Chapter Nine.
The Scourge—and After.
Madúla’s kraal, in the Sikumbutana, was again in a state of profound malcontentment and unrest, and again for much the same reason as before. Then that reason had been the imminent loss of its cattle, now that loss had become a certainty. The dread scourge had swept over the land, in all its dire unsparingness, and now Madúla and his people were convened to witness the destruction of their worldly wealth.
For the edict of the ruling power had gone forth. The animals were to be destroyed, and that wholesale. Segregated into small herds, they were carefully watched. With the first case of sickness becoming apparent the whole herd containing it was doomed. And now nearly the whole of Madúla’s herds had been declared infected.
The place appointed for this wholesale slaughter was an open plain some little distance from the kraal. About threescore dead oxen lay where they had fallen, the nostrils of a few still frothy with the fatal running which denoted the fell pestilence. John Ames, grounding his smoking rifle, turned to talk with Inglefield and another white man, the latter being one of the Government cattle inspectors. Both these carried rifles, too, and behind them was drawn up a troop of native police. In a great semicircle Madúla’s people squatted around, their countenances heavy with sullen rankling, their hearts bitter and vengeful. In the mind of the chief the dexterous venom of Shiminya was taking full effect. The fact of a few cattle being sick was seized upon by their rulers as a pretext for the destruction of all; and what would become of the people then? In the minds of the people the predictions of Umlimo were being fulfilled to the letter. Now, however, they could afford to wait. Soon there would be no more cattle; soon—very soon—there would be no more whites.
John Ames, laying down his weapon, addressed the muttering, brooding savages. It was a most revolting task that which had been put upon him, he explained; not one that he would have undertaken of his own free will. To shoot down miserable unresisting animals in cold blood, one after another, could not be otherwise. It would seem to the people that to destroy the whole as well as the sick was an act of sheer wanton tyranny, but they must not look at it in that light. The Government was their father, and had their interests at heart; and although it was found necessary to reduce them to seeming poverty for the time being, yet they would not be losers in the long run. Then, again, they were in no worse case than the white men themselves, whose cattle was destroyed in the same way if disease broke out; but, above all, they must be patient, and bear in mind that by right of conquest all the cattle in the land belonged to the Government, and what they had was only allowed them by favour. This disease was a cloud they were all passing through, white and black alike. It would pass, and the sun would shine forth again. Let them be patient.
John Ames, in the plenitude of his experience, noted the sullen apathy wherewith his words were received, yet he attached no greater importance to it than he reckoned it deserved; he could appreciate the outrage on their feelings which this wholesale destruction of their most cherished possessions must involve. Then Madúla spoke.
“What Jonemi had told them must be true, since Jonemi said it. But what the people could not understand was why Government should have restored them their cattle, if only to destroy it all before their eyes; should give it back with one hand to take it away with the other. That did not seem like the fatherly act of a fatherly Government. Nor could they understand why the beasts that were not sick should be shot just the same as those that were. Let them be spared until the signs of sickness showed, then shoot them. Those signs might never show themselves.” And more to the same effect.
With infinite patience John Ames laid himself out to explain, for the twentieth time, all he had said before. It was like reasoning with a wall. “Let the people only have patience,” he concluded. “Let the people have patience.”
“M—m!” hummed his auditors, assenting. “Let the people have patience.”
But there was a significance in their tone which was lost on him then, though afterwards he was destined to grasp it.
“It’s a disgusting business all this butchery,” he observed, as he and the other two white men were riding homeward together. “I don’t wonder the people are exasperated. As Madúla says, they’ll never understand how the Government can give them back the cattle with one hand only to take it all away with the other.”
“It strikes me that Mr Madúla says a great deal too much,” said Inglefield, dropping the bridle on his horse’s neck, while shielding a match with both hands so as to light his pipe. “A little experience of the inside of Bulawayo gaol would do him all the good in the world, in my opinion.”
“You can’t work these people that way, Inglefield, as I’m always telling you,” rejoined John Ames. “You’ve got to remember that a man like Madúla wants some humouring. He was a bigwig here before either you or I held our commissions in this country, possibly before we had, practically, ever heard of it. Now, for my part, I always try and bear that in mind when dealing with the old-time indunas, and I’m confident it pays.”
“Oh, you go on the coddling plan,” was the thoughtless retort. “For my part—well—a nigger’s a nigger, whether he’s an induna or whether he isn’t, and he ought to be taught to respect white men. I wouldn’t make any difference whatever he was. An induna! Faugh! A dirty snuffy nigger with a greasy black curtain ring stuck on top of his head. Pooh! Fancy treating such a brute as that with respect!”
“All right, Inglefield. I don’t in the least agree with you. Perhaps when you’ve had a little experience you may be in a position to form an opinion as to which of our lines is the most workable one.”
“Oh, draw it mild, Ames,” retorted the police officer, ill-humouredly. “It doesn’t follow that because a fellow can patter by the hour to a lot of niggers that he knows everything. I say, old chap, why don’t you chip in for some of old Madúla’s daughters—marry ’em, don’t you know? He has some spanking fine ones, anyway.”
The tone was ill-tempered and sneering to the last degree. Inglefield could be bumptious and quarrelsome at times, but he had a poor life of it, with a detestable wife, and an appointment of no great emolument, nor holding out any particular prospect of advancement. All of which bearing in mind, John Ames controlled his not unnatural resentment, and answered equably:—
“Because I hope to make a better thing of life, Inglefield. But that sort of thing is rather apt to stick to a man, and crop up just when least convenient. I’m no prig or puritan, so putting it on that ground alone, it’s better not touched.”
