Chapter Three.

The Stranger from Zululand.

At the time we make his acquaintance Michael Thornhill did not take his stock-farming seriously, but rather as a pastime. This he could afford to do, as from one source or another he had enough to last him comfortably for the rest of his life, and also to start his remaining son in anything sound and likely to bear good results.

His operations, then, in that line just paid their way, but very little more—a result in nowise due to any lack of capacity on his part, for he had gone through the mill himself in earlier life and was as thoroughly at home in all pertaining to stock-raising as the most strenuous and practical farmers in the colony. But he had a hobby, and it was a good one, and that was—literature.

Not the manufacture of it—oh no—or we might have felt bound to withhold the qualifying adjective. The absorption of it—ancient and modern—was his craze and his delight. He never had found time to indulge this during a hard-worked and hardening life, but had always looked forward to a good time coming when he should be able to do so. Now it had come.

It may be wondered why he did not settle down in some town, where there was a good library, and acquaintances from whom he could borrow useful books; and indeed several did venture so to hint. But his answer was simple. He had lived in the veldt all his life—up country or down, or on the road. He would feel lost if he did not wake up to hear the multifold sounds of the bush—to inhale the fresh, strong, sweet air as the sun shot up fiery over tree-fringed ridge or iron mountain top. And the life of the veldt! It had always been his life—it was too late to change now. To look round on the black wildness of those bushy kloofs, or yonder great mountain, frowning down majestically, with its mighty cliff wall shining red in the afterglow of the sunset, and to realise that he owned all this—that this fragment of splendid Nature was his property—all his own—why the realisation was sheer ecstasy. Whereby it is obvious that there was a large element of the poetic about the man.

Exchange all this for a sun-baked, dust-swept town? Not he. It had even been hinted to him by well meaning acquaintances—mostly of the feminine persuasion—that there was his daughter to be considered, that life alone in a wild and sparsely colonised part of the country was rather a dull life for a girl. This was certainly touching him on a susceptible point, but to such representations he would reply that even up-to-date fathers were entitled to some consideration—that even they could not be required to take a back seat in every question. For the rest there was nothing he denied his daughter which by any possibility he could procure for her; moreover she could have as many friends to stay with her as the house would hold, and for as long as she chose. But somehow she seldom had any. For some reason or other they rarely came. This, however, did not trouble Edala in the least. She was not particularly fond of other girls. She was too individual for most girls of her age. They could not quite make her out. And—there may have been another reason.

But on this score Edala herself never complained. Her occupations and amusements filled up all her time, and she never felt lonely. She could shoot, too, and sometimes, when out with her father, would turn over a big bushbuck ram streaking across a small open space, as neatly as he could himself. This was only when they were alone together. If there was a regular hunt she never took part in it.

Her ambition Was to become an art student, at one of the great centres. She firmly believed in her own capabilities in that line. Her father had taken her to Europe on purpose to show her all that was best of the kind, and she had come back more dissatisfied than ever. She wanted to join the regular ranks—to start at the bottom of the ladder. But Michael Thornhill had a will of his own.

“Patience, dear,” he would say. “You have plenty of time before you, and I don’t see the fun of raising children to have them desert me just when I want them most.”

Edala had not taken the remark in good part. She had flashed forth that it was no good having anything in one, if one was to be stuck away on a Natal farm all one’s life with no opportunity of bringing it out. Her father shook his head sadly.

“There may come a day when you will be glad to find yourself back on that same Natal farm,” he said. Then he went out.

Of this he was thinking as he sat in his library a few mornings after Elvesdon’s timely appearance. Why now should he not let her have her way? Why should he not send her to Europe as she wished? He himself could sell or let the farm, and trek far up country on a protracted hunting expedition; for the idea of life here without Edala was not to be thought of for a moment.

There was more than a sense of thwarted ambition which came between himself and the child he idolised. The dark cloud that separated them took the form of a dead hand. Black and bitter suspicion corroded the girl’s mind, and when the consciousness of it was more especially brought home to Thornhill from time to time, the whirlwind of vengeful hate that stormed through his heart was simply inconceivable. But not towards her. It was retrospective.

Just such a paroxysm was on him now. He could not read. He gazed listlessly around at his well filled book-shelves—with their miscellaneous stock of literature—in which he took such pleasure and pride, but made no move towards disturbing their contents. A restlessness came upon him. He could not remain still. Jumping up, he put his head through the window and shouted out to the stable boy to saddle up a horse.

Edala was on the stoep as he passed out. She was putting some finishing touches to a water-colour drawing. In his then mood he did not suggest that she should accompany him; perhaps he feared the effect of a refusal or a reluctant consent.

“Are you going out, father? It’s awfully hot.”

“Yes, I’m going a short round. Back by dinner time.”

Three or four great rough-haired dogs, lying in the shade behind the stable, sprang up as the horse was led forth, whining and squirming with wild excitement at sight of the gun in their master’s hand. He, however, drove them back; he was not going to hunt, but there was always the chance of coming across unwary “vermin”—a jackal perhaps, or a rooikat.

The first point he made for was the scene of yesterday’s episode. As he approached it a low hum of voices was