'Tween Snow and Fire by Bertram Mitford (world best books to read txt) đ
- Author: Bertram Mitford
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The tumultuous thunder of the fierce war-dance sounded louder and louder upon the nightâthe glare of the distant fires reddened, and then glowed forth afresh. What if Tom Carhayes had come upon the spoor of his missing sheepâand in his blind rage had followed it right into Nteyaâs location? Might he not as well walk straight into a den of lions? The savage Gaikas, wound up to the highest pitch of bloodthirsty excitement, would at such a time be hardly less dangerous than so many beasts of prey. Even at that very moment the cord of that one life might be snapped.
Suddenly a great tongue of flame shot up into the night, then another and another. From a hilltop the red and threatening beacons flashed forth their message of hate and defiance. The distant tumult of the savage orgy had ceased. A weird and brooding silence lay upon the surrounding country.
âOh, what does it mean? What does it all mean?â cried Eanswyth starting up from her chair. Her face was white with fearâher dilated eyes, gazing forth upon the gushing fires, were wild and horror-stricken. Eustace, standing there at her side, could hardly restrain himself from throwing his arms around her and pouring out a passionate storm of comforting, loving words. Yet she belonged to another manâwas bound to him until death should them part. But what if death had already parted them? What if she were so bound no longer? he thought with a fierce, wild yearning that had in it something of the murdererâs fell purpose, as he strained his gaze upon the wild signals of savage hostility.
âDonât be frightened, Eanswyth,â he said reassuringly, but in a voice from which even he could not banish every trace of emotion. âYou shall come to no harm to-night, dear, take my word for it. To-morrow, though, we must take you to some safer place than this is likely to prove for the next few days.â
She made no answer. He had drawn his arm through hers and the strong, reassuring touch seemed to dispel her fears. It seemed to him that she leaned upon him, as though for physical support no less than for mental. Thus they stood, their figures silhouetted in the dull red glow. Thus they stood, the face of the one stormy with conflicting emotionsâthat of the other calm, restful, safe in that firm protecting companionship. Thus they stood, and to one of these two that isolated position in the midst of a brooding peril represented the sweetest, most ecstatic moment that life had ever afforded. And still upon the distant hilltops, gushing redly upward into the velvety darkness, the war-fires of the savages gleamed and burned.
âWe had better go in now,â said Eustace, after a while, when the flaming beacons had at length burnt low. âYou must be tired to death by this time, and it wonât do to sit out here all night. You must have some rest.â
âI will try,â she answered. âDo you know, Eustace, there is a something about you that seems to put everything right. I am not in the least frightened now.â
There was a softness in her tone that bordered upon tendernessâa softness that was dangerous indeed to a man in his frame of mind.
âAh! you find that, do you?â he answered, in a strained, harsh, unnatural voice. Then his utterance seemed choked. Their eyes met in the starlightâmet in a long, clinging gazeâthen their lips. Yet, she belonged to another man, andâa life stood between these two.
Thus to that extent Eustace Milne, the cool-headed, the philosophic, had allowed the impulse of his mad passion to overmaster him. But before he could pour forth the unrestrained torrent of words which should part them there and then forever, or bind them more closely for weal or for woe, Eanswyth suddenly wrenched herself from his close embrace. A clatter of rapidly approaching hoofs was borne upon the night.
âItâs Tom!â she cried, at the same time fervently blessing the friendly darkness which concealed her burning face. âIt must be Tom. What can he have been doing with himself all this time?â
âRather! Itâs Tom, right enough, or whatâs left of him!â echoed the loud, well-known voice, as the horseman rode up to the stoep and flung himself from the saddle. âWhatâs left of him,â he repeated grimly. âCanât you strike a light, Eanswyth, instead of standing there staring at a man as if he had actually been cut into mince-meat by those infernal brutes, instead of having only had a very narrow escape from that same,â he added testily, striding past her to enter the house, which up till now had been left in darkness for prudential reasons, lest by rendering it more conspicuous the sight might tempt their savage neighbours, in their present ugly humour, to some deed of violence and outrage.
A lamp was quickly lighted, and then a half-shriek escaped Eanswyth. For her husband presented a ghastly spectacle. He was hatless, and his thick brown beard was matted with blood, which had streamed down the side of his face from a wound in his head. One of his hands, too, was covered with blood, and his clothes were hacked and cut in several places.
