Swallow: A Tale of the Great Trek by H. Rider Haggard (good story books to read txt) 📕
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- Author: H. Rider Haggard
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“It can be managed,” answered Suzanne. “Do you go and stand in the neck of the kloof while I ride through the reeds towards you.”
“You might get bogged,” he said doubtfully.
“No, no, brother; after all this drought the pan is nothing more than spongy, and if I should get into a soft spot I will call out.”
To this plan Ralph at length agreed, and having ridden round the pan, which was not more than fifty yards across, he dismounted from his horse and hid himself behind a bush in the neck of the kloof. Then Suzanne rode in among the reeds, shouting and singing, and beating them with her sjambock in order to disturb anything that might be hidden there. Nor was her trouble in vain, for suddenly, with a shrill whistle of alarm by the sound of which this kind of antelope may be known even in the dark, up sprang two riet-buck and dashed away towards the neck of the kloof, looking large as donkeys and red as lions as they vanished into the thick cover. So close were they to Suzanne that her mare took fright and reared; but the girl was the best horsewoman in those parts, and kept her seat, calling the while to Ralph to make ready for the buck. Presently she heard a shot, and having quieted the mare, rode out of the reeds and galloped round the dry pan to find Ralph looking foolish with no riet-buck in sight.
“Have you missed them?” she asked.
“No, not so bad as that, for they passed within ten yards of me, but the old gun hung fire. I suppose that the powder in the pan was a little damp, and instead of hitting the buck in front I caught him somewhere behind. He fell down, but has gone on again, so we must follow him, for I don’t think that he will get very far.”
Accordingly, when Ralph had reloaded his gun, which took some time—for in those days we had scarcely anything but flintlocks—yes, it was with weapons like these that a handful of us beat the hosts of Dingaan and Moselikatse—they started to follow the blood spoor up the kloof, which was not difficult, as the animal had bled much. Near to the top of the kloof the trail led them through a thick clump of mimosas, and there in the dell beyond they found the riet-buck lying dead. Riding to it they dismounted and examined it.
“Poor beast,” said Suzanne; “look how the tears have run down its face. Well, I am glad that it is dead and done with,” and she sighed and turned away, for Suzanne was a silly and tender-hearted girl who never could understand that the animals—yes, and the heathen Kaffirs, too—were given to us by the Lord for our use and comfort.
Presently she started and said, “Ralph, do you remember this place?”
He glanced round and shook his head, for he was wondering whether he would be able to lift the buck on to the horse without asking Suzanne to help him.
“Look again,” she said; “look at that flat stone and the mimosa tree lying on its side near it.”
Ralph dropped the leg of the buck and obeyed her, for he would always do as Suzanne bade him, and this time it was his turn to start.
“Almighty!” he said, “I remember now. It was here that you found me, Suzanne, after I was shipwrecked, and the tigers stared at us through the boughs of that fallen tree,” and he shivered a little, for the sight of the spot brought back to his heart some of the old terrors which had haunted his childhood.
“Yes, Ralph, it was here that I found you. I heard the sound of your voice as you knelt praying on this stone, and I followed it. God heard that prayer, Ralph.”
“And sent an angel to save me in the shape of a little maid,” he answered; adding, “Don’t blush so red, dear, for it is true that ever since that day, whenever I think of angels, I think of you; and whenever I think of you I think of angels, which shows that you and the angels must be close together.”
“Which shows that you are a wicked and silly lad to talk thus to a Boer girl,” she answered, turning away with a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes, for his words had pleased her mind and touched her heart.
He looked at her, and she seemed so sweet and beautiful as she stood thus, smiling and weeping together as the sun shines through summer rain, that, so he told me afterwards, something stirred in his breast, something soft and strong and new, which caused him to feel as though of a sudden he had left his boyhood behind him and become a man, aye, and as though this fresh-faced manhood sought but one thing more from Heaven to make it perfect, the living love of the fair maiden who until this hour had been his sister in heart though not in blood.
“Suzanne,” he said in a changed voice, “the horses are tired; let them rest, and let us sit upon this stone and talk a little, for though we have never visited it for many years the place is lucky for you and me since it was here that our lives first came together.”
Now although Suzanne knew that the horses were not tired she did not think it needful to say him nay.
A LOVE SCENE AND A QUARREL
Presently they were seated side by side upon a stone, Suzanne looking straight before her, for nature warned her that this talk of theirs was not to be as other talks, and Ralph looking at Suzanne.
“Suzanne,” he said at length.
“Yes,” she answered; “what is it?” But he made no answer, for though many words were bubbling in his brain, they choked in his throat, and would not come out of it.
