CHAPTER XXX
"WE MUST PART, JOHN"
Jess and her companion stood in awed silence and gazed at the
blackening and distorted corpses of the thunder-blasted Boers. Then
they passed by them to the tree which grew some ten paces or more on
the other side of the place of death. There was some difficulty in
leading the horses by the bodies, but at last they came with a wheel
and a snort of suspicion, and were tied up to the tree by John.
Meanwhile Jess took some of the hard-boiled eggs out of the basket and
vanished, remarking that she should take her clothes off and dry them
in the sun while she at her breakfast, and that she advised him to do
likewise. Accordingly, so soon as she was well out of sight behind the
shelter of the rocks she set to work to free herself from her sodden
garments, a task of no little difficulty. Then she wrung them out and
spread them one by one on the flat water-washed stones around, which
were by now thoroughly warmed with the sun. Next she climbed to a pool
under the shadow of the steep bank, in the rock-bed of the river,
where she bathed her bruises and washed the sand and mud from her hair
and feet. Her bath finished, she returned and sat herself on a slab of
flat stone out of the glare of the sun, and ate her breakfast of hard-
boiled eggs, reflecting meanwhile on the position in which she found
herself. Her heart was very sore and heavy, and almost could she wish
that she were lying deep beneath those rushing waters. She had counted
upon death, and now she was not dead; indeed, she with her shame and
trouble might yet live for many a year. She was as one who in her
sleep had seemed to soar on angels' wings far into the airy depths,
and then awakened with a start to find that she had tumbled from her
bed. All the heroic scale, all the more than earthly depth of passion,
all the spiritualised desires that sprang into being beneath the
shadow of the approaching end, had come down to the common level of an
undesirable attachment, along which she must drag her weary feet for
many a year. Nor was this all. She had been false to Bessie; more, she
had broken Bessie's lover's troth. She had tempted him and he had
fallen, and now he was as bad as she. Death would have justified all
this; never would she have done it had she thought that she was doomed
to live; but now Death had cheated her, as is his fashion with people
to whom his presence is more or less desirable, leaving her to cope
with the spirit she had invoked when his sword was quivering over her.
What would be the end of it in the event of their escape? What could
be the end except misery? It should go no farther, far as it had gone
--that she swore; no, not if it broke her heart and his too. The
conditions were altered again, and the memory of those dreadful and
wondrous hours when they two swung upon the raging river and exchanged
their undying troth, with the grave for an altar, must remain a memory
and nothing more. It had risen in their lives like some beautiful yet
terrible dream-image of celestial joy, and now like a dream it must
vanish. And yet it was no dream, except in so far as all her life was
a dream and a vision, a riddle of which glimpses of the answer came as
rarely as gleams of sunshine on a rainy day. Alas! it was no dream; it
was a portion of the living, breathing past, that, having once been,
is immortal in its every part and moment, incarnating as it does the
very spirit of immortality, an utter incapacity to change. As the act
was, as the word had been spoken, so would act and word be for ever
and for ever. And now this undying thing must be caged and cast about
with the semblance of death and clouded over with the shadow of an
unreal forgetfulness. Oh, it was bitter, very bitter! What would it be
now to go away, quite away from him, and know him married to her own
sister, the other woman with a prior right? What would it be to think
of Bessie's sweetness slowly creeping into her empty place and filling
it, of Bessie's gentle constant love covering up the recollection of
their wilder passion; pervading it and covering it up as the twilight
slowly pervades and covers up the day, till at last perhaps it was
blotted out and forgotten in the night of forgetfulness?
And yet it must be so: she was determined that it should be so. Ah,
that she had died then with his kiss upon her lips! Why had he not let
her die? And grieving thus the poor girl shook her damp hair over her
face and sobbed in the bitterness of her heart, as Eve might have
sobbed when Adam reproached her.
But, naked or dressed, sobbing will not mend matters in this sad world
of ours, a fact which Jess had the sense to recognise; so presently
she wiped her eyes with her hair, having nothing else at hand to wipe
them with, and set to work to struggle into her partially dried
garments again, a process calculated to irritate the most fortunate
and happy-minded woman in the whole wide world. Certainly in her
present frame of mind those damp, bullet-torn clothes drove Jess
frantic, so much so that had she been a man she would probably have
sworn--a consolation that her sex denied her. Fortunately she carried
a travelling comb in her pocket, with which she made shift to do her
curling hair, if hair can be said to be done when one has not a
hairpin or even a bit of string wherewith to fasten it.
