Marie: An Episode in the Life of the Late Allan Quatermain, H. Rider Haggard [world of reading .txt] 📗

Two days later we started to recover Dingaan’s cattle, sixty or seventy of us, all well armed and mounted. With us went two of Dingaan’s captains and a number of Zulus, perhaps a hundred, who were to drive the cattle if we recovered them. As I could speak their language I was more or less in command of this Zulu contingent, and managed to make myself very useful in that capacity. Also, during the month or so of our absence, by continually conversing with them, I perfected myself considerably in my knowledge of their beautiful but difficult tongue.

Now it is not my intention to write down the details of this expedition, during which there was no fighting and nothing serious happened. We arrived in due course at Sikonyela’s and stated our errand. When he saw how numerous and well armed we were, and that behind us was all the might of the Zulu army, that wily old rascal thought it well to surrender the stolen cattle without further to-do, and with these some horses which he had lifted from the Boers. So, having received them, we delivered them over to the Zulu captains, with instructions to drive them carefully to Umgungundhlovu. The commandant sent a message by these men to the effect that, having fulfilled his part of the compact, he would wait upon Dingaan as soon as possible in order to conclude the treaty about the land.

This business finished, Retief took me and a number of the Boers to visit other bodies of the emigrant Dutch who were beyond the Drakensberg, in what is now the Transvaal territory. This occupied a long time, as these Boers were widely scattered, and at each camp we had to stop for several days while Retief explained everything to its leaders. Also he arranged with them to come down into Natal, so as to be ready to people it as soon as he received the formal cession of the country from Dingaan. Indeed, most of them began to trek at once, although jealousies between the various commandants caused some of the bands, luckily for themselves, to remain on the farther side of the mountains.

At length, everything being settled, we rode away, and reached the Bushman’s River camp on a certain Saturday afternoon. Here, to my joy, we found all well. Nothing had been heard of Hernan Pereira, while the Zulus, if we might judge from messengers who came to us, seemed to be friendly. Marie, also, had now quite recovered from the fears and hardships which she had undergone. Never had I seen her look so sweet and beautiful as she did when she greeted me, arrayed no longer in rags, but in a simple yet charming dress made of some stuff that she had managed to buy from a trader who came up to the camp from Durban. Moreover, I think that there was another reason for the change, since the light of dawning happiness shone in her deep eyes.

The day, as I have said, was Saturday, and on the Monday she would come of age and be free to dispose of herself in marriage, for on that day lapsed the promise which we had given to her father. But, alas! by a cursed perversity of fate, on this very Monday at noon the Commandant Retief had arranged to ride into Zululand on his second visit to Dingaan, and with Retief I was in honour bound to go.

“Marie,” I said, “will not your father soften towards us and let us be married to-morrow, so that we may have a few hours together before we part?”

“I do not know, my dear,” she answered, blushing, “since about this matter he is very strange and obstinate. Do you know that all the time you were absent he never mentioned your name, and if anyone else spoke it he would get up and go away!”

“That’s bad,” I said. “Still, if you are willing, we might try.”

“Indeed and indeed, Allan, I am willing, who am sick of being so near to you and yet so far. But how shall we do so?”

“I think that we will ask the Commandant Retief and the Vrouw Prinsloo to plead for us, Marie. Let us go to seek them.”

She nodded, and hand in hand we walked through the Boers, who nudged each other and laughed at us as we passed to where the old vrouw was seated on a stool by her wagon drinking coffee. I remember that her vatdoek was spread over her knees, for she also had a new dress, which she was afraid of staining.

“Well, my dears,” she said in her loud voice, “are you married already that you hang so close together?”

“No, my aunt,” I answered; “but we want to be, and have come to you to help us.”

“That I will do with all my heart, though to speak truth, young people, at your age, as things are, I should have been inclined to help myself, as I have told you before. Heaven above us! what is it that makes marriage in the sight of God? It is that male and female should declare themselves man and wife before all folk, and live as such. The pastor and his mumblings are very well if you can get them, but it is the giving of the hand, not the setting of the ring upon it; it is the vowing of two true hearts, and not words read out of a book, that make marriage. Still, this is bold talk, for which any reverend prédicant would reprove me, for if young folk acted on it, although the tie might hold good in law, what would become of his fee? Come, let us seek the commandant and hear what he has to say. Allan, pull me up off this stool, where, if I had my way, after so much travelling, I should like to sit while a house was built over my head and for the rest of my life.”

I obeyed, not without difficulty, and we went to find Retief.

At the moment he was standing alone, watching two wagons that had just trekked away. These contained his wife with other members of his family, and some friends whom he was sending, under the charge of the Heer Smit, to a place called Doornkop, that lay at a distance of fifteen miles or more. At this Doornkop he had already caused a rough house, or rather shed, to be built for the Vrouw Retief’s occupation, thinking that she would be more comfortable and perhaps safer there during his absence than at the crowded camp in a wagon.

“Allemachte! Allan,” he said, catching sight of me, “my heart is sore; I do not know why. I tell you that when I kissed my old woman good-bye just now I felt as though I should never see her again, and the tears came into my eyes. I wish we were all safe back from Dingaan. But there, there, I will try to get over to see her to-morrow, as we don’t start till Monday. What is it that you want, Allan, with that ‘mooi mesje’ of yours?”—and he pointed to the tall Marie.

“What would any man want with such a one, save to marry her?” broke in the Vrouw Prinsloo. “Now, commandant, listen while I set out the tale.”

“All right, aunt, only be brief, for I have no time to spare.”

She obeyed, but I cannot say that she was brief.

When at last the old lady paused, breathless, Retief said:

“I understand everything; there is no need for you young people to talk. Now we will go and see Henri Marais, and, if he is not madder than usual, make him listen to reason.”

So we walked to where Marais’s wagon stood at the end of the line, and found him sitting on the disselboom cutting up tobacco with his pocket-knife.

“Good-day, Allan,” he said, for we had not met since my return. “Have you had a nice journey?”

I was about to answer when the commandant broke in impatiently:

“See here, see here, Henri, we have not come to talk about Allan’s journey, but about his marriage, which is more important. He rides with me to Zululand on Monday, as you do, and wants to wed your daughter to-morrow, which is Sunday, a good day for the deed.”

“It is a day to pray, not to give and be given in marriage,” commented Marais sulkily. “Moreover, Marie does not come of age before Monday, and until then the oath that I made to God holds.”

“My vatdoek for your oath!” exclaimed the vrouw, flapping that awful rag in his face. “How much do you suppose that God cares what you in your folly swore to that stinkcat of a nephew of yours? Do you be careful, Henri Marais, that God does not make of your precious oath a stone to fall upon your head and break it like a peanut-shell.”

“Hold your chattering tongue, old woman,” said Marais furiously. “Am I to be taught my duty to my conscience and my daughter by you?”

“Certainly you are, if you cannot teach them to yourself,” began the vrouw, setting her