CHAPTER II
HOW SUZANNE FOUND RALPH KENZIE
Our farm where we lived in the Transkei was not very far from the ocean;indeed, any one seated in the _kopje_ or little hill at the back of thehouse, from the very top of which bubbles a spring of fresh water, cansee the great rollers striking the straight cliffs of the shore andspouting into the air in clouds of white foam. Even in warm weather theyspout thus, but when the south-easterly gales blow then the sight andthe sound of them are terrible as they rush in from the black waterone after another for days and nights together. Then the cliffs shiverbeneath their blows, and the spray flies up as though it were drivenfrom the nostrils of a thousand whales, and is swept inland in clouds,turning the grass and the leaves of the trees black in its breath. Woeto the ship that is caught in those breakers and ground against thoserocks, for soon nothing is left of it save scattered timbers shivered asthough by lightning.
One winter--it was when Suzanne was seven years old--such a south-eastgale as this blew for four days, and on a certain evening after the windhad fallen, having finished my household work, I went to the top of the_kopje_ to rest and look at the sea, which was still raging terrible,taking with me Suzanne. I had been sitting there ten minutes or morewhen Jan, my husband, joined me, and I wondered why he had come, for he,as brave a man as ever lived in all other things, was greatly afraidof the sea, and, indeed, of any water. So afraid was he that he did notlike the sight of it in its anger, and would wake at nights at the soundof a storm--yes, he whom I have seen sleep through the trumpetings offrightened elephants and the shouting of a Zulu impi.
"You think that sight fine, wife," he said, pointing to the spoutingfoam; "but I call it the ugliest in the world. Almighty! it turns myblood cold to look at it and to think that Christian men, ay, and womenand children too, may be pounding to pulp in those breakers."
"Without doubt the death is as good as another," I answered; "not that Iwould choose it, for I wish to die in my bed with the _predicant_ sayingprayers over me, and my husband weeping--or pretending to--at the footof it."
"Choose it!" he said. "I had sooner be speared by savages or hanged bythe English Government as my father was."
"What makes you think of death in the sea, Jan?" I asked.
"Nothing, wife, nothing; but there is that fool of a Pondowitch-doctoress down by the cattle kraal, and I heard her telling astory as I went by to look at the ox that the snake bit yesterday."
"What was the story?"
"Oh! a short one; she said she had it from the coast Kaffirs--that faraway, up towards the mouth of the Umzimbubu, when the moon was young,great guns had been heard fired one after the other, minute by minute,and that then a ship was seen, a tall ship with three masts and many'eyes' in it--I suppose she meant portholes with the light shiningthrough them--drifting on to the coast before the wind, for a storm wasraging, while streaks of fire like red and blue lightnings rushed upfrom her decks."
"Well, and then?"
"And then, nothing. Almighty! that is all the tale. Those waves whichyou love to watch can tell the rest."
"Most like it is some Kaffir lie, husband."
"May be, but amongst these people news travels faster than a good horse,and before now there have been wrecks upon this coast. Child, put downthat gun. Do you want to shoot your mother? Have I not told you that youmust never touch a gun?" and he pointed to Suzanne, who had picked upher father's _roer_--for in those days, when we lived among so manyKaffirs, every man went armed--and was playing at soldiers with it.
"I was shooting buck and Kaffirs, papa," she said, obeying him with apout.
"Shooting Kaffirs, were you? Well, there will be a good deal of that todo before all is finished in this land, little one. But it is not workfor girls; you should have been a boy, Suzanne."
"I can't; I am a girl," she answered; "and I haven't any brothers likeother girls. Why haven't I any brothers?"
Jan shrugged his shoulders, and looked at me.
"Won't the sea bring me a brother?" went on the child, for she had beentold that little children came out of the sea.
"Perhaps, if you look for one very hard," I answered with a sigh, littleknowing what fruit would spring from this seed of a child's talk.
