"I WILL NOT LET HIM GO."
Lalante's intention of spending the evening with him had come with the
effect of a reprieve upon Wyvern. For all his trust in her he never
parted with her without vague misgivings that by some means or other it
might be for the last time; for did he not hold her in opposition to a
growing and decided parental hostility? It would be through no fault of
hers, he told himself, were such misgivings justified. With all her
strength and resolution, circumstances might be too strong for her,
hence the misgiving.
They wandered about, happy for the moment, watching the great rays of
the westering sun sweep lower and lower over the green expanse of the
river valley--upon which now, the whiteness of returning flocks moved
slowly homeward.
"I'm going to leave you to yourself for a little now, dearest," said the
girl, as these drew nearer. "I should only be in your way, and disturb
your counting. Besides, I feel rather hot and dusty, and want to go and
titivate."
"Of course. How stupid of me."
"No--no. You needn't come, old Sanna will get me all I want. Now
forget that I exist, for the next few minutes. So long," and with a nod
and a bright smile she left him.
Sixpence was looking a very subdued and dejected Kafir as his master
finished the count of his particular flock; which was accurate--save for
one.
"I have been thinking over your case, Sixpence," began Wyvern, when the
other boy had been dismissed, "and even now haven't quite made up my
mind what to do about it."
"_Nkose_!" exclaimed the Kafir, deprecatorily, and sorely exercised in
his mind. It was no unknown thing under the circumstances to give the
culprit the option of receiving a dozen or so well laid on with a new
_reim_, or taking his chance before the nearest Resident Magistrate; an
arrangement on the whole satisfactory to both parties, in that the
offender got off far more lightly than he would have got off at the
hands of the law, and his employer was saved a great deal of trouble and
some incidental expense. This, then, Sixpence feared, was the least he
could expect, but he need not have, for Wyvern was utterly incapable of
an act of violence in cold blood, and very rarely in hot.
"You see," went on the latter, "I'm not sure that it is in my power to
forgive you, even if I wanted to. I'm not sure that the law would not
compel me to prosecute. I don't see, either, how we can put the thing
away. There's that other fellow lying dead; for he'll be as dead as the
sheep you `slaag-ed' long before this. I shall have to report the whole
thing to Baas Le Sage. Then the `slaag-ing' will all come out."
But the fellow begged and prayed that he might not be sent to the
_tronk_. He would make good the loss--over and over again if his master
wished. And Wyvern, an appeal to whose soft side had rarely to be
repeated, resolved that he would let the poor devil off if he could
possibly do so, and said as much.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"When is Miss Lalante coming here as Missis?" said old Sanna, as the
girl, having bathed her face in cool fresh water, came forth looking
radiant with its added glow.
"Don't you be too curious, old Sanna," was the answer. "Perhaps soon--
perhaps not so soon. Who knows?"
"A Missis is badly wanted here, _ja_, very badly. Look at all that,"
with a sweep of a yellow hand towards the confused pile of books and
papers which had encroached over the greater part of the table. "All
that would be cleared away. His letters too. Why the Baas does not
even take the trouble to open his letters. Look at them."
The girl's heart tightened. Well she knew why those envelopes remained
unopened. Their contents but bore upon the difficulties of their
recipient, but in no sense with a tendency to alleviate the same. She
forebore to touch the untidy heap lest something he might want to find
should be misplaced, but she got a duster, and dusted and straightened
the pictures and other things upon the wall. One frame only there was
no need for her to dust or straighten. It was the one which contained
her own portrait: and realising this a very soft, sweet smile came over
her face. At which psychological moment Wyvern re-entered.
"I notice this is the only thing you allow old Sanna to dust," she said
ingenuously. "How many times a week is she under orders to do it?"
"You shall pay for that," he answered. "There. Now you have done so
duly, you shall own that you knew perfectly well that nobody ever
touches it but me."
"_Oh, goeije_! it is as if there were really a Missis here at last."
The interruption came from old Sanna, who at that moment entered,
bringing in the dishes. Both laughed.
"See, old Sanna," said Wyvern. "We are rather tired of that remark. So
if you can't invent a new one don't make any."
"Better to be tired of that than of the Missis," chuckled the old woman,
as she withdrew. It will be seen that she was rather a privileged
person.
The evening slipped by all too soon for these two, as they sat out on
the stoep, watching the suffusing glow that heralded the rising of the
broad moon. In the stillness the voices of night, well-nigh as
multifold as the voices of day, were scarcely hushed, and the shrill bay
of a jackal away beyond the river, would seem but a distance of yards
instead of miles. The weird hoot of some ghostly night bird too, would
float ever and anon from the hillside; and the dogs lying around the
house would start up and bark in deep-toned, angry chorus, as the harsh
shout of sentinel baboons echoed forth from the darksome recesses of the
kloofs behind the homestead: or perchance as they detected some other
sound, too subtle for human ears.
"How restless everything is to-night," said the girl, listening.
"Dearest, it seems a little bit eerie."
"Oh, on a fine still night things always move about more. It may be
something stirring up all those baboons--a leopard perhaps--not wild
dogs I hope. You know it's one of my hobbies that, being able to hear
all sorts of wild animal voices when I sit out here of an evening, or
when I am lying awake. It's one of the charms of this place. I wonder
if the next man here will say the same."
