Bertram Mitford - 'Tween Snow and Fire - A Tale of the Last Kafir War

At sight of this extremely unwelcome, not to say formidable, apparition, Eustace’s hand instinctively and with a quick movement sought the back of his hip – a movement which a Western man would thoroughly have understood. But he withdrew it – empty. For his eye, familiar with every change of the native countenance, noted that the expression of this man’s face was good-humoured rather than aggressive. And withal it seemed partly familiar to him.

“Who are you – and what do you want?” he said shortly. Then as his glance fell upon a bandage wrapped round the barbarian’s shoulder: “Ah. I know you – Hlangani.”

“Keep your ‘little gun’ in your pocket, Ixeshane,” said the Kafir, speaking in a tone of good-humoured banter. “I am not the man to be shot at twice. Besides, I am not your enemy. If I were, I could have killed you many times over already, before you saw me; could have killed you both, you and the Inkosikazi .”

This was self-evident. Eustace, recognising it, felt rather small. He to be taken thus at a disadvantage, he, who had constituted himself Eanswyth’s special protector against this very man! Yes. He felt decidedly small, but he was not going to show it.

“You speak the truth, Hlangani,” he answered calmly. “You are not my enemy. No man of the race of Xosa is. But why do you come here? There is bad blood between you and the owner of this place. Surely the land is wide enough for both. Why should your pathways cross?”

“Ha! You say truly, Ixeshane. There is blood between me and the man of whom you speak. Blood – the blood of a chief of the House of Gcaléka. Ha!”

The eyes of the savage glared, and his countenance underwent a transformation almost magical in its suddenness. The smiling, good-humoured expression gave way to one of deadly hate, of a ruthless ferocity that was almost appalling to contemplate. So effective was it upon Eustace that carelessly, and as if by accident, he interposed his body between Eanswyth and the speaker, and though he made no movement, his every sense was on the alert. He was ready to draw his revolver with lightning-like rapidity at the first aggressive indication. But no such indication was manifested.

“No. You have no enemies among our people – neither you nor the Inkosikazi ” – went on Hlangani as his countenance resumed its normal calm. “You have always been friends to us. Why are you not living here together as our friends and neighbours – you two, without the poison of our deadly enemy to cause ill-blood between us and you – you alone together? I would speak with you apart, Ixeshane.”

Now, Eanswyth, though living side by side with the natives, was, like most colonial people, but poorly versed in the Xosa tongue. She knew a smattering of it, just sufficient for kitchen purposes, and that was all; consequently, but for a word here and there, the above dialogue was unintelligible to her. But it was otherwise with her companion. His familiarity with the language was all but complete, and not only with the language, but with all its tricks. He knew that the other was “talking dark,” and his quick perception readily grasped the meaning which was intended to be conveyed. With the lurid thoughts indulged in that morning as regarded his cousin still fresh in his mind, it could hardly have been otherwise.

He hated the man: he loved the man’s wife. “How is it going to end?” had been his unuttered cry just now. “How is it going to end!” she had re-echoed. Well, here was a short and easy solution ready to hand. A flush of blood surged to his face, and his heart beat fiercely under the terrible temptation thus thrown in his way. Yet so fleeting was it as scarcely to constitute a temptation at all. Now that it was put nakedly to him he could not do this thing. He could not consent to a murder – a cold-blooded, treacherous murder.

“I cannot talk with you apart, Hlangani,” he answered. “I cannot leave the Inkosikazi standing here alone even for a few minutes.”

The piercing glance of the shrewd savage had been scrutinising his face – had been reading it like a book. Upon him the terrible struggle within had not been lost.

“Consider, Ixeshane,” he pursued. “What is the gift of a few dozen cows, of two hundred cows , when compared with the happiness of a man’s lifetime? Nothing. Is it to be? Say the word. Is it to be ?”

The barbarian’s fiery eyes were fixed upon his with deep and terrible meaning. To Eustace it seemed as if the blasting glare of the Arch fiend himself shone forth from their cruel depths.

“It is not to be. The ‘word’ is No! Unmistakably and distinctly No. You understand, Hlangani?”

“ Au ! As you will, Ixeshane,” replied the Kafir, with an expressive shrug of his shoulders. “See. You wear a ‘charm’,” referring to a curious coin which Eustace wore hanging from his watch-chain. “If you change your mind send over the ‘charm’ to me at Nteya’s kraal this night – it shall be returned. But after to-night it may be too late. Farewell.”

And flinging his blanket over his shoulder the savage turned and strode away into the veldt – Eustace purposely omitting to offer him a little tobacco, lest this ordinary token of good will should be construed into a sort of earnest of the dark and terrible bargain which Hlangani had proposed to him – by mere hints it is true – but still had none the less surely proposed.

They stood for some moments watching the receding figure of the Kafir in silence. Eanswyth was the first to break it.

“What have you been talking about all this time, Eustace? Is it any new danger that threatens us?”

“N-no. Rather the reverse if anything,” and his features cleared up as if to bear out the truth of his words. “I don’t see, though, why you shouldn’t know it. That’s the man we fell foul of in the veldt yesterday – you remember the affair of the white dog?”

“Oh!” and Eanswyth turned very pale.

“Now don’t be alarmed, dearest. I believe he only loafed round here to try and collect some compensation.”

“Is that really all, Eustace?” she went on anxiously. “You seemed very much disturbed, dear. I don’t think I ever saw you look so thoroughly disturbed.”

There was no perturbation left in his glance now. He took her face lovingly between his hands and kissed it again and again.

“Did you not, my sweet? Well, perhaps there has never existed such ground for it. Perhaps I have never met with so inopportune an interruption. But now, cheer up. We must make the most of this day, for a sort of instinct tells me that it is the last we shall have to ourselves, at any rate for some time to come. And now what shall we do with ourselves? Shall we go back to the house or sit here a little while and talk?”

Eanswyth was in favour of the latter plan. And, seated there in the shade of a great acacia, the rich summer morning sped by in a golden dream. The fair panorama of distant hills and wooded kloofs; the radiant sunlight upon the wide sweep of mimosa-dotted plains, shimmering into many a fantastic mirage in the glowing heat; the call of bird voices in the adjacent brake, and the continuous chirrup of crickets; the full, warm glow of the sensuous air, rich, permeating, life-giving; here indeed was a very Eden. Thus the golden morning sped swiftly by.

But how was it all to end? That was the black drop clouding the sparkling cup – that was the trail of the serpent across that sunny Eden. And yet not, for it may be that this very rift but served only to enhance the intoxicating, thrilling delights of the present – that this idyl of happiness, unlawful alike in the sight of God or man, was a hundredfold sweetened by the sad vein of undercurrent running through it – even the consciousness that it was not to last. For do we not, in the weak contrariety of our mortal natures, value a thing in exact proportion to the precariousness of our tenure!