After Gideon had become somewhat accustomed to Elsie's presence that awe
with which she had at first inspired him began to lessen. Now that he
meant to go away finally nothing she knew or could do mattered to him
very much. He was fond of Aletta in a way,--more or less as one is fond
of a faithful dog, but she was the only being in the wide world who
cared for him, so he felt the prospect of parting from her very keenly.
He determined to make a full confession of his transgression to her
before leaving, feeling persuaded that thenceforth she would look upon
him with abhorrence and thus would not sorrow at his departure. The
thought that he was about to destroy his patient wife's regard for his
lonely self was not the least of Gideon's troubles.
He tried to carry off his distress with an air of unconcern which,
however, did not deceive anyone. As the preparations for his departure
were being hurried towards completion he became more talkative than
usual. Aletta, at the near prospect of the parting, was sunk in the
depths of misery. Adrian and his wife who resided with Uncle Gideon,
now and then visited the homestead. Jacomina had refused to leave her
father, on the pretext that her assistance in his medical practice was
indispensable. The true reason was, however, that she wanted, if
possible, to prevent him marrying again.
Elsie, to whom the night was as the day, continued her old habit of
wandering abroad after all the others had gone to bed. She invariably
dressed in light colours and used to flit like a ghost among the trees.
Gideon had dubbed her "White Owl," and he never addressed her as
anything else.
Two days before Gideon's intended departure the three were sitting at
breakfast. A messenger who had been despatched to the residence of the
Field Cornet, some forty miles away, was seen approaching. Gideon was
in one of his forced sardonic moods.
"Aletta," he said, "your eyes are red again; have you been boiling
soap?"
"No, Gideon; it is not only the steam from the soap-pot that reddens the
eyes."
"Has the maid spoilt a batch of bread? If she has, _her_ eyes ought to
be red and not yours."
"No, Gideon,--the bread has been well baked."
"What is the matter, then? Sunday, Monday and Tuesday your face is like
a pumpkin when the rain is falling; Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the
water is still running; Saturday it is not dry. Did you ever laugh in
your life?"
"It is long since I have heard you laugh, Gideon."
"I? I can laugh now,--Well,--you have never seen me weep."
"Would to God you did rather than laugh like that."
"Uncle Gideon," said Elsie, "one day your tears will flow."
"When will that day come, White Owl?"
"When my father's prison doors are opened."
Gideon glared at her, terror and fury writ large upon his distorted
face. Just then a knock was heard; Aletta arose and went to the door
where she found the returned messenger, who had just off-saddled his
horse. She came back to the table and silently laid a letter before
Gideon who, when he recognised the handwriting started violently. After
looking at the letter for a few seconds he picked it up as though about
to open it; then he flung the missive down and hurried from the room.
"Elsie," said Aletta in agitated tones, "here is a letter from your
father."
Elsie sprang to her feet.
"Read it,--read it,--Aunt," she said, "perhaps the prison doors are
open."
Aletta opened the letter with shaking fingers and read it aloud
laboriously and in an agitated voice:--
"My Brother Gideon,
"In three days from now I shall once more walk God's earth--a free man.
Because I worked well and did as I was bidden without question, my time
of punishment has been shortened. From our cousins at Stellenbosch I
have obtained a wagon and oxen, by means of which I shall at once hurry
home. When this reaches you I shall be well on my way. My first
business must be to see you.
"We two have a reckoning to make together. It will be best that we be
alone when it is made.
"Your brother,
"Stephanus."
Aletta uttered a moan and bent forward with her face on the table.
Elsie, with a rapt smile on her face stood up and laid her hand upon her
aunt's shoulder. Then a hurried step was heard and Gideon entered the
room.
Seeing the letter lying upon the table where it had fallen from his
wife's nerveless hand, Gideon picked it up and hurriedly read it
through. Then, with a curse, he flung it down.
"Aletta," he cried, "I am going at once. I cannot meet him. God--why
was I born this man's brother?--Nine long years thirsting for my blood."
"It is not your blood that he wants, Uncle Gideon," said Elsie in a calm
tone.
"Yes,--yes, Gideon," said Aletta, "go away for a time. I will keep him
here and try to soften his heart."
"Yes,--keep him here for a time--for only a little time--but I shall go
away for ever. I shall go where never a white man's foot has trod, and
when I can go no farther I will dig my own grave."
"Do not go, Uncle Gideon," said Elsie, "stay and meet him."
"Silence, blind tiger's cub that wants my blood. Get out of my sight."
"You will not go so far but that he will find you," said Elsie as she
moved from the room. "He will have his reckoning. He does not want
your blood."
"Aletta, I have told them to inspan the wagon and start. Put in my food
and bedding at once. When the wagon has gone we will talk; I will
follow it on horseback. I have things to tell you that will make you
hate me and wish never to see my face again."
"Nothing could make that happen.--Gideon, I know--"
"Wait,--let me see when this letter was written--Christ! it is thirteen
days old,--he must be nearly here--"
Gideon rushed from the room and began to hurry the servants in their
preparations for departure. The oxen had just been driven down from
their grazing ground high on the mountain side. The wagon had been
hurriedly packed with bedding, water, food and other stores. The mob of
horses were driven in from the kraal; Gideon gave hurried directions to
the Hottentot servants as to which were to be selected. Soon the wagon
was lumbering heavily up the steep mountain track towards the unknown,
mysterious North, in the direction where Gideon had so sorely and vainly
sought for the dwelling-place of Peace.
