Chapter Ten.

Chapter Ten.Falkner Pugnacious.“Well but—who are you? What’s your name? Ain’t ashamed of it, are you?”“Ashamed of it? I’ll darned soon let you know if I am or not, and teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head into the bargain.”Such was the dialogue that came to my ears very early on the morning following the events just recorded. The voices were right in front of my window and I chuckled, for I knew them both—knew one for that of my present host, the other for that of no less a personage than Falkner Sewin.I repeat, I chuckled, for there was a side of the situation which appealed to my sense of humour. Falkner Sewin’s temper and dignity alike were ruffled. There was going to be a row. Falkner had long wanted taking down a peg. It was highly probable that the said lowering process would now be effected.In about a moment I was at the window. The contending parties, by neither of whom was I observed, were drawn up in battle array. Falkner, who had apparently just arrived on horseback, had dismounted, and was advancing upon Kendrew in a sort of prize ring attitude. The latter for his part, simply stood and waited, his face wearing an expression of indifference that might be extremely provoking. No, I was not going to interfere—not yet. A little bloodletting would do Falkner no harm—or, for the matter of that, either of them.“Come on,” sung out the latter. “Come on, can’t you. Not afraid, are you?”“Not much. I’m waiting for you.”Then they went at it—hammer and tongs. Falkner had science—I could see that—but Kendrew was as hard as nails, and a precious tough customer to handle, and made up for his lack of science by consummate coolness; and with an eye keen as a hawk’s whenever he saw his chance, he confined himself so far to standing his ground, the while Falkner waltzed round him, for all the world like a dog on the seashore when yapping round some big crab which he doesn’t feel quite equal to closing in upon. For a little while I watched these manoeuvres in a state of semi-choke for stifled laughter, till they got to work in earnest, and then, by Jingo, it was no child’s play.“Time!” I sung out stentoriously. “Haven’t you two fellows pummelled each other enough?” I went on, appearing before the combatants. “What’s it all about, any way?”“Glanton—by the Lord!” ejaculated Falkner, startled, and, I fancied, looking a trifle ashamed of himself.“What’s it all about?” repeated Kendrew. “Well, you see, Glanton, I ain’t naturally a quarrelsome chap, but when a man comes onto my place, and begins upon me in a God Almighty ‘haw-haw’ sort of tone as ‘my good fellow’ and doesn’t even condescend to tell me who he is when asked, why it’s enough to get my back up, isn’t it?”I thought it was, but I wasn’t going to say so, and his allusion to “my place” made me smile.“Look here,” I said decisively. “This is all a misunderstanding. You didn’t know each other, now I’ll introduce you. Sewin, this is Kendrew, a very good fellow when you get to know him—Kendrew, this is Sewin, a very good fellow when you get to knowhim. Now shake hands.”And they did, but the expression upon each face was so comical that I could hardly keep from roaring, which would have upset the whole understanding; in that each would have felt more savage at being made ridiculous.“Well, if I’ve been uncivil I’ll not be above owning it,” said Kendrew. “So come inside Mr—Sewin, and we’ll have a drink and think no more about it.”“So we will,” growled Falkner, partly through his handkerchief, for he had undergone the bloodletting which I had told myself would be salutary in his case. However there was no harm done, and having roared for a boy to off-saddle, Kendrew led the way inside, on conviviality intent.“You’re early here, Sewin,” I said. “Where did you sleep?”“Sleep. In the blessed veldt. I called in at your place, but as far as I could make out your nigger said you’d gone to Helpmakaar. So I thought I’d go down to the river bank and try that place you pointed out to us for a buck, then call back later and have a shakedown with you when you come back.”Here Kendrew interrupted us by bellowing to his boy to put on a great deal of beefsteak to fry, and to hurry up with it. “After a night in the veldt you’ll be ready for breakfast, I should think,” he explained heartily.While we were at breakfast Falkner gave us a further outline of his doings. A mist had come up along the river bank, and in the result he had completely lost his bearings. Instead of taking his way back to my place he had wandered on in the opposite direction, tiring his horse and exasperating himself, as every high ridge surmounted only revealed a further one with a deep, rugged, bushy valley intervening. At last his horse had refused to go any further, and he had to make up his mind to lie by in the veldt and wait till morning.“The rum part of it was,” he went on, “I couldn’t have been very far from here—and you’d think a horse would have known by instinct there was a stable in front of him. Well, I, for one, am choked off belief in the marvellous instinct of horses, and all that sort of rot. This brute wasn’t tired either—he simply and flatly refused to go on.”“Where was that?” I said, now roused to considerable interest. “At least, I mean—was it far from here?”“No. I just said it wasn’t,” he answered, a little testily. “It was just where the path dives through a pile of red rocks—you would know it, Glanton. It’s like a sort of natural gateway. Well nothing on earth would induce that silly beast to go through there, and, d’you know, upon my soul I began to feel a bit creepy—remembering how the niggers have likely got a sort of grudge against me. So I thought after all, I’d better stay where I was and wait till morning—and—here I am.”“Well, it wouldn’t have been anybody laying for you, Sewin. You may make your mind easy on that point,” I said. “Possibly though, there may have been a snake, a big mamba perhaps, lying in the path just at that point—and your horse knew it. That’d be sufficient to hold him back.”“By Jove! I shouldn’t wonder,” he said. “Wish I could have glimpsed him though. A full charge of treble A would have rid this country of one snake at any rate.”Falkner’s experience had so exactly corresponded with my own as to impress me. While I had been held up in this eerie and mysterious manner on one side of the pile of rocks, the same thing had happened to him on the other, and, so far as I could make out, at just about the same time. Well, we would see if anything of the sort should befall us presently when we passed the spot in the broad light of day. The while the two late combatants had been discussing the disappearance of Hensley.“Rum thing to happen,” commented Falkner. “Ain’t you rather—well, uncomfortable, at times, here, all alone?”“Not me. You see my theory is that the poor old boy went off his nut and quietly wandered away somewhere and got into some hole, if not into the river. Now I’ve no idea of going off my nut, so I don’t feel in the least uncomfortable. In fact decidedly the reverse.”“Well but—what of the niggers?”Kendrew let go a jolly laugh.“They’re all right,” he said. “Let’s go and look at your gee, Glanton. Hope he’s still lame, so you can’t get on, then we’ll all three have a jolly day of it.”I, for one, knew we were destined to have nothing of the kind—not in the sense intended by Kendrew, that is—and I wanted to get home. Needless to say when my steed was led forth he walked with his usual elasticity, manifesting not the smallest sign of lameness.“That’s dashed odd,” commented Kendrew, after carefully examining the inside of every hoof and feeling each pastern. “Oh, well, he’s sure to begin limping directly you start, so you’d better give him another day to make sure.”But this I resisted, having my own reasons for making a start Falkner apparently had his too, for he was proof against the other’s pressing invitation to remain and make a day of it.“Well after all, you might get to punching each other’s heads again, and I not there to prevent it,” I said, jocularly. “Good-bye, Kendrew.”“Not half a bad chap that, after all,” said Falkner, as we rode along together.“No. And if you’d wait to find that out before going for people you’d get along much better in these parts,” I answered. And then I improved upon the occasion to read him a considerable lecture. To do him justice he took it very well.“Look,” he broke in. “It must have been just the other side of this that I got stuck last night.”I had not needed my attention to be drawn to the spot, for already, as we were approaching it I had been noting the behaviour of my horse. It was normal. Beyond a slight cocking of the ears we might as well have been traversing any other section of our path; indeed it was as though the strange interruption of last night had been a matter of sheer imagination, but for one consideration. Of the extraordinary and overwhelming effluvium which had poisoned the air then, there was now no longer a trace, and this disposed of the theory that anything dead had been lying thereabouts. Had such a cause been responsible for it, the air would not have cleared so quickly. No—Ukozi had played some trick upon me for some reason of his own, but—what was that reason? Even a witch doctor does not play the fool without some motive.“I believe your theory is the correct one, after all, Glanton,” interrupted my companion. “Depend upon it some big black beast of a mamba was stopping the way. Look. Here’s where I gave up.”“So I see,” I answered, for we had now got through to the other side of the ridge of rocks.“See? How?”“Spoor. Look. The dust is all disturbed and kicked about. Here’s where your gee refused.”“So it is. I see it now myself. What a cute chap you are, Glanton. Oh, and I say, Glanton—” after a momentary hesitation, “don’t let on to them at home about that little breeze I had with Kendrew down there, that’s a good chap.”I promised. This was his motive, then, in resolving to return with me? But it was not.“When are you going on that trading trip—into the Zulu country?” he went on.“In two or three weeks’ time,” I answered.“By Jove, but I would like to go with you. I’d like to make a little for myself. I want it all, I can tell you. But even that’s not the first consideration. I’d like to see those parts and gain some experience. You wouldn’t find me in the way, I promise you. I’d do every mortal thing you said—and keep out of ructions, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”“What about the farm?” I answered. “Your uncle isn’t equal to looking after it single handed.”“Oh, that might be arranged. That chap you sent us—Ivondwe—is worth his weight in gold—in fact I never would have believed such a thing as a trustworthy nigger existed, before he came.”Now I have already put on record that the last thing on earth I desired was Falkner’s company on the expedition I was planning—and the same still held good—and yet—and yet—he was Aïda Sewin’s relative and she seemed to take a great interest in him. Perhaps it was with an idea of pleasing her—or I wonder if it was a certain anxiety as to leaving this young man at her side while I was away myself, goodness knows, but the fact remains that before we reached my place he had extracted from me what was more than half a promise that I would entertain the idea.And this I knew, even then, was tantamount to an entire promise.

