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Chapter Thirteen.
At the Price of herself

Up till now Aletta had asked no questions. She had accepted Gert’s assurance, of which the man’s obvious distress was sufficient confirmation. Her quick-witted, practical nature had asserted itself. That was no time for questions. She must act, and that promptly. Now, however, that they were well on their way, and covering the ground at the best pace the predikants excellent horses could put on, she reckoned the time had come to know more. Why was Colvin Kershaw to be murdered – for it was murder she declared? What had he done?

But Mynheer could not tell her much beyond the bare facts of the case as he knew them, for the burghers who had come to fetch him had been extremely reticent.

“Helping a prisoner to escape. But that is not a thing to shoot a man for,” she said. “Oh, I will plead with the Commandant, and you will, too, will you not, Mynheer? Ah, if only father were here, they would not dare do it then. But – who was the prisoner, and did he escape?”

“He escaped – yes. It was Frank Wenlock, and he was to be shot for insulting the President and the patriot cause, and assaulting one of the burghers. He was very violent, and very blasphemous —Ja, that I can quite believe, for did not he and some of the worst characters in Schalkburg disturb our service one evening at Nachtmaal time, by ringing the bell which hangs outside, and running away? And he gets drunk and rowdy when he comes into the town. No, he is a bad character. Kershaw ought not to have exchanged his life for the life of such a man as that.”

They conversed in English so that Mynheer’s native groom might not understand. The burgher escort, too, were mostly close to the vehicle.

So it was for Frank Wenlock’s sake that Colvin was throwing away his life, thought Aletta. Mynheer had spoken truly indeed, as to the vast disparity of such an exchange. But – he was May’s brother. That explained it all. How Colvin must have loved that other girl, to make the greatest sacrifice that human being can make – for her sake! And the thought had a kind of hardening effect upon Aletta, for she was but a woman after all, not an angel. Why should she continue to pour out her love upon one who had proved so faithless? Only an hour or two ago she had been telling herself that he was practically dead to her. Yet the moment she had heard that he was soon likely to be actually so, here she was moving Heaven and earth to save him, or, at any rate, to see him once more. Well, she would still do all she could to save him, but she would not see him again, in any event. No, from that resolve she would not swerve.

“But how did he get to Krantz Kop, Mynheer?” she said, in continuation of her thoughts. “He was at Pret – Johannesburg when I saw him last.”

“They say he had come from Cronje’s force, and had seen a lot of the fighting near Kimberley. I don’t know this Schoeman, but Jan Grobbelaar and the others ought to be able to do something for him between them.”

“He had been with Cronje’s force, then?” echoed Aletta, as though a new idea had come to her. But it was quickly dashed. He had had plenty of time to have gone there afterwards, after that day when she with her own eyes had seen him making love to May Wenlock. With her own eyes! There was no getting round that fact.

And the hours wore on, bringing these two nearer and nearer to their sad and mournful goal.

Night had fallen upon the burgher camp at Krantz Kop, and most of its inmates, habituated to rising with the sun and retiring with the going down of the same, or not long after it, were in the land of dreams. They were under no fear of surprise, for besides the fact of their sentries being well posted there was a strong commando, with artillery, entrenched below on the outer slope of the mountains, and between them and the far British lines. So the camp slumbered in peace and security.

In one tent, however, a light was still burning, throwing the shadows of men – huge, distorted, grotesque, out upon the canvas. Adrian De la Rey and his two now boon companions – Gideon Roux and Hermanus Delport – sat within. A bottle of dop, the contents of which had nearly reached vanishing point, stood on a waggon box in the centre.

“Toen, Adrian!” the last of these was saying. “All is going well now. The Englishman will be out of your way to-morrow for ever – out of all our ways, hey, Gideon? We will come to your wedding soon, ou’ maat– when we have shot a few more of these cursed English. Do you think Oom Stephanus will be glad to see us?”

“Finish up, and go away and sleep,” growled Adrian, pushing the bottle towards him, “or you’ll be too shaky for anything in the morning, both of you. You’ll miss him at ten paces, like you did before at two hundred.”

