Jess: Chapter 24
Chapter 24
THE SHADOW OF DEATH
The firing from the bank had ceased, and John, who still kept his head,
being a rather phlegmatic specimen of the Anglo-Saxon race, knew that,
for the moment at any rate, all danger from this source was ended. Jess
lay perfectly still in his arms, her head upon his breast. A horrible
idea struck him that she might be shot, perhaps already dead!
"Jess, Jess," he shouted, through the turmoil of the storm, "are you
hit?"
She lifted her head an inch or two--"I think not," she said. "What is
going on?"
"God only knows, I don't. Sit still, it will be all right."
But in his heart he knew it was not "all right," and that they stood in
imminent danger of death by drowning. They were whirling down a raging
river in a cart. In a few moments it was probable that the cart would
upset, and then----
Presently the wheel bumped against something, the cart gave a great
lurch, and scraped along a little.
"Now for it," thought John, for the water was pouring over the flooring.
Then came a check, and the cart leant still farther to one side.
_Crack!_ The pole had gone, and the cart swung round bows, or rather
box, on to the stream. What had happened was this: they had drifted
across a rock that projected from the bed of the river, the force of the
current having washed the dead horses to the one side of it and the cart
to the other. Consequently they were anchored to the rock, as it were,
the anchor being the dead horses, and the cable the stout traces of
untanned leather. So long as these traces and the rest of the harness
held, they were safe from drowning; but of course they did not know
this.
Indeed, they knew nothing. Above them rolled the storm; about them the
river seethed and the rain hissed. They knew nothing except that they
were helpless living atoms tossing between the wild waters and the
wilder night, with imminent death staring them in the face, around,
above, and below. To and fro they rocked, locked fast in each other's
arms, and as they swung came that awful flash that, though they guessed
it not, sent two of the murderers to their account, and for an instant,
even through the sheet of rain, illumined the space of boiling water and
the long lines of the banks on either side. It showed the point of rock
to which they were fixed, it glared upon the head of one of the poor
horses tossed up by the driving current as though it were still trying
to escape its watery doom, and revealed the form of the dead Zulu,
Mouti, lying on his face, one arm hanging over the edge of the cart and
dabbling in the water that ran level with it, in ghastly similarity to
some idle passenger in a pleasure boat, who lets his fingers slip softly
through the stream.
In a second it was gone, and once more they were in darkness. Then by
degrees the storm passed off and the moon began to shine, feebly indeed,
for the sky was not clear washed of clouds, which still trailed along in
the tracks of the tempest, sucked after it by its mighty draught. Still
it was lighter and the rain thinned gradually till at last it stopped.
The storm had rolled in majesty down the ways of night, and there was no
sound round them save the sound of rushing water.
"John," said Jess presently, "can we do anything?"
"Nothing, dear."
"Shall we escape, John?"
He hesitated. "It is in God's hands, dear. We are in great danger. If
the cart upsets we shall be drowned. Can you swim?"
"No, John."
"If we can hang on here till daylight we may get ashore, if those devils
are not there to shoot us. I do not think that our chance is a good
one."
"John, are you afraid to die?"
He hesitated. "I don't know, dear. I hope to meet it like a man."
"Tell me what you truly think. Is there any hope for us at all?"
Once more he paused, reflecting whether or no he should speak the truth.
Finally he decided to do so.
"I can see none, Jess. If we are not drowned we are sure to be shot.
They will wait about the bank till morning, and for their own sakes they
will not dare to let us live."
He did not know that all which was left of two of them would indeed wait
for many a long year, while the third had fled aghast.
"Jess, dear," he went on, "it is of no good to tell lies. Our lives may
end any minute. Humanly speaking, they must end before the sun is up."
The words were awful enough--if the reader can by an effort of
imagination throw himself for a moment into the position of these two,
he will understand how awful.
It is a dreadful thing, when in the flow of health and youth, suddenly
to be placed face to face with the certainty of violent death, and to
know that in a few more minutes your course will have been run, and that
you will have commenced to explore a future, which may prove to be even
worse, because more enduring, than the life you are now quitting in
agony. It is a dreadful thing, as any who have ever stood in such
a peril can testify, and John felt his heart sink within him at
the thought of it--for Death is very strong. But there is one thing
stronger, a woman's perfect love, against which Death himself cannot
prevail. And so it came to pass that now as he fixed his cold gaze upon
Jess's eyes they answered him with a strange unearthly light. She feared
not Death, so that she might meet him with her beloved. Death was her
hope and opportunity. Here she had nothing; there she might have all.
The fetters had fallen from her, struck off by an overmastering hand.
Her duty was satisfied, her trust fulfilled, and she was free--free to
die with her beloved. Ay! her love was indeed a love deeper than the
grave; and now it rose in eager strength, standing expectant upon the
earth, ready, when dissolution had lent it wings, to soar to its own
predestined star.
