Chapter Twenty Two.
“Accidents will happen.”
Nidia stared at the savage, her eyes dilated with the wildest dismay. The savage, for his part, stared at her, with a countenance which expressed but little less astonishment than her own. Bringing his hand to his mouth, he ejaculated—
“Whau! Umfanekiso!” (The picture.)
Her glance fell upon the naked sword-bayonet which lay on the ground between them. She made a movement to seize it, with a desperate idea of defending herself. The savage, however, was too quick for her. He promptly set his foot on the weapon, saying in English—
“No take it.”
By now Nidia’s first fear had begun to calm down. She had been in the power of some of these people before, and they had not harmed her; wherefore she tried to put on a bold front towards this one.
“Who are you?” she said, speaking slowly to facilitate the man understanding her. “You frightened me at first; not now.”
“Ikonde, (baboon) he flighten much more,” was the answer made with a half laugh. Then Nidia noticed that this Matabele had by no means an unpleasant face; indeed, she could hardly believe that he belonged to the same race as the fiends who had slaughtered the Hollingworths.
“No be flighten,” he went on. “I see you before—one, two, tlee—much many time.”
“Seen me before?” echoed Nidia in astonishment. “Where?”
“Kwa Jonémi.”
“Jonémi?” she repeated, with a start. “You know him?”
The warrior laughed.
“Oh, yes, missis. I know him. I Pukele. Jonémi his boy.”
“Ah; now I see. You were his servant? You are the man who saved his life, when the others were all murdered?” For Nidia had, of course, heard the whole story of the tragedy in Inglefield’s quarters.
“I dat man, missie,” said the other, with a grin that showed a magnificent set of teeth. “Umlimo he say kill all Amakiwa—white people. Pukele say, No kill Jonémi. Amapolise dey kill Ingerfiel, and missis, and strange white man. I not help. I go wit amapolise. I save Jonémi. See,” lifting his foot off the sword-bayonet, “I give him dis.”
“And for that you will never be sorry, I promise you,” said Nidia. “Listen, Pukele. For that, and that alone, you shall have what will buy twenty cows. I will give it you when we are safe again. Only—you must never tell Jonémi.”
The man broke into extravagant expressions of delight, in his own tongue, once he had begun to grasp the burden of this promise, declaring that Jonémi had always been his “father,” and he was not going to let his “father” be killed, even at the bidding of ten Umlimos—looking round rather furtively however, as he gave utterance to this sacrilegious sentiment.
“You said you had seen me at Jonémi’s,” went on Nidia; “but I have never been there. It must have been somewhere else.”
“No somewhere else. I see missie on bit of paper, hang on de wall. Jonémi he have it in hut where he sleep. He often stand, look at it for long time.”
A soft flush came into Nidia’s face, accompanied by a pleased smile.
“And you knew me from that?” she said. Then all her anxiety coming back upon her—for she had momentarily lost sight of it in the feeling of safety engendered by this man’s appearance and identity—she exclaimed—
“But where is Jonémi? He went out yesterday—not much after midday—and should have been back by sundown. You must find him, Pukele.”
The man uttered some words to himself in his own tongue, which from the tone were expressive of like anxiety. Then, to her—
“Which way he go?”
She pointed out, as best she could, the way John Ames had proposed to take. Pukele shook his head.
“No good dat way. Much Matabele dere. ’Spose he fire gun, den Matabele hear him for sure.”
Nidia’s face blanched, and she clasped her hands together wildly.
“You don’t think they have—killed him?” she said slowly.
In his heart of hearts Pukele thought that nothing was more likely; but he was not going to say so.
“I tink not,” he answered, “Jonémi nkos’nkulu. Great master. He aflaid o’ nuffin. Matabele much like him.”
“Listen, Pukele,” said Nidia, impressively. “You must go and find him.”
“But what you do, missis? You be flighten, all alone. Suppose Uconde—bobyaan—he come again, you much flighten? I be away till sun, him so,” pointing to the western horizon.
“I’ll be frightened of nothing,” she answered emphatically. “Leave me one of your long assegais, and go. Even if you have to be away all night, don’t come back. I’ll get through it somehow. But—find Jonémi.”
With many injunctions to her not to wander far from this spot, where to hide in the event of any Matabele chancing to pass that way, and promising to be back by sundown, Pukele took his departure. Once more Nidia was alone. This time, however, loneliness in itself no longer oppressed her. Intense anxiety on behalf of another precluded all thought of self.
True to his promise Pukele returned at sundown, and he had learned something. Jonémi had fallen in with the Matabele, even as he had expected. He had talked with the indunas, and having bidden farewell had walked away. That was about the same time last evening. But Pukele said nothing of the subsequent and stealthy pursuit, and the plunge from the height, for the simple reason that these were among the things he had not learned. The agents concerned in that last tragedy had their own motives for not advertising it abroad.
“Who were the indunas he was talking with?” asked Nidia, suddenly.
“Dey izinduna from Sikumbutana,” replied the warrior, as she thought, evasively; and in truth this was so, for although he would do anything to assist his former master, or one in whom his former master took an interest, Pukele’s native instincts were against revealing too much. There was always in the background a possibility of the whites regaining the upper hand, in which case it was just as well that the prime movers in the rising should not be known to too many by name.
“But if they were his own people they would not harm him?”
“Not harm him, missie. He walk away.”
“Then why is he not here, long before now?” Then, excitedly, “Pukele, you don’t think—they—followed him up in the dark—and—and killed him?”
This again Pukele thought was far from unlikely. But he dissembled. It was more probable, he declared, that Jonemi had taken a longer way to come back in order to throw off his track any who might be following. Or he might have discovered another impi and be forced to travel in the opposite direction to avoid it. He might be back any time.
This for her benefit. But in his heart of hearts the Matabele warrior thought that the chances of his former master being still in the land of the living were so small as to be not worth reckoning with. So he made up the fire, and cooked birds for Nidia and prepared to watch over her safety.
That night weird sounds came floating up to their resting-place, a rhythmical distant roaring, now subsiding into silence, then bursting forth again, till it gathered volume like the rolling of thunder. Fires twinkled forth, too, like eyes in the darkness, among the far windings of the hills.
“What is that, Pukele?” cried Nidia, starting up.
“Matabele make dance, missie. Big dance. Umlimo dance Matabele call him,” replied the savage, who was listening intently.
“Umlimo dance. Ah! I remember. Is there an Umlimo cave down there, where they are?” For she was thinking of the place John Ames had pointed out to her the day before, and his remark that if it wasn’t a real Umlimo cave, it ought to be. And these strange wild sounds seemed to proceed from about that very spot.
