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Suicide. Why not? Suicide was said to be disgraceful. Why? Other nations, more civilised in some respects than ours, had held it to be honourable. Not if one has responsibilities. His wife–well–he shrewdly suspected that she would be glad of her freedom. He had no child—-Oh, God! Yes he had.

Disgrace to his wife and to his other relations. Ah! here came in the beauty of his plan. Suicide would never be suspected.

Kellson went into the bedroom and opened his portmanteau. From the pocket of the partition he took a little bottle of chloral hydrate, a drug which he was in the habit of using when insomnia pressed heavily upon him, as it periodically did. The chloral was in five-grain tabloids. His usual dose was three tabloids or fifteen grains. He now counted twenty tabloids into a tumbler, which he half filled with water.

The front door was still open, and Kellson, remembering this, went to shut it. The moon had now soared high above the mountain, and a spectacle, wonderfully and wildly beautiful, was revealed. Kellson walked into the garden and gazed on it. The mist, no longer smooth and clinging, but drawn and curled into fantastic wreaths, was rising slowly into the windless sky. The tired-out man took one lingering look, and then walked quickly into the house. He locked the front door and went into the bedroom.

He undressed quietly and got into bed, after laying his clothes tidily on one of the chairs. The chloral had not yet quite melted, so he took his tooth-brush and stirred the contents of the tumbler with the handle. In a few moments the last tabloid had dissolved.

Kellson blew the candle out and took a sip of the chloral mixture. It was so strong that it made him cough. He lit the candle and added more water. It then struck him that the room might smell close when the people entered it on the morrow, so he got up and opened the window wide. He then returned to bed, drank off the contents of the tumbler, and lay down.

For one wild moment terror at the lowering face of Death took possession of his soul. It was as though he could sec the awful features taking form out of the darkness. The dread destroyer that he had with daring hand roused unseasonably from his lair, seemed to fill the room–the house–the sky–and call him forth in tones of thunder to the black and freezing void. Light! Light!

He started up in bed and began to grope for the matchbox. But this passed away. The face of Death grew mild, and then seemed to smile. He lay down on his side, his face turned from the open window, composed himself into a comfortable attitude, and fell softly into the deepest of all sleeps.

Glossary

Allemagtig, almighty

Boomslang, an innocuous colubrine snake

*Donga, a gully with steep sides

Drift, the ford of a river

*E-hea, exactly so

*Ewe, yes

Hamel, a wether sheep

*Icanti, a fabulous serpent, the mere appearance of which is supposed to cause death

*Impandulu, the lightning bird. The Kafirs believe the lightning to be a bird

*Impi, an army or any military force on the war path

*Induna, a Zulu councilor or general

Kapater, a wether goat

Kerrie, a stick such as is almost invariably carried by a Kafir

Kloof, a gorge or valley

Kaffirboom, a large arboreal aloe

Kopje, an abrupt hillock

Kraal, (1) an enclosure for stock; a fold or pen. (2) a native hut, or collection of huts

Krantz, a cliff

*Lobola, the payment of cattle by a man to the father of the girl he wants to marry

*Mawo, an exclamation of surprise

Mealies, maize

Op togt, on a trading trip

Ou Pa, grandfather

Outspan, to unyoke a team

Raak, hit

Reim, a leather thong

Reimje, diminutive of foregoing

Schulpad, a tortoise

Sjambok: a heavy whip made of rhinocerous hide

Stoep, a space about two yards, in width along the front or side of a house. Usually covered by a verandah in the case of South African houses

Taaibosch, “tough bush,” a shrub. Rhus lucida

*Tikoloshe, a water spirit who is supposed, when people are drowned, to have pulled them under water by the feet

“Ukushwama, the feast of first fruits;–celebrated by the Bacas and some other Bantu tribes

*Umtagati, magic;–witchcraft

Veldt. unenclosed and uncultivated land. The open country

Veldschoens, home-made boots such as those in general use amongst South African Boers

Voor-huis, the dining and sitting-room in a Dutch house

*Yebo, yes

*Kafir terms are marked by an asterisk.