Chapter Twenty One.
Peace—and Potentialities.
“If I had had such a father as yours, Edala, I should simply have worshipped him.”
“I daresay. In fact it strikes me that that’s just about what you’re doing with regard to mine.”
The retort was crisp, not to say scathing. Evelyn Carden was angry with herself for changing colour slightly, the while those clear blue eyes were pitilessly searching her face. But she was not going to quarrel with Edala, so she answered conciliatorily:—
“Now dear, you know I never meant to offend you. Why should I? We have got on so well together. What I said was for your own happiness; that and nothing else. Of course I’ve no earthly right to even seem to ‘lecture’ you.”
“Not yet,” was the still more scathing retort which arose to the other girl’s lips. Fortunately she checked it. She looked up, as though waiting for more.
“I am not a gushing person, Edala dear, but I have grown very fond of you since I have been here. I would not have said anything about this estrangement but that it suddenly struck me—and struck me with horror—that I might have been the unconscious cause of deepening it, or at any rate that you thought I had been. So I think I will find some excuse and—move on.”
Edala softened. She was really fond of the other, and did not, in her heart of hearts, wish to see the last of her.
“No, you won’t, Evelyn,” she answered with characteristic decisiveness. “You’ll stay where you are. Never mind me. If I said anything beastly I’m more than sorry.”
What Thornhill had half welcomed in advance had come about. Edala was jealous. All that she might have done for her father, and had neglected to do, was done by their visitor. Did he want anything found for him—from some article mislaid, to some quotation in the course of his recreative studies—Evelyn was the one to do it, not Edala. Or did he want a companion in his semi-professional rides about the farm, Evelyn never by any chance refused or made excuse, but Edala often did, not only of late but when they had been alone together. In short, at every turn he met with far more consideration from this stranger than from his own child.
The incident which had led to the present discussion had occurred the day before, and was of just such a nature. Edala did not care to go out; it was too hot; besides, she had something else to do. But Evelyn had made no such excuse.
“I’m afraid I’m straining your good nature to cracking point,” Thornhill had more than once remarked on such occasions. “It’s rather more cheerful having some one with you than not, but I believe you never say ‘No’ because you think it a duty not to.”
“In that case a duty becomes a pleasure,” she had answered with a laugh.
Now of late Edala had been set thinking, and as the result of her searchings of heart a certain soreness had set in. Their visitor seemed to be taking her place, and yet she could not blame the visitor. If she would not do things for her father herself she could not fairly blame another person for doing them instead; yet none the less did she feel sore.
But since the incident at the wind-up of the bushbuck hunt the estrangement had widened. That her father had intended to shoot Manamandhla dead, she entertained not the slightest doubt. In the first place a man of his judgment could by no possibility be guilty of such a clumsy blunder as mistaking a human being for a buck under any circumstances whatever. In the next place the expression of his countenance had told its own tale, not only to herself but to the other witness, Elvesdon. What was it, then, but an act of cold-blooded, deliberate murder—in intent? Clearly there existed the strongest reasons for silencing the Zulu? And then a ghastly thought came into her mind. Could it be that he had been an accomplice in that terrible tragedy whose shadow had so early darkened her young life? Her first repulsion for the Zulu—which had begun to give way to a reaction in his favour since his narrow escape from death—returned a hundredfold with this new idea. Should she question him, she asked herself? What was the use? He would tell her nothing.
“Don’t think any more about it, dear,” Evelyn now rejoined. “It was only that I can see how bitterly your father feels your attitude towards him that moved me to refer to a matter which you have every right to tell me is no business of mine at all.”
Edala hardened again.
“Has he been—complaining then?” she said, with a return of bitterness.
“Is it likely? Is he that sort of man, do you think? Ah child, you don’t know what you are doing when you are throwing away the affection of such a father as yours, and repelling and wounding him at every turn. And some day, when it is too late, you may—”
She stopped. The other had put out a hand and stopped her. Those were just her father’s own words, and now, for the first time, they struck her as horribly prophetic. Her eyes filled.
“I’m several years older than you, Edala, and I’ve seen a very great deal of life from all its sides. Mind, I’m not saying this to patronise or talk down to you, only to emphasise what an appallingly scarce thing real affection is. And I can’t bear to go away without having made some effort towards making you realise it too. That’s all that lies at the bottom of my ‘beastly interference,’ as you are calling it within your own mind,” she added with a smile.
“‘To go away’!” repeated Edala, with scornful emphasis, and dropping a hand upon that of the other. “But you’re not going away, so don’t let’s hear any more about it.”
“I’ve not come to live here, you know,” was the laughing rejoinder. “Well then, we won’t talk any more about parting company just yet since you’re not quite so anxious to get rid of me as I thought. Do you know, Edala, I have hardly any friends, almost none—acquaintances, yes,”—in reply to the look of astonishment evoked by the statement—“plenty of them. I am not exactly poor either—not in these days, though I have known the meaning of cruel straits—and can do what I like and go where I like, within modest limits. But I have been very happy here—I don’t know when I have enjoyed any time so much.”