“An! Umlimo cave, what dat, missie?” inquired Pukele.
“A cave—a hole—where Umlimo speaks from,” she tried to explain. But the other became suddenly and unaccountably dense.
“Gave? Hole? Oh yes, missie. Plenty hole here. Plenty hole in Matopo. Oh yes. Big mountain, plenty hole.”
The great volume of savage sound came rolling up almost unintermittently till midnight. Then there was silence once more.
The next day, John Ames did not appear, nor the next. Then, in utter despair, Nidia agreed to Pukele’s repeated proposal to guide her out of the hills, and if possible to bring her into Bulawayo itself.
And right well and faithfully did this barbarian fulfil his undertaking. The rebels were coming into the hills now, and every step of the way was fraught with danger. He made her lie hidden during the day, always choosing some apparently inaccessible and least suspicious looking retreat, while he himself would wander forth in search of the means of subsistence. At night they would do their travelling, and here the eyes of the savage were as the eyes of a cat, and actually the eyes of both of them. And throughout, he watched over her safety with the fidelity of a dog.
One great argument which had availed to induce Nidia to yield to her guide’s representations, was that once she was safe in Bulawayo, he would be left free to pursue his search for the missing man. As to which, let him but succeed, she assured him, and he would be a rich man—as his people counted riches—for life.
Thus journeying they had reached the outskirts of the hills, and could now and then obtain glimpses of the open country. Twice had Pukele fallen in with his countrymen, from whom he had gleaned that it was so far open around Bulawayo, but would not be long, for the Umlimo had pronounced in favour of shutting it in, and the impis were massing with that object.
Pukele was returning from a solitary hunt, bringing with him the carcase of a klip-springer. He was under no restriction as to who heard the report of his rifle, and being a fair shot, and as stealthy and active as the game itself, he seldom returned from such empty handed. Moreover, he knew where to find grain when it was wanted, wherefore his charge suffered no disadvantage by reason of short commons. He was returning along the base of a large granite kopje. The ground was open immediately in front, but on his left was a straggling line of trees and undergrowth. Singing softly to himself he was striding along when—
Just the faintest suspicion of a tinkling sound. His quick ears caught it. At any other time he would have swerved and with the rapidity of a snake would have glided and disappeared among the granite boulders. Now, however, he stood his ground.
Three mounted men—white men—dashed from the cover, with revolvers drawn. Pukele dropped his weapons and held forth his arms.
“Fire not, Amakiwa!” he said, in his own tongue. “I was seeking for such as ye.”
But the mounted volunteers, for such they were, understood next to nothing of that tongue. They only saw before them, a native, a savage, a rebel, fully armed, with rifle and assegais, and in war-gear.
Pukele being a native, and having such an important communication to make as that a refugee white woman was under his charge whom he desired to place under theirs, it was not in him to make it in three words, nor would these have understood him if he had. He, however, stood waiting for their answer. A fourth trooper dashed from the bush.
“What are you waiting for, you blanked idiots?” he yelled. “Here’s a bloody nigger, ain’t there? Well, then—Remember Hollingworth’s!”
With the words he discharged his revolver almost point-blank into Pukele’s chest. Another echoing the vengeful shout, “Remember Hollingworth’s!” fired his into the body of the faithful protector of the only survivor of Hollingworth’s, which slowly sank to the earth, then toppled forward on its face.
The troopers looked upon the slain man with hate and execration. They, be it remembered, had looked upon the bodies of their own countrymen and women and children, lying stark under all the circumstances of a hideous and bloody death. Then the first man who had fired, dismounted and seized the dead warrior’s weapons, administering a savage kick to the now motionless corpse. So Pukele met with his reward.
“Get into cover again. There may be more of ’em!” he enjoined. And scarcely had they done so than the rest of the troop—for which these had been acting as flying scouts—having heard the firing, came hurrying up.
The affair was reported. Those in command jocosely remarking that it seemed a devil of a waste of ammunition to fire two shots into one nigger, who was neither fighting nor running away. Orders were given to keep a sharp look-out ahead, in case the slain man should be one of the scouts of an impi, and the troop moved on. It was, in fact, a relief troop which had been formed to search for and rescue such whites in the disturbed districts who had not already been massacred, and of such it had found and rescued some. Now it was returning.
Soon it was reported that the scouts had descried something or somebody, moving among the granite boulders of an adjacent kopje. Field-glasses were got out.
“By George, it’s a woman. A white woman!” cried the officer in command, nearly dropping his glass from his hand. “She looks the worse for wear too, poor thing. Another of these awful experiences, I’ll bet a dollar. She’s seen us. She’s coming down off the kopje. But we don’t want to scare her with all our ugly faces, though. Looks like a lady too, in spite of her tatters, poor thing,” he went on, with his glass still at his eyes. “Moseley, Tarrant—you might step forward and meet her, eh? We don’t need all to mob her in a body.”
“We’ve met her before, I think, colonel,” said the latter, who had also been looking through his field-glasses. “And that was at Hollingworth’s.”
“No!”
“Fact. When we got there she had disappeared, leaving no trace. Great Heaven, where can she have been all this while? Come along, Moseley.”
Great sensation spread through the troop, as it got abroad that this was the girl whose unknown fate had moved them all so profoundly. Several were there, too, who had been present at the discovery of the murdered family, and whose cherished thoughts of vengeance had been deepened tenfold by the thought of this helpless English girl in the power of the very fiends who had perpetrated that atrocity.
Under the circumstances, it was little to be wondered at if the voices of Moseley and Tarrant were a little unsteady as they welcomed the fugitive, and if indeed—as those worthies afterwards admitted to each other—they felt like qualified idiots, when they remembered the bright, sweet, sunny-faced girl, with the stamp of daintiness and refinement from the sole of her little shoe to the uppermost wave of her golden-brown hair. And now they saw a sad-faced woman, wistful-eyed, sun-tanned, in attire bordering on tattered dishevelment. Truly a lump gathered in their throats, as they stood uncovered before her and thought of all she must have gone through.
“Welcome, Miss Commerell. A hearty, happy welcome,” was all that Moseley could jerk out, as he put out his hand. “Thanks. Oh yes. We have met before,” with a tired smile, in answer to Tarrant’s rather incoherent greeting. “But—where are the rest of you? Ah—I see—over there.”
Soon the officer in command was welcoming her, and the troopers gradually edged in nearer, for curiosity was great and discipline by no means rigid.