“Nee, kerel, nee. But that was in the dark,” replied Hermanus, grabbing the bottle and his tin pannikin, which rattled against the glass neck in the drunken shakiness of his big hand.

“Maagtig! leave some for me, Mani,” cried Gideon Roux, striving to wrest the bottle from the other. By the time he had succeeded there was precious little in it, and then this noble pair went forth, rejoicing in anticipation of the act of butchery which was to fall to their lot on the morrow.

Left to himself Adrian let fly an ejaculation of mingled thankfulness and disgust. He had indeed fallen, to have become the boon companion of such as these. They were of the very lowest type – hardly removed from the bijwoner class – drunken, coarse brutes at that; but now they were his accomplices in his act of murderous villainy – his tools. His tools? Yes, but they would soon become his masters.

No, that they should not – he told himself. Let to-morrow’s deed be done and over, and they would soon see that he was not a man to be trifled with. Reveal the conspiracy? Would they? And if so, who was going to take the word of two such shady characters as they? No, indeed. But after to-morrow he would turn over a new leaf – would make a fresh start.

A fresh start? What sort of a fresh start could be made with murder for its foundation? Yes – murder! Alone there in the silent night, alone with his evil conscience, the words of his victim uttered that morning – uttered, too, with the semblance of a prophecy – came back to him: “So sure as I stand here death will find you. Within three days death will find you out.” He shivered. Men on the brink of the grave were, he had heard tell, at times gifted with supernatural foresight. And then in letters of fire upon the darkness of his thoughts seemed to blaze forth those other words: “They who take the sword shall perish by the sword.” For “sword” read “bullet” Colvin Kershaw was to die in the morning, with several bullets through him. He, Adrian, had murdered him – by means of a fiendish plot, and abundance of false testimony. The next few weeks – months even – would bring with them a series of hard-fought battles, and then should he escape?

“Bah!” he exclaimed, pulling himself together. “These are all old women’s tales. I must take my chance, and I dare say it is as good as any other’s. What is the use of a college education if I get the funks over old exploded superstitions only good enough for those two pigs who have just gone out? I wish they had left me something in this bottle all the same,” holding it up, as though still vainly hoping, and then pitching it outside the tent. “Wheels!” listening a moment. “The predikant must be arriving. Well, much good may he do.”

He could hear the trap draw up at Gideon Roux’ house over the way and the sound of voices, could see a light or two, as the people were outspanning. Then he re-entered his tent, and again his thoughts reverted to the doomed man. “Within three days death will find you out,” the latter had said, and again Adrian’s heart failed him as he remembered how likely of fulfilment this prophecy was. Out yonder in the low country the British were advancing, and now their own forces were lying massed ready to give battle. “Within three days!”

A voice outside, drawing nearer, broke in upon his reverie.

“That is his tent,” it was saying. “We will see if he is there. Adrian!” and with the call the flap of the tent was parted and a bearded face appeared. “I have brought you a visitor, Adrian.”

The man made way for a second person, a tall, female figure wearing a long cloak.

“Aletta!” cried Adrian in amazement, as a throwing back of the hood revealed the features. “Well, and what brings you up here?” he went on in a hard tone, trying to hide the mortification, the jealous rage he was feeling.

“I am here to save you from blood-guilt – to save you from heaping a black and cruel murder on your soul,” answered the girl, her eyes shining bright and stedfast upon his face as she stood confronting him.

“No, no. You have come to save this faithless hound – this lover of yours. But you can’t. We are taking too good care of him for that,” sneered Adrian, stung by jealousy and hatred. No conscience qualms inconvenienced him now.

“But I must say, Aletta,” he went on, “that I see you here with very great surprise. After what you saw – saw with your own eyes mind – at Johannesburg I wonder you can give this fellow a further thought.”

“I will not have him murdered. Listen, Adrian. You let Frank Wenlock escape in order to fix the blame upon Colvin and so compass his death. Yes, you ought to be in this place.”

