Wyvern was sitting out on the stoep smoking his first after supper pipe.
The night was still fairly warm, though just a touch of a sharp twinge
showed that it was one of those nights whereon it might not be good to
sit still in the open--let alone doze in one's chair--too long. A broad
moon, not yet at full, hung in the cloudlessness of the star-gemmed
firmament, and he sat listening to the voices of night--the shrill bay
of hunting jackals, the ghostly whistle of invisible plover overhead,
the boom of belated beetles, the piping screech of tree-frogs, and every
now and again an unrestful bark from the dogs lying on the moonlit sward
in front. Yet, listening, he heard them not, for his mind was active in
other directions. For instance, it was just such a night as this,
nearly a month ago, that Lalante had been sitting here with him,
nestling to his side, and the sweet witching hour of enchantment had
gone by in happy converse. Yet, since, what transition had taken place.
A few stolen meetings, more or less hurried, were all the comfort his
weary soul could obtain, and now in a day or two, he would be going
forth from here homeless--homeless from this home he loved so well, and,
of late, tenfold, in that she was to share it with him.
Then despondency grew apace. His new venture--what was likely to come
out of that? Was it indeed as Le Sage had said--that he had not got it
in him to do any good for himself? But as though to brace him, came the
recollection of this girl, and her sweet presence here, here on the very
spot where he now was; this girl, so totally outside his previous
experience, so totally unlike anyone he had ever seen before, in her
sunny winsomeness, in her brave clear hope, and unconventional decision
of character, and, far above all, the unreserved richness of her love
which she had poured forth all upon him. Her presence seemed with him
now in the distilling fragrance of the sweet calm night--would that it
really were--to charm away the despondency that lay upon his soul.
Despondency was not strength, she had said in her brave encouraging way.
No, it was not; but how throw it off? Suddenly an idea struck him.
He went into the house. Two guns in their covers stood in a corner.
One of these he unsheathed, and opening the breech looked down the
barrels against the light. They were clear and without a speck. One
was rifled, to take the Number 2 Musket ammunition, the other was smooth
bore Number 12, and a complete cylinder, guiltless of choke. From a
drawer he took half-a-dozen cartridges to fit each; those for the smooth
bore being loaded with loepers--three and three and three, in layers, a
charge calculated to stop the very devil himself. Then changing his
boots for a pair of _velschoenen_ made of the softest of raw hide and
quite noiseless, he set forth.
The dogs, lying outside, seeing the gun, sprang up, squirming and
whining with delight. It needed quite an amount of persuasion,
objurgatory, and running to a mild kick or two, to convince them that
their aid and companionship was not in the least wanted upon this
occasion. It even required the argument of a couple of stones--flung so
as carefully to avoid hitting them--when he reached the outer gate,
conclusively to convince them. Then Wyvern took his way along the
narrow bush track heading for the entrance to the deep wild kloofs--
alone.
He had struck the spoor of a leopard--from the pads an unusually large
one--that morning, leading along the bottom of the mazy network of
kloofs. Into one of these it had led--the one known as the Third
Kloof--and from the passing and repassing of the tracks, now faint, now
fresh, he had deduced that the beast was in the habit of using this way
as a regular path. Here, then, was a cure for despondency--temporary
but exhilarating--but the exhilaration was somewhat dashed by the
thought that this was probably the last time he would undertake such a
quest here, in what his neighbours characterised by the term of his
"vermin-preserve" and voted an unmitigated pest.
Shod in silence he took his way noiselessly along. The bottom of the
kloofs was smooth and grassy, which, of course, favoured him. Faint
zephyrs of the still night air fanned his face, and here and there a
rustling in the black mysterious depths of the bush on either hand, told
that his presence was not altogether unknown to its keen denizens. To
the dwellers in towns and artificiality there would have been something
inexpressibly weird and nerve-stirring in this mystery-suggesting
solitude, in the great sweep of the bush-clad spurs, black and gloomy in
shadow, silvern and ghostly where the moon reached them, and in the
stealthy unknown sounds coming unexpectedly, now on this hand now on
that, from the darksome depths of their recesses, but to this man it all
brought a strange tightening of the heart. All this mystery of shaggy
wood, and sphinx-like _krantz_ looming grey in the moonlight, had been
his--his property, his very own--and now it was so no longer. The cloud
of despondency was deepening down upon him again.