âFor Heavenâs sake, Eanswyth, donât stand there screeching like an idiotic schoolgirl, but run and get out some grog, for I want an âeye openerâ badly, I can tell you,â he burst forth with an angry stamp of the foot. âThen get some water and clean rag, and bandage me up a bitâfor besides the crack on the head you see Iâve got at least half a dozen assegai stabs distributed about my carcase.â
Pale and terrified, Eanswyth hurried away, and Carhayes, who had thrown himself on the sofa, proceeded growlingly to give an account of the rough usage he had been subjected to. He must have been stealthily followed, he said, for about half an hour after leaving Nteyaâs kraal he had been set upon in the darkness by a party of Kafirs. So sudden was the assault that they had succeeded in snatching his gun away from him before he could use it. A blow on the head with a kerrieâa whack which would have floored a weaker manâhe parenthesised grimly and with ill-concealed prideâhaving failed to knock him off his horse, the savages endeavoured to stab him with their assegaisâand in fact had wounded him in several places. Fortunately for him they had not succeeded in seizing his bridle, or at any rate in retaining hold of it, or his doom would have been sealed.
âThe chap who tried it on dropped under my stirrup-iron,â explained Carhayes. âI âdownedâ him, by the living Jingo! Heâll never kick again, I do believe. That scoundrel Nteya promised I shouldnât be molested, the living dog! There he was, the old schelm, he and our friend of to-day, Hlanganiâand Matanzima, old Sandiliâs son, and SivulĂ©le, and a lot of them, haranguing the rest. They mean war. There couldnât have been less than six or seven hundred of themâall holding a big war-dance, got up in their feathers and fal-lals. What do you think of that, Eustace? And in I went bang into the very thick of them.â
âI knew it would come to this one of these days, Tom,â said Eanswyth, who now reappeared with the necessary refreshment, and water and towels for dressing his wounds.
âOf course you did,â retorted her husband, with a savage snarl. âYou wouldnât be a woman if you didnât, my dear. âI told you so,â âI told you so,ââisnât that a womanâs invariable parrot cry. Instead of âtelling me so,â suppose you set to work and see what you can do for a fellow. Eh?â
Eustace turned away to conceal the white fury that was blasting him. Why had the Kafirs done things by halves? Why had they not completed their work and rid the earth of a coarse-minded brute who simply encumbered it. From that moment he hated his cousin with a secret and bitter hatred. And this was the life that stood between him andâParadise.
Tom Carhayes was indeed in a vile humourânot on account of the wounds he had received, ugly as some of them were; for he was not lacking in brute courage or endurance. But his wrath burnt hot against the insolent daring of his assailants, who had presumed to attack him, who had, moreover, done so treacherously, had robbed him of his gun, as well as of a number of sheep, and had added insult to injury by laughing in his face when he asked for redress.
âIâll be even with them. I will, by the living Jingo!â he snarled as he sat sipping his brandy and waterâwhile Eanswyth, still pale and agitated from the various and stirring events of the night, bathed his wounds with rather trembling fingers. âIâll ride into Komgha to-morrow and have the whole lot arrestedâespecially that lying dog, Nteya. Iâll go with the police myself, if only to see the old scoundrel handcuffed and hauled off to the tronk.â
âWhat on earth induced you to run your head into such a hornetâs nest for the sake of a few sheep?â said Eustace at last, thinking he ought to say something.
âHang it, man!â was the impatient retort. âDo you suppose I was going to let these scoundrels have the laugh of me? I tell you I spoored the sheep slap into Nteyaâs kraal.â
âWell, they seem to have the laugh of you now, anyhowâof us, rather,â said Eustace drily, as he turned away.
Nature is rarely sympathetic. The day dawned, fair and lovely, upon the night of terror and brooding peril. A few golden rays, darting horizontally upon the green, undulating slopes of the pleasant Kaffrarian landscapeâthen the sun shot up from the eastern skyline. Before him the white mist, which had settled down upon the land a couple of hours before dawn, now rolled back in ragged folds, leaving a sheeny carpet of silver dewâa glittering sparkle of diamond drops upon tree and shrub. Bird voices were twittering into life, in many a gladsome and varying note. Little meer-kats, startled by the tread of the horse, sat upon their haunches to listen, ere plunging, with a frisk and a scamper, into the safety of their burrows. A tortoise, his neck distended and motionless, his bright eye dilated with alarm, noiselessly shrank into the armour-plated safety of his shell, just in time to avoid probable decapitation from the falling hoof which sent his protective shell rolling half a dozen yards down the slope. But he now riding abroad thus early, had little attention to give to any such trivial sights and sounds. His mind was fully occupied.
No sleep had fallen to Eustaceâs lot that night. Late as it was when they retired to rest, fatiguing and exciting as the events of the day had been, there was no sleep for him. Carhayes, exasperated by the wrongs and rough treatment he had received at the hands of his barbarous neighbours, had withdrawn in a humour that was truly fearful, exacting unceasing attention from his wife and rudely repulsing his cousinâs offer to take Eanswythâs place, in order that the latter might take some much-needed rest. A proceeding which lashed Eustace into a white heat of silent fury, and in his own mind it is to be feared he defined the other as a selfish, inconsiderate, and utterly irredeemable brute. Which, after all, is mere human nature. It is always the
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