CHAPTER EIGHT.

TRAGICAL--AND ALETTA.

Hans Vermaak had and had not carried out his instructions; which is to say that in so far as he had he had done so by halves.

By nature he was a genial soul was Hans Vermaak, by inclination a jovial one. He would not wantonly have hurt a fly or an Englishman, let alone so companionable a one as Colvin Kershaw; but then the terrible point to which racial hatred was worked up had engendered a feverish thirst for conspiring that was almost Celtic, in the stolid and pre-eminently practical Boer. The discovery of the concealed arms would be a serious thing, a very serious thing, but of its seriousness, great as that was, they took an exaggerated view. Inherently the Boer is a great respecter of the law and of the person of its representative or representatives, and most of these were sufficiently unsophisticated to look upon their undoubtedly treasonable proceeding as a hanging matter if brought to the notice of the authorities. Hence none felt any qualm as to the strong measures to be adopted towards the hostile sharer of the secret.

_In vino Veritas_! When we say that none felt a qualm we should have exempted Hans Vermaak--in his cups. The misgiving expressed by Gideon Roux as to the potential liberality of his spouse in the matter of the grog was not unfounded. There was enough in the bottle to make three Dutchmen--two would not partake--very lively, and the liveliest of all was Hans Vermaak. He became, moreover, enormously fraternal towards Colvin, who was deftly drawing him out, and finally did exactly as Gideon Roux had predicted, insisted upon his remaining the night, for he, Hans, was Gideon's brother-in-law, and therefore one of the family. He forgot the patriot cause, and only remembered it to declare that this was too good an Englishman to be shot, and so forth, which declaration under ordinary circumstances might mean nothing, but read by the light of subsequent events and the speaker's manner, Colvin took to mean rather a great deal.

The latter made several futile attempts at getting away, and at length succeeded. He himself, although he had borne his share, was in no wise affected by the liquor he had been taking--for the matter of that he could have drunk the lot of them under the table over and over again-- and throughout the talk, which became more and more boisterous and unguarded, had kept an ear open and an eye keenly alive to every sign. But by the time he did break loose, and Gert was standing before the door with the horses saddled up, he realised that the more prudential side of his resolution had failed and that an infinitesimal portion of his homeward journey would be accomplished by daylight.

He had bidden good-bye all-round--not failing to observe during the process the awful look of scare upon the face of his hostess as she just touched his hand with a limp, moist paw. He had paced his horse about a hundred yards from the door, not sorry to see the last of the frowsy, dirty place, when he heard his name called. Turning in the saddle, he beheld the genial Hans hurrying towards him.

"Which way do you go home by?" said the Dutchman, somewhat flurriedly.

"Oh, the usual way, Hans."

"_So_? You are going home, then."

"Oh yes."

"But you must not. Klip Poort is bad to go through at night _Ja_, it is bad, very bad. Go some other road. There is the road to Stephanus De la Rey's, for instance. Go by it."

"But it is about twice the distance," objected Colvin, who began to read considerable meaning into the other's anxiety regarding his movements.

"That matters nothing. Look, you are a good sort of Englishman and I like you. Klip Poort is bad to go through at night, very bad."

"Very well, Hans, I'll take your advice. So long."

Klip Poort, the point referred to, was a narrow, rugged defile overhung with large rocks, about five miles on his homeward way. As well as the road passing through, it likewise gave passage to the Sneeuw River, which, when full to any great extent, flooded the roadway to some depth. It might very well be to this form of danger that the Boer's hidden warning applied, and yet some unaccountable instinct warned Colvin that it was not.

"Gert."

"Baas?"

"Did you hear what Hans Vermaak was saying just now?"

"Part of it, sir."

"Why do you think he wanted us not to go back by way of Klip Poort?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Gert, you are an ass."

"Perhaps he thought the river might be `down,' sir. The clouds are very thick and black up in the _bergen_."

"Yes."

An indescribable feeling of helpless apprehensiveness came over Colvin, and indeed it is a creepy thing the consciousness that at any step during the next half-dozen miles or so you are a target for a concealed enemy whose marksmanship is unerring. For this was about what he had reduced the situation to in his own mind, and within the same heartily anathematised the foolish curiosity which had moved him to go up and explore the hiding-place of the concealed arms. That Gideon Roux and his confederate were aware that he shared their secret he now believed. They must have waited to watch him, and have seen him come out of the cave; and with this idea the full force of Vermaak's warning came home to him.

But was that warning genuine? Was it not destined rather to induce him to take the other way? It was impossible to determine. Sorely perplexed, he rode on, thinking the matter over, and that deeply. The sky overhead grew darker and darker with the spread of a great cloud-- the earth with the fall of evening. There was a moon, but it was obscured. By the time the rocks which marked the entrance to the poort came into view it was already night.