"Don't. Oh, is there no way out," she cried, in a despairing tone, "no
way by which you will not be forced to part with this beautiful place
you love so much, and where our lives were to have passed in a very
paradise? No way?"
"None."
Then both sat in silence, fingers intertwined. A rim of gold peered up
from behind the dark outline of the opposite _rand_, then a broad disc,
and the great fiery moon soared aloft, penetrating the shadowed recesses
of the river valley in a network of silvern gleams. At last Lalante
spoke.
"Dearest, I have to say it, as you know, but--it is time."
"To saddle up? Yes, I'm afraid it is. But it isn't good-bye yet,
seeing we shall be together for another hour and a half."
Both had risen. The girl went to find her hat and gloves while Wyvern
lighted a waggon lantern and went round to the stable. In his mind was
the consciousness of the awful depression that would be upon him during
his return ride; when her presence was withdrawn. They would see each
other again on the morrow in all probability, but--even then it would be
under different circumstances.
The horses, fresh and willing in the cool air, snorted and sidled as
their riders fared forth into the peaceful beauty of the radiant night.
So fresh were they, indeed, that they could have covered the ten miles
that lay before them in far less time than their said riders were
disposed to allow them. And the latter were not inclined for hurry.
This ride beneath the golden moon, the loom of the heights against the
pale sky near and far, the sweet breaths of night distilling perfume
from herb and flower, and they two together--alone. They talked--and
the subject of their talk was one that never grew old--that never
palled--for it was of the time which had elapsed since they had first
met--and loved; and that time was one. Talked, too, of the time
preceding; when he had been happy, contented here in his quiet way,
because then unconscious that he was already on the road to financial
ruin--of her father's arrival two years ago, when he had bought the
neighbouring stock farm upon which they now dwelt, and had prospered
exceedingly; but, more alluring topic still, of her own arrival home a
year later than that.
"And you have never quite forgiven me for admitting that I was
prepared--well--not to like you?" he said, when they had reached this
point.
"Forgiven you, darling? Why--is not the result a very triumph to me? I
knew that it was the moment we first looked at each other."
"Did you? From your side I was not so confident then. But I see you
now as you first came into the room--that bright, laughing glance
meeting mine, without an atom of _gene_ or self-consciousness. And
then--later. We did not have to _say_ much:--we knew that we belonged
to each other. Didn't we?"
"We did. We did indeed. Sweetheart, will you be very angry with me if
I say something that has been on my mind?"
"How can you use that word as between you and me?"
"Well, then--" she went on, strangely hesitatingly for her. "Even if
you had to part with Seven Kloofs, and there's no doubt, I'm afraid,
that it'll be no good for years--you might get a place you liked just as
well I have a little of my own, remember--not much, but all my own--and
that, with what you would save from the wreck, would surely be enough
to--to set us up again."
She spoke quickly, hurriedly, deprecatingly, as she noted the grave,
disapproving look which deepened upon his face in the brilliant
moonlight.
"No--no. Lalante, love, never that. No. Once you hinted that way
before--but--no, that could not be."
"Now you hurt me."
"Hurt you--hurt _you_? Child, if you only knew how I am adoring you at
this moment, if possible--I say _if_ possible--more than ever I have
done before. Hurt you? _You_?"
"Now, forgive me. It is I who am hurting you." And her voice quivered
in its tenderness of passion as she reached out her hand to him--they
were walking their horses now. "But I thought if two people belonged to
each other they had everything in common."
"Not at this stage, I'm afraid," he said, with a smile that was meant to
be reassuring, but was only sad. "You know I have a certain code of my
own."
"It would be a cruel one if it was not yours," she answered. But there
was nothing of resentment in the tone, only pride, admiration, an
intense glory of possession. Nor did she intend to abandon the
argument, only to postpone it.
As they had said, they had known from the very first that they belonged
to each other. It was as surely a case of coming together as the
meeting of two converging rivers; and the process had been as easy, as
natural. What had drawn her towards him--apart from his physical
attractions, which were not slight, and of which, to do him justice, he
was free from any consciousness--was his total dissimilarity to any
other man she had ever met. She had told him so more than once--and the
reply had been deprecatory. Other men got on, he declared, while he--
only seemed to get back; dissimilarity, therefore, was rather a
hindrance than a thing to plume oneself upon.
"We are nearly there now," he said, regretfully, as the track they had
been pursuing here merged in a broader main road.
"Yes. But what a day we have had. Hasn't it been too sweet?"
"Too sweet indeed! A day to look back upon to the very end of one's
life."
A couple of miles further and they topped a rise. In the stillness the
sudden barking of dogs was borne to their ears. It came from where two
or three iron roofs glinted in the moonlight some three-quarters of a
mile on the further side of the valley. Both dismounted, for the rest
of the way she was to finish alone.
"Good-bye now, my own love, my sweet," he murmured as they stood, locked
together in a last long embrace. "I shall see you to-morrow, but it
will not be as it has been to-day."
"Not quite. But we will have other days like this. And--keep up
heart--remember, for my sake. When you are disposed to lose it, think
of me and feel sure that nothing can part us--as sure as that moon is
shining. Good-bye, my love. It is only `good-night,' though."
No more was said, as he swung her into the saddle. He himself stood
there watching her fast receding form, nor did he leave the spot until
the sudden subsidence of the canine clamour, told that she had reached
her home.
Then he mounted, and took his way slowly back through the moonlit
glories of the beautiful slumbering waste.