CHAPTER XXXIII
VENGEANCE
For three or four minutes more Jess and Jantje whispered together, afterwhich the Hottentot rose and crept away to find out what was passingamong the Boers below, and watch when Frank Muller retired to his tent.So soon as he had marked him down it was agreed that he was to come backand report to Jess.
When he was gone Jess gave a sigh of relief. This stirring up of Jantjeto the boiling-point of vengeance had been a dreadful thing to nerveherself to do, but now at any rate it was done, and Muller's doom wassealed. But what the end of it would be none could say. Practically shewould be a murderess, and she felt that sooner or later her guilt mustfind her out, and then she could hope for little mercy. Still she had noscruples, for after all Frank Muller's would be a well-merited fate.But when all was said and done, it was a dreadful thing to be forced tosteep her hands in blood, even for Bessie's sake. If Muller were removedBessie would marry John, provided that John escaped the Boers, and behappy, but what would become of herself? Robbed of her love and withthis crime upon her mind, what could she do even if she escaped--exceptdie? It would be better to die and never see him again, for her sorrowand her shame were more than she could bear. Then Jess began to thinkof John till all her poor bruised heart seemed to go out towards him.Bessie could never love him as she did, she felt sure of that, and yetBessie was to have him by her all her life, and she--she must go away.Well, it was the only thing to do. She would see this deed done, and sether sister free, then if she happened to escape she would go at once--goquite away where she would never be heard of again. Thus at any rateshe would have behaved like an honourable woman. She sat up and put herhands to her face. It was burning hot though she was wet through, andchilled to the bone with the raw damp of the night. A fierce fever ofmind and body had taken hold of her, worn out as she was with emotion,hunger, and protracted exposure. But her brain was clear enough; shenever remembered its being so clear before. Every thought that came intoher mind seemed to present itself with startling strength, standing outalone against a black background of nothingness, not softened down andshaded one into another as thoughts generally are. She seemed to seeherself wandering away--alone, utterly alone, alone for ever!--while inthe far distance John stood holding Bessie by the hand, gazing after herregretfully. Well, she would write to him, since it must be so, and bidhim one word of farewell. She could not go without that, though how herletter was to reach John she knew not, unless indeed Jantje could findhim and deliver it. She had a pencil, and in the breast of her dress wasthe Boer pass, the back of which, stained as it was with water, wouldserve the purpose of paper. She found it, and, bending forward towardsthe light, placed it on her knees.
"Good-bye," she wrote, "good-bye! We can never meet again, and it isbetter that we never should in this world. I believe that there isanother. If there is I shall wait for you there if I have to wait tenthousand years. If not, then good-bye for ever. Think of me sometimes,for I have loved you very dearly, and as nobody will ever love youagain; and while I live in this or any other existence and am myself,I shall always love you and you only. Don't forget me. I never shall bereally dead to you until I am forgotten.--J."
She lifted the paper from her knee, and without even re-reading whatshe had written thrust the pass back into her bosom and was soon lost inthought.
Ten minutes later Jantje, like a great snake in human form, camecreeping in to where she sat, his yellow face shining with theraindrops.
"Well," whispered Jess, looking up with a start, "have you done it?"
"No, missie, no. Baas Frank has but now gone to his tent. He has beentalking to the clergyman, something about Missie Bessie, I don't knowwhat. I was near, but he talked low, and I could only hear the name."
"Are all the Boers asleep?"
"All, missie, except the sentries."
"Is there a sentry before Baas Frank's tent?"
"No, missie, there is nobody near."
"What is the time, Jantje?"
"About three hours and a half after sundown" (half-past ten).
"Let us wait half an hour, and then you must go."
Accordingly they sat in silence. In silence they sat facing each otherand their own thoughts. Presently Jantje broke it by drawing the bigwhite-handled knife and commencing to sharpen it on a piece of leather.
The sight made Jess feel sick. "Put the knife up," she said quickly, "itis sharp enough."
Jantje obeyed with a feeble grin, and the minutes passed on heavily.
"Now, Jantje," she said at last, speaking huskily in her struggle toovercome the spasmodic contractions of her throat, "it is time for youto go."
The Hottentot fidgeted about, and at last spoke.
"Missie must come with me!"