Two ways branched here--one his ordinary way home, the other that which Hans Vermaak had urged him to take. Some twenty feet down, at the bottom of a precipitous slope, was the river bed, dry save for a shallow, stagnant reach here and there. Which way should he take? Now was the time to decide.

"Get on, Aasvogel, you fool! Ah, would you, then?"

This to his horse, accompanied by a sharp rowelling with each heel. For the animal had stopped short with a suddenness calculated to unseat and certainly irritate the rider, and was backing and shying like the panic-stricken idiot it was; the cause of all this fluster being a white stone standing almost vertically up from the roadside, in the gloom looking for all the world like the traditional ghost.

"Whigge--whirr!" Something hummed through the air, and that so near he could feel the draught. Two jets of flame had darted forth from the hillside above, simultaneously with a dry, double crack. Two more followed, but had it been a hundred Colvin was utterly powerless to investigate, for his horse, which had already sprung forward beneath the sharp dig of the spurs, now took to wild and frantic flight, and for some moments was completely out of hand. By the time he got it in hand again he had been carried a good mile from the scene of this startling though not wholly unexpected occurrence.

Two things came into Colvin's mind, as eventually he reined in his panting, snorting steed. One of the bullets, at any rate, had missed him very narrowly, but by just the distance the animal had backed when shying from the ghostly object which had scared it; and but for the fact of his being a first-rate rider the suddenness of the bolt would have unseated him, and he would now be lying in the road at the mercy of his would-be assassins. But--where was Gert?

He looked around. The clouds had parted a little and the moon was visible through a rift thus formed; indeed it was the sudden flash of the moonlight upon the white stone that had so terrified the horse at first. The light revealed the mountain slopes rising up around, but of his servant there was no sign. He listened intently. No sound, save the creaking of the saddle, caused by the violently heaving flanks of his panting steed, and now and again a mutter of distant thunder away up in the mountains. Where was Gert?

Dismounting, he led the animal a little way off the road, and sat down under a large boulder to think out the situation. The warning of Hans Vermaak again came into his mind. It looked genuine as viewed by subsequent lights, but whether it was so or not, it was useless, for the murderers had altered their original plan, clearly resolving to provide against the contingency of his choosing the other of the two roads, by shooting him before he should come to the point where these parted. Well, they had not shot him, but it had been a narrow shave--very.

But if they had not shot him had they shot Gert? It looked uncommonly like it. Only the four shots had been fired--of that he felt certain-- but since his horse had taken matters into its own hands, or, rather, legs, he had obtained neither sight nor sound of Gert. Seated there in the darkness, he was conscious of a very considerable feeling of indignation begotten of a dual reason--that he had had a mean advantage taken of him, and that his property, in the person of Gert Bondelzwart, had been interfered with.

What was to be done next? Should he go back? To do so would be to commit an act of fatal rashness, for it would be to expose himself once more to the fire of his concealed cowardly foes, who would not be likely to let slip a second opportunity. True, he had his revolver, but not for a moment would they be likely to come near enough to give him any chance of using it. No--to go back would be simply throwing away his life. Had it been a white man and a comrade, he would unhesitatingly have done so. But Gert was a Griqua, and, though not exactly a savage, had all the cunning and resource and endurance of generations of savage ancestry. If he were alive, why then, amid the rocks and the darkness, he would soon elude his enemies; if he were dead, Colvin did not see any sense in throwing away his own life merely to ascertain that fact.

The moon had gone in, and a misty scud-wrack spreading itself overhead was creeping around the dim crags on high. There was a smell of rain in the air, and a fitful puff of wind came singing down the valley, laden with an icy breath. Colvin shivered, and as he looked anxiously skyward a large drop or two of rain plashed down on his face. There would be a deluge in a moment, and he had nothing to meet it with save the clothes in which he stood up.

Suddenly the horse, which had been standing with its head down still panting after its race and scare, pricked up its ears and snorted, then began backing away. Colvin had just time to seize the bridle-rein, or it would have been off in wild stampede. And now every vein in his body quivered with excitement. His revolver was in his hand. Let them come. The chances now were something like equal.

But it is not a pleasant thing to know that you are being stalked in the dark by a persistent and murderous foe; and as for some minutes no further sign occurred the excitement became dashed with something like apprehension, then succeeded a feeling of relief. The horse had been scared by one of the ordinary sights of the veldt--a sneaking jackal-- perhaps a meerkat--in short, anything moving will startle a horse in the dark, let alone one so thoroughly "in the dispositions" for panic as this one now was. But just then a renewed snort, accompanied by a plunge and a violent tugging at the bridle-rein, set all Colvin's pulses bounding again; and though he endeavoured to do so silently, so as not to betray his exact whereabouts, the hammer of his pistol, as he drew it up, gave forth a sharp click upon the stillness.

