In the Whirl of the Rising Part 31

Lamont had left them after his address, and was now examining the defences of the place. As he stood in the gathering darkness it was with a strange tingle of the pulses that he reflected upon the scene he had just left. This popularity to which he had thus suddenly sprung was not a little strange, in fact it was a little aweing. In what light would Clare Vidal view it? And then, at the thought of Clare, he felt more than devoutly grateful that he had been the means of saving her from a horrible death--and with it there intruded for the first time another thought. Had he thus saved her for himself?

Yes. The frozen horror with which he had received the announcement that morning, that she was advancing deeper and deeper into certain peril, and causing him to lose sight of his own fatigue and recent hards.h.i.+ps, to start off then and there to her aid, had opened his eyes; but--was it for good or for ill?

"There you are at last, Mr Lamont," said Clare, as he entered the living-room of the place. "We have been wondering what had become of you."

She was alone. There was a something in her tone, even in her look, which he had not noticed before--a sort of gravity, as though the old fun and brightness had taken to itself wings.

"I've been going around seeing to things. Where's Mrs Fullerton?"

"Gone to bed. She's got a splitting headache, and seems to have got a kind of frightened shock. d.i.c.k is with her now, but I'm going directly."

"I'm sorry to hear that. It has been a trying enough day for any woman, Heaven knows. But you, Miss Vidal. There isn't a man in the whole outfit that isn't talking of your splendid pluck."

She smiled, rather wanly he thought, and shook her head.

"I wish they'd forget it then. I wish I could. Oh, Mr Lamont--I have killed--men."

She uttered the words slowly, and in a tone of mingled horror and sadness. This, then, accounted for the changed expression of her face.

"Strictly and in absolute self-defence. Not only in _self_-defence but in defence of your helpless sister too. There is no room for one atom of self-reproach in that," he went on, speaking rapidly, vehemently.

"Not only that, but your courage and readiness were important factors in saving the situation until we arrived. Wyndham has been telling me all about it."

She smiled, but it was a hollow sort of smile, and shook her head.

"It is good of you to try and comfort me. But do you mean it really?"

"Every word, really and entirely. 'Men' you said just now. Beasts in the shape of men you ought to have said, and would have if you had seen what Peters and I saw only yesterday morning, only I don't want to shock you any further. Yes, on second thoughts I will though, if only to set those qualms of a too-sensitive conscience at rest. Well, we found the mutilated remains of poor Tewson, and his womenkind and children--little children, mind--whom these devils had murdered in their own home. I could tell you even more that would bring it home to you, but I won't.

Now, have you any further scruples of conscience?"

"No, I haven't," she answered, both face and tone hardening as she realised the atrocity in its full horror. "Thank you for telling me.

It has made a difference already. And now, Mr Lamont, I must go to my sister. You have saved us from a horrible death, and I don't know how to find words to thank you."

"Oh, as to that, you can incidentally count in about three dozen other men. Not a man jack of them but did just as much as I did--some even more."

She looked at him with such a sweet light glowing in her eyes, as well-nigh to unsteady him.

"I'll believe that," she said, "when you've answered one question."

"And it--?"

"Who got together these men the moment he knew we were in danger? Who, forgetting his own fatigue, started at a moment's notice, and, inspiring the others with the same energy and bravery, rescued us from a ghastly death? Who was it?"

"It was only what any man would have done. Oh, Clare, you can never realise what that moment meant to me when I heard that that blighting idiot Fullerton had started this morning--literally to hurl you on to the a.s.segais of these devils. You!"

In his vehemence he hardly noticed that he had used her Christian name.

She did, however, and smiled, and the smile was very soft and sweet.

"Me!" she echoed. "Didn't you think of poor Lucy too? Why only me?"

"Because I love you."

It was out now. His secret had been surprised from him. What would she say? They stood facing each other, in that rough room with its cheap oleographs of the Queen, the Kaiser, and Cecil Rhodes staring down upon them from the walls in the dingy light of an unfragrant oil-lamp, any moment liable to interruption. The smile upon her face became a shade sweeter.

"Say that again," she said.

"I love you."

She was now in his embrace, but she sought not to release herself from it. Bending down his head she put her lips to his ear and whispered, "Consider the compliment returned."

They said more than that, these two, who had thus so unpremeditatedly come together, but we do not feel under the necessity of divulging what they said. Perchance also they--_did_.

"I must really go now," she said at last, as footsteps were heard approaching. "Good-night--my darling."

And she disappeared with a happy laugh, leaving the other standing there in a condition little short of dazed, and sticking a pin into himself to make sure that he was actually awake and not merely dreaming.

Note. Literally 'flogging the name.' When a Zulu regiment returned from battle, those who had specially distinguished themselves were pointed at by the commanding induna and _named_ to the King. Each thus named came forward separately and danced before the King, recapitulating his deeds. The while his comrades in arms signalled his distinction by striking their s.h.i.+elds with their k.n.o.b-sticks and roaring out his name.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

AS AN OASIS.

Day dawned, cloudless and golden, in its full African splendour. The night had pa.s.sed without any alarm, but, to make sure, the force had divided the night between it to mount guard, that section of it off duty sleeping in the open--arms ready to hand.

Their leader appeared to be made of iron. Stirring events, peril, fatigue, had been crowded into his experience since his last night's sleep, four nights ago, but all seemed to go for nothing. He was here, there, everywhere, the night through, seeming to need no sleep. And with the first sign of a glimmer of dawn, the whole force was up and under arms, waiting and ready, for that is the hour--when sleep is heaviest, and vigilance in consequence relaxed--that the untiring savage favours for making his attack. But no such attack was made, and the night pa.s.sed quietly and without alarm, as we have said.

"Dash it all, Lamont! Why don't you turn in, man? You're overdoing it, you know. You haven't had forty winks for about four nights. You'll bust up all of a sudden, and at the wrong time, if you don't watch it.

How's that?"

Thus Peters, what time the tired and worn-out men were simply subsiding on the bare ground, and dropping off into log-like slumber the moment they touched it; and that under the glorious blue of the heavens and the sweeping gold of the newly risen sun.

"I couldn't sleep, Peters--no, not if I were paid to," was the answer.

"But I'm going to see if I can scare up a tub and a razor. At present I must be looking the most desperate ruffian you could _not_ wish to meet in a lonely lane."

Peters looked after him and shook his head, slowly and mournfully.

"He's got it," he said to himself. "By the Lord, he's got it. I could see that when, like the blithering a.s.s I am, I interrupted them that evening. No, it isn't sheer apt.i.tude for tough campaigning that keeps his peepers open when n.o.body else can keep theirs."

Peters was absolutely right. His friend and comrade was in a state of mental exaltation that reacted physically. He could hardly believe in his happiness, even yet. How had it come about? In his pride and cynicism it might have been months before he would have brought matters to the testing point--it is even conceivable it might have been never.

Yet, all unpremeditated and on the spur of the moment, he had done so-- and now, and now--

Good Heavens! life was too golden henceforward, and as the flaming wheel of the sun rose higher and higher in the unflecked blue, the glory of the newborn day seemed to Lamont to attune itself to the glow of happiness and peace which had settled down upon his whole being. The bloodshed and strife and ma.s.sacre! of which he had been a witness, was as a thing outside, a thing put completely behind.

It was decided that no move should be made that day. A bare suggestion that they should attempt the return to Gandela revived all poor Lucy Fullerton's terrors. She would sooner die at once, she declared, than go through the horrors of yesterday all over again.