“And I am among friends at last, and safe?” looking from one to the other, in a half vacant way, “But where is Pukele?”
“Who is ‘Pukele,’ Miss Commerell?” said Moseley.
“A Matabele. He has guided and taken care of me for the last week. Where is he? Isn’t he here? Didn’t he bring you to me? He went out to find game. I thought I heard him fire two shots, just lately, and came out to see. Then I saw you all. Where can he be?”
Where indeed? A strange, startled look was now on the faces of several of her listeners, including those in command. “Went out to find game.” And the native just shot was in possession of a klip-springer.
Dreamily Nidia continued—
“I feel so tired. Where am I, did you say?” Then passing her hands over her eyes, “How dark it seems” (it was mid forenoon). “I think—I’ll—rest.” And she sank down in a deathly swoon.
“Jee-hoshaphat, Jack!” a trooper in the background was saying. “That was her nigger you chaps bowled over. And now she’s asking for him.”
“What did the fool run up against our guns for, in that cast-iron hurry?” sullenly grumbled the other, who was really sorry for the mistake. “It wasn’t our faults, was it?”
“Of course not, old man,” rejoined the other. “It was nobody’s fault—only the nigger’s misfortune. Accidents will happen.”
Such the epitaph on the faithful, loyal savage, who having watched over the helpless refugee for days and nights that he might restore her to friends and safety, had found his reward. Shot on sight, by those very friends, when in the act of consummating his loyalty, such was his epitaph. “Accidents will happen!”
Chapter Twenty Three.
Entombed.
When John Ames at last returned to consciousness, the first thought to take definite shape was that he was dead. There was a rock ceiling overhead. He had been dragged into a cave, he decided, a favourite place of sepulture for natives of rank. His enemies had accorded him that distinction. He could not move his limbs. They had been bound round him.
Then there returned in dim confused fashion the events of the day; the surprise; the visit to Madúla’s camp; the crafty pursuit; the sudden ending of the ground beneath his feet; the plunge through empty air; then—starry void; and remembering it all, the supposed funeral ligatures took the form of a blanket, which, wrapped tightly round him, impeded the use of his limbs. He was not dead, only dreaming, suffering from a bad nightmare. The blanket—the rock overhead! What a blessed relief! All the events, terrible and tragic, he had just gone through, were parts of a dream. Nidia was not left alone in that savage wilderness, but here, within a few yards of him. He was lying across the entrance of her retreat, as usual, that none might imperil her save by passing over him. Filled with an intense thankfulness, he lay and revelled in the realisation that it had all been a dream. Still it should act as a warning one. Never would he be so confiding in their security again.
The light grew and spread. The grey rock above him became less shadowy, more distinct. Whence the languor that seemed to attend his waking hours, the drowsy disinclination to move? Yet there it was. Well, he must combat it; and with this idea he suddenly sat up, only to fall back with a cry of acute anguish. His head was splitting.
For some time he lay, unable to move, thinking the while whether his cry had disturbed Nidia. No; she had not moved. At last an idea took hold of his confused brain. Their camping-ground this time was not a cave. It was in the open. Whence, then, this rock—this rock which somehow seemed to weigh upon him like a tombstone? And—Heavens! What was that over there? A table?
A table! Why, a railway engine would have been no more phenomenal at that moment. A table! Was he dreaming? No. There it stood; a sturdy, if unpretentious four-legged table, right up against a tolerably perpendicular rock-wall.
He stared at it—stared wildly. Surely no such homely and commonplace object had ever been the motive power for such consternation, such despairing, sickening disappointment before. For it conveyed to him that the events of the previous day had been no dream, but dire reality. Where he now was he had no idea, but wherever it might be, it was certainly not in the place where he had parted from Nidia and she would still be undergoing all the horrors of utter solitude. Again he tried to leap up; but this time an invisible hand seemed to press him down, an unseen force to calm and hypnotise him, and in the result everything faded into far-away dimness. Nothing seemed to matter. Once more he dropped off into a soothing, dreamless slumber.
How long this lasted he could not have told. On awakening, the frightful brain agony had left him. He could now raise his head without falling back again sick with pain. The first thing he noticed was that the place was a rock-chamber of irregular shape; the further wall nearly perpendicular, the ceiling slanting to the side on which he lay. A strange roseate light filled the place, proceeding from whence he knew not. But now he became conscious of a second presence. Standing within this light was a human figure. What—who could it be? It was not that of a native. So much he could see, although the back was towards him. Then it turned. Heavens! though he had not seen it before, the recognition was instantaneous. This was the apparition at their former camp. The tall figure, the weather-worn clothing, the long white beard, and—the face! Turned full upon him, in all its horror, John Ames felt his flesh creep. The blasting, mesmeric power of the eyes, surcharged with hate, seemed to freeze the very marrow of his bones. This, then, was petrifying him. This, with its baleful, basilisk stare, was turning his heart to water. What was it? Man or devil?
There was a spell in the stare. That glance John Ames felt that his own could not leave. It held him enthralled. At all risks he must break the spell. “Where am I?” he exclaimed, astonished at the feebleness of his own voice.
“In luck’s way this time. Perhaps not,” came the reply, in full, deep tones. “What do you think of that, John Ames?”
“You appear to know me; but, I am sorry to say, the advantage is all on your side. Where have we met before?”
The other’s set face relaxed. A ghastly, mirthless laugh proceeded from a scarcely opened mouth. There was that in it which made the listener start, such an echo was it of the mocking laugh thrown back at him out of the darkness when challenging that shadowy figure at their former camp.
“Where have we not met?” came the reply, after a pause. “That would be an easier question to answer.”
“Well, at any rate, it is awfully good of you to have taken care of me like this,” said John Ames, thinking it advisable to waive the question of identity for the present. “Did I fall far?”
“So far that, but for a timely tree breaking your fall, you would hardly have an unbroken bone within you now.”
“But how did I get here? Did you get me here alone?”
“A moment ago you were deciding that curiosity might sometimes be out of place. You are quick at changing your mind, John Ames.”
The latter felt guilty. This was indeed “thought-reading” with a vengeance.
“Yes; but pardon me if it seems to you inquisitive—it is not meant that way,” he said. “The fact is, I am not alone. I have a friend who will be terribly anxious—in fact, terribly frightened at my absence. I suppose you are in hiding, like ourselves?” Again that mirthless laugh.
“In hiding? Yes; in hiding. But not like yourselves.”
“But will you not join us? I know my way about this sort of country fairly well, and it is only a question of a little extra care, and we are bound to come through all right.”