The horses were now caught and Gideon's favourite hunting steed saddled
up. The spare horses were led after the wagon by a Hottentot
after-rider. Then Gideon entered the house to take farewell of his
wife.
He bent down and kissed her almost passionately on the lips.
"Aletta," he said, "you will not understand me; nobody could. What I
have done will seem to you the worst of sins;--yet to me it was right--
and yet it has hung like a millstone about my neck all these years."
Aletta seized one of his hands between hers.
"It will fall from you if you repent," she said.
"Repent. Never. He deserved it; I would do it again to-morrow.
Aletta," (here he moved towards the door, trying to disengage his hand)
"Stephanus never meant to shoot me; the gun went off by accident. I
accused him falsely and he has suffered all these years for a thing he
did not do. Now,--good-bye."
He again tried to escape, but Aletta held him fast.
"Come back, come back, Gideon,--I have known this for years."
"Known it?"
"Yes,--and so has Elsie, although no word of it has passed between us."
"Do not think that I regret it; do not think that I repent. He deserved
it all, and more. Think of all he did to me.--And yet I fear to meet
him.--That blind girl--she wants to dip her white fingers in my blood--
and yet I do not fear his killing me. Do you know why I am running away
from him?"
"Yes, you fear to meet his eyes."
"That is it,--his eyes. I am not afraid of death at his hands--although
I suppose God will send me to burn in Hell for doing the work He keeps
for His own hands.--And he means to kill me when he finds me--the White
Owl knows it--but his eyes--Nine years chained up with blacks, thinking
the whole time of his wrong and his revenge.--You remember how big and
fierce his eyes used to get in anger.--I have seen them across the
plains and the mountains for nine years, getting bigger and fiercer.
They are always glaring at me; I fear them more than his bullet."
"Yes, Gideon, it is well that you go away for a time. I will try what I
can do. He is getting to be an old man now and anger does not burn so
hotly in the old as in the young. I will not speak to him now, but when
he has been free for a time I will kneel to him and beg him to forgive
for Marta's sake, and Elsie's. Elsie does not hate you, Gideon."
"She must, if she knows what I have done to her father. She hates me.
You heard what she said about his having his reckoning. Were his anger
to cool she would light it anew with those eyes of hers that glow like
those of a lion in the dark. But anger such as his does not cool."
"Gideon, you are wrong about Elsie; she loves her father, but she will
not counsel him to take revenge. Oh, Gideon, we are old now, and this
hatred has kept us in cold and darkness all our lives. One little,
happy year; then the first quarrel,--and ever since misery and
loneliness. If he forgives, you will come back. Do not take away my
only hope."
"He will never forgive."
"I will follow him about and kneel to him every day until he forgives.
Then you will come back and we will again be happy--just a little
happiness and peace before we die."
"Happy, Aletta? There is no more happiness for us. He--he killed our
joy years back, for ever. I go away now and I shall never return. Get
Adrian and his wife to come and live here. For years I have known that
this would happen. At first I hoped that he would die; then I knew that
God was keeping him alive and well and strong to punish me for doing His
work. I have made over the farm and stock to you; the papers are in the
camphor-wood box. Good-bye,--we must never meet again."
"My husband, the desert, holds spoor a long time. The sand-storm blots
it out for a distance, but it is found again farther on. When Stephanus
forgives I will follow you and bring you back."
"No, Aletta, we will meet no more. When I die my bones will lie where
no Christian foot has ever trod."
"Gideon, on the day when Stephanus forgives I will go forth seeking you,
and I will seek until I find you or until I die in the waste."
When Gideon van der Walt reached the mountain saddle at the head of the
kloof, across which the track which led into the desert plains of
Bushmanland passed, he turned and took a long look at his homestead.
Then his glance wandered searchingly over the valley in which his life
had been passed. There it lay, green and fertile,--for the
south-western rains had fallen heavily and often during the last few
months. The black, krantzed ranges glowed in the noontide sun. The
last spot his eye rested upon before he crossed the saddle was the
little patch of vivid foliage surrounding the spring on the tiny ripples
of which his life and the lives of so many others had been wrecked.
Just on the edge of the copse the stream seemed to hang like a bright
jewel, as the sunlight glinted from the pure, limpid water.
As Gideon turned away his eyes grew moist for an instant, and he felt a
queer, unbidden feeling of almost tenderness for the brother with whom
among these hills and valleys he had played and hunted in the days of
his innocence, creeping like a tendril about his heart. But he crushed
the feeling down, and rode on with his hat pressed over his eyebrows.
On the other side of the mountain pass the outlook was different. He
was on the north-eastern limit of the coast rains. Bushmanland depended
for its uncertain rainfall upon thunderstorms from the north in the
summer season. But for two years no rain had fallen anywhere near the
southern fringe of the desert, so the plains which stretched forth
northward from Gideon's feet were utterly void of green vegetation.
To one familiar with the desert the sight before him had an awful
significance; it meant that there was no water, nor any vegetation worth
considering for at least a hundred and fifty miles. Gideon had known,
by the fact of the larger game flocking down into the valleys, that
Bushmanland was both verdureless and waterless, and that anyone who
should attempt to cross it would incur a terrible risk.
But nothing before him could compete for terror with what he was fleeing
from. Setting spurs to his horse Gideon passed the wagon; then he rode
ahead at a walk, the patient oxen following with the rumbling wagon,
upon his tracks.