Chapter Eighteen.A Grim Find.Soon trade became brisk. I had the waggons partly off-loaded, and by dint of stretching a large sail across both of them formed an impromptu store in which the goods were piled. All day long the people crowded up, those who were not dealing enjoying the fun of witnessing the arts and dodges of those who were; just as an outdoor sale on the market square of a town will always attract a number of folks who have nothing else to do, and also, an equal number perhaps of those who have.Cattle would be driven up; good ones, for I had given out distinctly that it was waste of trouble to bring anything but good ones,—and then the owners, squatting around, would spend an hour or so haggling, to go away firmly resolved not to deal, but they nearly always came back, and, meanwhile, others would take their places, and go through in all probability exactly the same process; for your Zulu at a deal is a born Jew, and will spend an astonishing amount of time haggling out of sheer love of haggling. He would go on for ever but for one consideration—the amount of goods is limited in quantity, and if one neglects to secure his share another does not. So for the first few days I sat tight, making up “lots” with green blankets and cooking pots, butcher knives—always in great request—and brass buttons, beads and Salampore cloth, which by the way, is not cloth at all, but a light gauzy fabric of dark blue, greatly in favour with the unmarried girls. All sorts of “notions” were in request, the veriest trifles as to market value, but highly prized up there; and as a thing is worth what it will fetch, why there comes in much of the trader’s legitimate profit. I always held that no trade was too small to be refused, and I would accept curios, which were always in demand by down-country dealers in such things. Assegais however were extremely difficult to obtain, so much so indeed as to be practically outside articles of barter, and this was significant. Another thing not less so was the universal request, open or covert, for firearms and ammunition. It was not much use my explaining to them that they were better off without either, that a man can do much better with a weapon he understands than with one he does not. For some reason or other they were bent on having them.However, in a short while I found myself in possession of quite a nice lot of cattle, the sale of which would leave me a very considerable profit over when expenses were cleared, so I was not dissatisfied. Then, all of a sudden, trade fell off, then ceased altogether. There was no apparent reason for it. I stood well with Majendwa, indeed I always erred in the right direction with regard to the principal chiefs when on trading ventures in their districts, holding that it is far better policy to be too liberal than too mean. But there was no blinking the fact that for some reason or other further trade was “off.” No more were my waggons thronged from morning till night. Those from outlying kraals who had been the most eager, stopped away altogether, but now and then someone from close at hand would drop in for something, and even then the deal would be so insignificant as to remind me of my store at Isipanga.I put the matter squarely to Majendwa, but it didn’t seem to help. He admitted that for some reason or other my trade had stopped. What could he do? He could not order his people to deal. I agreed with him there, still I was puzzled. I had calculated to have easily cleared out all I had at his place. Yet I had done well enough so far, but when I proposed to move further northward, and get into Uhamu’s country, Majendwa seemed for some reason or other unwilling that I should.“You will do no better there, Iqalaqala,” he said, “and, for the rest, it is not advisable. See, we are alone, and are talking beneath the bullock’s skin. Again I say—do not go there. Return rather to your own country, even if you have to carry back some of the goods you have brought. Or, there may be those on your way who will relieve you of them.”I looked at him fixedly and a thought struck me. The phrase he had used might well bear two meanings. Had he intended it as a warning? Such might well have been the case.Falkner the while had been amusing himself as best he could. He soon got tired of watching the barter, though at first it had afforded him some amusement, but I had laid a stern and uncompromising embargo upon any approach even to practical joking. So he would roam off with a rifle or shot gun, and although I was anxious lest he should get into some mischief or other yet he seemed not to. Now he welcomed the idea of clearing out, when we talked things over. To my surprise he propounded an idea when I was telling him how our trade had come to a standstill.“What if that sweep whose head I punched should be at the bottom of it?” he said. “Dolf Norbury, I mean?”I thought there might be something in it. However if it were true, he was bound to have gone to work in some such way that it would be impossible to prove anything, and even if we did, it was hard to see what we could do.“Do? Why call round and punch his head again, of course,” he answered briskly.“That wouldn’t help us to recover our trade. Besides Dolf Norbury isn’t the sort to let himself be caught that way twice running. This time it would be a case of shooting on sight.”“That’s a game two can play at,” said Falkner.“Yes,” I answered, “but in this case it’s a game in which he holds all the hand. It’s clear that he has some following, and we have a lot of cattle to drive. Well, while we were settling accounts with him his, or rather Mawendhlela’s, rips would have no trouble in clearing these off to some part of the country where we should never see a hoof of them again.”“But would they have the cheek to do that?”“Wouldn’t they? And this is a time when neither the King nor any of the chiefs would be over-keen to interfere in a quarrel between two white men. Let them settle it themselves is what would be said and meanwhile we should have lost all we came up for.”“Damn!”“I echo that sentiment most fervently, but it can’t be helped,” I said. “As it is I’ve a notion we shall have to round up our belongings extra tight till we are clear of the country.”“Oh well. Let’s make the best of it and sit tight here a week or so longer, Glanton. I’m beginning to enjoy this shooting among rocks. These klip-springers are such cute little devils. It’s more fun shooting them than it used to be markhor, and nothing like the fag.”Falkner was a capital shot with rifle and bird gun alike, and one of his good points was that he was a keen and thorough sportsman. That being the case he had been able to find game up here where one less keen would have given up in disgust, and it was a good thing, if only that it kept him out of mischief.Jan Boom, the Xosa, was the only one who would hint at any reason for the falling off of our trade, but, as it happened, I was rather prejudiced against him by reason of his affectation of a certain air of superiority over those of his own colour, on the strength of his knowledge of English. In fact I rather disliked him, and therefore of course distrusted him. Subsequently I had reason to alter my opinion with regard to him: but that will keep. Out of Mfutela I could get nothing on the subject. Either he knew nothing or was too “close” to say: and when a native is “close” why it is rather less difficult to make an oyster open by whispering soft nothings to it than to get him to unfold.One day Falkner and I started off to have a hunt among the krantzes beyond those which walled in the hollow. We took Jan Boom with us, and a couple of young Zulus to show us the short cut. It was a grey and lowering day, gloomy in the extreme, and every now and then a spot of rain showed what we were likely to expect, but Falkner was keen on sport, and I was getting hipped, besides, in those days I cared little enough for weather. We scrambled about all the morning among the rocks, with absolutely no luck whatever, and then I got sick of it, wherefore after we had lunched upon what we had brought with us I proposed to find my way back to the waggons. Falkner of course wanted to keep on, but I pointed out that my defection need cause no drawback to him, for I would leave him the boys and make my way back alone. So we separated and before we had long done so a distant report, some way above, showed that at any rate he was beginning to find sport.I struck downward, rapidly making use of half obliterated cattle tracks, for the Abaqulusi were largely a mountain tribe, and there were outlying kraals among the heights as well as in the hollows. Following one of these paths I came suddenly upon a steep gorge, falling abruptly to the next slope some distance below.This gully was in places almost chasm-like in its formation, and was indescribably wild and gloomy in the utter solitude of the grey afternoon. I had just crossed it where the path dipped, when, looking up, there stood a klipspringer gazing at me.He was an easy hundred yard shot. Slipping from the saddle on the further side from him, I thought to myself that Falkner would not altogether have the crow over me when we got back. But—when I looked again, expecting to take a quick aim, by Jingo! the little beast had disappeared.This was annoying, for now a disinclination to return empty handed had seized me. Quickly and noiselessly I made my way up to where he had been. It was as I had thought. He had been standing on a sort of pinnacle; and now, as I peered cautiously over, there stood the little buck, less than the first distance below.He was outlined against the black and shadowed bottom of the gorge, and was gazing away from me. Now I would have him, I decided. In a second my sights were on him full—I didn’t take long over aiming in those days—when I lowered the rifle with some precipitation. Right bang in a line with where the klipspringer had been standing—had been, observe, for the slight additional movement on my part had caused him to disappear again—was the form of a man.It gave me a turn, for with lightning rapidity it flashed through my mind that nothing could have saved him. Then consternation gave way to curiosity. The form though that of a man was not that of a living one.Down in the shadow of a dark hole, overhung by gloomy rocks, it sprawled in a constrained half upright posture against one of these. It was too far off and the light not good enough to be able to distinguish how it was secured in this position, but it seemed to be facing upward in a dreadful attitude of scared supplication. I would go down and investigate. But before I had taken many steps in pursuance of this resolve I stopped short.For an idea had occurred to me. The body was that of a native, and it was obvious that life had been extinct for some time. What good purpose could I serve by investigating it further? I was in a savage country in which life was held cheap. The man whoever he might be, had quite likely been executed for some offence; the method of his death being in all probability designed to fit the offence. Clearly therefore it was no concern of mine, and accordingly I decided to forego further investigation. And then, as though to confirm me in the good policy of such decision something happened—something that was sufficiently startling.A bullet pinged against a stone beside me, sending up a hard splash of splinters and dust, and, confound it, the thing had hit barely a yard from where I was standing.“Hallo, Falkner!” I hailed, deeming the puff of smoke from among the rocks above and opposite must be his work. “Look out I’m here. D’you hear, man?”But no answer came, not immediately that is. In a minute however, one did come, and that in the shape of another bullet, which banged up the dust just about the same distance on the other side of me. My first impulse was that Falkner was playing one of his idiotic practical jokes at my expense, but with the idea I seemed to feel sure that it was not Falkner—and that, in short, I had better withdraw from this very uncanny spot.As I hastened to carry this judicious resolve into practical effect I won’t pretend that I felt otherwise than uncomfortable and very much so. Whoever it was up there could shoot—confound him! an accomplishment rare indeed among the natives of Zululand in those days. Clearly too the exact nicety with which both distances had been judged seemed to point to the fact that both shots had been fired by way of warning. That I had at any rate accepted such I trusted I had made clear to the giver of it, as I walked—I hoped without undue haste but rapidly—to where I had left my horse.Nothing further occurred, although until clear of the heights I kept an uncommonly sharp look out. Once clear of them however, the incident left no great impression on my mind. I had unwittingly stumbled across something unusual and had been about to pry into what didn’t concern me, and it had been resented. The Abaqulusi were an independent and warlike clan who would be sure to resent such. I had received a hint, and a pretty forcible one, to mind my own business, and I concluded that in future I would mind it, at any rate while in these parts. That was all.
Soon trade became brisk. I had the waggons partly off-loaded, and by dint of stretching a large sail across both of them formed an impromptu store in which the goods were piled. All day long the people crowded up, those who were not dealing enjoying the fun of witnessing the arts and dodges of those who were; just as an outdoor sale on the market square of a town will always attract a number of folks who have nothing else to do, and also, an equal number perhaps of those who have.
