The Fire Trumpet Part 63

"So I'm told. But still--such a hard nail as Claverton. I can't make it out."

Thus spoke his companions-in-arms. It could not be expected, however, that these plain, honest, matter-of-fact frontiersmen should give him credit for possessing a two-sided nature. They merely spoke of him as they had seen him.

One day the two were walking along the upper end of the market-square.

It was in the middle of the forenoon, and though warm, a fine day, and the traffic on the footway was tolerably brisk, while around an auctioneer's table a goodly crowd was a.s.sembled, and the sale went on in spirited fas.h.i.+on. They were stopped by some mutual acquaintance, and Claverton, taking advantage of the incident, left Lilian talking to these, while he dived into the throng for a moment to speak to some one whom he had suddenly caught sight of. When he returned, he found Lilian standing alone, their friends having taken their leave and pa.s.sed on.

"So sorry you've had to wait, darling--even a minute. Why, what is it?"

For she was looking a trifle perturbed.

"Nothing. Really nothing. Let's go on."

"Is it the heat? We'll go home. It is rather overwhelming, of course; I ought to have remembered," he said, anxiously.

"No, it isn't too hot in the least," she answered. Then taking a quick, furtive look behind: "Arthur--wait--now look round--quick! There's somebody following us."

He turned rapidly and scanned the crowd. No one seemed to be making of them a special point of observation.

"I don't see any one out of the common. See if you can point him out, dear."

"No. He is gone; I could see him shrink out of sight directly I looked round the second time," she said, excitedly, twirling the handle of her sun-shade. "I wouldn't say anything at first, thinking it might be my fancy; but I could see him eyeing you as you went in among all those people just now. He was standing on the pavement--there."

"Well, he's disappeared now, at any rate," said Claverton, again looking carefully around. "What was the animal like--white or black?"

"Neither. A sort of dirty brown colour, not at all like a native of these parts. He had woolly hair, though, and a hideous, wrinkled face with two pointed, shark-like teeth; and he was looking at you so fiercely," and she shuddered. "And oh--Arthur--when I looked round again and saw those glaring eyes following on so close behind us, it quite frightened me."

Claverton was puzzled. Nine Englishmen out of ten would have gently pooh-poohed the idea as mere fancy; but his life had been too full of strange and startling experiences for that.

"Have you no secret enemy? No one who would owe you a grudge?" she continued, in a tone of deep anxiety. "That man looked murder at you."

"N-no; I can't call to mind any. Most likely a case of mistaken ident.i.ty. The fellow must have taken me for some one else, and bolted directly I looked round for fear of being brought to book. That was it, dear, depend upon it; so don't think anything more about the concern,"

he concluded, with the air of a man who has successfully solved a mystery. But he wished he had caught a glimpse of the mysterious individual all the same.

The incident had a depressing effect upon Lilian which she was quite unable to shake off. That some terrible danger was hovering over and threatening her lover she was certain; and the idea of being tracked and watched by a secret foe was to her fraught with horror. But it was for him she feared--for this man whom every day rendered more unspeakably dear to her, and for whom, retiring, even timid as her nature was, she could be brave as a lion, even to the giving of her own life to s.h.i.+eld him from harm. Of his past she knew but little--as yet he had not told her much, and in all the fulness of her love and trust she took a pride in abstaining from asking him; but that it had been more eventful than the lives of most men of his age she had gathered, and what relentless enemies might he not have, now surely and stealthily pursuing him? Many a glance of admiration was cast on her--in her serene, dignified beauty, which the troubled thoughtfulness now clouding her face only seemed to enhance--as they pa.s.sed along the busy streets; and people began to inquire of each other who those two were who were never seen apart, and who looked such a well-matched couple.

Meanwhile, the political outlook was becoming gloomier every day, for the warlike tribes of the Gaikas and Hlambis--whose locations comprised some of the wildest and most inaccessible parts of Kaffraria--were on the verge of revolt. The stage of sullen restlessness and daring outrage was about to culminate in open warfare, and no doubt now existed that these savages intended to rise and make common cause with their brethren the Gcalekas, who, though decimated and dispersed, were as far as ever from being subdued. And, when compared with the rising now threatening, the fighting in Gcalekaland was a mere fleabite, for the latter had been localised in the Transkei, whereas this would envelope the whole Eastern frontier in the flames of war. Day by day the low rumblings of the gathering storm increased, and from far and near the families of the settlers came crowding into King Williamstown. Every hotel and lodging-house was crammed, and not a room was obtainable for love or money. Many lived in their tent-waggons, failing more substantial shelter, and the pastureland in the immediate neighbourhood seemed in danger of exhaustion from the mult.i.tudes of live stock which grazed thereon. The telegraph was actively at work, hourly flas.h.i.+ng its messages of alarm or rea.s.surance according as the latest turn of events warranted; while many-tongued rumour hinted at a decisive move pending on the part of the enemy beyond the border simultaneously with the rising of the tribes within the same. It was understood that the burgher forces were liable to be called out at any moment, and among the townsmen fresh volunteers were enrolled, and drill and parades went on night and day in view of the probability that the regular troops in garrison would be ordered to take the field, and that the townspeople must be ready to protect themselves.

And as if the scourge of impending war--the merciless warfare of the savage--was not enough, the land lay parched up with drought.