“Oh, all right, old chap; only don’t be so beastly satirical. I can’t help grousing like the devil at times when I think how I’m stuck away here in this infernal God-forsaken hole. Wish I could fall into a bunk at Bulawayo or Salisbury or anywhere. Even Crosse here has a better time of it going around sniffing out rinderpest.”
“Don’t know about that,” said the cattle inspector. “I’ll swap you bunks, anyway, Inglefield.”
“Wish we could, that’s all,” replied the police officer, who was in a decidedly “grousy” vein, as he owned himself, half petulantly, half laughingly, when presently the conical huts of Sikumbutana hove in sight over the brow of the rise. “Well, now, Ames, you’ll roll up to ‘skoff’ at seven, won’t you, unless you’ll change your mind and come in now?”
“I’ll roll up all right. But not now, I’ve got some work on hand, and it’s early yet.”
“Very well. Seven, then. Don’t go sending over some tinpot excuse, you unreliable beggar.”
“No; I’ll be there. So long. So long, Crosse.” And he turned his horse’s head into the track that led to his own compound. “Rum chap that fellow Ames,” said Inglefield, when he and the cattle inspector were alone together. “He’s a rattling good chap at bottom, and we are really great pals, but we fight like the devil whenever we have to do with each other officially.”
“How’s that?” said Crosse, a quiet, self-contained man, with a large sandy beard and steady, reliable eyes.
“Oh, I don’t know. He’s so beastly officious—he calls it conscientious. Always prating about ‘conscientious discharge of his duties’—‘can’t conscientiously do it’—and so on. You know. Now, only the other day—or, rather, just before he went on leave—he must needs get my pet sergeant reduced—a fellow worth his weight in gold to me as a hunter. Now, of course, the chap has turned sulky, and swears he’s no good—can’t tell where game is or is likely to be, or anything.”
“So. How did he get him reduced?”
“Oh, some rotten bother with that old nigger who was out to-day, Madúla. Nanzicele—Oh, blazes! I can’t manage these infernal clicks.”
“Never mind; you’ll learn some day,” said Crosse. “Well, what did Nanzicele do?”
“Nothing. That’s the point of the whole joke. He was sent to collar some cattle from Madúla, and he—didn’t collar it.”
“And is that why he was reduced?”
“No fear. It was for trying to collar it. The niggers came in and complained to Ames, and Ames insisted on an inquiry. He took two mortal days over it, too; a rotten trumpery affair that ought to have been let rip. Then a lot of darn red tape, and my sergeant was reduced. No; Ames always pampers the niggers, and some day he’ll find out his mistake. If they come around—especially these indunas—he talks to them as if they were somebody. I’d sjambok them out of the compound.”
Crosse, listening, was chuckling to himself, for he knew whose judgment was likely to be the soundest, that of the speaker or that of Ames. Then he said:—
“And this Nanzicele—is he that big tall Kafir who was nearest us, on the outside of the line, during the cattle-shooting?”
“Yes; that’s the chap. By George! he’s a splendid chap, as plucky as the very devil. Many a time I’ve had him out with me, and he’d go through anything. He was with me once when I missed a charging lion out beyond Inyati. He didn’t miss him, though—not much. I’d trust my life to that fellow any day in the week.”
“Trust your life to him, would you?”
“Yes. Rather.”
“M—m!”
“Yes, I would. You don’t know the chap, Crosse. I do. See?”
“’M—yes.”
The while, John Ames, having turned his horse over to his boy, entered his office. There was not much to do that day, as it happened, so after spending half an hour looking over some papers, he locked up for the day, and adjourned to the hut which served him for sitting and dining room combined, in which we have already seen him.
He threw himself into a chair and lighted a pipe. There was an absent, thoughtful look in his eyes, which had been there ever since he found himself alone; wherefore it is hardly surprising that in lieu of seeking solace in literature, he should have sat, to all outward appearances, doing nothing. In reality, he was thinking—thinking hard and deeply.
A month had gone by since his unexpected and most unwelcome recall; but unwelcome as it had been, he could not quarrel with it on the ground of its superfluity. Times had been lively since his return—more than lively—but not in an exhilarating sense. The rinderpest had taken firm root in the land, and was in a fair way of clearing it of horned cattle from end to end. Not at domestic cattle did it stay its ravages either. The wild game went down before its fell breath; every variety of stately and beautiful antelope, formerly preserved with judicious care beneath the rule of the barbarian king, underwent decimation. But it was in the mowing down of the cattle that the serious side of the scourge came, because, apart from the actual loss to the white settlers, the enforced destruction of the native stock rendered the savages both desperate and dangerous. Already rumours of rising were in the air. The sullen, brooding demeanour exhibited by Madúla’s people was but a sample of the whole.
To the perilous side of the position, as regarded himself individually, John Ames was not blind. He was far too experienced for that. And his position was full of peril. Apart from a rising, he was marked out as the actual agent in executing the most hateful law ever forced upon a conquered people. His was the hand by which actually perished its animal wealth. Every bullock or heifer shot down sent a pang of fierce vindictiveness through more than one savage heart. In blind, barbaric reasoning, what more plausible than that to destroy the instrument would be to render inoperative the cause which set that instrument in motion? A blow from behind, a sudden stab, in the desperate impulse of the moment—what more likely?