Cattle would be driven up; good ones, for I had given out distinctly that it was waste of trouble to bring anything but good ones,—and then the owners, squatting around, would spend an hour or so haggling, to go away firmly resolved not to deal, but they nearly always came back, and, meanwhile, others would take their places, and go through in all probability exactly the same process; for your Zulu at a deal is a born Jew, and will spend an astonishing amount of time haggling out of sheer love of haggling. He would go on for ever but for one consideration—the amount of goods is limited in quantity, and if one neglects to secure his share another does not. So for the first few days I sat tight, making up “lots” with green blankets and cooking pots, butcher knives—always in great request—and brass buttons, beads and Salampore cloth, which by the way, is not cloth at all, but a light gauzy fabric of dark blue, greatly in favour with the unmarried girls. All sorts of “notions” were in request, the veriest trifles as to market value, but highly prized up there; and as a thing is worth what it will fetch, why there comes in much of the trader’s legitimate profit. I always held that no trade was too small to be refused, and I would accept curios, which were always in demand by down-country dealers in such things. Assegais however were extremely difficult to obtain, so much so indeed as to be practically outside articles of barter, and this was significant. Another thing not less so was the universal request, open or covert, for firearms and ammunition. It was not much use my explaining to them that they were better off without either, that a man can do much better with a weapon he understands than with one he does not. For some reason or other they were bent on having them.
However, in a short while I found myself in possession of quite a nice lot of cattle, the sale of which would leave me a very considerable profit over when expenses were cleared, so I was not dissatisfied. Then, all of a sudden, trade fell off, then ceased altogether. There was no apparent reason for it. I stood well with Majendwa, indeed I always erred in the right direction with regard to the principal chiefs when on trading ventures in their districts, holding that it is far better policy to be too liberal than too mean. But there was no blinking the fact that for some reason or other further trade was “off.” No more were my waggons thronged from morning till night. Those from outlying kraals who had been the most eager, stopped away altogether, but now and then someone from close at hand would drop in for something, and even then the deal would be so insignificant as to remind me of my store at Isipanga.
I put the matter squarely to Majendwa, but it didn’t seem to help. He admitted that for some reason or other my trade had stopped. What could he do? He could not order his people to deal. I agreed with him there, still I was puzzled. I had calculated to have easily cleared out all I had at his place. Yet I had done well enough so far, but when I proposed to move further northward, and get into Uhamu’s country, Majendwa seemed for some reason or other unwilling that I should.
“You will do no better there, Iqalaqala,” he said, “and, for the rest, it is not advisable. See, we are alone, and are talking beneath the bullock’s skin. Again I say—do not go there. Return rather to your own country, even if you have to carry back some of the goods you have brought. Or, there may be those on your way who will relieve you of them.”
I looked at him fixedly and a thought struck me. The phrase he had used might well bear two meanings. Had he intended it as a warning? Such might well have been the case.
Falkner the while had been amusing himself as best he could. He soon got tired of watching the barter, though at first it had afforded him some amusement, but I had laid a stern and uncompromising embargo upon any approach even to practical joking. So he would roam off with a rifle or shot gun, and although I was anxious lest he should get into some mischief or other yet he seemed not to. Now he welcomed the idea of clearing out, when we talked things over. To my surprise he propounded an idea when I was telling him how our trade had come to a standstill.
“What if that sweep whose head I punched should be at the bottom of it?” he said. “Dolf Norbury, I mean?”
I thought there might be something in it. However if it were true, he was bound to have gone to work in some such way that it would be impossible to prove anything, and even if we did, it was hard to see what we could do.
“Do? Why call round and punch his head again, of course,” he answered briskly.
“That wouldn’t help us to recover our trade. Besides Dolf Norbury isn’t the sort to let himself be caught that way twice running. This time it would be a case of shooting on sight.”
“That’s a game two can play at,” said Falkner.
“Yes,” I answered, “but in this case it’s a game in which he holds all the hand. It’s clear that he has some following, and we have a lot of cattle to drive. Well, while we were settling accounts with him his, or rather Mawendhlela’s, rips would have no trouble in clearing these off to some part of the country where we should never see a hoof of them again.”
“But would they have the cheek to do that?”
“Wouldn’t they? And this is a time when neither the King nor any of the chiefs would be over-keen to interfere in a quarrel between two white men. Let them settle it themselves is what would be said and meanwhile we should have lost all we came up for.”
“Damn!”
“I echo that sentiment most fervently, but it can’t be helped,” I said. “As it is I’ve a notion we shall have to round up our belongings extra tight till we are clear of the country.”
“Oh well. Let’s make the best of it and sit tight here a week or so longer, Glanton. I’m beginning to enjoy this shooting among rocks. These klip-springers are such cute little devils. It’s more fun shooting them than it used to be markhor, and nothing like the fag.”
Falkner was a capital shot with rifle and bird gun alike, and one of his good points was that he was a keen and thorough sportsman. That being the case he had been able to find game up here where one less keen would have given up in disgust, and it was a good thing, if only that it kept him out of mischief.
Jan Boom, the Xosa, was the only one who would hint at any reason for the falling off of our trade, but, as it happened, I was rather prejudiced against him by reason of his affectation of a certain air of superiority over those of his own colour, on the strength of his knowledge of English. In fact I rather disliked him, and therefore of course distrusted him. Subsequently I had reason to alter my opinion with regard to him: but that will keep. Out of Mfutela I could get nothing on the subject. Either he knew nothing or was too “close” to say: and when a native is “close” why it is rather less difficult to make an oyster open by whispering soft nothings to it than to get him to unfold.
One day Falkner and I started off to have a hunt among the krantzes beyond those which walled in the hollow. We took Jan Boom with us, and a couple of young Zulus to show us the short cut. It was a grey and lowering day, gloomy in the extreme, and every now and then a spot of rain showed what we were likely to expect, but Falkner was keen on sport, and I was getting hipped, besides, in those days I cared little enough for weather. We scrambled about all the morning among the rocks, with absolutely no luck whatever, and then I got sick of it, wherefore after we had lunched upon what we had brought with us I proposed to find my way back to the waggons. Falkner of course wanted to keep on, but I pointed out that my defection need cause no drawback to him, for I would leave him the boys and make my way back alone. So we separated and before we had long done so a distant report, some way above, showed that at any rate he was beginning to find sport.
I struck downward, rapidly making use of half obliterated cattle tracks, for the Abaqulusi were largely a mountain tribe, and there were outlying kraals among the heights as well as in the hollows. Following one of these paths I came suddenly upon a steep gorge, falling abruptly to the next slope some distance below.
This gully was in places almost chasm-like in its formation, and was indescribably wild and gloomy in the utter solitude of the grey afternoon. I had just crossed it where the path dipped, when, looking up, there stood a klipspringer gazing at me.
He was an easy hundred yard shot. Slipping from the saddle on the further side from him, I thought to myself that Falkner would not altogether have the crow over me when we got back. But—when I looked again, expecting to take a quick aim, by Jingo! the little beast had disappeared.
This was annoying, for now a disinclination to return empty handed had seized me. Quickly and noiselessly I made my way up to where he had been. It was as I had thought. He had been standing on a sort of pinnacle; and now, as I peered cautiously over, there stood the little buck, less than the first distance below.
He was outlined against the black and shadowed bottom of the gorge, and was gazing away from me. Now I would have him, I decided. In a second my sights were on him full—I didn’t take long over aiming in those days—when I lowered the rifle with some precipitation. Right bang in a line with where the klipspringer had been standing—had been, observe, for the slight additional movement on my part had caused him to disappear again—was the form of a man.
It gave me a turn, for with lightning rapidity it flashed through my mind that nothing could have saved him. Then consternation gave way to curiosity. The form though that of a man was not that of a living one.
Down in the shadow of a dark hole, overhung by gloomy rocks, it sprawled in a constrained half upright posture against one of these. It was too far off and the light not good enough to be able to distinguish how it was secured in this position, but it seemed to be facing upward in a dreadful attitude of scared supplication. I would go down and investigate. But before I had taken many steps in pursuance of this resolve I stopped short.
For an idea had occurred to me. The body was that of a native, and it was obvious that life had been extinct for some time. What good purpose could I serve by investigating it further? I was in a savage country in which life was held cheap. The man whoever he might be, had quite likely been executed for some offence; the method of his death being in all probability designed to fit the offence. Clearly therefore it was no concern of mine, and accordingly I decided to forego further investigation. And then, as though to confirm me in the good policy of such decision something happened—something that was sufficiently startling.
A bullet pinged against a stone beside me, sending up a hard splash of splinters and dust, and, confound it, the thing had hit barely a yard from where I was standing.
“Hallo, Falkner!” I hailed, deeming the puff of smoke from among the rocks above and opposite must be his work. “Look out I’m here. D’you hear, man?”
But no answer came, not immediately that is. In a minute however, one did come, and that in the shape of another bullet, which banged up the dust just about the same distance on the other side of me. My first impulse was that Falkner was playing one of his idiotic practical jokes at my expense, but with the idea I seemed to feel sure that it was not Falkner—and that, in short, I had better withdraw from this very uncanny spot.
As I hastened to carry this judicious resolve into practical effect I won’t pretend that I felt otherwise than uncomfortable and very much so. Whoever it was up there could shoot—confound him! an accomplishment rare indeed among the natives of Zululand in those days. Clearly too the exact nicety with which both distances had been judged seemed to point to the fact that both shots had been fired by way of warning. That I had at any rate accepted such I trusted I had made clear to the giver of it, as I walked—I hoped without undue haste but rapidly—to where I had left my horse.
Nothing further occurred, although until clear of the heights I kept an uncommonly sharp look out. Once clear of them however, the incident left no great impression on my mind. I had unwittingly stumbled across something unusual and had been about to pry into what didn’t concern me, and it had been resented. The Abaqulusi were an independent and warlike clan who would be sure to resent such. I had received a hint, and a pretty forcible one, to mind my own business, and I concluded that in future I would mind it, at any rate while in these parts. That was all.
