A Secret of the Lebombo Part 14

Supper, that evening, was not a particularly convivial inst.i.tution; in fact, the conversation was mainly sustained by Warren. Even the two small boys were instinctively subdued.

"By Jove, I believe we are going to have a storm," said Warren, as they got up. "We'd better saddle up and _trek_ before it comes, eh, Wyvern?"

"Well, you might just escape it," said Le Sage, with alacrity. "I'll go and see about getting the horses up."

The sun was setting in gloomy, lurid fire behind an opaque curtain of inky cloud, as they went forth into the open air; which said air was strangely still and boding and oppressive, though now and again a fitful puff would bring dull distant rumblings of thunder. Wyvern went round with his uncordial host to the stables, while the others remained on the _stoep_ to watch it.

"I don't seem to like starting in the face of this," said Warren. "It's coming up and we shall get it thick about half way."

"Then don't start," said Lalante decisively. "We can easily put you up.

Ah--look!"

A succession of vivid flashes lit up the gloomy murk in the distance, followed immediately by a heavy, detonating roar.

"I believe you're right," said Warren, meditatively. "By Jove, it's coming on at express pace--right for us, too."

"One thing is certain," p.r.o.nounced Lalante, not even trying to suppress the jubilant ring in her voice, "and that is that you two can't possibly go: back to-night. It isn't safe. Look how the storm is working up, right across your road too. No, you can't. Now, can you, Mr Warren?"

"I'm in Wyvern's hands," answered Warren with a laugh, "and he, I suspect, is in yours."

"Very well. That settles it. Come. We'll go round and tell them not to bother about getting up the horses, for you're both going to stop the night. I'm horribly afraid of lightning--for other people."

The livid, inky cloud was slowly and surely advancing, and as she had said, it was right across the road back to Seven Kloofs. As the two went forth a distant but heavy boom rolled dully to their ears.

"For other people?" repeated Warren significantly. "And for yourself?

You are never afraid?"

"No, I don't believe I am."

Warren looked at her with warm admiration, and something else--which he succeeded in disguising the more easily that--as we have said--she was in total ignorance of those two portraits which he cherished in secret.

"Here, father," she called out, as they reached the place where Le Sage and Wyvern were standing, "call those boys back. The horses won't be wanted till to-morrow. Just look what an awful storm there is working up. Right across the way too."

"By Jove, so there is," said Le Sage. "Hope it means real rain, that's all. You two 'll have to shake down here to-night."

The swift glance exchanged between Wyvern and Lalante did not escape Warren. To those two the coming storm had brought reprieve. Only of a few hours it was true, but--still a reprieve. Their real farewell had been made, still--

Throwing out its dark and jagged streamers in advance, the black curtain of cloud came driving up. A blinding gleam, and one of those awful metallic crashes that are as though the world itself were cleft in twain, and, ever growing louder as it drew nearer, a confused raving roar.

"Hail, by Jove!" p.r.o.nounced Le Sage. "That's a nuisance because it means little or no rain. Where are those two youngsters, Lalante?"

"Indoors."

"And that's where we'd better get, and pretty soon," p.r.o.nounced Wyvern.

But before they got there a hard and splitting impact caused all to hurry their pace, for it was as though they were being pelted with stones; and indeed they were, for the great white ice-globes came cras.h.i.+ng down, as with a roar like that of an advancing tidal wave the mighty hailstorm was upon them; in its terrific clamour almost drowning the bellowing of the thunder.

"We're well out of that," went on Wyvern, as they gained the shelter of the house. "By George, if one had come in for it in an open camp, it would have been a case of covering one's head with one's saddle. The stones are as big as hens' eggs. I've only seen it like that once before. Look."

Outside, the enormous hailstones lay like a fall of ice; and as the blue spectral gleams of lightning fell upon the scene the effect was one of marvellous beauty. It was as though a rain of gigantic diamonds was cleaving and illuminating the darkness, while the layer which overspread the ground flashed out a million points of incandescence. Then, with receding roar, the hail cloud whirled on its course, and there was stillness as of death, save for an intermittent roll of thunder.

