He bent down and kissed her almost pa.s.sionately on the lips.

"Aletta," he said, "you will not understand me; n.o.body could. What I have done will seem to you the worst of sins;--yet to me it was right-- and yet it has hung like a millstone about my neck all these years."

Aletta seized one of his hands between hers.

"It will fall from you if you repent," she said.

"Repent. Never. He deserved it; I would do it again to-morrow.

Aletta," (here he moved towards the door, trying to disengage his hand) "Stepha.n.u.s never meant to shoot me; the gun went off by accident. I accused him falsely and he has suffered all these years for a thing he did not do. Now,--good-bye."

He again tried to escape, but Aletta held him fast.

"Come back, come back, Gideon,--I have known this for years."

"Known it?"

"Yes,--and so has Elsie, although no word of it has pa.s.sed between us."

"Do not think that I regret it; do not think that I repent. He deserved it all, and more. Think of all he did to me.--And yet I fear to meet him.--That blind girl--she wants to dip her white fingers in my blood-- and yet I do not fear his killing me. Do you know why I am running away from him?"

"Yes, you fear to meet his eyes."

"That is it,--his eyes. I am not afraid of death at his hands--although I suppose G.o.d will send me to burn in h.e.l.l for doing the work He keeps for His own hands.--And he means to kill me when he finds me--the White Owl knows it--but his eyes--Nine years chained up with blacks, thinking the whole time of his wrong and his revenge.--You remember how big and fierce his eyes used to get in anger.--I have seen them across the plains and the mountains for nine years, getting bigger and fiercer.

They are always glaring at me; I fear them more than his bullet."

"Yes, Gideon, it is well that you go away for a time. I will try what I can do. He is getting to be an old man now and anger does not burn so hotly in the old as in the young. I will not speak to him now, but when he has been free for a time I will kneel to him and beg him to forgive for Marta's sake, and Elsie's. Elsie does not hate you, Gideon."

"She must, if she knows what I have done to her father. She hates me.

You heard what she said about his having his reckoning. Were his anger to cool she would light it anew with those eyes of hers that glow like those of a lion in the dark. But anger such as his does not cool."

"Gideon, you are wrong about Elsie; she loves her father, but she will not counsel him to take revenge. Oh, Gideon, we are old now, and this hatred has kept us in cold and darkness all our lives. One little, happy year; then the first quarrel,--and ever since misery and loneliness. If he forgives, you will come back. Do not take away my only hope."

"He will never forgive."

"I will follow him about and kneel to him every day until he forgives.

Then you will come back and we will again be happy--just a little happiness and peace before we die."

"Happy, Aletta? There is no more happiness for us. He--he killed our joy years back, for ever. I go away now and I shall never return. Get Adrian and his wife to come and live here. For years I have known that this would happen. At first I hoped that he would die; then I knew that G.o.d was keeping him alive and well and strong to punish me for doing His work. I have made over the farm and stock to you; the papers are in the camphor-wood box. Good-bye,--we must never meet again."

"My husband, the desert, holds spoor a long time. The sand-storm blots it out for a distance, but it is found again farther on. When Stepha.n.u.s forgives I will follow you and bring you back."

"No, Aletta, we will meet no more. When I die my bones will lie where no Christian foot has ever trod."

"Gideon, on the day when Stepha.n.u.s forgives I will go forth seeking you, and I will seek until I find you or until I die in the waste."

When Gideon van der Walt reached the mountain saddle at the head of the kloof, across which the track which led into the desert plains of Bushmanland pa.s.sed, he turned and took a long look at his homestead.

Then his glance wandered searchingly over the valley in which his life had been pa.s.sed. There it lay, green and fertile,--for the south-western rains had fallen heavily and often during the last few months. The black, krantzed ranges glowed in the noontide sun. The last spot his eye rested upon before he crossed the saddle was the little patch of vivid foliage surrounding the spring on the tiny ripples of which his life and the lives of so many others had been wrecked.

Just on the edge of the copse the stream seemed to hang like a bright jewel, as the sunlight glinted from the pure, limpid water.

As Gideon turned away his eyes grew moist for an instant, and he felt a queer, unbidden feeling of almost tenderness for the brother with whom among these hills and valleys he had played and hunted in the days of his innocence, creeping like a tendril about his heart. But he crushed the feeling down, and rode on with his hat pressed over his eyebrows.

On the other side of the mountain pa.s.s the outlook was different. He was on the north-eastern limit of the coast rains. Bushmanland depended for its uncertain rainfall upon thunderstorms from the north in the summer season. But for two years no rain had fallen anywhere near the southern fringe of the desert, so the plains which stretched forth northward from Gideon's feet were utterly void of green vegetation.

To one familiar with the desert the sight before him had an awful significance; it meant that there was no water, nor any vegetation worth considering for at least a hundred and fifty miles. Gideon had known, by the fact of the larger game flocking down into the valleys, that Bushmanland was both verdureless and waterless, and that anyone who should attempt to cross it would incur a terrible risk.

But nothing before him could compete for terror with what he was fleeing from. Setting spurs to his horse Gideon pa.s.sed the wagon; then he rode ahead at a walk, the patient oxen following with the rumbling wagon, upon his tracks.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

THE RETURN OF STEPHa.n.u.s.

"Come, child, it is past our time for sleep," said Aletta. She was sitting on the sofa in the _voorhuis_. It was midnight of the day of Gideon's departure. Elsie stood at the open window which faced the south. The night was still and sultry and a dense fog covered the earth.

"I shall not go to bed to-night, Aunt. My father draws near. His wagon has reached the sand-belt where the dead tree stands."

"Nonsense, child, the sand-belt is an hour's ride on horseback from here. Let us pray to G.o.d for sleep and good dreams, and then lie down until the day comes."

"I shall not go to bed to-night; my father is coming."

"Nonsense, nonsense,--you cannot hear at such a distance."

"I can hear, and the sound stills the long pain in my heart. My father draws near and nearer."

"Well--well--perhaps it is true--perhaps--"

She fell upon her knees and threw up her clasped hands. "Oh G.o.d, let him not come before my husband is far away. Oh G.o.d,--I am blameless.-- Grant me only this."

Elsie approached her with a smile, bent down and encircled her with a protecting arm and then drew her gently to a seat.

"Aunt,--let me talk to you: Do you know that I am often very glad that I was born blind?"

"Glad you are blind?"

"Yes, because I have knowledge of many things unknown to people who can see."

"What kind of things?"

"Many things of many kinds. For instance:--to-night you cannot see the stars; a dry mist has rolled up from the sea since we have been in this room; it covers the valley like a blanket. But the hill-tops are clear; they are hidden from you, but I can see them--and the stars above, as well.--And my father draws nearer."

"G.o.d's mercy forbid. Three days,--three short days is all I ask for."

"Where you see but clouds I see the stars; where you see danger I see joy. You fear my father without cause."

"Without cause.--Nine long years--no cause--?"

"There was cause enough, but my father is not angry."