Kitabı oku: «Jasper Lyle», sayfa 25

Chapter Twenty One.
Conclusion

It was a bright autumn day in Kafirland. Eleanor was borne out into the garden. They laid her on a couch on the sunny side of the cottage; the lime-trees and acacias met over her head. May had shaped them into a bower; they were the remains of a grove planted on the spot by some poor colonist, who had been long since driven by the savage from his homestead. The cheek of the invalid had resumed its marble hue, the eyes shone less brightly, the fever had abated.

The morning was delicious,—it reminded one of June in England; the canaries were singing their last summer melodies, and the swallows trilled their farewell lays to Kafirland. Below the willow bank, the stream murmured with a sound that pleased the ear and refreshed the senses.

Eleanor had been told by her father that her husband had again eluded justice. By a tacit agreement, the convict’s name was never referred to. All hoped alike that he would never more occupy a prominent position in the world, and the patient wife, daily praying for strength to support her in her trials, daily grew more resigned.

She longed to get away to some quiet nook, and be at rest.

She leaned on her mother’s bosom—Mrs Daveney was devoted to this sad daughter now. A faint colour tinged the sufferer’s wan cheek, the soft air lifted the dark braids from the temples: how tense they were! What a picture of desolation she presented—that young, intelligent, graceful, desolate being!

Mr Trail was reading, His wife working, the little Trails were watching the antics of May, who was dancing for their amusement, after making herds of clay oxen for them. Marion and Ormsby were walking up and down, talking earnestly, for both had grown more serious of late; and Mr Daveney was superintending the irrigation of his garden, when the quietude of the party was disturbed by a message summoning Mr Trail to his cottage, which, it will be remembered, was only separated by a lane from the Daveneys’ home.

Presently there was a clatter of arms, and the steady tread of soldiers; then the guard passed by—it soon re-appeared, bringing with them the young prisoner Gray.

Mr Trail walked by his side. The party passed close to the garden fence—Gray, though handcuffed, contrived to salute the compassionate people, who had in many ways softened the miseries of his confinement.

On the afternoon of that day, it was understood that the evidence on the court-martial was entirely against him—that his showing himself to the troops was pronounced the effect of terror and panic, and that it was proved he had lived for months among the Kafirs and Boers, trafficking in gunpowder with the former, and assisting the latter in their preparations for treking and for war. There was little time given for the defence. The accused could only affirm on oath that he had constantly remonstrated with Lyle on the course they were both pursuing, while, on the other hand, a Dutch prisoner related Gray’s reply to his fellow-convict, when the latter desired him to “do his duty.”

Poor Gray also admitted that he might have made an effort to remain with Vanbloem, when the latter fell to the rear with his wife, but he also urged, that by doing so he might have involved the young Dutchman in serious trouble. In short, he had no sound ground or defence to present, and the court-martial closed, after sitting four days. The finding was approved, and the sentence ere long promulgated. The poor youth was condemned to be shot as a deserter and a rebel.

Mr Trail was with him soon after this was made known to him. He bowed his head in silent submission to the laws of his country, and requested the good missionary to come to him that evening, when he should be glad to impart his last wishes to him. “That done,” said the poor youth, “I will turn my back to the things of earth, and give all my thoughts to heaven.”

And, as the sun went down, Mr Trail went again to the condemned man, who was now a solitary prisoner, strongly guarded. They talked far into the night. Poor Amayeka! thou wert foremost in the thoughts of thine ill-starred young soldier-love. He gave Mr Trail some tokens of affection and kindness for the friends of his early youth, “if they still lived;” but for Amayeka, he entreated the missionary’s care of her welfare, “that she might know there was a future, where the tears shall be wiped from off all faces.”

No further intelligence of Lyle—or Lee, as he was denominated officially—reached the British camps. The last accounts of Sir Adrian Fairfax referred to his being deep in diplomatic business with the conquered Dutch beyond the Orange River; and, save the anticipated execution of Gray, matters remained in abeyance with Sir John Manvers’s division until the two Generals should meet, to hold a parley with the Kafir chiefs and people; for, although subdued for a time, these restless savages would not “sit still”—the great array of forces scattered over the face of the land kept them in check; but though their words were “sweeter than honey in the honeycomb, and smoother than oil,” there was war in their hearts.