Not of peril, present or potential, however, was he thinking, as he sat there alone, but of the change, absorbing and entire, which had come over his life since returning from his all too brief furlough. He had left, cool, well-balanced, even-minded; he had returned, so far as his inner moments were concerned, in a trance, a state of absorption. It was wonderful. He hardly recognised himself. But what a new glad sunshine was now irradiating his lonely life. The recollection! Why, he could sit for hours going over it all again. Not again only, but again and again. Everything, from the first accidental meeting to that last bright and golden day by an enchanted sea—to the last farewell. Every word, every tone was recalled and weighed. Ah, he had not known what it was to live before! He had grovelled like a blind grub in the dust and darkness—now he was soaring in arrowy gleams upon wings of light. But—no words had been uttered, no promises exchanged. What matter? If at times of physical depression he felt misgivings he put them from him.
True to her promise, Nidia had written—once—and with that letter he had had no cause to find fault. She had even sent him a dainty little portrait of herself, the only one she had, she explained; but where that was habitually kept we decline to say, “We shall meet again,” she had declared. Yet if that utterance were to be unfulfilled, if indeed this dream were to fade, to go the way of too many such dreams, and to end in a drear awakening, even then was it not something to have lived in the dream, to have looked upon life as so new and golden and altogether priceless? With such considerations would he comfort himself in moments of depression.
“We shall meet again.”
Often he would picture to himself that meeting. There would be others present most probably, but she, in his sight, would be alone. She would be surrounded by adorers, of course, but as her eyes met his she would know there was in reality but one. In all the adjuncts to her serene loveliness which taste and daintiness could surround her with, she would stand before him. Such would be their meeting, and upon it he dwelt; and to it his imagination reached through space, as to the culminating ecstasy of the goal of a life attained.
From such soarings, however, comes a descent, as abrupt as it is profound, in this hard work-a-day world. John Ames sat bolt upright with a start of dismay, for the clock opposite told its own tale. His musings had carried him over some hours. It was nearly dark, and he was due—almost overdue—at Inglefield’s.
Chapter Ten.
The Igniting of the Flame.
“That man’s late again. He always is. Tom, don’t ever ask him again. He seems to treat me with studied rudeness.”
Thus Mrs Inglefield, consulting her watch. She was an acid looking person, who might once have been passable in aspect. Now the deepening of her habitual frown was far from prepossessing.
“It’s only on the stroke of seven,” said Inglefield, shortly. “Give him a little law, Annie. He’ll be here directly. Perhaps some nigger turned up at the last moment on particular business.”
The suggestion was like throwing paraffin upon flames.
“That makes it worse,” exploded the lady. “To keep me—to keep us—waiting to suit the convenience of a few filthy blacks—”
“Well, give the chap a show,” snapped Inglefield, not in the best of humours himself. The while, Crosse, the cattle inspector, sat profoundly pitying Inglefield, thinking, too, that the defaulter, when he did come, was not going to enjoy his dinner overmuch.
“Hope I’m not late,” said a voice in the doorway.
“Not a bit, Ames; at least, only two minutes, and that doesn’t count,” cried Inglefield, cordially, feeling very much “in opposition.”
“Roll up, man, and have an appetiser, Crosse, you’ll cut in?”
John Ames, ignoring the coldness of his hostess’ greeting, noticed that fully a quarter of an hour went by before they sat down to table. When they did sit down the interior of the hut looked snug enough. The bright lamp shed a cheerful glow upon the white napery and silver forks; and pictures and knick-knacks upon the walls and about the room—or rather, the hut, for such it was—rendered the place pleasant and homelike, suggestive of anything but the wilds of savage Matabeleland. Any remark, however, which he addressed to his hostess was met by a curt monosyllable, she turning immediately to converse with Crosse, affably voluble. It mattered nothing. He had only consented to come upon Inglefield’s urgent and repeated invitation, having experienced that sample of behaviour before.
“What sort of a time did you have down in Cape Town, Ames?” said Crosse presently, when he could conversationally break away.
“Rather a good one. It was a great nuisance having to come back.”
“Mr Coates was such a nice man,” interpolated Mrs Inglefield, with meaning, referring to John Ames’s locum tenens. “We used to see a great deal of him.”
“Find any nice girls down there, eh, Ames?” said Inglefield, slily, fully alive to the unveiled rudeness of his spouse.
“Oh yes—several.”
“And one in particular, eh?” went on the other, waggishly, drawing a bow at a venture; for John Ames was not one to wear his heart upon his sleeve or to embark in chatter upon the subject nearest and dearest to that organ.
“Nice girls! I didn’t know there were any nowadays,” snapped Mrs Inglefield. “A pack of bicycling, cigarette-smoking, forward tomboys!”
“Oh, come, Mrs Inglefield,” laughed Crosse, “you mustn’t be so down on them. They’re only up to date, you know.”
“Up to date! Then, thank Heaven I’m not up to date; I’m only old-fashioned,” she retorted.
“I’d be sorry to wear the boots of the chip who told you so, Annie,” pronounced Inglefield. “Besides, you’re romping hard over Ames’s feelings; at least, I surmise you are. He’s too close a bird to give the show away. But—as poor old Corney Grain used to say.”
“Oh, I always say what I mean,” she answered, with an air which plainly added: “if people don’t like it so much the worse for the people.” And John Ames was thinking that never again, under any circumstances whatever, would he sit at the table of this abominably ill-bred and offensive woman. He was right. He never would; but for a reason that it was as well he—and all of them seated there—did not so much as dream.
