OTTER’S FAREWELL
The night which followed, Leonard is wont to declare, proved to be the
very worst that he ever spent in his life. Notwithstanding his intense
weariness, he could not sleep, his nerves were too shattered to allow
of it. Whenever he shut his eyes, he saw himself hanging head downwards
over the oubliette in the cell beneath the idol, or flying through the
air across the dreadful gap in the ice-bridge, or in some other
position of terror, similar to those with which they had made such
intimate acquaintance of late. Did these visions cease, from time to
time he seemed to hear the voice of Francisco bidding him farewell, the
yell of Soa falling to her dreadful death, or Nam raving his last
defiance at them. Also his hurts, which were many, gave him great pain,
and though the climate here was mild, the breeze from the snow heights
chilled him through, and they had not even a match wherewith to light a
fire and scare the wild beasts that roared about them.
Rarely have three human beings been in a position more desolate and
desperate than that in which they found themselves this night,
exhausted, unarmed, almost without food or clothing, and wandering they
knew not where through the vastness of Central Africa. Unless some help
found them, as Leonard was aware, they must perish of starvation, by
the fangs of lions, or the spears of natives. It was impossible that
they could live through another week, and the thought came into his
mind that it would be well for them if they died that night and had
done with it.
It would be well; yes, and it would have been better if he had been
laid by the side of his brother Tom before ever he listened to Soa’s
accursed tale of the People of the Mist and their treasure of rubies.
Only then he would never have known Juanna, for she must have died in
the slave camp.
This was the fruit of putting faith in the visions of dying men. And
yet, it was strange, he had _nearly_ got the money and “by the help of
a woman,” for those rubies would have sufficed to buy back Outram ten
times over. But, alas! nearly is not quite. That dream was done with,
and even if they escaped, it would be to find himself more utterly
beggared than before, for now he would be a married beggar.
At last the night wore away and the dawn came, but Juanna did not wake
until the sun was high. Leonard, who had crept to a little distance—for
now he was quite unable to walk—saw her sit up and crawled back to her.
She stared at him vacantly and said something about Jane Beach. Then he
knew that she was wandering. There was nothing to be done. What could
be done in that wilderness with a woman in delirium, except wait for
death?
Accordingly Leonard and Otter waited for some hours. Then the dwarf,
who was in far the best condition of the three, took the spear—Olfan’s
gift—and said that he would go and seek for food, since their store was
exhausted. Leonard nodded, though he knew that there was little chance
of a man armed with a spear alone being able to kill game, and Otter
went.
Towards evening he returned, reporting that he had seen plenty of buck,
but could not get near them, which was just what his master expected.
That night they passed hungry, by turns watching Juanna, who was still
delirious. At dawn Otter started out again, leaving Leonard, who had
been unable to sleep as on the previous night, crouched at Juanna’s
side, his face buried in his hands.
Before noon Leonard chanced to look up, and saw the dwarf reeling
towards him, for he also was faint with want of food. Indeed his great
head and almost naked body, through the skin of which the misshapen
bones seemed to start in every direction, presented so curious a
spectacle that his master, whose brain was shaken by weakness, began to
laugh.
“Don’t laugh, Baas,” gasped the dwarf; “either I am mad, or we are
saved.”
“Then I think that you must be mad, Otter, for we shall take a deal of
saving,” he answered wearily, for he had ceased to believe in good
fortune. “What is it?”
“This, Baas. There is a white man coming this way and more than a
hundred servants with him; they are marching up the mountain slope.”
“You are certainly mad, Otter,” Leonard replied. “What in the names of
Jâl and Aca is a white man doing here? I am the only one of that
species who have been fool enough to penetrate these regions, I and
Francisco,” and he shut his eyes and dozed off.
Otter looked at him for a while, then he tapped his forehead
significantly and started down the slope again. An hour later, Leonard,
still dozing, was awakened by a sound of many voices, and by a hand
that shook him not too gently.
“Awake, Baas,” said the dwarf, for the hand was his; “I have caught the
white man and brought him here.”
Leonard staggered to his feet and saw before him, surrounded by
gun-bearers and other attendants, an English gentleman, rather under
than over middle age, with a round and kindly face tanned by the sun,
and somewhat deep-set dark eyes having an eyeglass fixed in one of
them, through which its wearer regarded him with much commiseration.
“How do you do, sir?” said the stranger in a pleasant voice. “So far as
I can make out from your servant you seem to be in a baddish way. By
George! there is a lady.”
“How do you do?” answered Leonard. “Capital sun-helmet that of yours. I
envy it, but you see I have had to go bare-headed lately,” and he ran
his fingers through his matted hair. “Who is the maker of that
eight-bore? Looks a good gun!”
“Achmet,” said the stranger, turning to an Arab at his side, “go to the
first donkey and fetch this lord of the earth a pint of champagne and
some oatmeal cakes; he seems to want them. Tell the bearers also to
bring up my tent and to pitch it there by the water. Quick, now.”