“Well but—who are you? What’s your name? Ain’t ashamed of it, are you?”

“Ashamed of it? I’ll darned soon let you know if I am or not, and teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head into the bargain.”

Such was the dialogue that came to my ears very early on the morning following the events just recorded. The voices were right in front of my window and I chuckled, for I knew them both—knew one for that of my present host, the other for that of no less a personage than Falkner Sewin.

I repeat, I chuckled, for there was a side of the situation which appealed to my sense of humour. Falkner Sewin’s temper and dignity alike were ruffled. There was going to be a row. Falkner had long wanted taking down a peg. It was highly probable that the said lowering process would now be effected.

In about a moment I was at the window. The contending parties, by neither of whom was I observed, were drawn up in battle array. Falkner, who had apparently just arrived on horseback, had dismounted, and was advancing upon Kendrew in a sort of prize ring attitude. The latter for his part, simply stood and waited, his face wearing an expression of indifference that might be extremely provoking. No, I was not going to interfere—not yet. A little bloodletting would do Falkner no harm—or, for the matter of that, either of them.

“Come on,” sung out the latter. “Come on, can’t you. Not afraid, are you?”

“Not much. I’m waiting for you.”

Then they went at it—hammer and tongs. Falkner had science—I could see that—but Kendrew was as hard as nails, and a precious tough customer to handle, and made up for his lack of science by consummate coolness; and with an eye keen as a hawk’s whenever he saw his chance, he confined himself so far to standing his ground, the while Falkner waltzed round him, for all the world like a dog on the seashore when yapping round some big crab which he doesn’t feel quite equal to closing in upon. For a little while I watched these manoeuvres in a state of semi-choke for stifled laughter, till they got to work in earnest, and then, by Jingo, it was no child’s play.

“Time!” I sung out stentoriously. “Haven’t you two fellows pummelled each other enough?” I went on, appearing before the combatants. “What’s it all about, any way?”

“Glanton—by the Lord!” ejaculated Falkner, startled, and, I fancied, looking a trifle ashamed of himself.

“What’s it all about?” repeated Kendrew. “Well, you see, Glanton, I ain’t naturally a quarrelsome chap, but when a man comes onto my place, and begins upon me in a God Almighty ‘haw-haw’ sort of tone as ‘my good fellow’ and doesn’t even condescend to tell me who he is when asked, why it’s enough to get my back up, isn’t it?”

I thought it was, but I wasn’t going to say so, and his allusion to “my place” made me smile.

“Look here,” I said decisively. “This is all a misunderstanding. You didn’t know each other, now I’ll introduce you. Sewin, this is Kendrew, a very good fellow when you get to know him—Kendrew, this is Sewin, a very good fellow when you get to knowhim. Now shake hands.”

And they did, but the expression upon each face was so comical that I could hardly keep from roaring, which would have upset the whole understanding; in that each would have felt more savage at being made ridiculous.

“Well, if I’ve been uncivil I’ll not be above owning it,” said Kendrew. “So come inside Mr—Sewin, and we’ll have a drink and think no more about it.”

“So we will,” growled Falkner, partly through his handkerchief, for he had undergone the bloodletting which I had told myself would be salutary in his case. However there was no harm done, and having roared for a boy to off-saddle, Kendrew led the way inside, on conviviality intent.

“You’re early here, Sewin,” I said. “Where did you sleep?”

“Sleep. In the blessed veldt. I called in at your place, but as far as I could make out your nigger said you’d gone to Helpmakaar. So I thought I’d go down to the river bank and try that place you pointed out to us for a buck, then call back later and have a shakedown with you when you come back.”

Here Kendrew interrupted us by bellowing to his boy to put on a great deal of beefsteak to fry, and to hurry up with it. “After a night in the veldt you’ll be ready for breakfast, I should think,” he explained heartily.

While we were at breakfast Falkner gave us a further outline of his doings. A mist had come up along the river bank, and in the result he had completely lost his bearings. Instead of taking his way back to my place he had wandered on in the opposite direction, tiring his horse and exasperating himself, as every high ridge surmounted only revealed a further one with a deep, rugged, bushy valley intervening. At last his horse had refused to go any further, and he had to make up his mind to lie by in the veldt and wait till morning.

“The rum part of it was,” he went on, “I couldn’t have been very far from here—and you’d think a horse would have known by instinct there was a stable in front of him. Well, I, for one, am choked off belief in the marvellous instinct of horses, and all that sort of rot. This brute wasn’t tired either—he simply and flatly refused to go on.”

“Where was that?” I said, now roused to considerable interest. “At least, I mean—was it far from here?”

“No. I just said it wasn’t,” he answered, a little testily. “It was just where the path dives through a pile of red rocks—you would know it, Glanton. It’s like a sort of natural gateway. Well nothing on earth would induce that silly beast to go through there, and, d’you know, upon my soul I began to feel a bit creepy—remembering how the niggers have likely got a sort of grudge against me. So I thought after all, I’d better stay where I was and wait till morning—and—here I am.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been anybody laying for you, Sewin. You may make your mind easy on that point,” I said. “Possibly though, there may have been a snake, a big mamba perhaps, lying in the path just at that point—and your horse knew it. That’d be sufficient to hold him back.”

“By Jove! I shouldn’t wonder,” he said. “Wish I could have glimpsed him though. A full charge of treble A would have rid this country of one snake at any rate.”

Falkner’s experience had so exactly corresponded with my own as to impress me. While I had been held up in this eerie and mysterious manner on one side of the pile of rocks, the same thing had happened to him on the other, and, so far as I could make out, at just about the same time. Well, we would see if anything of the sort should befall us presently when we passed the spot in the broad light of day. The while the two late combatants had been discussing the disappearance of Hensley.

“Rum thing to happen,” commented Falkner. “Ain’t you rather—well, uncomfortable, at times, here, all alone?”

