Jasper Lyle Part 29

"It may seem cruel to say so little, but day is dawning. You know how averse I am to decide suddenly on momentous points. Ere long the family will be a.s.sembled for prayer; we shall meet there; till then, adieu, dear Eleanor."

Eleanor found this note on her dressing-table. She dwelt most upon the three last words.

She was first in the school-room, Mr Trail followed, and the household wors.h.i.+ppers were soon collected. As Eleanor was leaving the room, Frankfort drew near. They shook hands. It was a friendly greeting on his part; she bent her head and walked slowly by, he did not follow.

In after-life Frankfort would look back on that day as the most momentous in his existence--even more so than that terrible one on which--

But, what am I doing? Antic.i.p.ating what it is not yet time you should know, my reader.

He was absent the greater part of the day, meditating in the solitude of the hills. The little settlement lay below the mountain slope where he sat. It was a busy, happy, thriving place; the sunlight fell on richly-cultivated lands and herds of fine cattle, the vineyard was filled with workers; Marian and Ormsby were there laughing, he wreathing her brow with a garland of grapes and vine-leaves--she looked like a Bacchante; their voices in gay harmony floated up the green hill-side; women and children were seated in shady nooks at work and at play; the Trails and Mr and Mrs Daveney were walking up and down the avenue in earnest conversation.

In contrast to this scene of employment and cheerfulness, was Eleanor reclining beneath the corallodendrum tree in the sequestered spot where she and Frankfort had held their last meeting.

She was in a deep reverie; her head rested on her hand--her looks were bent upon the ground. Frankfort could see her distinctly from where he sat; they were only severed from each other by the ravine through which sang the rill that irrigated the vineyard.

And was it in his power to shed light and life on the pathway of this desolate young creature?

Motionless she sat as a statue, little dreaming that he, whose image had filled her thoughts, was so near.

With all her philosophy, inborn, and lately taught by Mr Trail, she could not help considering her lot a severe one; but she called to mind the good minister's reply, on her observing, in the words of the Psalmist, "I thought to understand this, but it was too hard for me."

"Yes," he had said, "too hard for _us_ to understand; but look to the words that follow: 'until I went into the sanctuary of G.o.d, then understood! the end of these things.'"

She rose and resolved on seeking the good teacher; but ere she had moved many paces along the turf, Frankfort stood beside her.

Love, charity, and tenderness of heart had triumphed over all selfish considerations; the power of this patient, suffering, wronged creature happy superseded all other sentiments.

The power of making others happy! How few estimate this divine and lofty attribute as they should! How few understand or prize the possession of it!

Again Eleanor and Frankfort met together beside the little fountain, which glittered like silver in the emerald gla.s.s; day was declining ere they thought of moving. They had sat, hand clasped in hand, their hearts too full for utterance save in whispers, till the shadow of the corallodendrums lengthened on the sward.

They rose to return to the house.

"Let us go to my father and mother," said Eleanor,

Hark, a sound!--something whirred past them, and descended so swiftly that they saw nothing till the long, slender shaft of an a.s.segai quivered upright in the ground, within a few paces of their feet. May, who had, un.o.bserved by them, been gathering water-cresses immediately below the Devil's Kloof, started up before them. He had not from the hollow observed them; the three stood for a minute or two utterly confounded.

Frankfort drew the weapon out in haste, and hurried Eleanor to the house; they met Marion and Ormsby, mirthful as ever.

"We were going to look for you," said Ormsby, with a sly smile; but a glance at Frankfort told of serious matter.

On reaching the house, and relating what had occurred, Mrs Daveney congratulated Frankfort on having escaped danger from lurkers in the hills during his morning saunter with his rifle, which, by the way, he had forgotten to use. Lights were brought. Mr Daveney said little, but took the a.s.segai in hand to examine it.

There were some letters scratched on its polished blade; they gathered round to look. On the one side was inscribed the year "18--;" Mrs Daveney held the lamp nearer; on the other, deeply and freshly indented, were two words--

The date was barely a month old. Oh! that shriek! those appalled faces!

Mr Daveney took his insensible daughter Eleanor in his arms, and carried her away; her mother covered her face with her hands. They had no doubt _now_ who was the agitator in Kafirland.

Before sunset a scout came in, breathlessly announcing that slender wreaths of smoke were beginning to curl up on the points of the hills, and that a Kafir herald, with a feather at his ankle, had been seen by the herds stealing up a pathway from the kloof. Some of these herds had probably followed him, for there were deserters among the farm-servants.

"Then," said Mrs Daveney, "this is the surest sign of an attack, if we wanted no other evidence of mischief. And now, G.o.d help us!" She withdrew with Marion.

At midnight the watch-fires sparkled on the mountains, and along the more distant ridges the war-cry sounded faintly; but before morning dawned it rang out, loud, prolonged, and clear, and the settlers at Annerley knew that Kafirland was "up."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE SUNLESS KLOOF.

Meanwhile, guided by Doda, Lee, or, as we may now call him, Lyle, threaded his way through some of those innumerable defiles which, cleaving the great mountains of the Amakosa country in twain, afford covert for many a marauding party with its cattle; and, having pa.s.sed the Zonga River, the two wanderers sat down to rest in a "murky glen,"

impervious to the sun.