Mr Daveney had long asserted this to Sir John Manvers, who, jealous of all interference from the Commissioner, and haughtily reserved alike in communicating or receiving opinions, especially from him, made no serious objections to the return homeward of some of his best burgher captains. Troops and colonists rested on their arms, and the usual amusements of camp life were entered into with all the avidity of excitement-loving soldiers.

Poor Gray had now but three days to live. Mr Trail could not help thinking, that if all the circumstances of the case were related to Sir Adrian Fairfax, that kind General might mitigate the sentence. The missionary had drawn the young deserter’s history from him, and every word he spoke increased the good man’s interest, and made him long to rescue the youth from an ignominious death.

Even the eyes of the president of the court-martial, Colonel Graham, were observed to fill with tears when the question was asked of the prisoner—

“How old are you?”

And Gray replied, “I am twenty-two to-day.”

His air was so different to the reckless, daring manner of men hardened in crime, and every one felt the force of the words he uttered in his defence.

“I acknowledge my crimes,” he said; “but I have been very unfortunate.”

His open countenance when his eyes were raised, for shame and sorrow usually weighed them down; his slight boyish frame, attenuated by illness; his air of deep humility—humility without fear—for every question was answered unhesitatingly and honestly; the gentle way in which he met the accusations of the chief witness against him, a man who hoped to purchase his own freedom by the blood of his fellow creature; and the straightforward manner in which he related his history from the time he and Lyle had been cast ashore from the Trafalgar, taking more blame to himself in the matter of gunpowder traffic; than he deserved, were all adjuncts in his favour with the honourable court; but, alas! there was the damning evidence to prove the life he had lived for the last six months, and nothing to confirm his assertion that he deprecated his occupation or position.

Under present circumstances, Gray was not permitted to occupy his little chamber in the kind missionary’s cottage; but Ormsby—no longer the thoughtless, selfish Ormsby—gave up his hut to the poor young prisoner, who, patient and resigned, sat within, looking through the open door upon the distant plains of Kafirland.

He was fettered, and safely guarded by sentries, who would fain have avoided their sad duty.

Mr Trail sat beside him—the Bible he had been reading was closed upon his knee—the two were silent now—“thoughts too deep for words” filled the breasts of both. The missionary’s eyes were overflowing with a sorrow he could not repress, and the tears fell drop by drop upon his sleeve.—The deserter took no notice of this; he continued to gaze upon the plains. Between him and the great space beyond was spread the camp-ground—the troops with glittering arms—the sturdy burghers scattered in somewhat disorderly fashion—the Fingo warriors dancing their untiring dance and chanting their war-song. But he noted not this stir—his interests were no longer of earth—his eyes were lifted above those vacant green plains to those “aisles of light,” beyond which men have a vague idea that God dwells in heaven.

At the foot of the camp-ground the waters of the two rivers spread east and west; eastward the stream widened considerably, foaming and tumbling over gigantic blocks of stone; westward the current was comparatively smooth and shallow; precipitous banks, intersected with kloofs, formed the boundary on the opposite side, the cliffs overhanging the eastward being densely-wooded.

The ground above these cliffs sloped up to a long green ridge, sharply defined against the clear breezy sky of a Cape autumn day. The young prisoner’s eye swept this ridge with a purposeless look; but the sentries who watched him, following that look, were surprised to perceive several men on horseback with one in the midst, whom they soon discovered to be unarmed and bound upon the saddle he bestrode. This body of men inclined to the bank leading to the smoother waters of the river, dipped suddenly into a gorge, and did not reappear till they ascended the slight declivity at the extremity of the encampment. The horses, somewhat jaded, flagged in their pace till they came in full sight of the troops, when the party, some fifty strong, cantered to the guard-house, demanding to see the commanding officer of the troops, to whom they desired to deliver up Lee the convict.

Bound in limb, but with the dauntless spirit blazing in his eye, Jasper was led into the guard-house, and there, surrounded by his captors and the soldiers, awaited the arrival of the officer who was to receive him.

Colonel Graham was directed to dispose of the contumacious rebel for the present—no words passed between this officer and the prisoner. The elder Boer of the party delivered him to British authority, and claimed the reward, which was to be applied to kindly purposes among the sufferers by the war; and Lyle was conducted to a cell, rudely but strongly built, adjoining the guard-house. It contained a bench, a table, an iron bedstead with a straw pallet, and was but faintly lighted by a narrow slit high up in the thick stone wall. An iron ring in this wall showed that, if necessary, the prisoner could be chained to his desolate abode.