Then, partly that subject-matter for conversation is, to isolated dwellers in a remote wilderness, necessarily limited, partly because he deemed it a safe topic, Inglefield led the talk round to the day’s doings—the destruction of Madúla’s cattle.
“It’s an infernally wasteful way of getting rid of them,” he said. “I dare say you’ve blazed away nearer a thousand cartridges than a hundred, eh, Ames?”
“Quite that. As you say, it is an abominable waste, and if ever the time comes when we shall sorely need every one of those cartridges for our own defence—”
“Oh, now you’re croaking again, old chap,” interrupted Inglefield; while his spouse remarked—
“Faugh! I’d as soon be a slaughter-house butcher at once. Sooner.”
“Somebody must do it, you know, Mrs Inglefield,” replied John Ames, placidly. “If the job were turned over to natives they’d waste five times the number of cartridges, and the poor beasts would suffer all the more.”
“Suppose we change this very unpleasant subject,” she remarked, looking pointedly at him, quite ignoring the fact that it had been started by her husband, and she it was who had done the most towards keeping it going.
“Policeman he want to see Inkose.”
The interruption proceeded from one of the two small boys who acted as waiters, and who had just entered.
“Tell him to wait until I’ve done dinner, Piccanin,” replied Inglefield, placidly.
“It may be something important,” hazarded John Ames.
“Oh, it’ll keep till after dinner,” was the airy rejoinder. “Er—which policeman is it, Piccanin?”
“Big policeman, ’Nkose; him name Nanzicele. Him come up from barracks now.”
The men’s quarters—which, by the way, were not barracks but native huts—lay about three hundred yards below those occupied by their officer.
“Then tell ‘him’ to go back to them again, and wait until I’ve done dinner,” replied Inglefield, briskly; for he was of an obstinate turn, besides instinctively resenting anything like interference on the part of his brother official.
The small boy retired, and for a moment voices were heard outside. Then there entered—Nanzicele.
“Great Caesar!” cried Inglefield, reddening. “What the devil do you mean, sir, by disobeying orders? Go back to the barracks at once! Here, Puma! Hambasuka! Footsack!”
But ignoring the pointing finger of his irate superior, Nanzicele took one step to the side—leaving the door clear—and, standing at attention, ejaculated in loud and sonorous tones—
“Baba—’Nkose!”
Was it a signal? Crosse, who was seated opposite the door, lurched forward, falling with his face on the table, simultaneously with the crash of two shots fired from outside. John Ames, pinned to his chair by a grip as powerful as steel, was impotent to do more than ineffectually struggle. Half a dozen stalwart savages rushed into the hut, and, dividing their forces, four of them threw themselves upon Inglefield, the remaining two turning their attention to the latter’s wife. It was all done in a moment. The suddenness of it, the total, utter unpreparedness of those who, but two seconds ago, had been unsuspectingly dining, left not the smallest chance of resistance. Inglefield, starting up, instinctively to seize the carving-knife, was stabbed again and again with sword-bayonets before he could raise a hand, and fell to the floor. The wretched woman, too petrified with the suddenness and terror of it all even to shriek, was promptly despatched; one savage drawing his weapon across her throat with a slash that nearly severed the head. It was all over in a moment. Yet one victim remained:
John Ames, now bound fast to his chair with straps, felt himself grow dizzy and sick with the horror of this appalling butchery. Blood dripped to the floor, then splashed in bright red drops on the garments of the murderers. And those garments were the uniform of the Native Police.
All seemed to heave in misty dimness before his eyes. In a moment he would faint. Then, with a vast effort of will, he recovered himself. Why had he been spared? In a moment the whole situation flashed through his brain. This was the beginning of a general rising. The Native Police had no grudge against their officers, let alone against Inglefield, who was, if anything, too easy-going. If they were in open revolt, then the rising was general, even as he and one or two others had feared might one day be the case. The fiercely sullen demeanour of Madúla and his people at the destruction of their cattle now assumed an aspect of deadly significance. The destruction of their cattle! Ah, there was the last straw! But—why had he been spared?
Then amid this scene of horror hope came uppermost. His administration had always been signalled by strict and impartial justice to the natives, even when white interests were concerned—a line, be it whispered, not invariably the rule in those days, when the policy known as “supporting the white man against the black” at any cost, was deemed wise and necessary. He was known to several of the chiefs, and by chiefs and people alike respected. It might well be that he was marked out for exemption from a general massacre.
But now a voice, lifted up, seemed to shatter to fragments any such hopes—a great jeering voice, vengeful, triumphant, menacing. It was the voice of Nanzicele, addressing him in voluble Sindabele.
“Ho, Jonemi! Where are you now? And these? ‘Let the people have patience. Let the people have patience,’ Your words, Jonemi. Great words, Jonemi! Well, the people have had patience, and now their day is come. By this time to-morrow all the whites in the land will be dead.”
“Will be dead,” echoed those around, with an emphatic hum.
“Why have you—have you all done this thing, Nanzicele?” said John Ames, striving to repress the shudder of loathing and disgust which shook his voice. “Have you not been treated well—treated with every consideration and justice by your officer? And yet—”
“Justice!” growled the savage. “Justice! Now nay, Jonemi; now nay. I was a chief in the Amapolise, now I am a common man again. Who made me so? Not this”—pushing with his foot the bleeding corpse of Inglefield. “But for thy counsels he would not have brought me down. It was thou, Jonemi—thou. Now shall thy blood pour over my hand.”