"Come with you!" answered Jess starting, "why?"
"Because the ghost of the old Englishwoman will be after me if I goalone."
"You fool!" said Jess angrily; then recollecting herself she added,"Come, be a man, Jantje; think of your father and mother, and be a man."
"I am a man," he answered sulkily, "and I will kill him like a man, butwhat good is a man against the ghost of a dead Englishwoman? If I putthe knife into her she would only make faces, and fire would come out ofthe hole. I will not go without you, missie."
"You must go," she said fiercely; "you shall go!"
"No, missie, I will not go alone," he answered.
Jess looked at him and saw that Jantje meant what he said. He wasgrowing sulky, and the worst dispositioned donkey in the world is far,far easier to deal with than a sulky Hottentot. She must either give upthe project or go with the man. Well, she was equally guilty one way orthe other, and being almost callous about detection, she might as wellgo. She had no power left to make fresh plans. Her mind seemed to beexhausted. Only she must keep out of the way at the last. She could notbear to be near then.
"Well," she said, "I will go with you, Jantje."
"Good, missie, that is all right now. You can keep off the ghost of thedead Englishwoman while I kill Baas Frank. But first he must be fastasleep. Fast, fast asleep."
Then slowly and with the uttermost caution once more they crept down thehill. This time there was no sound to be heard except the regular trampof the sentries. But their present business did not take them to thewaggon-house; they left that on their right, and went on towards theblue-gum avenue. When they were nearly opposite to the first tree theyhalted in a patch of stones, and Jantje slipped forward to reconnoitre.Presently he returned with the intelligence that all the Boers who werewith the waggon had gone to sleep, but that Muller was still sitting inhis tent thinking. Then they crept on, perfectly sure that if they werenot heard they would not be seen, curtained as they were by the densemist and darkness.
At length they reached the bole of the first big gum tree. Five pacesfrom this tree Frank Muller's tent was pitched. There was a light init which caused the wet tent to glow in the mist, as though it had beenrubbed with phosphorus, and on this lurid canvas the shadow of FrankMuller was gigantically limned. He was so placed that the lamp cast amagnified reflection of his every feature and even of his expressionupon the screen before them. The attitude in which he sat was hisfavourite one when he was plunged in thought, his hands resting on hisknees and his gaze fixed on vacancy. He was thinking of his triumph,and of all that he had gone through to win it, and of all that it wouldbring him. He held the trump cards now, and the game lay in his ownhand. He had triumphed, and yet over him hung the shadow of that cursewhich dogs the presence of our accomplished desires. Too often, evenwith the innocent, does the seed of our destruction lurk in the richblossom of our hopes, and much more is this so with the guilty. Somehowthis thought was present with him to-night, and in a rough half-educatedway he grasped its truth. Once more the saying of the old Boer generalrose in his mind: "I believe that there is a God--I believe that Godsets a limit to a man's doings. If he is going too far, God _killshim_."
What a dreadful thing it would be if the old fool wer
e right after all!Supposing that there were a God, and God were to kill him to-night, andhurry off his soul, if he had one, to some dim place of unending fear!All his superstitions awoke at the thought, and he shivered so violentlythat the shadow of the shiver caused the outlines of the gigantic formupon the canvas to tremble visibly.
Then rising with an angry curse, Muller hastily threw off his outerclothing, and having turned down but not extinguished the roughparrafine lamp, he flung himself down upon the little camp bedstead,which creaked and groaned beneath his weight like a thing in pain.
Now came silence, only broken by the drip, drip of the rain from the gumleaves overhead, and the rattling of the boughs whenever a breath of airstirred them. It was an eerie and depressing night, a night that mightwell have tried the nerves of any strong man who, wet through and wornout, was obliged to crouch upon the open veldt and endure it. Howmuch more awful was it then to the unfortunate woman who, halfbroken-hearted, fever-stricken, and well-nigh crazed with the sufferingof mind and body, waited in it to see murder done! Slowly the minutespassed, and at every raindrop or rustle of a bough her guilty consciencesummoned up a host of fears. But by the mere power of her will she keptthem down. She would go through with it. Yes, she would go through withit. Surely he must be asleep by now!
They crept up to the tent and placed their ears within two inches of hishead. Yes, he was asleep; the sound of his breathing rose and fell withthe regularity of an infant's.
