40+ Adventure Novels & Lost World Mysteries in One Premium Edition. Henry Rider Haggard

gachle," again remarked Jeremy, rising and picking up the water-jug. "How are we going to get any more water? I'll tell you all about it."

      And he did, including the story of Mr. Plowden's shaking, at which Ernest chuckled fiercely.

      "I wish I had been there to /kick/ him," he remarked parenthetically.

      "I did that too; I kicked him hard," put in Jeremy; at which Ernest chuckled again.

      "I can't make it all out," said Ernest, at length, "but I will go home at once."

      "You can't do that, old fellow. Your respected uncle, Sir Hugh, will have you run in."

      "Ah, I forgot! Well, I will write to her to-day."

      "That's better; now let's dress. My head is rather clearer. By George, though, I am stiff! It is no joke fighting a giant."

      But Ernest answered not a word. He was already, after his quick-brained fashion, employed in concocting his letter to Eva.

      In the course of the morning he drafted it. It, or rather part of it with which we need concern ourselves, ran thus:

      "Such then, my dearest Eva, was the state of my mind towards you. I thought--God forgive me for the treason!--that perhaps you were, as so many women are, a fair-weather lover, and that now that I am in trouble you wished to slip the cable. If that was so, I felt that it was not for me to remonstrate. I wrote to you, and I knew that the letter came safely to your hands. You did not answer it, and I could only come to one conclusion. Hence my own silence. And to be plain I do not at this moment quite understand /why/ you have never written. But Jeremy has brought me your message, and with that I must be content; for no doubt you have reasons which are satisfactory to yourself, and if that is so, no doubt, too, they would be equally satisfactory to me if I only knew them. You see, my dearest love, the fact is that I trust and believe in you utterly and entirely. What is right and true, what is loyal and sincere to me and to yourself--those are the things that you will do. Jeremy tells me a rather amusing story about the new clergyman who has come to Kesterwick, and who is, it appears, an aspirant for your hand. Well, Eva, I am sufficiently conceited not to be jealous; although I am in the unlucky position of an absent man, and worse still, an absent man under a cloud, I do not believe that he will cut me out. But on the day that you can put your hand on your heart, and look me straight in the eyes, and tell me, on your honour as a lady, that you love this or any other man better than you do me, on that day I shall be ready to resign you to him. But till that day comes--and there is something which tells me that it is as impossible for it to come as for the mountain-range I look on as I write to move towards the town and bury it--I am free from jealousy, for I /know/ that it is impossible that you should be faithless to your love.

      "Oh, my sweet, the troth we plighted was not for days, or years, or times--it was for ever. I believe that nothing can dissolve it, and that Death himself will be powerless against it. I believe that with each new and progressive existence it will re-arise as surely as the flowers in spring, only, unlike them, more fragrant and beautiful than before. Sometimes I think that it has already existed through countless ages. Strange thoughts come into a man's mind out there on the great veld, riding alone hour after hour, and day after day, through sunlight and through moonlight, till the spirit of nature broods upon him, and he begins to learn the rudiments of truth. Some day I shall tell them all to you. Not that /I/ have ever been quite alone, for I can say honestly that you have always been at my side since I left you; there has been no hour of the day or night when you have not been in my thoughts, and I believe that, till death blots out my senses, no such hour will ever come.

      "Day by day, too, my love has grown stronger even in its despair. Day by day it has taken shape and form and colour, and become more and more a living thing, more and more an entity, as distinct as soul and body, and yet as inextricably blended and woven into the substance of each. If ever a woman was beloved, you are that woman, Eva Ceswick; if ever a man's life, present and to come, lay in a woman's hands, my life lies in yours. It is a germ which you can cast away or destroy, or which you can nourish till it bursts into bloom, and bears fruit beautiful beyond imagining. You are my fate, my other part. With you my destiny is intertwined, and you can mould it as you will. There is no height to which I cannot rise by your side; there is no depth to which I may not sink without you.

      "And now, what does all this lead up to? Will you make a sacrifice for me, who am ready to give up all my life to you--no, who have already given it? That sacrifice is this: I want you to come out here and marry me; for, as you know, circumstances prevent me from returning to you. If you will come, I will meet you at the Cape, and marry you there. Ah, surely you will come! As for money, I have plenty from home, and can make as much more as we shall want here, so that need be no obstacle. It is long to wait for your answer--three months--but I hope that the faith that will, as the Bible tells us, enable people to move mountains--and my faith in you is as great as that--will also enable me to bear the suspense, and in the end prove its own reward."

      Ernest read selected portions of this exalted composition to Mr. Alston and Jeremy. Both listened in solemn silence, and at the conclusion Jeremy scratched his head and remarked that it was deep enough to "fetch" any girl, though for his part he did not quite understand it. Mr. Alston relit his pipe, and for a while said nothing; but to himself he thought that it was a remarkable letter for so young a man to have written, and revealed a curious turn of mind. One remark he did make, however, and that was rather a rude one:

      "The girl won't understand what you are driving at, Master Ernest; she will think that you have gone off your head in these savage parts. All you say may or may not be true--on that point I express no opinion; but to write such things to a woman is to throw your pearls before swine. You should ask her about her bonnets, my boy, and tell her what sort of dresses she should bring out, and that the air is good for the complexion. She would come then."

      Here Ernest fired up.

      "You are beastly cynical, Alston, and you should not speak of Miss Ceswick like that to me. Bonnets, indeed!"

      "All right, my lad--all right. Time will show. Ah, you boys! you go building up your ideals of ivory and gold and fine linen, only to find them one day turned into the commonest of clay, draped in the dirtiest of rags. Well, well, it is the way of the world; but you take my advice Ernest; burn that letter, and go in for an Intombi. It is not too late yet, and there is no mistake about the sort of clay of which a Kafir girl is made."

      Here Ernest stamped out of the room in a passion.

      "Too cock-sure, wanted cooling down a little," remarked Mr. Alston to Jeremy; "should never be cock-sure where a woman is concerned; women are fond of playing dirty tricks, and saying they could not help it. I know them; for, though you mightn't think it, I was once young myself. Come on; let us find him, and go for a walk."

      They found Ernest sitting on the box of the waggon, which was outspanned, together with Jeremy's, just outside the town, and looking rather sulky.

      "Come on, Ernest," said Mr. Alston, apologetically; "I will throw no more mud at your ideal. In the course of the last thirty years I have seen so many fall to pieces of their own accord that I could not help warning you. But perhaps they make them of better stuff in England than we do in these parts."

      Ernest descended and soon forgot his pique. It was but rarely that he bore malice for more than half an hour. As they walked along one of the by-streets they met the young fellow who had acted as second to Jeremy in the big fight of the previous day. He informed them that he had just been to inquire how the giant was. It appeared that he had received an injury to the spine, the effect of Jeremy's "lift," from which there was little hope of his recovery. He was not, however, in much pain. This intelligence distressed Jeremy not a little. He had earnestly desired to thrash the giant, but he had felt no wish to injure him. With his usual promptitude he announced his intention of going to see his fallen enemy.

      "You are likely to meet with a warm reception if you do," said Mr. Alston.

      "I'll risk it. I should like to tell him that I am sorry."

      "Very good; come along--that is the house."

      The injured man had been carried to the house