Part 80 (1/2)
She quivered in every limb, and longed to shut her eyes and bar out the intolerable sight of him, leering and lying there. Had she not interrupted, she must have cried out. She said:
”You tell me this man Bough is at Diamond Town?”
”I said he was there when I left. The young woman he talked of was brought up at his place in Orange Free State, a nice respectable boarding-house and hotel for travelling families on the veld between Driepoort and Kroonfontein. Bough was good to the girl, and so was his wife, that's dead since. Uncommon! Not that they had much of the dibs to spend in those days. But, being an honest Christian man, Bough treated the girl like his own. And right down bad she served him.”
He licked his thick lips again, and the flattish, light-hued adder-eyes glittered.
”There was a bloke that used to hang around the place--kind of coloured loafer, with Dutch blood, overgiven to Squareface and whisky. He got going gay with the girl----”
She stood like a statue of ebony and ivory. Only by the deep breaths that heaved her broad bosom could you tell she lived--by that, and by the unswerving watchfulness of those burning eyes.
”And Bough, when he caught them together, got mad, being a respectable man, and let her taste the sjambok. Then she ran away.”
He coughed, and s.h.i.+fted again from one foot to the other. He would have preferred a woman who had loaded him with invectives, and told him that he lied like h.e.l.l.
”The man that had left her to Bough's guardians.h.i.+p was a sort of broken-down English officer by the name of Mildare----”
Her bosom heaved more stormily, but her intense and scorching regard of him never wavered.
”--Mildare. He left a hundred pounds with Bough, to be kept for her till she was twenty. There was a waggon and team Bough was to have had to sell, and use the money for the girl's keep, but a thief of a Dutch driver waltzed with them--took 'em up Johannesburg way, and melted 'em into dollars. Bough got nothing for all his kindness--not a tikkie. But he's ready to hand over the hundred, her being so nigh come to age. There's a locket with a picture in it, and brilliants round, that may be worth seventy pounds more. All Bough wants is to do the square thing. This is the message he sends her now. The money and the jewels will be handed over, as in duty bound; and, since she's turned respectable and got education, I was to say there's an honest man--widower now, and well off--that's ready to hang up his hat for her, and wipe all old scores off the slate in the regular proper way....”
She said in tones that were of ice:
”Bough is the honest man?...”
”Just Bough.... 'Maybe, in my decent anger at her goings on,' he says, 'I went a bit too far. Well! I'm ready to make amends by making her my wife.'”
The lioness crouched and leapt.
”You are Bough! You are the evil man, the servant of Satan, who wrought abomination upon a helpless child!”
The onslaught came so suddenly that he was staggered. Then he swore.
”Not me, by G----!”
She pointed her long arm at him, and some strange force seemed to be wielded by that unweaponed woman-hand that struck him and pierced him through flesh, and bone and marrow....
”You are the man!” She stretched her arms to the wild, hurrying clouds that looked in upon her through the yawning rifts in the roof, and called upon her Maker for vengeance. ”How long wilt Thou delay, O Lord, righteous in judgment? Fulfil Thy promise! Bind Thou Thy millstone about the neck of this wretch, hated and accursed of Thee, and let it drag him down to the uttermost depths of the Lake of Fire, where such as he shall wallow and howl throughout Eternity!----”
She was infinitely more terrible than the lioness who has licked her murdered cubs. No Pythoness at the dizziest height of the sacred frenzy, no Demeter wrought to delirium by maternal bereavement, was ever imagined by poet or painter as half so grand, and terrible, and awe-inspiring, as this furious cursing nun.
”--Delay not Thou, O Lord!” she prayed....
Rain fell in a curtain of gleaming crystal rods between them. Seen through it, she appeared supernaturally tall, her garments streaming like black flames, her face a white-hot furnace, her eyes intolerable, merciless, grey lightnings, her voice a fiery sword that cleft the guilty to the soul.
The voice of Conscience was dumb in him. He knew no remorse, and made a jest of G.o.d. But his callous heart had been filled from the veins of generations of Irish Catholic peasants, and, in spite of himself, the blood in his veins ran cold with superst.i.tious fear.
Yet, when no palpable answer came from that Heaven to which she cried, he rallied, remembering that, after all, she was a woman, and alone with him in the place. She had sunk back against the altar that was behind her. Her eyes were closed, her face a white mask of anguish; she looked as though about to swoon. Bough hailed the symptoms as favourable. Fainting was the prelude to caving in, with the women he knew. But when he stirred, her eyes were wide and preternaturally bright, and held him. He snarled:
”You'll not take the girl my message, then?”
She reared up her tall form, and laughed awfully.