Chapter Twenty Three.
The Commandant’s Joke.
“Hallo, Selmes, what’s the row with you?” said Trooper Sketchley, suddenly noticing that Dick’s face had gone rather white. “Confound it, you didn’t get hit, did you?”
Harley Greenoak, who was riding a little way in front, keeping a watchful eye on the captive chiefs, instinctively reined in his horse, having just overheard. The movement annoyed Dick Selmes. It seemed to him to savour of leading-strings; and had not he borne part in two good fights—three, in fact, for this capture of the two chiefs was better than a fight. It was a bold dash and a fight combined.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” he answered, rather testily. “Something seemed to knock me during that last volley. I expect it was a spent pot-leg or splinter of rock. But it’ll keep till we get back to camp.”
“Where did it knock you?” said Greenoak.
“Here. Bridle arm. Rather ride with the right.”
“All serene. But—just haul up your sleeve, if you can.”
No fuss. No calling a halt. Just a plain injunction. Such was Harley Greenoak. Dick obeyed.
“You’ll be all right, Dick,” pronounced Greenoak, after a brief scrutiny, during which he strove to conceal the anxiety he felt. “It’s as you say, a spent pot-leg. But it has made a nasty jagged scratch all the same, and we’ll get the sawbones at it soon as we’re in. You may thank your stars it was a spent one, or you’d have had a broken arm for some time to come.”
“Never mind. We’ve boned the chiefs,” said Dick, delightedly. “That sweep Vunisa, he’s the beggar who’d have cut my throat that night they tied me up in a bag. Jolly glad we’ve boned him. Bit of turning the tables there.”
“We ought to enlist you, Selmes,” said Sub-Inspector Mainwaring, who was in command of the body that had so opportunely come to the rescue. “You’re a tiger for pulling off anything out of the way.”
“Well, I hope I’ll go through some more jolly old scraps with you fellows,” answered Dick. “The war seems to have begun in earnest now.”
“Don’t know. This may have broken the whole back of it. Eh, Greenoak?”
“May, or may not,” answered the latter, who was not going to commit himself to an ordinary conversational opinion at that stage.
They were joined by the other half of the pursuit under Inspector Chambers. One man had been killed. A desperate savage, fairly cornered, had sprung like a wild-cat upon the unfortunate trooper and assegaied him fair and square as he sat in his saddle, being himself, however, immediately shot. Three more were wounded with assegai cuts. But, all things considered, the Police had come off with flying colours, and all hands were in high spirits.
On the way, they picked up the wounded Kafir, Tolangubo, who had given the information which had led to the capture of the chiefs. He had proved useful enough already, and might prove so again, thought Inspector Chambers when the man expressed a desire to join the Police as a native detective. But, watching his opportunity, he besought Harley Greenoak to enjoin upon the four troopers on no account to let out that he had been instrumental in that, for in such event he could be of no use at all, as the vengeance of his countrymen would be certain to overtake him, and then—why, a dead man was more useless than a dead ox, since you could neither eat him nor use his skin—he added, somewhat humorously.
On reaching camp the two chiefs were lodged in the guard-hut, Jacob Snyman having been now released and allowed to return to duty. He had shown his good faith. The attack against which he had warned them had been made in real earnest, and now in the flush of victory, the would-have-been traitor found himself rather popular than otherwise. All the same, a watchful eye was kept upon him. Vunisa and Pahlandhle accepted the position with sullen philosophy. They were told that they would be kept as hostages for the good behaviour of their people—an announcement which filled them with no exhilaration, remembering as they did, though keeping the knowledge to themselves, that the Gudhluka Reserve was a very Alsatia, and comprised plenty of turbulent spirits, whose allegiance to themselves was purely nominal. But there they were, and their rations were regular, and the Police were not stingy with tobacco; so the philosophy of the savage stood them in good stead: “Sufficient unto the day.”
“Well, Greenoak. It seems to me we are making a real frontiersman of our friend here,” said the Commandant, going on the while sorting out and otherwise arranging his “specimens,” as calmly as though they had not spent the morning in defeating and thoroughly routing a few thousand of bloodthirsty savages. “Wounded too? Never mind, Selmes. Think what a lot of yarns you’ll have to spin to the people at home.”
“Oh, I don’t mind that, Commandant. But—er—Blunt says it’s a toss up whether I’ll be able to take a hand in any more fights for a month or so. And by that time the war may be over.”
“Hope so, I’m sure,” was the dry reply. “Eh, Greenoak?”
The latter nodded.
For the Police surgeon—Dr Blunt—a tall, pleasant-mannered Irishman—had examined and duly dressed Dick’s wound, informing him that, although not serious, it was not a thing to play the fool with.
“You see, Selmes,” he said, “you are such a rash, impetuous beggar. I suppose if some nigger were to sneak in to-night and tell you he knew where to capture old Kreli, you’d start out on the spot and try and do it. Well, let me remind you there’s such a thing as blood-poisoning. It’s all right now, but if you get acting the ass with this thing, open and running as it’ll be for the next few days, why, there’s no telling. No, my boy. You’ll have to wear your arm in a sling till I tell you to take it out. What then? Why, you’ll only look the more interesting. Anyway, it’s only your left fin.”
This was some consolation. For it enabled Dick to sit down and write a full, true, and particular account of the two battles and their sequel to Hazel Brandon, and, incidentally, to his father, to be sent when the Commandant should elect to send through despatches reporting recent affairs.
“What do you make of this beast, Greenoak?” went on the Commandant, as he extracted the last captured lizard specimen from the lethal pickle-bottle.
“Don’t know. I’m not up in scientific natural history.”
“Well, he’s quite an uncommon variety. Shall have to look him up when I get back to my library.”
Greenoak exchanged a comical look with Dick Selmes. The Commandant, for the moment, attached more importance to the capture of this miserable, uninviting little specimen of the lizard tribe, than he did to the stirring and momentous events of the last couple of days. And yet—were the alarm again to be given, no man in that camp would be more readily on the spot, the very personification of cool and calm collectedness.