“Not me. You see my theory is that the poor old boy went off his nut and quietly wandered away somewhere and got into some hole, if not into the river. Now I’ve no idea of going off my nut, so I don’t feel in the least uncomfortable. In fact decidedly the reverse.”

“Well but—what of the niggers?”

Kendrew let go a jolly laugh.

“They’re all right,” he said. “Let’s go and look at your gee, Glanton. Hope he’s still lame, so you can’t get on, then we’ll all three have a jolly day of it.”

I, for one, knew we were destined to have nothing of the kind—not in the sense intended by Kendrew, that is—and I wanted to get home. Needless to say when my steed was led forth he walked with his usual elasticity, manifesting not the smallest sign of lameness.

“That’s dashed odd,” commented Kendrew, after carefully examining the inside of every hoof and feeling each pastern. “Oh, well, he’s sure to begin limping directly you start, so you’d better give him another day to make sure.”

But this I resisted, having my own reasons for making a start Falkner apparently had his too, for he was proof against the other’s pressing invitation to remain and make a day of it.

“Well after all, you might get to punching each other’s heads again, and I not there to prevent it,” I said, jocularly. “Good-bye, Kendrew.”

“Not half a bad chap that, after all,” said Falkner, as we rode along together.

“No. And if you’d wait to find that out before going for people you’d get along much better in these parts,” I answered. And then I improved upon the occasion to read him a considerable lecture. To do him justice he took it very well.

“Look,” he broke in. “It must have been just the other side of this that I got stuck last night.”

I had not needed my attention to be drawn to the spot, for already, as we were approaching it I had been noting the behaviour of my horse. It was normal. Beyond a slight cocking of the ears we might as well have been traversing any other section of our path; indeed it was as though the strange interruption of last night had been a matter of sheer imagination, but for one consideration. Of the extraordinary and overwhelming effluvium which had poisoned the air then, there was now no longer a trace, and this disposed of the theory that anything dead had been lying thereabouts. Had such a cause been responsible for it, the air would not have cleared so quickly. No—Ukozi had played some trick upon me for some reason of his own, but—what was that reason? Even a witch doctor does not play the fool without some motive.

“I believe your theory is the correct one, after all, Glanton,” interrupted my companion. “Depend upon it some big black beast of a mamba was stopping the way. Look. Here’s where I gave up.”

“So I see,” I answered, for we had now got through to the other side of the ridge of rocks.

“See? How?”

“Spoor. Look. The dust is all disturbed and kicked about. Here’s where your gee refused.”

“So it is. I see it now myself. What a cute chap you are, Glanton. Oh, and I say, Glanton—” after a momentary hesitation, “don’t let on to them at home about that little breeze I had with Kendrew down there, that’s a good chap.”

I promised. This was his motive, then, in resolving to return with me? But it was not.

“When are you going on that trading trip—into the Zulu country?” he went on.

“In two or three weeks’ time,” I answered.

“By Jove, but I would like to go with you. I’d like to make a little for myself. I want it all, I can tell you. But even that’s not the first consideration. I’d like to see those parts and gain some experience. You wouldn’t find me in the way, I promise you. I’d do every mortal thing you said—and keep out of ructions, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

“What about the farm?” I answered. “Your uncle isn’t equal to looking after it single handed.”

“Oh, that might be arranged. That chap you sent us—Ivondwe—is worth his weight in gold—in fact I never would have believed such a thing as a trustworthy nigger existed, before he came.”

Now I have already put on record that the last thing on earth I desired was Falkner’s company on the expedition I was planning—and the same still held good—and yet—and yet—he was Aïda Sewin’s relative and she seemed to take a great interest in him. Perhaps it was with an idea of pleasing her—or I wonder if it was a certain anxiety as to leaving this young man at her side while I was away myself, goodness knows, but the fact remains that before we reached my place he had extracted from me what was more than half a promise that I would entertain the idea.

And this I knew, even then, was tantamount to an entire promise.