Forty-eight hours had passed, and the benevolent stranger was sitting
on a camp-stool in the door of his tent, looking at two forms that lay
wrapped in blankets and comfortably asleep within it.
“I suppose that they will wake some time,” he murmured, dropping his
eyeglass and taking the pipe from his mouth. “The quinine and champagne
have done them a lot of good: there is nothing like quinine and
champagne. But what an unconscionable liar that dwarf must be! There is
only one thing he can do better, and that is eat. I never saw a chap
stow away so much grub, though I must say that he looks as though he
needed it. Still, allowing for all deductions, it is a precious queer
story. Who are they, and what the deuce are they doing here? One thing
is clear: I never saw a finer-looking man nor a prettier girl.” And he
filled his pipe again, replaced the eyeglass in his eye, and began
smoking.
Ten minutes later Juanna sat up suddenly, whereupon the stranger
withdrew out of sight. She looked round her wildly, then, seeing
Leonard lying at the further side of the tent, she crept to him and
began kissing him, saying: “Leonard! Thank God that you are still
alive, Leonard! I dreamed that we both were dead. Thank God that you
are alive!”
Then the man who had been thus adjured woke up also and returned her
caresses.
“By George! this is quite affecting,” said the traveller. “I suppose
that they are married; if not, they ought to be. Any way, I had better
clear out for a while.”
An hour later he returned to find that the pair had made themselves as
presentable as soap and water, and some few spare garments which he had
sent to Leonard, would allow, and were now sitting in the sun outside
the tent. He advanced, lifting his helmet, and they rose to meet him.
“I suppose that I had better introduce myself,” he said with some
hesitation, for he was a shy man. “I am an English traveller, doing a
little exploring on my own account, for lack of any other occupation,
and my name is Sydney Wallace.”
“Mine is Leonard Outram,” answered Leonard, “and this young lady is
Miss Juanna Rodd.”
Mr. Wallace started and bowed again. So they were _not_ married!
“We are deeply indebted to you, sir,” went on Leonard; “for you have
rescued us from death.”
“Not at all,” answered Mr. Wallace. “You must thank that servant of
yours, the dwarf, and not me, for if he had not seen us, I should have
passed a mile or more to the left of you. The fact is that I am rather
fond of mountaineering, and seeing this great peak above us—I am told
that it is the highest in the Bisa-Mushinga Mountains—I thought that I
might as well have a try at it before I turn homewards, _via_ Lake
Nyassa, Livingstonia, Blantyre, and Quilimane. But perhaps you will not
mind telling me how you came to be here. I have heard something from
the dwarf, but his tale seems a little too steep.”
“I am afraid you will think ours rather steeper, Mr. Wallace,” said
Leonard, and he proceeded to give him a short outline of their
adventures.
When he came to their arrival among the People of the Mist, and
described the inauguration of Otter and Juanna as gods in the temple of
the colossus, he noticed that his auditor had let the eyeglass fall
from his round eye, and was regarding him with mild amazement.
“I am afraid that all this does not interest you,” said Leonard
stiffly.
“On the contrary, Mr. Outram, it interests me very much. I am
exceedingly fond of romances, and this is rather a good one.”
“As I thought; it is scarcely worth while to go on,” said Leonard
again. “Well, I cannot wonder that you do not believe me.”
“Leonard,” interposed Juanna quietly, “you still have the star ruby;
show it to Mr. Wallace!”
He did so, somewhat sulkily, and then, as he seemed disinclined to say
anything more, Juanna took up the tale, showing in evidence of its
truth the spear, the frayed rope, and the tattered white robe which she
had worn in her character of Aca, and, indeed, still wore beneath poor
Francisco’s cassock—for she had no other.
Mr. Wallace heard her out, then, without making any comment, he rose,
saying that he must try to shoot some meat for the camp, and begged
that they would make themselves comfortable until his return that
evening.
Before sundown he reappeared, and, coming straight to the tent, asked
their pardon for his incredulity.
“I have been up yonder,” he said, “following your spoor backwards. I
have seen the snow-bridge and the stones, and the nicks which the dwarf
cut in the ice. All is just as you told me, and it only remains for me
to congratulate you upon having escaped from the strangest series of
dangers that ever I heard of”; and he held out his hand, which both
Leonard and Juanna shook warmly.
“By the way,” he added, “I sent men to examine the gulf for several
miles, but they report to me that they found no spot where it would be
possible to descend it, and I fear, therefore, that the jewels are lost
for ever. I confess that I should have liked to try to penetrate into
the Mist country, but my nerves are not strong enough for the
ice-bridge, and if they were, stones won’t slide uphill. Besides, you
must have had about enough of roughing it, and will be anxious to turn
your faces towards civilisation. So after you have rested another
couple of days I think that we had better start for Quilimane, which,
barring accidents, is about three months’ march from here.”
