Part 15 (1/2)
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.