Chapter Nineteen.Concerning a Letter.Evening was closing in wet and gloomy. The lowering clouds swept along the high ground which shot in the great hollow, causing the cliffs to seem three times their real height in the ghostly murk. Added to this it was raw and cold, which had the effect of causing the inhabitants of the big kraal to hug their firesides. Here and there a form swathed in an ample green blanket might be seen moving from one hut to another, quickly to dive within the same, for your savage is a practical animal, and sees no fun in foregoing any of his comforts when no necessity exists for doing so—and the interior of the huts was warm and dry, and, without, it was neither.I was alone at the waggons, Falkner not having yet returned. For this I was not sorry, for although Falkner and I had grown accustomed to each other, yet there were times when I could cheerfully accept a holiday from his presence.Darker and darker it grew. The oxen were driven in and fastened to the trek chain for the night, and the boys, lying snug under the shelter they had rigged up by means of a large sail thrown over the buck waggon, leaving one side between the wheels open, were chatting in their rhythmical deep-voiced hum, and the fire they had built not far from the opening glowing more and more redly as the gloom deepened. Then their talk suddenly ceased, as out of the darkness appeared a tall figure, saluting.“What have you there?” I said, as the new arrival began fumbling for something in his skin pouch.“Incwadi ’Nkose,” he answered.I own to a thrill of excited expectation very foreign to my normally placid way of taking things, forincwadiis the word for a letter or a token of any kind. I could hardly restrain my eagerness to open the packet carefully sewn up in oilskin, which the man now handed me. Aïda Sewin, then, had availed herself of the means of correspondence which I had arranged, but—what if this were not addressed to me after all, but only to Falkner? and at the thought my anticipations fell. Still it would be good to hear, anyhow. The rather startling incident of a few hours ago was driven clean from my mind now.I climbed into the tent waggon and lighted the lantern which hung from the tent, and you may be sure it didn’t take me long to unroll the oilskin wrapping. Two letters it contained—one for Falkner and one for myself—the latter in the handwriting I knew, and one that a reader of character from handwriting would assuredly not have reported upon unfavourably. Having once satisfied myself on the point, I believe I was in no hurry to open it. The pleasures of anticipation, you see, counted for something with me still.Then came another phase in the above. I drew from the envelope several sheets rather closely written. Why, this was too much luck. I glanced quickly through them to ascertain that the whole of it was for me, but resolved not to anticipate the contents in any way. More than ever was I glad now that Falkner had not returned. I could well do without his somewhat boisterous company for the next half-hour, or even longer. Then I spread open the sheets before me, and by the somewhat dim light of the waggon lantern began to read.“Dear Mr Glanton,—I am taking advantage of the arrangement you so thoughtfully made, and only trust this will not miss you during your wanderings. Mother is writing to Falkner at the same time. I hope you have been able to make him useful, and that he has behaved himself generally well. He is a good sort of boy at bottom, but gets far too much spoilt among us all, as you must have observed, though I believe I am the one who spoils him least. At any rate a little roughing it will do him no harm.“Things are very much as usual. We see a good deal of Mr Kendrew, who comes over when he can and is a great help.”—“Oh, the devil he is!” said I to myself at this point. “Just what I foresaw, confound it!”—“But we miss you very much, and are hoping soon to welcome you back after a thoroughly successful expedition.”This was more comforting, I thought to myself, laying down the letter and conjuring up a recollection of the writer’s words, that last evening. She would look forward to my return, she had declared—would be disappointed if I did not go to see them immediately. Confound it, what was the matter with me, that I sat dreaming and building castles in the air? The rain fell upon the canvas of the waggon tent with monotonous drip, and a puff of raw air through the flap of the tied-down sail caused the light of the hanging lantern to flicker—but I was no longer in the gloomy wilds of Northern Zululand, on a rainy, chilly, and altogether abominable evening. I was again in the starlight glow as on that evening, listening to the sweet tones of the writer’s voice, and gazing at the beautiful, highbred face.The letter went on, dealing now with everyday matter, in a bright, natural, chatty style. The Major was in great form and delighted with his garden and its development, thanks to some fine rains. The Scotts had been over to see them a couple of times—and here followed some banter at the expense of that worthy and neighbouring family, the head of which—originally a waggon-maker’s journeyman—was, incidentally, addicted to too much grog, when he could get it—which wasn’t often. At Major Sewin’s he could get it, and became comical, but always harmlessly so. Things on the farm were going well, thanks to Ivondwe, who was worth his weight in gold, and—I could read between the lines—was practically running the place himself. Tyingoza had been over to see them too, and seemed completely to have forgotten Falkner’s liberty with regard to his head-ring, for he had been exceedingly pleasant, and, through Ivondwe, had said a great many nice things about me—reading which I felt more than brotherly towards Tyingoza, and made up my mind then and there to present him with something of large and practical value when I should get up my next consignment of trade goods.This had covered some three sheets, closely written, and there were still quite as many more. Decidedly Miss Sewin was a good correspondent. I had been going through her letter grudgingly, as if the turning of every leaf should bring the end near. The sail was lifted, and Tom’s honest black face appeared, to ask some question. I curtly told him to go to the devil, and resumed my reading.“And now,” went on the letter, “I am coming to something that I feel I must tell you, and yet I hardly like to. It seems so ridiculous somehow when one comes to put it down on paper, though if you were here, and we could talk it over, well—it might not. You remember that last evening, and what we were talking about when I asked you if some plan could not be arranged under which I could write to you if I felt that we were in need of your aid or advice? The idea rather originated with yourself if you remember, in your usual kindness and forethought, so that consideration alone emboldens me to write what might otherwise seem to you only fanciful and foolish. You know, too, I am not inclined to indulge in that sort of thing, so you will, I am sure, bear with me. But I must begin.“You remember that witch doctor, Ukozi, who came upon us suddenly at the waterhole that same last evening, when my coin was lost? Well, he has taken to coming here a great deal. At first my father used to get angry with him and want to drive him away; you know, quite in the old style, before you taught him—or tried to teach him—that the natives here were not to be driven like our people in India used to be. But Ukozi didn’t seem to mind. He would go away chuckling, but the next day sure enough, there he was again. Then father suddenly swung round and seemed to take a fancy to him. He would talk to him by the hour—through Ivondwe interpreting—and when we wondered, would tell us that he was getting Ulcozi to teach him some of the native magic. Of course it seemed to us absurd, but if we said anything of the sort father would get angry, so the only thing was to let him go his own way. But when it came to his going out at night with the witch doctor and coming back at all hours thoroughly done up, why it seemed that the thing was going too far. He has become very mysterious too. Once he let drop that Ukozi was going to tell him all about the waterhole, and the strange thing that we saw there, and then he became more angry still and vowed that he wouldn’t be interfered with—that here was a chance of learning something quite out of the common, and he was going to take it whatever happened. Nothing we can say or do seems to weigh with him in the least, and really, if it didn’t sound too absurd, I should say that this witch doctor had got him right under his thumb. I asked Ivondwe about it quietly, but he was very nice, and said that the oldNkosewas a wise man, yet there were things that his wisdom had not yet reached, and now he would like to learn them—that was all. There was nothing to trouble about. When he had learnt what Ukozi could—or would—teach him—and that was not much—then he would be the same as before. Now, Mr Glanton, you know these people, and I ask you what does it all mean? My father is altogether a changed man—how changed you would be the first to recognise if you could see him. What, too, is the object; for Ukozi, beyond getting something to eat, and tobacco now and then, does not seem to ask for anything by way of payment, and I always thought the nativeisanusiwas nothing if not acquisitive? But he is always here. For want of a better expression he is getting upon my nerves, and not only upon mine. It seems as if we were somehow being drawn within an influence, and an influence the more weird and inexplicable that it is through an agency that we should traditionally hold as something inferior, and therefore quite absurd to take seriously. I mean a native influence.“Shall I risk disgracing myself for ever in your eyes by owning that I am getting just a little bit frightened? Yes, frightened—I’m afraid there’s no other word for it—and the worst of it is I don’t in the least know what I am frightened of. It seems as if a something was hanging over us—a something awful, and from which there is no escape. You remember it was such a presentiment that made me say what I did the last time you were here, and you reassured me on the subject of the witch doctor at any rate. As to him, there is another strange circumstance. Arlo, too, seems to have come under his influence. Arlo who never could be got to take to any native, and now he is more obedient to this Ukozi than to any of us; yet it is the obedience of fear, for he whines and crouches when the witch doctor speaks to him. Here, you will allow, is a real mystery.“There are other things I might say, but I think I have said enough. Again I hope you won’t put me down as a weak-minded idiot frightened at her own shadow. This country, you see, is so new and strange to us, and our position is rather lonely; father, too, is ageing a good deal, so there is some excuse if we feel a little—well, nervous, at times. As it is I have put off writing to you until, as I reckon from what you said, your time in Zululand must be nearly up, and then only that you may not delay to come and see us immediately on your return.“All send kind regards and are looking forward to welcoming you back, but none more so than—“Yours very sincerely,“Aïda Sewin.“P.S.—I would rather you didn’t mention anything of this to Falkner.”This letter was, to say the least of it, puzzling. Carefully I read it through again, and then it became obvious that the main drift of it was, if not exactly an after-thought, at any rate not in the writer’s mind to communicate when she first began. Her contradictory accounts of her father pointed to this. I made an effort to put behind me for the present the feeling of exultation that I should be the one appealed to—the rock of refuge, so to say—for I wanted to think out the drift of the whole thing; and all my experience has gone to teach me that you can’t think, of two things at once without only half thinking of both of them. The witch doctor’s conduct was inexplicable viewed by the ordinary light of common-sense motive. But I had lived long enough among natives to know that I didn’t really know them, which is paradoxical yet true. I knew this much, that underlying their ordinary and known customs there are others, to which no white man ever gains access except by the purest accident—customs, it may be, to all appearances utterly inconsequent or even ridiculous, but others again of darker and more sinister import. Such are denied by them with laughter, as too utterly absurd for existence, but they do exist for all that, and the confiding European is lulled completely, thrown off the scent. And now, putting four and four together, I wondered whether it was not somewhere in this direction that I must search for Ukozi’s motive.As for the Major’s craze, that didn’t trouble me overmuch, if only that I remembered that old gentlemen of the retired Anglo-Indian persuasion were prone to take up fads, from the Lost Ten Tribes craze to Plymouth Brethrenism. He had been struck by Ukozi’s profession of occultism, and probably hipped by the isolation of his own surroundings, had thrown himself into it. I—and Falkner—would soon put that right, on our return.And yet, and yet—as I again took up Aïda Sewin’s letter in search it might be of a further sidelight, the very real note of concern, not to say alarm, which I read into it impressed me. It was as though I heard a cry from her to hasten to her assistance. Well, I would do so. As I have said, my trade with Majendwa’s people had suddenly and unaccountably broken down, but I had acquired quite a respectable lot of cattle, all in excellent condition. I would have them all brought in on the morrow and trek the next day for home. And having come to this conclusion I heard the tramp of a horse outside, and Falkner’s voice lifted up in a resounding hail, which had the effect of setting all the curs in the big kraal adjoining, on the stampede in such a fashion as to remind me of Falkner’s sprinting match on the first night of our arrival.
Evening was closing in wet and gloomy. The lowering clouds swept along the high ground which shot in the great hollow, causing the cliffs to seem three times their real height in the ghostly murk. Added to this it was raw and cold, which had the effect of causing the inhabitants of the big kraal to hug their firesides. Here and there a form swathed in an ample green blanket might be seen moving from one hut to another, quickly to dive within the same, for your savage is a practical animal, and sees no fun in foregoing any of his comforts when no necessity exists for doing so—and the interior of the huts was warm and dry, and, without, it was neither.
I was alone at the waggons, Falkner not having yet returned. For this I was not sorry, for although Falkner and I had grown accustomed to each other, yet there were times when I could cheerfully accept a holiday from his presence.
Darker and darker it grew. The oxen were driven in and fastened to the trek chain for the night, and the boys, lying snug under the shelter they had rigged up by means of a large sail thrown over the buck waggon, leaving one side between the wheels open, were chatting in their rhythmical deep-voiced hum, and the fire they had built not far from the opening glowing more and more redly as the gloom deepened. Then their talk suddenly ceased, as out of the darkness appeared a tall figure, saluting.
“What have you there?” I said, as the new arrival began fumbling for something in his skin pouch.