“I should have thought you’d have found it beastly slow,” said Edala, wonderingly, and speaking in the light of her own unsatisfied aspirations. Her new relative was a great enigma to her. Why, for instance, with all her advantages had she never married? though this to her was nothing very wonderful, for she herself, given the same advantages, would have thought of that time-honoured institution as so remote a contingency as not to be worth consideration. Again she seldom said much about her people, or her earlier life, except in a vague and generalising sort of way.
“Anything but that,” answered Evelyn. “Why I feel in twice the form I was in when I came.”
“You look it too.”
This was bare fact. The joyous, healthy, outdoor life in a splendid and genial climate, had set its mark upon Evelyn Carden; had heightened her outward attractions, at the first not inconsiderable, as we have shown.
“You know,” went on Edala, “there are precious few places in this country where they five the life we live—I mean as far as we womenkind are concerned. Anywhere else you’d have been stuck down to read, and play the piano, and talk gossip—with an occasional ride or drive to some similar and neighbouring place to go through the same exercises within the limit of a day. They wouldn’t have stuck you on a horse, and romped you about over all sorts of rough country, bushbuck hunting and all that. Why they’d be horrified at the bare idea—though, I forgot—we haven’t been able to teach you to shoot, yet.”
Evelyn laughed.
“I’m sorry to say you haven’t, and I’m sadly afraid now that you never will. I suppose I haven’t been caught young enough.”
Both Edala and her father had done all they knew how to impart that instruction. They had assured. Evelyn that within a week at the outside she would be able to turn over her first bushbuck. But it was of no use. She got plenty of chances, but when the rushing, frightened antelope broke covert and bounded by like the wind, her nerve played her tricks, and she would blindly lash off both barrels at anything or nothing. And then, too, the gun would kick, as even the best gun will do if badly held; and after a bruised cheekbone, and a badly aching shoulder she had decided that that form of sport was not at all in her line. They had, however, taught her how to handle a revolver, though she was very far indeed from being able to make prize shooting with the same.
The two were seated in the shade of the tall fig-trees during the hot hours of the forenoon when this conversation had taken place—this conversation which had opened with every sign of storm, and had drifted into calm haven of peace. Edala, for her part, felt all her new born jealousy allayed. She felt compunctious, even inclined to act on the other’s warning and advice. It was in quite a softened mood that she turned to her father, who now joined them, looking hot and tired.
“Here, get into this chair,” she cried, jumping up and pushing him into hers. “You look fagged. I’m going in to get you something to drink. I’m sure you want it.”
“Yes do, darling,” he answered seizing her for a moment to press a kiss on the shining aureole of her gold-crowned head. “Well, what have you two been talking about?” as he subsided thankfully into the comfortable seat.
“Many things more or less interesting. Edala has at last come to the conclusion that I’m a hopelessly bad case because I can’t do anything with that wretched gun. I told her I wasn’t caught young enough.”
“Ho—ho! Not young enough! That’s good.”
“Now don’t you start making compliments, Inqoto, because they aren’t in your line at all,” she answered, placidly. And then Edala reappeared and the golden sparkle in the decanter and the cold gurgle in the porous water ‘monkey’—was grateful sight and sound to a tired and thirsty man. Evelyn often called him by his native name. It was a complimentary one and therefore convenient. They all disliked the prefix of ‘Cousin,’ while if she conferred upon him the brevet rank of uncle why it made him out so old. So this came in handy.
“That’s good!” he cried draining the glass at one pull, and chucking it down in the grass. “You girls look cool and comfy. What have you been doing with yourselves?”
“Taking it easy.”
“So it would seem,” he laughed, looking at them both approvingly. He was thinking how different life had been to him since Evelyn Carden’s arrival. She was so eminently companionable, so tactful and sympathetic. And she looked so soothing and attractive, sitting there opposite him now; and some day she would be going away. The thought was unpleasant. The object of it looked up.
“What is troubling you? You heaved no end of a sigh.”
“Did I, dear? I suppose it was one of contentment. I’m a little tired and I’m resting. That may account for it. Getting old.”
Evelyn laughed pleasantly.
“Don’t fish, Inqoto. I’ve witnessed your prowess at shooting, but never at fishing. I suspect you’d prove as poor a hand at that as you are good at the other.”
“Well, well, if you women won’t take a man seriously, I suppose you won’t. By the way, I fell in with one of Elvesdon’s boys with a brievje for me. I took it from him to save him the trouble of coming any further. Elvesdon’s down at Tongwana’s collecting. He’ll have finished to-morrow, and wants us to go down there in the afternoon. Old Tongwana’s going to turn out a lot of his people and give a war-dance in our honour. What do you say?”
“Say? Why yes—of course,” said Edala decisively. “It’ll be no end of fun.”
“Rather,” said Evelyn.
“Well, I thought that would be the verdict, so I sent back a verbal answer on the chance of it.”
“It’s awfully kind of Mr Elvesdon,” went on Evelyn. “What a fine looking man he is, by the way.”
“Rather; and he’s a smart all round chap as well with no nonsense about him. I took to him from the very first,” answered Thornhill. But Edala said nothing, though it may be that she thought.
So they chatted on, seated there in the secure peace of the golden morning, little recking that the hours of that peace might be already numbered; that this might be the last of such days for a long and terrible time to come—if not for ever.
Chapter Twenty Two.
The War-Dance at Tongwana’s.
