A Veldt Official Part 24

"Mona, what is it? Mona! Mona! What in the world is the matter? Good heavens!"

And Grace Suffield, startled from her bed by the loud ringing cry, stands, candle in hand, within her cousin's room, shaking with apprehension and alarm. And small blame to her.

For Mona is standing at the open window. The shutters are thrown back, and her tall, white-clad form, half shrouded in her streaming hair, is framed against the oblong patch of bright stars. And she is gazing out upon the midnight waste, with eyes dilated in a wild, wistful, anguished look, as though she were striving to pierce the darkness and distance, and would give her life for the power to do so. It was a weird sight, and chilled Grace Suffield with an eerie and awesome creep, for it was evident that, in spite of her erect att.i.tude and open eyes, Mona was not awake.

What was she to do? Mona had never been given to sleep-walking. Some appalling and powerful dream must have disturbed her. To wake her might be dangerous--the shock would be too great. But in this dilemma Mona turned round suddenly, and her eyes catching the glare of the light, she shut them. Then pa.s.sing her hand over them two or three times she opened them once more--and beyond a slight start no sign was there that this was other than an ordinary awakening.

"Is that you, Grace!" she said wonderingly. "Why, what's wrong? Any of the children ill?"

"No, dear. But you--I thought I heard you call for something."

Thick and clear the waves of recollection flowed back upon Mona's mind.

She started, shuddered, and again that scared look came into her eyes, but she quickly recovered herself.

"It was more than a dream," she said, speaking half to herself. "Yes, it was not a mere dream--it was a warning. Grace, _he_ has been in danger, and I have warned him. Yes, I have, and I feel confident now.

He is safe. My warning has been heard."

Had it? Had the temporarily released soul, hovering above its slumbering tenement, the power to bridge over such material matter as distance and s.p.a.ce? Was it given to the dream-voice, winged by the will-power of the strength and despair of love, to dart forth through the midnight spheres until it should thrill upon the unconscious ears, which a moment later might be beyond hearing aught again in this world?

Who can say?

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

A VOICE THROUGH THE NIGHT.

Having rested himself and his steed, and still farther diminished the contents of his saddle bag, Roden filled and lighted another pipe, and began to think about saddling up.

He sent a last look around, but no sign of life was there, save for a faint column of blue smoke rising in the distance. Attentively he gazed at this. Did it mean another burning house, a smoke signal, or a camp of friend or foe? It was impossible to say; at any rate, it was a long way off, and what was more to the purpose, nowhere near his line of route. Satisfied on this point, and feeling on excellent terms with himself and all the world, he rose and made his way down to where his steed was grazing.

But now some trouble awaited; for he had knee-haltered the animal with too great a length of _reim_, and rather carelessly as to the knot, consequently the latter had slipped, leaving the horse almost as free as though he were loose. So now as he walked quietly up, speaking softly and soothingly, to secure his steed, Roden saw that he would need all his patience.

For the young horse was of a fidgety habit, and, as though aware of his power, no sooner did his rider extend a hand to catch him than, with a loud snort, he swung wildly round, placing his tail where his head should be. Another attempt, more coaxing, only met with a like result.

The exasperating brute would allow the hand to approach within halt a yard of the _reim_, then would slew round as before.

This trick is a common enough one in the 'cussedness' of equine economy.

It is about as exasperating as anything in this wicked world, and if there exists an average man who, being the victim of it, refrains from using terrible language aloud or _secreto_, why, in the plenitude of our experience we never fell in with him. At any rate, Roden Musgrave was not such a one, though he so far varied upon usual custom by d.a.m.ning, not the horse, but himself, and his own inconceivable carelessness in making such a bungling job of the knee-haltering.

The plan under the circ.u.mstances is craftily to manoeuvre the obdurate quadruped against a bush or a fence. Here, of course, there was no fence, and the only bush was that which grew around the stony _kopje_ to which we have alluded, and thither, in accordance with the much-belauded equine intelligence--which, by the way, invariably shows itself in the wrong direction--nothing on earth would persuade this fiendish beast to proceed. Anywhere else, but--not there.

Roden tried another plan, that of waiting. He would have given much for a good forty yards of lariat, but 'roping' cattle and horses is a process unknown in South Africa, consequently he was without that highly serviceable Western implement. Then having waited to allow the horse to calm down again, he advanced once more to the attack.