“Incwadi ’Nkose,” he answered.
I own to a thrill of excited expectation very foreign to my normally placid way of taking things, forincwadiis the word for a letter or a token of any kind. I could hardly restrain my eagerness to open the packet carefully sewn up in oilskin, which the man now handed me. Aïda Sewin, then, had availed herself of the means of correspondence which I had arranged, but—what if this were not addressed to me after all, but only to Falkner? and at the thought my anticipations fell. Still it would be good to hear, anyhow. The rather startling incident of a few hours ago was driven clean from my mind now.
I climbed into the tent waggon and lighted the lantern which hung from the tent, and you may be sure it didn’t take me long to unroll the oilskin wrapping. Two letters it contained—one for Falkner and one for myself—the latter in the handwriting I knew, and one that a reader of character from handwriting would assuredly not have reported upon unfavourably. Having once satisfied myself on the point, I believe I was in no hurry to open it. The pleasures of anticipation, you see, counted for something with me still.
Then came another phase in the above. I drew from the envelope several sheets rather closely written. Why, this was too much luck. I glanced quickly through them to ascertain that the whole of it was for me, but resolved not to anticipate the contents in any way. More than ever was I glad now that Falkner had not returned. I could well do without his somewhat boisterous company for the next half-hour, or even longer. Then I spread open the sheets before me, and by the somewhat dim light of the waggon lantern began to read.
“Dear Mr Glanton,—I am taking advantage of the arrangement you so thoughtfully made, and only trust this will not miss you during your wanderings. Mother is writing to Falkner at the same time. I hope you have been able to make him useful, and that he has behaved himself generally well. He is a good sort of boy at bottom, but gets far too much spoilt among us all, as you must have observed, though I believe I am the one who spoils him least. At any rate a little roughing it will do him no harm.
“Things are very much as usual. We see a good deal of Mr Kendrew, who comes over when he can and is a great help.”—“Oh, the devil he is!” said I to myself at this point. “Just what I foresaw, confound it!”—“But we miss you very much, and are hoping soon to welcome you back after a thoroughly successful expedition.”
This was more comforting, I thought to myself, laying down the letter and conjuring up a recollection of the writer’s words, that last evening. She would look forward to my return, she had declared—would be disappointed if I did not go to see them immediately. Confound it, what was the matter with me, that I sat dreaming and building castles in the air? The rain fell upon the canvas of the waggon tent with monotonous drip, and a puff of raw air through the flap of the tied-down sail caused the light of the hanging lantern to flicker—but I was no longer in the gloomy wilds of Northern Zululand, on a rainy, chilly, and altogether abominable evening. I was again in the starlight glow as on that evening, listening to the sweet tones of the writer’s voice, and gazing at the beautiful, highbred face.
The letter went on, dealing now with everyday matter, in a bright, natural, chatty style. The Major was in great form and delighted with his garden and its development, thanks to some fine rains. The Scotts had been over to see them a couple of times—and here followed some banter at the expense of that worthy and neighbouring family, the head of which—originally a waggon-maker’s journeyman—was, incidentally, addicted to too much grog, when he could get it—which wasn’t often. At Major Sewin’s he could get it, and became comical, but always harmlessly so. Things on the farm were going well, thanks to Ivondwe, who was worth his weight in gold, and—I could read between the lines—was practically running the place himself. Tyingoza had been over to see them too, and seemed completely to have forgotten Falkner’s liberty with regard to his head-ring, for he had been exceedingly pleasant, and, through Ivondwe, had said a great many nice things about me—reading which I felt more than brotherly towards Tyingoza, and made up my mind then and there to present him with something of large and practical value when I should get up my next consignment of trade goods.
This had covered some three sheets, closely written, and there were still quite as many more. Decidedly Miss Sewin was a good correspondent. I had been going through her letter grudgingly, as if the turning of every leaf should bring the end near. The sail was lifted, and Tom’s honest black face appeared, to ask some question. I curtly told him to go to the devil, and resumed my reading.
“And now,” went on the letter, “I am coming to something that I feel I must tell you, and yet I hardly like to. It seems so ridiculous somehow when one comes to put it down on paper, though if you were here, and we could talk it over, well—it might not. You remember that last evening, and what we were talking about when I asked you if some plan could not be arranged under which I could write to you if I felt that we were in need of your aid or advice? The idea rather originated with yourself if you remember, in your usual kindness and forethought, so that consideration alone emboldens me to write what might otherwise seem to you only fanciful and foolish. You know, too, I am not inclined to indulge in that sort of thing, so you will, I am sure, bear with me. But I must begin.
“You remember that witch doctor, Ukozi, who came upon us suddenly at the waterhole that same last evening, when my coin was lost? Well, he has taken to coming here a great deal. At first my father used to get angry with him and want to drive him away; you know, quite in the old style, before you taught him—or tried to teach him—that the natives here were not to be driven like our people in India used to be. But Ukozi didn’t seem to mind. He would go away chuckling, but the next day sure enough, there he was again. Then father suddenly swung round and seemed to take a fancy to him. He would talk to him by the hour—through Ivondwe interpreting—and when we wondered, would tell us that he was getting Ulcozi to teach him some of the native magic. Of course it seemed to us absurd, but if we said anything of the sort father would get angry, so the only thing was to let him go his own way. But when it came to his going out at night with the witch doctor and coming back at all hours thoroughly done up, why it seemed that the thing was going too far. He has become very mysterious too. Once he let drop that Ukozi was going to tell him all about the waterhole, and the strange thing that we saw there, and then he became more angry still and vowed that he wouldn’t be interfered with—that here was a chance of learning something quite out of the common, and he was going to take it whatever happened. Nothing we can say or do seems to weigh with him in the least, and really, if it didn’t sound too absurd, I should say that this witch doctor had got him right under his thumb. I asked Ivondwe about it quietly, but he was very nice, and said that the oldNkosewas a wise man, yet there were things that his wisdom had not yet reached, and now he would like to learn them—that was all. There was nothing to trouble about. When he had learnt what Ukozi could—or would—teach him—and that was not much—then he would be the same as before. Now, Mr Glanton, you know these people, and I ask you what does it all mean? My father is altogether a changed man—how changed you would be the first to recognise if you could see him. What, too, is the object; for Ukozi, beyond getting something to eat, and tobacco now and then, does not seem to ask for anything by way of payment, and I always thought the nativeisanusiwas nothing if not acquisitive? But he is always here. For want of a better expression he is getting upon my nerves, and not only upon mine. It seems as if we were somehow being drawn within an influence, and an influence the more weird and inexplicable that it is through an agency that we should traditionally hold as something inferior, and therefore quite absurd to take seriously. I mean a native influence.
“Shall I risk disgracing myself for ever in your eyes by owning that I am getting just a little bit frightened? Yes, frightened—I’m afraid there’s no other word for it—and the worst of it is I don’t in the least know what I am frightened of. It seems as if a something was hanging over us—a something awful, and from which there is no escape. You remember it was such a presentiment that made me say what I did the last time you were here, and you reassured me on the subject of the witch doctor at any rate. As to him, there is another strange circumstance. Arlo, too, seems to have come under his influence. Arlo who never could be got to take to any native, and now he is more obedient to this Ukozi than to any of us; yet it is the obedience of fear, for he whines and crouches when the witch doctor speaks to him. Here, you will allow, is a real mystery.
“There are other things I might say, but I think I have said enough. Again I hope you won’t put me down as a weak-minded idiot frightened at her own shadow. This country, you see, is so new and strange to us, and our position is rather lonely; father, too, is ageing a good deal, so there is some excuse if we feel a little—well, nervous, at times. As it is I have put off writing to you until, as I reckon from what you said, your time in Zululand must be nearly up, and then only that you may not delay to come and see us immediately on your return.
“All send kind regards and are looking forward to welcoming you back, but none more so than—
“Yours very sincerely,
“Aïda Sewin.
“P.S.—I would rather you didn’t mention anything of this to Falkner.”
This letter was, to say the least of it, puzzling. Carefully I read it through again, and then it became obvious that the main drift of it was, if not exactly an after-thought, at any rate not in the writer’s mind to communicate when she first began. Her contradictory accounts of her father pointed to this. I made an effort to put behind me for the present the feeling of exultation that I should be the one appealed to—the rock of refuge, so to say—for I wanted to think out the drift of the whole thing; and all my experience has gone to teach me that you can’t think, of two things at once without only half thinking of both of them. The witch doctor’s conduct was inexplicable viewed by the ordinary light of common-sense motive. But I had lived long enough among natives to know that I didn’t really know them, which is paradoxical yet true. I knew this much, that underlying their ordinary and known customs there are others, to which no white man ever gains access except by the purest accident—customs, it may be, to all appearances utterly inconsequent or even ridiculous, but others again of darker and more sinister import. Such are denied by them with laughter, as too utterly absurd for existence, but they do exist for all that, and the confiding European is lulled completely, thrown off the scent. And now, putting four and four together, I wondered whether it was not somewhere in this direction that I must search for Ukozi’s motive.
As for the Major’s craze, that didn’t trouble me overmuch, if only that I remembered that old gentlemen of the retired Anglo-Indian persuasion were prone to take up fads, from the Lost Ten Tribes craze to Plymouth Brethrenism. He had been struck by Ukozi’s profession of occultism, and probably hipped by the isolation of his own surroundings, had thrown himself into it. I—and Falkner—would soon put that right, on our return.
And yet, and yet—as I again took up Aïda Sewin’s letter in search it might be of a further sidelight, the very real note of concern, not to say alarm, which I read into it impressed me. It was as though I heard a cry from her to hasten to her assistance. Well, I would do so. As I have said, my trade with Majendwa’s people had suddenly and unaccountably broken down, but I had acquired quite a respectable lot of cattle, all in excellent condition. I would have them all brought in on the morrow and trek the next day for home. And having come to this conclusion I heard the tramp of a horse outside, and Falkner’s voice lifted up in a resounding hail, which had the effect of setting all the curs in the big kraal adjoining, on the stampede in such a fashion as to remind me of Falkner’s sprinting match on the first night of our arrival.
