CHAPTER III
AFTER SEVEN YEARS
"What is the time, Leonard?"
"Eleven o'clock, Tom."
"Eleven--already? I shall go at dawn, Leonard. You remember Johnstondied at dawn, and so did Askew."
"For heaven's sake don't speak like that, Tom! If you think you aregoing to die, you will die."
The sick man laughed a ghost of a laugh--it was half a death-rattle.
"It is no use talking, Leonard; I feel my life flaring and sinking likea dying fire. My mind is quite clear now, but I shall die at dawn forall that. The fever has burnt me up! Have I been raving, Leonard?"
"A little, old fellow," answered Leonard.
"What about?"
"Home mostly, Tom."
"Home! We have none, Leonard; it is sold. How long have we been awaynow?"
"Seven years."
"Seven years! Yes. Do you remember how we said good-bye to the old placeon that winter night after the auction? And do you remember what weresolved?"
"Yes."
"Repeat it."
"We swore that we would seek wealth enough to buy Outram back till wewon it or died, and that we would never return to England till it waswon. Then we sailed for Africa. For seven years we have sought and doneno more than earn a livelihood, much less a couple of hundred thousandpounds or so."
"Leonard."
"Yes, Tom?"
"You are sole heir to our oath now, and to the old name with it, or youwill be in a few hours. I have fulfilled my vow. I have sought till Idied. You will take up the quest till you succeed or die. The strugglehas been mine, may you live to win the Star. You will persevere, willyou not, Leonard?"
"Yes, Tom, I will."
"Give me your hand on it, old fellow."
Leonard Outram knelt down beside his dying brother, and they claspedeach other's hands.
"Now let me sleep awhile. I am tired. Do not be afraid, I shall wakebefore the--end."
Hardly had the words passed his lips when his eyes closed and he sankinto stupor or sleep.
His brother Leonard sat down upon a rude seat, improvised out of anempty gin-case. Without the tempest shrieked and howled, the greatwind shook the Kaffir hut of grass and wattle, piercing it in a hundredplaces till the light of the lantern wavered within its glass, andthe sick man's hair was lifted from his clammy brow. From time totime fierce squalls of rain fell like sheets of spray, and the water,penetrating the roof of grass, streamed to the earthen floor. Leonardcrept on his hands and knees to the doorway of the hut, or rather to thelow arched opening which served as a doorway, and, removing the boardthat secured it, looked out at the night. Their hut stood upon the ridgeof a great mountain; below was a sea of bush, and around it rose thefantastic shapes of other mountains. Black clouds drove across the dyingmoon, but occasionally she peeped out and showed the scene in all itsvast solemnity and appalling solitude.
Presently Leonard closed the opening of the doorway, and going back tohis brother's side he gazed upon him earnestly. Many years of toil andprivation had not robbed Thomas Outram's face of its singular beauty, orfound power to mar its refinement. But death was written on it.
Leonard sighed, then, struck by a sudden thought, sought for and found ascrap of looking-glass. Holding it close to the light of the lantern,he examined the reflection of his own features. The glass mirrored ahandsome bearded man, dark, keen-eyed like one who is always on thewatch for danger, curly-haired and broad-shouldered; not very tall, buthaving massive limbs and a form which showed strength in every movement.Though he was still young, there was little of youth left about the man;clearly toil and struggle had done an evil work with him, ageing hismind and hardening it as they had hardened the strength and vigour ofhis body. The face was a good one, but most men would have preferredto see friendship shining in those piercing black eyes rather than thelight of enmity. Leonard was a bad enemy, and his long striving with theworld sometimes led him to expect foes where they did not exist.
Even now this thought was in his mind: "He is dying," he said tohimself, as he laid down the glass with the care of a man who cannotafford to hazard a belonging however trivial, "and yet his face isnot so changed as mine is. My God! he is dying! My brother--the onlyman--the only living creature I love in the world, except one perhaps,if indeed I love her still. Everything is against us--I should sayagainst me now, for I cannot count him. Our father was our first enemy;he brought us into the world, neglected us, squandered our patrimony,dishonoured our name, and shot himself. And since then what has it beenbut one continual fight against men and nature? Even the rocks in whichI dig for gold are foes--victorious foes--" and he glanced at his hands,scarred and made unshapely by labour. "And the fever, that is a foe.Death is the only friend, but he won't shake hands with me. He takes mybrother whom I love as he has taken the others, but me he leaves."
Thus mused Leonard sitting sullenly on the red box, his elbow on hisknee, his rough hands held beneath his chin pushing forward the thickblack beard till it threw a huge shadow, angular and unnatural, on tothe wall of the hut, while without the tempest now raved, now lulled,and now raved again. An hour--two--passed and still he sat not moving,watching the face of the fever-stricken man that from time to timeflushed and was troubled, then grew pale and still. It seemed to himas though by some strange harmony of nature the death-smitten blood wasstriving to keep pace with the beat of the storm, knowing that presentlylife and storm would pass together into the same domain of silence.
At length Tom Outram opened his eyes and looked at him, but Leonard knewthat he did not see him as he was. The dying eyes studied him indeed andwere intelligent, but he could feel that they read something on hisface that was not known to himself, nor could be visible to any otherman--read it as though it were a writing.