All that could be seen from this narrow chamber was the blue vault of heaven, with sometimes a bird careering freely in the clear ether.

The door swung heavily behind Jasper Lyle as he entered the cell—we must leave him there for the present. No one visited him for some hours—the chained eagle was left to beat its wings against its cage.

It was on the afternoon of this very day that an advance-guard of cavalry emerged from a glen heading the encampment, and announced that Sir Adrian Fairfax was at hand; the little knots of officers, dotted about the ground, canvassing the various reports which had lately floated about concerning the convict so unexpectedly delivered up to British authority, dispersed instantly. The bugles gave warning to fall in, and Sir Adrian, attended by his staff, and followed by a small body of troops, rode at a sharp pace into the square, where all, save Sir John Manvers, were in readiness to receive him.

It may be imagined that rumour’s busy tongue had not been still as regarded Jasper Lyle, for it began to be known that Lee was not the real name of the man who had made himself so notorious beyond the borders of the colony.

It was first ascertained that this rebel had been in South Africa before; then, some one remembered having heard of a so-called nephew, but, in reality, as it was said, a natural son of Sir John Manvers, who had given him an infinity of trouble, but who had been reported lost off the Cape of Good Hope; in short, one link after another was furnished to complete a chain on which to hang something very like the truth.

But the Daveneys were unconscious of the curiosity and interest they excited. Eleanor as yet knew nothing of what had taken place, and Marion, although she felt acutely, was consoled by Ormsby’s generosity.

Mr Daveney parted these two young people, and led Ormsby away to Mr Trail’s cottage.

There, in the presence of the missionary, the Commissioner proposed to release the young man from his engagement with his daughter.

“You see the strait we are in,” said Daveney; “there is no shutting our eyes to the fact that my wretched son-in-law must die the death of a traitor. You must not ally yourself to the sister-in-law of a malefactor.”

“It is my Marion’s misfortune, not her fault, that she is so allied,” replied Ormsby. “I love her, and she loves me, and we will not be parted.”

Mr Daveney’s mind felt somewhat lightened of its weight of anxiety on seeing his old friend Sir Adrian Fairfax. He did not believe, for an instant, that, by any circumstances, Lyle could be absolved from punishment; but a vague hope filled his breast that the convict’s life would be spared. Stern and cold and unfeeling as Sir John Manvers had been in his communications with him, the mild-tempered Daveney experienced the deepest compassion towards the father of such a son.

But what if he had known that that son was the legitimate first-born of the baronet?

And how had Sir John received the fatal news that his ill-starred son Jasper was a fettered prisoner within a few hundred yards of his own marquee?

On the day after hearing who this Lee really was, he had sent for Colonel Graham, who stood next in command, and desired that whenever the convict should be brought into the encampment, Colonel Graham should be ready to receive him, without reference to the higher authority. He dreaded lest a panic should seize him on suddenly hearing of Jasper’s unwelcome approach.

Accustomed to his cold manner, his aide-de-camp had, on the convict’s arrival, placed before Sir John the document from Colonel Graham reporting the outlaw’s capture.

“You may go, sir,” said Sir John, on receiving this dire intelligence; and he did not lift the paper, on which he recognised the handwriting, until the canvas screen dropped between him and the young officer.

He opened it and tried to read it through; the letters swam before his eyes, they turned blood-red, they blazed like characters of fire, the paper fell to the ground, and for the first time in his life the strong man fainted away.

A very few minutes sufficed for the hasty review Sir Adrian took of the assembled forces, and profiting by Colonel Graham’s offer of his marquee, he retired thither, and sent at once for Mr Daveney.

Frankfort, who, with the General, awaited the Commissioner, wrung the hand of his friend in silence, and all four entering the tent, where some refreshment had been hastily spread, Colonel Graham informed Sir Adrian of the apprehension of the rebel convict.