Chapter Eleven.A Farewell Visit.“Nyamaki has not returned?” queried Tyingoza, who, seated, in his accustomed place under the window of the store, had been taking snuff and chatting about things in general.“Not that I have heard of,” I answered. “I was at his place but a day or two back. Will he return, Tyingoza?”“And the young one—he who sits in Nyamaki’s place—does he think he will return?”What was the object of this answer turned into another question? What was in Tyingoza’s mind? However I replied:“He is inclined to think not. He thinks his relation has wandered away somewhere—perhaps into the river, and will never be heard of again.”“Ah! Into the river! Well, that might be, Iqalaqala. Into the river! The ways of you white people are strange,impela!”Tyingoza, you see, was enigmatical, but then he often was, especially if he thought I was trying to get behind his mind—as he put it. Clearly he was not going to commit himself to any definite opinion regarding the disappearing Hensley.“Ukozi is in these parts,” I went on.“Ukozi? Ha! I have not seen him. Did he visit you here?”“Not here,” I answered, with intent to be as enigmatical as himself.“Ukozi is a very lion amongizanusi. Why do not the white people get him to find Nyamaki?”“And the practice of anisanusiis not allowed by the white people. How then can they make use of such?” I said.The chief shrugged his shoulders slightly, and there was a humorous twinkle in his eyes.“It is as you say, Iqalaqala. Yet theirAmapolisecannot find him. You white people know a great deal, but you do not know everything.”“Now, Tyingoza, I would ask: What people does?”Then he laughed and so did I, and this was all I got out of my attempt at “pumping” Tyingoza. Yet, not quite all. That suggestion of his as to employing the witch doctor was destined to stick. Afterwards it was destined to come back to me with very great force indeed.Now I began to shut up the store, early in the day as it was, for I meant to go over to the Sewins. It would be almost my last visit: for the preparations for my trip were nearly complete and in two or three days I proposed to start. Moreover I had received a note from the old Major, couched in a reproachful vein on behalf of his family, to the effect that I was becoming quite a stranger of late, and so forth; all of which went to show that my plan of not giving them more of my company than I thought they could do with—had answered.“So you are goingkwa Zuludirectly?” said Tyingoza, as he took his leave. “And not alone. That is a pity.”He had never referred to Falkner’s practical joke. Now, of course, I thought he was referring to it.“Well, the boy is only a boy,” I answered. “I will keep him in order once over there, that I promise.”Again his eyes twinkled, as he bade me farewell with all his usual cordiality.Not much of this remark did I think, as I took my way down the now well worn bush path, but I own that the idea of employing Ukozi to throw light on the disappearance of Hensley, gave me something to think of—for as I have said before, I had reason to respect the powers claimed—and undoubtedly possessed—by many of his craft. I would put it to Kendrew. It was his affair not mine, and if anyone moved in the matter it should be he.There was an ominous stillness about the Sewins’ homestead as I approached, and I own to a feeling of considerable disappointment as the thought crossed my mind that the family was away, but reassurance succeeded in the shape of a large white dog, which came rushing furiously down the path, barking in right threatening fashion—only to change into little whines of delight and greeting as it recognised me. This was a factor in the Sewin household which I have hitherto omitted to introduce. He was one of the Campagna breed of sheep herding dogs, and was Aïda’s especial property, she having discovered him as a puppy during a tour in Italy. He was a remarkably handsome beast, pure white, and was of the size and strength of a wolf, to which he bore a strong family likeness. He had honoured me with his friendship from the very first—a mark of favour which he was by no means wont to bestow upon everybody, as his mistress was careful to point out.“Well, Arlo, old chap. Where are they all?” I said, as the dog trotted before my horse, turning to look back with an occasional friendly whine. As I drew rein in front of the stoep Falkner came forth, looking very handsome and athletic in his snowy linen suit, for it was hot.“Hallo Glanton, glad to see you,” he said, quite cordially, but in rather a subdued tone for him. “Come round and off-saddle. They’ll be out in a minute, they’re having prayers, you know. I slipped out when I heard your horse.”It was Sunday, and the Major, I remembered, made a point of reading the church service on that day: in the middle of which I had arrived.“Tell you what, old chap,” he went on. “I’m rather glad of the excuse. Beastly bore that sort of thing, don’t you know, but the old people wouldn’t like it if I were to cut.”“Only the old people?” I said.“No, the whole bilin’ of ’em. Life wouldn’t be worth living for the rest of the day if I didn’t cut in. So I do—just to please them all. See? Well, we’ll go and smoke a pipe till they come out.”Falkner had pulled out quite a genial stop to play upon for my benefit—but then, I had agreed to take him with me on the trip. On the subject of which he now waxed eloquent. Would we certainly be on the road by Wednesday, and was there anything he could do, and so forth? I was able to reassure him abundantly on these points, and his exuberant delight was like that of a schoolboy on the eve of the holidays, causing me to think to myself rather sadly, that were I in his shoes, with a home like this, and the society of sweet, refined English ladies for my daily portion, I would not be in the least eager to exchange it for the roughness and ups and downs of a trading trip and the kraals of savages. But then after all, there was a considerable difference in our years, and my experience was a good deal behind me, whereas his was not.Soon the family came out, and I was received with all the accustomed cordiality, and rather more. Why had I not been near them for so long, especially as I was about to go away for quite a considerable time, and so forth? I began to feel self-reproachful, as I thought of my motive, but it was not easy to find an excuse, the usual “rather busy,” and when I tried I could see Aïda Sewin’s clear eyes reading my face, and there was the faintest glimmer of a smile about her lips that seemed to say plainly: “I don’t believe a word of it.”“So you’re going to take this fellow with you after all, Glanton,” said the Major as we sat down to lunch. “Well, you’ll have a handful, by Jove you will! I hope you’ll keep him in order, that’s all.”“Oh he’ll be all right, Major,” I said. “And the experience won’t do him any harm either.”“Don’t you go trying any more experiments at the expense of the chiefs’ head-rings up there, Falkner,” said Edith, the younger girl.“Oh shut up,” growled Falkner. “That joke’s a precious stale one. I seem to be getting ‘jam and judicious advice’ all round, by Jove!”“Well, and you want it—at any rate the advice—only you never take it,” was the retort.“Nobody ever does, Miss Edith,” I said, coming to his rescue. “Advice is one of those commodities people estimate at its own cost—nothing to wit; and set the same value upon it.”“Now you’re cynical, Mr Glanton,” she answered, “and I don’t like cynical people.”“That’s a calamity, but believe me, I’m not naturally so. Why I rather set up for being a philanthropist,” I said.“You certainly are one, as we have every reason to know,” interposed her sister.I felt grateful but foolish, having no mind to be taken seriously. But before I could stutter forth any reply, which was bound to have been an idiotic one, she went on, tactfully:“For instance that boy you sent us—Ivondwe. Why he’s a treasure. Everything has gone right since he came. He can talk English, for one thing.”“Can he? That’s an accomplishment I should never have given him credit for, and I don’t know that it’s altogether a recommendation. You know, we don’t care for English-speaking natives. But you mustn’t talk it to him, Miss Sewin. You must talk to him in the vernacular. How are you getting on, by the way?”“Oh, indifferently. You might have given me a little more help, you know.”The reproach carried its own sting. Of course I might. What an ass I was to have thrown away such an opportunity.“Yes, he’s a first-rate boy, Glanton,” said the Major. “I don’t know what we should do without him now.”“You haven’t started in to punch his head yet, eh Falkner?” I said, banteringly, rather with the object of turning attention from my share in this acquisition.“The curious part of it is that Arlo won’t take to him,” went on Miss Sewin. “He’s on perfectly good terms with the other boys but he seems to hate this one. Not that Ivondwe isn’t kind to him. He tries all he can to make friends with him but it’s no good. Arlo won’t even take food from him. Now why is this?”“I’m afraid that’s beyond me,” I answered, “unless it is that the instinct of a dog, like that of a horse, isn’t quite so supernaturally accurate as we accustom ourselves to think.”This was a subject that was bound to start discussion, and animated at that—and soon I found myself in somewhat of a corner, the ladies, especially, waxing warm over the heretical insinuation I had made. Then the Major, drawing on his experiences as a cavalry officer, took my side on the subject of equine intelligence, or lack of it, and Falkner took up the impartial advocate line, and we were all very jolly and merry through it all, and certainly conversation did not lag.Lunch over, the Major announced his intention of having forty winks, and the rest of us adjourned to the stoep, and roomy cane chairs.“One thing I like about this country,” pronounced Falkner, when he had got a cigar in full blast, and was lounging luxuriously in a hammock—a form of recumbency I detest—“and that is that provided you’re in the shade you can always sit out of doors. Now in India you can’t. It’s a case of shaded rooms, andchiks, and a black beast swinging a punkah—whom you have to get up and kick every half-hour when he forgets to go on—till about sundown. Here it’s glorious.”I was inclined to share his opinion, and said so. At the same time there came into my mind the full consciousness that the glorification here lay in the peculiar circumstances of the case—to wit the presence and companionship of these two sweet and refined girls. The elder was in creamy white, relieved by a flower or two, which set off her soft dark beauty to perfection; the other was garbed in some light blue gossamer sort of arrangement which matched her eyes and went wonderfully with her golden hair, and ladies, if you want anything more definitely descriptive I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed, for what do I, Godfrey Glanton, trader in the Zulu, know about such awesome and wondrous mysteries? I only know—and that I do know—when anything appeals to me as perfect and not to be improved upon—and the picture which these two presented certainly did so appeal.Outside, the blaze of sunlight—rich, full, and golden, without being oppressive or overpowering—lay slumbrous upon the sheeny roll of foliage. Here and there the red face of a krantz gleamed like bronze, and away on a distant spur the dark ring of a native kraal sent upward its spiral of blue smoke. Bright winged little sugar birds flitted familiarly in and out among the passion flower creeper which helped to shade the stoep, quite unaffected by our presence and conversation—though half scared temporarily as a laugh would escape Falkner or myself. Striped butterflies hovered among the sunflowers in front, and the booming hum of large bees mingled with the shriller whizz of long-waisted hornets sailing in and out of their paper-like nests under the roof—and at these if they ventured too low, Arlo, whose graceful white form lay curled up beside his mistress’ chair, would now and again fling up his head with a vicious snap. The scene, the hour, was one of the most perfect and restful peace: little did we think, we who sat there, enjoying it to the full, what of horror and dread lay before us ere we should look upon such another.

“Nyamaki has not returned?” queried Tyingoza, who, seated, in his accustomed place under the window of the store, had been taking snuff and chatting about things in general.

“Not that I have heard of,” I answered. “I was at his place but a day or two back. Will he return, Tyingoza?”

“And the young one—he who sits in Nyamaki’s place—does he think he will return?”

What was the object of this answer turned into another question? What was in Tyingoza’s mind? However I replied:

“He is inclined to think not. He thinks his relation has wandered away somewhere—perhaps into the river, and will never be heard of again.”

“Ah! Into the river! Well, that might be, Iqalaqala. Into the river! The ways of you white people are strange,impela!”

Tyingoza, you see, was enigmatical, but then he often was, especially if he thought I was trying to get behind his mind—as he put it. Clearly he was not going to commit himself to any definite opinion regarding the disappearing Hensley.

“Ukozi is in these parts,” I went on.

“Ukozi? Ha! I have not seen him. Did he visit you here?”

“Not here,” I answered, with intent to be as enigmatical as himself.

“Ukozi is a very lion amongizanusi. Why do not the white people get him to find Nyamaki?”

“And the practice of anisanusiis not allowed by the white people. How then can they make use of such?” I said.