There were other humours in the life of the camp which every now and then would come to the fore. One day a trooper, charged with trying to shoot himself with his carbine, was marched before the Commandant. The latter looked at him in a half-abstracted, lack-lustre sort of way, then ordered him extra musketry practice—“for,” he added, with characteristic dryness, “a man who can’t hit himself at no yards isn’t likely to be able to hit an enemy at so many.”
Then Corporal Sandgate returned to the Kangala and reported for duty. His foot was quite healed now, and all he asked for were a few chances of being even with the brutes who had tortured him.
“Well, the prime mover in it is here in the camp now, old chap,” said Dick Selmes. “But you won’t be able so much as to punch his head, for he’s shot through the leg. Besides, I believe the old man’s contemplating taking him on as a native ’tec.” And he told the other how the Kafir had put them in the way of capturing the two chiefs.
“Well, you’ve been in luck’s way, Selmes,” said Sandgate, wistfully, “although you’ve got winged yourself. You’ve come in for a lot of hard, lively service, while I’ve been kicking up my heels rotting in hospital at Isiwa. Some fellows have all the luck. Mine, of course, is to be reduced, if not hoofed out of the Force.”
“Bosh! Not a bit of it. Buck up, old chap! You’re far too useful to the Force for that. Why, man, you did a splendid service. If I had been in your place I expect I’d have given away the whole show.”
But Sandgate refused to be comforted. He had been found wanting when engaged upon service of vital importance. There was no getting behind that.
A few days later he was sent for by the Commandant. It happened that he and Dick were chatting together at the time.
“All up,” he said resignedly. “Told you so.”
The Commandant was seated in front of his hut. An express had just ridden in, and, together with Inspector Chambers, he was going through the correspondence. He looked up.
“Corporal Sandgate, yes,” he said, as the other saluted in silence. “Well, I can hardly call you that now. You are relieved of your rank.”
“Yes, sir. I expected no less,” answered the poor fellow, saluting again, and making as if to withdraw.
“One moment. Read that,” said the Commandant, handing him a folded letter in blue official foolscap.
Sandgate, again saluting, took it mechanically. As he glanced down the sheet, he gave a start, and his handsome sun-browned face lost all its colour, then flushed, as he mastered, in cold official phraseology, that on account of his heroic endurance, which had resulted in the saving of vitally important despatches entrusted to his care, from falling into the hands of the enemy, and by reason of his general efficiency and zealous service, he was appointed to the rank of Sub-Inspector in the room of the late Sub-Inspector Francis Madden of D. Troop, killed in action at the Qora River.
Sandgate entertained no clear idea of what happened when he had grasped the purport of this announcement, only a confused recollection of not being quite responsible for his actions. In point of fact he sprang forward impulsively, and, seizing the Commandant by the hand, shook it again and again without ceremony.
“Oh, sir! This is all your doing,” he cried. “And I—can’t say anything.”
“Then don’t try,” was the answer. And a kindly smile lurked in the ordinarily imperturbable face. The joke was one which appealed to its owner.
Just after this, troop after troop of armed and mounted levies came pouring into the Transkei. Every part of the Colony had responded to the call, and the Gcaleka country was swept from end to end, its defeated inhabitants retreating sullenly across the Bashi, there to billet themselves, more or less by force, upon the weaker tribes which occupied the country further to the eastward. But these reinforcements, relieving the Police, enabled the latter to withdraw to the frontier, where it might be that in the near course of events their services would be even more urgently needed.
And Sub-Inspector Sandgate went to join his new troop, in a state of mind representing that there was hardly anything left in life to wish for.
Chapter Twenty Four.
Another Joke.
The village of Komgha was going through lively times. Every day nearly, levies, on their way to the front, would be passing through, and as it was the last settlement on the border, rations and other necessaries would be in demand, which was good for trade. More over, every room and corner in the place was occupied, not to mention waggons and tents on the common land; for something of a scare was prevalent. The Gcalekas beyond the border had been defeated, certainly—or rather had been chased out of their own country—but there was restlessness among the Gaika and Ndhlambe tribes within the border, and these were both numerous and powerful, with a fine war-like reputation in the past. So many homesteads had been abandoned temporarily, and their owners had either gone into laager, or into the settlement, or, at any rate, had sent their wives and families thither. A goodly proportion, on the other hand, ridiculed the scare, and remained on their farms.
And they seemed justified in doing so. Already more than one of the burgher forces had withdrawn from the Transkei en route for home. The country was quiet again, it was reported; luckily the disturbance had been kept beyond the border, or the inter-Colonial tribes would have been up in a blaze. But there were always some uncomfortable objectors who liked to point out that the Paramount Chief had not been captured, that the rising was only scotched, not killed, and that then we should see.
The village was the virtual headquarters of the F.A.M. Police—and in the Artillery barracks crowning an eminence, no less than in the two troops occupying a permanent camp just outside, a chronic state of readiness and activity prevailed. A scheme of defence too had been formed in case of attack—an event of the highest improbability, for even if the rising were to spread, the Kafirs would refrain from attacking a strongly defended place, and reserve their energies for the destruction of outlying farms and the ambush and massacre of small bodies of travelling whites.
Dick Selmes was growing rather impatient. If he could bear no further part in the war—and the doctor had again seriously warned him not to take his wound too lightly—he saw no reason why he should not seek out Hazel Brandon. His feelings had undergone no diminution, no deadening by reason of change and excitement and peril. The girl’s image was bright and clear in his mind, and the recollection of her engaging ways and sweet and sunny disposition was undimmed. He was not likely to find another like her in one lifetime.
He had been lunching with the Commandant and some of the Police officers. The former’s hospitable and unpretentious bungalow was always open house—a hospitality that our friend Dick was fond of availing himself of, for after the time he had spent with the Police, and the hard knocks he had shared with them, he felt as one of themselves; and but for that other attraction would have been in no hurry to bid farewell to a lot of such thundering good fellows, as he defined them on every occasion. Yet now, as he strolled along the wide dusty road, he felt hipped.