“Such ‘little extra care’ as you displayed only yesterday, John Ames? Yet an evening or so back you thought my presence hardly likely to prove an acquisition.”
The cold, sneering tone scarcely tended to allay the confusion felt by the other at this reminder. This, then, was the apparition seen by Nidia, and he had been able to draw near enough to overhear their conversation with reference to his appearance. The thought was sufficiently uncomfortable. Who could the man be? That he was an eccentricity was self-evident. He went on—
“You were right in saying that your ‘friend’ would be terribly frightened. She has gone through such a night as she hopes never to spend again, and her fears are not over, but this time they are very material, and are for herself. There are shapes stealing upon her down the rocks—dark shapes. Natives? No. Human? No. What then? Beasts. She screams; tries to drive them off. They grow bolder and bolder—and—”
“Heavens alive, man, don’t drive me mad!” roared John Ames, whirling up from his couch, forgetful alike of aching bones and bruised and shaken frame. “What, is it you see—or know? Are you the devil himself?”
But the face of the seer remained perfectly impassible. Not so much as a finger of his moved. His eyes seemed to open wider, then to close; then to open again, as one awakening from a trance. Their expression was that of slight, unperturbed surprise.
“Look here, now,” said John Ames, quickly and decidedly. “You have taken care of me when I was in a bad fix, and most likely saved my life. I am deeply grateful, and hope we shall get to know each: other properly. But just now I must not lose a moment in going back to my friend, and if you won’t go with me, I’ll ask you to put me into my bearings.”
The stranger did not move in his attitude, or relax a muscle.
“You can’t go from here now,” he said; “nor, in fact, until I allow you.”
“Can’t? But I must!” shouted John Ames. “Heavens! I don’t see how you can know all you have been saying; but the bare suggestion that she may be in danger—all alone and helpless—oh, good God, but it’ll drive me mad!”
“How I can know? Well, perhaps I can’t—perhaps I can. Anyway, there’s one thing you can’t do, and that is leave this place without my aid. If you don’t believe me, just take a look round and try.”
He waved his hand with a throw-everything-open sort of gesture. In feverish strides, like those of a newly caged tiger, John Ames quickly explored the apartment, likewise another which opened out of it. His mind fired with Nidia’s helplessness and danger, he gave no thought to the curious nature of this subterranean dwelling; all he thought about was means of egress.
At the further end of the apartment in which he had been lying yawned a deep shaft like that of a disused mine. Air floated up this; clearly, therefore, it gave egress. But the means of descent? He looked around and above. No apparatus rewarded his view—not even a single rope. He explored the further chamber, which, like the first, was lighted by a curious eye-shaped lamp fixed in a hole in the rock-partition wall. Here too were several smaller oubliette-like shafts. But no means of exit.
The while, his host—or gaoler—had been standing immovable, as though these investigations and their results had not the faintest interest for him. John Ames, utterly baffled, gave up the search, and the terrible conviction forced itself upon him that he was shut up in the very heart of the earth with a malevolent lunatic. Yet there was that about the other’s whole personality which was not compatible with the lunatic theory; a strong, mesmeric, compelling force, as far removed from insanity in any known phase as it could possibly be. Power was proclaimed large in every look, in every utterance.
“Was I right?” he said. “But patience, John Ames; you must be pitifully wrapped up in this—‘friend’ of yours, to lose your head in that unwonted fashion. Unwonted—yes. I know you, you see, better than you do me. Well, I won’t try your patience any longer. Had you not interrupted me it would have been better for you; I was going on to say that while I saw danger I saw, also, succour—rescue—safety.”
“Safety? Rescue?” echoed John Ames, in almost an awed tone, but one that was full of a great thankfulness and relief. “Ah, well, my awful anxiety was deserved. Forgive me the interruption.”
Even then it did not occur to him, the level-headed, the thinking, the judicious, that here was a man—a strange one certainly—who had just told him a cock-and-bull story about events he could not possibly know, with the result of driving him perfectly frantic with anxiety and a sense of his own helplessness. Why not? Because the narrative had been unfolded with a knowledge stamped upon the narrator’s countenance that was as undeniable as the presence of the narrator himself. Strange to say, not for a moment did it occur to him to question it.
He looked at the seer; a steadfast, penetrating, earnest glance. The face was a refined one; handsome, clear-cut, furrowing somewhat with age and hardness; but it was the face of one who had renounced all—hence its power; of one who, for some reason or other, was a bitter hater of his species, yet which as surely bore traces of a great overwhelming sorrow, capabilities of a vast and selfless love. Who was this strange being? What his tragic past? John Ames, thus striving to penetrate it, felt all his repulsion for the other melt away into a warm, indefinable sense of sympathy. Then he replied—
“In using the expression ‘wrapped up in,’ you have used the right one. If harm were to befall her I should feel that life had no more value.”
“Then how will you face the—parting of the ways?”
The question chilled upon its hearer. Was it a prophecy?
“The parting of the ways?” he echoed slowly, comprehending the other’s meaning. “Why should there be any parting?”
“Because it is the way of life.”
And with the harsh, jeering, mirthless laugh which accompanied the cynicism, the stranger’s countenance became once more transformed. The stare of hate and repulsion came into it again, and he turned away. But in the mind of his hearer there arose a vision of that last farewell, and he felt reassured—yet not. Coming from any other, he would have laughed at the utterance as a mere cynical commonplace, but from this one it impressed him as a dire prophecy.
“There will come a time when you will look back upon these rough wanderings of yours—the two of you—as a dream of Paradise, John Ames. Hourly danger; scarce able to compass the means of existence; unknown country swarming with enemies; what a fearful experience it seems! Yet—how you will look back to it, will long for it! Ah, yes, I know; for your experience was once mine.”
“Once yours?”
“Once mine.” Then, with sudden change of tone and demeanour—“And now, be advised by me, and restore Nature a little. You will find the wherewithal in that chest, for you may need all your strength.”
Had it been anybody else, John Ames might have thought it somewhat unhostlike of the other to leave him to do all the foraging for himself, but somehow in this case it seemed all right. He could hardly have imagined this strange being bustling about over such commonplace work as rummaging out food. So he opened the chest indicated, and found it well stored with creature comforts. He set out, upon the table which had so startled him at first, enough for his present wants, and turned to speak to his host. But the latter was no longer there. He looked in the other apartment. That, too, was empty!