Shortly afterwards they started accordingly, but with the details of
their march we need not concern ourselves. An exception must be made,
however, in the case of a single event which happened at the
mission-station of Blantyre. That event was the wedding of Leonard and
Juanna in conformance with the ceremonies of their own church.
No word of marriage had been spoken between them for some weeks, and
yet the thought of it was never out of the minds of either. Indeed, had
their feelings been much less tender towards each other than was the
case, it would still have been desirable, in view of the extraordinary
intimacy into which they had been thrown during the past months, that
they should become man and wife. Leonard felt that alone as she was in
the wide world, nothing short of mutual aversion would have justified
him in separating from Juanna, and as it was love and not aversion that
he entertained towards her, this argument came home to him with
overmastering force.
“Juanna,” he said to her on the day of their arrival at Blantyre, “you
remember some words that passed between your father and myself when he
lay upon his death-bed, to the effect that, should we both wish it, he
trusted to my honour to remarry you formally as soon as an opportunity
might arise.
“Now the opportunity is here, and I ask you if you desire to take me
for your husband, as, above everything in the world, I desire to make
you my beloved wife.”
She coloured to her beautiful eyes and answered in a voice that was
almost a whisper:
“If you wish it and think me worthy of you, Leonard, you know that I
wish it also. I have always loved you, dear, yes, even when I was
behaving worst to you; but there is—Jane Beach!”
“I have told you before, Juanna,” he answered with some little
irritation, “and now I tell you again, that Jane Beach and I have done
with each other.”
“I am sure that I am very glad to hear it,” Juanna replied, still
somewhat dubiously. The rest of that conversation, being of a private
character, will scarcely interest the public.
When he spoke thus, Leonard little knew after what fashion Jane Beach
and he had wound up their old love affair.
Two days later Leonard Outram took Juanna Rodd to wife, “to have and to
hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in
health, to love and to cherish till death did them part,” and their
rescuer, Sydney Wallace, who by now had become their fast friend, gave
her away.
Very curious were the memories that passed through Juanna’s mind as she
stood by her husband’s side in the little grass-roofed chapel of
Blantyre, for was this not the third time that she had been married,
and now only of her own free will? She bethought her of that wild scene
in the slave camp; of Francisco who died to save her, and of the
blessing which he had called down upon her and this very man; of that
other scene in the rock prison, when, to protect Leonard’s life, she
was wed, according to the custom of the Children of the Mist, to that
true-hearted gentleman and savage, Olfan, their king. Then she awoke
with a happy sigh to know that the lover at her side could never be
taken from her again until death claimed one of them.
“We shall be dreadfully poor, Leonard,” she said to him afterwards; “it
would have been much better for you, dear, if I had fallen into the
gulf instead of the rubies.”
“I am not of your opinion, love,” he answered with a smile for he was
very happy. “Hang the rubies! Your price is far above rubies, and no
man may struggle against fate. I have always been able to make a living
for myself heretofore, and I do not doubt that I shall continue to do
so for both of us, and we will leave the rest to Providence. You are
more to me, Juanna, than any wealth—more even than Outram.”
That evening Mr. Wallace found Otter gazing disconsolately at the
little house in which Leonard and Juanna were staying.
“Are you sad because your master is married, Otter?” he asked.
“No,” answered the dwarf, “I am glad. For months he has been running
after her and dreaming of her, and now at last he has got her.
Henceforth she must dream of him and run after him, and he will have
time to think about other people, who love him quite as well.”
Another month or so went by while the party journeyed in easy stages
towards the coast, and never had wedded lovers a happier honeymoon, or
one more unconventional, than that passed by Leonard and Juanna, though
perhaps Mr. Wallace and Otter did not find the contemplation of their
raptures a very exhilarating occupation.
At last they reached Quilimane in safety, and pitched their camp on
some rising ground outside of the settlement, which is unhealthy. Next
morning at daybreak Mr. Wallace started to the post-office, where he
expected to find letters. Leonard and Juanna did not accompany him, but
went for a walk before the sun grew hot. Then it was, as they walked,
that a certain fact came home to them; namely, that they could not
avail themselves of their host’s kindness any longer, and, further,
that they were quite penniless. When one is moving slowly across the
vast African wilds, and living on the abounding game, love and kisses
seem an ample provision for all wants. But the matter strikes the mind
in a different light after the trip is done, and civilisation with its
necessities looms large in the immediate future.
“What are we to do, Juanna?” asked Leonard in dismay. “We have no money
to enable us to reach Natal or anywhere, and no credit on which to
draw.”
“I suppose that we must sell the great ruby,” she answered, with a
sigh, “though I shall be sorry to part with it.”
“Nobody will buy such a stone here, Juanna, and it may not be a real
ruby after all. Perhaps Wallace might be willing to advance me a trifle
on it, though I hate having to ask him.”
Then they went back to breakfast, which they did not find an altogether
cheerful meal. As they were finishing, Mr. Wallace returned from the
town.