It was not an atom of use. The young horse put his head down with a snort of defiance, and slewed round more wildly than before. He seemed positively to enjoy the fun of the thing, to enter into the joke with a fiendish glee. It was a joke, however, which might prove a grim one for his rider.

And such indeed it did prove. The _reim_, an old one, or containing a flaw, suddenly gave way. His leg now free, and at its normal distance from his chin once more, up went the n.o.ble animal's nose into the air, and with a defiant whisk of the tail, which seemed to a.s.sert a determination to enjoy his newly gained liberty, away he started at a smart trot, which soon changed to a gallop, heading for all he knew how in the direction of the camp he had left that morning.

Those who prate about the marvellous intelligence of the equine race, are still under the magic of the story-books of their youth. This representative of it no sooner found himself free than he started off-- whither? Not, be it observed, for his master's stable, where excellent quarters and plenteousness of mealies and forage awaited, and which in point of distance was the nearer, they having covered more than half of the journey. Oh no; but back to the camp, back to the scene of his recent hard work, patrols, and scantiness of feed beyond that wherewith Nature had covered the veldt. An intelligent beast, in truth! Nor was he a phenomenal specimen of his kind.

Roden Musgrave, watching his steed vanis.h.i.+ng in the distance, followed, we fear, the example of the British army in Flanders. He swore terribly. He was human enough to estimate what he would give to be seated across that now departed quadruped for ten minutes or so, armed with a strong new sjambok, and a pair of long-rowelled spurs; and indeed, the provocation was great.

Well, he was in a pretty plight; alone, dismounted, in the middle of the hostile ground, night drawing on, and only a hazy idea of his route.

His boast to Darrell that he could easily evade parties of the enemy was well founded enough when he made it, for the Kaffirs possessed but few horses, and those few, thanks to having been ridden almost from foalhood, of weedy and undersized proportions. Now it was different.

He could no more distance the fleet-footed savages than they could have overtaken him when mounted. On foot, he was at their mercy.

There was only one thing to be done under the circ.u.mstances. Since he could not ride, he must walk. No sooner decided than acted upon.

Hiding the saddle and bridle among the bush on the _kopje_, and pocketing what remained of his store of provision, he started. Nearly an hour had been lost in his attempts at capturing his miserable traitor of a steed, and now the sun was already down. Well, so much the better.

Travelling would be safer by night than by day.

To one accustomed to ride, nothing is more disconcerting than to find himself unexpectedly dismounted, in wild, little-known, and dangerous country. It is even demoralising, for it engenders a feeling or helplessness. A mere man, the only animal without any speed in his legs, is such an insignificant object amid the wild stretch of nature; his capacity for advance and retreat so limited under such circ.u.mstances. And he realises it.

Certainly Roden Musgrave realised it that night as he tramped on wearily beneath the stars. Even finding the way was quite a different matter when afoot to what it had been when mounted. Instead of a few minutes'

_detour_ to a point whence an observation might be made, now it meant quite a long and toilsome tramp, with the galling consciousness that all that toil carried him no farther on his way. The thin sickle of a new moon hung in the heavens, and for this he felt duly grateful, for without its light, faint though that was, he would have made but sorry progress amid stones and antheaps and thorns and long gra.s.s and meerkat holes.

For hours thus he kept on. Once he saw the red glow of a fire not far from his line of route, and his heart leaped. A patrol? No. A moment's thought served to show that no patrol would have its camp-fire alight at so late an hour. It could be nothing less formidable than a Kaffir encampment, and that of a strong force, judging from the fearlessness manifested in the small amount of care taken to conceal the blaze. And a Kaffir encampment meant an enemy's encampment, and that enemy a savage one. So he avoided the vicinity of the light, and held on his way with increased watchfulness.

What weary work it was, mile upon mile over more or less rough ground, every rise surmounted revealing another beyond it, every step covering the possibility of stumbling upon a concealed enemy. Sometimes, too, he would be obliged to deviate a long way from his course, to avoid a deep and bushy kloof, whose vegetation was so dense as to be practically impenetrable. Staggering now with weariness, he was about to sink down to sleep away the remainder of the night, when his gaze lit upon that which banished sleep from him for the moment.

The ground was open there; smooth, and gently undulating. In front, standing in the middle of the flat, was a house.