Then, after a last and frightful encounter with her sodden boots, that
seemed to take almost as much out of her as her roll at the bottom of
the Vaal, Jess rose and walked back to the spot where she had left
John an hour before. When she reached him he was employed in saddling
up the two greys with the saddles and bridles that he had removed from
the carcases of the horses which the lightning had destroyed.
"Why, Jess, you look quite smart. Have you dried your clothes?" he
said. "I have after a fashion."
"Yes," she answered.
He looked at her. "Dearest, you have been crying. Come, things are
black enough, but it is useless to cry. At any rate, we have escaped
with our lives so far."
"John," said Jess sharply, "there must be no more of that. Things have
changed. We were dead last night. Now we have come to life again.
Besides," she added, with a ghost of a laugh, "perhaps you will see
Bessie to-morrow. I should think that we ought to have come to the end
of our misfortunes."
John's face fell as a sense of the impossible and most tragic position
in which they were placed, physically and morally, swept into his
mind.
"Jess, my own Jess," he said, "what /can/ we do?"
She stamped her foot in the bitter anguish of her heart. "I told you,"
she said, "that there must be no more of that. What are you thinking
about? From to-day we are dead to each other. I have done with you and
you with me. It is your own fault; you should have let me die. Oh,
John," she wailed out, "why did you not let me die? Why did we not
both die? We should have been happy now, or--asleep. We must part,
John, we must part; and what shall I do without you, how /shall/ I
live without you?"
Her distress was very poignant, and it affected him so much that for a
moment he could not trust himself to answer her.
"Would it not be best to make a clean breast of it to Bessie?" he said
at last. "I should feel a villain for the rest of my life, but upon my
word I have a mind to do it."
"No, no," she cried passionately, "I will not allow it! You shall
swear to me that you will never breathe a word to Bessie. I will not
have her happiness destroyed. We have sinned, we must suffer; not
Bessie, who is innocent, and only takes her right. I promised my dear
mother to look after Bessie and protect her, and I will not be the one
to betray her--never, never! You must marry her and I must go away.
There is no other way out of it."
John looked at her, not knowing what to say or do. A sharp pang of
despair went through him as he watched the passionate pale face and
the great eyes dim with tears. How was he to part from her? He put out
his arms to take her in them, but she pushed him away almost fiercely.
"Have you no honour?" she cried. "Is it not all hard enough to bear
without your tempting me? I tell you it is done with. Finish saddling
that horse and let us start. The sooner we get off the sooner it will
be over, unless the Boers catch us again and shoot us, which for my
own part I devoutly hope they may. You must make up your mind to
remember that I am nothing but your sister-in-law. If you will not
remember it, then I shall ride away and leave you to go your road and
I will go mine."
John said no more. Her determination was as crushing as the cruel
necessity that dictated it. What was more, his own reason and sense of
honour approved it, whatever his passion might prompt to the contrary.
As he turned wearily to finish saddling the horses, with Jess he
almost regretted that they had not both been drowned.
Of course the only saddles that they had were those belonging to the
dead Boers, which was very awkward for a lady. Luckily for herself,
however, from constant practice, Jess could ride almost as well as
though she had been trained to the ring, and was even capable of
balancing herself without a pommel on a man's saddle, having often and
often ridden round the farm in that fashion. So soon as the horses
were ready she astonished John by clambering into the saddle of the
older and steadier animal, placing her foot in the stirrup-strap and
announcing that she was ready to start.
"You had better ride some other way," said John. "It isn't usual, I
know, but you will tumble off so."
"You shall see," she said with a cold little laugh, putting the horse
into a canter as she spoke. John followed her on the other horse, and
noticed with amazement that she sat as straight and steady on her
slippery seat as though she were on a hunting saddle, keeping herself
from falling by an instinctive balancing of the body which was very
curious to notice. When they were well on to the plain they halted to
consider their route, and, turning, Jess pointed to the long lines of
vultures descending to feast on their would-be murderers. If they went
down the river it would lead them to Standerton, and there they would
be safe if they could slip into the town, which was garrisoned by
English. But then, as they had gathered from the conversation of their
escort, Standerton was closely invested by the Boers, and to try and
pass through their lines was more than they dared to do. It was true
that they still had the pass signed by the Boer general, but after
what had occurred not unnaturally they were somewhat sceptical about
the value of a pass, and certainly most unwilling to put its efficacy
to the proof. So after due consideration they determined to avoid
Standerton and ride in the opposite direction till they found a
practicable ford of the Vaal. Fortunately, they both of them had a
very good idea of the lay of the land; and, in addition to this, John
possessed a small compass, fastened to his watch-chain, which would
enable him to steer a fairly correct course across a veldt--a fact
that rendered them independent of the waggon tracks. On the roads they
were exposed to the risk, if not the certainty, of detection. But on
the wide veldt the chances were they would meet no living creature
except the wild game. Should they see houses they could avoid them,
and probably their male inhabitants would be far away from home on
business connected with the war.