Nanzicele all this while had been working himself up to a state of fury, as he talked into the face of his helpless prisoner, or victim, the others standing around emphatically applauding. Now he seized a poultry knife from the table, and, jerking back John Ames’ head, held the edge against his throat.
It was a horrible moment, that expectation of an agonising death, and an ignominious one to boot—one of those moments which could concentrate a lifetime of horror. The helpless man could do nothing. Every second he thought to feel the keen blade slashing through vein and muscle, carotid and windpipe. But the barbarian seemed in no hurry. He threw down the knife again.
“I have a better way with thee than that, Jonemi. When we have finished we will burn down this hut, leaving thee here. Ah—ah!” Then he turned his attention to the table, where the other murderers were promptly demolishing the remnants of the feast.
But for the tragedy just perpetrated the sight would have been comic. Two had got hold of a roast fowl and were quarrelling over it like a couple of dogs over a bone. A third had cut a huge chunk out of a leg of sable antelope, and having plastered it thickly with mustard, was devouring it in great bites, the tears streaming down his face the while. Pepper, too, had discomfited another; and yet another, trying to use it, had driven a fork nearly through his cheek, all talking and spluttering the while. Yet all were foul with the blood which had just been shed; even the white cloth was splashed and smeared with it. Among them John Ames recognised his own body-servant, Pukele. The latter had taken no active part in the murders, having, with two other men, come in later. Still, there he was among them, the man whose faithfulness, to himself at any rate, he had always deemed beyond suspicion; the man with whom he would have entrusted his life, even as poor Inglefield had said but an hour or two ago with regard to Nanzicele. Yet that fiend had been the first to murder him in cold blood. In truth, one could trust nobody. Little, therefore, was he surprised now when Pukele, turning to him, joined the others in abusing and threatening him.
A bottle of whisky, half emptied, stood on the table, and another, unopened, on the sideboard, together with two of “squareface.” Most of those present understood the corkscrew of civilisation, and in a few moments were choking and gasping with the effects of their fiery libations. As this unwonted indulgence began to take effect, the uproar created by the murderous crew became simply indescribable. Plates and dishes were smashed, glasses thrown at each other, and one of the bottles with its precious contents was smashed. And foremost of all, amid the madness of the riot, was Pukele—the quiet Pukele, the faithful Pukele.
Already two of the murderers had rolled under the table dead drunk, falling upon and clutching the gashed bodies of their victims. Others, snatching up knives from the table, with reeling step and blood-lust in their drunken faces, staggered towards their victim. But between the latter and them, somehow, was always interposed the form of the faithful Pukele, of the riotous Pukele, of the treacherous, murdering Pukele.
To John Ames it seemed that death’s bitterness should already be past, for whatever the method of it, death itself was sure. He knew he would never leave that hut alive, and could almost have prayed that all were over. Then his thoughts reverted to Nidia Commerell. How thankful he was that she was in safety twelve hundred miles away. Would she feel more than a transient sorrow or regret when she heard of his end? He would have died at his post anyhow. And then he recalled the words of flattering approval she had more than once uttered when expressing an interest in his career. And that last long golden day they had passed together. Well, even at this terrible moment he felt thankful he had lived to go through that experience. But—what was this?
The strap which bound his right arm to that of the chair had snapped. Snapped? No; it had been cut. The large form of Pukele stood in front of him, was standing with his hands behind his back, and one of those hands held a sword-bayonet such as was used by the Native Police, its haft towards John Ames. Now he saw who had cut the strap.
He reached forth cautiously, and gently withdrew the weapon from Pukele’s grasp; then, having cut the strap confining his other arm, bent down, and in a moment his legs were free. Pukele the while was discoursing volubly with the other Police rebels, fanning a heated discussion and egging them on to drink. But ever between them and the prisoner he stood. A horrible sight they presented, their once smart uniforms filthy with blood and grease, their faces lolling with intoxicated imbecility, their speech thick and their legs tottering. But the treacherous Pukele, the riotous, drunken, abusive Pukele, now seemed, strange to say, as sober as the proverbial judge. He stood firm, unless perhaps a gradual swaying of his body to the left were perceptible; and the door of the hut was behind him—a little to the left.
John Ames, between him and the door aforesaid, watched every move. The savage roysterers were becoming alternately more and more riotous and maudlin. Then the faithful Pukele made a movement with his hand behind him. It was unmistakable. John Ames slid from the chair, and in a moment was through the door, and round behind the hut just in time to avoid running right into the arms of a new—and sober—body of the now revolted police, who had come up to join in the fun and to loot their murdered officer’s quarters. He had escaped with his life. After all, there was some fidelity left among these barbarians, he thought, as he stepped briskly, yet cautiously, through the darkness. He had escaped with his life, yet here he was, in the heart of a rebel country—every one of whose white settlers had probably by this time fallen in savage massacre—without food or means of procuring any, and with no other weapon than a sword-bayonet. The outlook was far from reassuring.
Chapter Eleven.
Hollingworth’s Farm.
“Roll out, Dibs. Roll out, you lazy beggar. It’ll take us at least three hours.”
Thus Moseley, surveyor, to Tarrant, ditto. The campfire had gone out during the small hours, and the line of action enjoined upon the latter by his chum was not a congenial one, for the atmosphere half an hour before sunrise was chill and shivery. Yet, early as it was, the horses and pack-donkeys had already been turned out of the “scherm,” or extemporised enclosure, in which they had spent the night, and were cropping the grass with an enjoyment born of the night’s abstinence.
“No hurry,” returned he thus unceremoniously disturbed, rolling his rugs closer around him.
