“Look,” said Indaba-zimbi in my ear—­“Look, Macumazahn, there goes the Babyan-frau.  But, Macumazahn, she will come back again.  Ah, why will you not listen to my words.  Have they not always been true words, Macumazahn?” and he shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

For a while I was much disturbed, but at any rate Hendrika was gone for the present, and Stella, my dear and lovely wife, was there at my side, and in her smiles I forgot my fears.

For the rest of that day, why should I write of it?—­there are things too happy and too sacred to be written of.

At last I had, if only for a little while, found that rest, that perfect joy which we seek so continually and so rarely clasp.

CHAPTER XI

GONE!

I wonder if many married couples are quite as happy as we found ourselves.  Cynics, a growing class, declare that few illusions can survive a honeymoon.  Well, I do not know about it, for I only married once, and can but speak from my limited experience.  But certainly our illusion, or rather the great truth of which it is the shadow, did survive, as to this day it survives in my heart across all the years of utter separation, and across the unanswering gulf of gloom.

But complete happiness is not allowed in this world even for an hour.  As our marriage day had been shadowed by the scene which has been described, so our married life was shadowed by its own sorrow.

Three days after our wedding Mr. Carson had a stroke.  It had been long impending, now it fell.  We came into the centre hut to dinner and found him lying speechless on the couch.  At first I thought that he was dying, but this was not so.  On the contrary, within four days he recovered his speech and some power of movement.  But he never recovered his memory, though he still knew Stella, and sometimes myself.  Curiously enough he remembered little Tota best of all three, though occasionally he thought that she was his own daughter in her childhood, and would ask her where her mother was.  This state of affairs lasted for some seven months.  The old man gradually grew weaker, but he did not die.  Of course his condition quite precluded the idea of our leaving Babyan Kraals till all was over.  This was the more distressing to me because I had a nervous presentiment that Stella was incurring danger by staying there, and also because the state of her health rendered it desirable that we should reach a civilized region as soon as possible.  However, it could not be helped.

At length the end came very suddenly.  We were sitting one evening by Mr. Carson’s bedside in his hut, when to our astonishment he sat up and spoke in a strong, full voice.

“I hear you,” he said.  “Yes, yes, I forgive you.  Poor woman! you too have suffered,” and he fell back dead.