Elvesdon was seated at a table within an open tent, together with his clerk—a table littered with official books and documents. He rose quickly at the sound of horse-hoofs and went forth to welcome the party.
“Thornhill—how are you? Miss Carden—you are taking on a fine healthy sunburn—and as for Diane chasseresse—why words fail.”
He had taken to so nicknaming Edala since the bushbuck hunt and she seemed rather to like it. They laughed, and after a little more banter Thornhill said:
“Had any bother with the people, Elvesdon?”
“Not a grain. They’ve all paid up right willingly. It’s when we get to Babatyana’s place that we may find trouble.”
“Where is the dance to be held, Mr Elvesdon?” said Evelyn. “Here?”
“Why not? It’s as good a place as any. I’ll ask Tongwana.”
He called to the old chief, who was seated on the ground among a small group a little way off. Tongwana came forward, and saluted Thornhill, and there was a lot of talk and banter.
“I have not seen thee since the day of the ‘king of serpents’ my father,” the latter was saying.
“Whau! that was a great day, and a great snake,” chuckled the old man.
“So that’s the big chief?” commented Evelyn. “He doesn’t look particularly dignified.”
“He’s very old,” explained Elvesdon. “But whatever he looks he’s all right. He and Zavula are the best men in authority we’ve got.” Then turning again to the old chief, “What has become of Zavula, my father? Three times have I sent for him, and it is said that he is lying sick.”
“I had not heard that, Nkose. But I am growing old. The young men toss the news about from one to the other; but we old ones—au! It is good night.”
“It’s rather a rum thing, Thornhill, but I’m not quite easy in my mind about old Zavula. He came to the office to tell me a very queer story the last time I saw him, and every time I ask after him they say he is sick.”
“H’m!” said Thornhill, drily.
“He’s such a straight old chap too. Now I think we can shut up shop—you ladies would like tea, I know, before the fun begins.”
It was the middle of the afternoon, blue and cloudless. The camp was pitched upon a slight eminence, the ground falling away, grassy and open, on either side. Crowning another eminence less than a mile away stood Tongwana’s kraal—its numerous huts forming a circle after the Zulu fashion, though not surrounded by a ring fence, and near it, along a bushy ridge, stood several lesser kraals. In the clear stillness of the air the voices of their denizens and the occasional barking of dogs is distinctly borne hither.
“You’ll see something now, Evelyn,” said Edala. “A Kafir dance is no end exciting. I always long to join in.”
“How many will take part in it?”
“Oh I daresay Tongwana can turn us out a couple of hundred at a pinch,” said Elvesdon. “Perhaps more.”
Already dark forms converging in groups upon the chief’s kraal seemed, by their numbers, to give colour to the last statement.
“More, I hope,” pronounced Edala.
The police escort, who, with Prior, were to convey back the proceeds of the collecting, had saddled up and were all ready to march, when one trooper stepped forward, and saluting Elvesdon begged to be allowed to remain and witness the dancing. He was a fresh-faced intelligent looking young fellow, probably not long out from home. The magistrate could see at a glance that he was a ‘gentleman ranker.’ He seemed so eager and earnest about it that Elvesdon said:
“Very well, Parry. You can stay. Any objection, sergeant?”
“No, sir.”
The boy’s face flushed with delight. He had read plentifully about this sort of thing—in fact such reading had had largely to do with bringing him out to the country at all. Now he was going to see it—to see the real thing.
Soon arose from Tongwana’s kraal a weird, long-drawn cry. By this time the chief and every native in the immediate neighbourhood of the camp—except Elvesdon’s servants—had disappeared. The cry was echoed, then taken up by many voices till it tailed off into a kind of strophe-like chant. Then from the distant kraal a broad dark stream was issuing, its blackness relieved as it drew nearer, by many a patch of white. Suddenly the chant changed to a lower key, and its sombre thunder-notes harmonised to the measured tread of the marching warriors.
These, for their parts, offered a perfect spectacle of wild picturesqueness. Each and all had discarded any article of European clothing, and were arrayed in the fantastic, if spare adornments of native apparel; the mútya of cat-tails and cow-hide, beads and bangles, jackal teeth necklaces, flowing tufts of cow-hair, and other gimcrackery of the kind. Then too, the points of bright assegais gleamed wickedly in the sunshine, and the variegated faces of broad shields, lent colour to the wild array.
The column advanced, marching four deep. The rapping of assegai hafts against shield sticks, beat a weird accompaniment to the war-song, which, now risen to a deafening roar, ceased, with a suddenness that was almost startling, as the whole array spreading out into crescent formation, halted, and flinging the right hand aloft, shouted, as one man:
“Amakosi!” (“Chiefs!”)
“They ought to have given the Bayéte, to a representative of Government—confound their cheek!” murmured Elvesdon, who was filling his pipe. “That’s the salute royal, you know, Miss Carden.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” was the answer. “They look grand—grand, but a little alarming. Still I’m so glad we came.”
“Don’t know about a couple of hundred,” remarked Thornhill. “More like six or seven.”