He had been walking now rather more than an hour, and the moon, mounting
higher, was pouring down her pale vertical beams right upon these
labyrinthine recesses. Then he struck off from the valley bottom, and
ascending, cautiously, noiselessly, the steep and stony hillside, gained
a point some fifteen yards higher up.
The position was formed by some small boulders, overhung by _spek-boem_,
and it commanded an ample view of anything passing beneath. He knew the
spot well, as indeed he knew every inch of that bushy maze, in parts so
thick and tangled and thorn-studded as to be well-nigh impenetrable;
many a fine bushbuck ram had he stopped in mid career from this very
point when they had been driving out the kloofs, during one of those
hunts to which he would from time to time convene his neighbours. Here,
as he lay, he scanned the open smoothness of the grassy valley bottom.
But upon it there was no sign of any moving life.
The kloof ended in a mass of tumbled terraced cliff, overhung by a row
of straight-stemmed, plumed euphorbia; with aloes, gnome-like in the
moonlight, caught here and there in crevice or on ledge. Within the
face of the rock slanted black clefts, constituting a complete rookery
for the denizens of what his neighbours termed "Wyvern's
vermin-preserve." And it was, from his point of view, the very heart of
the surrounding maze, and was known as the Third Kloof.
At the meetings of the Gydisdorp Farmers' Association, Wyvern's name was
held in evil odour on this account, yet now, lying out in the ghostly,
solitary night, he thought of it with glee; for was he not possessor,
even if for the last time, of what little there was left of strange,
wild Nature, and how many of those who thus decried him, at this hour
snoring in bed, would have taken the trouble to turn out under the moon
to reduce the "vermin" aforesaid by one? With a lively gathering and
dogs, and all that, they were ready enough, but--generally missed what
they came out for, and were happy enough to shoot bushbucks instead.
One of these now passed immediately below him as he lay, a fine ram, its
dark hide and white belly, and long, straight, slightly spiral horns
showing in the moonlight almost as clear as by day. But he never moved.
This was not his game to-night. This was not what he had come out for.
Then he noticed that the animal began to show signs of uneasiness. It
stopped short, raised its head from the grass it had been daintily
nibbling, then resumed its nibbling. Then it raised its head again, and
seemed to be listening; its full lustrous eye turned towards him showed
concern. The head then turned towards the upper end of the kloof, and
in the clear light the spectator could even see the working of the
nostrils as the graceful animal snuffed in the still night air as though
winding something. Then with a couple of bounds it disappeared within
the blackness of the further line of bush.
The pulses of the lonely watcher tingled. What had alarmed the buck?
All his senses were now concentrated on the point towards which the
startled animal had been looking. Ah! This _was_ what he had come out
for.
There had stolen out into the open a shape, a long, cat-like, spotted
shape. Well he knew it, and now more than ever did excitement thrill
his frame. The beast paused, standing erect, its tail slightly waving,
its head thrown upwards and opened into a mighty yawn which displayed
its great fangs. There was a water-hole in the hollow of the kloof,
usually a mere mass of slimy liquid mud, now, thanks to the recent rains
fairly well filled. To this the leopard paced, its massive velvety paws
noiseless in their springy gait. Then dropping its head it began to
lap, and the disturbance of the water seemed quite loud in the stillness
of the night. Cautiously the watcher took aim. The question was should
he use the rifle or the shot barrel. At that short distance he could
not miss. He decided in favour of the bullet, and had just got his
sight well on behind the shoulder, when--
The great leopard raised its speckled head, and suddenly gathered itself
together, as though listening intently. This for a fraction of a
minute, but sufficiently long to have shifted its position, and the
moonlight was uncertain. But before the watcher could get his sights on
to the right spot again, in a glide and a bound it had disappeared into
the sheltering shadow of the bush.
Wyvern's disgust will hardly bear describing in words. Why had he not
got in his shot while he had the chance, and while it was well-nigh
impossible to miss. Now he had let his chance go by, and it was not in
the least likely to recur. But, what on earth was it that had alarmed
the beast?