“I have got good news,” he said; “the British India mail will be here
in two days, so I shall pay off my men and go up to Aden in her, and
thence home. Of course you will come too, for, like me, I expect you
have had enough of Africa for the present. Here are some copies of the
weekly edition of the ‘Times’; look through them, Mrs. Outram, and see
the news while I read my letters.”
Leonard turned aside moodily and lit his pipe. How was he to find money
to take even a third-class passage on the British India mail? But
Juanna, obeying the instinct that prompts a woman to keep up
appearances at all hazards, took one of the papers and opened it,
although the tears which swam in her eyes would scarcely suffer her to
see the print. Thus things went on for ten minutes or more, as she idly
turned the pages of two or three issues of the weekly “Times,” trying
to collect her thoughts and pick up the thread of current events.
But it is wonderful how uninteresting and far-away those events appear
after the reader has been living a life to herself for a year or so,
and Juanna, preoccupied as she was with her own thoughts, was about to
give up the attempt as a failure, when the name of _Outram_ started to
her eyes.
A minute later her two companions heard a sharp exclamation and turned
round.
“What is the matter, Mrs. Outram?” said Wallace. “Has France declared
war against Germany, or is Mr. Gladstone dead?”
“Oh! no, something much more important than that. Listen to this
advertisement, Leonard:—
“‘If Leonard Outram, second son of Sir Thomas Outram, Bart., late of
Outram Hall, who was last heard of in the territory to the north of
Delagoa Bay, Eastern Africa, or, in the event of his death, his lawful
heirs, will communicate with the undersigned, he or they will hear of
something very greatly to his or their advantage. Thomson & Turner, 2
Albert Court, London, E.C.’”
“Are you joking, Juanna?” said Leonard after a pause.
“Look for yourself,” she answered.
He took the paper, and read and reread the notice.
“Well, there is one thing certain,” he said, “that no one ever stood in
greater need of hearing something to his advantage than I do at this
moment, for excepting the ruby, which may not be a true stone, we
haven’t a stiver to bless ourselves with in the world. Indeed, I don’t
know how I am to avail myself of Messrs. Thomson & Turner’s kind
invitation, unless I write them a letter and go to live in a Kaffir hut
till the answer comes.”
“Don’t let that trouble you, my dear fellow,” said Wallace; “I can get
plenty of cash here, and it is very much at your service.”
“I am ashamed to take further advantage of your kindness,” answered
Leonard, flushing. “This advertisement may mean nothing, or perhaps a
legacy of fifty pounds, though I am sure I don’t know who would leave
me even that sum. And then, how should I repay you?”
“Stuff!” said Wallace.
“Well,” replied Leonard, “beggars must put their pride in their
pockets. If you will lend me a couple of hundred pounds and take the
ruby in pledge, I shall be even more grateful to you than I am at
present, and that is saying a good deal.”
On this business basis the matter was ultimately arranged, though
within half an hour Wallace handed back the great stone into Juanna’s
keeping, bidding her “keep it dark”; an injunction which she obeyed in
every sense of the word, for she hid the ruby where once the poison had
lain—in her hair.
Two busy days went by, and on the third morning a messenger came
running from the town to announce that the northward mail was in sight.
Then it was that Otter, who all this while had said nothing, advanced
solemnly towards Leonard and Juanna, holding his hand outstretched.
“What is the matter, Otter?” asked Leonard, who was engaged in helping
Wallace to pack his hunting trophies.
“Nothing, Baas; I have come to say good-bye to you and the Shepherdess,
that is all. I wish to go now before I see the Steam-fish carry you
away.”
“Go!” said Leonard; “you wish to go?”
Somehow Otter had become so much a part of their lives, that, even in
their preparations to leave for England, neither of them had ever
thought of parting from him.
“Why do you wish to go?” he added.
“Because I am an ugly old black dog, Baas, and can be of no further use
to you out yonder,” and he nodded towards the sea.
“I suppose you mean that you do not want to leave Africa, even for a
while,” said Leonard, with ill-concealed grief and vexation. “Well, it
is hard to part with you like this. Also,” he added with a little
laugh, “it is awkward, for I owe you more than a year’s wages, and have
not the money to spare to pay you. Moreover, I had taken your passage
on the ship.”
“What does the Baas say?” asked Otter slowly; “that he has bought me a
place in the Steam-fish?”
Leonard nodded.
“Then I beg your pardon, Baas. I thought that you had done with me and
were going to throw me away like a worn-out spear.”
“So you wish to come, Otter?” said Leonard.
“Wish to come!” he answered wonderingly. “Are you not my father and my
mother, and is not the place where you may be my place? Do you know
what I was going to do just now, Baas? I was going to climb to the top
of a tree and watch the Steam-fish till it vanished over the edge of
the world; then I would have taken this rope, which already has served
me well among the People of the Mist, and set it about my throat and
hanged myself there in the tree, for that is the best end for old dogs,
Baas.”
