'Tween Snow and Fire: A Tale of the Last Kafir War

Chapter Thirty Three.
“I walk in Shadow.”

Eanswyth was back again in her old home – living her old life, as in the times that were past – but alone.

When she had announced her intention of returning to Anta’s Kloof, her friends had received the proposition with incredulity – when they saw that she was determined, with dismay.

It was stark lunacy, they declared. She to go to live on an out-of-the-way farm, alone! There was not even a neighbour for pretty near a score of miles, all the surrounding stock-farmers having trekked into laager. The Gaikas were reported more restless than ever, nor were symptoms wanting that they were on the eve of an outbreak. The Gcaléka campaign had fired their warlike spirits, but had failed to convey its accompanying warning, and those “in the know” asserted that the savages might rise any minute and make common cause with their countrymen across the Kei. And in the face of all this, here was Eanswyth proposing to establish herself on a lonely farm bordering on the very location of the plotting and disaffected tribesmen. Why, it was lunacy – rank suicide!

The worst of it was that nobody on earth had the power to prevent her from doing as she chose. Her own family were Western Province people and lived far up in the Karroo. Had they been ever so willing, it would take them nearly three weeks to arrive – by which time it might be too late. But Eanswyth did not choose to send for any one. She wanted to be alone.

“You need not be in the least alarmed on my account,” she had said to the Hostes in answer to their reiterated expostulations. “Even if the Gaikas should rise, I don’t believe they would do me the slightest harm. The people on Nteya’s location know me well, and the old chief and I used to be great friends. I feel as if I must go to my old home again – and – don’t think me ungracious, but it will do me good to be entirely alone.”

“That was how poor Milne used to argue,” said Hoste gravely. “But they killed him all the same.”

“Yes,” she replied, mastering the quick sharp spasm which the allusion evoked. “But they were Gcalékas – not our people, who knew him.”

Hoste shook his head.

“You are committing suicide,” he said. “And the worst of it is we have no power on earth to prevent you.”

“No, you haven’t,” she assented with the shadow of a smile. “So let me go my own way with a good grace. Besides, with old Josane to look after me, I can’t come to much harm.”

She had telegraphed to her late husband’s manager at Swaanepoel’s Hoek, requesting him to send the old cattle-herd to her at once. Three days later Josane arrived, and having commissioned Hoste to buy her a few cows and some slaughter sheep, enough to supply her modest household. Eanswyth had carried out her somewhat eccentric plan.

The utter loneliness of the place – the entire absence of life – the empty kraals and the silent homestead, all this is inexpressibly grateful to her crushed and lacerated spirit. And in the dead silence of those uninhabited rooms she conjures up the sweetest, the holiest memories. Her solitude, her complete isolation, conveys no terror – no spark of misgiving, for it is there that her very life has been lived. The dead stillness of the midnight hour, the ghostly creaking of a board, the hundred and one varying sounds begotten of silence and darkness, inspire her with no alarm, for her imagination peoples these empty and deserted rooms with life once more.

She can see him as she saw him in life, moving about the place on different errands bent. There is his favourite chair; there his place at the table. His personality seems still to pervade the whole house, his spirit to hover around her, to permeate her whole being, here as it could nowhere else. But it was on first entering his room, which still contained a few possessions too cumbersome or too worthless to carry away – a trunk or two and a few old clothes – here it was that that awful and vivid contrast struck her in overwhelming force.

What an expression there is in such poor and useless relics – a glove, a boot, a hat, even an old pipe – when we know we shall never see the owner again, parted perhaps by circumstances, by distance, by death. Do not such things seem verily to speak – and to speak eloquently – to bring before our eyes, to sound within our ears, the vision, the voice of one whom we shall never behold again? Ah! do they not!

Standing for the first time alone in that room, Eanswyth felt as though her heart had been broken afresh. She fell prone among those poor and worthless relics, pressing them passionately to her lips, while her tears fell like rain. If ever her lover’s spirit could come back to her, surely it would be in that room.

“O Eustace, my darling, my first and only love!” murmured the stricken creature, lying face to the very floor in the agony of her grief. “Come to me from the shadowy spirit land! O God, send him to me, that I may look upon him once more!”

The shadows deepened within the room. Raising her head she gazed around, and the expression of pitiable eagerness on the white drawn face was fearful to behold.