Weird and uncanny as this disappearance was, it disconcerted John Ames less than it would have done at first. In was in keeping with the place and its strange occupant, for now, as he gazed around, he noted that the rock in places was covered with strange hieroglyphics. He had seen Bushman drawings in the caves of the Drakensberg, executed with wonderful clearness and a considerable amount of rude skill. These, however, seemed the production of a civilised race, and that in the dim ages of a remote past, probably the race which was responsible for the ancient gold workings whereof the land showed such plentiful remains. At any other time the investigation of these hieroglyphics would have afforded him a rare interest, at present he had enough to think about. But if his host—or gaoler—chose to disappear into the earth or air at will it was no concern of his, and he had not as yet found any great encouragement to curiosity in that quarter. Meanwhile, he set to work to make a hearty breakfast—or dinner—or whatever it might be, for he had no idea of time, his watch having been smashed in his fall.
Strangely enough, a feeling of complete confidence had succeeded to his agony of self-reproach and anxiety as to Nidia’s safety. Stranger, too, that such should be inspired by the bare word of this marvellous being who held him, so far, in his power. Yet there it was, this conviction. It surprised him. It was unaccountable. Yet there it was.
Among other creature comforts he had found in the cupboard was a bottle of whisky. He mixed himself a modest “peg.” But somehow the taste brought back the terrible tragedy in Inglefield’s hut, that, perforce, being the last time he had drunk any, and a sort of disgust for the spirit came over him.
So did something else—a sadden and unaccountable drowsiness, to wit. He strove to combat it, but fruitlessly. Returning to his couch, he lay down, and fell into a deep and heavy sleep.
Chapter Twenty Four.
What was Disclosed.
When he awoke, John Ames found himself in the dark; not the ordinary darkness of night, wherein objects are faintly outlined, but black, pitchy, impenetrable gloom—an outer darkness which weighed upon mind and spirits with a sense of living entombment.
Breathed there a mystic atmosphere in this weird place which affected the mind? This darkness seemed to unnerve him, to start him wide awake with a feeling of chill fear. Light! That was the first requisite. But a hurried search in every pocket revealed that he was without the means of procuring that requisite. He could find no matches. Had he by chance put them on the table, and left them there? He had no recollection of doing so, but in any case dared not get up and grope for them, bearing in mind the shaft-like pit at one end of the room. Nothing would be easier than to fall into this in the bewildering blackness. Equally nothing was there for it but to lie still and await the course of events.
More and more did the walled-in blackness weigh him down. The air seemed full of whispering voices—indistinct, ghostly, rising and falling in far-away flute-like wailings; and there came upon him a vision. He saw again the great granite cone with the black hole, dark and forbidding, piercing its centre; but not as he had pointed it out to his fellow-fugitive in the sunlight gold. No; it was night now, and there, around its base, a mighty gathering occupied the open, and from this arose a roar of voices—voices in supplication, voices in questionings, voices singing fierce songs of war. Then there would be silence, and from the cavern mouth would issue one voice—denunciatory, reproachful, prophetic, yet prophesying no good thing. And the voice was as that of the strange being in whose power he lay.
Louder and louder boomed the roar of the war-song. It shook the air; it vibrated as in waves upon the dense opacity of the darkness, echoing from the walls of this mysterious vault, for he was conscious of a dual personality—one side of it without, a witness of the scene conjured up by the vision; the other still within himself, still entombed and helpless within the heart of the earth. And then again the whole faded, into sleep or nirvana.
Once more came awakening. He was no longer in darkness. The rose-light threw quivering shadows from the objects about the place, and he was no longer alone. His host—or gaoler stood contemplating him.
“You have had a long sleep, John Ames.”
“And strange dreams, too,” was the reply, made with a certain significance. “When I woke up in the dark—”
“Are you sure you did wake up in the dark? Are you sure you did not dream you woke up?”
“Upon my word, I can’t tell. I sometimes think that in these days I can be sure of nothing.”
“Well, you shall hear what will give you something to rejoice over. The ‘friend’ you were taking care of is safe.”
“Safe?”
“Yes. I told you exactly what had happened. And now she will be in Bulawayo as soon as yourself.”
“As soon as myself?”
“Yes, for you will soon be there. You see, I have a use to turn you to. I have a message for the outside world, and you shall be the means of transmitting it.”
“That will I do, with the greatest of pleasure. But what if I do not get through? The Matabele seem to be taking to the hills in force, and it’s a long few days to get through from where we are—or were, rather, should I say, for I’m not at all sure where I am now.”
“Quite right, John Ames. You are not. Still you shall get through. And then, when you rejoin your ‘friend’—the girl with the very blue eyes, and the quick lift of the eyelids, and the animated countenance changing vividly with every expression, and the brown-gold hair—I suppose you will think life holds for you no greater good?”
“I say, but you seem to have studied her rather closely,” was the rejoinder, with a dry smile. “Anybody would think you knew her.”
“I have watched her from far more closely than you dream of, John Ames. For instance, every step of your way since leaving Shiminya tied up in his hut, has been known to me and to others too. Your life—both your lives—have been in my hand throughout, what time you have prided yourself upon your astuteness in evading pursuit and discovery. The lives of others have been in my hand in like manner, and—the hand has closed on them. You will soon learn how few have escaped.”
The grim relentlessness succeeding to the even, almost benevolent tone which had characterised the first part of this extraordinary statement impressed John Ames. At the same time he felt correspondingly reduced. He had prided himself, too—in advance—upon bringing Nidia safely in, alone and unaided; now he was done out of this satisfaction, and others would take to themselves the credit. Then he felt smaller still because thoroughly ashamed of himself. How could he harbour such a thought amid the great glad joy of hearing that her safety was assured?
“Are you influencing these rebels, then?” he asked, all his old repulsion for the other returning, as he saw, as in a flash, the fell meaning of the words. “It seems strange that you should aid in the murder of your own countrymen.”
“My own countrymen!” and the expression of the speaker became absolutely fiendish. “‘My own countrymen’ would have doomed me to a living death—a living hell—long years ago, for no crime; for that which injured nobody, but was a mere act of self-defence. Well, ‘my own countrymen’ have yielded up hundreds of lives in satisfaction since then.”
“But—great Heavens! you say ‘would have.’ They would have done this? Why, even if it had happened, such a revenge as yours would have been too monstrous. Now I begin to see. Yet, in aiding these murderers of women and children, you are sacrificing those who never harmed you. But surely you can never have done this!”
“Ha, ha! Really, John Ames, I am beginning to feel I have made a mistake—to feel disappointed in you, in thinking you were made of very different clay to the swaggering, bullet-headed fool, the first article of whose creed is that God made England and the devil the remainder of the world. Well, listen further. To escape from this doom I was forced to flee—to hide myself. And with me went one other. We wandered day after day as you have wandered—we two alone.”