“But there is hurry, Dibs, if we want to get to Hollingworth’s by breakfast-time.”
“But I don’t want to get to Hollingworth’s by breakfast-time, or any other time for the matter of that.”
“Oh yes, you do, once you’re up. Come now, old man. Roll out.”
The two were old schoolfellows—hence the nickname which still stuck to one of them—and had met up-country by the merest chance, Moseley we have already seen, in the capacity of newly landed passenger from the English mail-steamer. Tarrant was a lean, dark man, with a pointed beard and a dry expression of countenance. He was inclined to take things easily, declaring that everything was bound to come right if only it were left alone. Moseley, on the other hand, was one of those painfully energetic persons, bursting with an all-pervading and utterly superfluous vitality. They had been out surveying claims, and were now on their return to Bulawayo.
The night’s camp had been pitched in a romantic glen, with nothing between the sleepers and the starry heaven but the spreading branches of a wild fig, nothing between them and Mother Earth but some cut grass and a rug. Stiff and cold, Tarrant rose from amid his blankets, and stood rubbing his eyes.
“I’ll never come out on survey with you again, Moseley,” he declared. “You’re a bore of the first water.”
“Won’t you, old chap? I seem to have heard something of that sort before—often before.”
“I mean it this time. Er—Mafuta. Tshetsha with that fire. Tshetsha umlilo, Umfaan. You savvy? Tshetsha!”
Whether the native boy understood this adjuration in the dialect known as “kitchen Kafir” or not, he continued stolidly striving to blow into flame some ends of stick still smouldering from last night’s blaze, it not seeming to occur to him that a couple of handfuls of dry grass would do the trick in as many seconds. The while the dialogue between his white masters continued.
“Who the devil is Hollingworth when he’s at home, Moseley?”
“Down-country man, up here trying to farm. Served in the war against Lo Ben, and had ground given him. Rattling good chap. By the way, he’s got rather a pretty wife.”
“Kids?”
“Yes; three or four. I forget which.”
“Faugh! Hate kids. Always a nuisance. Always yelling. Yell when they’re not happy; yell ten times more when they are. Besides, they smudge their faces with jam. Damn Hollingworth! I won’t go there.”
This statement was received by the other with all serenity and without reply. He knew his chum’s little weakness, therefore knew that the bait thrown out would be not merely nibbled at but swallowed, the objectionable progeny notwithstanding. So he continued pulling on his long boots and otherwise completing his not extravagant toilet with complete equanimity. And then Mafuta, who at length had got the fire to burn, came along with some steaming coffee.
“That’s better,” pronounced Tarrant, having got outside the invigorating brew. “Wonder if there are any crocs in these water puddles, Moseley? I’m going to tub.”
“Tub? Man alive, we’re just ready to start. What on earth do you want to tub now for?”
“I thought you said Hollingworth had a pretty wife,” tranquilly rejoined the other, digging into his kitbag for a towel. “You can’t make acquaintance with a pretty woman when you’re in an untubbed state, you know.”
Moseley roared.
“Oh, skittles!” he said. “You can tub when you get there.”
“I believe you’re right; and the water looks dashed cold at this time of day.”
“And I thought you said you wouldn’t go there.”
“Did I? Oh, well, I suppose I must if you do. It wouldn’t look well, would it?”
“Why, of course not. Hurry up now. The boys want to load up your kit.”
The pack-donkeys had been driven up, and the horses stood ready saddled. In an incredibly short space of time all personal baggage and camp impedimenta had been removed and stowed upon the backs of the patient little Neddies—in the long run and the land of horse-sickness and “fly,” perhaps more serviceable all round than that noble animal the horse. And then, as the first arrowy gleams of the sun began to warm the world, they started from their night’s camp.
It was pleasant country that through which they now rode. Dewdrops still hung from the sprays of the feathery acacias, gleaming like diamonds in the rising sunlight; and the thorn-brake was musical with bird voices, or the clucking of bush-pheasants scuttling alarmed amid the long grass and undergrowth; and here and there a troop of guinea-fowl darting away with the rapidity of spiders at the sound of hoofstrokes, as the wayfarers wended their way along the edge of a native “land.” Kraals, too, the conical roofs of the huts shining yellow in the sunlight; but from these no reek of blue smoke mounted to the heavens. Of cattle, either, was there no sign, nor indeed of human occupancy. The land seemed deserted—dead. What did it mean? Turning back, Moseley called to the boy to find out what he thought about it.
Mafuta came trotting up. Where were all the cattle? There were no cattle. They were all dead of the disease. Where were all the people? They had moved to other parts of the country, or possibly some were still lying asleep as there were no cattle to tend. He, Mafuta, did not know. This was not his part. He came from a kraal a long way off—away beyond the Gwai.
This Mafuta was a young Matabele, who had served in the Ingubo regiment when Lo Bengula was king, and had entered the white man’s service to earn money in order to buy a wife. He was an intelligent and warrior-looking youth, but with an expression of countenance as of one who had gazed on—perhaps taken part in—scenes of cruelty and bloodshed, and would not in the least object to doing so again. He was carrying Tarrant’s Martini rifle and cartridge-belt, and looked thoroughly at home with them, as in fact he was, for his masters would often send him out to shoot game for camp consumption, when the heat disinclined them for needless activity. Moseley had a shot-gun, which he preferred to carry himself.
Now, however, they were not on sport intent, but held steadily on their way; and, after about two hours’ riding, a thread of blue smoke appeared. A little further and they made out a homestead, standing on a slope beyond the high precipitous banks of a dry river.