Now again the song and dance was renewed. So catching was the latter that the European spectators found themselves beating time with their feet. The stamping of the excited warriors shook the earth, sending up long streams of yellow dust into the sunlit air. Young warriors would dart from the ranks, and leaping nearly their own height from the ground volley forth a torrent of words as they went through an imaginary pantomime of their prowess, their eyeballs white and rolling, seeming to burst from their faces, the flash of their bright blades like zig-zagged lightning. Then, with an appalling roar, the crescent extended itself on either side, and charged full speed up to the spectators hemming them now in a complete circle. Evelyn Carden gave a little cry of alarm and she felt herself growing pale.
“It’s all right. It’s part of the show,” said Elvesdon reassuringly, puffing at his pipe.
“Is it? Well, it’s rather startling,” she answered, reassured however, by the fact that the rest of the party, including Edala, remained unmoved.
There certainly was something horribly real about it. Six or seven hundred frantic savages, worked up to the wildest stage of excitement, hemming you in in a dense impenetrable circle of dark musky bodies and waving blades, roaring like wild beasts and vociferating that the said blades should shine white no longer, but red—red, may easily become a situation somewhat trying to the nerves, especially to those of the other sex. Then, suddenly, as if by magic, the uproar ceased. The warriors saluted again, then crooning a low toned, rather plaintive sounding chant, dropped back to their original position. Here they were harangued by an orator, his periods being greeted by an expressive hum. When he ceased, the whole body gathered up its weapons, and moved swiftly away over the veldt—this time in silence.
“Curtain on Act One,” said Elvesdon. “We’ll stroll up now to yonder ridge. We are going to see a sham fight, or rather a surprise. They are about to attack and capture somebody’s kraal—I couldn’t catch his name—over the other side, and make it as much like the real thing as possible. I and old Tongwana arranged it all this morning. The last harangue was with the object of bucking up the fighting men. So let’s get on.”
“It’s a splendid sight, sir,” said the young police trooper diffidently, as they walked. “I’m no end grateful to you for letting me see it.”
Elvesdon turned to him good naturedly.
“Yes, it’s an interesting show, isn’t it, Parry? By the way, you might add to your pay by knocking up a description of it for one of the home magazines—or even two. The native question is likely to come very prominently before the British public soon.”
The young fellow flushed.
“I had thought of doing something of the kind,” he said.
“All right. And if you want any information in addition I’ll give it you—of course if it’s a kind I can give,” added Elvesdon, with a meaning laugh.
On reaching the ridge they looked down upon another kraal in front of them. Its inhabitants were loafing about over their usual avocations or lack of such, in apparent ignorance of the black destruction that was about to overwhelm them. But of the assailants there was as yet no sign.
Elvesdon who had been chatting a little further with the young Police trooper was somewhat behind the party. Then he became aware of the presence of a native—an old man—who, squatted under a bush, was apparently hailing him. He stopped. The old man with shaking fingers, was fumbling in his bag, to produce therefrom—a letter.
Such a letter, dirty, greasy, enclosed in a common looking envelope, addressed moreover, to himself, in a sprawling, uneducated hand.
“Who gave you this?” he asked.
“That I know not, Nkose. One of the people.”
Elvesdon was about to open it—but just then there were signs of renewed activity below. The attacking impi was getting into position. He thrust the envelope into his pocket. It would keep. It was only some ill-spelt scrawl written by some half—educated native making excuses for not coming to pay his taxes. He was often the recipient of such. Of course it would keep. Then he rejoined the party.
“Come along, Mr Elvesdon,” cried Edala, excitedly. “They are going to begin.”
“They won’t really kill each other, will they, Mr Elvesdon?” asked Evelyn, with some real anxiety.
“They seem to get so carried away, you know. What if they should come to blows in real earnest? No, but that could not be, could it?”
He hastened to reassure her on that point. The whole programme was that of a wonderfully dramatic and realistic show got up for their entertainment. If she chose to let her imagination go, why that would only add to the excitement—to her—he appended, with an easy laugh.
He stole a glance at Edala. She was standing a little apart eagerly watching the manoeuvres beneath, a slight flush of excitement in her cheeks, and the expressive eyes wide and interested. He had deliberately come to the conclusion that it would be a difficult and dreary thing to go on living without her, and yet how would she look at it? He knew that she liked him, but he wanted her to do a great deal more than that. In all probability however, she in the brightness of her youth looked upon him as quite an old fogey. Well, he must make some opportunity of putting it to the test. Why not do so this evening, on the way home? Yes, he would; yet it was with some sinking of the heart that he realised that the test would probably break down.
“What can you be thinking about? You look quite worried.”
Edala had turned to him as he joined her, with wonder in her eyes. Here was his chance had they been alone together.
“I am, rather,” he answered in an undertone. For a moment her glance rested full upon him, then turned away.
“They are beginning down there,” she said.
The impi beneath was on the march, and they could trace its course, pouring upward through grass and bushes towards the doomed kraal. Then suddenly its stealthy advance changed into a swift charge, the while its lines extended, throwing out the terrible outflanking ‘horns,’ and with a mighty roar it hurled itself upon its objective.
The kraal was in a state of indescribable confusion; men, women and children pouring forth helter-skelter from the only side left open. In vain. Here, too, those terrible horns closed up, and there ensued a scene of discriminate massacre, to the accompaniment of the most diabolical shouts and hisses. The spectators could scarcely believe it was not real. Evelyn Carden’s face had gone quite white, and even that of Edala looked disturbed.