Chapter Twenty.Falkner Shows His Hand—And His Teeth.I put the letter into my pocket, flung on a mackintosh and dived outside again. The rain was still coming down in a steady pour, and the cloud of vapour rising from the horse’s heaving flanks steamed up redly against the firelight. Falkner was in high spirits. A reebok was tied behind his saddle and Jan Boom was carrying the carcase of a klipspringer, and a few unconsidered trifles in the way of partridges.“You haven’t been out for nothing?” I said, glancing at the spoil.“Rather not. I’ve had a ripping day of it, but—trot out the grog, old man. Phew! it’s cold. For the last hour I’ve hardly been able to feel my feet in the stirrups.”“Likely. Here, you’d better tumble into the waggon and get into dry togs. Then we’ll have scoff. By the way, the post has come.”“Post? See here. Who are you getting at, Glanton? Post!”“Not at anybody. Here’s a letter, from your aunt I believe.”“By Jove! I thought you were humbugging. Oh well, that’ll keep—till after scoff at any rate, and I’m starving.”I had made up my mind to say nothing to him of Aïda Sewin’s letter unless his own communication should contain some reference to it. Soon he was in dry clothes, and the klipspringer was sizzling on the fire, which the boys had managed to shelter ingeniously with the aid of some stones and a bit of old sail. Then, in a trice, the grill being ready, we fell to with a will, seated on the edge of thekartel, our metal plates in our laps, and the rain splashing down upon the waggon tent, while we were warm and dry, if somewhat cramped, within.“This is jolly and snug, and no mistake,” pronounced Falkner, “and grilled klipspringer makes right radiant scoff. Here, put the bottle across—it’s on your side. And I say, Glanton, I came across a devilish rum thing to-day—a devilish nasty thing. It turned me quite sick, ’pon my word it did. By the way, what were you blazing at soon after we parted? I heard a couple of shots.”“Oh, it was another klipspringer. But a mere snap, not a fair chance,” I answered, not intending to let him into my secret experience. “What was it you came across?” I went on, feeling rather curious, for he had turned quite serious, as though impressed by some very unpleasant recollection.“Why! it was about two hours away from here, or might have been rather more—this afternoon just after I’d boned that reebok—a nice clear shot he gave me—a longish one too. Well, away beyond the second line of krantzes over that side, we stumbled suddenly upon a small kraal, where they were none too civil—didn’t seem the least glad to see us, to put it mildly. Well, we didn’t stop, but as we moved on they objected to us going the way we wanted, and in fact the way we eventually came. I rather lost my temper, for they became beastly bumptious, you know, and at one time made as if they’d try to prevent us.”“You didn’t get punching any of their heads, I hope,” I interrupted, rather sharply.“No, no. But upon my soul I felt inclined to. First of all they began lying about there being no road there, and so forth, but I knew they were lying, so made up my mind to go that way. Jan Boom didn’t want to either—and those two boys who started with us wouldn’t go any further, said we shouldn’t want them any more, and that we could find our own way back now. Well, I was of the same opinion, so on we came. But at one time I began to think they had been right. It was awful the scramble we had over the rocks and boulders. Jan Boom had turned beastly sulky too, and kept wanting to go back himself, but I’m an obstinate beggar, you know, Glanton, and when once I’ve made up my mind to do a thing I’ll do it—What are you grinning at?”“Only, if you don’t mind me saying so, you ought to have remained in the service of your country. You’d have made a model leader of a forlorn hope, and, in the fulness of time, a model general.”“Here, hang your chaff,” he growled, not knowing whether to be pleased or not. “I never quite know whether you mean what you say or are only pulling a fellow’s leg.”“Well, go on.”“Jan Boom, I was saying, had got so sulky that I more than threw out a hint I was likely to hammer him if he didn’t think better of it. We at last struck a gully which was rather an improvement on our way so far, but even it was beastly bad. It was a sort of dry watercourse, although if the rain kept on at this rate it would soon be a devilish wet one. Well, there was a path of sorts, though not easy to distinguish; now over the rocks now between them, a gloomy hole, I tell you, and most infernally depressing.”“How depressing?” I interrupted, for I had never given Falkner Sewin credit for sufficient imagination to feel depressed by such a mere accident as surroundings.“Well, it was. The cliffs seemed to meet overhead as if they were going to topple down on you, don’t you know, and there wasn’t a sound, except the wind howling round the rocks every now and then like a jolly spook. Then, all of a sudden my horse rucked back at his bridle—we were leading the horses, you know—so suddenly as nearly to pull me on my back—as it was I dropped my pipe on the stones and broke it—and before I had time even to cuss, by George, I saw a sight.“We had got into a sort of caldron-shaped hollow, something like our waterhole at home would look like, if it was empty, and—by the Lord, Glanton, there, against the rock where the water should have fallen over if there had been any to fall, was the body of a wretched devil of a nigger—spread-eagled upright, and staring at us; in fact literally crucified—for we found that the poor beast was triced up to pegs driven firmly into cracks in the rock. Good Lord! it gave me a turn. In some places the flesh had all fallen away, showing the bones, and what remained was bleached almost white. Here, send the bottle along again. The very recollection turns me sick.”“How long did he seem to have been there?” I said. “Could you form any idea?”“Not well. Besides I was in too great a hurry to get away, and so was Jan Boom, I can tell you. What d’you think it meant, Glanton? Mind you, those devils up in the kraal must have known of it, because it occurred to me afterwards that that was their reason for not wanting us to go that way.”“Very likely. The chap may have been planted there after he was dead, you know,” I answered—not in the least thinking so. “Some peculiar and local form of sepulture.”“I don’t believe it,” rejoined Falkner quickly. “The expression of the face was that of some poor devil who had come to a most beastly end and knew it—and it haunts me.”“Well, why didn’t you investigate further, while you were at it?”“Didn’t feel inclined. But—I’ll tell you what, Glanton, we might go back there to-morrow. I’m sure I could find the way, and at any rate Jan Boom could. Then such an experienced beggar as you could see to the bottom of it perhaps. Eh?”“I’ve no wish to do anything of the sort, in fact it would have been just as well if you had missed that little find to-day altogether. And I should recommend you to keep your mouth shut about it—to Tom for instance. You may rely upon it Jan Boom will. They have curious customs in these parts, and some of them they don’t in the least like nosed into and talked over. By the way, here’s Mrs Sewin’s letter I was telling you about.”“By Jove, yes—I forgot. Well, I’ll like to hear something of them at home, if only to help me to forget that beastly thing. Let’s see what the old lady says.”He read me out bits of the letter as he went on—just ordinary bits of home talk, but there was no word bearing upon the mystery set forth in his cousin’s letter. Suddenly he looked up.“Hallo Glanton! So Aïda has been favouring you, I find.”“Yes. A letter from your cousin came at the same time as this.”“I say though, but you kept it devilish dark,” he said, nastily. In fact, his tone reminded me of the earlier days of our acquaintance.“I don’t know what you mean by ‘devilish dark,’ Sewin, but I’m quite sure I don’t like the expression,” I answered shortly. “Let me remind you however that you’ve ‘had the floor’ ever since you came back, with that yarn of yours. Could I have got in a word edgeways?”“Well, what news does she give you?” he jerked out, after an interval of silence, during which he had been viciously rapping his pipe against the heel of his boot as he sat.“Just about the same as what you’ve been reading out to me.”“That all?”It was as much as I could do to keep my temper. Falkner’s tone had become about as offensive as he knew how to make it, and that is saying a great deal—this too, apart from the fact that I resented being catechised at all. But I remembered my promise to his cousin not to quarrel with him, and just managed to keep it; only then by making no reply.There was silence again. By way of relieving it I sung out to Tom to come and take away our plates, and the relics of our meal. Falkner the while was emitting staccato puffs from his newly lighted pipe, and as I settled down to fill mine he suddenly broke forth:“Look here, Glanton, I’m a plain-speaking sort of chap and accustomed to say what I mean. So we’d better have it out now, once and for all.”I didn’t affect ignorance of his drift. I merely nodded, and he went on. “Well then, I’ve noticed that you and Aï—my cousin—have been getting uncommon thick of late. I didn’t think much of it, but now, when it comes to her writing to you on the quiet, why I think it’s time to have some say in the matter.”“In the first place the only persons entitled to have any ‘say in the matter’ as you put it are Major and Mrs Sewin,” I said. “In the next, you should withdraw that expression ‘on the quiet.’ It’s an insult—to your cousin.”“Oh well, since you put it like that, I withdraw it,” he growled. “But as for—er—the matter in hand, well, I warn you you are poaching on someone else’s preserves.”“Might I, as a matter of curiosity, ask who the ‘someone else’ may be?” I said, conscious at the same time of a wholly unaccustomed sinking of the heart.“Certainly, and I’ll tell you. It’s myself.”“That’s straight anyway,” I rejoined, feeling relieved. “Then I am to understand I must congratulate you—both—on an engagement?”He started at the word “both.”“Er—no. Not exactly that. Hang it, Glanton, don’t I put things plain enough? I mean I was first in the field, and it isn’t fair—in fact I consider it beastly dishonourable for you, or any other fellow, to come trying to upset my coach. Now—do you see?”“I think I understand,” I said, feeling softened towards him. “But as regards myself, first of all you had better be sure you are not assuming too much, in the next place, you are just in the position of anybody else, and can’t set up any such plea as prior rights. See?”“No, I’ll be hanged if I do,” he snarled. “I’ve told you how things stand, so now you’re warned.”“I’m not going to quarrel with you,” I answered. “We are all alone here, with no chance of anybody overhearing us or at any rate understanding us if they did. Yet I prefer talking ‘dark’ as the Zulus say. Let’s start fair, d’you hear? Let’s start fair—and—now you’re warned.”He scowled and made no answer. In fact, he sulked for the rest of the evening—and, to anticipate—long after that.I went outside before turning in, leaving Falkner in the sulks. The rain had ceased, and bright patches of stars were shining between the parting clouds. The fire had died low, and the conversation of the boys had dropped too. I can always think best out in the open, and now I set myself hard to think over these last developments. By its date the letter must have been nearly a week on the road. Well, there was not time for much to have happened in between. Then what Falkner had just revealed had come to me as something of an eye-opener. I had at first rather suspected him of resenting me as an interloper, but subsequently as I noted the free and easy terms on which he stood with both his cousins—the one equally with the other—the last thing to enter my mind was that he should think seriously of either of them, and that one Aïda. Why, she used to keep him in order and treat him very much as a boy—indeed all her references to him when discussing him with me, even as lately as in the letter I had just received, bore the same elder sisterly tone, and I felt sure that while this held good, Falkner, in entertaining the hopes he had revealed to me, was simply twisting for himself a rope of sand. At the same time I felt sorry for him, and my not unnatural resentment of the very dictatorial tone which he had chosen to adopt towards myself cooled entirely. He was young and so boyish that every allowance must be made. At the same time I envied him his youth. As for me, well I hardly knew, but as my meditations ran on in the stillness and silence of the starlit night, clustering ever around one recollection, well I realised, and not for the first time, that life seemed very much to have been wasted in my case.The one talent man in the parable recurred to my mind, and I will even own, I hope not irreverently, to a sneaking sympathy for that same poor devil. He might have lost his one talent, or fooled it away, instead of which, he at any rate kept it—and, after all there is a saying that it is more difficult to keep money than to make it. Now it seemed to me that I was very much in the same boat with him. I had kept my talent—so far—and was it even now too late to add to it, but—what the deuce had this got to do with Aïda Sewin, who formed the undercurrent of all the riotous meditations in which I was indulging? Well perhaps it had something.
I put the letter into my pocket, flung on a mackintosh and dived outside again. The rain was still coming down in a steady pour, and the cloud of vapour rising from the horse’s heaving flanks steamed up redly against the firelight. Falkner was in high spirits. A reebok was tied behind his saddle and Jan Boom was carrying the carcase of a klipspringer, and a few unconsidered trifles in the way of partridges.
