Early in the morning after the arrival of Stephanus, the mob of cattle
was driven in and with the assistance of some of the Hottentots a fairly
good span of oxen was sorted out. Then the wagon was loaded with
provisions and water, and Stephanus started in pursuit of the brother
who had fled before his accusing face. Elsie insisted on accompanying
her father; Stephanus, full of the trust in Providence which he had
attained to through suffering,--imbued with that sublime confidence
which had come to him in his nine years of repentance, prayer and
watching,--made no objection.
A great happiness welled up in Aletta's heart and seemed to transfigure
her, body and soul. She felt that her dark hour had indeed been the
prelude to a day brighter than her starved soul had known for many
years. With feverish haste she completed the preparations for
departure, and when the wagon rolled away up the steep kloof-track, its
fresh team of sixteen drawing it with hardly an effort, she watched it
until her sight grew dim with happy tears. Then she and Stephanus knelt
down and he breathed forth a prayer as humbly exultant as ever the rapt
singer of Israel uttered like trumpet blast whose sound still fills the
centuries.
Afterwards, Stephanus followed the wagon on horseback, and Aletta turned
to the joyful task of garnishing the dismal, unkempt house in
preparation for her husband's return.
At the top of the saddle the oxen were outspanned and driven to the
spring to take their last drink before entering the region of thirst.
Stephanus, like Gideon--but with what different feelings--looked back
and let his eye luxuriate upon the fertile valley. How sweet and
peaceful it all looked.--How the frowning krantzes shut it in on each
side, their stark forms accentuating the soft slopes that billowed away
from their bases. He could see the patch of scrub that hid the
spring,--and the silvern water issuing from it,--like a jewelled
pendant. The forenoon sun took the foliage at an angle which turned its
usual hue to a rich, full tint. That spot was the pivot upon which his
life and that of his brother had turned, and from which they had been
whirled off into such strange regions.
He turned his gaze until it swept the blackened desert across which his
course lay, but the prospect had for him no dismay. He knew by
experience the dangers that lay before him, but his faith was to him as
a strong shield and a buckler of might against all evil. Elsie stood at
his side and held his horny, toil-worn hand between hers that were so
soft and white. Few words passed between the father and daughter; they
were content just to be together. She, happy in the fulfilment of her
long-deferred hope,--he, exultant with the feeling that he was fighting
Satan for his brother's soul and confident of victory.
The thoughts of Stephanus moved upon a stage higher than Elsie's could
attain to. To Stephanus the presence of his beloved child was enough to
fill his heart with joy. She seemed to be the embodiment of peace,--the
dove that had come back across the troubled waters of his life. But
over and above this towered high the realisation of the task laid upon
him,--the lifting of his brother's life from the slough in which it had
been so long sunk. To Elsie happiness and duty were one; to her father
his great happiness and his burning responsibility were different and,
as it were, filled separate chambers of his mind.
It was noon by the time the oxen again stood in the yoke. The trail of
Gideon's wagon lay plainly marked across the sand, far below. Stephanus
could see between the stones--close to where he stood, the clear print
of his brother's large _veldschoen_; Gideon had here paced restlessly to
and fro. Yonder was the spot where he had stood gazing back into the
valley which he deemed he had left for ever; there he had paused to cast
his haggard eyes across the desert which he meant should be his
dwelling-place henceforth. It seemed to Stephanus as though he could
enter into all the phases of his brother's mind at this spot where the
physical conditions seemed to suggest appraisement of the probabilities
of the future as well as of the results of the past. He felt as though
standing on the boundary-line between two worlds.
Then, with brake-shoe fixed to the wheel the wagon jolted heavily down
the mountain side until it reached the red and burning sand-waste which
seemed to stretch northward to infinity.
At every outspan place could be seen the remains of the fires lit by the
fugitive. These places were far apart; it was clear that Gideon had
made desperate efforts to put as many miles as possible between himself
and his injured brother.
The wilderness was in a frightful state of aridity, so the unhappy
cattle suffered much from thirst. Stephanus always let them rest in the
heat of the day; in the evening he would inspan and then push on through
the cool hours of the night. The leader had no difficulty, by the
diffused light of the stars, in following the wheel-tracks.
Elsie would lie sleeping in the wagon, undisturbed by the least jolt,
for the surface of the plain was as soft as down. Her father would walk
ahead under the liquid stars, which seemed to look down upon him with
more than human sympathy and understanding. During his captivity
Stephanus had never seen the sky at night; thus, the memory of what had
always strongly influenced him became idealised in his awakened and
alert soul. Now, the vastness and the thrilling mystery of the night
skies seemed to have fused with his purpose, and his spirit inhabited
the infinite.
The travellers had brought enough water in kegs for their own personal
needs, but day by day the agonies of the wretched cattle increased. The
Hottentot driver and leader became more and more uneasy, feeling
themselves in danger of that worst of all deaths,--a long-drawn death of
thirst in the desert. But Stephanus was sustained by his lofty trust,
and never doubted that they would issue safely from their difficulties.
Each forenoon as the mocking mirage was painted athwart the northern
sky, the clear, wide stream of the far-fountained Gariep, with its
fringe of vivid green boskage, seemed as though lifted out of the depths
of the awful gorge and hung across the heavens for their torment.
One morning they saw the red-mounded dunes quivering far ahead in the
ratified air, slightly to their right. Stephanus and the Hottentots
knew this region by repute, and accordingly recognised the fact that
their last and most terrible effort was now at hand,--that now they
would have to plough their way through some ten miles of sand so light
and loose that the wheels of the wagon would sink in it to the axles.
Once through the sand-hills, they would be within a day's journey of
that cleft in the black mountains through which the cattle might be
driven to the river.
The day smote them with fury. The sand became so hot that it blistered
the soles of their feet through the _veldschoens_. The wind, heavily
charged with fine, red sand, was moaning and shrieking across the waste.
Their only chance lay in keeping moving, for the drifting sand would
have buried the wagon, if stationary, in a few hours. But the moment
came when the unhappy cattle were unable to advance with the wagon
another step, so had to be outspanned.
The oxen staggered away for a few paces and sank exhausted to the
ground. It was clear that without water, not one of them would ever
rise again. It was now the eighth day since they had last drunk their
fill. The Hottentots surrendered themselves to despair. Stephanus
knelt in the sand and lifted heart and voice in supplication to his God.