“It’ll be something to get our heels under a table again,” remarked Tarrant, as they urged their horses up the steep path of the drift. “Eating your ‘skoff’ in a sort of tied-in-a-knot attitude, with your plate tobogganing away from you on the very slightest provocation, may be romantic enough on paper, but it’s a beastly bore in actual practice. Is that Hollingworth?”
“Yes.”
A tall man was advancing towards them from the house. He wore a large beard, and his attire was the same as theirs—a silk shirt, and riding-trousers tucked into long boots, leather belt, and broad-brimmed hat.
“Hallo, Moseley!” he sung out. “Back again, eh? What’s the news?”
“Oh, rinderpest—always rinderpest. Here, I say, d’you know Tarrant? No? Well, here he is. Not a bad chap at bottom, but you’ve got to keep him at it.”
The usual hand-shake followed, and then Hollingworth, farmer-like, began to growl.
“Rinderpest? I should think so. Why, I’ve hardly a hoof left. No fear. I’m going to chuck farming and go prospecting again. But come along in and have a drop of something after your ride. It’ll be breakfast-time directly.”
“Er—could one have a tub—among other things?” said Tarrant.
“Tub? Why, of course. Here—this way.” And their host piloted them behind the scenes.
When the two men re-appeared, refreshed both inwardly and out, the residue of the household were gathered. Tarrant, already appraising his hostess, decided that Moseley’s judgment was not at fault. She was a pretty little woman, dark-eyed and sparkling, albeit somewhat overtanned by sun and air; but it took him just two minutes to determine that she had not an idea or thought outside her very restive progeny, which, in proportion of one to the other, were even as a row of organ-pipes. Then a diversion occurred—a diversion strange and startling. The door behind him opened, and there entered somebody; yet was that any reason why Moseley should suddenly jump up from his seat like a lunatic, at the risk of upsetting no end of things, and vociferate—“Great Heavens! Miss Commerell, who’d have thought of meeting you here? When on earth did you get here? Well, I am glad!” No; there was no need for Moseley to kick up such a fuss. It was beastly bad form; but then, Moseley always was such an impulsive chap.
“So you’ve met before?” cried Mrs Hollingworth, who had been about to introduce them.
“Rather. I should rather think we had met before,” sung out Moseley, in what his travelling chum was wont to call his “hail-the-maintop” voice. “Why, we were fellow-passengers, fellow-actors, fellow-all-sorts-of-things, weren’t we, Miss Commerell? But how did you find your way up here, and when?”
“You’ve asked me about four questions at once, Mr Moseley,” said Nidia, in her bright, laughing way, “but I’ll only ask you one—How am I going to answer them all at once?”
Tarrant, the while, was murmuring to himself, “Oh, never mind me. Perhaps in half an hour or so he may remember that we are pards, and that I’m entitled to share his acquaintance with the young lady.” And indeed at that moment the same idea occurred to Moseley himself, and he proceeded to introduce them.
Nidia was looking her very best. Here, in a settler’s homestead, perforce rough, in the hot steamy wilds of Matabeleland, she looked as cool and fresh as with all the appliances of comfort and civilisation ready to hand. Tarrant, who rather fancied himself as a connoisseur in that line, was struck. Here was something quite out of the common, he thought to himself, as his glance took in the animated, expressive face, the lighting up of the blue eyes, the readiness wherewith the lips would curve into the most captivating of smiles, the dainty figure, and the cool, neat, tasteful attire. Mrs Hollingworth was a pretty woman, Moseley had declared, and rightly; but his chum had never prepared him for anything like this.
The while Nidia herself was replying to the questions volubly fired into her by Moseley. They had come up to Bulawayo in due course. Fatiguing! No; on the whole she had rather enjoyed the journey—the novelty and so on—and everybody they met had been very kind to them, and had done all they knew to make things easy. How was Mrs Bateman? Oh, flourishing. In fact, when Mr Bateman returned she herself had, of course, felt de trop, and so had come to inflict herself on Mrs Hollingworth, and see some of the real wild side of the country.
The last in her most arch and quizzical manner.
“It’s a poor time you’ve chosen to look at it in, Miss Commerell,” remarked Hollingworth. “Rinderpest has about done for us all, and bar that the whole show has been as dry as chips.”
“Yet, it’s all very interesting to me, at any rate,” she returned. “And the savages. I can hardly believe they are the wicked ferocious beings you all make out, poor, patient, put-upon looking mortals! Some of the old men have such really fine faces, and their voices are so soft and kindly—though, of course, I can’t understand a word they say,” she broke off, with a whimsical candour that made everybody laugh.
Hollingworth whistled.
“‘Soft and kindly!’ Why, they are just about as sulky and discontented as they can well be—though, poor devils, one can hardly blame them. It must be hard, rough luck to see their cattle shot down by hundreds—by thousands—under their very noses. Of course they abuse the Government for giving them back the cattle with one hand only to take it away with the other. It’s only what we should do ourselves.”
“I should think so. Poor things! Really, Mr Hollingworth, I think you seem to have treated them all very badly.”
Such a sentiment was not popular in Matabeleland then, nor, for the matter of that, has it ever been. In fact, it is about as heterodox an utterance as though some rash wight were to pronounce the former realm of Lo Bengula a non-gold-producing country. But it was impossible to be angry with the owner of the voice that now made it.
