Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-04-17

grandson Harry. L wrote to England
to claim the estate on his behalf,
but the lawyer to whom the mat
ter was submitted said that my mar
rage to Stella, not having been cele-
brated by an ordained priest, was not
legal according to English law, and
therefore Harry could not inherit.
Foolishly enough acquiesced in this,
and the property passed to a cousin of
my father-in-law; but since have come
to live in England l have been informed
that this opinion is open to great sus-
picion, and that there is every probable
| ity that the courts would have declared
the marriage perfectly binding, as hav-
| ing been solemnly entered into in &C
cordance with the custom of the place
where it was contracted. But l am now
so rich that it is not worth while to
move in the matter. The cousin is dead,
| his son is in possession, so let him keep
| it.
Once, and once only, did revisit Bah
yam kraals. Some fifteen years after
my darling'S death, when | was a man
in middle age, 1 undertook an expedi-
ton to the Zambesi, and one night out
spanned at the mouth of the well-known
valley beneath the shadow of the great
peak. l mounted my horse, and, quite
alone, rode up the valley, noticing with
strange prescience of evil that the
road was Overgrown, and, save for the
music of the waterfalls, the place silent
as death. The kraals that used to be to
/ the left of the road by the river had van
ished. l rode toward their site; the
mealie fields were choked with weeds,
paths were dumb with grass. Presently
l reached the place. There, overgrown
with grass, were the burnt ashes of the
kraals, and there, among the ashes,
cleaning in the moonlight, lay the
white bones of men. Now it was clear
to me. The settlement had been fallen
on by some powerful foe, and it's inhab-
itants put to the assegai. The forebod-
ings of the natives had come true; Bah
yam kraals were peOpled by memories
alone. [ passed on up the terraces.
There shone the roofs of the marble
nuts. They would not burn, and were
too strong to be easily pulled down.
| entered one of them--it had been
our sleeping hut-and lit a can
die which 1 had with me. The
huts had been sacked; leaves of books
and broken fragments of the familiar
furniture lay about. Then l remem-
bered that there was a secret place hol-
lowed in the floor and concealed by
stone, where Stella used to hide her
little treasures. / went to the stone
and dragged it up. There was some
thing within wrapped in moldering,
native cloth. 1 undid it. 1t was the
dress my wife had been married in. In
the center of the dress were the
withered wreath and flowers she had
worn, and with them little paper
packet. l opened it; it contained
lock of my own hair. / remembered
that had searched for this dress when
l came away and couldn't find it, for 1
had forgotten the secret recess in the
floor.
Taking the dress with me l left the
hut for the last time. Leaving my
horse tied to a tree, 1 walked to the
graveyard, through the ruined garden.
There it was q mass of weeds, but over
my darling's grave grew a self-sown
orange tree, of which the scented petals
fell in showers on to the mound be-
meath. AS ] drew near there was q
crash and a rush. A great baboon
leapt from the center of The graveyard
and vanished into the trees. 1 could al
most believe that it was the wrath of
Hendrika doomed to keep an eternal
watch over the bones of the woman her
jealous rage had done TO death.
tarried there awhile, filled with
such thoughts as may not be written.
Then, leaving my dead wife to her long
sleep where the waters fell in melan-
chOly music beneath the shadow of the
everlasting mountain, I turned and
sought that spot where first we had told
our love. Now the orange grove was
nothing but tangled thicket; many of
the trees were dead, chOked with creep
ers, but some still flourished. There
stood the one beneath which we had
fingered, there was the rock that had
been our seat, and there on the rock sat
Stella, the Stella whom 1 had wed. Ay!
there she sat, and on her upturned face
was that same spiritual look which
saw upon it in the hour when we first
had kissed. The moonlight shone in
her dark eyes, the breeze waved in her
curling hair, her breast rose and fell,
a gentle smile played about her parted
lips. IstoOd transfixed, gazing on that
lost loneliness which once was mine. l
could not speak, and she spoke no wordi
she did not even seem to see me. Il
drew near. Now her eyes fell. For a
they met mine, and their mes
sage entered into me.
Then she was gone; nothing was left
but the tremulous moonlight falling
where she had been, the melancholy
music of the waters, the shadow of the
everlasting mountain, and, in my heart,
the sorrow and the hope.
THE END.