Allan's Wife

  CHAPTER XI

  GONE!

  I wonder if many married couples are quite as happy as we foundourselves. Cynics, a growing class, declare that few illusions cansurvive a honeymoon. Well, I do not know about it, for I only marriedonce, and can but speak from my limited experience. But certainly ourillusion, or rather the great truth of which it is the shadow, didsurvive, as to this day it survives in my heart across all the years ofutter separation, and across the unanswering gulf of gloom.

  But complete happiness is not allowed in this world even for an hour.As our marriage day had been shadowed by the scene which has beendescribed, so our married life was shadowed by its own sorrow.

  Three days after our wedding Mr. Carson had a stroke. It had been longimpending, now it fell. We came into the centre hut to dinner and foundhim lying speechless on the couch. At first I thought that he was dying,but this was not so. On the contrary, within four days he recovered hisspeech and some power of movement. But he never recovered his memory,though he still knew Stella, and sometimes myself. Curiously enough heremembered little Tota best of all three, though occasionally he thoughtthat she was his own daughter in her childhood, and would ask her whereher mother was. This state of affairs lasted for some seven months.The old man gradually grew weaker, but he did not die. Of course hiscondition quite precluded the idea of our leaving Babyan Kraals till allwas over. This was the more distressing to me because I had a nervouspresentiment that Stella was incurring danger by staying there, and alsobecause the state of her health rendered it desirable that we shouldreach a civilized region as soon as possible. However, it could not behelped.

  At length the end came very suddenly. We were sitting one evening byMr. Carson's bedside in his hut, when to our astonishment he sat up andspoke in a strong, full voice.

  "I hear you," he said. "Yes, yes, I forgive you. Poor woman! you toohave suffered," and he fell back dead.

  I have little doubt that he was addressing his lost wife, some visionof whom had flashed across his dying sense. Stella, of course, wasoverwhelmed with grief at her loss. Till I came her father had been hersole companion, and therefore, as may be imagined, the tie between themwas much closer than is usual even in the case of father and daughter.So deeply did she mourn that I began to fear for the effect upon herhealth. Nor were we the only ones to grieve; all the natives on thesettlement called Mr. Carson "father," and as a father they lamentedhim. The air resounded with the wailing of women, and the men went aboutwith bowed heads, saying that "the sun had set in the heavens, now onlythe Star (Stella) remained." Indaba-zimbi alone did not mourn. He saidthat it was best that the Inkoos should die, for what was life worthwhen one lay like a log?--moreover, that it would have been well for allif he had died sooner.

  On the following day we buried him in the little graveyard near thewaterfall. It was a sad business, and Stella cried very much, in spiteof all I could do to comfort her.

  That night as I sat outside the hut smoking--for the weather was hot,and Stella was lying down inside--old Indaba-zimbi came up, saluted, andsquatted at my feet.

  "What is it, Indaba-zimbi?" I said.

  "This, Macumazahn. When are you going to trek towards the coast?"

  "I don't know," I answered. "The Star is not fit to travel now, we mustwait awhile."

  "No, Macumazahn, you must not wait, you must go, and the Star must takeher chance. She is strong. It is nothing. All will be well."

  "Why do you say so? why must we go?"

  "For this reason, Macumazahn," and he looked cautiously round and spokelow. "The baboons have come back in thousands. All the mountain is fullof them."

  "I did not know that they had gone," I said.

  "Yes," he answered, "they went after the marriage, all but one or two;now they are back, all the baboons in the world, I think. I saw a wholecliff back with them."

  "Is that all?" I said, for I saw that he had something behind. "I am notafraid of a pack of baboons."

  "No, Macumazahn, it is not all. The Babyan-frau, Hendrika, is withthem."

  Now nothing had been heard or seen of Hendrika since her expulsion, andthough at first she and her threats had haunted me somewhat, by degreesshe to a great extent had passed out of my mind, which was fullypreoccupied with Stella and my father-in-law's illness. I startedviolently. "How do you know this?" I asked.