“Why, if it isn’t Mr Selmes!”
Dick, who was in a brown study, started at the voice—a feminine voice—then stared. He saw before him the mother of the small boy he had jumped into the sea to save—at some risk to his own life; and he had forgotten her very existence, and the cordial hopes she had expressed that he would one day see his way to paying them a visit. Now she was standing there with a smile and an outstretched hand, the same small boy hanging on to her by the other.
“How do you do, Mrs Waybridge,” said Dick, heartily. “Why, here’s Jacky. Well, young ’un, and how’s yourself?”
“And Jacky wouldn’t have been here but for you,” rejoined the other, with feeling. “And—”
Dick interrupted.
“Now, Mrs Waybridge, I think we agreed that that subject was to be treated as—er—a somewhat stale one,” he said deprecatorily.
“I’m sure I never agreed to anything of the sort,” she laughed. “But who would have thought of finding you here in Komgha. Why—what’s the matter with your arm?” becoming alive to the fact that it was in a sling. “You haven’t been in the war, have you?”
“Haven’t I? Had a most ripping time of it too. By Jingo, if it hadn’t been for this confounded scratch, I’d have been in it still. But Blunt turned so solemn over it and ordered me out.”
“Who?”
“Blunt, the F.A.M.P. surgeon.”
“And so you’ve come back wounded. But it’s not serious?”
“No, indeed. It’s a mere scratch. But, what brings you here, Mrs Waybridge, it’s my turn to ask?”
“Why, we live close here; our farm is out towards the Kabousie, only a few miles, and you’ve got to come and stay with us—now—to-day. Where are you staying here?”
“Nominally at Pagel’s, but it’s abominably crowded. Practically I subsist at the Commandant’s, or Chambers’, or at some other good chap’s in the Police. But I’m not stopping on much longer.”
“No, you’re not, for you’re going back with me this afternoon.”
Dick, in his heart of hearts, thought this rather a bore, and began to wonder what excuse he could make. It interfered with his plans. The other, reading his thoughts, smiled to herself. She had reason to know what he did not, that there was not the smallest chance of her invite being declined.
“Where is Mr Greenoak now?” she went on, not giving him time to utter the excuse he was trying to invent.
“Nobody knows, beyond that he’s bound on some mysterious mission, its object being to prevent the harmful unnecessary Gaika from taking the warpath.”
“Then I hope he’ll succeed. We have far too many of them as next-door neighbours. Well, we’ll get back to Pagel’s and have tea, and then it’ll be time to inspan. You haven’t got much luggage to pack up, I suppose?”
Dick was amused at the way in which she was taking possession of him as a matter of course. Personally she was a tallish, fair-haired woman of about five and thirty, rather good-looking, and with a pleasing voice. It would be great fun to accept that invitation, if only that Harley Greenoak would come back to find his bird flown. The said Greenoak had come to the conclusion that his charge could not get into much mischief in a crowded township, and with an arm in a sling, wherefore he had left him for a few days with an easy mind.
Even as Dick had said, the hotel—whither all this time they had been wending—was crowded. The stoep and the bar department were full of men and tobacco smoke, and battles were being fought over again, and the war brought to a sudden and satisfactory termination—according to more than one orator, who might or might not have taken any part in it. In the stuffy little dining-room they managed to find a quiet corner.
“How do you do, Mr Selmes?”
A red-hot needle dropped down the back of Dick’s neck might have produced a precisely similar effect to that evolved by this simple and exceedingly conventional query. He started violently in his chair, knocked both knees hard against the table, causing every article of crockery thereon to dance and rattle, and other people using it to scowl or laugh, according to mood. Then, as he extricated himself, he wondered if he were drunk or dreaming, for he stood holding the hand of—and looking down into the exquisitely winning face of Hazel Brandon.
The said face was demureness itself, but the sparkle of repressed mirth in the witching eyes told its own tale. Then, conscious that the gaze of the room was on him—on them—Dick pulled himself together.
“You here?” he gasped, as he gave her his chair—in the incoherence of mind born of the circumstances, overlooking the fact that another vacant one next to it, and which he now took, had been turned down as a sign of “engaged.” “Er—do you know Mrs Waybridge?”
“Yes, we know each other,” answered the latter for her. “You know”—to Hazel—“I’ve been trying to persuade Mr Selmes to come out and stay with us, now this afternoon, but he, for his part, has been trying to find some excuse. Don’t deny it, Mr Selmes”—with a laugh.
Dick felt cornered. Hazel at Komgha! There was no end to the surprises in this land of surprises. Likely he was going somewhere else just as he had discovered her presence here! What times they would contrive to have!
“Well—er—Mrs Waybridge, I thought it might be more convenient—er—a little later on,” he began lamely. “When my damaged limb is quite all right,” he added, as if a bright idea had struck him.
“Well, it’s our loss, I suppose, Mr Selmes,” she answered. “But mind you come as soon as you can.”
Dick promised—even enthusiastically. Then he turned to Hazel.
“Where are you staying here? Are your people with you?”
“No. But I’m not staying here at all. I’m only in for the day. I’m staying with Mrs Waybridge,” she answered in an even, matter-of-fact tone.
Heavens, what was this? Dick felt as if he had kicked himself out of paradise, locked the door behind him and thrown away the key with his own hand. How could he so much as have guessed that he had been doing all he knew to forego another stay under the same roof with Hazel? He stared at his plate—silently, blankly.
“Well, it’s about time we thought of inspanning,” said Mrs Waybridge. “Now, Mr Selmes. It isn’t too late to change your mind. What do you say?”
Dick’s face cleared. Here was a broad path out. He was unaware, too, of the pressures of the foot under the table exchanged by the two ladies as the richness of the joke unfolded itself. He only knew, with inexpressible relief, that the situation was saved.