Jess turned round and touched her companion upon the shoulder. He didnot move, but she felt that his arm was shaking.
"_Now_," she whispered.
Still he hung back. It was evident to her that the long waiting hadtaken the courage out of him.
"Be a man," she whispered again, so low that the sound scarcely reachedhis ears although her lips were almost touching them, "go, and mind youstrike home!"
Then at last she heard him softly draw the great knife from the sheath,and in another second he had glided from her side. Presently she saw theline of light that streamed upon the darkness through the opening of thetent broaden a little, and by this she knew that he was creeping in uponhis dreadful errand. Then she turned her head and put her fingers in herears. But even so she could see a long line of shadow travelling acrossthe skirt of the tent. So she shut her eyes also, and waited sick atheart, for she did not dare to move.
Presently--it might have been five minutes or only half a minuteafterwards, for she had lost count of time--Jess felt somebody touch heron the arm. It was Jantje.
"_Is it done?_" she whispered again.
He shook his head and drew her away from the tent. In going her footcaught one of the guy-ropes and stirred it slightly.
"I could not do it, missie," he said. "He is asleep and looks just likea child. When I lifted the knife he smiled in his sleep and all thestrength went out of my arm, so that I could not strike. And then beforeI grew strong again the spook of the old Englishwoman came and hit me inthe back, and I ran away."
If a look could have blasted a human being Jantje would assuredly havebeen blasted then. The man's cowardice maddened Jess, but whilst shestill choked with wrath a duiker buck, which had come down from itsstony home to feed upon the rose-bushes, suddenly sprang with a crashalmost from their feet, passing away like a grey gleam into the utterdarkness.
Jess started, then recovered herself, guessing what it was, but themiserable Hottentot, overcome with terror, fell upon the ground groaningout that it was the spook of the old Englishwoman. He had dropped theknife as he fell, and Jess, seeing the imminent peril in which they wereplaced, knelt down, found it, and hissed into his ear that if he werenot quiet she would kill him.
This pacified him a little, but no earthly power could persuade him toenter the tent again.
What was to be done? What could she do? For two minutes or more sheburied her face in her wet hands and thought wildly and despairingly.
Then a dark and dreadful determination entered her mind. The man Mullershould not escape. Bessie should not be sacrificed to him. Rather thanthat, she would do the deed herself.
Without a word she rose, animated by the tragic agony of her purpose andthe force of her despair, and glided towards the tent, the great knifein her hand. Now, ah! all too soon, she was inside of it, and stood fora second to allow her eyes to grow accustomed to the light. Presentlyshe began to see, first the outline of the bed, then the outline of themanly form stretched upon it, then both bed and man distinctly. Jantjehad said that he was sleeping like a child. He might have been; now hewas _not_. On the contrary, his face was convulsed like the face of onein an extremity of fear, and great beads of sweat stood upon his brow.It was as though he knew his danger, and yet was utterly powerless toavoid it. He lay upon his back. One heavy arm, his left, hung over theside of the bed, the knuckles of the hand resting on the ground; theother was thrown back, and his head was pillowed upon it. The clothinghad slipped away from his throat and massive chest, which were quitebare.
Jess stood and gazed. "For Bessie's sake, for Bessie's sake!" shemurmured; then impelled by a force that seemed to move of itself shecrept slowly, slowly, to the right-hand side of the bed.
At this moment Muller woke, and his opening eyes fell full uponher face. Whatever his dream had been, what he now saw was far moreterrible, for bending over him was the _ghost of the woman he hadmurdered in the Vaal!_ There she was, risen from her river grave, torn,dishevelled, water yet dripping from her hands and hair. Those sunkand marble cheeks, those dreadful flaming eyes could belong to no humanbeing, but only to a spirit. It was the spirit of Jess Croft, of thewoman whom he had slain, come back to tell him that there _was_ a livingvengeance and a hell!
Their eyes met, and no creature will ever know the agony of terror thathe tasted of before the end came. She saw his face sink in and turnashen grey while the cold sweat ran from every pore. He was awake, butfear paralysed him, he could not speak or move.
He was awake, and she could hesitate no more. . . .
He must have seen the flash of the falling steel, and----