Leonard turned away to hide the tears which started to his eyes, for
the dwarf’s fidelity touched him more than he cared to show. Seeing his
trouble, Juanna took up the talk to cover his confusion.
“I fear that you will find it cold over yonder, Otter,” she said. “It
is a land of fog, they tell me, and there are none of your own people,
no wives or Kaffir beer. Also, we may be poor and have to live hardly.”
“Of fog I have seen something lately, Shepherdess,” answered the dwarf;
“and yet I was happy in the fog, because I was near the Baas. Of hard
living I have seen something also, and still I was happy, because I was
near the Baas. Once I had a wife and beer in plenty, more than a man
could want, and then I was unhappy, because they estranged me from the
Baas, and he knew that I had ceased to be Otter, his servant whom he
trusted, and had become a beast. Therefore, Shepherdess, I would see no
more of wives and beer.”
“Otter, you idiot,” broke in Leonard brusquely, “you had better stop
talking and get something to eat, for it will be the last meal that you
will wish to see for many a day.”
“The Baas is right,” replied the dwarf; “moreover, I am hungry, for
sorrow has kept me from food for these two days. Now I will fill myself
full, that I may have something to offer to the Black Water when he
shakes me in his anger.”
ENVOI THE END OF THE ADVENTURE
Six weeks or so had passed when a four-wheeled cab drew up at the door
of 2 Albert Court, London, E.C.
The progress of this vehicle had excited some remark among the more
youthful and lighter-minded denizens of the City, for on its box,
arrayed in an ill-fitting suit of dittoes and a brown hat some sizes
too small for him, sat a most strange object, whose coal-black
countenance, dwarfed frame, and enormous nose and shoulders attracted
their ribald observance.
“Look at him, Bill,” said one youth to an acquaintance; “he’s escaped
from Madame Tussaud’s, he has. Painted hisself over with Day & Martin’s
best, and bought a secondhand Guy Fawkes nose.”
Just then his remarks were cut short, for Otter, having been made to
understand by the driver that they had arrived at their destination,
descended from the box in a manner so original, that it is probably
peculiar to the aborigines of Central Africa, and frightened that boy
away.
From the cab emerged Leonard and Juanna, looking very much the better
for their sea journey. Indeed, having recovered her health and spirits,
and being very neatly dressed in a grey frock, with a wide black hat
trimmed with ostrich feathers, Juanna looked what she was, a very
lovely woman. Entering an outer office Leonard asked if Messrs. Thomson
& Turner were to be seen.
“Mr. Turner is within, sir,” answered a clerk of venerable appearance.
“Mr. Thomson”—here his glance fell upon Otter and suddenly he froze up,
then added with a jerk—“has been dead a hundred years! Thomson, sir,”
he explained, recovering his dignity, but with his eyes still fixed on
Otter, “was the founder of this firm; he died in the time of George
III. That is his picture over the door—the person with a harelip and a
snuffbox.”
“Indeed!” said Leonard. “As Mr. Thomson is not available, perhaps you
will tell Mr. Turner that a gentleman would like to speak to him.”
“Certainly, sir,” said the old clerk, still staring fixedly at Otter,
whose aspect appeared to fascinate him as much as that worthy had been
fascinated by the eyes of the Water-Dweller. “Have you an appointment,
sir?”
“No,” answered Leonard. “Tell him that it is in reference to an
advertisement which his firm inserted in the ‘Times’ some months ago.”
The clerk started, wondering if this could be the missing Mr. Outram.
That much-sought-for individual was understood to have resided in
Africa, which is the home of dwarfs and other oddities. Once more he
stared at Otter and vanished through a swing door.
Presently he returned. “Mr. Turner will see you, sir, if you and the
lady will please to step in. Does this—gentleman—wish to accompany
you?”
“No,” said Leonard, “he can stop here.”
Thereupon the clerk handed Otter a tall stool, on which the dwarf
perched himself disconsolately. Then he opened the swing door and
ushered Leonard and his wife into Mr. Turner’s private room.
“Whom have I the pleasure of addressing?” said a bland, stout
gentleman, rising from before a table strewn with papers. “Pray be
seated, madam.”
Leonard drew from his pocket a copy of the weekly “Times” and handed it
to him, saying:
“I understand that you inserted this advertisement.”
“Certainly we did,” answered the lawyer after glancing at it. “Do you
bring me any news of Mr. Leonard Outram?”
“Yes, I do. I am he, and this lady is my wife.”
The lawyer bowed politely. “This is most fortunate,” he said; “we had
almost given up hope—but, of course, some proofs of identity will be
required.”
“I think that they can be furnished to your satisfaction,” answered
Leonard briefly. “Meanwhile, for the sake of argument, perhaps you will
assume that I am the person whom I state myself to be, and inform me to
what this advertisement refers.”