“I don’t know that we have, Miss Commerell,” replied Hollingworth. “Indeed, I think, on the whole, we haven’t. Now, I can always get boys enough—so can my neighbours—and that’s the best test. A nigger won’t stop a week with anybody who treats him badly.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that way, Mr Hollingworth. I meant as a nation.”
“Even there, Lo Bengula and the old chiefs didn’t rule them with sugar and honey, let me tell you. But, squarely, I believe they did prefer the kicks of Lo Ben to the halfpence of the Chartered Company; and I suppose it’s natural. A nigger’s ways are not a white man’s ways, and never will be.”
And then as the shrill yells and other vociferations raised by the Hollingworth posterity in fierce debate over the limit of its jam allowance rendered further conversation impossible, an adjournment was made outside.
“Were you all the time at the Cape before coming up here, Miss Commerell?” began Moseley, as they found seats beneath the shade of a large fig-tree.
“Yes. We remained on at Cogill’s. It was rather fun. I think there was hardly a corner of the whole neighbourhood we didn’t explore.”
”—With John Ames.”
The tone, slightly bantering, was thoroughly good-natured. Even one more touchy than Nidia Commerell could hardly have taken offence. But nothing was further from her thoughts.
“You know him, then?” And the expressive face lighted up with genuine pleasure.
“Not personally; only by name.”
“Then, how did you know—”
”—About the explorations? The Cape Peninsula is a very gossipy place.”
“I suppose so. Most places are,” said Nidia, tranquilly; “but that sort of thing never troubles me one little bit. Mr Ames lives somewhere up here, doesn’t he? I wonder where he is now?”
Cool and at ease they sat there chatting. Had she been a clairvoyante a vision might have been vouchsafed to Nidia—the vision of a man, crouching in a thicket of “wacht-een-bietje” thorns, his face and hands lacerated, his clothes torn—a hunted man, with the look of some recent horror stamped upon his pale, set face; the last degree of desperation, of despair, yet of resolution, shining from his eyes; his hand grasping a sword-bayonet, already foul with the dried stains of human blood; and flitting through the brake, their dark forms decked with cowhair and other fantastic adornments, glistening in the sun, a band of armed savages bent on the shedding of blood. But not being blessed—or the reverse—with the faculty of clairvoyance, all she did see was the eminently peaceful scene around her—the two men lazily smoking their pipes beneath the shade of the great tree, while the third moved about attending to some of the hundred and one details of his farm business; the figure of her hostess, her head protected by an ample white “kapje,” coming forth to see that four of her young, disporting themselves in the open in front of the house, were not getting into more mischief than usual, and retiring precipitately within to assuage the yells of the fifth, and haply to attend to some household duty, “Where he is now?” repeated Moseley. “Why, he can’t be far from here. He’s Native Commissioner of Sikumbutana. I don’t suppose his place can be more than twenty or twenty-two miles off. Eh, Dibs?”
“About that,” assented Tarrant, laconically.
“I should so like to see him again,” pursued Nidia.
“Nothing easier, Miss Commerell. Get Hollingworth to send over a boy with a note, or a message to that effect, and I predict Ames will be here like a shot.”
“I’m sure he would,” assented Nidia, in such a genuinely and naturally pleased tone as to set Tarrant the cynic, Tarrant the laconic, Tarrant the incipient admirer of herself, staring. “We were great friends down at the Cape, and made no end of expeditions together. Yes; I would like to see him again.”
“Phew!” whistled Tarrant to himself, not entirely deceived by her consummate ingenuousness. “Lucky Ames! Well, there’s no show for me in that quarter, that’s manifest.”
“Isn’t he that rather good-looking chap who was sitting at our table the day I had lunch with you at Cogill’s?” said Moseley.
“Yes. That’s the man. We soon got to know him, and saw a great deal of him.”
“And thought a great deal of him?”
“Well, yes. I can see that you’re trying to tease me, Mr Moseley, but I don’t care. I don’t know when I’ve seen a man I liked better.”
“‘Present company—’ of course?”
“No; not even present company. No; but really, I would like to let Mr Ames know I am here. But I don’t like to ask Mr Hollingworth. It’s a long way to send, and he may not be able to spare a boy.”
Thought Tarrant, “She’s a puzzler! She’s playing on the innocent stop for all the instrument will carry, or—she’s genuine. Can’t make her out.”
But Moseley lifted up his voice and hailed—
“Hollingworth!”
“What is it?” sung out that worthy. “Sun over the yard-arm yet? All right. You know where to find it. No soda, though; you’ll have to do with selzogene. If you want ‘squareface’ you must get the missis to dig it out of the store. There’s none out. Maitland and Harvey between them got outside what there was yesterday.”
“No, no; that’s not what we want, though it’ll come in directly,” laughed Moseley. “Look here, Hollingworth”—the latter had drawn near by this time—“Miss Commerell has found an old friend up here—Ames at Sikumbutana—and she doesn’t like to ask you to send a boy over to let him know she’s here.”
“But, Mr Moseley, I didn’t tell you to ask Mr Hollingworth,” laughed Nidia.
“Pooh! Why didn’t you like to ask me, Miss Commerell? Of course I can send over. Though—if it will be all the same to you, I’d rather send to-morrow,” Hollingworth added dubiously.
“Certainly it will. Thanks awfully. Are you sure it won’t inconvenience you?” said Nidia, in her most winning way.
“Not to-morrow. To-day, you see, I have two boys away. But I’ll start one off the first thing in the morning.”
She reiterated her thanks; and Tarrant, keenly observant, said to himself: “No; clearly I’ve no show. Damn Ames!”