Adventure, February 1917 — page 151: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- Finished » “T am wondering whether to ask your advice about something, if you would give’ 93 it. I have no one to~consult here,” she _ added rather piteously. “That is for you to decide. If you wish to do so I am old enough to be your father, and ‘will do my part to help.” We walked on to an orange grove that. stood about forty yards away, ostensibly to pick some fruit, but really because we knew that there we should be out of hearing and could see any one who approached. “Mr. Quatermain,”’ she said presently in a low voice, “I am in great trouble, almost the greatest a woman canbe. Iam engaged to be married to a man whom I do not care for; 7 2 “Then why not break it off? It may be unpleasant, but it is generally best to face unpleasant things, and nothing can be so bad as marrying a man whom you do not —care for.” : “Because I can not—I dare not. I have to obey.” “How old are you, Miss Marnham?”’ “T shall be of age in three months’ time. You may guess that I did not intend to return here until they were over, but I was, well—trapped. He wrote to me that my father was ill and I came.” ““At any rate when they are over you will not have to obey any one. It is not long to wait.”’ “It is an eternity. Besides this is not so much a question of obedience as of duty and of love. I love my father who, whatever his faults, has always been very kind to me” “And I am sure he loves you. Why not go to him and tell him your trouble?” “He knows it already, Mr. Quatermain, and hates this marriage even more than I do, if that is possible. But he is driven to it,aslam. Oh! I must tell the truth. The doctor has some hold over him. My father has done something dreadful, I don’t know what and I don’t want to know, but if it came out it would ruin my father, or worse, worse: I am the price of his silence. On the day of our marriage he will destroy the proofs. If I refuse to marry him, they will be produced and. then——” “Tt is difficult,” I said. “Tt is more than difficult, it is terrible. If you could see all there is in my heart, you would know how terrible.” “T think I can see, Miss Heda. Don’t 149 say ahy more now. Give me time to consider. again, and be sure that I will protect you.” “But you are going in a week.” “Many things happen in a week. Suffi- cient to the day is its evil. At the end of the week we will come to some decision unless everything is already decided.” For the next twenty-four hours I reflected on this pretty problem as hard as I ever did on anything in all my life. Here was a young woman who must somehow be pro- tected from a scoundrel, but who could not be protected because she herself had to In case of necessity come to me protect another scoundrel—to wit, her own | father. Could the thing be faced out? Im- possible, for I was sure that Marnham had committed a murder, or murders, of which Todd possessed evidence that would hang him. Could Heda be married to Ans- combe at once? Yes, if both were willing, but then Marnham would still be hung. Could they elope? Possibly, but with the same result. Could I take her away and put her under the protection of the Court at Pretoria? Yes, but with the same result. I wondered what my old Hottentot retainer, Hans, would have advised, he who was named Light-in-Darkness, and in his own savage way was the cleverest and most cunning man that I ever knew. Alas! I could not raise him from the grave to tell me, and yet I knew well what he would have answered. * “Baas,” he would have said, ‘“‘this is a rope which only the pale old man (i.e. death) . can cut. Let this doctor die, or let the father die, and the maiden will be free. Surely heaven is longing for one or both of them, and if necessary, Baas, I believe that I can point out a path to heaven!” I laughed to myself at the thought, which was one that a white man could not enter- tain even as a thought. And yet I felt that the hypothetical. Hans was right, death alone could cut this knot, and the reflection made me shiver. . That night I slept uneasily and dreamed. I dreamed that once more I was in the Black Kloof in Zululand, seated in front of the huts at the end of the kloof. squatted the old wizard, Zikali, wrapped up in his kaross—Zikali, the ‘““Thing-that- should-never-have-been-born,”” whom I had not seen for years. Near him were the ashes of a fire, by the help of which I knew (EO JOO AMUCE Sj In front of me — (E(0) S|