“Certainly,” answered the lawyer, “there can be no harm in that. Sir
Thomas Outram, the late baronet, as you are doubtless aware, had two
sons, Thomas and Leonard. Leonard, the second son, as a young man was
engaged to, or rather had some love entanglement with, a lady—really I
forget her maiden name, but perhaps you can inform me of it——”
“Do you happen to mean Miss Jane Beach?” said Leonard quietly.
At this point Juanna turned in her chair and became extraordinarily,
indeed almost fiercely, interested in the conversation.
“Quite so; Beach was the name. You must excuse my forgetfulness. Well,
Sir Thomas’s affairs fell into confusion, and after their father’s
death Mr. Leonard Outram, with his elder brother Thomas, emigrated to
South Africa. In that same year Miss Jane—eh—Beach married a client of
ours, Mr. Cohen, whose father had purchased the estate of Outram from
the trustees in bankruptcy.”
“Indeed!” said Leonard.
“Shortly afterwards,” went on the lawyer, “Mr. Cohen, or rather Sir
Jonas Cohen, succeeded to the estate on the death of his father. Two
years ago he died leaving all his property, real and personal, to his
only child, a daughter named Jane, with reversion to his widow in fee
simple. Within a month of his death the child Jane died also, and nine
months later her mother, Lady Cohen, _nee_ Jane Beach, followed her to
the grave.”
“Yes,” said Leonard in a dull voice, and hiding his face in his hand;
“go on, sir.”
“Lady Cohen made a somewhat peculiar will. Under the terms of that will
she bequeaths the mansion house and estates of Outram, together with
most of her personal property, amounting in all to something over a
hundred thousand pounds, to her old friend Leonard Outram and the heirs
of his body, with reversion to her brother. This will has not been
disputed; therefore, if you are Leonard Outram, I may congratulate you
upon being once more the owner of your ancestral estate and a
considerable fortune in cash.”
For a while Leonard was too agitated to speak.
“I will prove to you,” he said at last, “that I am this person, that
is, I will prove it _prima facie_; afterwards you can satisfy yourself
of the truth of my statements by the usual methods.” And he proceeded
to adduce a variety of evidence as to his identity which need not be
set out here. The lawyer listened in silence, taking a note from time
to time.
“I think,” he said when Leonard had finished, “that, subject to those
inquiries of which you yourself have pointed out the necessity in so
grave a matter, I may accept it as proved that you are none other than
Mr. Leonard Outram, or rather,” he added, correcting himself, “if, as I
understand, your elder brother Thomas is dead, than Sir Leonard Outram.
Indeed you have so entirely convinced me that this is the case, that I
have no hesitation in placing in your hands a letter addressed to you
by the late Lady Cohen, and deposited with me together with the
executed will; though, when you have read it, I shall request you to
leave that letter with me for the present.
“By the way, it may interest you to learn,” Mr. Turner added, as he
went to a safe built into the wall and unlocked its iron door, “that we
have been hunting for you for a year or more. We even sent a man to
South Africa, and he tracked you to a spot in some mountains somewhere
north of Delagoa Bay, where it was reported that you, with your brother
Thomas and two friends, were digging for gold. He reached the spot on
the night of the ninth of May last year.”
“The very day that I left it,” broke in Leonard.
“And found the site of your camp and three graves. At first our
representative thought that you were all dead, but afterwards he fell
in with a native who appears to have deserted from your service, and
who told him that one of the brothers was dying when he left the camp,
but one was still in good health, though he did not know where he had
gone.”
“My brother Thomas died on the first of May—this day year,” said
Leonard.
“After that all trace of you was lost, but I still kept on advertising,
for missing people have a wonderful way of turning up to claim
fortunes, and you see the result. Here is the letter, Sir Leonard.”
Leonard took the document and looked at it, while strange feelings
crowded into his mind. This was the first letter that he had ever
received from Jane Beach; also it was the last that he ever could
receive.
“Before I open this, Mr. Turner,” he said, “for my own satisfaction I
may as well ask you to compare the handwriting of the address with
another specimen of it that chances to be in my possession”; and
producing the worn prayer-book from his pocket—Jane’s parting gift—he
opened it at the fly-leaf, and pointed out the inscription to the
lawyer, placing the envelope beside it.
Mr. Turner took a reading-glass and examined first one writing and then
the other.
“These words appear to have been written by the same hand,” he said
presently. “Lady Cohen’s writing was peculiar, and it is difficult to
be mistaken on the point, though I am no expert. To free you from
responsibility, with your consent I myself will open this letter,” and
he slit the envelope at the top with an ivory paper-knife, and, drawing
out its contents, he handed them to Leonard. They ran thus:
“My dearest Leonard,—For so I, who am no longer a wife, may call you
without shame, seeing that you are in truth the dearest to my heart,
whether you be still living, or dead like my husband and my child.
“The will which I am to sign to-morrow will prove to you if you are yet
alive, as I believe to be the case, how deep is my anxiety that you
should re-enter into possession of the ancestral home of which fortune
has deprived you. It is with the greatest pleasure that I make you this
bequest, and I can do so with a clear conscience, for my late husband
has left everything at my absolute disposal—being himself without near
relations—in the sad event which has occurred, of the death of his
daughter, our only child.