Out of the darkness came a voice--a beseeching voice--saying in Boer Dutch:

"Nay, Baas, don't shoot. My well-loved Baas, don't shoot."

"Gert, you fool, come here."

"Yes, it is Gert, Baas," answered the voice in a tone of intense delight and relief. "_Maagtig_! I thought it was those _schelm_ Boers. I thought you were shot. I thought I was shot. I thought we were all shot."

"Well, we are not. But where is Pansy?"

"She was shot, Baas. Ah, the poor mare! She just sank down in the road with her legs under her. I had hardly time to roll off when she was up again, gave a stagger, and toppled over into the river bed. I crouched down in the _sluit_ by the roadside and lay perfectly still--still as a hare--until the moon went in again. Then I crept away. _Ja_, it was a fearful time. I thought I could feel the bullets through me every minute. _Maagtig_! but he is a _schelm_ Boer is Gideon Roux."

"Gideon Roux? Why do you think it was Gideon Roux, Gert?"

"It was, Baas. He and Hermanus Delport. I would swear to it," rejoined the Griqua excitedly. "They looked murder when they were talking to me. There was murder in their faces, _Ja_, it is those two."

Colvin cursed to himself, and vowed revenge. He was fond of his horses, and these two rascals had shot one of his best. At the same time he owned to himself ruefully that the chance of carrying out such vengeance was remote. At present he was far more an object for their vengeance than they for his.

"Come now, Gert, we must get along. Lay hold of my stirrup-leather and trot alongside."

They got into the road again, but with the moon behind the cloud and the rain that was beginning to fall it became very dark. What if the vindictive Dutchmen, guessing they had failed, were to take a short cut behind the ridge and _voerlij_ them further down? The thought was unpleasant, to put it mildly.

Now there was a whirl and a roar in the air, and, in an icy blast, the rain swooped down in torrents. Colvin, destitute of macintosh or wrap of any kind, was soaked through and through in about two minutes, and shivered exceedingly. Fortunately the deluge was behind him, or, coming down obliquely as it did, Aasvogel could hardly have made headway against it. Now and then a vivid flash of lightning gleamed forth, showing the sheer of the great crags overhead and the glistening slopes studded with wet stones.

"Hurry up, Gert. Put your best foot forward, man. We have to race the river this shot. The Ratels Hoek drift will be running twelve feet deep before we get there if we don't look smart."

And the Griqua, puffing and perspiring, did put his best foot forward.

Stephanus De la Rey, having just finished his supper, had come out on to the stoep to look at the weather. The deluge of the last hour had subsided, but the clouds, black as ink and unbroken, gave promise of a repetition of the same.

"Aha!" he said, gleefully to himself. "The drought is at an end. The river is already coming down well, and the dams must be overflowing. I shall pump a lot of water on to the lucerne beds to-morrow. But--What is that?"

The clink of shod horse hoofs came upon the wind through the swirl and roar of the fast-swelling river. He stood listening intently. The sound ceased, then arose again, now on this side of the drift. The next moment a very soaked and dripping horseman emerged into the light of the windows, and beside him trotted a pedestrian, no less soaked and dripping, but very much blown.

"Why, Colvin, where are you from? _Maagtig, kerel_! but you are wet," he cried. Then raising his voice: "Windvogel, Swaartbooi. Turn out, you _schepsels_, and take the Baas' horse."

"Wet? I'm nearly dead with cold, Stephanus. So bring along a _soepje_, old chap, and let's get to a fire and dry myself."

"Dry yourself? It's dry clothes you have to get into. Come this way. My _volk_ will see to your horse. Here now, what can we get you into? My things are too wide for you, Cornelis' and Jan's are too small. You will have to get into some of mine."

And having dragged out of a drawer a complete refit for his guest, whom he had marched straight into his own room, the genial Dutchman went out and reappeared in a moment with a decanter of excellent "dop" and glasses.

"That's grand!" ejaculated Colvin, fortifying himself with a liberal _soepje_ during the changing process. But not yet was he going to impart his adventures to his host. The latter had a great laugh over his attempts to carry off the fit of clothes that were both too long and too wide.

"Well, no matter," he said. "You are dry, at any rate, and by this time warm. So come along in and have some supper."

Colvin followed his host into the dining-room. The evening meal was just over, but already a place had been cleared and laid for him. As he shook hands with Mrs De la Rey, he noticed a girl--one he did not recollect ever having seen before. She was just receiving a dish from a Hottentot servant, and arranging it on the table at the place laid for him. Then, turning, she came up to him, with outstretched hand, and a bright smile of cordial welcome on her face.

"Oh, I had forgotten," said Stephanus. "You two have not met before. Colvin, this is my eldest girl--Aletta."