The chief shrugged his shoulders slightly, and there was a humorous twinkle in his eyes.

“It is as you say, Iqalaqala. Yet theirAmapolisecannot find him. You white people know a great deal, but you do not know everything.”

“Now, Tyingoza, I would ask: What people does?”

Then he laughed and so did I, and this was all I got out of my attempt at “pumping” Tyingoza. Yet, not quite all. That suggestion of his as to employing the witch doctor was destined to stick. Afterwards it was destined to come back to me with very great force indeed.

Now I began to shut up the store, early in the day as it was, for I meant to go over to the Sewins. It would be almost my last visit: for the preparations for my trip were nearly complete and in two or three days I proposed to start. Moreover I had received a note from the old Major, couched in a reproachful vein on behalf of his family, to the effect that I was becoming quite a stranger of late, and so forth; all of which went to show that my plan of not giving them more of my company than I thought they could do with—had answered.

“So you are goingkwa Zuludirectly?” said Tyingoza, as he took his leave. “And not alone. That is a pity.”

He had never referred to Falkner’s practical joke. Now, of course, I thought he was referring to it.

“Well, the boy is only a boy,” I answered. “I will keep him in order once over there, that I promise.”

Again his eyes twinkled, as he bade me farewell with all his usual cordiality.

Not much of this remark did I think, as I took my way down the now well worn bush path, but I own that the idea of employing Ukozi to throw light on the disappearance of Hensley, gave me something to think of—for as I have said before, I had reason to respect the powers claimed—and undoubtedly possessed—by many of his craft. I would put it to Kendrew. It was his affair not mine, and if anyone moved in the matter it should be he.

There was an ominous stillness about the Sewins’ homestead as I approached, and I own to a feeling of considerable disappointment as the thought crossed my mind that the family was away, but reassurance succeeded in the shape of a large white dog, which came rushing furiously down the path, barking in right threatening fashion—only to change into little whines of delight and greeting as it recognised me. This was a factor in the Sewin household which I have hitherto omitted to introduce. He was one of the Campagna breed of sheep herding dogs, and was Aïda’s especial property, she having discovered him as a puppy during a tour in Italy. He was a remarkably handsome beast, pure white, and was of the size and strength of a wolf, to which he bore a strong family likeness. He had honoured me with his friendship from the very first—a mark of favour which he was by no means wont to bestow upon everybody, as his mistress was careful to point out.

“Well, Arlo, old chap. Where are they all?” I said, as the dog trotted before my horse, turning to look back with an occasional friendly whine. As I drew rein in front of the stoep Falkner came forth, looking very handsome and athletic in his snowy linen suit, for it was hot.

“Hallo Glanton, glad to see you,” he said, quite cordially, but in rather a subdued tone for him. “Come round and off-saddle. They’ll be out in a minute, they’re having prayers, you know. I slipped out when I heard your horse.”

It was Sunday, and the Major, I remembered, made a point of reading the church service on that day: in the middle of which I had arrived.

“Tell you what, old chap,” he went on. “I’m rather glad of the excuse. Beastly bore that sort of thing, don’t you know, but the old people wouldn’t like it if I were to cut.”

“Only the old people?” I said.

“No, the whole bilin’ of ’em. Life wouldn’t be worth living for the rest of the day if I didn’t cut in. So I do—just to please them all. See? Well, we’ll go and smoke a pipe till they come out.”

Falkner had pulled out quite a genial stop to play upon for my benefit—but then, I had agreed to take him with me on the trip. On the subject of which he now waxed eloquent. Would we certainly be on the road by Wednesday, and was there anything he could do, and so forth? I was able to reassure him abundantly on these points, and his exuberant delight was like that of a schoolboy on the eve of the holidays, causing me to think to myself rather sadly, that were I in his shoes, with a home like this, and the society of sweet, refined English ladies for my daily portion, I would not be in the least eager to exchange it for the roughness and ups and downs of a trading trip and the kraals of savages. But then after all, there was a considerable difference in our years, and my experience was a good deal behind me, whereas his was not.

Soon the family came out, and I was received with all the accustomed cordiality, and rather more. Why had I not been near them for so long, especially as I was about to go away for quite a considerable time, and so forth? I began to feel self-reproachful, as I thought of my motive, but it was not easy to find an excuse, the usual “rather busy,” and when I tried I could see Aïda Sewin’s clear eyes reading my face, and there was the faintest glimmer of a smile about her lips that seemed to say plainly: “I don’t believe a word of it.”

“So you’re going to take this fellow with you after all, Glanton,” said the Major as we sat down to lunch. “Well, you’ll have a handful, by Jove you will! I hope you’ll keep him in order, that’s all.”

“Oh he’ll be all right, Major,” I said. “And the experience won’t do him any harm either.”

“Don’t you go trying any more experiments at the expense of the chiefs’ head-rings up there, Falkner,” said Edith, the younger girl.

“Oh shut up,” growled Falkner. “That joke’s a precious stale one. I seem to be getting ‘jam and judicious advice’ all round, by Jove!”

“Well, and you want it—at any rate the advice—only you never take it,” was the retort.

“Nobody ever does, Miss Edith,” I said, coming to his rescue. “Advice is one of those commodities people estimate at its own cost—nothing to wit; and set the same value upon it.”

“Now you’re cynical, Mr Glanton,” she answered, “and I don’t like cynical people.”

“That’s a calamity, but believe me, I’m not naturally so. Why I rather set up for being a philanthropist,” I said.

“You certainly are one, as we have every reason to know,” interposed her sister.

I felt grateful but foolish, having no mind to be taken seriously. But before I could stutter forth any reply, which was bound to have been an idiotic one, she went on, tactfully:

“For instance that boy you sent us—Ivondwe. Why he’s a treasure. Everything has gone right since he came. He can talk English, for one thing.”

“Can he? That’s an accomplishment I should never have given him credit for, and I don’t know that it’s altogether a recommendation. You know, we don’t care for English-speaking natives. But you mustn’t talk it to him, Miss Sewin. You must talk to him in the vernacular. How are you getting on, by the way?”

“Oh, indifferently. You might have given me a little more help, you know.”

The reproach carried its own sting. Of course I might. What an ass I was to have thrown away such an opportunity.

“Yes, he’s a first-rate boy, Glanton,” said the Major. “I don’t know what we should do without him now.”

“You haven’t started in to punch his head yet, eh Falkner?” I said, banteringly, rather with the object of turning attention from my share in this acquisition.

“The curious part of it is that Arlo won’t take to him,” went on Miss Sewin. “He’s on perfectly good terms with the other boys but he seems to hate this one. Not that Ivondwe isn’t kind to him. He tries all he can to make friends with him but it’s no good. Arlo won’t even take food from him. Now why is this?”

“I’m afraid that’s beyond me,” I answered, “unless it is that the instinct of a dog, like that of a horse, isn’t quite so supernaturally accurate as we accustom ourselves to think.”

This was a subject that was bound to start discussion, and animated at that—and soon I found myself in somewhat of a corner, the ladies, especially, waxing warm over the heretical insinuation I had made. Then the Major, drawing on his experiences as a cavalry officer, took my side on the subject of equine intelligence, or lack of it, and Falkner took up the impartial advocate line, and we were all very jolly and merry through it all, and certainly conversation did not lag.

Lunch over, the Major announced his intention of having forty winks, and the rest of us adjourned to the stoep, and roomy cane chairs.

“One thing I like about this country,” pronounced Falkner, when he had got a cigar in full blast, and was lounging luxuriously in a hammock—a form of recumbency I detest—“and that is that provided you’re in the shade you can always sit out of doors. Now in India you can’t. It’s a case of shaded rooms, andchiks, and a black beast swinging a punkah—whom you have to get up and kick every half-hour when he forgets to go on—till about sundown. Here it’s glorious.”