“What awful creatures!” said the former. “Mr Elvesdon, are you sure it isn’t real? I can hardly believe it.”
“No—no. It’s not real. But it’s marvellously well counterfeited.”
“It’s too dreadful. I don’t think I care to look at it any more.”
“Well, look at this. They are retiring now.”
The impi had formed up, and, raising a mighty song of victory was moving away from the scene of the mock massacre. Down through the valley it poured, with a movement that was partly a march and partly a dance, and the deep-toned thunder-notes of the triumph song rose to a pitch of fell ferocity that was rather terrifying, so realistic had the whole thing been.
Elvesdon suddenly remembered the letter which had been given him; and now that the show was over he thought he might as well investigate it.
But the first glance at the scrawl which he unfolded made him start. This is how it ran:
“Mr Elvesdon, resident Magistrate.
“Sir,
“You are a good man. I not want to see you hurt. I not want to see Christian ladies hurt. I am Christian too. Get your party away so soon as you ever can.
“I not give my name—but—do.
“Remember Mr Hope.”
Chapter Twenty Three.
After the Warning.
Just as he had thought, decided Elvesdon. Clearly the letter was from some half—educated native, but how different its import to that which he had expected. Was it a hoax, he wondered? Anyway its substance was sufficiently disquieting. Surely so tried and trusted a chief as old Tongwana could not be guilty of any such ghastly act of treachery as that hinted at. His people, too, had paid up their taxes without a murmur. The thing looked like a hoax.
It might be well to be on the safe side; to get his party away at once. But then his official prestige and influence would be irretrievably wrecked. He would be showing distrust—fear—of those over whom he held authority. But the sting of the whole communication lay in the concluding words, “Remember Mr Hope.”
These referred to a tragedy, which had befallen a little over a quarter of a century back. The victim had been a magistrate in Pondoland, and had been treacherously set upon and murdered, together with his two clerks, while witnessing just such an entertainment as had been provided here to-day.
Elvesdon was a boy at the time but he had since served in Pondoland—as we heard him tell Thornhill—and there at that time the event was still sufficiently fresh. But for those concluding words he would have felt inclined to set the communication down as a practical joke.
Rapidly his clear mind reviewed the position. His camp was quite a mile away; they had strolled that distance in order to gain the point whence they could overlook the mimic attack upon the kraal. The horses were knee-haltered, and grazing under the charge of his two boys, and they were a little beyond, on the other side of the camp. The impi was marching down the valley in a direction which should take it rather away from the camp than towards it. Tongwana’s kraal seemed deserted; even the women had hurried out to see the sham fight.
“We may as well get back to camp now,” he said carelessly. “The show’s about over, and we shan’t be home much before dark as it is.”
But there were two upon whom his carelessness did not altogether impose—Edala and her father. The girl, naturally sharp-witted as she was, had not failed to note the ever so slight involuntary start which had escaped him on the perusal of the missive, while Thornhill took in by instinct that something was wrong. Both, however, forebore to take any outward notice of the fact: for which he was devoutly thankful, for at all costs he must avoid alarming the weaker ones of the party. He would have given much for an opportunity of taking Thornhill into counsel, but this would have had the very effect he was anxious to avoid.
“There’s an official matter I want to get home and look into as soon as I can,” he explained carelessly. “Here, Parry. You can ride on and say I’m coming.”
He took the young Police trooper apart, as they walked.
“Look here,” he said, “and attend carefully. Go down to the camp as fast as you can walk—can walk, mind, not run—and get the horses saddled up as soon as you possibly can; ours first, you understand, not the boys’: and see that the girths are tight enough. Then all of you bring them out here to meet us; and every minute you save in doing it is a minute gained. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If anything happens use your own judgment, but we must have the horses as soon as ever we can, yet you must not run or show any sign of hurry. It’ll mean good for you my lad, very good. Now go.”
The young fellow saluted, and started off down the slope at a brisk springy walk which represented nearly four and a half miles an hour. He was radiant with pride. Naturally sharp, he had to a certain extent grasped the situation, and here, after a few months in the force, he found himself entrusted with a real and critical mission, with the promise of the good word of his superior. Visions of unheard of promotion floated upon his mental sight, as he paced downward to the camp, with rapid, elastic step.
Elvesdon strove to talk cheerfully, as they took their way down at a perforce slower pace than that of the young Police trooper—but it was difficult. The ridge was well between them and the impi now, but the latter might at any moment appear over it, or where it ended farther down. Had he been alone, or alone with Thornhill, he would not have felt overmuch concerned. He was as brave a man as ever lived, and endowed with his full share of nerve. He would, if the worst came to the worst, have chanced the moral effect of a display of the confidence of authority and absolute fearlessness. But now, with these two women dependent on them for protection, why it was dreadful. He reproached himself bitterly for having brought them into this peril; for, in the disturbed and simmering state of the native locations, who could be trusted? More bitterly still, perhaps, did he reproach himself for his neglect to open the communication handed to him by the old man. Then there would have been time for them to have acted upon the warning conveyed therein, and to have withdrawn while the attention of the savages was engaged by the mimic surprise of the kraal. Now it was in all probability too late.
