Squire Courtland was by no means of the type usually described as “one of the old school,” except in so far that he was very much master in his own house. For the rest, he prided himself on being exceedingly up-to-date – and his estimate of woman was almost savage in its cynicism. Between himself and Violet there was an utter lack of sympathy; resulting, now that she was grown up, in an occasional and very unpleasant passage of arms.
“If I’ve thrown the man over!” quoted Violet angrily, when they were alone in her father’s own private ‘den,’ “of course you are sure to take his part.”
“I must know what ‘his part’ is before taking it or not. You women always expect us to hang a man first and try him afterwards; or rather to hang him on your sweet evidence alone, and not try him at all.”
“Oh, father, please don’t talk to me in that horrid tone,” restraining with vast effort the paroxysm of sobbing which threatened, and which she knew would only irritate him. “I am not feeling so extra happy, I can tell you.”
“Well, get it over then. What has Lamont done?”
“I can’t marry a coward.”
“Eh? A coward? Lamont? Have you taken leave of your senses, girl?”
“Well, listen. You shall hear,” she said crisply. And then she gave him an account of the whole affair.
“Is that all?” he said when she had done.
“All?”
“Yes. All?”
“Yes, it is. I don’t see what more there could be. I urged him to try and save the boy, and he refused. Refused!”
“And, by the Lord, he was right!” cried the Squire. “The answer he gave you was absolutely the right one, my child. If it had been yourself you’d have seen how he’d have gone in, but for a man of Lamont’s strong common-sense to go and throw away his life for a gallows’ brat that has only been fished out of the mere to be hanged later on in due course – why, I’m glad he’s justified the good opinion I had of him.”
“Then, father, you think he was justified in refusing to save life under any circumstances?” said Violet, very white and hard. There was no fear of her breaking down now. The fact of her father siding so entirely with her cast-off lover was as a tonic. It hardened and braced her.
“Certainly I do. He gave you the right answer, and on your own showing you insulted him – taking advantage of being a woman – several times over, for the fun of a squalid rabble that I am fool enough to allow to come and disport themselves on my property; but I’ll have them all cleared off tomorrow. Coward, indeed! Lamont a coward! No – no. That won’t do. I know men too well for that.”
“Then he was a brute instead,” retorted Violet, lashing herself into additional anger, as a dismal misgiving assailed her that she might have made a hideous and lifelong error of judgment. “A coldblooded, calculating brute, and that’s just as bad.”
“I don’t fancy you’ll get many to agree with you as to the last, my dear. Any man would rather be a brute than a coward,” said the Squire sneeringly. “And every man is a brute in the eyes of a woman if he doesn’t lie down flat and let her waltz over him, or fetch and carry, and cringe like a well-trained water-spaniel. Well, that’s neither here nor there. You’ve been engaged to a strong, level-headed, sensible man – one of the most sensible I’ve ever known – and you’ve publicly insulted him and thrown him over for no adequate cause whatever, I suppose if ever I see him again I shall have to apologise to him for the way he’s been treated.”
Violet could hardly contain herself throughout this peroration.
“Apologise to him?” she flashed. “Good Heavens! if the man went down on his knees to me, after what has happened, I wouldn’t look at him.”
“Well, you’re not likely to get the chance. Lamont is no such imbecile as to embark on any silliness of that kind. You’ve had such a chance as you’ll never get again, and you’ll live to regret it, mark me.”
The girl went from her father’s presence in a whirlwind of passion, but – it was mixed. Inwardly she raged against him for not sympathising with – not applauding her action. He had thrown another light upon the matter; hard, cynical, even brutal, but – still another light. And the sting lay in his last words. She would live to regret it, he had said. Why, she regretted it already.
Chapter One.
The Mopani Forest
The man could hardly drag one step behind the other. He could hardly drag by the bridle the tottering horse, of which the same held good.
His brain was giddy and his eyes wearied with the unvarying vista on every hand, the straight stems of the mopani forest, enclosing him; a still and ghastly wilderness devoid of bird or animal life. He stumbled forward, his lips blue and cracked, his tongue swollen, his throat on fire; and in his mind was blank and utter despair, for he knew that he was in the heart of a waterless tract, extending for about a hundred miles, and for over forty hours no drop of moisture of any sort had passed his lips. Forty hours of wandering in the driest, most thirst-inspiring region in the world!
He had made a bad start. There had been festivities at Fort Pagadi the night before, to celebrate the Jameson Raid and drink the health of its leaders. In these he had participated to the full – very much to the full. He had started at daybreak with a native guide, a headache, and a thirst which a brace of long and early brandies-and-sodas had failed entirely to quench. He had started, too, with another concomitant incidental to these latter – a very bad temper, to wit; wherefore, the native guide proving irritatingly dull of comprehension, he leaned from the saddle and cuffed him; which proceeding that aboriginal resented by decamping on the first opportunity.
Then he should have gone back, but he did not. He took short cuts instead. This was the more idiotic as he was rather new to the country, to this actual section of it entirely so. In short, it is hardly surprising that in the logical result he should have found himself lost – irretrievably ‘turned round’; and now, after two days and a night of wandering to and fro, and round and round, in futile, frantic efforts to extricate himself from that fatal net, here he was hardly able to drag himself or his horse four hundred yards farther, the nearest water being anything between thirty and fifty miles away.
The scant shade of the mopani foliage afforded little protection from the sun, and even if it had, the oven-like atmosphere engendered by the burnt, cracked soil would have neutralised such. He had tried climbing trees in order to try and get some sort of bearings. As well might a swimmer in mid-ocean rise to the crest of a wave, hoping to descry a landmark. The smooth, regular expanse of bluish-grey leafage stretched away unbroken, in whatever direction he might turn his eager despairing gaze; and he had got stung by ants, and had wasted a deal of much needed vitality in the effort. That was all, and now he had not even the strength to climb half a tree if his life had depended upon it. Even an unlooked-for stumble on the part of the horse he was leading dragged him flat on his back, jerking at the same time the bridle from his hand.
“Come here, you infernal loathly brute!” he snarled, making an effort to recover the rein. But for some reason, instinct perhaps, the horse backed away, just keeping beyond reach.
He glared at the animal with hatred, not altogether unreasonable. For when he had been travelling about four hours, and was uneasily beginning to realise that he was lost, he had unslung his vulcanite water-bottle – which nobody travelling up-country should ever be without – and had placed it on the ground while off-saddling. But something had startled the stupid brute, which in its blundering, foolish plunges had put its foot clean through that indispensable receptacle, of course shattering it like an eggshell, and spilling every drop of the contents on the thirsty, sucking soil. He had intended, when the worst came to the worst, to kill the animal,