So strange was this scrutiny, so meaningless and yet so full of ameaning which he could not grasp, that Leonard shrank beneath it. Hespoke to his brother, but no answer came,--only the great hollow eyesread on in that book which was printed upon his face; that book, sealedto him, but to the dying man an open writing.
The sight of the act of death is always terrible; it is terrible towatch the latest wax and ebb of life, and with the intelligence tocomprehend that these flickerings, this coming and this going, thesesinkings and these last recoveries are the trial flights of theanimating and eternal principle--call it soul or what you will--beforeit trusts itself afar. Still more terrible is it under circumstances ofphysical and mental desolation such as those present to Leonard Outramin that hour.
But he had looked on death before, on death in many dreadful shapes, andyet he had never been so much afraid. What was it that his brother,or the spirit of his brother, read in his face? What learning had hegathered in that sleep of his, the last before the last? He could nottell--now he longed to know, now he was glad not to know, and now hestrove to overcome his fears.
"My nerves are shattered," he said to himself. "He is dying. How shall Ibear to see him die?"
A gust of wind shook the hut, rending the thatch apart, and through therent a little jet of rain fell upon his brother's forehead and ran downhis pallid cheeks like tears. Then the strange understanding look passedfrom the wide eyes, and once more they became human, and the lips wereopened.
"Water," they murmured.
Leonard gave him to drink, with one hand holding the pannikin to hisbrother's mouth and with the other supporting the dying head. Twice hegulped at it, then with a brusque motion of his wasted arm he knockedthe cup aside, spilling the water on the earthen floor.
"Leonard," he said, "you will succeed."
"Succeed in what, Tom?"
"You will get the money and Outram--and found the family afresh--but youwill not do it alone. _A woman will help you_."
Then his mind wandered a little and he muttered, "How is Jane? Have youheard from Jane?" or some such words.
At the mention of this name Leonard's face softened, then once more grewhard and anxious.
"I have n
ot heard of Jane for years, old fellow," he said; "probably sheis dead or married. But I do not understand."
"Don't waste time, Leonard," Tom answered, rousing himself from hislethargy. "Listen to me. I am going fast. You know dying men seefar--sometimes. I dreamed it, or I read it in your face. I tellyou--_you_ will die at Outram. Stay here a while after I am dead. Stay awhile, Leonard!"
He sank back exhausted, and at that moment a gust of wind, fiercer thanany which had gone before, leapt down the mountain gorges, howling withall the voices of the storm. It caught the frail hut and shook it. Acobra hidden in the thick thatch awoke from its lethargy and fell witha soft thud to the floor not a foot from the face of the dying man--thenerected itself and hissed aloud with flickering tongue and head swollenby rage. Leonard started back and seized a crowbar which stood near, butbefore he could strike, the reptile sank down and, drawing its shiningshape across his brother's forehead, once more vanished into the thatch.
His eyes did not so much as close, though Leonard saw a momentaryreflection of the bright scales in the dilated pupils and shivered atthis added terror, shivered as though his own flesh had shrunk beneaththe touch of those deadly coils. It was horrible that the snake shouldcreep across his brother's face, it was still more horrible that hisbrother, yet living, should not understand the horror. It caused him toremember our invisible companion, that ancient enemy of mankind of whomthe reptile is an accepted type; it made him think of that long sleepwhich the touch of such as this has no power to stir.
Ah! now he was going--it was impossible to mistake that change, the lastquick quiver of the blood, followed by an ashen pallor, and the sobof the breath slowly lessening into silence. So the day had died lastnight, with a little purpling of the sky--a little sobbing of thewind--then ashen nothingness and silence. But the silence was broken,the night had grown alive indeed--and with a fearful life. Hark! how thestorm yelled! those blasts told of torment, that rain beat like tears.What if his brother----He did not dare to follow the thought home.
Hark! how the storm yelled!--the very hut wrenched at its strongsupports as though the hands of a hundred savage foes were dragging it.It lifted--by heaven it was gone!--gone, crashing down the rocks on thelast hurricane blast of the tempest, and there above them lowered thesullen blue of the passing night flecked with scudding clouds, and therein front of them, to the east and between the mountains, flared thesplendours of the dawn.
Something had struck Leonard heavily, so heavily that the blood ran downhis face; he did not heed it, he scarcely felt it; he only clasped hisbrother in his arms and, for the first time for many years, he kissedhim on the brow, staining it with the blood from his wound.
The dying man looked up. He saw the glory in the East. Now it ran alongthe mountain sides, now it burned upon their summits, to each summit apillar of flame, a peculiar splendour of its own diversely shaped; andnow the shapes of fire leaped from earth to heaven, peopling the skywith light. The dull clouds caught the light, but they could not hold itall: back it fell to earth again, and the forests lifted up their armsto greet it, and it shone upon the face of the waters.
Thomas Outram saw--and staggering to his knees he stretched out his armstowards the rising sun, muttering with his lips.
Then he sank upon Leonard's breast, and presently all his story wastold.