Frankfort was a stranger to the old colonel, who was fortunately too much occupied with matters of duty to notice the death-like hue which suddenly overspread the young man’s face. At a signal from Sir Adrian, Mr Daveney drew Frankfort into the air, but he turned from the sight of the busy camp. At this moment the Commissioner’s attention was attracted towards a little cavalcade of a couple of wagons drawn by mules, and attended by a mounted escort of one of the town levies: it passed the guard-house, and was directed by a soldier to the dwelling of Mr Trail.

Anon, a messenger hastened across the square, and announced the arrival of Lady Amabel Fairfax. The messenger was fortunately Ormsby, who knew by Frankfort’s expression of horror and surprise, that he had learned the tidings of the day. Daveney hurried off; neither of the young men spoke. They strode on till a thicket shut the camp from their sight, and, descending a bank, cast themselves on the turf.

“Where is Eleanor?” asked Frankfort.

“Do you see those willows?” said Ormsby, pointing up the little rivulet; “the tops of them wave just below her window. She has been almost dead, but is better and more resigned, for she thinks—”

“That he is still dead?” said Frankfort; and, in the bitterness of his heart, he added, “Would to Heaven he were!” The next moment he prayed God to forgive him, and, burying his face in his hands, groaned aloud.

“She believes,” replied Ormsby, “that he has again escaped.”

“Lady Amabel arrived!” exclaimed Sir Adrian, in great surprise, as Mr Trail entered Colonel Graham’s tent with the information.

“Arrived—impossible! have you seen her?”

“I have, sir.”

“Now, then, thank Heaven,” said Sir Adrian! “had I known yesterday that my wife was travelling, I should have been less able for the work I had before me. Mr Trail, it may be well to inform you that, in spite of this calm, which apparently pervades the whole of Kafirland, the Gaika warriors are assembling in the mountains, and my trusty Fingoes have warned me that they are meditating an attack on the camp. I have long had the idea that Sir John Manvers was not so prepared for mischief as myself and I hastened hither; but I have distributed my forces I hope advantageously; and although we may not keep the enemy out altogether, we may check his advance, and meet it with caution. It is time that I conferred with Sir John: it is strange that I should have received no message from him.”

The three gentlemen left the marquee. Colonel Graham bent his way to the tents of his regiment; the other two directed their steps to the canvas pavilion. A military surgeon met them at the door—dismay was painted on his face.

General Manvers lay as dead upon his camp bedstead—his jaw dropped, his cheek sunken, his eyes glaring and fixed. He had been found in this state by his servant. The document relative to Lyle was crushed between his fingers.

While Sir Adrian stood beside this rigid object of despair, the eyelids quivered, a faint sigh stole from the blue parted lips, and some low words were breathed, not uttered, but Sir Adrian distinguished them.

“My son! my son!—my first-born! Save my miserable son Jasper!”

The sudden surprise of seeing Sir Adrian Fairfax caused the unfortunate man to start up; he was bewildered—looked first at one, and then at the other, of the two kind men who leaned over him. The surgeon was utterly in the dark as to the cause of this sudden seizure.

Greatly disturbed at what he saw, deeply anxious about his wife, and keenly alive to the responsibilities of his command, Sir Adrian was anxious to withdraw, but Sir John held him firmly by the hand.

“Fairfax,” said the latter, “I must speak with you alone.”

The interview lasted but a few minutes. Dr E—, who had only retired to a tent close at hand, was speedily summoned again. “I am obliged, you see, Dr E—,” said Sir Adrian, “to leave this unfortunate gentleman. I fear he will disclose to you much of a history which it will shock you to hear, but I leave him, I know, in honourable hands, and his valet is faithful. The sentries had better be removed beyond ear-shot of the marquee. You are aware that there are symptoms of a warlike nature among the Gaikas in those hills; but, come what may, you must not leave Sir John. Delirium, I have little doubt, will supervene, for he is fearfully excited, and, alas! there is no earthly comfort for him. In a word, the convict who has been brought within our lines to-day is his son.”

The good surgeon stood confounded. Low moans struck on his ear—then a bitter cry; he had only time to send for the valet and a trusty sergeant before the patient was wild with delirium.

Miserable man! we must leave him; his pride is humbled to the dust—he weeps aloud, and implore his servant to intercede, to pray for his son, his first-born son.

Sir Adrian Fairfax did not seek his wife till he had made a minute inspection of the defences of the camp. He entered the guard-house. A thrill of anguish pierced his very soul at sight of the heavily-barred door of the convict’s cell. All was still within.