"You are sure, John?" she asked again.
"Yes, dear, yes. Why do you force me to repeat it? I can see no hope."
Her arms were round his neck, her soft curls rested on his cheek, and
the breath from her lips played upon his brow. Indeed it was only by
speaking into each other's ears that conversation was possible, owing to
the rushing sound of the waters.
"Because I have something to tell you which I cannot tell unless we are
going to die. You know it, but I want to say it with my own lips before
I die. I love you, John, _I love you, I love you_; and I am glad to die
because I can die with you, and go away with you."
He heard, and such was the power of her love, that his, which had been
put out of mind in the terror of that hour, reawoke and took the colour
of her own. He too forgot the imminence of death in the warm presence of
his down-trodden passion. She was in his arms as he had taken her during
the firing, and he bent his head to look at her. The moonlight played
upon her pallid, quivering face, and showed that in her eyes which no
man could look upon and turn away. Once more--yes, even then--there came
over him that feeling of utter surrender to the sweet mastery of her
will which had possessed him in the sitting-room of "The Palatial."
Only all earthly considerations having faded into nothingness now, he no
longer hesitated, but pressed his lips to hers and kissed her again and
yet again. It was perhaps as wild and pathetic a love scene as ever the
old moon above has witnessed. There they clung, those two, in the actual
shadow of death experiencing the fullest and acutest joy that our life
has to offer. Nay, death was present with them, for, beneath their very
feet, half-hidden by the water, lay the stiffening corpse of the Zulu.
To and fro swung the cart in the rush of the swollen river, up and down
beside them the carcases of the horses rose and fell with the surge of
the water, on whose surface the broken moonbeams played and quivered.
Overhead was the blue star-sown depth through which they were waiting
presently to pass, and to the right and left the long broken outlines of
the banks stretched away till at last they appeared to grow together in
the gloom.
But they heeded none of these things; they remembered nothing except
that they had found each other's hearts, and were happy with a wild joy
it is not often given to us to feel. The past was forgotten, the future
loomed at hand, and between the one and the other was spanned a bridge
of passion made perfect and sanctified by its approaching earthly end.
Bessie was forgotten, all things were forgotten, for they were alone
with Love and Death.
Let those who would blame them pause awhile. Why not? They had kept the
faith. They had denied themselves and run straightly down the path of
duty. But the compacts of life end with life. No man may bargain for the
beyond; even the marriage service shrinks from it. And now that hope had
gone and life was at its extremest ebb, why should they not take their
joy before they passed to the land where, perchance, such things will be
forgotten? So it seemed to them; if indeed they were any longer capable
of reason.
He looked into her eyes and she laid her head upon his heart in that
mute abandonment of worship which is sometimes to be met with in the
world, and is redeemed from vulgar passion by an indefinable quality of
its own. He looked into her eyes and was glad to have lived, ay, even to
have reached this hour of death. And she, lost in the abyss of her deep
nature, sobbed out her love-laden heart upon his breast, and called him
her own, her own, her very own!
Thus the long hours passed unheeded, till at last a new-born freshness
in the air told them that they were not far from dawn. The death they
were awaiting had not found them. It must now be very near at hand.
"John," she whispered in his ear, "do you think that they will shoot
us?"
"Yes," he answered hoarsely; "they must for their own sakes."
"I wish it were over," she said.
Suddenly she started back from his arms with a little cry, causing the
cart to rock violently.
"I forgot," she said; "you can swim, though I cannot. Why should you
not swim to the bank, and escape under cover of the darkness? It is only
fifty yards, and the current is not so very swift."
The idea of flight without Jess had never occurred to John, and now
that she suggested it, it struck him as so absurd that he broke into the
ghost of a laugh.
"Don't be foolish, Jess," he said.
"Yes, yes, I will. Go! You _must_ go! It does not matter about me now.
I know that you love me, and I can die happy. I will wait for you. Oh,
John! wherever I am, if I have any individual life and any remembrance
I will wait for you. Never forget that all your days. However far I may
seem away, if I live at all, I shall be waiting for you. And now go;
you _shall_ go, I say. No, I will not be disobeyed. If you will not go I
will throw myself into the water. Oh, the cart is turning over!"
"Hold on, for God's sake!" shouted John. "The traces have broken."
He was right; the tough leather was at length worn through by constant
rubbing against the rock, and the strain and sway of the dead horses on
the one side, and of the cart upon the other. Round it spun, broadside
on to the current, and immediately began to heave over, till at last
the angle was so sharp that the dead body of poor Mouti slid out with
a splash and vanished into the darkness. This relieved the cart, and it
righted for a moment, but now being no longer held up by the bodies of
the horses or by the sustaining power of the wind it began to fill and
sink, and at the same time to revolve swiftly. John understood that
all was finished, and that to stop in the cart would only mean certain
death, because they would be held under water by the canvas tent. So
with a devout aspiration for assistance he seized Jess round the waist
with one arm and sprang off into the river. As he leapt the cart filled
and sank.