In spite of his repulsion John Ames was interested, vividly interested. Verily here a fellow-feeling came in. A marvellous change had crept into the face of the other. The hard steely expression, the eyes glittering with hate, had given way to such a look of wondrous softness as seemed incredible that that countenance could take on.
“There is a lonely grave in the recesses of the Lebombo Mountains, unmarked, unknown to any but myself. I once had a heart, John Ames, strange to say, and it lies buried there. But every time I return thence it is with the fire renewed within me; and the flames of that fire are the hate of hell for those you were just now describing as ‘my own countrymen.’”
The hopeless pathos, the white-hot revenge running side by side, silenced the listener. There was a fury of passion and of pain here which admitted of no comment. To strive further to drive home his original protest struck him now as impertinent and commonplace. For a while neither spoke.
“This is not the first time ‘my own countrymen’ have felt my unseen hand,” continued the narrator. “They felt it when three miles of plain were watered with British blood, and a line of whitened bones, as the line of a paper-chase, marked out a broad way from Isandhlwana to the Buffalo drift. They felt it when British blood poured into the swollen waters of the Intombi river, and when the ‘neck’ on Hlobane mountain was choked with struggling men and horses fleeing for dear life, and but few escaping. That was for me. They have felt it often since. That was for her. They felt it when the hardest blow of all was dealt to their illimitable self-righteousness a year later; and, in short, almost whenever there has been opportunity for decimating them this side of the equator, my hand has been there. They would have felt it three years ago, when they seized this country we are now in, but for a wholly unavoidable reason, and then even the strong laagers and parks of Maxims would have counted for nought. That was for her. The malice of the devilish laws of ‘my country’ drove me forth, and with me went that one. In the malarial valleys of the foothills of the Lebombo she died. I still live; but I live for a lifelong revenge upon ‘my countrymen’—and hers.”
Listening with the most vivid interest, John Ames was awed. The narrative just then could not but appeal to him powerfully. What if his own wanderings had ended thus, substituting Matopo for Lebombo? He shuddered to think that but for their signal good fortune in being blessed with fine dry weather, such might not inconceivably have been the case. The earlier and more tragic of the historical events referred to had taken place during the period of his English education, but now there recurred to his memory certain tales which he had heard on his return to his native colony of Natal, relating to the disappearance during the Zulu war of a border outlaw under circumstances of romantic interest. Could they have been authentic? Could this mysterious personage be indeed the chief actor in them? But, then, what must have been the strength and power of such a passion as had been this man’s, that he should cherish it full and strong after all these years; to the compassing of illimitable bloodshed, prosecuting the fierce and relentless hatred of his own countrymen to the extent of metamorphosing the memory of its object into a very Kali, sacrificing to that memory in blood! Of a truth it could be nothing less than a mania—a grim and terrible monomania.
“You are already beginning to lose your horror at what I have told you, John Ames,” went on the other, his keen, darting eyes reading his listener’s face like an open page. “Yet why should you ever have entertained it? Is not this blue-eyed girl you were taking care of for so many days all the world to you—more than life itself?”
“She is. She is indeed, God knows,” was the reply, emphatically fervent.
“Then what revenge could you wreak that would be too full, too sweet, upon whosoever should be instrumental in bereaving you of her for ever? You have not yet been tried, John Ames, and yours is a character outside the ordinary.”
Was the speaker right, after all? thought John Ames. He looked at the dark face and silvery beard, and the glitter of the keen grey eyes, and wondered. Yet as he looked, he decided that the owner of that face must be considerably younger than his appearance. Was he himself capable of such a hardening—of so gigantic and ruthless and lifelong a feud? One thing was incontestable. He certainly had lost the first feeling of repulsion and horror; indeed, he could not swear it had not been replaced by one of profound sympathy. The other continued.
“This is what you will do. First of all, you will give me your word to make no attempt to seek out this place, though it would be futile even if made. For remember I have saved your life, and the life of one who is more to you than life, not once, but many times, though unknown to you. Others sought escape in the same way as yourselves. Ask, when you are safe again, how many found it? I did not spare them. I spared you, John Ames, because your wanderings reminded me of my own. I watched you both frequently, unknown to yourselves, and doing so the past came back so vividly as to render me more merciless still towards others in the same plight. But you two I spared.”
“Then it was you I challenged that morning in the dark?”
“Even your vigilance was as nothing against me, John Ames, for did I not step right over you while you slept?”
The other whistled. There could be no doubt about that.
“Then you will take these two packets. The one marked on the outside ‘A’ you will open at once, and with every precaution will forward the enclosure it contains to the address that enclosure bears.”
This John Ames promised to do. He would register it if the post lines were still open. If not, he would take every precaution for its safety until they were.
“But they will be still open,” was the decided reply. “As for the next packet, marked ‘B,’ you will not open it—not yet. Keep it with you. The time may come when you will see everything dark around you, and there is no outlook, and life hardly worth prolonging. Then, and then only, open it. Do you promise to observe my instructions implicitly?”
“I pledge you my word of honour to do so,” replied John Ames, gravely.
“Then our time for parting is very near. Remember that you owe your life—both your lives—to me. Don’t interrupt. It is not unnecessary to remind you again of this, for you will meet with every temptation to reveal that which I charge you to keep to yourself—viz. all relating to my personality and what you have seen and heard.”
“One moment. Pardon my asking,” said John Ames, tentatively. “But have you ever told anybody else what you have told me?”
“Not one living soul. Why have I told you? Perhaps I had my reasons: perhaps the sight of you two wandering as I have wandered. It is immaterial. My work here is nearly done. This rising which has been so disastrous to your countrymen and mine—how disastrous you have yet to learn—my hand has fostered and fed. I have foreseen the opportunity. I waited for it patiently, and when it came I seized it. But there will be more work in other parts, and, mark me, John Ames, my unseen hand will again be there to strike.”
“Tell me one thing more. If it was through your influence the people spared us, how is it they tried to kill me that time I was leaving Madúla, when they drove me over the dwala, and I woke up to find myself here? That was a narrow squeak, I can tell you.”
“It was indeed, John Ames. But that was accidental, and was contrary to my orders.”
“Contrary to your orders? But,”—sitting up, with a stare of blank amazement—“but—who are you?”
“I am Umlimo.”
“What! You Umlimo? It cannot be. I have always held Umlimo to be a sort of fraudulent abstraction, engineered by innyangas like Shiminya and others. You the Umlimo?”