“You haven’t been out for nothing?” I said, glancing at the spoil.
“Rather not. I’ve had a ripping day of it, but—trot out the grog, old man. Phew! it’s cold. For the last hour I’ve hardly been able to feel my feet in the stirrups.”
“Likely. Here, you’d better tumble into the waggon and get into dry togs. Then we’ll have scoff. By the way, the post has come.”
“Post? See here. Who are you getting at, Glanton? Post!”
“Not at anybody. Here’s a letter, from your aunt I believe.”
“By Jove! I thought you were humbugging. Oh well, that’ll keep—till after scoff at any rate, and I’m starving.”
I had made up my mind to say nothing to him of Aïda Sewin’s letter unless his own communication should contain some reference to it. Soon he was in dry clothes, and the klipspringer was sizzling on the fire, which the boys had managed to shelter ingeniously with the aid of some stones and a bit of old sail. Then, in a trice, the grill being ready, we fell to with a will, seated on the edge of thekartel, our metal plates in our laps, and the rain splashing down upon the waggon tent, while we were warm and dry, if somewhat cramped, within.
“This is jolly and snug, and no mistake,” pronounced Falkner, “and grilled klipspringer makes right radiant scoff. Here, put the bottle across—it’s on your side. And I say, Glanton, I came across a devilish rum thing to-day—a devilish nasty thing. It turned me quite sick, ’pon my word it did. By the way, what were you blazing at soon after we parted? I heard a couple of shots.”
“Oh, it was another klipspringer. But a mere snap, not a fair chance,” I answered, not intending to let him into my secret experience. “What was it you came across?” I went on, feeling rather curious, for he had turned quite serious, as though impressed by some very unpleasant recollection.
“Why! it was about two hours away from here, or might have been rather more—this afternoon just after I’d boned that reebok—a nice clear shot he gave me—a longish one too. Well, away beyond the second line of krantzes over that side, we stumbled suddenly upon a small kraal, where they were none too civil—didn’t seem the least glad to see us, to put it mildly. Well, we didn’t stop, but as we moved on they objected to us going the way we wanted, and in fact the way we eventually came. I rather lost my temper, for they became beastly bumptious, you know, and at one time made as if they’d try to prevent us.”
“You didn’t get punching any of their heads, I hope,” I interrupted, rather sharply.
“No, no. But upon my soul I felt inclined to. First of all they began lying about there being no road there, and so forth, but I knew they were lying, so made up my mind to go that way. Jan Boom didn’t want to either—and those two boys who started with us wouldn’t go any further, said we shouldn’t want them any more, and that we could find our own way back now. Well, I was of the same opinion, so on we came. But at one time I began to think they had been right. It was awful the scramble we had over the rocks and boulders. Jan Boom had turned beastly sulky too, and kept wanting to go back himself, but I’m an obstinate beggar, you know, Glanton, and when once I’ve made up my mind to do a thing I’ll do it—What are you grinning at?”
“Only, if you don’t mind me saying so, you ought to have remained in the service of your country. You’d have made a model leader of a forlorn hope, and, in the fulness of time, a model general.”
“Here, hang your chaff,” he growled, not knowing whether to be pleased or not. “I never quite know whether you mean what you say or are only pulling a fellow’s leg.”
“Well, go on.”
“Jan Boom, I was saying, had got so sulky that I more than threw out a hint I was likely to hammer him if he didn’t think better of it. We at last struck a gully which was rather an improvement on our way so far, but even it was beastly bad. It was a sort of dry watercourse, although if the rain kept on at this rate it would soon be a devilish wet one. Well, there was a path of sorts, though not easy to distinguish; now over the rocks now between them, a gloomy hole, I tell you, and most infernally depressing.”
“How depressing?” I interrupted, for I had never given Falkner Sewin credit for sufficient imagination to feel depressed by such a mere accident as surroundings.
“Well, it was. The cliffs seemed to meet overhead as if they were going to topple down on you, don’t you know, and there wasn’t a sound, except the wind howling round the rocks every now and then like a jolly spook. Then, all of a sudden my horse rucked back at his bridle—we were leading the horses, you know—so suddenly as nearly to pull me on my back—as it was I dropped my pipe on the stones and broke it—and before I had time even to cuss, by George, I saw a sight.
“We had got into a sort of caldron-shaped hollow, something like our waterhole at home would look like, if it was empty, and—by the Lord, Glanton, there, against the rock where the water should have fallen over if there had been any to fall, was the body of a wretched devil of a nigger—spread-eagled upright, and staring at us; in fact literally crucified—for we found that the poor beast was triced up to pegs driven firmly into cracks in the rock. Good Lord! it gave me a turn. In some places the flesh had all fallen away, showing the bones, and what remained was bleached almost white. Here, send the bottle along again. The very recollection turns me sick.”
“How long did he seem to have been there?” I said. “Could you form any idea?”
“Not well. Besides I was in too great a hurry to get away, and so was Jan Boom, I can tell you. What d’you think it meant, Glanton? Mind you, those devils up in the kraal must have known of it, because it occurred to me afterwards that that was their reason for not wanting us to go that way.”
“Very likely. The chap may have been planted there after he was dead, you know,” I answered—not in the least thinking so. “Some peculiar and local form of sepulture.”
“I don’t believe it,” rejoined Falkner quickly. “The expression of the face was that of some poor devil who had come to a most beastly end and knew it—and it haunts me.”
“Well, why didn’t you investigate further, while you were at it?”
“Didn’t feel inclined. But—I’ll tell you what, Glanton, we might go back there to-morrow. I’m sure I could find the way, and at any rate Jan Boom could. Then such an experienced beggar as you could see to the bottom of it perhaps. Eh?”
“I’ve no wish to do anything of the sort, in fact it would have been just as well if you had missed that little find to-day altogether. And I should recommend you to keep your mouth shut about it—to Tom for instance. You may rely upon it Jan Boom will. They have curious customs in these parts, and some of them they don’t in the least like nosed into and talked over. By the way, here’s Mrs Sewin’s letter I was telling you about.”
“By Jove, yes—I forgot. Well, I’ll like to hear something of them at home, if only to help me to forget that beastly thing. Let’s see what the old lady says.”
He read me out bits of the letter as he went on—just ordinary bits of home talk, but there was no word bearing upon the mystery set forth in his cousin’s letter. Suddenly he looked up.
“Hallo Glanton! So Aïda has been favouring you, I find.”
“Yes. A letter from your cousin came at the same time as this.”
“I say though, but you kept it devilish dark,” he said, nastily. In fact, his tone reminded me of the earlier days of our acquaintance.
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘devilish dark,’ Sewin, but I’m quite sure I don’t like the expression,” I answered shortly. “Let me remind you however that you’ve ‘had the floor’ ever since you came back, with that yarn of yours. Could I have got in a word edgeways?”
“Well, what news does she give you?” he jerked out, after an interval of silence, during which he had been viciously rapping his pipe against the heel of his boot as he sat.
“Just about the same as what you’ve been reading out to me.”
“That all?”
It was as much as I could do to keep my temper. Falkner’s tone had become about as offensive as he knew how to make it, and that is saying a great deal—this too, apart from the fact that I resented being catechised at all. But I remembered my promise to his cousin not to quarrel with him, and just managed to keep it; only then by making no reply.
There was silence again. By way of relieving it I sung out to Tom to come and take away our plates, and the relics of our meal. Falkner the while was emitting staccato puffs from his newly lighted pipe, and as I settled down to fill mine he suddenly broke forth:
“Look here, Glanton, I’m a plain-speaking sort of chap and accustomed to say what I mean. So we’d better have it out now, once and for all.”
I didn’t affect ignorance of his drift. I merely nodded, and he went on. “Well then, I’ve noticed that you and Aï—my cousin—have been getting uncommon thick of late. I didn’t think much of it, but now, when it comes to her writing to you on the quiet, why I think it’s time to have some say in the matter.”
“In the first place the only persons entitled to have any ‘say in the matter’ as you put it are Major and Mrs Sewin,” I said. “In the next, you should withdraw that expression ‘on the quiet.’ It’s an insult—to your cousin.”
“Oh well, since you put it like that, I withdraw it,” he growled. “But as for—er—the matter in hand, well, I warn you you are poaching on someone else’s preserves.”
“Might I, as a matter of curiosity, ask who the ‘someone else’ may be?” I said, conscious at the same time of a wholly unaccustomed sinking of the heart.
“Certainly, and I’ll tell you. It’s myself.”
“That’s straight anyway,” I rejoined, feeling relieved. “Then I am to understand I must congratulate you—both—on an engagement?”
He started at the word “both.”
“Er—no. Not exactly that. Hang it, Glanton, don’t I put things plain enough? I mean I was first in the field, and it isn’t fair—in fact I consider it beastly dishonourable for you, or any other fellow, to come trying to upset my coach. Now—do you see?”
“I think I understand,” I said, feeling softened towards him. “But as regards myself, first of all you had better be sure you are not assuming too much, in the next place, you are just in the position of anybody else, and can’t set up any such plea as prior rights. See?”
“No, I’ll be hanged if I do,” he snarled. “I’ve told you how things stand, so now you’re warned.”
“I’m not going to quarrel with you,” I answered. “We are all alone here, with no chance of anybody overhearing us or at any rate understanding us if they did. Yet I prefer talking ‘dark’ as the Zulus say. Let’s start fair, d’you hear? Let’s start fair—and—now you’re warned.”
He scowled and made no answer. In fact, he sulked for the rest of the evening—and, to anticipate—long after that.
I went outside before turning in, leaving Falkner in the sulks. The rain had ceased, and bright patches of stars were shining between the parting clouds. The fire had died low, and the conversation of the boys had dropped too. I can always think best out in the open, and now I set myself hard to think over these last developments. By its date the letter must have been nearly a week on the road. Well, there was not time for much to have happened in between. Then what Falkner had just revealed had come to me as something of an eye-opener. I had at first rather suspected him of resenting me as an interloper, but subsequently as I noted the free and easy terms on which he stood with both his cousins—the one equally with the other—the last thing to enter my mind was that he should think seriously of either of them, and that one Aïda. Why, she used to keep him in order and treat him very much as a boy—indeed all her references to him when discussing him with me, even as lately as in the letter I had just received, bore the same elder sisterly tone, and I felt sure that while this held good, Falkner, in entertaining the hopes he had revealed to me, was simply twisting for himself a rope of sand. At the same time I felt sorry for him, and my not unnatural resentment of the very dictatorial tone which he had chosen to adopt towards myself cooled entirely. He was young and so boyish that every allowance must be made. At the same time I envied him his youth. As for me, well I hardly knew, but as my meditations ran on in the stillness and silence of the starlit night, clustering ever around one recollection, well I realised, and not for the first time, that life seemed very much to have been wasted in my case.