"Lie still, for Heaven's sake!" he shouted, when they rose to the
surface.
In the dim light of the dawn which was now creeping over the earth he
could discover the line of the left bank of the Vaal, the same from
which they had been driven into the river on the previous night. It
appeared to be about forty yards away, but the current was running
quite six knots, and he saw that, burdened as he was, it would be quite
impracticable for him to reach it. The only thing to do was to keep
afloat. Luckily the water was warm and he was a strong swimmer. In a
minute or so he saw that about fifty paces ahead some rocks jutted out
twenty yards into the bed of the stream. Then catching Jess by the hair
with his left hand he made his effort, and a desperate one it was. The
broken water boiled furiously round the rocks. Presently he was in it,
and, better still, his feet touched the ground. Next second he was swept
off them and rolled over and over at the bottom of the river, to be
sadly knocked about against the boulders. Somehow he struggled to his
legs, still retaining his hold of Jess. Twice he fell, and twice he
struggled up again. One more effort--so. The water was only up to his
thighs now, and he was obliged to half carry his companion.
As he lifted her he felt a deadly sickness come over him, but still
he staggered on, till at last they both fell of a heap upon a big flat
rock, and for a while he remembered no more.
When he came to himself again it was to see Jess, who had recovered
sooner than he had, standing over him and chafing his hands. Indeed,
as the sun was up he guessed that he must have lost his senses for some
time. He rose with difficulty and shook himself. Except for some bruises
he was sound enough.
"Are you hurt?" he asked of Jess, who, pale, faint and bruised, her hat
gone, her dress torn by bullets and the rocks, and dripping water at
every step, looked an exceedingly forlorn object.
"No," she said feebly, "not very much."
He sat down on the rock in the sun, for they were both shivering with
cold. "What is to be done?" he asked.
"Die," she said fiercely; "I meant to die--why did you not let me die?
Ours is a position that only death can set straight."
"Don't be alarmed," he said, "your desire will soon be gratified: those
murderous villains will hunt us up presently."
The bed and banks of the river were clothed with thin layers of mist,
but as the sun gathered power these lifted. The spot at which they had
climbed ashore was about three hundred yards below that where the
two Boers and their horses had been destroyed by the lightning on the
previous night. Seeing the mist thin, John insisted upon Jess crouching
with him behind a rock so that they could look up and down the river
without being seen themselves. Presently he made out the forms of two
horses grazing about a hundred yards away.
"Ah," he said, "I thought so; the devils have off-saddled there. Thank
Heaven I have still got my revolver, and the cartridges are watertight.
I mean to sell our lives as dearly as I can."
"Why, John," cried Jess, following the line of his out-stretched hand,
"those are not the Boers' horses, they are our two leaders that broke
loose in the water. Look, their collars are still on."
"By Jove! so they are. Now if only we can catch them without being
caught ourselves we have a chance of getting out of this."
"Well, there is no cover about, and I can't see any signs of Boers. They
must have been sure of having killed us, and gone away," Jess answered.
John looked round, and for the first time a sense of hope began to creep
into his heart. Perhaps they would survive after all.
"Let's go up and look. It is no good stopping here; we must get food
somewhere, or we shall faint."
She rose without a word, and taking his hand they advanced together
along the bank. They had not gone twenty yards before John uttered an
exclamation of joy and rushed at something white that had lodged in
the reeds. It was the basket of food which was given to them by the
innkeeper's wife at Heidelberg that had been washed out of the cart, and
as the lid was fastened nothing was lost out of it. He undid it. There
was the bottle of three-star brandy untouched, also most of the eggs,
meat, and bread, the last, of course, sodden and worthless. It did not
take long to draw the cork, and then John filled a broken wineglass
there was in the basket half full of water and half of brandy, and made
Jess drink it, with the result that she began to look a little less like
a corpse. Next, he repeated the process twice on his own account, and
instantly felt as though new life were flowing into him. Then they went
on cautiously.
The horses allowed themselves to be caught without trouble, and did not
appear to be any the worse for the adventure, although the flank of one
was grazed by a bullet.
"There is a tree yonder where the bank shelves over; we had better
tie the horses up, dress, and eat some breakfast," said John, almost
cheerfully; and accordingly they proceeded towards it. Suddenly John,
who was ahead, started back with an exclamation of fear, and the horses
began to snort, for there, stark and stiff in death, already swollen
and discoloured by decomposition--as is sometimes the case with people
killed by lightning--the rifles in their hands twisted and fused, their
clothes cut and blown from their bandoliers--lay the two Boer murderers.
It was a terrifying sight, and, taken in conjunction with their own
remarkable escape, one to make the most careless and sceptical reflect.
"And yet there are people who say that there is no God, and no
punishment for wickedness," said John aloud.