Lalante had found herself drawn to a window--the others were crowding the doorway--and as she pressed to her side the arm that encircled her, she gazed forth upon the weird scene of storm and terror with a kind of ecstasy, and, in her heart, blessing it. But for it she would now be alone--alone and heart-wrung. The evil hour was only postponed--but it was postponed--and they stood thus, close together in the darkness, silent in their sweet, sad happiness.

"We'll be able to ice our grog to-night, Le Sage," said Warren presently in his breezy way.

"Why, yes. We'd better have some too--and we may as well have some light upon the scene. See to it, Lalante."

"All right, father," said the girl, cheerfully, but inwardly furiously anathematising Warren for breaking up her last solitude _a deux_. For she instinctively realised there would be no further opportunity of its renewal--either to-night or to-morrow.

Nor--was there.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

BULLY RAWSON--GENERAL RUFFIAN.

Bully Rawson lay in his camp in the Lumisana Forest in north-eastern Zululand. He was playing cards with himself, and as he played he cursed.

Primarily he cursed because he could not quite bring off a move in the game which, with a real adversary, would inevitably give him an advantage--profitable but wholly illicit. Secondarily he cursed merely by way of something to say. Thirdly and generally, he cursed from sheer force of habit; but whichever way he did it, and from whatever motive, Bully Rawson's language was entirely unprintable, and, in its relation to the higher Powers, rather bloodcurdling even to those who were by no means straight-laced.

Now, blowing off a fine stream of such expletive, he rose to his feet, and flung the whole pack of cards high in the air. Naturally they would descend in a wide and scattered shower, then he would make his Swazi boy pick them up again, and kick him for not doing it quick enough. This would relieve his feelings some; and would be consistent with the methods he usually adopted to justify his _sobriquet_.

Seen erect he was a heavy, thick-set man, with a countenance that was forbidding to the last degree. His nose had at one time been broken, and his eyes rolled fiercely beneath s.h.a.ggy black eyebrows. He wore a long black beard, just turning grey in parts, and plentifully anointed with tobacco juice; and his hands, knotted and gnarled, seemed to point to enormous muscular strength. He looked round upon the sunlit forest, cursed again, then turned to enter a circular thorn enclosure within which rose the yellow domes of half a dozen gra.s.s huts.

Two native girls--well-formed as to frame, and with faces that would have been pleasing only that the bare sight of Bully Rawson was not calculated to bring a pleasant expression into any human countenance-- were squatted on the ground. Both wore the _impiti_, or reddened cone of hair rising from the scalp, together with the ap.r.o.n-like _mutya_ which denotes the married state. They were, in fact, his two wives.

"Where is Pakisa?" he said.

"He? Away at the wood-cutting," answered one.

"You two then, go and pick up the 'pictures' I have scattered."

"And the meat I am roasting--what of it?" said the one who had answered.

"You, Nompai," turning to the other, "You go--_au_! _tyetya_!"

This one got up and went out without a word--taking care not to pa.s.s this manly specimen any nearer than she could help. As she rose she slung an infant on to her back--an infant far lighter in colour than the lightest native.

"You, Nkombazana, you are rising to the heavens," he sneered. "You are growing too tall for me. Now I think some hard stick laid about thy bones will keep thee from growing so over fast."

The woman's eyes glittered, and a sort of snarl just revealed the fine white teeth. But she did not move. She only said:

"The Snake-doctor--_whau_! his _muti_ is great and subtle."

The white man, in the voice of a wild beast's growl, fired off a storm of expletives, mixing up Anglo-Saxon where the Zulu fell short of lurid enough blasphemy. But Nkombazana answered nothing, and still did not move.

He made a step towards her, then stopped short. The allusion was one he perfectly understood, and it seemed--yes, it seemed almost to cow him.

With her he knew well it would not do to go too far. She was a Zulu, and the daughter of a fairly influential chief; the other, Nompai, was a Swazi and the daughter of n.o.body in particular, wherefore Nompai came in for her own share of kicks, and most--not all--of Nkombazana's too. He had a lively recollection of a sudden and unaccountable illness--an internal illness--which had seized upon him on a fairly recent occasion, and which for hours had put him through the torments of the d.a.m.ned.