  "I know it because I saw her, Macumazahn. She is disguised, she isdressed up in baboon skins, and her face is stained dark. But though shewas a long way off, I knew her by her size, and I saw the white fleshof her arm when the skins slipped aside. She has come back, Macumazahn,with all the baboons in the world, and she has come back to do evil. Nowdo you understand why you should trek?"

  "Yes," I said, "though I don't see how she and the baboons can harmus, I think that it will be better to go. If necessary we can camp thewaggons somewhere for a while on the journey. Hearken, Indaba-zimbi: saynothing of this to the Star; I will not have her frightened. And hearkenagain. Speak to the headmen, and see that watchers are set all round thehuts and gardens, and kept there night and day. To-morrow we will getthe waggons ready, and next day we will trek."

  He nodded his white lock and went to do my bidding, leaving me not alittle disturbed--unreasonably so, indeed. It was a strange story. Thatthis woman had the power of conversing with baboons I knew.[*] That wasnot so very wonderful, seeing that the Bushmen claim to be able to dothe same thing, and she had been nurtured by them. But that she hadbeen able to muster them, and by the strength of her human will andintelligence muster them in order to forward her ends of revenge, seemedto me so incredible that after reflection my fears grew light. Still Idetermined to trek. After all, a journey in an ox waggon would not besuch a very terrible thing to a strong woman accustomed to roughing it,whatever her state of health. And when all was said and done I didnot like this tale of the presence of Hendrika with countless hosts ofbaboons.

  [*] For an instance of this, see Anderson's "Twenty-five Years in a Waggon," vol. i. p. 262.--Editor.

  So I went in to Stella, and without saying a word to her of the baboonstory, told her I had been thinking matters over, and had come to theconclusion that it was our duty to follow her father's instructions tothe letter, and leave Babyan Kraals at once. Into all our talk I neednot enter, but the end of it was that she agreed with me, and declaredthat she could quite well manage the journey, saying, moreover, that nowthat her dear father was dead she would be glad to get away.

  Nothing happened to disturb us that night, and on the following morningI was up early making preparations. The despair of the people when theylearned that we were going to leave them was something quite pitiable. Icould only console them by declaring that we were but on a journey, andwould return the following year.

  "They had lived in the shadow of their father, who was dead," theydeclared; "ever since they were little they had lived in his shadow. Hehad received them when they were outcasts and wanderers without a matto lie on, or a blanket to cover them, and they had grown fat in hisshadow. Then he had died, and the Star, their father's daughter, hadmarried me, Macumazahn, and they had believed that I should take theirfather's place, and let them live in my shadow. What should they do whenthere was no one to protect them? The tribes were kept from attackingthem by fear of the white man. If we went they would be eaten up," andso on. Alas! there was but too much foundation for their fears.

  I returned to the huts at mid-day to get some dinner. Stella saidthat she was going to pack during the afternoon, so I did not think itnecessary to caution her about going out alone, as I did not wish toallude to the subject of Hendrika and the baboons unless I was obligedto. I told her, however, that I would come back to help her as soon asI could get away. Then I went down to the native kraals to sort out suchcattle as had belonged to Mr. Carson from those which belonged to theKaffirs, for I proposed to take them with us. It was a large herd,and the business took an incalculable time. At length, a little beforesundown, I gave it up, and leaving Indaba-zimbi to
finish the job, goton my horse and rode homewards.

  Arriving, I gave the horse to one of the stable boys, and went into thecentral hut. There was no sign of Stella, though the things she hadbeen packing lay about the floor. I passed first into our sleeping hut,thence one by one into all the others, but still saw no sign of her.Then I went out, and calling to a Kaffir in the garden asked him if hehad seen his mistress.

  He answered "yes." He had seen her carrying flowers and walking towardsthe graveyard, holding the little white girl--my daughter--as he calledher, by the hand, when the sun stood "there," and he pointed to a spoton the horizon where it would have been about an hour and a half before."The two dogs were with them," he added. I turned and ran towards thegraveyard, which was about a quarter of a mile from the huts. Of coursethere was no reason to be anxious--evidently she had gone to lay theflowers on her father's grave. And yet I was anxious.