I was inclined to share his opinion, and said so. At the same time there came into my mind the full consciousness that the glorification here lay in the peculiar circumstances of the case—to wit the presence and companionship of these two sweet and refined girls. The elder was in creamy white, relieved by a flower or two, which set off her soft dark beauty to perfection; the other was garbed in some light blue gossamer sort of arrangement which matched her eyes and went wonderfully with her golden hair, and ladies, if you want anything more definitely descriptive I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed, for what do I, Godfrey Glanton, trader in the Zulu, know about such awesome and wondrous mysteries? I only know—and that I do know—when anything appeals to me as perfect and not to be improved upon—and the picture which these two presented certainly did so appeal.

Outside, the blaze of sunlight—rich, full, and golden, without being oppressive or overpowering—lay slumbrous upon the sheeny roll of foliage. Here and there the red face of a krantz gleamed like bronze, and away on a distant spur the dark ring of a native kraal sent upward its spiral of blue smoke. Bright winged little sugar birds flitted familiarly in and out among the passion flower creeper which helped to shade the stoep, quite unaffected by our presence and conversation—though half scared temporarily as a laugh would escape Falkner or myself. Striped butterflies hovered among the sunflowers in front, and the booming hum of large bees mingled with the shriller whizz of long-waisted hornets sailing in and out of their paper-like nests under the roof—and at these if they ventured too low, Arlo, whose graceful white form lay curled up beside his mistress’ chair, would now and again fling up his head with a vicious snap. The scene, the hour, was one of the most perfect and restful peace: little did we think, we who sat there, enjoying it to the full, what of horror and dread lay before us ere we should look upon such another.