For the life of him the other could not repress the amazement, dismay, guilt, which leaped into his face. Aletta spoke with such confidence, such knowledge. How could she know? he thought. Had Roux or Delport been bragging in their cups? As a matter of fact, however, she was merely shooting a random bolt.

“I think you must have taken leave of your senses, Aletta,” he answered. Then changing his tone, as the sight of her standing before him stirred up all the old jealous rage against this English interloper, he went on: “And what if I did? What if I did? He will be shot anyhow.”

“Adrian, I never thought to have to name you a cowardly murderer – one who kills not openly, but by lies and plots.”

“I don’t mind that. What about this valiant Englishman who sneaks in between you and me, and steals away your love from me, only to make a plaything of it? Yes, for it would have been mine, I know it would. And we should have been happy – ah yes, happy. This English dog! What name have you for such as he? And have you forgotten, Aletta, that little talk we had one day in the garden at Ratels Hoek? I told you then that the man who should come between you and me had better look after himself, whoever he might be. I told you that, did I not? Well, this man has come between you and me, and in less than twelve hours he will be dead! – Dead – do you hear?”

His voice had taken on a sort of growl, and his face was hard and set with hate and passion.

“No, he will not be,” she answered. “For I will save him. Yes – I. This very night I will go and plead with the Commandant. He will listen to me for my father’s sake. If the worst comes to the worst, I will denounce you as the real offender. For I can convince him that you are.”

“No – no. I think not,” replied Adrian jeeringly. “Schoeman is as hard as iron, and you might plead with him until the Day of Judgment for all you would effect. The fact of you being your father’s child would not move him an inch. He would be more likely to say it was a shameful and scandalous thing for a girl to thrust herself forward in such a matter. But if you want to make perfectly sure, come with me and I will take you to his tent now. All the same, by going there you will be destroying any slender chance Colvin might have.”

His words, his confident manner, had their weight with Aletta. It was exceedingly probable she might fail to move the Commandant. She had another card in her hand – a better trump she thought – and she decided to throw it.

“Oh, Adrian, I fear you are right,” she said softly, still talking in English, as they had been doing all the time, by way of precaution against prying ears. “But do not let us quarrel and say hard things to each other. I thought you would help me if anybody would.” Her eyes filled, and she hardly seemed able to go on. The sight softened Adrian! who was as madly, passionately in love with her as ever. “Do help me, Adrian. You are able if anybody is. I want to save his life for the sake of what he has been to me. Listen. I never want to see or speak with him again – only to save his life. Oh, it is horrible – horrible that such things should be done! Help me, Adrian! It is only to save his life, and you from murder.”

Ah, she had come down now from her judgment seat. She was the pleader now. Adrian, whose sombre eyes had never left her face throughout this appeal, was conscious of the wave of a new hope surging through his being.

“You only want to save his life? Never to see or speak with him again?” he repeated.

“Yes – yet no. I must just see him to satisfy myself that he is really alive and safe – but not to speak to him.”

For fully a minute they stood there gazing into each other’s face in the dull light of the tent lantern. Then Adrian said:

“You are right, Aletta. I can help you. I can save his life. But” – and his words were slow and deliberate, and full of meaning – “if I do what is to be my reward?”

She understood, but she did not flinch.

“If you do – if you save his life, if you let him escape, I will marry you, Adrian! That is what you wish, I suppose?”

“Great God, it is!” he answered fervently, his dark face flushing with intense joy. “You will soon forget this Englishman, my darling – you, whom I have loved ever since we were children. But – swear that you will keep this compact, Aletta.”

“I swear it,” she answered, hardly recognising her own voice.

“I will keep my side. I will show you this Englishman alive and free, and then you will marry me?”

“But how – how will you do it?”

“That is my affair – leave that to me. Kiss me, Aletta, to seal our compact.”

“No – no. Not here, not now,” holding up a warning hand. “Do you not see? The light throws our shadows on the tent. I am going now. Remember, I trust to you. No – do not come with me. I prefer to be alone.”

It was only a hundred yards across to Gideon Roux’ house, where Aletta was to sleep. She had sacrificed herself to save the life of the man who had faithlessly made a plaything of her love, and her heart was cold and heavy within her, for she had bought that life at a great price – even the price of herself.