On the morrow there was a great to do about the place, for the blackgirl whose business it was to look after Suzanne came in at breakfasttime and said that she had lost the child. It seemed that they had gonedown to the shore in the early morning to gather big shells such as arewashed up there after a heavy storm, and that Suzanne had taken with hera bag made of spring-buck hide in which to carry them. Well, the blackgirl sat down under the shadow of a rock, leaving Suzanne to wander toand fro looking for the shells, and not for an hour or more did she getup to find her. Then she searched in vain, for the spoor of the child'sfeet led from the sand between the rocks to the pebbly shore above,which was covered with tough sea grasses, and there was lost. Now at thegirl's story I was frightened, and Jan was both frightened and so angrythat he would have tied her up and flogged her if he had found time. Butof this there was none to lose, so taking with him such Kaffirs as hecould find he set off for the seashore to hunt for Suzanne. It was nearsunset when he returned, and I, who was watching from the _stoep_, sawwith a shiver of fear that he was alone.
"Wife," he said in a hollow voice, "the child is lost. We have searchedfar and wide and can find no trace of her. Make food ready to put in mysaddle-bags, for should we discover her to-night or to-morrow, she willbe starving."
"Be comforted," I said, "at least she will not starve, for the cook girltells me that before Suzanne set out this morning she begged of her abottle of milk and with it some biltong and meal cakes and put them inher bag."
"It is strange," he answered. "What could the little maid want withthese unless she was minded to make a journey?"
"At times it comes into the thoughts of children to play truant,husband."
"Yes, yes, that is so, but pray God that we may find her before the moonsets."
Then while I filled the saddle-bags Jan swallowed some meat, and a freshhorse having been brought he kissed me and rode away in the twilight.
Oh! what hours were those that followed! All night long I sat thereon the _stoep_, though the wind chilled me and the dew wet my clothes,watching and praying as, I think, I never prayed before. This I knewwell--that our Suzanne, our only child, the light and joy of our home,was in danger so great that the Lord alone could save her. The countrywhere we lived was lonely, savages still roamed about it who hated thewhite man, and might steal or kill her; also it was full of leopards,hyenas, and other beasts of prey which would devour her. Worst of all,the tides on the coast were swift and treacherous, and it well mighthappen that if she was wandering among the great rocks the sea wouldcome in and drown her. Indeed, again and again it seemed to me that Icould hear her death-cry in the sob of the wind.
At length the dawn broke, and with it came Jan. One glance at his facewas enough for me. "She is not dead?" I gasped.
"I know not," he answered, "we have found nothing of her. Give me brandyand another horse, for the sun rises, and I return to the search. Thetide is down, perhaps we shall discover her among the rocks," and hegroaned and entered the house with me.
"Kneel down and let us pray, husband," I said, and we knelt down weepingand praying aloud to our God who, seated in the Heavens, yet sees andknows the needs and griefs of His servants upon the earth; prayed thatHe would pity our agony and give us back our only child. Nor, blessedbe his name, did we pray vainly, for presently, while we still knelt,we heard the voice of that girl who had lost Suzanne, and who all nightlong had lain sobbing in the garden grounds, calling to us in wildaccents to come forth and see. Then we rushed out, hope burning upsuddenly in our hearts like a fire in dry grass.
In front of the house and not more than thirty paces from it, was thecrest of a little wave of land upon which at this moment the rays of therising sun struck brightly. There, yes, there, full in the glow o
f them,stood the child Suzanne, wet, disarrayed, her hair hanging about herface, but unharmed and smiling, and leaning on her shoulder anotherchild, a white boy, somewhat taller and older than herself. With a cryof joy we rushed towards her, and reaching her the first, for my feetwere the swiftest, I snatched her to my breast and kissed her, whereonthe boy fell down, for it seemed that his foot was hurt and he could notstand alone.
"In the name of Heaven, what is the meaning of this?" gasped Jan.
"What should it mean," answered the little maid proudly, "save that Iwent to look for the brother whom you said I might find by the sea ifI searched hard enough, and I found him, though I do not understand hiswords or he mine. Come, brother, let me help you up, for this is ourhome, and here are our father and mother."
Then, filled with wonder, we carried the children into the house, andtook their wet clothes off them. It was I who undressed the boy, andnoted that though his garments were in rags and foul, yet they were of afiner stuff than any that I had seen, and that his linen, which was softas silk, was marked with the letters R. M. Also I noted other things:namely, that so swollen were his little feet that the boots must be cutoff them, and that he was well-nigh dead of starvation, for his bonesalmost pierced his milk-white skin.