“Then I think I will change it,” he answered, striving to quell the eagerness in his tone. “Besides, it’ll be such a joke on good old Greenoak when he gets back, to find I’ve flown.”
“Where is Mr Greenoak now?” asked Hazel. “Isn’t he here?”
“No. He’s away on some secret service.”
“Something to help other people, I suppose,” rejoined the girl. “He lives for that.”
There was just a little dimming of Dick Selmes’ golden vista. Was Hazel going to recommence booming Greenoak? She had never seemed to tire of that at Haakdoornfontein. Then he felt thoroughly ashamed of himself.
“I should think he did live for that,” declared Dick, heartily. “He saved my life twice since we crossed the Kei. Do you know, I was twice captured by the Kafirs, and the rum part of it was, it came off before the actual war began; but they’d have done for me all the same, as sure as I sit here—and that in a precious unpleasant manner—if it hadn’t been for Greenoak. But it’s something of a yarn, and must keep till there’s time to tell it. Shall I go and see after your inspanning, Mrs Waybridge?”
“No. Go and see after your own kit, that’ll save time. Only, don’t make it bigger than you can help, because the cart isn’t a Cobb and Co. coach.”
“Will a flannel shirt and a cartridge shell be overweight?” said Dick, slily.
Chapter Twenty Five.
A Missing Link.
It is safe to say that no more light-hearted unit among Her Majesty’s subjects existed than Dick Selmes as he rode out that day to the Waybridges’ farm.
Here he was, suddenly and unexpectedly called upon to undergo a wholly delightful sojourn once more beneath the same roof with this girl who had held his thoughts during the past three months. And now he was resolved to bring things to a head, and somehow he thought he had no reason to despair of doing so. Had he been near enough to catch what was working in the mind of one of the occupants of the Cape cart—which he was not, for his horse, fresh and “beany” from stable confinement and diet, would not be held in to the more sober, jog-trot pace of a vehicle—he might have thought so still more.
In her first glance at him Hazel had decided that, whatever it was that she had found wanting in him before, had now been supplied as though it were the missing link of a chain. The experiences he had been through since their last meeting had hardened and strengthened Dick Selmes in every way. He had taken part in more than one battle, and had undergone perils such as had fallen to the lot of few—as we know—and such experience had left its mark. He had learned self-reliance in a sharp school, but he had learned it. There was a straight decisive look in his clear eyes which had not been there before, a stamp, too, of it in his features, and now Hazel came to the conclusion that Dick Selmes was the handsomest man she had ever seen, or would ever be likely to see. Even now, how well he looked on horseback. His steed, the same one which had carried him through his express-riding experience, just now was giving ample opportunity for a display of horsemanship; and, watching both from the cart, Hazel realised that small Jacky was but voicing her own verdict in rough and ready fashion when he exclaimed—
“Ma, but Mr Selmes is a fine chap, and, can’t he just ride!”
“And swim too, eh, Jacky?” was the maternal reply, given significantly.
“Ja. Rather!”
It was sunset when they reached the farm; whose owner they could see down at the sheep kraals some little way off, apparently engaged in counting in, and at this they would not disturb him. A Kafir stable hand came up to take the horses.
“Come in, Mr Selmes. My husband will be up directly, when he’s done counting. He and Magwelo will do the outspanning.”
“Oh, but I can give a hand so long, Mrs Waybridge. Why—if that isn’t Elsie.”
“Ay, it’s Elsie. And how are ye, Mr Selmes?” said the Scotswoman, as Dick heartily shook hands with her. “Man, but ye’ll have seen something, A’m thinking, since ye first took me for Miss Hazel, up at Mr Hesketh’s.”
“Elsie, that joke’s stale,” cut in Hazel, quickly. “I don’t know either that it was ever much of a joke in any case.”
And Dick felt grateful. He did not want to be reminded of having made an ass of himself—and that before other people. But the Scotswoman turned away, not in the least offended, however. Soon the owner of the place was seen approaching. He was a middle-aged, strongly built man, with a quiet-looking, shrewd face, thickly bearded, and he was rather reticent of speech.
“John,” said his wife, “I’ve brought you some one you’ve very much wanted to see—Mr Selmes.”
“Very much wanted to,” echoed the other, heartily. “I should rather think so. How are you, sir—and a thousand welcomes. I need hardly say how glad I am of the opportunity of thanking you in person—”
“No—no, Mr Waybridge. That’s a subject we must agree not to mention,” protested Dick. “Really—if only to oblige me.”
“There are some subjects that can’t be dismissed so lightly,” was the answer. “You don’t meet with cases of heroism so often as all that.”
“Oh, Mrs Waybridge, do come to my rescue,” laughed Dick. “Now I’m going to take refuge in helping to outspan. Hallo! There’s my little friend, Florrie. How she’s grown.”
A pretty little girl came half shyly forward. She and Jacky constituted the Waybridges’ surviving family. Waybridge himself had not been present on the occasion of the rescue, his wife and children having been on a visit to Cape Town without him.
This Kaffrarian farm was pleasingly situated; in front and around an undulating roll of mimosa-dotted plains, at the back a line of hills, covered with dark bush. Now, as the sun dropped down to the horizon, these were thrown out all green and gold. At the back of the house was a large fruit garden, fenced in by hedges of quince and pomegranate. The sheep kraals lay in front, at some little distance.
“I’m afraid you’ll find it a bit slow here, Mr Selmes,” said Waybridge, as they were seated out on the stoep after supper. “I hear you’re a great sportsman, but there’s nothing on earth to shoot here.”
“Yet all that bush at the back ought to show something,” said Dick.
“So it ought, but it doesn’t. There are a sight too many Kafirs—and dogs. They won’t leave a hoof anywhere within reach. Clear everything.”
“That’s very nearly what Mr Selmes did at Haakdoorn,” said Hazel, mischievously.