Was this a delusion? He rubbed his eyes. There, in the faint light of the now setting moon, stood the house, a substantial-looking farm homestead. It was no delusion. Visions of a snug bed, and an inexpressibly welcome sleep, beset the weary wayfarer; of a remount, and a speedy arrival at Doppersdorp--_via_ Suffield's farm. Eagerly, joyfully, his step regained its elasticity, as he advanced to knock up the sleeping inmates, who, English or Dutch, would certainly receive him with the customary hospitality.

But as he drew near, again his heart sank like lead. No barking of dogs greeted his footsteps. The kraals were empty and the gates open, the shatters of the windows were up. The house was deserted.

"Of course!" he mattered despondently. "The cursed place is empty.

Perhaps there's somebody left in charge, though."

But even as he approached the door he realised that there was that indescribable something about the place which told that no human being was there, a kind of lifelessness that might be felt. He knocked, but only a hollow echo from the empty pa.s.sage gave mocking and ghostly response.

"Oh, curse the luck of it all!" he growled. "Hang me if I don't break in. They'll have left a shakedown of a sort anyhow, and I'll do a snug snooze; besides, one may chance to stumble upon a bottle of grog stowed away."

He looked around. Close by, a black square ma.s.s, indistinct in the waning moon, lay the deserted sheep-kraals. But now he noticed what had escaped him before. Behind the house, perhaps fifty yards distant from it, was an enclosed fruit garden, and the trees seemed weighed down with their luscious loads. Ah! the very thing. In his parched and exhausted condition, what would go down better than a dozen or so of peaches or apricots? So, postponing his exploration of the interior, he directed his steps to the garden, and getting over the low sod wall which encircled it, began with the "know" of a connoisseur to look for the tree which bore the best fruit.

This was soon found. Halting under a peach-tree he gathered the fruit as he wanted it, breaking it open and scrutinising it carefully by what little light the moon afforded; for the South African peach is not to be eaten in the dark, its interior being as often as not a ma.s.s of squirming maggots; and of it holds good the same as of some human beings--the more immaculately perfect the exterior, the greater the settled corruption within. However, the light was moderately sufficient for such requisite discrimination, and soon he had made a most luscious and acceptable feed.

This done, he returned to the house and carefully tested all the shutters. They were made of strong slabs, and held firm. But there was one small window at the back which was not shuttered, only protected by a board, fitting to the window-frame. This Roden wrenched away in a trice, and seeing that there was no other way of doing it, proceeded cautiously to break a pane of gla.s.s.

Heavens! what a clatter and jingle it made in the stillness of the night--the shower of gla.s.s falling upon the stone window-sill, and into the room! Then, carefully inserting his hand, Roden was able to pull back the bolt, and in another moment was in the house.

"Well, this is my first burglary, anyhow," he said grimly to himself, as striking a match he began to survey the surroundings.

Frontier farmhouses are all built pretty much on the same plan, and almost invariably one-storeyed. Roden saw at a glance he was in the kitchen, but it and the living rooms were equally dismantled. The owners of the place, whoever they were, had evidently not trekked in a panic, but in leisurely fas.h.i.+on enough to have taken away with them pretty nearly all that could be taken.

There is always something more or less ghostly about the interior of an empty house at night time. As Roden went from room to room, exploring by the feeble light of a flickering wax vesta, it seemed that in the dark corners lurked the shadows of the former occupants, watching, with resentful and menacing stare, this burglarious intruder. The planks, creaking beneath his footfall, raised loud and unearthly sounds in the hollow silence, and once in the semi-gloom, the swaying of an old blanket, hung overhead on a line, gave him a real start, so strung were his nerves with excitement and fatigue. But the object of his search was a prosaic one enough. He explored every room, every cupboard, the store closet, everything. There were a few old tins of preserved salmon, and a box or two of sardines, half a sack of mildewed flour, and a string of onions. There were utensils of various kinds, all old and worthless, heaped among empty mustard tins and gla.s.s bottles of all sorts and sizes. But of what he sought, there was none.

"I'm certain I'd give a sovereign at this moment for a good gla.s.s of grog!" he told himself. "However, it isn't to be had, and I was in lack to drop in here in the fruit season. Those peaches were A1. I think I'll go and talk to them again."

But, simultaneously with this determination, a great drowsiness began to come over him. In one of the front rooms, among the heavier furniture which had been left, was a coach, large and ma.s.sive, and withal comfortable; just the very coach to invite a wearied and exhausted man.

So, fixing the shatters so as to admit a crack of air, he flung himself upon the coach, and was sound asleep as soon as he touched it.