CHAPTER XIV
THE WEDDING
The marriage morning of Ralph and Suzanne broke brightly; never have Iseen a fairer. It was spring time, and the veldt was clothed with thefresh green grass and starred everywhere with the lily blooms thatsprang among it. The wind blew softly, shaking down the dewdrops fromthe growing corn, while from every bush and tree came the cooingof unnumbered doves. Beneath the eave of the _stoep_ the pair ofred-breasted swallows which had built there for so many years werefinishing their nest, and I watched them idly, for to me they were oldfriends, and would wheel about my head, touching my cheek with theirwings. Just then they paused from their task, or perhaps it was atlength completed, and flying to a bough of the peach tree a few yardsaway, perched there together amidst the bright bloom, and nestlingagainst each other, twittered forth their song of joy and love.
It was at this moment that Sihamba walked up to the _stoep_ as though tospeak to me.
"The Swallow and the Swallow's mate," she said, following my eyes towhere the little creatures swung together on the beautiful bough.
"Yes," I answered, for her fancy seemed to me of good omen, "they havebuilt their nest, and now they are thanking God before they begin tolive together and rear their young in love."
As the words left my lips a quick shadow swept across the path of sunlitground before the house, two strong wings beat, and a brown hawk, smallbut very fierce, being of a sort that preys upon small birds, swoopeddownwards upon the swallows. One of them saw it, and slid from thebough, but the other the hawk caught in its talons, and mounted withit high into the air. In vain did its mate circle round it swiftly,uttering shrill notes of distress; up it went steadily as pitiless asdeath.
"Oh! my swallow," I cried aloud in grief, "the accursed hawk has carriedaway my swallow."
"Nay, look," said Sihamba, pointing upwards.
I looked, and behold! a black crow that appeared from behind the house,was wheeling about the hawk, striking at it with its beak until, thatit might have its talons free to defend itself, it let go the swallow,which, followed by its mate, came fluttering to the earth, while thecrow and the falcon passed away fighting, till they were lost in theblue depths of air.
Springing from the _stoep_ I ran to where the swallow lay, but Sihambawas there before me and had it in her hands.
"The hawk's beak has wounded it," she said pointing to a blood stainamong the red feathers of the breast, "but none of its bones are broken,and I think that it will live. Let us put it in the nest and leave it toits mate and nature."
This we did, and there in the nest it stayed for some days, its matefeeding it with flies as though it were still unfledged. After that theyvanished, both of them together, seeking some new home, nor did theyever build again beneath our eaves.
"Would you speak with me, Sihamba?" I asked when this matter of theswallows was done with.
"I would speak with the Baas, or with you, it is the same thing," sheanswered, "and for this reason. I go upon a journey; for myself I havethe good black horse which the Baas gave me after I had ridden to warnyou in Tiger Kloof yonder, the one that I cured of sickness. But Ineed another beast to carry pots and food and my servant Zinti, whoaccompanies me. There is the brown mule which you use little because heis vicious, but he is very strong and Zinti does not fear him. Will yousell him to me for the two cows I earned from the Kaffir whose wife Isaved when the snake bit her? He is worth three, but I have no more tooffer."
"Whither do you wish to journey, Sihamba?" I asked.
"I follow my mistress to the dorp," she answered.
"Did she bid you follow her, Sihamba?"
"No! is it likely that she would think of me at such a time, or carewhether I come or go? Fear not, I shall not trouble her, or put her tocost; I shall follow, but I shall not be seen until I am wanted."
Now I had made up my mind to gainsay Sihamba, not that I could find anyfault with her plan, but because if such arrangements are to be made, Ilike to make them myself, as is the business of the head of the house. Ithink Sihamba guessed this; at any rate she answered me before I spoke,and that in an odd way, namely, by looking first at the swallow's nest,then at the blooming bough of the peach tree, and lastly into the fardistances of air.
"It was the black crow that drove the hawk away," she said,reflectively, as though she were thinking of something else, "though Ithink, for my eyes are better than yours, that the hawk killed the crow,or perhaps they killed each other; at the least I saw them falling tothe earth beyond the crest of the mountain."
At this I was about to break in angrily, for if there was one thing inthe world I hated it was Sihamba's nonsense about birds and omens andsuch things, whereof, indeed, I had had enough on the previous night,when she made that lump Jan believe that he saw visions in a bowl ofwater. And yet I did not--for the black crow's sake. The cruel hawk hadseized the swallow which I loved, and borne it away to devour it in itseyrie, and it was the crow that saved it. Well, the things that happenedamong birds might happen among men, who also prey upon each other,and--but I could not bear the thought.
"Take the mule, Sihamba," I said; "I will answer for it to the Baas. Asfor the two cows, they can run with the other cattle till your return."
"I thank you, Mother of Swallow," she answered, and turned to go, when Istopped her and asked:
"Have you heard anything that makes you afraid, Sihamba?"
"I have heard nothing," she replied, "still I am afraid."
"Then you are a fool for your pains, to be afraid of nothing," Ianswered roughly; "but watch well, Sihamba."
"Fear not, I will watch till my knees are loosened and my eyes growhollow." Then she went away, and that was the last I saw of her for manya weary month. Ah! Suzanne, child, had it not been for the watching oflittle Sihamba, the walker-by-moonlight, you had not been sitting thereto-day, looking much as she used to look, the Suzanne of fifty yearsago.