“Ah, that was a very paradise of a shoot,” answered Dick, meeting her eyes in the starlight; and she read into the words a meaning beyond what they might on the surface convey, as he intended she should. It was like old times sitting out in the still night with her beside him, he thought. Then the conversation, as it was bound to do, got on to the war, and Dick, being pressed to do so, told them about his adventures. These, as a rule, he avoided talking about lest he should be suspected of brag.
“You see,” he now concluded, “you wanted to hear about things, but don’t imagine for a moment I’m particularly proud of any of those experiences, because honestly I’m not. The more I look back on them, the more convinced I am that I acted the silly ass; especially in running other people into unnecessary risk to get me out. And if it hadn’t been for Greenoak, time after time, I never should have been got out.”
“What about Gcalekaland now?” said Waybridge.
“Think it’s settled?”
“I believe so. The niggers were knocked into a cocked hat. But what about your crowd round here? Are they reliable?”
“There is unrest,” answered Waybridge. “Yes, decidedly there is unrest. But if we all followed the example of some of our neighbours by running away into laager, it would be courting the very danger we want to avoid. Isn’t it a fact that the way to draw any animal after you is to run away from it? Of course; and so some of us made a kind of league to stick to our farms.”
“Aren’t you uneasy, Mrs Waybridge?” said Dick.
“Not in the least. I don’t believe, either, that the Kafirs would do us any harm. We are on very good terms with them, and the old chief, Nteya, who bosses all the Gaikas round here, is a really nice old man, and we are very friendly. At worst we should be sure to get warning to clear.”
“These scares occur from time to time,” went on Waybridge, “and one of the results is that your servants all leave. When they come back you may rely upon it that the scare is over. Just now I’m badly off for hands. Four cleared out one night, all Sandili’s people. But they’ll come back. Nteya’s people stayed on, and those are the three I have yet.”
Dick Selmes, a lurking anxiety at the back of his mind on account of Hazel, felt reassured. His host’s serene composure on the subject could hardly fail to carry that effect. Then, upon the stillness of the night a far-away, long-drawn sound floated weirdly.
“By Jingo!” he cried, “that reminds me of the war-dance in Vunisa’s location that I’ve just been telling you about. Listen.”
They did listen. Again and again the strange sound wailed forth, seeming to come from where a distant glow was now visible beyond a roll of the plain.
“It is a dance of some sort,” said Waybridge, “but I don’t suppose it’s a war-dance. Sounds as if it was over at old Umjuza’s kraal, or not far from it. They often go in for dances, maybe for a wedding, or maybe like we do, for the sake of having a little festivity. It’s just an extraordinary beer-drinking, I expect.”
But to one who had heard it before, in grim and sinister earnest, that sound coming out of the darkness, as the voices of ravening beasts straining to be let loose, combined, too, with the state of uneasiness and tension then existing, struck a feeling of vague inquietude. Dick Selmes wondered if he felt as reassured as his host’s explanation and unruffled serenity should have warranted him in feeling.
Chapter Twenty Six.
Greenoak’s Plan.
Harley Greenoak sat smoking a pipe in the one living-room of the Commandant’s modest little bungalow. It was night. The only other occupant of the room was its owner; and he was moving tranquilly about arranging his “specimens,” dividing his attention about evenly between these and the subject of conversation. Yet the latter was weighty with the issues of life and death.
“If things go as you say, Greenoak,” he was observing, “we haven’t a man too many; either here, or over the Kei, or indeed along the whole frontier. Yet, look how my hands are tied. You know, I was always against allowing those burgher forces to go home, at any rate until a sufficiently equivalent force had been raised to supply their place. I am hampered at every turn, and if it wasn’t that I believe we are only at the beginning of our troubles instead of the end, I’d resign.”
“Don’t do that, Commandant, if only that it would be a precious difficult thing to supply yours,” answered Greenoak.
“I advised what should be done, and that was to make a quick and secret march, and arrest Sandili and Matanzima, together with some half-dozen more mischievous of the amapakati whom we know, and promise to hang the lot on the first outbreak among their people. When I put it to the Government I was forbidden to move. You know the rest.”
Greenoak nodded. The other went on—
“Look what came of bagging those other two, Vunisa and Pahlandhle. Their Reserve has been fairly well behaved ever since. We can’t hang them because the Gcalekas are an independent nation, but their people don’t know we can’t, and so are behaving themselves for fear we should. But the Colonial tribes are British subjects, and therefore rebels if they begin the row, so there’d be no ‘prisoner of war’ treatment for them. By the way, what has become of that hair-brained young dare-devil who helped us to grab them? I don’t seem to have seen him about lately.”
“Dick Selmes? Oh, he’s being taken care of,” answered Greenoak, drily. “He’s over at Waybridge’s farm. He’s got an attraction there.”
“H’m. Well, but if you start on this undertaking you’ll have to leave him to himself for a while. And you’re his bear-leader.”
“He won’t object to that,” laughed Greenoak. “And he seems by this time to be uncommonly well able to take care of himself.”
“So I should think. And I always thought you kept him quite enough in leading-strings. No, it’s no good. I can’t satisfactorily locate this beast even now,” bringing to the light a small wooden box from which he had just removed the lid, and which contained the identical specimen of the lizard tribe which we saw him puzzling over in the small hours of the morning which had witnessed the attack on the Kangala camp. “I didn’t bring the right book. I shall have to wait until I get back to my library.”
King Williamstown was the official headquarters of the F.A.M. Police, and there the Commandant owned a roomy and commodious bungalow, which contained a varied library, well stocked with standard works dealing with his favourite science.
Now he replaced the box and went over to the window. It was open, but the blind was down. This he pulled up and stood gazing meditatively out into the night, as though to penetrate darkness and space to where the plotting chiefs were even then arranging for the wave of steel and torch which should presently sweep the land. In good sooth he might well feel anxious. He was a singularly observant and keen-minded man, with a cool, matter-of-course courage that would stick at nothing once his judgment had commended any given line of action as necessary. He had consistently maintained that, given a free hand, he would have guaranteed there should have been no outbreak at all in the first instance; when such had befallen, he was confident of his power to stem it, but again he was hampered by official orders and counter orders. And now, when the most dangerous outbreak of all was imminent, once again Red Tape wriggled its way in.