Accordingly they rode ten miles or more along the bank without seeing
a soul, till they reached a space of bubbling, shallow water that
looked fordable. Indeed, an investigation of the banks revealed the
fact that a loaded waggon had passed the river here and at no distant
date, perhaps a week before.
"This is good enough," said John; "we will try it." And without
further ado they plunged into the rapid.
In the centre of the stream the water was strong and deep, and for a
few yards swept the horses off their legs, but they struck out boldly
till they found their footing again; and after that there was no more
trouble. On the farther side of the river John took counsel with his
compass, and they steered a course straight for Mooifontein. At midday
they off-saddled the horses for an hour by some water, and ate a small
portion of their remaining food. Then they up-saddled and went on
across the lonely, desolate veldt. No human being did they see all
that long day. The wide country was tenanted only by great herds of
game that went thundering past like squadrons of cavalry, or here and
there by coteries of vultures, hissing and fighting furiously over
some dead buck. And so at last the twilight gathered and found them
alone in the wilderness.
"Well, what is to be done now?" said John, pulling up his tired horse.
"It will be dark in half an hour."
Jess slid from her saddle as she answered, "Get off and go to sleep, I
suppose."
She was quite right; there was absolutely nothing else that they could
do; so John set to work and hobbled the horses, tying them together
for further security, for it would be a dreadful thing if they were to
stray. By the time that this was done the twilight was deepening into
night, and the two sat down to contemplate their surroundings with
feelings akin to despair. So far as the eye could reach there was
nothing to be seen but a vast stretch of lonely plain, across which
the night wind blew in dreary gusts, causing the green grass to ripple
like the sea. There was absolutely no shelter to be had, nor any
object to break the monotony of the veldt, except two ant-heaps set
about five paces apart. John sat down on one of the ant-heaps, and
Jess took up her position on the other, and there they remained, like
pelicans in the wilderness, watching the daylight fade out of the day.
"Don't you think that we had better sit together?" suggested John
feebly. "It would be warmer, you see."
"No, I don't," answered Jess snappishly. "I am very comfortable as I
am."
Unfortunately, however, this was not the exact truth, for already poor
Jess's teeth were chattering with cold. Soon, indeed, weary as they
were, they found that the only way to keep their blood moving was to
tramp continually up and down. After an hour and a half of this
exercise, the breeze dropped and the temperature became more suitable
to their lightly clad, half-starved, and almost exhausted bodies. Then
the moon came up, and the hyenas, or wolves, or some such animals,
came up also and howled round them--though they could not see them.
These hyenas proved more than Jess's nerves would bear, and at last
she condescended to ask John to share her ant-heap: where they sat,
shivering in each other's arms, throughout the livelong night. Indeed,
had it not been for the warmth they gathered from each other, it is
probable that they might have fared even worse than they did; for,
though the days were hot, the nights were now beginning to be cold on
the high veldt, especially when, as at present, the air had recently
been chilled by the passage of a heavy tempest. Another drawback to
their romantic situation was that they were positively soaked with the
falling dew. There they sat, or rather cowered, for hour after hour
without sleeping, for sleep was impossible, and almost without
speaking; and yet, notwithstanding the wretchedness of their
circumstances, not altogether unhappy, since they were united in their
misery. At last the eastern sky began to turn grey, and John rose,
shook the dew from his hat and clothes, and limped off as well as his
half-frozen limbs would allow to catch the horses, which were standing
together some yards away, looking huge and ghost-like in the mist. By
sunrise he had managed to saddle them up, and they started once more.
This time, however, he was obliged to lift Jess on to the saddle.
About eight o'clock they halted and ate their little remaining food,
and then went on, slowly enough, for the horses were almost as tired
as they were, and it was necessary to husband them if they were to
reach Mooifontein by dark. At midday they rested for an hour and a
half, and then, feeling almost worn out, continued their journey,
reckoning that they could not be more than sixteen or seventeen miles
from Mooifontein. It was about two hours after this that the
catastrophe happened. The course they were following ran down the side
of one land wave, then across a little swampy /sluit/, and up the
opposite slope. They crossed the marshy ground, walked their horses up
to the crest of the opposite rise, and found themselves face to face
with a party of armed and mounted Boers.