“Suzanne,” he stammered again presently, and again she asked him what it was, and again he made no answer. Now she laughed a little and said:
“Ralph, you remind me of the blue-jay in the cage upon the stoep which knows but one word and repeats it all day long.”
“Yes,” he replied, “it is true; I am like that jay, for the word I taught it is ‘Suzanne,’ and the word my heart teaches me is ‘Suzanne,’ and—Suzanne, I love you!”
Now she turned her head away and looked down and answered:
“I know, Ralph, that you have always loved me since we were children together, for are we not brother and sister?”
“No,” he answered bluntly, “it is not true.”
“Then that is bad news for me,” she said, “who till to-day have thought otherwise.”
“It is not true,” he went on, and now his words came fast enough, “that I am your brother, or that I love you as a brother. We are no kin, and if I love you as a brother that is only one little grain of my love for you—yes, only as one little grain is to the whole sea-shore of sand. Suzanne, I love you as—as a man loves a maid—and if you will it, dear, all my hope is that one day you will be my wife,” and he ceased suddenly and stood before her trembling, for he had risen from the stone.
For a few moments Suzanne covered her face with her hands, and when she let them fall again he saw that her beautiful eyes shone like the large stars at night, and that, although she was troubled, her trouble made her happy.
“Oh! Ralph,” she said at length, speaking in a voice that was different from any he had ever heard her use, a voice very rich and low and full, “Oh! Ralph, this is new to me, and yet to speak the truth, it seems as old as—as that night when first I found you, a desolate, starving child, praying upon this stone. Ralph, I do will it with all my heart and soul and body, and I suppose that I have willed it ever since I was a woman, though until this hour I did not quite know what it was I willed. Nay, dear, do not touch me, or at the least, not yet. First hear what I have to say, and then if you desire it, you may kiss me—if only in farewell.”
“If you will it and I will it, what more can you have to say?” he asked in a quick whisper, and looking at her with frightened eyes.
“This, Ralph; that our wills, who are young and unlearned, are not all the world; that there are other wills to be thought of; the wills of our parents, or of mine rather, and the will of God.”
“For the first,” he answered, “I do not think that they stand in our path, for they love you and wish you to be happy, although it is true that I, who am but a wanderer picked up upon the veldt, have no fortune to offer you—still fortune can be won,” he added doggedly.
“They love you also, Ralph, nor do they care over much for wealth, either of them, and I am sure that they would not wish you to leave us to go in search of it.”
“As for the will of God,” he continued, “it was the will of God that I should be wrecked here, and that you should save me here, and that the life you saved should be given to you. Will it not, therefore, be the will of God also that we, who can never be happy apart, should be happy together and thank Him for our happiness every day till we die?”
“I trust so, Ralph; yet although I have read and seen little, I know that very often it has been His will that those who love each other should be separated by death or otherwise.”
“Do not speak of it,” he said with a groan.
“No, I will not speak of it, but there is one more thing of which I must speak. Strangely enough, only this morning my mother was talking of you; she said that you are English, and that soon or late blood will call to blood and you will leave us. She said that your nest is not here, but there, far away across the sea, among those English; that you are a swallow that has been fledged with sparrows, and that one day you will find the wings of a swallow. What put it in her mind to speak thus, I do not know, but I do know, Ralph, that her words filled me with fear, and now I understand why I was so much afraid.”
He laughed aloud very scornfully. “Then, Suzanne,” he said, “you may banish your fears, for this I swear to you, before the Almighty, that whoever may be my true kin, were a kingdom to be offered to me among them, unless you could share it, it would be refused. This I swear before the Almighty, and may He reject me if I forget the oath.”
“You are very young to make such promises, Ralph,” she answered doubtfully, “nor do I hold them binding on you. At nineteen, so I am told, a lad will swear anything to the girl who takes his fancy.”
“I am young in years, Suzanne, but I grew old while I was yet a child, for sorrow aged me. You have heard my oath; let it be put to the test, and you shall learn whether or no I speak the truth. Do I look like one who does not know his mind?”
She glanced up at the steady, grey eyes and the stern, set mouth and answered, “Ralph, you look like one who knows his mind, and I believe you. Pray God I may not be deceived, for though we are but lad and girl, if it prove so I tell you that I shall live my life out with a broken heart.”
“Do not fear, Suzanne. And now I have heard what you had to say, and I claim your promise. If it be your will I will kiss you, Suzanne, but not in farewell.”
“Nay,” she answered, “kiss me rather in greeting of the full and beautiful life that stretches before our feet. Whether the path be short or long, it will be good for us and ever better, but, Ralph, I think that the end will be best of all.”
So he took her in his arms, and they kissed each other upon the lips, and, as they told me afterwards, in that embrace they found some
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