A Veldt Vendetta Part 29

"You saw it? No, I don't quite follow."

Then he told me what had happened. Old Dumela, fearful for our safety, had warned the neighbours, and had in process of doing so met Brian himself, returning home sooner than was expected. Further, by a piece of great good fortune, a patrol of Mounted Police was making its round, and, joining bands, they had come up in the very nick of time. There would have been nothing left of either of us a minute later, he declared. But that sudden move of mine had saved Beryl. I had received the weapon intended for her.

Well, I knew this of course, but was not aware that she did. Now her care for me stood explained. Its motive was grat.i.tude, and I--well, I had been allowing a sweet new hope to take possession of my mind while I had been lying there, helpless and tended by her, the sight of her gladdening my eyes.

Then Brian went on to tell me the sequel to that fearful night. No one but myself had been seriously injured in the scrimmage. The quickness and unexpected manner of the move made by Kuliso had saved the chief's life, although by a hair's breadth, for the bullet from Beryl's pistol had pa.s.sed so close to his head as nearly to stun him by the concussion.

He had been arrested, but discharged on the insufficiency of evidence connecting him with the murder; but his arrest had produced this amount of good, that his people, anxious for the safety of their chief, had given away the actual murderers, and these proved to be Sibuko, Maqala and one other, who were now awaiting trial.

Not for nothing, then, had my suspicions been aroused by the sight of these two scoundrels hanging about the place, and now I told Brian about it. He sighed.

"Yes," he said. "It's the first and only time I knew the dear old dad commit a serious error of judgment, and heavily he's paid for it. By the way, the double funeral came off here--and was hugely attended. All the world seemed to have rolled up. Do you know, Kenrick, I can hardly stick it on the farm now. You've no idea what it's like without him."

He broke off. And then for some minutes we two grown men were simply not able to speak.

"It's a fortunate thing Beryl did not succeed in shooting that villain Kuliso," he said at last. "Not that he didn't richly deserve it, but--I don't like to think what the result might have been. The law is a very hard-and-fast customer to deal with."

"Yes. I pointed that out to her at the time. But what could I do?"

"Nothing--simply nothing. If I had been there I might have done very much the same sort of thing as she did."

"What's this? Our patient seems to have taken a jump forward," said Pentridge, entering at that moment. "Not been making him talk a lot, have you, Brian?"

"No fear. I've been doing all the talking," was the answer. "Only telling him about things."

"Let me congratulate you, Holt, on the abnormal thickness of your skull," laughed Pentridge. "Otherwise a shattered egg-sh.e.l.l would have been the word instead of a tidy bout of brain fever, not to mention a well-delivered a.s.segai jab beneath the fifth rib."

"You seem to have patched me up, though, to some purpose," I said. And after a few cheery remarks he left me, with a parting injunction to Brian not to let me talk.

But after that I made no more "jumps forward." On the contrary, I was going back. I grew listless and seemed to feel no interest in anything, and my prevailing thought was that it was a pity I had returned to life at all. I even expostulated with Beryl for her attention to me.

Pentridge was puzzled.

"I can't make it out at all," I overheard him say one day during a whispered conversation with Beryl. "We ought to have had him on his legs again by now; but he seems determined to cheat me, and that in the wrong direction. Has he anything on his mind, do you know, Miss Matterson?"

"Well, in point of fact, I think he has," she answered with some hesitation. "Of a business nature, he gave me to understand. Of course, I am telling you this in strict confidence, and only then because it might be a guide to you in the treatment of his case."

"Ah! Now I wonder if it would do him any good if he were allowed to see his letters."

"It might."

"All right. Let him have them when he wakes. May do him good, and nothing can do him more harm than brooding over an idea. Good-bye."

I lay with my eyes closed for some time after Pentridge had gone out, thinking over the irony of the situation; for I called to mind our conversation in the garden, and how the position was now exactly that which I had laughingly conjured up. Then I pretended to wake.

"Would you like to see your letters, Kenrick? The doctor says you may now."

I yawned.

"Very kind of him. I don't suppose they're worth the trouble. If there's anything of importance in them it's sure to be bad news or worse. Well, let's have them, Beryl."

There were three, somewhat old as to date. Two were of no importance; but the third! As I glanced dizzily through it, my head swam and the blood rushed to my face, for I was still weak. I dropped back on the pillows.

"Read it, Beryl," I gasped. "Read it for me--for I can't see. Read every word, date and all."

She glanced at me anxiously. Then, rightly judging that it would be better to comply than keep me in a state of agonising suspense, she read it.

Then I, drinking in every word, was hardly able to believe my ears, for the letter was from my agents and expressive of great regret for any inconvenience and anxiety to which their former communication might have put me. They could not conceive how such a mistake could have occurred, but the fact was the funds by some error had not been paid in to the defaulting firm, though only just in time had this course been avoided.

Consequently they themselves now held the sum in question awaiting my disposal, and begged to remain, etc., etc.

My little all was saved!

"Read it again, Beryl. Read it again. And be particular as to dates."

She obeyed, and even while she did so her hand dropped upon mine as it lay on the counterpane.

"Oh, Kenrick, I am so glad. I can't tell you how glad I am. Only, remember, my instinct was a true one. Did I not tell you how everything would come right?"

"Yes. But it hasn't. I mean not for me."

"How? Instead of being ruined, as you thought, you are just where you were before. Isn't that coming right?"

"No. I want a great deal more than that. I want--you."

I was looking her straight in the face. A flush came into it, and there was the sweetest, tenderest glow in her eyes. It seemed that the hand which rested in mine returned the pressure.

"Beryl--darling--my love for you has been steadily growing since we first became inmates of the same house. I was on the point of telling you so when that idiot Trask came clattering in upon us that day we were riding back from Stacey's. Then, afterwards, as you know, there were other things that made the time not an opportune one; and the day before you returned home I got the news that made me think I was a beggar."

"Yes. And you took to behaving very strangely towards me then, as I think I told you."

"Shall I tell you something, dearest? I was beastly jealous of Pentridge."

"Were you? Well, you needn't be ever again. Shall I tell _you_ something, dearest--only as a secret? He asked me to marry him."

"The day he left?"

She nodded.

"I thought he would," I said. "And--why didn't you?"

"Because I greatly preferred some one else."

"Who is the 'some one else'?"

"If you will promise not to talk any more--you have already talked a great deal too much--I'll tell you. You will? Well, then--" and the look upon her face was to my eyes simply heavenly, as she bent down her sweet lips to my ear, touched it with them, and whispered just one word: "You."

I hardly know what the next few moments contained, except that it was far too radiantly blissful to put into mere words. Then looking down upon me, her cool hand lovingly moving over my forehead and temples, she said--

"Now you will be quick and get well--for my sake, won't you, Kenrick dear?"