At the time when the people at Umlala's Kraal were intent on torturing the unhappy Amayeka, Lyle and Doda were quietly preparing to refresh themselves with such provision as they had brought with them, and both were not a little startled at hearing the branches in the jungle giving way before some footsteps. There was a crash close to them; two horns emerged from the speck boom, or elephant bush, the head of a huge ox became visible, the body followed, and then two dusky figures. These were our old friend Zoonah and a thieving comrade. The animal had been abstracted from a kloof, where a herd of stolen cattle had been concealed, and the worthy pair had sought this solitary spot with intent to slaughter the beast, and keep holiday as long as it lasted.

The apparition of a white man, seated beside Doda, elicited from them the usual exclamation of "Ma-wo!" but the party very soon understood each other, and the three Kafirs having _reimed_ the poor creature, they proceeded to destroy it after their own fas.h.i.+on, which I should be sorry to describe. Suffice it to say, that the wretched animal, being secured beyond all power of resistance, was deprived of its tongue by the most cruel process, and its skin subjected to the a.s.segai ere it was fairly dead.

Of late years the Kafirs have abandoned this shocking mode of slaughter; but some of them, when beyond the influence of the white man, or of their less, savage chiefs, will occasionally adhere to the old custom.

Lyle gave up all idea of proceeding on his journey that day; he knew his friends too well to suppose they would separate with such a feast before them. It is just to him to say that he turned with horror and disgust from the quivering body of the poor ox, and would have ended its agony by shooting it, had it been prudent to use firearms.

The three Kafirs--Doda, Zoonah, and Lulu--applied themselves to the plentiful meal before them with a gusto indescribable, and then lay down to sleep. Lyle would have travelled on alone, but this was impracticable, as the only paths that could be safely traversed were new to him; so he was fain to stretch himself on the gra.s.s, and reconsider his plans, which could not be matured till he came face to face with his desperate colleagues, the disaffected Boers. Zoonah was to be questioned as to what he knew of colonial matters, for Doda informed Lyle that he was a well-known spy; but greediness and sloth are the princ.i.p.al characteristics of the Kafir, and till these inclinations were satisfied, nothing could be elicited. Lyle knew that; so, giving way to weariness himself, he, too, fell asleep.

But for this, the noise of the explosion at Umlala's Kraal might have reached them.

They slept on through the hour of noon, till the sun, reaching its meridian, pierced even the dense jungle with a ray or two of light, and Lyle rose, and would have rejoiced much in a cool bath, had there been a stream near; but the torrent that in the rainy season roared and tumbled over the rocks in the middle of the kloof was almost dry; he could only lave his face and hands in the pools, but even this was refres.h.i.+ng.

The three Kafirs were talking together as he ascended the bank, and Doda related to him the tradition of the Sunless Kloof.

It was here that the first white man had been seen by the Amakosas. "He came," said Doda, "from there," pointing westward. "The tribes whom this wild rider--for he was on horseback--pa.s.sed on the way were too much terrified to stop him--the covering on his head was supposed to be part of it, but when he lifted it, it caused still greater surprise. He was seen to get off his horse at one time, and the people followed the spoor. They had never seen shoes then; and the print of his feet, so different to our own, made them believe he was not formed like ourselves. He carried in his hand a long hollow weapon, from which there came forth fire, smoke, and thunder; and the horse, being an animal never before seen by Kafirs, caused deeper dread. The natives shunned him as a being not of earth. Some killed cattle on his approach, and placed it in his way as a peace-offering, and, in return, he would leave beads and tobacco beside it. Some honoured him as a wizard; from him the 'Wizard's Glen' takes its name, for his footprints were discovered there one day. He had nearly reached the sea, when Narini's people, believing him to be some unnatural animal, determined to kill him, and, watching him from the rocks, hunted him down, and a.s.segaied him. Since then, men have said that he was one of a tribe of white people, who had been sent by their chief to the country beyond s.h.i.+loh: almost all were murdered. Some found their way back by the Winterberg, but this one must have intended, to seek the Zooluh country, where it was known that a race with white skins, but hair dark as the crow's wing, exchanged beads for slaves." [The Portuguese settled on the south-east coast.]

Doda ceased to speak, and Zoonah and Lulu commenced singing a wild air, the first words of which were intended to imitate the clatter of a horse's hoof.

"Ite cata, cata mawooka, Na injormane."

"Clatter clatter, he is going; He goes with a horse, he goes with speed."

Over and over again they repeated this inharmonious, monotonous "Ite cata, cata mawooka," and then drew the embers of the fire together, and prepared to set to work anew upon some fresh steaks of meat.

So, sleeping, and eating, and talking alternately, these savages pa.s.sed the day in the Sunless Kloof. Lyle was content to wait till nightfall ere he advanced, and as he was able to understand much of the language of these children of the wilderness, he listened not without interest to a conversation between Doda and Lulu, the latter never having been located, like Doda and Zoonah, among the missionaries. He had lately, however, paid, a visit to one of the larger frontier towns, where he had heard an account of a criminal's execution; he had not seen it himself, and therefore was sceptical.

"I do not doubt," said Doda, "for I have been told by the teacher that the English always kill a murderer." [The literal translation is, "one murders another."]

"And I," remarked Zoonah, "have conversed with people who have described the manner in which they kill them by hanging them with string by the neck on poles."

Lulu, after thinking for some minutes, observed, "The English must have more people than they can manage?"

"Why do you say so?" asked Doda, who, being the elder, took the lead in the conversation.