Now he began to revolve in his mind what should be done in the event of Parry being unable to fulfil his instructions in time. He had a fight revolver in his pocket, and he suspected Thornhill was not unarmed. But of what use were they against an overwhelming crowd, all heavily armed, and right out in the open? They might shoot down a few, but would not this exasperate the savages into murdering the girls as well? Of course it would.
The wide landscape slept in the golden sunshine, the rolling plains unfolding out into misty dimness, on the one hand; on the other the outlines of distant heights softened against the clear blue. From Tongwana’s kraal, crowning the adjacent eminence, a smoke reek rose lazily upon the still air. An idea suggested itself to Elvesdon. Why not take the bull by the horns and go straight to Tongwana’s kraal? Surely there, under, figuratively speaking, the roof of the old chief, they would be safe. But just then he could see his emissary in the act of faithfully fulfilling the duty laid upon him. Down at the camp the horses were being led in. They might find safety at Tongwana’s kraal, but the Police trooper, caught alone, would certainly be murdered, if things were as desperate as the warning embodied in the letter seemed to convey. But—if only Parry would hurry up!
Now some inkling of danger seemed to have come over the weaker side of the party. Elvesdon’s silence had told—it was impossible for him to keep up his attempts at manufactured conversation under the weight of responsibility which lay upon him. They, too, were reduced to silence, and, he became aware, were looking at him curiously and furtively.
“I don’t know that I want to see one of these native performances again,” said Evelyn Carden. “Don’t think me unappreciative, Mr Elvesdon, but really this has given me the creeps. It all seemed so fearfully natural.”
“Ah, well. It isn’t musical comedy, you know,” he answered with forced lightness.
“Old Tongwana ought to have figured in a swallow-tailed coat and a top hat and a mútya” said Thornhill. “That might have given a Gilbert and Sullivan smack to it.”
The laugh that greeted this was feeble. But now Elvesdon noted with intense relief that the horses had been saddled up at last—they themselves had more than halved the distance to the camp by that time, and of coarse could see everything that was going on there all the way.
Too late.
A burst of voices on the right front, and then the impi appeared, pouring over the ridge, forming a dense black line between them and the camp and, of course the horses. Then, extending, the warriors executed the surround manoeuvre and having thus completely hemmed in their guests—or their victims—they recommenced the war-dance.
“Oh for Heaven’s sake, Mr Elvesdon, tell them to stop and go away,” said Evelyn Carden. “This is horrible, hateful.”
Elvesdon called out to more than one whom he knew by name but if they heard him they pretended not to. If the first performance had been terrifying to the uninitiated this one was infinitely more so: the roaring and the stamping, the sea of dreadful faces and gleaming bared teeth, the forest of waving blades, and the animal-like musky odour—as the frenzied circle tightened, its dense ranks drawing nearer and nearer. It was of no use for both men to shout at the top of their voices that they had had enough of the show, and that the ladies were getting frightened. The roaring only increased and the foremost of the frenzied performers shook their blades right in their faces. Elvesdon was convinced that his last moment had come. This was exactly the Hope programme repeated. It was hard to be butchered unresisting, but any resistance would certainly involve the massacre of the girls as well.
A sort of gasp from Evelyn made him turn. She was sinking to the ground.
“I feel rather faint,” she murmured.
Elvesdon bent down to help her, and as he did so he was suddenly seized from behind by several powerful hands, most effectively pinioning him. At the same time half a dozen assegai blades were held against his chest. And precisely the same thing had happened to Thornhill.
“Resist not, either of you,” said an authoritative voice. “Any resistance and all shall die—all, all of you.”
“What does it mean?” asked Elvesdon, shortly.
“This, Ntwezi. For you two we have a use. For your women we have none. They may go home. But, only if you make no resistance.”
“We agree,” said Thornhill. “But let us see them—see them with our own eyes, depart in safety. There are their horses.”
Parry, although he was going into certain death, had ridden as near as he could to the tumult. With some difficulty he was leading two horses, and both of these were under side saddles.
“Kill him—kill him,” began to be cried. “He is Only a common policeman. He is of no use.”
“But he is of use,” shouted Elvesdon, who began now to see his way, hearing this. “No common man is he. He is only playing at police.”
This was effective. Three hostages were better than two. Parry’s life was saved—for the present, but he was ordered to dismount, and by the advice of his superior he complied. His revolver was taken from him—Thornhill and Elvesdon had been similarly disarmed—and he was immediately hemmed in by a ring of blades.
“Now tell your women to go,” said the man who appeared to be exercising chief authority. “I will send men with them to see them safe to their home.”
“May I not bid my daughter farewell?” said Thornhill, with something of a tremor in his voice, and instinctively taking a step forward. Instantly a line of blades barred his way.
“Be content, be content,” answered the chief. “You are still alive, and your women are safe. Now walk.”
“To Tongwana?”
No reply was made to this, but there was no help for it. Hemmed closely in by the huge armed force, they were marched along over the very ground which they had traversed so light-heartedly barely an hour before. No indignity was offered them, but they knew that escape was as impossible as though they had been bound with thongs—at any rate just then.