Chapter Twelve.The Mystery of the Waterhole.Suddenly Arlo sprang up, barking furiously.“Shut up, you brute,” growled Falkner, for this sudden interruption had, as he put it, made him jump. But the dog heeded him not, as he sprang up and rushed down the steps still giving vehement tongue.“Be quiet, Arlo, do you hear!” ordered his mistress. “It’s only Ivondwe.”The calm clear voice commanded obedience where Falkner’s bluster did not. To the furious barking succeeded a series of threatening growls, not loud but deep. In the midst of which the innocent cause of the disturbance appeared, smiling, and as little perturbed by this sudden and rather formidable onslaught, as though it were a matter of an ordinary kraal cur.To the physiognomist this Ivondwe was a remarkably prepossessing native—rather handsome in the good-looking style of his race. He had a pleasant, open countenance, good-humoured withal, and when he smiled it would be hard to equal his display of magnificent white teeth. Though somewhat past his first youth and the owner of a couple of wives he did not wear the head-ring; for he was fond of earning money in doing spells of work for white men, such as waggon driving, or the sort of job on which he was now engaged: and this being so he held, and perhaps rightly, that the ring would not be exactly in keeping. I had known him well for some time and had always had a high opinion of him.Now he saluted, and addressing himself to Falkner, in very fair English, asked leave to go over to a neighbouring kraal after the cattle were in. There was a merrymaking there, on the strength of the wedding of someone or other of his numerous kinsfolk.“So, Ivondwe,” I said, in the vernacular, when he had got his answer. “So you speak with the tongue of the Amangisi, and I knew it not?”He laughed.“That is so, Iqalaqala,” he answered. “Yet it is well for Umsindo, who is long since tired of talking to deaf ones.Au! How shall he talk yonder—kwaMajendwa?”Umsindo, meaning a man who is given to swagger, was Falkner’s native name, though he didn’t know it.“That we shall see,” I said. “It may be that by then his tongue will have become loosened. But now, while he is away you must do well by these here. They treat you well, and their hands are very open—so open that soon you will be for building a new hut.”He laughed, and owned that such might indeed be the case. All the while the great white dog was walking up and down behind him, eyeing his calves and snarling malevolently.“The dog,” I went on. “He is very unfriendly towards you. Why?”“Who may say? The dogs of the white people are seldom friendly to us, and our dogs are seldom friendly to the whites. And this dog is very white.”I got out a large native snuff tube I always carried, and gave him some.“Come up to Isipanga before we start,” I said. “I have a present there for him who should serve these faithfully.”“You are my father, Iqalaqala,” and with this formula of thanks, he once more saluted and went his way.“What have you been talking about all this time?” said Edith Sewin. “By the way isn’t it extraordinary that Arlo won’t take to Ivondwe? Such a good boy as he is, too.”“Perhaps he’s a thundering great scoundrel at bottom,” said Falkner, “and Arlo’s instinct gets below the surface.”“Who’s a thundering great scoundrel at bottom, Falkner?” said Mrs Sewin’s voice in the doorway.“Eh. Oh come now, aunt. You mustn’t use these slang terms you know. Look, you’re shocking Glanton like anything.”“You’ll shock him more for an abominably rude boy who pokes fun at his elders,” laughed the old lady. “But come in now and have tea. What a lovely afternoon it is—but a trifle drowsy.”“Meaning that somebody’s been asleep,” rejoined Falkner mischievously, climbing out of his hammock. “Oh well. So it is. Let’s go for a stroll presently or we shall all be going to sleep. Might take the fishing lines and see what we can get out of the waterhole.”“Fishing lines? And it’s Sunday,” said Mrs Sewin, who was old fashioned.“Oh I forgot. Never mind the lines. We can souse Arlo in and teach him to dive.”“We can do nothing of the kind,” said Arlo’s owner, decisively. “He came within an ace of splitting his poor dear head the last time you threw him in, and from such a height too. What do you think of that, Mr Glanton?” turning to me. And then she gave me the story of how Falkner had taken advantage of the too obedient and confiding Arlo—and of course I sympathised.When we got fairly under way for our stroll—I had some difficulty by the bye in out-manoeuvring the Major’s efforts to keep me pottering about listening to his schemes as to his hobby—the garden to wit—the heat of the day had given place to the most perfect part of the same, the glow of the waning afternoon, when the sun is but one hour or so off his disappearance. We sauntered along a winding bush path, perforce in single file, and soon, when this widened, I don’t know how, but I found myself walking beside Miss Sewin.I believe I was rather silent. The fact is, reason myself out of it as I would, I was not in the least anxious to leave home, and now that it had come to the point would have welcomed any excuse to have thrown up the trip. Yet I was not a millionaire—very far from it—consequently money had to be made somehow, and here was a chance of making quite a tidy bit—making it too, in a way that to myself was easy, and absolutely congenial. Yet I would have shirked it. Why?“What is preoccupying your thoughts to such an alarming extent,” said my companion, flashing at me a smile in which lurked a spice of mischief. “Is it the cares and perils of your expedition—or what?”“By Jove—I must apologise. You must find me very dull, Miss Sewin,” I answered, throwing off my preoccupation as with an effort. “The fact is I believe I was thinking of something of the kind—ruling out the ‘perils.’ Do you know, I believe you’ve all been rather spoiling me here—spoiling me, I mean, for—well, for my ordinary life. But—anyhow, the memory of the times I have known lately—of days like this for instance—will be something to have with one, wherever one is.”I was stopped by a surprised look in her face. Her eyes had opened somewhat, as I had delivered myself of the above rather lame declamation. Yet I had spoken with quite an unwonted degree of warmth, when contrasted with my ordinary laconic way of expressing myself. “Good Lord!” I thought, “I seem to be getting sentimental. No wonder she thinks I’ve got softening of the brain.”But if she thought so she gave no sign of anything of the sort. On the contrary her tone was kind and sympathetic, as she said:“Strange how little we can enter into the lives of others. Now yours, I suppose, is lonely enough at times.”“Oh, I’ve nothing to complain of,” I answered with a laugh, anxious to dispel any impression of sentimentality which my former words and tone might have set up. “I started on this sort of life young, and have been at it in one way or another ever since. It hasn’t used me badly, either.”She looked at me, with that straight, clear glance, and again a little smile that was rather enigmatical, hovered around her lips. But before she could say anything, even if she had intended to, Falkner’s voice was raised in front.“Wake up, Aïda, and come along. I’m just going to heave Arlo in.”“No. You’re not to,” she cried hurrying forward.The others had already reached the waterhole, and there was Falkner, on the rock brink, holding on to Arlo, grinning mischievously. The dog was licking his hands, and whining softly, his tail agitating in deprecatory wags. He wasn’t in the least anxious for the plunge—and speaking personally I should have been uncommonly sorry to have undertaken to make him take it against his will, but then Falkner was one of the family. Now there was a half playful scrimmage between him and his cousin, in the result of which Arlo was rescued from taking what really was rather a high leap, and frisked and gambolled around us in delight.This waterhole or pool, was rather a curious one. It filled a cup-like basin about twenty-five yards across, surrounded by precipitous rocks save at the lower end, and here, overflowing, it trickled down to join the Tugela, about half a mile distant. It was fed from a spring from above, which flowed down a gully thickly festooned with maidenhair fern. Where we now stood, viz. at the highest point, there was a sheer drop of about twenty feet to the surface of the water—a high leap for a dog, though this one had done it two or three times and had come to no harm. The hole was of considerable depth, and right in the centre rose a flat-headed rock. It was a curious waterhole, as I said, and quite unique, and I more than suspected, though I could never get anything definite out of them, that the natives honoured it with some sort of superstitious regard. Incidentally it held plenty of coarse fish, of no great size, likewise stupendous eels—item of course mud-turtles galore.“Hie in, old dog! Hie in!” cried Falkner.But Arlo had no intention whatever of “hie-ing in,” being in that sense very much of an “old dog.” He barked in response and frisked and wagged his tail, the while keeping well beyond reach of Falkners treacherous grasp.“Rum place this, Glanton,” said the latter. “I wonder there ain’t any crocs in it.”“How do you know there are not?” I said.“Oh hang it, what d’you mean? Why we’ve swum here often enough, haven’t we?”“Not very. Still—it’s jolly deep you know. There may be underground tunnels, connecting it with anywhere?”“Oh hang it. I never thought of that. What a chap you are for putting one off a thing, Glanton.”“I never said there were, mind. I only suggested the possibility.”He raised himself on one elbow, and his then occupation—shying stones at every mud-turtle that showed an unwary head—was suspended.“By Jove! Are there any holes like this round Hensley’s place?” he said earnestly.“Not any,” I answered. “This one is unique; hence its curiosity.”“Because, if there were, that might account for where the old chap’s got to. Underground tunnels! I never thought of that, by Jove. What d’you think of that, Edith? Supposing you were having a quiet swim here, and some jolly croc grabbed you by the leg and lugged you into one of those underground tunnels Glanton says there are. Eh?” grinned Falkner, who was fond of teasing his cousins.“I wouldn’t be having a quiet swim in it, for one thing. I think it’s a horrid place,” answered the girl, while I for my part, mildly disclaimed having made any such statement as that which he had attributed to me.“Bosh!” he declared. “Why you can take splendid headers from the middle rock there. Oh—good Lord!”The exclamation was forcible, and to it was appended a sort of amazed gasp from all who saw. And in truth I was not the least amazed of the lot. For there was a disturbance in the depths of the pool. One glimpse of something smooth, and sinuous, and shiny—something huge, and certainly horrible—was all we obtained, as not even breaking the surface to which it rose, the thing, whatever it might be—sank away from sight.“What was it?”“Can’t say for certain,” I said, replying to the general query. “It didn’t come up high enough to take any shape at all. It might have been a big python lying at the bottom of the hole, and concluding it had lain there long enough came up, when the sight of us scared it down again. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a crocodile.”“Tell you what, Glanton. You don’t catch me taking any more headers in there again in a hurry,” said Falkner. “Ugh! If we’d only known!”“There is prestige in the unknown,” I said. “It may be something quite harmless—some big lizard, or a harmless snake.”“Well it’s dashed odd we should just have been talking of that very sort of thing,” said the Major. “Let’s keep quiet now and watch, and see if it comes up again.”We did, but nothing came of it. Indeed if I alone had seen the thing I should have distrusted my senses, should have thought my imagination was playing me false. But they had all seen it.“I shall come down here again with the rifle and watch for an hour or two a day,” said Falkner. “Or how would it be to try bait for the beast, whatever it is—eh, Glanton?”“Well you might try to-morrow. Otherwise there isn’t much time,” I answered. “We trek on Wednesday, remember.”Now all hands having grown tired of sitting there, on the watch for what didn’t appear, a homeward move was suggested, and duly carried out. We had covered a good part of the distance when Miss Sewin made a discovery, and an unpleasant one. A gold coin which was wont to hang on her watch chain had disappeared.“I must go back,” she said. “I wouldn’t lose that coin for anything. You know, Mr Glanton, I have a superstition about it.”She went on to explain that she had it at the time we had seen the disturbance in the waterhole so that it must have come off on the way down, even if not actually while we were on the rocks up there. Of course I offered to go back and find it for her, but she would not hear of it. She must go herself, and equally of course I couldn’t let her go alone. Would I if I could? Well, my only fear was that Falkner would offer his escort. But he did not, only suggesting that as it was late it was not worth while bothering about the thing to-night. He would be sure to find it in the morning when he came up with a rifle to try and investigate the mystery of the pool. But she would not hear of this. She insisted on going back, and—I was jubilant.I knew the coin well by sight. It was of heavy unalloyed gold, thickly stamped with an inscription in Arabic characters. But, as we took our way along the bush path, expecting every moment to catch the gleam of it amid the dust and stones, nothing of the sort rewarded our search, and finally we came to the rocks at the head of the pool.“This is extraordinary and more than disappointing,” she said, as a hurried glance around showed no sign of the missing coin. “I know I had it on here because I was fingering it while we were looking at the water. I wouldn’t have lost it for anything. What can have become of it, Mr Glanton? Do you think it can have fallen into the water?”“That, of course, isn’t impossible,” I said. “But—let’s have another search.”I was bending down with a view to commencing this, when a cry from Aïda arrested me.“Oh, there it is. Look.”She was standing on the brink of the rocks where they were at their highest above water, peering over. Quickly I was at her side, and following her glance could make out something that glittered. It was in a crevice about five feet below, but as for being able to make it out for certain, why we could not. The crevice was narrow and dark.“I think I can get at that,” I said, having taken in the potentialities of hand and foothold.“No—no,” she answered. “I won’t have it. What if you were to fall into the water—after what we have just seen? No. Leave it till to-morrow, and bring a rope.”This was absolutely sound sense, but I’ll own to a sort of swagger, show-off, inclination coming into my mind. The climb down was undoubtedly risky, but it would be on her account.“As to that,” I answered with a laugh, “even if I were to tumble in, I should make such an almighty splash as to scare the father of all crocodiles, or whatever it is down there. By the time he’d recovered I should be out again on the other side.”“Don’t risk it,” she repeated earnestly. “Leave it till to-morrow. With a longreimyou can easily get down.”But I was already partly over the rock. In another moment I should have been completely so, with the almost certain result, as I now began to realise, of tumbling headlong into the pool below, when a diversion occurred. Arlo, who had been lying at his mistress’ feet, now sprang up, and charged furiously at the nearest line of bush, barking and growling like mad.

Suddenly Arlo sprang up, barking furiously.

“Shut up, you brute,” growled Falkner, for this sudden interruption had, as he put it, made him jump. But the dog heeded him not, as he sprang up and rushed down the steps still giving vehement tongue.

“Be quiet, Arlo, do you hear!” ordered his mistress. “It’s only Ivondwe.”