Well, we cleaned him, and having wrapped him in blankets and soft-tannedhides, I fed him with broth a spoonful at a time, for had I let himeat all he would, he was so famished that I feared lest he should killhimself. After he was somewhat satisfied, sad memories seemed to comeback to him, for he cried and spoke in England, repeating the word"Mother," which I knew, again and again, till presently he droppedoff to sleep, and for many hours slept without waking. Then, little bylittle, I drew all the tale from Suzanne.
It would seem that the child, who was very venturesome and full ofimaginings, had dreamed a dream in her bed on the night of the day whenshe played with the gun and Jan and I had spoken together of the sea.She dreamed that in a certain kloof, an hour's ride and more away fromthe stead, she heard the voice of a child praying, and that although heprayed in a tongue unknown to her, she understood the words, whichwere: "O Father, my mother is dead, send some one to help me, for I amstarving." Moreover, looking round her in her dream, though she couldnot see the child from whom the voice came, yet she knew the kloof, foras it chanced she had been there twice, once with me to gather whitelilies for the burial of a neighbour who had died, and once with herfather, who was searching for a lost ox. Now Suzanne, having lived somuch with her elders, was very quick, and she was sure when she woke inthe morning that if she said anything about her dream we should laugh ather and should not allow her to go to the place of which she had dreamt.Therefore it was that she made the plan of seeking for the shells uponthe seashore, and of slipping away from the woman who was with her, andtherefore also she begged the milk and the biltong.
Now before I go further I would ask, What was this dream of Suzanne's?Did she invent it after the things to which it pointed had come to pass,or was it verily a vision sent by God to the pure heart of a littlechild, as aforetime He sent a vision to the heart of the infant Samuel?Let each solve the riddle as he will, only, if it were nothing but animagination, why did she take the milk and food? Because we had beentalking on that evening of her finding a brother by the sea, you mayanswer. Well, perhaps so; let each solve the riddle as he will.
When Suzanne escaped from her nurse she struck inland, and thus ithappened that her feet left no spoor upon the hard, dry veldt. Soon shefound that the kloof she sought was further off than she thought for,or, perhaps, she lost her way to it, for the hillsides are scarred withsuch kloofs, and it might well chance that a child would mistake one forthe other. Still she went on, though she grew frightened in the lonelywilderness, where great bucks sprang up at her feet and baboons barkedat her as they clambered from rock to rock. On she went, stopping onlyonce or twice to drink a little of the milk and eat some food, till,towards sunset, she found the kloof of which she had dreamed. For awhile she wandered about in it, following the banks of a stream, tillat length, as she passed a dense clump of mimosa bushes, she heard thefaint sound of a child's voice--the very voice of her dream. Now shestopped, and turning to the right, pushed her way through the mimosas,and there beyond them was a dell, and in the centre of the dell a largeflat rock, and on the rock a boy praying, the rays of the setting sunshining in his golden, tangled hair. She went to the child and spoke tohim, but he could not understand our tongue, nor could she understandhis. Then she drew out what was left of the bottle of milk and some mealcakes and gave them to him, and he ate and drank greedily.
By this time the sun was down, and as they did not dare to move in thedark, the children sat together on the rock, clasped in each other'sarms for warmth, and as they sat they saw yellow eyes staring at themthrough the gloom, and heard strange snoring sounds, and were afraid. Atlength the moon rose, and in its first rays they perceived standing andwalking within a few paces of them three tigers, as we call leopards,two of them big and one half-grown. But the tigers did them no harm,for God forbade them; they only looked at them a little and then slippedaway, purring as they went.
Now Suzanne rose, and taking the boy by the hand she began to lead himhomeward, very slowly, since he was footsore and exhausted, and for thelast half of the way could only walk resting upon her shoulder. Stillthrough the long night they crawled forward, for the _kopje_ at the backof our stead was a guide to Suzanne, stopping from time to time to resta while, till at the breaking of the dawn with their last strength theycame to the house, as has been told.
Well it was that they did so, for it seems that the searchers hadalready sought them in the very kloof where they were hidden, withoutseeing anything of them behind the thick screen of the mimosas, andhaving once sought doubtless they would have returned there no more, forthe hills are wide and the kloofs in them many.