“Oh, dear Lord, if our love is so wicked are we not punished enough! O God, show him to me again if but for a moment! The ghastliest terrors of the grave are sweetness to me, if I may but see him once – my dear dead love! Eustace, Eustace! You cannot come to me, but I shall soon go to you! Is it a loving God or a fiend that tortures us so? Ah-ah!”

Her heart-broken paroxysm could go no further. No apparition from another world met her eyes as they strove to penetrate the deepening shadows as though fully expecting one. The exhaustion that supervened was beneficial to a degree, in that it acted as a safety valve to her fearfully overwrought brain. Her very mind was in danger.

For nearly a fortnight has Eanswyth thus dwelt, and so far from beginning to tire of her solitude, she hugs it closer to her. She has received visits from the Hostes and other friends who, reckoning that a couple of days of solitude would sicken her of it altogether, had come with the object of inducing her to return to the settlement. Besides, Christmas was close at hand and, her bereavement notwithstanding, it did not somehow seem good that she should spend that genial season alone and in a position not altogether free from danger. But their kindly efforts proved futile; indeed, Eanswyth could hardly disguise the fact that their visits were unwelcome. She preferred solitude at such a time, she said. Then Mrs Hoste had undertaken to lecture her. It could not be right to abandon one’s self so entirely, even to a great sorrow, purred that complacent matron. It seemed somehow to argue a want of Christian resignation. It was all very well up to a certain point, of course; but beyond that, it looked like flying in the face of Providence. And Eanswyth had turned her great eyes with such a blank and bewildered look upon the speaker’s face, as if wondering what on earth the woman could be talking about, that Mrs Hoste, good-hearted though shallow, had dropped her rôle of preacher then and there.

One thing that struck Eanswyth as not a little strange was that hardly a Kafir had been near the place, whereas formerly their dusky neighbours had been wont to visit them on one pretext or another enough and to spare, the latter especially, in poor Tom’s opinion. She had sent word to Nteya, inviting him to visit her and have a talk, but the old chief had made some excuse, promising, however, to come over and see her later. All this looked strange and, taken in conjunction with the fact that there had been war-dancing again in Nteya’s location, suspicious. So thought at any rate Josane, who gave vent to his misgivings in no uncertain tone. But Eanswyth treated his warnings with perfect unconcern. She would not move, she declared. She was afraid of nobody. If Josane was, he might go if he liked. To which the staunch old fellow would reply that he feared no man, black or white; that he was there to take care of her, and there he would stay, adding, with a growl, that it might be bad for Nteya’s, or anybody else’s, people should they attempt to molest her.

It wanted but a day or two to Christmas – but an hour to sunset. It was one of those marvellous evenings not uncommon in South Africa, as well as in the southern parts of Europe – one of those evenings when sky and earth alike are vivid with rich colouring, and the cloudless blue of the heavens assumes a deeper azure still, and there is a dreamy enchantment in the air, and every sight, every sound, toned and mellowed by distance, blends in perfect harmony with the changing glories of the dying day. Then the sun goes down in a flaming rainbow of rare tints, each more subtle than the other, each more gorgeous, and withal more delicate than the last.

The enchantment of the hour was upon Eanswyth to the full – the loneliness, the sense of absolute solitude, cut off from the outer world, alone with her dead. Wandering down to the gate of the now tenantless ostrich camp she is going over the incidents of that last day – that first and that last day, for it was that upon which they had discovered to each other their great and all-absorbing love. “The last day we shall have together,” he had said – and it was so. She can vividly conjure up his presence at her side now. Every word he said, every careless gesture even, comes back to her now. Here was the gate where they had stood feeding the great birds, idly chatting about nothing in particular, and yet how full were both their hearts even then. And that long sweet embrace so startlingly interrupted! Ah! what a day that had been! One day out of a whole lifetime. Standing here on this doubly hallowed spot, it seems to her that an eternity of unutterable wretchedness would not be too great a price to pay for just that one day over again. But he is gone. Whether their love had been the most sacred that ever blessed the lot of mortal here below, or the unhallowed, inexorably forbidden thing it really is, matters nothing now. Death has decided, and from his arbitration there is no appeal.