Greenoak, seated back in his armchair, refilled and lit his pipe in silence. He too was busy with his own thoughts, and forebore to interrupt those of his friend. These two men, who understood each other so well, were both of the concentrative order of mind, and when there was anything of importance to be thought out, they thought it out thoroughly, and round and round. Here there was something very important indeed, an enterprise which held out to Harley Greenoak quite as big a chance of losing his life as any he had ever taken. But that was not what engaged his attention for the most part. It was the chance of failure, and all that such would involve. The Commandant’s favourite dogs, two beautiful black spaniels, which had just leaped in through the open window, came frisking up to him, wagging their tails, and whining for notice. Mechanically his hand passed over each glossy head, and still there was silence between the two men. Then the Commandant shut down the window and turned into the room again.
“Well, Greenoak, if any other man was bound on this errand, I should say it would be useless. But yourself—”
“I shall feel the pulse of the locations anyway, and can gauge pretty accurately whether the farmers who are still sticking to their places ought to leave. I’ll have a good talk with Matanzima.”
“Not Sandili?”
“Sheer waste of time. He’d be too drunk.”
“You may find a difficulty in getting away. In any case, you’ll be shadowed at every step.”
Greenoak laughed drily as he toyed with the spaniels’ ears.
“I don’t want to brag,” he said, “but we’ve known each other a long time. Did you ever know me ‘shadowed’ to any purpose by any one I didn’t intend should shadow me?”
“No, I can’t say I did. I don’t believe any one ever did.”
“Well, it happened once—not long ago either. And who the dickens do you think succeeded in doing it?”
“Who?”
“Our young friend, Dick Selmes. No more, no less.” And he told the other, briefly, of his enterprise in Slaang Kloof.
“Well, that doesn’t count, for of course he guessed where you were bound for, and the distance and surroundings were so trifling that there was no opportunity of throwing him off the scent. Here, of course, it’s different. You’re a wonderful fellow, Greenoak, but I don’t know why your glass has been standing empty so long. Here. Fill up.”
Several glasses already used, and a large but more than half-emptied decanter on the table—item a good deal of tobacco ash, pointed to the fact that some of the Police officers and an outside friend or two had been spending the evening with the Commandant. The latter now charged his glass, and pushed the excellent Boer brandy—whisky was hardly known on the frontier in those days—over to Greenoak.
“We’ll drink success, at any rate,” he said, “to the ‘secret service’ department.” Then, after a pause, “Upon my word, Greenoak, I wish you’d throw up this undertaking.”
Greenoak, for him, looked somewhat surprised. In all the years of their acquaintance he had never known the Commandant in an expostulatory vein. He was habitually the most matter-of-fact and laconic of men. Could it be that he was ageing?
“Oh, I’m getting rusty here, and spoiling for the chance of putting something or somebody to rights,” was the answer.
By this time it was well known that the Gaika locations were in a frame of mind that may best be described as smouldering. So far the grog-sodden mind of Sandili was incapable of deciding anything. Whoever got the old chief’s ear last spoke the “word” that was “good.” But his warrior son, Matanzima, and the young men of the tribe, were spoiling for a chance to distinguish themselves. The spirit of Donnybrook was dangerously abroad.
But their kinsmen, the Gcalekas, across the Kei, had been badly defeated and their country cleared—this, then, was no time for a rising on the Colonial side. So one would have thought, but a short-sighted policy had allowed one by one of the burgher forces in the Transkei to evacuate that territory without supplying their place. The war was over, it was pronounced. Was it? Back came the defeated paramount tribe, swarming into its old country again; the Paramount Chief, Kreli, as paramount as ever, and laughing at the “softness” of the white man. These were now plotting to stir up the intra-Colonial tribes, and by a simultaneous rising on the part of these to drive the said white man “into the sea,” as their expressive way of putting it ran.
This plot was, of course, suspected by many, and known by few, but it was reserved for Harley Greenoak to find out through one of those mysterious sources of information that seemed closed to others, that the time for its execution was imminent. An accredited body of Gcaleka fighting men was to cross the Kei into Sandili’s location, and their arrival was to be the signal that the moment for rising had come. Thousands upon thousands of armed savages would thus hold the frontier at their mercy. It was too late to prevent this. The only course was to neutralise it, by being prepared. And the bulk of the armed force upon the border had been withdrawn.
Harley Greenoak got up and went to his room. He took down his guns and drew them from their holsters. The double .500 Express was deadly with big game, but he was not sure he did not prefer the rifle and smooth-bore for man. A charge of Treble A. buckshot was so deadly at anything like close quarters. Yes, he would take the one with the shot barrel. It, with his ordinary and very businesslike revolver, constituted a most formidable armament, in the hands of one who so thoroughly knew how to use it as himself. Returning to the other room, he proceeded to load up a saddle-bag with a supply of the most concentrated and therefore portable provisions, sufficient to last him several days; but, to all appearances, hardly enough to last him for one.
“You’ll find Mantisa at the place arranged, all right,” said the Commandant, naming one of the native detectives. “He’s a good runner, and will bring the news straight and quick—directly you get any to send. John Voss had better be sent round to warn the farms.”
The other nodded, and the two men shook hands. The lights were then extinguished, for it was just as well that possible watching eyes should not see Harley Greenoak as he stepped forth into the darkness. And having saddled up his horse, he started upon his dangerous and self-sacrificing undertaking alone.