But to the startled eyes of the questioner the form of the questioned seemed to grow larger, taller, like a presence filling the whole place. The old relentless look of implacable hate transformed the features, and the deep eyes glowed, while from the scarcely opened lips boomed forth as in deep thunder-tones—
“I am Umlimo.”
A mist filled the place. The figure with its background of rock-wall seemed to lose form. A sudden stupor seized upon the brain of John Ames, as though the whole atmosphere were pervaded by a strong narcotic. Then he knew no more.
Chapter Twenty Five.
In State of Siege.
There can be no doubt but that, during the period of the rising, and especially during the earlier half of the same, the township of Bulawayo was a very uncomfortable place indeed.
The oft-recurring scares, necessitating the crowding of, at any rate, the bulk of its inhabitants into the laagers at night, contributed in the main to this. With instances of the fell unsparing ferocity which attended the rebel stroke—sudden, swift, and unexpected—fresh in the mind of everybody, citizens were chary of exposing themselves and their families to a like visitation. Private residences straggling over the surburban stands were abandoned for the greater security of the temporary forts which had been hastily but effectively formed out of some of the principal buildings in and around the township itself; and the comfort and privacy of home-life had perforce to be exchanged for an overcrowded, hotch-potch, barrack sort of existence; men, women, and children of all sorts and sizes herding together, hugger-mugged, under every conceivable form of racket and discomfort, and under the most inadequate conditions of area and convenience. Rumour, in its many-tongued and wildest form, filled the air, gathering in volume, and frequently in wildness, with the advent of every fresh batch of refugees. For from all sides these came flying in—prospectors, miners, outlying settlers with their families, some with a portion of their worldly goods, others with none at all, and fortunate in having escaped with their lives where others had not. For it soon became manifest that such events as the massacre of the Hollingworths and the Inglefields, and the fight and resolute defence at Jekyll’s Store, were but samples of what had taken place—or was still going on—all over the country. Haggard fugitives, gaunt with starvation, stony-eyed with days and nights of deadly peril for close companionship, nerves shattered by the most horrible recollections, and apprehension worked up to the acutest phase thereby—continued to arrive, each and all bringing the same tale of treachery and ruthlessness and blood, deepening on every hand the gloom and anxiety of the situation—anxiety on behalf of those not yet accounted for, mingling with an apprehensive looking forward to how it was all going to end, and when. The necessaries of life went up to famine prices, and then the enemy began to invest the town.
Southward, crouching lion-like, among the Matyamhlope rocks; on the north, occupying the site of the old Bulawayo kraal, and in possession of the “Government” House which the presumptuous white man had erected upon the former seat of the departed king, overhanging, like a dark cloud, the township beneath, or again making fierce dashes upon traffic which should attempt the eastward way, he mustered in all his savage might—an ever-present menace. But the way to the west, for some unaccountable reason, was left open.
Those in charge of the safety of the township had their hands full. They might sally forth in force, as they frequently did, with the object of rolling back the danger that threatened; an object sometimes accomplished, sometimes not, for the rolling back was not invariably all on one side. But whichever way the attempt would go, the wily foe was sure to be in position again almost immediately, whence, massed around the very edifice that symbolised the domination of those threatened, the defiant thunder of his war-song would reach their ears.
Of all the narrow escapes from the widespread massacre which at that time were in everybody’s mouth, none perhaps commanded general attention so much as that of Nidia Commerell. It was so fraught with the dramatic element, being in fact not one escape, but a series of them. Her personality, too, imparted to it an additional interest; this refined and attractive girl, brought up amid every comfort, suddenly to be thrown by rude contrast from the luxurious appointments of her peaceful English home into the red surroundings of massacre and of death. Again, the circumstances of her wanderings appealed strongly to the romantic side, and people looked knowingly at each other, and pronounced John Ames to be a singularly fortunate individual—would be, at least, were it not for the fact that nobody knew whether he was alive or dead; indeed, the latter contingency seemed the more probable.
There was one to whom Nidia’s reappearance was as little short of restoration to life for herself, and that one was Mrs Bateman, for to her the girl was more than all the world put together—far more than her own husband, and she had no children. When the first tidings of the outbreak, and the massacre of the Hollingworths, had come in, the poor woman had been simply frantic. The fact that Nidia had not been included in the tragedy, but had disappeared, brought with it small comfort. She pictured her darling in the power of brutal savages, or wandering alone in the wilderness to perish miserably of starvation and exhaustion; perhaps, even, to fall a prey to wild animals. Was it for this she had allowed her to leave her English home “for a peep into wild life,” as they had put it when the much debated question had arisen? Not even the dreadful task of breaking the news to Nidia’s relatives occurred to her now, her grief was too whole-hearted, too unmixed. Her husband came in for a convenient safety-valve, though. Why had he induced either of them to come near such a hateful country? He was the real murderer, not these vile savages; and having with admirable and usual feminine logic clapped the saddle on the wrong horse to her heart’s content, and caused that estimable engineer mildly to wish he had never been born, she hunted him off with one of the relief forces, together with every man she could succeed in pressing into her service. Indeed, it used to be said that, could she have had her way, just about every available man in Bulawayo would have been started off on that particular search, leaving all the other women and children, herself included, to take their chance. And then, when her grief had reached the acutest pitch of desperation, the missing girl had been found. Thenceforward nothing mattered. The place might be attacked nightly by all the Matabele in Rhodesia for all she cared. She had got her darling back again.
Back again—yes. But this was not the same Nidia. The bright sunny flow of spirits was gone, likewise the sweet equanimity and caressing, teasing, provocative little ways. This Nidia had come back so changed. There was a tired, hunted look in her eyes, a listlessness of speech and manner such as might have suited her twenty years thence, after an indifferent experience of life interim, but now was simply startling as a contrast. She talked but little, and of her escape and the manner of it, seemed to care to talk least of all. The part John Ames had borne in that escape she took care to make widely known, but when alone with her friend reference to him had the effect of causing her to burst into tears in the most unexpected and therefore alarming fashion. This seemed not unnatural. The terrible experiences the poor girl had gone through were calculated to unhinge her; nor was it strange she should grieve over the tragic fate which had almost certainly overtaken the man who had been her sole guide and protector during those terrible days, whose sagacity and resource had brought her in safety through every peril that threatened. It was in the nature of things she should so grieve, even had they not been on very friendly terms before. There was nothing for it but time, thought Susie Bateman—time and change of scene; and with a view to the latter she hinted at the advisability of risking the journey down-country, for, strange to say, the enemy had refrained from intercepting the coach traffic on the Mafeking road. This proposal, however, was met by Nidia with a very decided negative.