She throws herself upon the sward: there in the shade of the mimosa trees where they had sat together. All Nature is calm and at peace, and, with the withdrawal of man, the wild creatures of the earth seem to have reclaimed their own. A little duiker buck steps daintily along beneath the thorn fence of the ostrich camp, and the grating, metallic cackle of the wild guinea-fowl is followed by the appearance of quite a large covey of those fine game birds, pecking away, though ever with an air of confirmed distrust, within two score yards of the pale, silent mourner, seated there. The half-whistling, half-twanging note of the yellow thrush mingles with the melodious call of a pair of blue cranes stalking along in the grass, and above the drowsy, measured hum of bees storing sweetness from the flowering aloes, there arises the heavier boom of some great scarabaeus winging his way in blundering, aimless fashion athwart the balmy and sensuous evening air.

The sun sinks to the western ridge – the voices of animal and insect life swell in harmonious chorus, louder and louder, in that last hour of parting day. His golden beams, now horizontal, sweep the broad and rolling plains in a sea of fire, throwing out the rounded spurs of the Kabousie Hills into so many waves of vivid green. Then the flaming chariot of day is gone.

And in the unearthly hush of the roseate afterglow, that pale, heart-broken mourner wends her way home. Home! An empty house, where the echo of a footfall sounds ghostly and startling; an abode peopled with reminiscences of the dead – meet companionship for a dead and empty heart.

Never so dead – never so empty – as this evening. Never since the first moment of receiving the awful news has she felt so utterly crushed, so soul-weary as here to-night. “How was it all to end?” had been their oft-spoken thought – here on this very spot. The answer had come now. Death had supplied it. But – how was this to end?

The glories of departing day were breaking forth into ever varying splendours. The spurs of the mountain range, now green, now gold, assumed a rich purple against the flaming red of the sky. The deepening afterglow flushed and quivered, as the scintillating eyes of heaven sprang forth into the arching vault – not one by one, but in whole groups. Then the pearly shades of twilight and the cool, moist fragrance of the falling night.

Why was the earth so wondrously lovely – why should eyes rest upon such semi-divine splendour while the heart was aching and bursting? was the unspoken cry that went up from that heart-weary mourner standing there alone gazing forth into the depths of the star-gemmed night.

Stay! What is that tongue of flame suddenly leaping forth into the darkness? Another and another – and lo! by magic, from a score of lofty heights, red fires are gushing upward into the black and velvety gloom, and as the ominous beacons gather in flaming volume roaring up to a great height, the lurid glow of the dark firmament is reflected dully upon the slumbering plains.

A weird, far-away chorus floats upon the stillness, now rising, now falling. Its boding import there is no mistaking. It is the gathering cry of a barbarian host. The Gaika location is up in arms. Heavens! What is to become of this delicate woman here, alone and unprotected, exposed to the full brunt of a savage rising – and all that it means?

Eanswyth is standing on the stoep, her eyes fixed upon the appalling phenomenon, but in their glance is no shadow of fear. Death has no terrors for her now; at peril she can afford to laugh. Her lips are even curving into a sweet, sad smile.

“Just as it was that night,” she exclaims. “The parallel is complete. Blaze on red signals of death – and when destruction does break forth let it begin with me! I will wait for it, welcome it, for I walk in shadow now – will welcome it here on this spot where we stood that sweet and blessed night – here where our hearts first met – here where mine is breaking now!”

Her voice dies away in a sob. She sinks to the ground. The distant glare of the war-fires of the savages falls fully upon that prostrate figure lying there in the abandonment of woe. It lights up a very sacrifice. The rough stones of the stoep are those of an altar – the sacrifice a broken heart.

“Here is where we stood that night together,” she murmurs, pressing her lips to the hard, cold stones. “It is just as it was then. Oh, my love – my love, come back to me! Come back – even from the cold grave!”

“Eanswyth!”

The word is breathed in a low, unsteady voice. Every drop of blood within her turns to ice. It is answered at last, her oft-repeated prayer. She is about to behold him. Does she not shrink from it? Not by a hair’s-breadth.

“Let me see you, my love,” she murmurs softly, not daring to move lest the spell should be broken. “Where – where are you?”

“Where our hearts first met – there they meet again. Look up, my sweet one. I am here.”

She does look up. In the red and boding glare of those ominous war-fires she sees him as she saw him that night. She springs to her feet – and a loud and thrilling cry goes forth upon the darkness.