As he rode on through the night, keeping his horse at a walk, his thoughts were still busy with his plan. He had not told the Commandant of the expected crossing, and this for more than one reason. First, he wanted to verify, his information, and this he felt confident of his ability to do, by going in person among the disaffected Gaikas. His consummate knowledge of natives and their language, above all of the ways of their language, would enable him to do this. He could read them like a book, however much they strove to conceal from him their real mind. Then he was not altogether without hope that he might be able, even at the eleventh hour, to persuade them to “sit still.” His personal prestige with them, and influence, were enormous, and while they would secretly be laughing at any accredited Government official, to his own words they would listen with unfeigned respect. Again, were a strong patrol of Police despatched to watch the drifts, it would defeat its own object. It would be powerless to prevent the projected incursion, for the Gcaleka emissaries, being aware of its presence, as, of course, they could not fail to be, would simply melt into twos and threes, and cross the river at many different points instead of at one. Further and more important still, it would precipitate the outbreak he was striving to delay, even if he could not prevent; and such of the settlers who still remained on their farms would be massacred without warning. And this was just what he had set himself out to avert, this strong, brave, experienced man—he alone—single-handed.
But what of himself—of his own life? Did he not value it that he was going to place himself alone in the power of these sullen plotting savages? Well, this was not the first situation of the kind in which he had played the leading and only part. It was by just such cool and calculated intrepidity, by just such well-nigh superhuman confidence in his own personality and resource, that Harley Greenoak had come forth, not merely with his life, but triumphant and successful where ninety-nine men out of a hundred would never have come forth at all.
The settlement, largely augmented by tents and waggons of refugees, was in darkness, as he left it behind. Down by the outspan quite a number of waggons had formed a laager, but from this came no challenge as he passed it near by. Either its inmates were asleep, or the sound of a horse travelling at a foot’s pace conveyed no suggestion of danger. The open veldt lay in front, the great table-topped cone of Moordenaar’s Kop towering on high against the myriad stars.
But—what was this? Behind, not too near, but just near enough to keep the horseman within sight, within hearing, a stealthy form was flitting. Seen in the darkness, it was that of an evil-looking, thick-set savage, with a forbidding countenance dotted unevenly with scrabbly wisps of beard. In his hand was a pair of hard iron-wood sticks, and one assegai, with a broad, keen, fluted blade.
The rider held carelessly on. His horse, purposely kept unshod, gave little sound from its footfalls; himself, perfect in his self-restraint, foregoing even the comfort of a harmless pipe. Harmless, yes—under most conditions; under existing ones, the mere faint spark of light required for its ignition was a thing to be avoided, lest it should reach the wrong eyes, small as might be the chance of it doing so. But his habit was to take no chances in a matter of life and death.
Hour after hour—then a short off-saddle, then on again, and still the stealthy form moved silently, cautiously behind, always keeping its distance lest the horse should neigh, or otherwise show signs of uneasiness. Harley Greenoak was being shadowed.
Chapter Twenty Seven.
In the Locations.
Sunrise. A long green valley bounded by pleasant, round-topped, bush-clad hills. The slopes are dotted with kraals, the blue wood-smoke curling aloft from the yellow thatch of many a beehive-shaped hut, the red-ochred forms of the inhabitants moving about—early as it is—making a not unpleasing contrast to the eye against the bright green of the pastures, though by no means pleasing to another sense, at far closer quarters. But the thorn enclosures contain no cattle, although it is milking-time, nor do any stand around outside, only a few sheep and goats. This is strange.
Harley Greenoak, pacing his horse up the valley, noted the fact, and—read it at its real meaning. And its real meaning did not augur well either for the situation or for his self-imposed mission by which he had hoped to improve the latter. But little time was to be his for tranquil reflection, for there was a savage rush of dogs from two of the clusters of huts he was passing at a hundred yards or so, and a tumultuous snapping and snarling round his horse’s heels. It was followed immediately by a scarcely less tumultuous irruption of the inhabitants. These poured forward, vociferating volubly. All had sticks, and a goodly proportion carried assegais. Their demeanour was not friendly.
But the foremost pulled up short, then the rest. The rush subsided into a walk.
“Whau! It is Kulondeka!”
No weapon had been presented, or even significantly handled. No change had come over the imperturbability of the horseman. It was only the name, the mesmerism, so to say, of the personality. That was all.
“I see you,” was the answer. “But I did not come to see you.” And the speaker rode unconcernedly on.
The crowd, who had now stoned and beaten off the dogs, fell in behind, talking in an undertone among itself. From every additional kraal passed, others came forth to swell it, at first aggressively hostile in attitude, then more subdued, but always sullen. In fact, Greenoak remarked that the prevailing attitude was that of sullenness.
“The grass is green and abundant. There should be good pasture for the cattle here now,” he remarked over his shoulder to the foremost. “There will be plenty of fatness and milk this season.”
A deep-toned murmur, in which he was quick to detect a covert sneer, greeted his words.
“Ewa—Ewa! Plenty of fatness this season, Kulondeka,” answered several voices. And the same unmistakable sneer underlay the words.
“Turn back, Kulondeka,” now said one, a man who seemed to be in some authority, as he came up along side of the horseman. “We do not want any white people about here now. The chief is tired of them.”
“The chief! But it is not the chief I am going to see, Mafutana. It is his son.”
“But what if he is not here?” said the Kafir, sullenly.
“But what if he is?” returned Greenoak, composedly. “I know my way. I have no need of these here”—with a wave of the hand towards those who were following. “They can go home.”
A hoarse jeer among the crowd greeted the words, but the said crowd showed not the slightest sign of complying with the speaker’s wish. More than one, gripping the long, tapering assegai, was thinking what a tempting target was offered by the back of this unmoved white man, riding there before them as though his life hung upon something stronger than a not very secure rope. So the strange procession passed on.
The newly risen sun was flaming above the Kei hills. The blue sky was without a cloud. The morning air, not yet unpleasantly warm, was clear and invigorating. The fair, rolling pastures were green and promising, and altogether the whole scene should have been one of pastoral peace. But it was the peace of the slumbering volcano, to-day stillness, to-morrow red ruin, and none knew this better than Harley Greenoak. He knew why there was no cattle anywhere in sight.