Adrian from his tent door watched her retreating form, and his triumph and delight were unbounded. He had won all along the line; and Aletta had immolated herself all to no purpose. For he had no intention of fulfilling his side of the compact. Even though he won her, his peace and happiness in her possession would never be secure while Colvin Kershaw lived; therefore, Colvin should die at dawn, and in a few days he would satisfy Aletta that he had fulfilled his bargain by showing her that other Kershaw whose likeness had deceived her before, but under circumstances which would preclude speech – even as upon that other occasion.

Chapter Fourteen.
In the Shadow of Doom

“Curious sort of ‘condemned cell’ this,” whimsically thought Colvin Kershaw to himself, as he gazed around the place wherein he was confined, and whence Frank Wenlock had escaped. For Commandant Schoeman’s promise that he should take the late prisoner’s place had been carried out to the letter, and here he was, shut up within Gideon Roux’ stable, only to leave it to go forth and meet his death.

He had pleaded to be allowed the use of the tent he had hitherto occupied – at any rate, until nightfall. Not many more hours of God’s air and sunshine would be his, he had urged. But a decided refusal had been returned – a refusal tinged with characteristic sanctimoniousness. He would be better in confinement. There he would find nothing to distract his thoughts in his preparation for the great and solemn change, he was told, as would be the case if he were where he could see and hear everyday sights and sounds, and others moving about him. So here he was, under a strong guard, locked up within a not very clean or sweet-smelling stable for the few remaining hours of his life.

He looked around. Even then he could hardly realise it. More than once he had been in here before, seeing to his horse, on such occasions as he visited Gideon Roux. The worm-eaten and much bitten crib, the pile of old forage ends, and stamped-in grains of stale mealies underneath it, and a curry-comb and brush, and an old headstall or two hanging from a peg – the forage cutter had been taken away – all looked so home-like and everyday. It seemed incredible, incongruous, even absurd to try and realise that this place was for him as truly a condemned cell as the massive walls and stone floor of the preliminary living tomb in old Newgate or Holloway.

He could hear the sounds of the camp – the hum of harsh voices, and now and then the tramp of a horse. Sounds, too, redolent of peaceful and everyday life – the clucking of poultry, the bleat of a goat, the fretful yelp of a child, and the now monotonous, now querulous voices of women, for the house was but a few score yards away. Yes, it was hard to realise that these four brick walls constituted but the ante-room to the far narrower walls of earth, which by that time to-morrow would have closed round his bloody and lifeless remains.

Was there no prospect of escape? Again and again, while pacing up and down his strange prison, had he calculated his chances. Frank Wenlock had escaped, but only through aid from without. Who would aid him, and if any would, how could they? As for any efforts of his own, of what avail? The window was strongly barred, and two guards, armed with magazine rifles, were posted immediately beneath, as he was reminded by the frequent appearance of a face at the said bars. Two more were before the door, and as for drilling an aperture in the wall, why he had nothing to do it with. The possibility, too, of tunnelling under the foundation of the further wall occurred to him, and here his eye once more rested on the old curry-comb. But the floor of the place was stone paved, and the noise inevitable to the undertaking would betray him twenty times over, even at night. Moreover, he was only too well aware that in view of the former escape the vigilance of his custodians would be more than doubled.

He remembered Andries Botma’s final offer of assistance, and his first appeal had been that the judgment upon himself should be postponed until he had communicated with the man for whom these here professed such profound veneration. But this proposal Schoeman had curtly negatived, nor would he permit any communication whatever with the outside world. Such farewell words as the prisoner had to leave for relatives or friends he might remit to the predikant, but even these must be written in the presence of Mynheer himself.

Once the thought of sending for Adrian De la Rey crossed his mind. An appeal to Adrian’s superstitions and a solemn warning to him to withdraw from this deliberate act of murder might be effectual. But the idea was scouted as soon as conceived. Adrian had everything to gain by his destruction – and was he likely to throw away the crowning triumph of his plot at the very moment of grasping it? Not in the very least likely, and besides, the barrier of pride rose up against any such course.