“May you live long enough to enjoy the lands and fortune which I am
enabled thus to return to your family, and may your children and their
descendants sit at Outram for many a generation to come!
“And now I will talk no more of this matter, for I have an explanation
to make and a pardon to ask.
“It may well be, Leonard, that when your eyes fall upon these lines,
you will have forgotten me—most deservedly—and have found some other
woman to love you. No, as I set this down I feel that it is not true;
you will never forget me altogether, Leonard—your first love—and no
other woman will ever be quite the same to you as I have been; or, at
least, so I believe in my foolishness and vanity.
“You will ask what explanation is possible after the way in which I
have treated you, and the outrage that I have done to my own love. Such
as it is, however, I offer it to you.
“I was driven into this marriage, Leonard, by my late father, who could
be very cruel when he chose. To admit this is, as I know, a proof of
weakness. So be it, I have never concealed from myself that I am weak.
Yet, believe me, I struggled while I could; I wrote to you even, but
they intercepted my letter; and I told all the truth to Mr. Cohen, but
he was self-willed and passionate, and would take no heed of my
pleading. So I married him, Leonard, and was fairly happy with him, for
he was kindness itself to me, but from that hour I began to die.
“And now more than six years have passed since the night of our parting
in the snow, and the end is at hand, for I am really dying. It has
pleased God to take my little daughter, and this last shock proved more
than I can bear, and so I go to join her and to wait with her till such
time as I shall once more see your unforgotten face.
“That is all that I have to say, dear Leonard.
“Pardon me, and I am selfish enough to add—do not forget me.
“JANE.
“P.S.—Why is it that an affection like ours, which has never borne
fruit even, should in the end prove stronger than any other earthly
tie? Heaven knows, and Heaven alone, how passionately I loved and love
my dead child; and yet, now that my own hour is at hand, it is of _you_
that I think the most, you who are neither child nor husband. I suppose
that I shall understand ere long, but, O Leonard, Leonard, Leonard, if,
as I believe, my nature is immortal, I swear that such love as mine for
you, however much it be dishonoured and betrayed, is still the most
immortal part of it!—J.”
Leonard put down the letter on the table, and again he covered his face
with his hand to hide his emotion, for his feelings overcame him as a
sense of the depth and purity of this dead woman’s undying love sank
into his heart.
“May I read that letter, Leonard?” asked Juanna in a quiet voice.
“Yes, I suppose so, dear, if you like,” he answered, feeling dully that
it was better to make a clean breast of the matter at once, and thus to
prevent future misunderstandings.
Juanna took the letter and perused it twice, by which time she knew it
as well as she did the Lord’s Prayer, nor did she ever forget a single
word of it. Then she handed it back to the lawyer, saying nothing.
“I understand,” said Mr. Turner, breaking in on a silence which he felt
to be painful, “that you will be able to produce the necessary proofs
of identity within the next few days, and then we can get the will
proved in the usual form. Meanwhile, you must want money, which I will
take the risk of advancing you,” and he wrote a cheque for a hundred
pounds and gave it to Leonard.
Half an hour later Leonard and Juanna were alone in a room at their
hotel, but as yet scarcely a word had passed between them since they
left the lawyer’s office.
“Don’t you see, Leonard,” his wife said almost fiercely, “it is most
amusing, you made a mistake. Your brother’s dying prophecy was like a
Delphic oracle—it could be taken two ways, and, of course, you adopted
the wrong interpretation. You left Grave Mountain a day too soon. It
was by _Jane Beach’s_ help that you were to recover Outram, not by
mine,” and she laughed sadly.
“Don’t talk like that, dear,” said Leonard in a sad voice; “it pains
me.”
“How else am I to talk after reading that letter?” she answered, “for
what woman can hold her own against a dead rival? Now also I must be
indebted to her bounty all my days. Oh! if I had not lost the jewels—if
only I had not lost the jewels!”
History does not relate how Leonard dealt with this unexpected and yet
natural situation.
A week had passed and Leonard, with Juanna at his side, found himself
once more in the great hall at Outram, where, on a bygone night, many
years ago, he and his dead brother had sworn their oath. All was the
same, for in this hall nothing had been changed—Jane had seen to that.
There chained to its stand was the Bible, upon which they had
registered their vow; there were the pictures of his ancestors gazing
down calmly upon him, as though they cared little for the story of his
struggles and of his strange triumph over fortune “by the help of a
woman.” There was the painted window, with its blazoned coats of arms
and its proud mottoes—“_For Heart, Home, and Honour_,” and “_Per ardua
ad astra_.” He had won the heart and home, and he had kept his honour
and his oath. He had endured the toils and dangers and the crown of
stars was his.