“Eustace – Eustace! Oh, my love! Spirit or flesh – you shall not leave me! At last – at last!”

Chapter Thirty Four.
From Death and – to Death

She realised it at length – realised that this was no visitant from the spirit-world conjured up in answer to her impassioned prayer, but her lover himself, alive and unharmed. She had thrown herself upon his breast, and clung to him with all her strength, sobbing passionately – clung to him as if even then afraid that he might vanish as suddenly as he had appeared.

“My love, my love,” he murmured in that low magnetic tone which she knew so well, and which thrilled her to the heart’s core. “Calm those poor nerves, my darling, and rest on the sweetness of our meeting. We met – our hearts met first on this very spot. Now they meet once more, never again to part.”

Still her feeling was too strong for words; she could only cling to him in silence, while he covered her face and soft hair with kisses. A moment ago she was mourning him as dead, was burying her heart in his unknown and far-away grave, and lo, as by magic, he stood before her, and she was safe in his embrace. A moment ago life was one long vista of blank, agonising grief; now the joys of heaven itself might pale before the unutterable bliss of this meeting.

Unlawful or not as their love might be, there was something solemn, almost sacred, in its intense reality. The myriad eyes of heaven looked down from the dark vault above, and the sullen redness of the war-fires flashing from the distant heights shed a dull, threatening glow upon those two, standing there locked in each other’s embrace. Then once more the wild, weird war-cry of the savage hosts swelled forth upon the night. It was an awesome and fearful background to this picture of renewed life and bliss.

Such a reunion can best be left to the imagination, for it will bear no detailment.

“Why did you draw my very heart out of me like this, Eustace, my life?” she said at last, raising her head. “When they told me you were dead I knew it would not be long before I joined you. I could not have endured this living death much longer.”

There were those who pronounced Eanswyth Carhayes to be the most beautiful woman they had ever beheld – who had started with amazement at such an apparition on an out-of-the-way Kaffrarian farm. A grand creature, they declared, but a trifle too cold. They would have marvelled that they had ever passed such a verdict could they but have seen her now, her splendid eyes burning into those of her lover in the starlight as she went on:

“You are longing to ask what I am doing here in this place all alone and at such a time. This. I came here as to a sanctuary: a sacred spot which enshrined all the dearest memories of you. Here in silence and in solitude I could conjure up visions of you – could see you walking beside me as on that last day we spent together. Here I could kneel and kiss the floor, the very earth which your feet had trod; and – O Eustace, my very life, it was a riven and a shattered heart I offered up daily – hourly – at the shrine of your dear memory.”

Her tones thrilled upon his ear. Never had life held such a delirious, intoxicating moment. To the cool, philosophical, strong-nerved man it seemed as if his very senses were slipping away from him under the thrilling love-tones of this stately, beautiful creature nestling within his arms. Again their lips met – met as they had met that first time – met as if they were never again to part.

“Inkose!”

The sudden sonorous interruption caused Eanswyth to start as if she had been shot, and well it might. Her lover, however, had passed through too many strange and stirring experiences of late to be otherwise than slightly and momentarily disconcerted.

A dark figure stood at the lowest step of the stoep, one hand raised in the air, after the dignified and graceful manner of native salutation.

“Greeting, Josane,” he replied.

“Now do mine eyes behold a goodly sight,” went on the old Kafir with animation, speaking in the pleasing figurative hyperbole of his race. “My father and friend is safe home once more. We have mourned him as dead and he is alive again. He has returned to gladden our hearts and delight our eyes. It is good – it is good.”

“How did you know I had returned, Josane?”

Had there been light enough they would have detected the most whimsical smile come over the old Kafir’s face as he replied:

“Am I not the Inkosikazi’s watch-dog? What sort of a watch-dog is it that permits a footstep to approach from outside without his knowledge?”

“You are, indeed, a man, Josane – a man among men, and trust to those who trust you,” replied Eustace, in that tone of thorough friendship and regard which had enabled him to win so effectually the confidence of the natives.

The old cattle-herd’s face beamed with gratification, which, however, was quickly dashed with anxiety.