And what of Aletta? Never now would he get at the mystery which had dictated that enigmatical message, never now ascertain what had caused her great love to fail and waver in distrust and doubt. That Adrian was behind this, too, he was equally certain. He had not been mistaken in Aletta. Her nature was no ordinary one to be disturbed and shaken by a mere ordinary motive for doubt, however craftily suggested. Yet what was the secret of that doubt? Try, rack his brains as he would, he got no nearer to it than before. Her words were always in his mind: ‘Remember, I saw,’ but never suggesting even the feeblest glimmer of explanation. What had she seen – when, where, and how? Nothing that regarded him. On that point his conscience was perfectly clear. Since they had exchanged their mutual love vows his conscience, as towards her, was as clear as the sky above them at that moment. Yes, looking back now upon those long and happy months, he realised that the latter end of his life, at any rate, had contained for him all that was worth living for. And now that he had touched its outer edge, a strange philosophical feeling of satisfaction that she, at any rate, would not have her life spoiled by his memory, if she had already learned to distrust him, came over him – a satisfaction that well-nigh quenched the bitterness and disillusioning that she had done so. Almost, but not quite – for, after all, he was but human.

The hours wore on. His guards thrust food and drink – of the coarsest description – into his prison, and retired without a word, carefully relocking the door. It was evident that they were under very special orders, and would answer no questions. He was left once more to his own thoughts.

Colvin stood in no greater fear of death than most other men who have more than once seen it very near; yet that helpless sense of being shut up, to meet it in cold blood at a given time, was a trifle creepy and unnerving. More than once, in his dreams, he had been under sentence of death, had even come to the steps of the scaffold, and each time had seemed every bit as realistic as the last, or, if possible, more so. Was this, too, a dream? Should he wake up directly and find himself back again at Pretoria, or at Ratels Hoek, or his own farm? He looked around. Was he really awake – or was this, too, only another nightmare? Ah no. It was very real.

About his worldly affairs he felt but scant anxiety. They were all in order. He was a fairly methodical man, and before leaving for the theatre of battle and hourly risk he had seen to all that. After all, some would be the gainers by his end – some perhaps who needed to be, very sorely – some who would even in consequence remember him with a little kindness and gratitude. Yet there was but little of the last in this world, he reflected, tolerantly cynical.

The sun dropped, and the shadows of evening darkened his place of confinement, and then with the deepening gloom a feeling of great desolation came over the man, a feeling of forsakenness, and that never again would his ears receive a word of sympathy or friendship, let alone love. He hungered for such then. It was the bitterest moment he had known yet. Seated there on an old wheelbarrow in the close, fusty smelling stable, with the long night before him, he well-nigh regretted that he had been allowed the extension of time. It would all have been over by now. He would have sunk to rest with the evening’s sun. Then upon the black gloom of his mind came the consciousness of approaching voices – then the rattle and rasping of the padlock, and the door was opened. One of the guards entered, ushering in three men. He was bearing, moreover, a lantern and a chair, which having set down, he retired.

By the somewhat dingy light of the lantern Colvin recognised his visitors: Schoeman, Jan Grobbelaar, and the predikant. He greeted the last-named, with whom he was already acquainted. Then a thrill of hope went through his heart. Had they thought better of it and were here to offer him deliverance?

“We have given your case every consideration, nephew,” began the Commandant in his dry, emotionless, wooden tones. “You have professed yourself one of us, and by way of proving yourself to be so have committed the act of a traitor, in that you have set one of our enemies at large.”

“Pardon me, Mynheer Commandant,” interrupted Colvin. “I have done no such thing. I deny it here on the brink of the grave. I will be candid enough to say that I might have done so had it been in my power. But you know perfectly well it was not.”

“You have committed the act of a traitor,” went on Schoeman, ignoring the protest as completely as though the other had not spoken, “and therefore you have been adjudged to meet a traitor’s doom. But our good brother Mynheer Grobbelaar here and others have pleaded for you, and so we have decided to remit that judgment upon you, subject to one condition. You are to have a chance of proving your good faith. You are to undertake to serve in arms with the Republican forces where and whenever required, until it shall please the good God to bring this cruel and unrighteous war to an end and give victory unto those who serve Him. And to this end you will sign this declaration.”