And yet, was Leonard altogether happy as he stood looking on these
familiar things? Perhaps not quite, for yonder in the churchyard there
was a grave, and within the church a monument in white marble, that was
wonderfully like one who had loved him and whom he had loved, though
time and trouble had written a strange difference on her face. Also, he
had failed: he had kept his oath indeed and fought on till the end was
won, but himself he had not won it. What now was his had once belonged
to his successful rival, who doubtless little dreamed of the payment
that would be exacted from him by the decree of fate.
And was Juanna happy? She knew well that Leonard loved her truly; but
oh! it was cruel that she who had shared the struggles should be
deprived of her reward—that it should be left to another, who if not
false had at least been weak, to give to her husband that which she had
striven so hard to win—that which she had won—and lost. And harder
still was it that in this ancient place which would henceforth be her
home, by day and by night she must feel the presence of the shadow of a
woman, a woman sweet and pale, who, as she believed, stood between her
and that which she desired above all things—the complete and absolute
possession of her husband’s heart.
Doubtless she overrated the trouble; men and women do not spend their
lives in brooding upon the memories of their first loves—if they did,
this would be a melancholy world. But to Juanna it was real enough, and
remained so for some years. And if a thing is true to the heart, it
avails little that reason should give it the lie.
In short, now in the hour of their full property, Leonard and Juanna
were making acquaintance with the fact that fortune never gives with
both hands, as the French say, but loves to rob with one while she
bestows with the other. To few is it allowed to be completely
miserable, to none to be completely happy. Their good luck had been so
overwhelming in many ways, that it would have partaken of the
unnatural, and might well have excited their fears for the future, had
its completeness been unmarred by these drawbacks which, such as they
were, probably they learned to disremember as the years passed over
them bringing them new trials and added blessings.
Perhaps a peep into the future will tell us the rest of the story of
Leonard and Juanna Outram better and more truly than any further
chronicling of events.
Ten years or so have gone by and Sir Leonard, now a member of
Parliament and the Lord-Lieutenant of his county, comes out of church
on the first Sunday in May accompanied by his wife, the stateliest
matron in the country-side, and some three or four children, boys and
girls together, as healthy as they are handsome. After a glance at a
certain grave that lies near to the chancel door, they walk homewards
across the budding park in the sweet spring afternoon, till, a hundred
yards or more from the door of Outram Hall, they pause at the gates of
a dwelling known as “The Kraal,” shaped like a beehive, fashioned of
straw and sticks, and built by the hands of Otter alone.
Basking in the sunshine in front of this hut sits the dwarf himself,
cutting broom-sticks with a knife out of the straightest of a bundle of
ash saplings that lie beside him. He is dressed in a queer mixture of
native and European costume, but otherwise time has wrought no change
in him.
“Greeting, Baas,” he says as Leonard comes up. “Is Baas Wallace here
yet?”
“No, he will be down in time for dinner. Mind that you are there to
wait, Otter.”
“I shall not be late, Baas, on this day of all days.”
“Otter,” cries a little maid, “you should not make broom-sticks on
Sunday, it is very wrong.”
The dwarf grins by way of answer, then speaks to Leonard in a tongue
that none but he can understand.
“What did I tell you many years ago, Baas?” he says. “Did I not tell
you that by this way or by that you should win the wealth, and that the
great kraal across the water should be yours again, and that the
children of strangers should wander there no more? See, it has come
true,” and he points to the happy group of youngsters. “_Wow!_ I,
Otter, who am a fool in most things, have proved to be the best of
prophets. Yet I will rest content and prophesy no more, lest I should
lose my name for wisdom.”
A few hours later and dinner is over in the larger hall. All the
servants have gone except Otter, who dressed in a white smock stands
behind his master’s chair. There is no company present save Mr.
Wallace, who has just returned from another African expedition, and
sits smiling and observant, his eyeglass fixed in his eye as of yore.
Juanna is arrayed in full evening dress, however, and a great star ruby
blazes upon her breast.
“Why have you got the red stone on to-night, mother?” asks her eldest
son Thomas, who with his two sisters has come down to desert.
“Hush, dear,” she answers, as Otter advances to that stand on which the
Bible is chained, holding a glass filled with port in his hand.
“Deliverer and Shepherdess,” he says, speaking in Sisutu, “on this day
eleven years gone Baas Tom died out yonder; I, who drink wine but once
a year, drink to the memory of Baas Tom, and to our happy meeting with
him in the gold House of the Great-Great”; and swallowing the port with
a single gulp Otter throws the glass behind him, shattering it on the
floor.
“Amen,” says Leonard. “Now, love, your toast.”
“I drink to the memory of Francisco who died to save me,” says Juanna
in a low voice.
“Amen,” repeats her husband.
For a moment there is silence, for Leonard gives no toast; then the boy
Thomas lifts his glass and cries,
“And I drink to Olfan, the king of the People of the Mist, and to
Otter, who killed the Snake-god, and whom I love the best of all of
them. Mother, may Otter get the spear and the rope and tell us the
story of how he dragged you and father up the ice-bridge?”