“Look yonder,” he said. “There is trouble in the Gaika location to-night. Take the Inkosikazi and leave – this very night. I know what I say.” Then, marking the other’s hesitation, “I know what I say,” he repeated impressively. “Am I not the Inkosikazi’s watch-dog? Am I not her eyes and ears? Even now there is one approaching from Nteya’s kraal.”

He had struck a listening attitude. Eustace, his recent experiences fresh in his mind, felt depressed and anxious, gazing expectantly into the darkness, his hand upon the butt of his revolver.

“Halt! Who comes there?” he cried in the Xosa tongue.

“A friend, Ixeshane!” came the prompt reply, as a dark form stepped into view.

Now that life was worth living again, Eanswyth felt all her old apprehensions return; but she had every confidence in her lover’s judgment and the fidelity of her trusted old retainer.

“Hau, Ixeshane! You are here; it is good,” said the new arrival in the most matter-of-fact way, as though he were not wondering to distraction how it was that the man who had been reported slain in the Bomvana country by the hostile Gcalékas, should be standing there alive and well before him. “I am here to warn the Inkosikazi. She must leave, and at once. The fire-tongues of the Amaxosa are speaking to each other; the war-cry of the Ama Ngqika is cleaving the night.”

“We have seen and heard that before, Ncanduku,” answered Eustace, recognising the new arrival at once. “Yet your people would not harm us. Are we not friends?”

The Kafir shook his head.

“Who can be called friends in war-time?” he said. “There are strangers in our midst – strangers from another land. Who can answer for them? I am Ncanduku, the brother of Nteya. The chief will not have his friends harmed at the hands of strangers. But they must go. Look yonder, and lose no time. Get your horses and take the Inkosikazi, and leave at once, for the Ama Ngqika have responded to the call of their brethren and the Paramount Chief, and have risen to arms. The land is dead.”

There was no need to follow the direction of the Kafir’s indication. A dull, red glare, some distance off, shone forth upon the night; then another and another. Signal fires? No. These shone from no prominent height, but from the plain itself. Then Eustace took in the situation in a moment. The savages were beginning to fire the deserted homesteads of the settlers.

“Inspan the buggy quickly, Josane,” he said. “And, Ncandúku, come inside for a moment. I will find basela (Best rendered by the familiar term ‘backshish’) for you and Nteya.” But the voice which had conveyed such timely warning responded not. The messenger had disappeared.

The whole condition of affairs was patent to Eustace’s mind. Nteya, though a chief whose status was not far inferior to that of Sandili himself, was not all-powerful. Those of his tribesmen who came from a distance, and were not of his own clan, would be slow to give implicit obedience to his “word,” their instincts for slaughter and pillage once fairly let loose, and so he had sent to warn Eanswyth. Besides, it was probable that there were Gcalékas among them. Ncanduku’s words, “strangers from another land,” seemed to point that way. He put it to Josane while harnessing the horses. The old man emitted a dry laugh.

“There are about six hundred of the Gcaléka fighting men in Nteya’s location to-night,” he replied. “Every farmhouse in the land will be burned before the morning. Whau, Ixeshane! Is there any time to lose now?”

Eustace realised that assuredly there was not. But inspanning a pair of horses was, to his experienced hand, the work of a very few minutes indeed.

“Who is their chief?” he asked, tugging at the last strap. “Sigcau?”

“No. Ukiva.”

An involuntary exclamation of concern escaped Eustace. For the chief named had evinced a marked hostility towards himself during his recent captivity; indeed, this man’s influence had more than once almost turned the scale in favour of his death. No wonder he felt anxious.

Eanswyth had gone into the house to put a few things together, having, with an effort, overcome her reluctance to let him out of her sight during the few minutes required for inspanning. Now she reappeared. “I am ready, Eustace,” she said.

He helped her to her seat and was beside her in a moment.

“Let go, Josane!” he cried. And the Kafir, standing away from the horses’ heads, uttered a sonorous farewell.

“What will become of him, dear?” said Eanswyth, as they started off at a brisk pace.

“He is going to stay here and try and save the house. I’m afraid he won’t be able to, though. They are bound to burn it along with the others. And now take the reins a moment, dearest. I left my horse hitched up somewhere here, because I wanted to come upon you unawares. I’ll just take off the saddle and tie it on behind.”

“But what about the horse? Why not take him with us?”