The day was more than half spent ere the general had time to greet the Lady Amabel. Mr Trail’s cottage was appropriated to her use, but the kind and gracious woman had found her way to Eleanor’s little white-washed room. Still equipped in her riding-dress, she reclined on cushions spread upon the floor.

She looked like some fair lily, beaten by the storm. Her riding-hat was laid aside, and her hair, still beautiful, hung disordered about her face, which had lost in loveliness of outline, but had preserved all its grace and sweetness of expression.

She silenced her husband’s tender reproof at having undertaken such a journey without his knowledge or permission. “Permission, dear love!” said she; “I did not ask for what I knew you would not grant, and it has been my great pleasure to surprise you in this beautiful desert. Besides,” she added, with a grave face, “truth to tell, I hastened my journey in consequence of news gathered by the way by my trusty Klaas, the Hottentot.

“Preferring my travelling accommodation to the discomforts of the little village inn at B—, where we halted last night, thirty miles from this, I sent Klaas to the mission station, for Mr M—, who I knew would give my people milk and vegetables; but Klaas, hearing on his way that Mr M— was absent, descended towards a Kafir Kraal in the valley. You know how cautious he is—he never trusts a Kafir in time of peace, so he crawled on his hands and knees to a bush crowning a height, where he stopped to reconnoitre. He was horror-stricken, when, on looking down upon the location, he saw two murdered Englishmen lying among the stones and thorn-bushes, and, at a little distance from them, sat a council of Kafirs. He waited till it grew dusk, and then crept down to listen to their conversation. He brought me back the fearful intelligence, that all the Kafir servants in the colony are to be mustered this day, by the Gaika warriors, in the mountains.—Ah! I see,” exclaimed Lady Amabel, looking from her husband to the Commissioner, “that this is no news to you. Gracious Heaven! is it possible that these fearful savages are likely to come down upon us? Oh! Adrian, Adrian! I am glad I have come.”

“There spoke the true soldier’s wife,” said the General; “but I trust we are too well prepared, for the enemy to approach our lines; they may harass us in many ways. They have already, I understand, swept off our cattle from the hills.”

But all day long the wary foe, from his mountain fastnesses, watched the proceedings in the British camp. All idea of attacking it was given up for the present, and, at the close of day, several Kafirs, graceful, gentle, dignified, and smiling, came to offer milk and corn and wood for sale.

Lady Amabel, who had never seen these wild beings before, looked from the garden at the dusky groups mingling with the soldiery, and could scarcely be persuaded that these were the people meditating a fiery onset with the burning brand and the gleaming assegai upon the camp they entered like messengers of peace.

Men and women, however, were armed with the weapons used by their race of old.

Despite this fair seeming on the part of the Gaika Kafirs, every preparation was made for their reception in hostile array. All day long scouts had been seen skimming along the ridges; much of the cattle belonging to the burgher camps had been carried off, and here and there glimmered a telegraphic fire.

No member of Mr Daveney’s household retired to rest: the night was spent much as I have described one on a similar occasion at Annerley. Still there was a certain feeling of security in being surrounded by a large, well-disciplined garrison, well prepared.

Wearied with her journey, and attired in a loose morning robe; Lady Amabel reclined on a camp chair; Eleanor was seated on the cushions at her feet, and both had dropped into an uneasy slumber, when they were awakened by the echoes of the morning gun.

No sign of scouts upon the ridges, no smoke from dying signal-fires; all was still, calm, and peaceful in the outer world. The heavens shone serene and clear, the sun careered in brightness along the hills, and the busy camp was soon astir.

And so passed another day. Kafir men and women and children again came among the soldiery, bartering and chattering and laughing; you would, indeed, have thought they were the “pastoral and peaceful race” described by some deluded men.

The door of Gray’s hut was closed that day, and none saw him but Mr Trail.

Midnight went by; the camp was hushed in deep repose, though the ear at intervals was startled by the challenge of a sentry, or the rattle of muskets, as the officers on duty went their rounds, and, fatigued with the excitement and harass of the previous hours, most of the community, except the watchful sentinels, were hushed in sleep. Even Sir John Manvers’s delirium had yielded to the anodynes administered, and he lay stupified and still, watched by Dr E— and his servant.