They had this consolation however. The chief had kept his word. Looking backward just before they plunged over the ridge they could make out the mounted figures of the two girls away over the plain, the armed escort, keeping pace, distributed on either side—and they were making for home, not for Kwabulazi.
Chapter Twenty Four.
Unprotected.
“What—will happen to—them?”
It was Evelyn who jerked this forth. For some time the two had ridden in silence, neither daring to trust herself to speak. Perhaps the same thought was in both their minds; they must not break down and display weakness before these savages. Certainly it was in that of Edala—who, raised among them, fully recognised the advisability of keeping-up a show of dignity towards an inferior race.
“They will not be harmed,” she answered, with a confidence she was far from feeling. There might be some among their escort who understood English, and it would never do to let an impression get abroad that such a thing as offering harm to such men as Thornhill and the magistrate, could even come within the bounds of possibility. “Who would dare to lift a hand against them? Why it would mean the hanging of every chief concerned, and a good many of the people as well.”
“Then you think they are safe—you who know these people so well?”
The question was put in a quick eager tone. Edala’s brows wrinkled.
“Don’t talk so loud, Evelyn,” she said, speaking quickly and, of design rather indistinctly. “There may be some here who understand. Better not talk about it at all, perhaps, until we’re alone. Oh, hang it—we must keep up,” she broke off roughly, as she felt her eyes brimming. “Can’t give away the show. D’you hear? We must keep up.”
The other murmured assent. The escort, stepping along at a quick walk so as to keep pace with the horses, was somewhat puzzled at the demeanour of the pair, and the warriors were talking among themselves in rapid undertones, as is the way of natives when they wish to disguise their conversation. Edala was adapting their method to English.
“I can’t make it out, Evelyn,” she said, purposely talking through closed teeth so as to be the more unintelligible to outside listeners. “None of these here are our people. In fact I hardly saw one, during the dancing, that was. I believe these are from—beyond the border.”
“What? Real Zulus?”
“Don’t mention names. That’s what I think they are,” purposely avoiding even the enunciation of the word ‘yes,’ for reasons given above. “For instance, look at those two ringed men. Their rings are differently sewn on to those on this side. You wouldn’t notice it but I do. That looks as if this was going to be a big affair, and had been carefully planned. Oh, you think I’m taking it all remarkably coolly, Evelyn—” she broke off, in the gusty voice she used in moments of excitement. “But—we must keep up—we must keep up.”
“Yes—yes,” came the quick answer.
“There’s just this I go upon,” went on Edala. “If there are two men in the world who could be reckoned on to keep their wits about them and do the right thing at the right time, those two are father and Mr Elvesdon. See my meaning?”
The other nodded.
“So we must hope for the best.”
One thing that troubled Edala was that she could get no explanation whatever from their escort. The head-ringed men had kept carefully on the outskirts of the same, and when applied to to come over and talk had ignored the appeal. After this she would not question the common or unringed ‘boy,’ so was obliged to practise patience and await developments.
By the time they arrived at Sipazi it was nearly dark. Edala had more than half-expected to find the homestead a mass of smouldering ruins—but no. There it stood, yet there was a something that suggested the unusual. There was no sign of life about the place for instance—no smoke rising either from the kitchen chimney or from the huts of the native servants. Could it be that the latter—together with the Indian cook—had all been murdered? Edala drew rein, and addressed the escort.
“There is our home and now we are safe. If you would return you have fulfilled your mission. If you would rest, there is food and drink yonder.”
They looked at each other and laughed queerly.
“Ride on, Nkosazana,” said one of the ringed men.
Now there was sign of life with a vengeance, for the four great dogs came charging down upon the new arrivals, open-mouthed, barking and snarling savagely.
“Don’t kill them, amadoda,” said Edala, as assegais were detached, and held with suggestive readiness. “They will not hurt.”
But the savages were not going to be done out of their fun. A number of them rushed forward. Assegais showered through the air, and the unfortunate beasts lay transfixed by several of them, apiece, kicking feebly in their death throes.
“I—jji! I—jji!” went up the death hiss from their slayers, together with great hoarse shouts of laughter.
“The cruel wretches,” murmured Evelyn, in shuddering disgust. Edala’s lips tightened, but she restrained herself. Their own lives were none too secure, and this she knew.
Meanwhile the savages having tasted blood, even though only that of animals, began questing inside the deserted huts, but found no one. No cattle was in the kraals, either, or anything about the house, except a few fowls, which they promptly assegaied.
Edala said nothing now. To have offered them hospitality after this outrage would have been to have shown that she feared them. The two girls slid from their saddles, and entered the house. Both were sick with apprehension. It was growing dusk now, and here they were at the mercy of these barbarians. Edala went to her room, and seizing her revolver slipped it into her blouse. But no one followed. Through the window they could see that the side saddles had been flung from the horses, to be replaced by a couple of ordinary ones which had been found in in the stable. Then two of the ringed men having mounted, the whole crowd moved off without another word.
The two girls looked after them, then at each other.
“No—no,” said Edala, shaking a warning finger, as she saw the other on the verge of a breakdown—her own eyes were dimming suspiciously. “We haven’t got to do that, you know. We’ve got to prove to ourselves that the old libel—only it isn’t a libel—that the first thing women do in a difficulty is to howl, has its exceptions.”