“Josane will look after him. I won’t take him along now, because – well, it’s just on the cards we might have to make a push for it, and a led horse is a nuisance. Ah – there he is,” as a low whinnying was heard on their left front and duly responded to by the pair in harness.

In less than two minutes he had the saddle secured at the back of the buggy and was beside her again. It is to be feared Eustace drove very badly that night. Had the inquiry been made, candour would have compelled him to admit that he had never driven so badly in his life.

Eanswyth, for her part, was quite overcome with the thrilling, intoxicating happiness of the hour. But what an hour! They were fleeing through the night – fleeing for their lives – their way lighted by the terrible signal beacons of the savage foe – by the glare of flaming homesteads fired by his ravaging and vengeful hand. But then, he who was dead is alive again, and is beside her – they two fleeing together through the night.

“Darling,” she whispered at last, nestling up closer to him. “Why did they try to kill me by telling me you were dead?”

“They had every reason to suppose so. Now, what do you think stood between me and certain death?”

“What?”

“Your love – not once, but twice. The silver box. See. Here it is, where it has ever been – over my heart. Twice it turned the point of the assegai.”

“Eustace!”

“It is as I say. Your love preserved me for yourself.”

“Oh, my darling, surely then it cannot be so wicked – so unlawful!” she exclaimed with a quiver in her voice.

“I never believed it could,” he replied.

Up till then, poor Tom’s name had not been mentioned. Both seemed to avoid allusion to it. Now, however, that Eustace had to narrate his adventures and escape, it could not well be avoided. But in describing the strange impromptu duel between the Gcaléka warrior and his unfortunate cousin, he purposely omitted any reference to the latter’s probable hideous fate, leaving Eanswyth to suppose he had been slain then and there. It was impossible that she should have been otherwise than deeply moved.

“He died fighting bravely, at any rate,” she said at last.

“Yes. Want of courage was never one of poor Tom’s failings. All the time we were out he was keener on a fight than all the rest of the command put together.”

There was silence after this. Then at last:

“How did you escape, Eustace, my darling? You have not told me.”

“Through paying ransom to that same Hlangani and paying pretty stiffly too. Four hundred and fifty head of good cattle was the figure. Such a haggle as it was, too. It would have been impolitic to agree too quickly. Then, I had to square this witch-doctress, and I daresay old Kreli himself will come in for some of the pickings. From motives of policy we had to carry out the escape as if it was a genuine escape and not a put-up job – but they managed it all right – took me across the river on some pretext or other and then gave me the opportunity of leg-bail. As soon as the war is over Hlangani will come down on me for the cattle.”

“How did you know I was back at Anta’s Kloof, dearest? Did the Hostes tell you?” said Eanswyth at last.

“No. I met that one-eyed fellow Tomkins just outside Komgha. I only waited while he called up two or three more to back his statement and then started off here as hard as ever I could send my nag over the ground.”

The journey was about half accomplished. The buggy bowled merrily along – and its occupants – alone together in the warm balmy southern night – began to wish the settlement was even further off. They were ascending a long rise.

“Hallo, what’s up?” exclaimed Eustace suddenly, whipping up his horses, which he had been allowing to walk up the hill.

The brow of the hill was of some altitude and commanded a considerable view of the surrounding country. But the whole of the latter was lit up by a dull and lurid glow. At intervals apart burned what looked like several huge and distant bonfires.

“They mean business this time,” said Eustace, reining in a moment to breathe his horses on the brow of the rise. “Look. There goes Hoste’s place. That’s Bradfield’s over there – and beyond that must be Oesthuisen’s. Look at them all blazing merrily; and – by jingo – there goes Draaibosch!”

Far and wide for many a mile the country was aglow with blazing homesteads. Evidently it was the result of preconcerted action on the part of the savages. The wild yelling chorus of the barbarous incendiaries, executing their fierce war-dances around their work of destruction, was borne distinctly upon the night.

“The sooner we get into Komgha the better now,” he went on, sending the buggy spinning down the long declivity which lay in front. At the bottom of this the road was intersected by a dry water course, fringed with bush; otherwise the veldt was for the most part open, dotted with straggling clumps of mimosa.

Down went the buggy into the dry sandy drift. Suddenly the horses shied violently, then stopped short with a jerk which nearly upset the vehicle. A dark firm, springing panther-like, apparently from the ground, had seized the reins.