The one talent man in the parable recurred to my mind, and I will even own, I hope not irreverently, to a sneaking sympathy for that same poor devil. He might have lost his one talent, or fooled it away, instead of which, he at any rate kept it—and, after all there is a saying that it is more difficult to keep money than to make it. Now it seemed to me that I was very much in the same boat with him. I had kept my talent—so far—and was it even now too late to add to it, but—what the deuce had this got to do with Aïda Sewin, who formed the undercurrent of all the riotous meditations in which I was indulging? Well perhaps it had something.
Chapter Twenty One.Dolf Norbury Again.When two people, trekking together beyond the confines of civilisation fall out, the situation becomes unpleasant. If each has his own waggon, well and good, they can part company, but if not, and both are bound to stick together it spells friction. For this reason I have always preferred trekking alone.Even my worst enemy could hardly accuse me of being a bad-tempered man, let alone a quarrelsome one. On the other hand I have never laid claim to an angelic disposition, and if I had the demeanour of my present companion would have taxed it to the uttermost, since we had each been betrayed into showing the other our hand. For my part I can honestly say the fact would have made no difference whatever in our mutual relations, but Falkner Sewin was differently hung. First of all he sulked heavily, but finding that this did not answer and that I was entirely independent of him for companionship, for I would talk to the Zulus by the hour—he threw that off and grew offensive—so much so that I felt certain he was trying to pick a quarrel with me. Had it been any other man in the world this would have concerned me not one atom, indeed he needn’t have tried overmuch. But here it was different. There was my promise to his cousin, and further, the consideration that Aïda Sewin was his cousin and thus very nearly related indeed. No, on no account must we come to blows, and yet the strain upon my temper became hourly more great.I had not been able to trek when I had intended, by reason of something beyond the ordinary native delay in bringing in my cattle; in fact in one particular quarter I had some difficulty in getting them brought in at all. In view of the troubled state of the border this looked ominous. In ordinary times Majendwa’s people like other Zulus, though hard men of business at a deal, were reliability itself once that deal was concluded. Now they were inclined to be shifty and evasive and not always over civil; and all this had come about suddenly. Could it mean that war had actually broken out? It might have for all we knew, dependent as we were upon those among whom we dwelt for every scrap of information that might reach us from outside. Otherwise their behaviour was unaccountable. But if it had, why then we should be lucky to get out of the country with unperforated skins, let alone with a wheel or a hoof to our names.Even Majendwa’s demeanour towards me had undergone a change, and that was the worst sign of all; for we had always been good friends. All his wonted geniality had vanished and he had become curt and morose of manner. I resolved now to take the bull by the horns, and put the question to Majendwa point-blank. Accordingly I betook myself to his hut, with that object. But the answer to my inquiries for him was prompt. The chief was in hisisigodhlo, and could not be disturbed. This sort of “not at home” was unmistakable. I returned to the waggons.Now an idea struck me. Was there more in that gruesome discovery of mine—and Falkner’s—than met the eye? Was the fact that we had made it, first one of us and then the other, at the bottom of the chief’s displeasure? It might have been so. At any rate the sooner we took the road again the better, and so I announced to Falkner that we would inspan at sunrise. His reply was, in his then mood, characteristic.“But we haven’t traded off the stuff yet,” he objected. “I say. You’re not in a funk of anything, are you, Glanton? I ask because I rather wanted to stay on here a little longer.”I turned away. His tone was abominably provoking, moreover I knew that he would be glad enough to return, and had only said the foregoing out of sheer cussedness.“You have your horse,” I said. “If you like to remain I’ll leave Jan Boom with you, and you can easily find your way back.”“Want to get rid of me, do you?” he rapped out. “Well you won’t. Not so easily as that. No—you won’t.”To this I made no answer. At sunrise the waggons were inspanned. Then another difficulty cropped up. The boys who were to have driven the herd of trade cattle, at any rate as far as the border, did not turn up. In disgust I was prepared to take them on myself with the help of Mfutela. Falkner had learnt to drive a waggon by this time and now he must do it. His reply however when I propounded this to him was again characteristic. He was damned if he would.The knot of the difficulty was cut and that unexpectedly, by the appearance of the chief’s son, and with him some boys.“These will drive your cattle, Iqalaqala,” he said.“That is well, Muntisi,” I answered. “And now son of Majendwa, what has come between me and the chief that he holds my hand no more? Is there now war?”We were a little apart from the others, and talk in a low slurred tone that natives use when they don’t want to be understood.“Not war,” he answered; “at any rate not yet. But, Iqalaqala, those who come into a chief’s country should not come into it with too many eyes.”“Ha!” I said, taking in the quick glance which he shot in Falkner’s direction, and with it the situation. “Too many eyes there may be, but a shut mouth more than makes up for that. A shut mouth,impela!”“A shut mouth?Au! Is the mouth of Umsindo ever shut?”This, it will be remembered, was Falkner’s native name, meaning noise, or bounce, and the chief’s son was perpetrating a sort of pun in the vernacular.“But it will be this time, never fear,” I answered. “Farewell now, son of Majendwa. I, who have seen more than men think, know how not to talk.”I felt really grateful to Muntisi, and made him a final present which he appreciated.“You need not mistrust those I have brought you,” he said. “Only for others you cannot have too many eyes now until you reach Inncome,” he added meaningly.Nothing of note happened and we trekked on unmolested in any way, travelling slow, for the trade cattle were fat and in excellent condition, which of course I didn’t want to spoil. Then befel an incident which was destined to give us trouble with a vengeance.We had got into sparsely inhabited country now, and were nearing the border. One afternoon Falkner and I had struck off from the track a little to shoot a few birds for the pot—by the way Falkner had in some degree condescended to relax his sulks, being presumably tired of his own company. We had rejoined the track and had just put our horses into a canter to overtake the waggons when Falkner threw a glance over his shoulder and said:“What sort of beast is that?”I turned and looked back. It was a dark afternoon and inclining moreover to dusk, but I could make out something white glinting through the bush, rather behind us, but as if running parallel to our way. The bush grew in patches, and the thing would be alternately hidden or in the open again.“Here goes for a shot, anyway,” said Falkner, slipping from his horse. He carried a rifle and smooth-bore combination gun, and before I could prevent him or perhaps because I tried to, he had loosed off a bullet at the strange beast. A splash of dust, a good deal short of the mark, leaped up where it struck.“The line was good but not the distance,” he grumbled. “I’ll get him this time,” slipping in a fresh cartridge.“Much better not,” I urged. “We don’t want to get into any more bother with the people by shooting their dogs.”He made no answer, and I was glad that the bush thickened where the animal had now disappeared.“Let’s get on,” I said. “It’s nearly dark.”He mounted and we had just resumed our way, when not twenty yards distant, the creature came bounding forth, frightening our horses by the suddenness of his appearance. There was nothing hostile, however, in his attitude. He was wagging his tail, and squirming and whimpering in delight, as a dog will do when he has found a long-lost master, or at best a well-known friend. I stared, hardly able to believe my own eyesight. The large, wolf-like form, the bushy tail—why there could be no duplicate of this ever whelped at a Zulu kraal, that was certain.“Arlo,” I cried. “Arlo, old chap. What are you doing in these parts, eh?”The dog whined with delight, squirming up to us, his brush going like a flail. In a moment we were both off our horses.“It’s Arlo right enough,” said Falkner, patting the dog, who never ceased whimpering and licking his hands. “The question is how did he get here? Eh?”“Stolen most likely, but it couldn’t have been long ago, for Miss Sewin made no mention of his loss in her letter to me—and it’s hardly likely she’d have forgotten to mention such an important event if it had happened then.”Somehow I could not help connecting Ukozi with this, and felt vaguely uneasy. What had been happening of late? Had the dog been stolen with any deeper motive than his own intrinsic value—to get him out of the way for instance and clear the road for the carrying out of some sinister and mysterious scheme on the part of the witch doctor?“Of course,” assented Falkner, “we’ll take him home with us now, at all events. What a devilish lucky thing I happened to look back and see him.”“Yes, and what a devilish lucky thing you happened to look wrong and miss him,” I answered, for I own to a feeling of petty jealousy that he should be in a position to claim the credit of having found the dog.“Oh-ah! But a miss is as good as a mile,” he said, with a hoarse laugh. “By Jove, but won’t Aïda be glad when I bring him back to her. Won’t she just?”“I should think so. Well we’ll have to keep a bright look-out on him till we get home.”“How the deuce they managed to steal him beats me, I own,” went on Falkner. “Arlo was the very devil where niggers are concerned. Won’t let one of ’em come within fifty yards of him.”This would have puzzled me too, but for what Aïda’s letter had told me—as well as for what I had witnessed myself up at the waterhole. There was at any rate one “nigger” of which the above held not good. More than ever did I connect Ukozi with the matter.“Well, we’ve got him back,” I said, “and it’ll be our own fault if we don’t keep him.”The dog trotted along contentedly behind our horses, wagging his tail in recognition if we spoke a word or two to him. The waggons were outspanning for the night when we reached them—according to instructions, but Arlo went straight up to Tom, whom of course he knew fairly well, wagging his tail, in a sort of “how-d’you-do” manner. He condescended likewise to approve of Jan Boom, who being a Xosa was, of course, a sworn dog fancier, but the others he just tolerated.We inspanned before daylight, intending to make a long trek, and that evening to cross the Blood River and outspan for the night on the other side. In the then state of the border I should not be sorry to be out of the Zulu country. The trip had not been a signal success, and I began to think of it as possibly the last I should make. I thought too, of other possibilities, even as I had thought when taking my midnight up and down walk beneath the stars—a custom I had before turning in, when the weather permitted, as it generally did. The country was sparsely inhabited, as I have said, and beyond passing three or four small kraals we saw nobody.We had started upon our afternoon trek. In another hour we should strike the drift and have crossed the border. Then one of the boys Muntisi had given me to drive the cattle came up with the pleasant news that a large body of men, armed too, was coming rapidly on behind, on our track.I don’t know why this should have caused me uneasiness yet it did. No war had broken out as yet—this I had ascertained from such Zulus as we had fallen in with on the way. I gave orders to push on the waggons, and the cattle. Then getting out a powerful binocular I rode up to a point whence I knew I could command a considerable sweep.The ground was open on all sides, a thin thread of mimosa along some slight depression being the only sort of cover it afforded. Cresting a rise about three miles distant I made out a dark mass moving forward along our track, and that at a rapid rate.At any other time this would have caused me little if any anxiety, but now we had had bother enough in all conscience. I didn’t want any more of it, but that the crowd behind was in pursuit of us there was no room for doubt. It was an armed band, for by the aid of the glasses I could make out the glint of assegais and the war shields that were carried.I returned to the waggons but saw that the pace was as good as the oxen could be put to. The cattle were ahead, going well, but the drift was a good deal further on than I should have wished it to be. Of course there was no physically defensive advantage on the other side over this one, still a boundary is a great moral force; certainly was then while the boundary dispute was awaiting the award of the commission.“We’ll get out the rifles and cartridges, Sewin,” I said—“and have them handy, but we won’t show them. Also sling on your revolver, on the same terms. There’s a crowd coming on fast on our track—what the deuce for I can’t make out. Still it’s as well to be prepared for emergencies.”“Oh rather,” he assented, brisking up at the prospect of a row. “I think it’s about time we read Mr Zulu a lesson.”