  When I got near the graveyard I met one of the natives, who, by myorders, had been set round the kraals to watch the place, and noticedthat he was rubbing his eyes and yawning. Clearly he had been asleep. Iasked him if he had seen his mistress, and he answered that he had not,which under the circumstances was not wonderful. Without stoppingto reproach him, I ordered the man to follow me, and went on to thegraveyard. There, on Mr. Carson's grave, lay the drooping flowers whichStella had been carrying, and there in the fresh mould was the spoor ofTota's veldschoon, or hide slipper. But where were they?

  I ran from the graveyard and called aloud at the top of my voice, but noanswer came. Meanwhile the native was more profitably engaged in tracingtheir spoor. He followed it for about a hundred yards till he came toa clump of mimosa bush that was situated between the stream and theancient marble quarries just over the waterfall, and at the mouth of theravine. Here he stopped, and I heard him give a startled cry. I rushedto the spot, passed through the trees, and saw this. The little openspace in the centre of the glade had been the scene of a struggle.There, in the soft earth, were the marks of three pairs of humanfeet--two shod, one naked--Stella's, Tota's, and _Hendrika's_. Nor wasthis all. There, close by, lay the fragments of the two dogs--they werenothing more--and one baboon, not yet quite dead, which had beenbitten in the throat by the dogs. All round was the spoor of numberlessbaboons. The full horror of what had happened flashed into my mind.

  My wife and Tota had been carried off by the baboons. As yet they hadnot been killed, for if so their remains would have been found withthose of the dogs. They had been carried off. The brutes, acting underthe direction of that woman-monkey, Hendrika, had dragged them away tosome secret den, there to keep them till they died--or kill them!

  For a moment I literally staggered beneath the terror of the shock. ThenI roused myself from my despair. I bade the native run and alarm thepeople at the kraals, telling them to come armed, and bring me guns andammunition. He went like the wind, and I turned to follow the spoor. Fora few yards it was plain enough--Stella had been dragged along. I couldsee where her heels had struck the ground; the child had, I presumed,been carried--at least there were no marks of her feet. At the water'sedge the spoor vanished. The water was shallow, and they had gone alongin it, or at least Hendrika and her victim had, in order to obliteratethe trail. I could see where a moss-grown stone had been freshly turnedover in the water-bed. I ran along the bank some way up the ravine, inthe vain hope of catching a sight of them. Presently I heard a bark inthe cliffs above me; it was answered by another, and then I saw thatscores of baboons were hidden about among the rocks on either side, andwere softly swinging themselves down to bar the path. To go on unarmedas I was would be useless. I should only be torn to pieces as the dogshad been. So I turned and fled back towards the huts. As I drew near Icould see that my messenger had roused the settlement, for natives withspears and kerries in their hands were running up towards the kraals.When I reached the hut I met old Indaba-zimbi, who wore a very seriousface.

  "So the evil has fallen, Macumazahn," he said.

  "It has fallen," I answered.

  "Keep a good heart, Macumazahn," he said again. "She is not dead, nor isthe little maid, and before they die we shall find them. Remember this,Hendrika loves her. She will not harm her, or allow the babyans to harmher. She will try to hide her away from you, that is all."

  "Pray God that we may find her," I groaned. "The light is going fast."

  "The moon rises in three hours," he answered; "we will search bymoonlight. It is useless to start now; see, the sun sinks. Let us getthe men together, eat, and make things ready. _Hamba gachla_. Hastenslowly, Macumazahn."

  As there was no help, I took his advice. I could eat no food, but Ipacked some up to take with us, and made ready ropes, and a rough kindof litter. If we found them they would scarcely be able to walk. Ah! ifwe found them! How slowly the time passed! It seemed hours before themoon rose. But at last it did rise.

  Then we started. In all we were about a hundred men, but we onlymustered five guns between us, my elephant roer and four that hadbelonged to Mr. Carson.