Now he had reached a kraal at the head of the valley, one in no wise differing in appearance from any of the others he had passed. Here he dismounted, but before he could make an inquiry of the inhabitants—the crowd following him, by the way, having now halted at a respectful distance—an interruption occurred—startling, unexpected.
A large body of Kafirs came pouring over the ridge. They were in full war-array—cow-tail tufts, flapping monkey-skins, long crane feathers flowing back from the head, jackals’ teeth necklaces—in short, every conceivable variety of wild and fantastic adornment which could lend to the sinuous clay-smeared forms a wholly terrific appearance. And indeed such was the effect, as with a roar like that of a beast they rushed down upon Harley Greenoak.
He, for his part, stood unmoved; though even to one of his iron resolution the array of excited faces and gleaming eyeballs, and threatening assegais, as the savages crowded up to him, might well have proved momentarily unnerving. Was this the projected Gcaleka raid, he wondered, and in a flash he decided that it was not. It was a body of young men who had spent the night war-dancing, with its concomitant of beef and beer feasting, hard by; and, now excited by such stimulant, mental and physical, was prepared for anything.
They made mock thrusts at him with their assegais—not too near, however. Others were leaping into the air, singing, or reciting all the deeds they were about to do.
“The time of the Abelungu has come!” cried one, if possible more truculent and demoniacal-looking than his fellows. “Whau! but we will drive them all into the sea, and take their wives for our wives. Have you a wife, Kulondeka? But no. She would be too old. She, and others like her, would do to hoe our corn lands. Or—”
And the speaker made a quick, downward slash with his assegai that left room for no explanation in mere words.
Greenoak listened to all this—and more—in silent contempt. He was getting rather tired of it, and expected that they would be getting the same directly, and would go. But the most truculent of them, a huge, red-smeared brute of well-nigh gigantic proportions, lunged forward and snatched hold of the double gun which he held in his left hand, attempting with a quick powerful jerk to wrest it away.
He did not succeed. In a twinkling the muzzle of Whites. Greenoak’s heavy revolver caught him fair and square between the eyes, with such force that the impact alone was almost enough to brain him, apart from the roar of the detonation which immediately followed. The huge barbarian, his head blown to atoms, crashed to the ground like a felled tree.
For a moment there was a tense and deathly silence. Greenoak, still holding the pistol pointed, had taken a couple of paces backward. His grey eyes were gleaming like steel, and his whole aspect was cool and dangerous. The time for indifference was past, he had decided; that for action had come; and the man who had ventured to lay a hand on him had paid for his daring with his life. At that moment he himself hardly expected to escape with his, but it would go terribly hard with several, before, in their weight of numbers, they should succeed in taking it. Now, he wasted no word. His silence, the lightning-like promptitude with which he had acted, and with which he would be ready to act again, as they well knew, were more awe-inspiring than mere verbal warning. And then there was the prestige of his personality.
Upon the silence broke forth a deep-toned, vengeful growl that was ominous. Then it suddenly died down. A voice behind him spoke.
“It is Kulondeka I see.”
“It is,” answered Greenoak, not turning his head. “And I think, son of the Great Chief, that these had better go home. It is not a healthy amusement for any man to try and snatch my gun out of my hand.”
At these words, cool and contemptuous, a new outburst of wrath went up, and the excited savages began to crowd up nearer, clamouring that Kulondeka should be given up to their vengeance. Some in the background raised the war-cry. It was taken up, and, gathering volume, sounded back from the hills, whence now other bands were hurrying to the scene. The chief’s son stepped to the side of Harley Greenoak and threw an arm around his shoulders.
“See. We are brothers,” he said. “The Great Chief is the father of both.”
Again there was a silence, broken immediately by a voice.
“Au! The son of the Great Chief is bewitched. This Kulondeka is the eyes and ears of the whites—here, everywhere. How then can he, too, be the son of the Great Chief?” And a fresh outburst greeted the words.
Greenoak noticed that this was the man who had tried to turn him back. He had thrust himself forward, and being a headman of some standing, and elderly, he might prove dangerous in the scale. And his leanings were hostile.
Matanzima drew himself up. It was time to assert his dignity, and he had plenty of it. Seen outwardly now, he was a lithe, straight, well-set-up savage, with clear eyes and a decidedly pleasing face. He wore an ample kaross of leopard skin, flung loosely around him, and but for this, and a massive ivory armlet, displayed no adornment whatever. Now he turned his eyes sternly upon the assembled rout, sweeping it steadily from end to end with his glance.
“Have I no men?” he said, in slow, incisive tones. “Have I no men? Then who are these? Are they Mafutana’s dogs, or are they mine? Hau! There are dogs who bark too loud, but when it comes to biting slink away with their tails down. How is it with these? I lead not such dogs to war.”
The clamourers paused, shamefaced. Matanzima was immensely popular with the younger men; in fact, was regarded as the leader and hope of the war-party. They dared not actively oppose him. They knew, too, that but for this white man, for whose blood they were thirsting, he would never have been here to lead them. The clamour seemed to be dying out.
“What of Nzinto yonder, son of the Great Chief?” cried a voice. “He is the son of my father, and lo!—he lies dead.”
“M-m!” The deep-chested murmur from the crowd backed the words. All eyes were bent eagerly upon Matanzima.
“Why, as to that,” said the latter, “you have heard Kulondeka say that it is not healthy to try and snatch a gun from his hand. Nzinto tried to, and—”
“Yet it shall be blood for blood, son of Sandili,” was the answer, “for he was my brother.”
“Kulondeka is my brother,” returned Matanzima. “Or, I should say, my father, for what am I but a boy beside him? Yet no blood for blood shall it be here. If you meet in battle—well and good, the best warrior is he who wins. Now we have talked long enough. I think—too long.”
And linking his arm within that of Greenoak, he drew him towards the hut from which he himself had just emerged, at the same time making a sign to one of his own immediate attendants to take charge of the horse, which, its first uneasiness over, was placidly cropping the grass, its bridle trailing on the ground.