When two people, trekking together beyond the confines of civilisation fall out, the situation becomes unpleasant. If each has his own waggon, well and good, they can part company, but if not, and both are bound to stick together it spells friction. For this reason I have always preferred trekking alone.
Even my worst enemy could hardly accuse me of being a bad-tempered man, let alone a quarrelsome one. On the other hand I have never laid claim to an angelic disposition, and if I had the demeanour of my present companion would have taxed it to the uttermost, since we had each been betrayed into showing the other our hand. For my part I can honestly say the fact would have made no difference whatever in our mutual relations, but Falkner Sewin was differently hung. First of all he sulked heavily, but finding that this did not answer and that I was entirely independent of him for companionship, for I would talk to the Zulus by the hour—he threw that off and grew offensive—so much so that I felt certain he was trying to pick a quarrel with me. Had it been any other man in the world this would have concerned me not one atom, indeed he needn’t have tried overmuch. But here it was different. There was my promise to his cousin, and further, the consideration that Aïda Sewin was his cousin and thus very nearly related indeed. No, on no account must we come to blows, and yet the strain upon my temper became hourly more great.
I had not been able to trek when I had intended, by reason of something beyond the ordinary native delay in bringing in my cattle; in fact in one particular quarter I had some difficulty in getting them brought in at all. In view of the troubled state of the border this looked ominous. In ordinary times Majendwa’s people like other Zulus, though hard men of business at a deal, were reliability itself once that deal was concluded. Now they were inclined to be shifty and evasive and not always over civil; and all this had come about suddenly. Could it mean that war had actually broken out? It might have for all we knew, dependent as we were upon those among whom we dwelt for every scrap of information that might reach us from outside. Otherwise their behaviour was unaccountable. But if it had, why then we should be lucky to get out of the country with unperforated skins, let alone with a wheel or a hoof to our names.
Even Majendwa’s demeanour towards me had undergone a change, and that was the worst sign of all; for we had always been good friends. All his wonted geniality had vanished and he had become curt and morose of manner. I resolved now to take the bull by the horns, and put the question to Majendwa point-blank. Accordingly I betook myself to his hut, with that object. But the answer to my inquiries for him was prompt. The chief was in hisisigodhlo, and could not be disturbed. This sort of “not at home” was unmistakable. I returned to the waggons.
Now an idea struck me. Was there more in that gruesome discovery of mine—and Falkner’s—than met the eye? Was the fact that we had made it, first one of us and then the other, at the bottom of the chief’s displeasure? It might have been so. At any rate the sooner we took the road again the better, and so I announced to Falkner that we would inspan at sunrise. His reply was, in his then mood, characteristic.
“But we haven’t traded off the stuff yet,” he objected. “I say. You’re not in a funk of anything, are you, Glanton? I ask because I rather wanted to stay on here a little longer.”
I turned away. His tone was abominably provoking, moreover I knew that he would be glad enough to return, and had only said the foregoing out of sheer cussedness.
“You have your horse,” I said. “If you like to remain I’ll leave Jan Boom with you, and you can easily find your way back.”
“Want to get rid of me, do you?” he rapped out. “Well you won’t. Not so easily as that. No—you won’t.”
To this I made no answer. At sunrise the waggons were inspanned. Then another difficulty cropped up. The boys who were to have driven the herd of trade cattle, at any rate as far as the border, did not turn up. In disgust I was prepared to take them on myself with the help of Mfutela. Falkner had learnt to drive a waggon by this time and now he must do it. His reply however when I propounded this to him was again characteristic. He was damned if he would.
The knot of the difficulty was cut and that unexpectedly, by the appearance of the chief’s son, and with him some boys.
“These will drive your cattle, Iqalaqala,” he said.
“That is well, Muntisi,” I answered. “And now son of Majendwa, what has come between me and the chief that he holds my hand no more? Is there now war?”
We were a little apart from the others, and talk in a low slurred tone that natives use when they don’t want to be understood.
“Not war,” he answered; “at any rate not yet. But, Iqalaqala, those who come into a chief’s country should not come into it with too many eyes.”
“Ha!” I said, taking in the quick glance which he shot in Falkner’s direction, and with it the situation. “Too many eyes there may be, but a shut mouth more than makes up for that. A shut mouth,impela!”
“A shut mouth?Au! Is the mouth of Umsindo ever shut?”
This, it will be remembered, was Falkner’s native name, meaning noise, or bounce, and the chief’s son was perpetrating a sort of pun in the vernacular.
“But it will be this time, never fear,” I answered. “Farewell now, son of Majendwa. I, who have seen more than men think, know how not to talk.”
I felt really grateful to Muntisi, and made him a final present which he appreciated.
“You need not mistrust those I have brought you,” he said. “Only for others you cannot have too many eyes now until you reach Inncome,” he added meaningly.
Nothing of note happened and we trekked on unmolested in any way, travelling slow, for the trade cattle were fat and in excellent condition, which of course I didn’t want to spoil. Then befel an incident which was destined to give us trouble with a vengeance.
We had got into sparsely inhabited country now, and were nearing the border. One afternoon Falkner and I had struck off from the track a little to shoot a few birds for the pot—by the way Falkner had in some degree condescended to relax his sulks, being presumably tired of his own company. We had rejoined the track and had just put our horses into a canter to overtake the waggons when Falkner threw a glance over his shoulder and said:
“What sort of beast is that?”
I turned and looked back. It was a dark afternoon and inclining moreover to dusk, but I could make out something white glinting through the bush, rather behind us, but as if running parallel to our way. The bush grew in patches, and the thing would be alternately hidden or in the open again.
“Here goes for a shot, anyway,” said Falkner, slipping from his horse. He carried a rifle and smooth-bore combination gun, and before I could prevent him or perhaps because I tried to, he had loosed off a bullet at the strange beast. A splash of dust, a good deal short of the mark, leaped up where it struck.
“The line was good but not the distance,” he grumbled. “I’ll get him this time,” slipping in a fresh cartridge.
“Much better not,” I urged. “We don’t want to get into any more bother with the people by shooting their dogs.”
He made no answer, and I was glad that the bush thickened where the animal had now disappeared.
“Let’s get on,” I said. “It’s nearly dark.”
He mounted and we had just resumed our way, when not twenty yards distant, the creature came bounding forth, frightening our horses by the suddenness of his appearance. There was nothing hostile, however, in his attitude. He was wagging his tail, and squirming and whimpering in delight, as a dog will do when he has found a long-lost master, or at best a well-known friend. I stared, hardly able to believe my own eyesight. The large, wolf-like form, the bushy tail—why there could be no duplicate of this ever whelped at a Zulu kraal, that was certain.
“Arlo,” I cried. “Arlo, old chap. What are you doing in these parts, eh?”
The dog whined with delight, squirming up to us, his brush going like a flail. In a moment we were both off our horses.
“It’s Arlo right enough,” said Falkner, patting the dog, who never ceased whimpering and licking his hands. “The question is how did he get here? Eh?”
“Stolen most likely, but it couldn’t have been long ago, for Miss Sewin made no mention of his loss in her letter to me—and it’s hardly likely she’d have forgotten to mention such an important event if it had happened then.”
Somehow I could not help connecting Ukozi with this, and felt vaguely uneasy. What had been happening of late? Had the dog been stolen with any deeper motive than his own intrinsic value—to get him out of the way for instance and clear the road for the carrying out of some sinister and mysterious scheme on the part of the witch doctor?
“Of course,” assented Falkner, “we’ll take him home with us now, at all events. What a devilish lucky thing I happened to look back and see him.”
“Yes, and what a devilish lucky thing you happened to look wrong and miss him,” I answered, for I own to a feeling of petty jealousy that he should be in a position to claim the credit of having found the dog.
“Oh-ah! But a miss is as good as a mile,” he said, with a hoarse laugh. “By Jove, but won’t Aïda be glad when I bring him back to her. Won’t she just?”
“I should think so. Well we’ll have to keep a bright look-out on him till we get home.”
“How the deuce they managed to steal him beats me, I own,” went on Falkner. “Arlo was the very devil where niggers are concerned. Won’t let one of ’em come within fifty yards of him.”
This would have puzzled me too, but for what Aïda’s letter had told me—as well as for what I had witnessed myself up at the waterhole. There was at any rate one “nigger” of which the above held not good. More than ever did I connect Ukozi with the matter.
“Well, we’ve got him back,” I said, “and it’ll be our own fault if we don’t keep him.”
The dog trotted along contentedly behind our horses, wagging his tail in recognition if we spoke a word or two to him. The waggons were outspanning for the night when we reached them—according to instructions, but Arlo went straight up to Tom, whom of course he knew fairly well, wagging his tail, in a sort of “how-d’you-do” manner. He condescended likewise to approve of Jan Boom, who being a Xosa was, of course, a sworn dog fancier, but the others he just tolerated.
We inspanned before daylight, intending to make a long trek, and that evening to cross the Blood River and outspan for the night on the other side. In the then state of the border I should not be sorry to be out of the Zulu country. The trip had not been a signal success, and I began to think of it as possibly the last I should make. I thought too, of other possibilities, even as I had thought when taking my midnight up and down walk beneath the stars—a custom I had before turning in, when the weather permitted, as it generally did. The country was sparsely inhabited, as I have said, and beyond passing three or four small kraals we saw nobody.
We had started upon our afternoon trek. In another hour we should strike the drift and have crossed the border. Then one of the boys Muntisi had given me to drive the cattle came up with the pleasant news that a large body of men, armed too, was coming rapidly on behind, on our track.
I don’t know why this should have caused me uneasiness yet it did. No war had broken out as yet—this I had ascertained from such Zulus as we had fallen in with on the way. I gave orders to push on the waggons, and the cattle. Then getting out a powerful binocular I rode up to a point whence I knew I could command a considerable sweep.
The ground was open on all sides, a thin thread of mimosa along some slight depression being the only sort of cover it afforded. Cresting a rise about three miles distant I made out a dark mass moving forward along our track, and that at a rapid rate.
At any other time this would have caused me little if any anxiety, but now we had had bother enough in all conscience. I didn’t want any more of it, but that the crowd behind was in pursuit of us there was no room for doubt. It was an armed band, for by the aid of the glasses I could make out the glint of assegais and the war shields that were carried.
I returned to the waggons but saw that the pace was as good as the oxen could be put to. The cattle were ahead, going well, but the drift was a good deal further on than I should have wished it to be. Of course there was no physically defensive advantage on the other side over this one, still a boundary is a great moral force; certainly was then while the boundary dispute was awaiting the award of the commission.
“We’ll get out the rifles and cartridges, Sewin,” I said—“and have them handy, but we won’t show them. Also sling on your revolver, on the same terms. There’s a crowd coming on fast on our track—what the deuce for I can’t make out. Still it’s as well to be prepared for emergencies.”
“Oh rather,” he assented, brisking up at the prospect of a row. “I think it’s about time we read Mr Zulu a lesson.”