“Yes—yes. You are wonderful, Edala. I could not have believed that any girl could show the coolness and pluck you have shown. What’s the next thing to do?”
“Do? Anything—everything rather than sit still and think. To-morrow early, we’ll start for Kwabulazi.”
“Yes. Let’s. But now—do you think any of those horrible brutes will come here again to-night?”
“No—I don’t. Those weren’t our own people, you know, Evelyn, as I told you. I’m not sure, quite, what to do. If we weren’t safe at Tongwana’s I don’t know where we shall be. So well start early so as to get there before it’s hot. But—I forgot. Can you walk? It’s thirteen miles every inch, and all our horses are gone.”
“Yes. I think I can. At any rate I shall have to.”
“Well we’ll shut the shutters so that no light will leak out if there are any wandering gangs about. Come along and help me, Evelyn. We can’t walk thirteen miles—we two feeble females—on nothing, you know.”
The other saw the drift. Both were to be kept busy. There must be no time for thinking. It may be that each saw into the other’s mind.
Soon a fire was started in the kitchen, and coffee brewed.
“I wonder what has become of Ramasam,” said Edala, when they sat down to their meal. “He’s an awful coward, and must have bolted with the others. Yet, I wonder how they first got the alarm. If it wasn’t that old Patolo is as reliable as death I should have thought that he had cleared out all the cattle and goats, for decidedly someone has.”
Evelyn had not noticed this little detail in the excitement and apprehension attendant on their strange home-coming. More and more she wondered at the other’s strength, her almost awful coolness.
But in spite of their efforts real cheerfulness would not prevail. Neither cared to open her heart to the other.
“I think we’d better get some sleep,” said Edala presently. “We shall have to start soon after midnight.”
“Hark! What’s that?” The speaker’s face had gone white, and under the circumstances, with her nerves all strung to high tension, even Edala had started.
A low, indescribably hideous, moaning noise had arisen. It came from the back of the house.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she answered. “Come and see.”
They went to the kitchen window, which looked out on the back. The moon had risen, and the ghostly light revealed the form of a large bull. He stood stamping and pawing the ground, uttering the while his hideous uncanny moanings.
“Oh, I’ll soon scoot him,” said Edala, returning to the passage to take down a raw-hide whip. “Only it’s not much use. The brute’ll be sure to come back.”
“Edala! You’re never going out to face that dreadful beast!” cried Evelyn, laying a detaining hand on her arm. Edala laughed shortly.
“You’ll see him run directly.”
But before she could reach the door the animal was seen suddenly to run forward, and disappear behind the cattle-kraal, where his moaning, in various keys, recommenced. Then he trotted back, tail in the air, emitting a shrill, half terrified bellow. To one, at any rate, of those who witnessed this performance the effect was indescribably weird.
“What does it mean?” she said.
“Nothing. The cattle often come round and make that row around the place where the goats are killed. It’s the blood, you know.”
Then she suddenly stopped, for it flashed upon her that the spot at which the moaning of the bull was at its highest and most excited pitch was not that whereon the goats were killed.
“Anyhow, I’ll just go out and scoot him. You stop here.”
Evelyn watched her go outside. At sight of her the bull paused in his stamping and scrapings and threw up his head, snuffing the air. Edala swirled the whip-lash as she advanced towards him—she would not crack it, for fear the sound might reach other ears. Then the beast lowered his head as if to charge her—backed a few paces—then thought better of it, and, turning, galloped madly away, uttering that—as it sounded in the silent and ghostly moonlight—shrill unearthly bellow.
Edala looked after the retreating beast. Her weaker instincts were all to return inside and bolt and bar the door. But some stronger motive to investigate took hold upon her—leading her steps to the spot where the beast had been most moved to his weird and mysterious rumblings.
As she turned the corner of the cattle-kraal her heart beat quicker, and her hand stole by sheer mechanical instinct to the butt of the revolver inside her blouse, not that it would be of any use against that which she expected to see and—did see.
There, in the moonlight, just out from the fence, lay a form—a human form; and it did not require two glances to determine that it was a dead human form. Mastering her overpowering horror the girl advanced. The body was ripped right open, and in the dead face, its sightless eyeballs upturned to the moon, she recognised that of the faithful old cattle-herd Patolo.
What was this? Old Patolo! Dear old Patolo, who had known her from her childhood! Never a time that she could not remember old Patolo. And now here he lay, barbarously murdered! A rush of tears came to her eyes, and with a fierce longing for revenge upon his brutal slayers, she unconsciously gripped the butt of her revolver, and perhaps it was as well, or the shock of the awful sight might have had disastrous effects.
“Oh—hh!”
Edala turned quickly, at the shuddering exclamation, uttered as it was in accents of the most indescribable horror. Evelyn, dreading to be alone, even for a moment, had followed her out.
“Go back!” she cried. “You need not see this.”
But Evelyn had seen it. Her face wore a set, stony stare.
“Come in. Come in,” said Edala, in her most brusque commanding tone, taking the other by the arm. And then that hideous moaning sound arose just behind them, together with the stamp of feet. The great bull had returned, and stood, not ten yards from them, his massive head, grim and formidable looking to the last degree in the moonlight. Evelyn collapsed. She slid to the ground in a dead faint.