Colvin took the paper, and by the light of the lantern closely scanned it – not without eagerness. It was written in Dutch and contained an oath of submission to the South African Republics and an undertaking to bear arms on their behalf even as Schoeman had set forward.

“And if I sign this your sentence is not to be carried out, Mynheer Commandant?” he said quickly.

“In a word, this is the price of my life?”

“That is so,” said Schoeman.

“Then I refuse the conditions. I will not sign it. I refuse to draw trigger on my own countrymen!”

“Toen, Colvin. Sign it, man. Sign it!” broke in Swaart Jan eagerly. “We don’t want you to be shot, kerel.”

“Thanks, Oom Jan. I don’t believe you do. But I can subscribe to no such declaration, be the consequences what they may.”

Then Jan Grobbelaar, who was really well disposed towards the prisoner, became voluble. Why would he persist in throwing away his life in that foolish manner? He was one with them now, why not throw in his lot with them openly? It did not matter in the long run. The Republics were bound to win, since God and justice were on their side – and so on, and so on. All in vain.

“It is of no use, Oom Jan. I’m grateful to you all the same. But under no circumstances whatever can I consent to fire on my own countrymen.”

The little man was really distressed, and was pouring forth his volubility once more. But Schoeman interrupted.

“Then you refuse the chance we offer you?”

“On those terms – absolutely.”

“Be it so. Your blood be upon your own head. And now we will leave you with Mynheer, for your hours are but few indeed.”

And the two went out – Swaart Jan shaking his head lugubriously over the astonishing obstinacy of the man he would fain befriend.

Colvin was not one of those who sneer at religion, though his views upon the subject were broad enough to have earned the thorough disapproval of the professors of more dogmatic creeds. As we have already hinted, his motive in sending for the predikant was primarily one of policy, partly in order to gain time, partly to placate those in whose hands he was. Yet now that Mynheer had come he was not sorry, in that he had someone to talk to, and, as we have said, his loneliness had been getting terribly upon his nerves. So he listened while the predikant read some Scripture and said a few prayers, and when the latter asked him if he forgave those at whose door lay his death, he answered that he had no feeling against them; that if they were doing him to death unjustly – well, he supposed he had done things to other people some time or other in his life, which they didn’t like, and this might go as a set-off against such. Adrian De la Rey was the hardest nut to crack, but, on the other hand, he had a grievance which he, Colvin, ought to be the first person to make allowances for. No – he didn’t think he wanted Adrian to come to grief, although he had said so that morning. It didn’t matter to himself anyhow.

Then he wrote some final letters relating to his worldly affairs, the predikant having obtained for him, at some difficulty, the requisite materials. He left a few lines for Stephanus De la Rey, and more than a few for Aletta. Even then of the girl’s presence in the camp Mynheer Albertyn did not inform him, and the reason lay in Aletta’s own wish. She had decided not to see him. She had saved him – as she thought – and it were better not to see him. It was part of the bargain with Adrian, likewise it would bring back all too forcibly the last time she had seen him.

“Well, Mynheer,” said Colvin at length, “now we have put all that straight we can chat for a little. It seems rather selfish keeping you up all night like this, and it was very good of you to come. You won’t regret it either. But you don’t have to sit up every night with a poor devil who’s going to be shot at sunrise anyhow.”

This cheerful calmness under the circumstances was clean outside the predikant’s experience. He felt as though he must be dreaming. It was unreal. Here was a man whose life had reached the limits of a few hours, who was to be led forth to die in cold blood, in the full glow of his health and strength, yet chatting away as unconcernedly as if he were at home in his own house. Jesting, too, for Colvin had touched on the comic element, not forgetting to entertain Mynheer with the joke about old Tant’ Plessis and Calvinus. So the night wore on.

The doomed man slept at last, slumbering away the fast waning hours that remained to him of life.