But Eleanor, who had longed to be alone, and who was too wretched to fear for herself, sat with the Book of Consolation before her, in her little chamber. The sofa-bed was undisturbed, her light burnt low, and she had just unfastened her hair to bind it up again ere she lay down to rest, when the flame of her candle flickered in a sudden current of air. In the room were two tiny windows, scarcely two feet square, at right angles with each other. That to the east was uncurtained and was lighted by the coming dawn; she looked up at the one opposite to her; it was open, and a face filled it as a picture would fill a frame.

It was the face of her husband—and the large full eyes were fixed upon her in a fashion that riveted her own as though attracted by a rattle-snake. They had not met since that fearful night when, with throbbing heart and bleeding feet, Eleanor had rushed from her home to the sanctuary of the mission station.

Each looked in silence at the other. Only a minute passed away, there was a low growl from the hound Marmion, a foot pressed the ground below the eastern window, and the dread presence vanished.

She heard the willow boughs breaking, Ormsby’s dog barked furiously, hurried footsteps again passed her window, and before she had strength to rise, Fitje with Ellen in her arms crept quietly into the room.

Voices sounded through the cottage, in the garden,—the dog’s angry bark retreated up the ravine, the whole camp was roused, and the cry went along the lines—“The prisoner has escaped.”

With his usual tact and presence of mind, though death stared him in the face, Jasper Lyle had contrived to conciliate the young sergeant on guard so far, that the latter did not turn a deaf ear to the man who, though he knew him to be a rebel, he believed to be brave and adventurous. Lyle asked but few questions, and these in a careless way. He ascertained that Sir John Manvers was “like to die, he was so ill;” that Sir Adrian was in command, and that the family of the Commissioner, Mr Daveney, was living in a cottage within five hundred yards of the guard-house.

Sir John Manvers ill—delirious! Had the blow told? Sir Adrian in command! He was the last man to punish by death, if it was possible to avoid such an extremity. Life might be spared, but there would be no more freedom for Jasper Lyle. Gray convicted—condemned!—how, then, could he expect favour? Something like a spasm of remorse touched his heart as he thought of the young deserter. His wife!—was she so near?

There are moments in the lives of evil men over which good angels hold their sway. Gray and Eleanor!—were they not his victims? He would fain have said a good word for one,—a strange desire arose to see the other.

He had not been an hour in his prison ere his quick eye had descried a possible means of escape.

The walls were of stone, the roof of shingles, the loop-hole a mere narrow slit high up in the wall. Lyle drew his bedstead near it, he stood up and looked out; he could see the southern plains and part of the encampment, he could hear the reliefs passing too and fro; he listened and distinguished the parole, “Albany.” He rubbed his hands with glee, he examined the loop-hole, and discovered that no coping-stone supported the roof. A bar of iron from his bedstead would remove the shingle overhanging the loop.

He sat down upon the bedstead in a desponding attitude. When the sergeant entered with the afternoon meal, the prisoner was weeping.

Fortune favoured Lyle. The sun set in heavy clouds, torrents of rain began to fall, the sentry who paced below the loop-hole retired to his box in the angle of the building, the thunder roared, the lightning flashed, and the convict worked amid the din of the elements. Every now and then he listened at the door; in the pauses of the storm he could hear the sleepers in the guardroom breathing hard; he went to work again, the roof had rotted from the effects of the rainy season, it gave way, and Lyle raised his head through the aperture.

In another instant he had slid down the wall, and was on the turf.

The sentry was within a few paces of him, but the wind, coming from an opposite direction, blew the blinding rain in the soldier’s face. He was wide awake, though, and, on finding something was astir not far off, uttered the usual query, “Who goes there?” The steady reply of “Friend,” and the countersign “Albany,” were sufficient; the sentry imagined it was some officer passing from one tent to another; the convict plunged below the bank in rear of the guardroom, which was on a line with the Daveneys’ cottage; and, scrambling on till he came to the group of willows, sprang into the garden, and saw before him a window. A light shone through the muslin curtain.

It readily yielded to his touch; he looked in—his pale, sorrowful-looking wife was before him.

What a contrast with the turmoils through which he had passed, with the wild uncertainty which made his bosom throb, was the sight of this grave, sad, innocent woman, alone in the stillness of dawn, with her Bible beside her!