From the mouth of Hendrika came a succession of grunts, groans, squeals, clicks, and every other abominable noise that can be conceived, conveying to my mind a general idea of expostulation.  At any rate the baboons listened.  One of them grunted back some answer, and then the whole mob drew off to the rocks.

I stood astonished, and without a word we turned back to the kraal, for Hendrika was too close to allow me to speak.  When we reached the dining hut Stella went in, followed by Hendrika.  But Indaba-zimbi plucked me by the sleeve, and I stopped outside.

“Macumazahn,” he said.  “Baboon-woman—­devil-woman.  Be careful, Macumazahn.  She loves that Star (the natives aptly enough called Stella the Star), and is jealous.  Be careful, Macumazahn, or the Star will set!”

CHAPTER IX

“LET US GO IN, ALLAN!”

It is very difficult for me to describe the period of time which elapsed between my arrival at Babyan’s Peak and my marriage with Stella.  When I look back on it, it seems sweet as with the odour of flowers, and dim as with the happy dusk of summer eves, while through the sweetness comes the sound of Stella’s voice, and through the gloom shines the starlight of her eyes.  I think that we loved each other from the first, though for a while we said no word of love.  Day by day I went about the place with her, accompanied by little Tota and Hendrika only, while she attended to the thousand and one matters which her father’s ever-growing weakness had laid upon her; or rather, as time drew on, I attended to the business, and she accompanied me.  All day through we were together.  Then after supper, when the night had fallen, we would walk together in the garden and come at length to hear her father read aloud sometimes from the works of a poet, sometimes from history.  Or, if he did not feel well, Stella would read, and when this was done, Mr. Carson would celebrate a short form of prayer, and we would separate till the morning once more brought our happy hour of meeting.

So the weeks went by, and with every week I grew to know my darling better.  Often, I wonder now, if my fond fancy deceives me, or if indeed there are women as sweet and dear as she.  Was it solitude that had given such depth and gentleness to her?  Was it the long years of communing with Nature that had endowed her with such peculiar grace, the grace we find in opening flowers and budding trees?  Had she caught that murmuring voice from the sound of the streams which fall continually about her rocky home? was it the tenderness of the evening sky beneath which she loved to walk, that lay like a shadow on her face, and the light of the evening stars that shone in her quiet eyes?  At the least to me she was the realization of that dream which haunts the sleep of sin-stained men; so my memory paints her, so I hope to find her when at last the sleep has rolled away and the fevered dreams are done.