It was while he was speaking thus that Rachel suddenly
observed her mother fall forward, so that her body
rested on the table, as though a kind of fit had seized
her. Rachel sprang towards her, but before she
reached her she appeared to have quite recovered,
only her face looked very white.
“What on earth is the matter, mother?”
“Oh! don’t ask me,” she answered,
“a terrible thing, a sort of fancy that came
to me from talking about those Zulus. I thought
I saw this place all red with blood and tongues of
fire licking it up. It went as quickly as it
came, and of course I know that it is nonsense.”
THE TAKING OF NOIE
Presently Mrs. Dove, who seemed to have quite recovered
from, her curious seizure, went to bed.
“I don’t like it, father,” said
Rachel when the door had closed behind her. “Of
course it is contrary to experience and all that, but
I believe that mother is fore-sighted.”
“Nonsense, dear, nonsense,” said her father.
“It is her Scotch superstition, that is all.
We have been married for five-and-twenty years now,
and I have heard this sort of thing again and again,
but although we have lived in wild places where anything
might happen to us, nothing out of the way ever has
happened; in fact, we have always been most mercifully
preserved.”
“That’s true, father, still I am not sure;
perhaps because I am rather that way myself, sometimes.
Thus I know that she is right about me; no
harm will happen to me, at least no permanent harm.
I feel that I shall live out my life, as I feel something
else.”
“What else, Rachel?”
“Do you remember the lad, Richard Darrien?”
she asked, colouring a little.
“What? The boy who was with you that night
on the island? Yes, I remember him, although
I have not thought of him for years.”
“Well, I feel that I shall see him again.”
Mr. Dove laughed. “Is that all?”
he said. “If he is still alive and in Africa,
it wouldn’t be very wonderful if you did, would
it? And at any rate, of course, you will one
day when we all cease to be alive. Really,”
he added with irritation, “there are enough bothers
in life without rubbish of this kind, which comes
from living among savages and absorbing their ideas.
I am beginning to think that I shall have to give way
and leave Africa, though it will break my heart just
when, after all the striving, my efforts are being
crowned with success.”
“I have always told you, father, that I don’t
want to leave Africa, still, there is mother to be
considered. Her health is not what it was.”
“Well,” he said impatiently, “I
will talk to her and weigh the thing. Perhaps
I shall receive guidance, though for my part I cannot
see what it matters. We’ve got to die some
time, and if necessary I prefer that it should be
while doing my duty. ’Take no thought for
the morrow, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’
has always been my motto, who am content with what
it pleases Providence to send me.”
