"There," she said; "I think we must be going."
Her companion"s countenance fell. "Not yet. Look. You haven"t filled in that tuft of aloes on the krantz, and there"s more shading wanted here."
She laughed. "I can fill that in at home. And the shading"s quite right, really. Do you know how long we have been here?"
"I know how long we haven"t been here--half long enough."
"Two hours and a quarter. We must really be going. They"ll be wondering what has become of us."
"Really not. They won"t trouble their heads about us. A little longer.
Heaven knows when I shall get you all to myself like this again," he pleaded. "And--Why, Lilian--darling--what is it?" For she had suddenly grown very white.
"You are tired," he went on. "The heat and the climb have been too much for you. What a ruffian I was to have made you come! But it"s shady and cool here, let"s wait a little longer; the rest will do you good."
"No, I am not tired; but we will wait a little longer. I--I have something to say to you, and this is a good opportunity of saying it."
"Yes. What is it?"
"Do you remember our compact?" she went on, with a sort of shiver, and speaking in a dead, mechanical voice. "Have you forgotten it--that night by the water? I had no right to bind you to such a one-sided agreement. It was not fair to you. I only thought of myself, and it was selfish of me--sinfully selfish--to ask you to consent to such a thing."
"Selfish! You selfish? Well, what next?"
There was silence for a moment. Before--beneath them lay the beautiful valley, its abrupt slopes and iron-bound krantzes soft in the golden sunshine. A couple of crimson-winged louris flitted among the tree-tops beneath, and the hum of insects floated up with a faint and far-away sound. Behind--above them yawned the gloomy cave, those whited relics of primeval barbarism lying silent and ghastly on the shadowed floor, the sole witnesses of this conflict of love in all its heart-wrung hopelessness. What a mocking irony of circ.u.mstances is that which has caused such a scene in the drama of civilisation--civilisation in its highest and most refined phase, to be enacted here in this savage spot, where lie the dead bones of the most degraded of the human race.
"Yes, selfish. I valued your society, your friendship, so much, I could not bear to lose it. I was afraid you would leave me, then and there; and, oh! I have never known what real chivalrous sympathy was till I met you, and I have needed it so. Yet I might have known what would be the result of tasking you to the utmost of your strength--beyond it, rather. Well, our compact," she went on, in an altered voice, as if nerving herself for an effort. "You have not kept to it. You must not talk to me as you have been doing lately--to-day even. You must not--"
She turned half away; she felt faint and sick at heart and dared not look at him. What would he say to her? Suddenly something struck her on the shoulder, just behind the neck. The concussion was of the nature of a blow, rather quick than violent. She turned upon her companion, lost in a kind of scared wonder.
He had sprang to his feet and was shaking something from his hand. It fell on the ground, and he stamped upon it and crushed it.
"What is that?" she asked, glancing from the ground to his face, which was growing very white.
"Only entomology," he replied. "Look at it."
A huge red scorpion lay on the ground, where he had trodden upon it. It died hard, however, and though half-crashed it lay writhing and darting out its formidable sting in its rage.
"In half a second it would have been on your neck; it was going there as fast as it could crawl when I picked it off," he said.
"Has it stung you? Of course it has," she cried, her rich voice vibrating with concern. "Why, Arthur," she went on, all in a glow of admiration; "do you mean to say that you s.n.a.t.c.hed that dreadful creature off me with your bare hand?"
It was the first time she had ever called him "Arthur," and for a moment he almost forgot the furious pain of the sting.
"Just that. I"d lay hold of the devil himself under far less provocation, I a.s.sure you. It was the only way of getting it off quick enough. By Jingo, it hurts, though. Look away for a moment, I"m going to slash it."
Opening his knife, which was keen and sharp as a razor, he drew its blade across the wound in a couple of deep gashes. The blood spurted freely, and he ground his teeth in the convulsive anguish caused by the venomous brute"s sting, which seemed to go through his whole frame.
Then he applied his lips to the wound and sucked.
"Good thing it missed that large vein," he said. For he had been just in time to seize the creature and crush it up in his fingers, during which process it had whipped up its tail and stung him twice just round the back of the hand. "Oh, I shall be all right, but we"d better get back. The Baas sometimes carries a bottle of Croft"s Tincture. That"ll put it right in no time," continued he, with rather a ghastly smile.
For the sting of a scorpion is terribly painful; indeed, unless a remedy is at hand the sufferer will undergo the most acute agony. The sting of the Apocalyptical locusts has been well compared.
"Yes, yes. Let us be going," she said, hurriedly. "Is it dreadfully painful?"
"I hardly feel it when I look into your eyes, darling. And your very voice has a soothing effect."
She had just been taking him to task for talking to her in this strain, regardless of their compact, but how could she upbraid him now--when he was in this terrible pain--and all for her? Suddenly he reeled giddily, and his face became even more livid; and the perspiration stood in beads upon his forehead. An awful fear gripped her heart. All the grim stories she had heard of deaths from stings and snakebites crowded up.
If this were to prove fatal and he were to die at her feet, having laid down his life for her! At this moment she knew her own heart if she had never done so before. Further self-disguise was useless. This incident had swept away the veil.
"Ah, why did you do it?" cried she, in tones of thrilling anguish. "I would sooner it had stung me a hundred times! You can hardly walk!
Lean on me. See! I am not such a weak support, after all."
She had pa.s.sed her arm through his, and, for the moment, felt as strong and determined as even he could have been. All thoughts of prudence and conventionality were scattered to the winds in her awful apprehension.
He was suffering horribly--it might be, even, that his life was in danger.
"Why, how childishly weak I am!" said he, with another forced smile.
"The thing can"t hurt so much, after all; hang it, it can"t!"
But it did. There was no getting rid of that fact, try as he might to ignore it. Thus they made their way back.
"Look, now, I mustn"t make a crutch of you any more. We shall be coming upon the others directly," said Claverton, as they drew near to the halting-place.
"I don"t care if we do," she replied, fearlessly.
"But I care; and I"m not going to let you do what you might regret afterwards," rejoined he, sadly, remembering the burden of their conversation at the time of the occurrence.
"Ah, why did you do it?" she repeated. And by that time they were in sight and earshot of the rest of the party.
"Hallo, Arthur! What"s up?" asked Mr Brathwaite, noticing his unwonted aspect.
"Nothing much; only a sting. Got any Croft"s Tincture?"
"Is it a snake?" inquired the old man, with more alarm in his voice than he intended to betray.
"No; a scorpion."
The while Mr Brathwaite had been uncorking a small bottle. "Lucky I didn"t change my coat at the last moment this morning. I was as nearly as possible doing so, and this would have been left behind if I had, sure as fate. Now, let"s have a look at it."
An infusion of the healing fluid was applied, and soon the sufferer began to feel perceptibly relieved. The throbbing became less violent, and, although much swollen already, the hand grew no larger. Old Garrett stood by, watching the doctoring process, lecturing the while, his theme the deterioration from its ancestry of the rising generation.
"There," he was saying, "I"ll be bound that none of you young fellers "ave any of that stuff with you--and what would you "ave done without it? We old stagers is always ready for any emergence," (his auditors presumed he meant emergency)--"always ready. All there, sir; all there?"
"Have you got any of it yourself?" asked the patient, catting him short.
""Ave I? Well, let"s see. No, I "aven"t to-day, but I generally "ave."
"Oh!" said the patient, significantly.
"There, you"ll do now," said Mr Brathwaite, tying up the hand with a handkerchief. "It"ll hurt a little for a time, but the swelling will soon go down. But how did it happen?"