The calm clear voice commanded obedience where Falkner’s bluster did not. To the furious barking succeeded a series of threatening growls, not loud but deep. In the midst of which the innocent cause of the disturbance appeared, smiling, and as little perturbed by this sudden and rather formidable onslaught, as though it were a matter of an ordinary kraal cur.

To the physiognomist this Ivondwe was a remarkably prepossessing native—rather handsome in the good-looking style of his race. He had a pleasant, open countenance, good-humoured withal, and when he smiled it would be hard to equal his display of magnificent white teeth. Though somewhat past his first youth and the owner of a couple of wives he did not wear the head-ring; for he was fond of earning money in doing spells of work for white men, such as waggon driving, or the sort of job on which he was now engaged: and this being so he held, and perhaps rightly, that the ring would not be exactly in keeping. I had known him well for some time and had always had a high opinion of him.

Now he saluted, and addressing himself to Falkner, in very fair English, asked leave to go over to a neighbouring kraal after the cattle were in. There was a merrymaking there, on the strength of the wedding of someone or other of his numerous kinsfolk.

“So, Ivondwe,” I said, in the vernacular, when he had got his answer. “So you speak with the tongue of the Amangisi, and I knew it not?”

He laughed.

“That is so, Iqalaqala,” he answered. “Yet it is well for Umsindo, who is long since tired of talking to deaf ones.Au! How shall he talk yonder—kwaMajendwa?”

Umsindo, meaning a man who is given to swagger, was Falkner’s native name, though he didn’t know it.

“That we shall see,” I said. “It may be that by then his tongue will have become loosened. But now, while he is away you must do well by these here. They treat you well, and their hands are very open—so open that soon you will be for building a new hut.”

He laughed, and owned that such might indeed be the case. All the while the great white dog was walking up and down behind him, eyeing his calves and snarling malevolently.

“The dog,” I went on. “He is very unfriendly towards you. Why?”

“Who may say? The dogs of the white people are seldom friendly to us, and our dogs are seldom friendly to the whites. And this dog is very white.”

I got out a large native snuff tube I always carried, and gave him some.

“Come up to Isipanga before we start,” I said. “I have a present there for him who should serve these faithfully.”

“You are my father, Iqalaqala,” and with this formula of thanks, he once more saluted and went his way.

“What have you been talking about all this time?” said Edith Sewin. “By the way isn’t it extraordinary that Arlo won’t take to Ivondwe? Such a good boy as he is, too.”

“Perhaps he’s a thundering great scoundrel at bottom,” said Falkner, “and Arlo’s instinct gets below the surface.”

“Who’s a thundering great scoundrel at bottom, Falkner?” said Mrs Sewin’s voice in the doorway.

“Eh. Oh come now, aunt. You mustn’t use these slang terms you know. Look, you’re shocking Glanton like anything.”

“You’ll shock him more for an abominably rude boy who pokes fun at his elders,” laughed the old lady. “But come in now and have tea. What a lovely afternoon it is—but a trifle drowsy.”

“Meaning that somebody’s been asleep,” rejoined Falkner mischievously, climbing out of his hammock. “Oh well. So it is. Let’s go for a stroll presently or we shall all be going to sleep. Might take the fishing lines and see what we can get out of the waterhole.”

“Fishing lines? And it’s Sunday,” said Mrs Sewin, who was old fashioned.

“Oh I forgot. Never mind the lines. We can souse Arlo in and teach him to dive.”

“We can do nothing of the kind,” said Arlo’s owner, decisively. “He came within an ace of splitting his poor dear head the last time you threw him in, and from such a height too. What do you think of that, Mr Glanton?” turning to me. And then she gave me the story of how Falkner had taken advantage of the too obedient and confiding Arlo—and of course I sympathised.

When we got fairly under way for our stroll—I had some difficulty by the bye in out-manoeuvring the Major’s efforts to keep me pottering about listening to his schemes as to his hobby—the garden to wit—the heat of the day had given place to the most perfect part of the same, the glow of the waning afternoon, when the sun is but one hour or so off his disappearance. We sauntered along a winding bush path, perforce in single file, and soon, when this widened, I don’t know how, but I found myself walking beside Miss Sewin.

I believe I was rather silent. The fact is, reason myself out of it as I would, I was not in the least anxious to leave home, and now that it had come to the point would have welcomed any excuse to have thrown up the trip. Yet I was not a millionaire—very far from it—consequently money had to be made somehow, and here was a chance of making quite a tidy bit—making it too, in a way that to myself was easy, and absolutely congenial. Yet I would have shirked it. Why?

“What is preoccupying your thoughts to such an alarming extent,” said my companion, flashing at me a smile in which lurked a spice of mischief. “Is it the cares and perils of your expedition—or what?”

“By Jove—I must apologise. You must find me very dull, Miss Sewin,” I answered, throwing off my preoccupation as with an effort. “The fact is I believe I was thinking of something of the kind—ruling out the ‘perils.’ Do you know, I believe you’ve all been rather spoiling me here—spoiling me, I mean, for—well, for my ordinary life. But—anyhow, the memory of the times I have known lately—of days like this for instance—will be something to have with one, wherever one is.”

I was stopped by a surprised look in her face. Her eyes had opened somewhat, as I had delivered myself of the above rather lame declamation. Yet I had spoken with quite an unwonted degree of warmth, when contrasted with my ordinary laconic way of expressing myself. “Good Lord!” I thought, “I seem to be getting sentimental. No wonder she thinks I’ve got softening of the brain.”

But if she thought so she gave no sign of anything of the sort. On the contrary her tone was kind and sympathetic, as she said:

“Strange how little we can enter into the lives of others. Now yours, I suppose, is lonely enough at times.”

“Oh, I’ve nothing to complain of,” I answered with a laugh, anxious to dispel any impression of sentimentality which my former words and tone might have set up. “I started on this sort of life young, and have been at it in one way or another ever since. It hasn’t used me badly, either.”

She looked at me, with that straight, clear glance, and again a little smile that was rather enigmatical, hovered around her lips. But before she could say anything, even if she had intended to, Falkner’s voice was raised in front.

“Wake up, Aïda, and come along. I’m just going to heave Arlo in.”

“No. You’re not to,” she cried hurrying forward.

The others had already reached the waterhole, and there was Falkner, on the rock brink, holding on to Arlo, grinning mischievously. The dog was licking his hands, and whining softly, his tail agitating in deprecatory wags. He wasn’t in the least anxious for the plunge—and speaking personally I should have been uncommonly sorry to have undertaken to make him take it against his will, but then Falkner was one of the family. Now there was a half playful scrimmage between him and his cousin, in the result of which Arlo was rescued from taking what really was rather a high leap, and frisked and gambolled around us in delight.

This waterhole or pool, was rather a curious one. It filled a cup-like basin about twenty-five yards across, surrounded by precipitous rocks save at the lower end, and here, overflowing, it trickled down to join the Tugela, about half a mile distant. It was fed from a spring from above, which flowed down a gully thickly festooned with maidenhair fern. Where we now stood, viz. at the highest point, there was a sheer drop of about twenty feet to the surface of the water—a high leap for a dog, though this one had done it two or three times and had come to no harm. The hole was of considerable depth, and right in the centre rose a flat-headed rock. It was a curious waterhole, as I said, and quite unique, and I more than suspected, though I could never get anything definite out of them, that the natives honoured it with some sort of superstitious regard. Incidentally it held plenty of coarse fish, of no great size, likewise stupendous eels—item of course mud-turtles galore.

“Hie in, old dog! Hie in!” cried Falkner.

But Arlo had no intention whatever of “hie-ing in,” being in that sense very much of an “old dog.” He barked in response and frisked and wagged his tail, the while keeping well beyond reach of Falkners treacherous grasp.

“Rum place this, