
least, for I ought to know by this time. They would start by scouting
the idea; ten to one they would deny the premise, and retort that life
was just what we chose to make it; which is a fallacy, in that it
assumes that any one atom in the human scheme is absolutely
independent--firstly, of the rest of the crowd; secondly, of
circumstances--in fact, is competent to boss the former and direct the
latter. Which, in the words of the immortal Euclid, is absurd."
"Yet if any man is thus competent, it is yourself, Eustace."
"No," he said, shaking his head meditatively. "You are mistaken. I am
certainly not independent of the action of anyone who may elect to do me
a good or an ill turn. He, she, or it, has me at a disadvantage all
round, for I possess the gift of foresight in a degree so limited as to
be practically _nil_. As for circumstances--so far from pretending to
direct them I am the mere creature of them. So are we all."
"What has started you upon this train of thought?" she asked suddenly.
"Several things. But I'll give you an instance of what I was saying
just now. This morning I was surprised and surrounded by a gang of
Kafirs, all armed to the teeth. Nearly all of them were on the very
verge of shying their assegais bang through me, and if Ncanduku--you
know him--Nteya's brother--hadn't appeared on the scene just in the very
nick of time, I should have been a dead man. As it was, we sat down,
had an _indaba_ and a friendly smoke, and parted on the best of terms.
Now, wasn't I helplessly, abjectly, the creature of circumstances--first
in being molested at all--second in Ncanduku's lucky arrival?"
"Eustace! And you never told me this!"
"I told Tom--just as he was starting--and he laughed. He didn't seem to
think much of it. To tell the truth, neither did I. Why--what's the
matter, Eanswyth?"
Her face was deathly white. Her eyes, wide open, were dilated with
horror; then they filled with tears. The next moment she was sobbing
wildly--locked in his close embrace.
"Eanswyth, darling--my darling. What is it? Do not give way so! There
is nothing to be alarmed about now--nothing."
His tones had sunk to a murmur of thrilling tenderness. He was
showering kisses upon her lips, her brow, her eyes--upon stray tresses
of soft hair which escaped beneath her hat. What had become of their
attitude of guarded self-control now? Broken down, swept away at one
stroke as the swollen mountain stream sweeps away the frail barricade of
timber and stones which thought to dam its course--broken down before
the passionate outburst of a strong nature awakened to the knowledge of
itself--startled into life by the magic touch, by the full force and
fury of a consciousness of real love.
"You are right," she said at last. "We must go away from here. I
cannot bear that you should be exposed to such frightful peril. O
Eustace! Why did we ever meet!"
Why, indeed! he thought. And the fierce, wild thrill of exultation
which fan through him at the consciousness that her love was his--that
for good or for ill she belonged to him--belonged to him absolutely--was
dashed by the thought: How was it going to end? His clear-sighted,
disciplined nature could not altogether get rid of that consideration.
But clear-sighted, disciplined as it was, he could not forego that which
constituted the whole joy and sweetness of living. "Sufficient for the
day" must be his motto. Let the morrow take care of itself.
"Why did we ever meet?" he echoed. "Ah, does not that precisely
exemplify what I was saying just now? Life is full of surprises.
Surprise Number 1, when I first found _you_ here at all. Number 2, when
I awoke to the fact that you were stealing away my very self. And I
soon did awake to that consciousness."
"You did?"
"I did. And I have been battling hard against it--against myself--
against you--and your insidiously enthralling influence ever since."
His tone had become indescribably sweet and winning. If the power of
the man invariably made itself felt by all with whom he was brought into
contact in the affairs of everyday life, how much more was it manifested
now as he poured the revelation of his long pent-up love--the love of a
strong, self-contained nature which had broken bounds at last--into the
ears of this woman whom he had subjugated--yes, subjugated, utterly,
completely.
And what of her?
It was as though all heaven had opened before her eyes. She stood there
tightly clasped in that embrace, drinking in the entrancing tenderness
of those tones--hungrily devouring the straight glance of those magnetic
eyes, glowing into hers. She had yielded--utterly, completely, for she
was not one to do things by halves. Ah, the rapture of it!
But every medal has its obverse side. Like the stab of a sword it came
home to Eanswyth. This wonderful, enthralling, beautiful love which had
thrown a mystic glamour as of a radiant Paradise upon her life, had come
just a trifle too late.
"O Eustace," she cried, tearing herself away from him, and yet keeping
his hands clenched tightly in hers as though she would hold him at arm's
length but could not. "O Eustace! my darling! How is it going to end?
How?"
The very thought which had passed unspoken through his own mind.
"Dearest, think only of the present. For the future--who knows! Did we
not agree just now--life is full of surprises?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"_Au_!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Both started. Eanswyth could not repress a little scream, while even
Eustace realised that he was taken at a disadvantage, as he turned to
confront the owner of the deep bass voice which had fired off the above
ejaculation.
It proceeded from a tall, athletic Kafir, who, barely ten yards off,
stood calmly surveying the pair. His grim and massive countenance was
wreathed into an amused smile. His nearly naked body was anointed with
the usual red ochre, and round the upper part of his left arm he wore a
splendid ivory ring. He carried a heavy knob-kerrie and several
assegais, one of which he was twisting about in easy, listless fashion
in his right hand.
At sight of this extremely unwelcome, not to say formidable, apparition,
Eustace's hand instinctively and with a quick movement sought the back
of his hip--a movement which a Western man would thoroughly have
understood. But he withdrew it--empty. For his eye, familiar with
every change of the native countenance, noted that the expression of
this man's face was good-humoured rather than aggressive. And withal it
seemed partly familiar to him.
"Who are you--and what do you want?" he said shortly. Then as his
glance fell upon a bandage wrapped round the barbarian's shoulder: "Ah.
I know you--Hlangani."
"Keep your `little gun' in your pocket, Ixeshane," said the Kafir,
speaking in a tone of good-humoured banter. "I am not the man to be
shot at twice. Besides, I am not _your_ enemy. If I were, I could have
killed you many times over already, before you saw me; could have killed
you both, you and the _Inkosikazi_."
This was self-evident. Eustace, recognising it, felt rather small. He
to be taken thus at a disadvantage, he, who had constituted himself
Eanswyth's special protector against this very man! Yes. He felt
decidedly small, but he was not going to show it.
"You speak the truth, Hlangani," he answered calmly. "You are not my
enemy. No man of the race of Xosa is. But why do you come here? There
is bad blood between you and the owner of this place. Surely the land
is wide enough for both. Why should your pathways cross?"
"Ha! _You_ say truly, Ixeshane. There _is_ blood between me and the
man of whom you speak. Blood--the blood of a chief of the House of
Gcaleka. Ha!"
The eyes of the savage glared, and his countenance underwent a
transformation almost magical in its suddenness. The smiling,
good-humoured expression gave way to one of deadly hate, of a ruthless
ferocity that was almost appalling to contemplate. So effective was it
upon Eustace that carelessly, and as if by accident, he interposed his
body between Eanswyth and the speaker, and though he made no movement,
his every sense was on the alert. He was ready to draw his revolver
with lightning-like rapidity at the first aggressive indication. But no
such indication was manifested.
"No. You have no enemies among our people--neither you nor the
_Inkosikazi_"--went on Hlangani as his countenance resumed its normal
calm. "You have always been friends to us. Why are _you_ not living
here together as our friends and neighbours--you two, without the poison
of our deadly enemy to cause ill-blood between us and you--you alone
together? I would speak with you apart, Ixeshane."
Now, Eanswyth, though living side by side with the natives, was, like
most colonial people, but poorly versed in the Xosa tongue. She knew a
smattering of it, just sufficient for kitchen purposes, and that was
all; consequently, but for a word here and there, the above dialogue was
unintelligible to her. But it was otherwise with her companion. His
familiarity with the language was all but complete, and not only with
the language, but with all its tricks. He knew that the other was
"talking dark," and his quick perception readily grasped the meaning
which was intended to be conveyed. With the lurid thoughts indulged in
that morning as regarded his cousin still fresh in his mind, it could
hardly have been otherwise.
He hated the man: he loved the man's wife. "How is it going to end?"
had been his unuttered cry just now. "How is it going to end!" she had
re-echoed. Well, here was a short and easy solution ready to hand. A
flush of blood surged to his face, and his heart beat fiercely under the
terrible temptation thus thrown in his way. Yet so fleeting was it as
scarcely to constitute a temptation at all. Now that it was put nakedly
to him he could not do this thing. He could not consent to a murder--a
cold-blooded, treacherous murder.
"I cannot talk with you apart, Hlangani," he answered. "I cannot leave
the _Inkosikazi_ standing here alone even for a few minutes."
The piercing glance of the shrewd savage had been scrutinising his
face--had been reading it like a book. Upon him the terrible struggle
within had not been lost.
"Consider, Ixeshane," he pursued. "What is the gift of a few dozen
cows, of _two hundred cows_, when compared with the happiness of a man's
lifetime? Nothing. _Is it to be? Say the word. Is it to be_?"
The barbarian's fiery eyes were fixed upon his with deep and terrible
meaning. To Eustace it seemed as if the blasting glare of the Arch
fiend himself shone forth from their cruel depths.
"It is _not_ to be. The `word' is No! Unmistakably and distinctly No.
You understand, Hlangani?"
"_Au_! As you will, Ixeshane," replied the Kafir, with an expressive
shrug of his shoulders. "See. You wear a `charm'," referring to a
curious coin which Eustace wore hanging from his watch-chain. "If you
change your mind send over the `charm' to me at Nteya's kraal this
night--it shall be returned. But after to-night it may be too late.
Farewell."
And flinging his blanket over his shoulder the savage turned and strode
away into the _veldt_--Eustace purposely omitting to offer him a little
tobacco, lest this ordinary token of good will should be construed into
a sort of earnest of the dark and terrible bargain which Hlangani had
proposed to him--by mere hints it is true--but still had none the less
surely proposed.