Transport-riders from up-country had gruesome tales to tell of roads lined with rotting carcases or bleached skeletons of trek-oxen, which had succ.u.mbed unable to find nourishment in the burnt-up gra.s.s, or peris.h.i.+ng on the margin of water-holes reduced to patches of dry, baked mud--pointing to their own attenuated spans in corroboration of their statements. The crops were failing, and, already in some districts, the appearance of locusts in sufficiently formidable swarms was reported; and the scant herbage, which the drought had spared, would be in danger of disappearing entirely before this new and redoubtable plague. Trade was at a standstill, and, amid the all-pervading apprehension and gloomy outlook, it was universally held that the sooner the rising took place the better. So Christmas approached; but it was not with joy or gladness that men's hearts looked forward to the kindly festival in that burning Southern midsummer, for the deserted farms and homesteads told their own tale, and the savage enemy sullenly sat still, biding his own time. The war-cloud hung brooding over the land darker and darker.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TEN.

THE FIRE TRUMPET AGAIN.

Payne had removed his household to Grahamstown, as being further from the seat of hostilities, and a very agreeable change to our party was the city of the old settlers, nestling in its basin-like hollow, and with its tree-shaded streets and leafy gardens, after the dust and glare and over-crowding of the Kaffrarian capital. Here, too, the talk was all of the war, but its dire evidences were less obtrusive, and, on the whole, the Paynes made themselves tolerably comfortable. To Lilian Strange, the time was fraught with a wondrous joy, and she often took herself to task for feeling so supremely happy while so much suffering and anxiety was pending over those around her. But she need not have, for the days of her rejoicing were already numbered.

She was out riding with her lover one afternoon, when a turn in the road brought them suddenly upon a man--only a native, apparently on the tramp--a half-caste Hottentot, and a dark-browed, ruffianly-looking specimen of the breed. Directly this fellow caught sight of them he stopped, and, stooping down, pretended to be tying his shoestring, at the same time keeping his face turned away from them as they pa.s.sed.

Lilian grew very pale.

"Arthur," she whispered. "That's the same man who was following us the other day in King Williamstown. I knew him at once; and he knew me.

Didn't you see how quickly he stopped and pretended not to take any notice of us?" And glancing at her lover, she saw that his face wore a slightly puzzled expression and a frown which, however, disappeared as she spoke.

"Only some loafer. One often runs against the same specimens of that cla.s.s," he said, carelessly.

"But see how quickly he has come here. Arthur--I can't help looking upon the circ.u.mstance as an ill omen. I never saw such a murderous-looking ruffian; and I'm certain he knows you. You may laugh at my silly superst.i.tion, dear, but I can't get rid of the feeling."

He did laugh; but so pleasantly, so tenderly, as he tried to rea.s.sure her.

"But you must get rid of the feeling. Look now, my darling. We are not even on the road from King Williamstown, but on one leading almost in the opposite direction. If that n.i.g.g.e.r had been following me, and I don't care a bra.s.s doit if he is, he would have come straight and not all round the country. So let the affair slide. I want you to enjoy this afternoon; we may not have many more together, for some time, you know."

He threw in this to counteract the effect of the unexpected encounter.

Shaking off her depression, she looked up at him with a bright smile.

"You dreadful prophet of ill. I won't have you predict such things.

Let's have another of those glorious canters. I'm not nearly such a coward as I was, am I?"

"No. You're as fearless as a circus-rider," answered he, with a laugh; and then they started off into a long, level, swinging canter. And the golden hours of the afternoon fled as they kept on their way, over breezy gra.s.sland and shady bush road; and not till after sundown did they draw rein at their door, just as the labours of the day were at an end in the pleasant old frontier city, whose inhabitants were strolling up the wide streets, or turning into the ever open bars in quest of their evening "peg," or standing in knots at the corners discussing the news from the front.

"Oh, there you are," said Payne, meeting them in the doorway, and handing Claverton a couple of letters. "Heard the news?"

"No."

"Well, here's the deuce to pay all round. A telegram came in to-day saying that a chap named Kiva, with five or six hundred Gcalekas, has crossed into the Gaika location, that the Gaikas have risen as one man, and the whole country is up in arms. The hotel and store at Draaibosch is burnt to the ground and a lot of farmhouses besides, mine among them, I expect. The road from 'King' to the Transkei is blocked, and Komgha in a state of siege. A pretty kettle of fish, isn't it?"

"H'm. Rather. What's going to be done?"

"They're calling out men. Our old corps is in the thick of it now, I expect. Brathwaite's will soon be there, too, I should think."

"I should rather like to take service in that. But, look here," went on Claverton, who had been opening his letters the while, extending one of them to Payne. It was an official one, offering him on the recommendation of Jim Brathwaite the command of a corps of Hottentot levies which was being raised; the other was from Jim himself strongly advising him to accept it.

It was hard--very hard, to leave Lilian again so soon, and for an indefinite time--but, after all, it had been more than half expected.

He supposed he must go. All would most likely be called out for service at a later stage of hostilities, perhaps almost at once, and even if it were not so, how could he hold back? Besides, now, at any rate, here was a definite command which might lead to something much better.

"Take it, Arthur. You can't refuse it," Lilian said, bravely, when he showed her the letter. "You must go; but you need not to-morrow. We will have one more whole day together, my darling--will we not?"

"This is Sat.u.r.day. They will want me to start to-morrow, but they may want. I can't put it off later than Monday, I'm afraid, or they'll pitch-fork some other fellow into the concern instead. So we will make the most of to-morrow. But cheer up, dearest. It won't be for so long as last time."

She only answered with a smile, a little forced. She kept her tears for when she was alone, then they flowed freely enough. Such are the results of war--glorious war! Men's blood, mingled with women's tears, fills the cup of the destructive demon.

That evening Claverton went round to the official to whom the letter referred him, and notified his acceptance of the post.

"Ah! Yes. The levies--I remember," and he unearthed one or two papers from a pile. "You will go round by Fort Beaufort, and Victoria East, and pick up contingents that have been recruited there, and then report yourself at King Williamstown, where you will receive further instructions. Of course you will be ready to start at once--to-morrow at the latest."

"No."

The official looked up quickly, with a stare of astonishment.