Below, like an eye, the water-hole glared dully. Beyond it now
something was standing--a something which seemed to have risen out of
the very earth itself--and it took the black figure of a man. And
Wyvern was conscious of the cold shuddering thrill that passed through
his own system, for the hideous pock-marked countenance turned upward
towards him with deathlike stare, was that of the big Kafir whom the
puff-adder had bitten--had bitten again and again and who was, of
course, long since dead.
How could it be otherwise? No human system could survive an hour with
all that deadly venom injected into it. He could have sworn to that
awful face--it had been too deeply impressed upon his recollection at
the time of the ghastly incident for him to forget it. There could not
be another like it in the world; and it was fully visible to him now
with the moon full upon it as the phantom stood there, huge and black.
No--the thing could not be mortal. It was a physical impossibility--and
he felt his flesh creep as it had never yet done.
The figure was moving. It had struck a crouching attitude, and was
coming straight for where he lay. Instinctively Wyvern grasped the
gun--though what was the use of a weapon against a thing not of flesh
and blood? For a second it paused, then with a bound like that of the
savage animal it had just scared away it alighted where the bush and the
open met. There was a momentary and convulsive struggle accompanied by
fierce hissing, then the horrible figure sprang upright, and stood,
holding aloft, firmly grasped by the neck, a large puff-adder.
In the throes of strangulation the bloated coils of the reptile whipped
the air convulsively, smooth and slimy in the moonlight--but it was
powerless to strike. Itself of no light weight, yet its destroyer was
able to hold it at arm's length and at the same time never relax that
deadly, strangling grip--the while the expression of the repulsive and
horrible countenance turned upon the agonising reptile was one of
fiendish gloating. At length the furious writhings died down into a
faint muscular heave, and the black fiend, relaxing none of his grip of
the now dead reptile, glided into the dark shades which had covered the
retreat of the leopard.
Not a sound had been uttered--beyond the first hissing of the snake--not
a word said; the whole scene had been horrible and eerie beyond the
power of words to describe, in its weird setting of moonlit forest, and
cliff and rugged spur. What devilish scene was this which had been
enacted there, all in so brief a space of time that the witness thereof
could hardly believe he had not dreamt it? Though not in the least
timid, Wyvern was an imaginative man, and his imaginative powers were
largely stimulated and fostered by his solitary life. Now he asked
himself whether the wretched savage had really returned to earth--in a
word--"walked," and there in the wild and moonlit solitude the answer
seemed very like an affirmative. He recalled Lalante's scare when they
had been searching for the remains of this very being, and how no trace
of any living thing had been apparent, even to Le Sage's practised eyes.
What did it all mean? Well, it need concern him no further, for in a
day or two his interest in Seven Kloofs would be a thing of the past.
And having thus decided, a sudden and, under the circumstances, strange
drowsiness came upon him and he slept.
The Southern Cross turned in the heavens, and the soft breaths of night
played around his forehead and still Wyvern slumbered on, and in the
midst of that drear but beautiful solitude he dreamed. He was back at
Seven Kloofs again, and, once more, it was his very own. All anxieties
were wiped away, and they were rejoicing together in the joy of
possession, and in their new-found, undimmed happiness--and then, and
then--the stars faded in the lightening vault as the chill dawn awoke
the sleeper, heart-weary and sick with the melting of the blissful
illusion. But--what was this?
A strange sound, terminating in a sort of whine. Keen and alert now,
Wyvern peered forth, just as the great leopard halted beneath, finishing
his cavernous yawn, and looking inquiringly upward where scent or
instinct told him some enemy was lurking. But just a fraction of a
moment too long did he tarry, as the bullet sped forth; the thundrous
echoes of the report rolling in many-tongued reverberation among the
rocks and krantzes. The great spotted cat lay gasping out its life,
with a severed spine.
There are compensatory moments in life, and this was one of them. In
the keen exhilaration of the successful shot, Wyvern noted that the
beast was an abnormally large and fine specimen of its kind. The skin
should be a parting gift to Lalante; a final memento of Seven Kloofs.