These two were fortunately exempt from the crowding and discomfort of the laagers, through the fact that the house owned by the absent Bateman was situated within about a stone’s throw of one of the latter. Should occasion really arise, they would, of course, be obliged to take refuge therein; but in the mean time they could afford to ignore unsubstantiated scares, for there were not wanting those who made it—literally in some instances—a labour of love to keep extra and special watch over this particular household. Moseley and Tarrant, for instance, who were among the defenders of the township; Carbutt, the tall, good-looking man who had figured prominently in the fight at Jekyll’s Store; and several others. Leave it to them, had been their assurance. If real necessity arose, they would see to it that the two ladies should be within the laager in ample time. Meanwhile they need take no notice of the ordinary regulation scare, but just sit still in peace and quietness.
They were thus sitting a few days after Nidia’s return, when the latter startled her friend by an apparently insane proposal. “Let’s go for a bike ride, Susie; a real good long one.”
“Great Heavens! Is the child mad? Why, we’d run into those hateful black wretches before we’d gone a couple of miles. They’re all round us thick as bees. Why, we could see them no further than Government House only this morning.”
“That’s just the way I wanted to go. It would be such fun to see how near we could get, and then skim away downhill again. They’d look so sold.”
“Haven’t you had enough of that sort of thing yet, Nidia? If I had been through one-tenth of what you have, I’d never want to go adventuring any more.”
“Perhaps I’ve contracted a taste that way now,” was the reply, with a weariful laugh. “But anything rather than sit still as we are doing. I want a little excitement—a stirring up.”
The other stared in wild amazement. Was the child really going off her head? she thought again. But a knock on the open door announced the advent of visitors, and lo! two men bronzed and coatless, according to the fashion in Rhodesia, swept off their broad-brimmed hats and entered. They were, in fact, Tarrant and Carbutt, and at sight of them Nidia brightened up somewhat.
“Well, and what’s the latest in the way of scares?” she began, after the exchange of greetings.
“None at present, Miss Commerell,” replied Carbutt. “Things are slack. We shall have to go and have another slap at the niggers up yonder, to keep the rust off. They are getting altogether too cheeky, squatting around Government House its very self.”
“That’ll make a little excitement,” said Nidia. “We can watch your deeds of derring-do from here through the glasses.”
“Heavens, no!” said Mrs Bateman, with fervour. “I don’t want to see or hear anything more of those dreadful wretches, except that they’ve all been shot.”
“By the way, there is a small item in the way of the latest,” said Tarrant, carelessly. “Another man has rolled in who had been given up as a dead ’un.”
“Yes. Is it anybody we know?” asked Nidia, quickly.
“I rather think it is,” returned Tarrant, watching her face yet while not seeming to. “Ames of Sikumbutana.”
Nidia caught her breath with a sort of gasp, and her whole face lit up.
“Not John Ames?” she cried, as though hanging on the answer. Then, as Tarrant nodded assent, “Oh, I am glad!”
And then all of Nidia’s old self seemed to return. She poured forth question upon question, hardly waiting to be answered. How had he escaped? Where was he, and when was he coming to see her? and so on—and so on.
“He’s rather close on the subject, Miss Commerell,” Tarrant replied. “He has a yarn about being chevvied by niggers and tumbling over a dwala, and lying unconscious—and then some niggers who knew him piloting him in. He asked after you the first thing, just as if you had never been away from here; and the odd part of it is, he didn’t seem in the least surprised to hear you were safe and sound, and quite all right.”
But the oddness of John Ames’ lack of astonishment did not strike Nidia just then. She talked on, quite in her old way—now freely, too—on the subject of her escape and wanderings, making much of the humorous side thereof, and more of the judgment and courage and resource of her guide. Her voice had a glad note about it; a very carol of joy and relief seemed to ring out in every tone. Ever unconventional, it never occurred to her to make the slightest attempt to disguise her feelings. If she was glad that the man who had done so much for her had returned safe and sound, it was not in her to conceal that fact.
“Phew! she’s giving away the show,” Tarrant was thinking to himself. “That first shot of mine re John Ames was a plumb centre. I’ll have the crow over old Moseley now. Lucky John Ames!”
But at heart he was conscious of a certain not altogether to be controlled sinking. He was not without a weakness for Nidia himself; now, however, in a flash he recognised its utter futility, and was far too much a man of the world not to realise that the sooner he cured himself of it the better.
Upon one other the change in Nidia’s manner was not lost, and the discovery struck Susie Bateman with such wild amazement that she at first refused to entertain it. Here, then, lay the secret of the girl’s fits of depression and generally low spirits. Such were not due to her recent terrible experiences. She had been secretly grieving on account of the man who had shared them, or why this sudden and almost miraculous restoration which the news of his safety had effected? She recalled her half-playful, half-serious warning to Nidia during their earlier acquaintance with this man—a warning more than once repeated, too. That had been out of consideration for the man; but that it should ever have been needed on Nidia’s own account—oh, Heavens! the idea was ghastly, if it were not so incredible Nidia, who had renounced airily the most alluring possibilities more than once, now to throw herself away upon a mere nobody! Nidia, who had never taken any of them seriously in her life, to succumb in this fashion! No, it could not be allowed. It could be nothing but the result of propinquity, and danger mutually shared. She must be saved from this at all costs. And then the good woman recognised uneasily that John Ames would be rather a difficult person to defeat, once he had made up his mind to opposition. Ah! but she had one card to play, one weapon wherewith to deal a blow to which one of his mould would be peculiarly vulnerable.
The while she watched Nidia closely. But for the discovery she had made, she would have rejoiced to see her darling so completely her old self, all brightness and animation as she chatted away with the two visitors; now that very gladsomeness was as a poisoned and rankling dart to the dismayed observer, for it confirmed all her direst suspicions. Susie Bateman’s Christianity was about on a par with that of the average British female, in that she would have looked sourly askance at anybody who should refuse to attend church, yet just then she would have given a great deal to learn that Tarrant’s report was erroneous, and that John Ames was at that moment lying among the granite wilds of the Matopos, as lifeless as the granite itself, with half a dozen Matabele assegais through him.
Such aspirations, however, were as futile as they usually are, and the best proof of the truth of Tarrant’s story lay in the real objective presence of the subject thereof; for hardly had the two men departed when they were replaced by a third—even John Ames him-self.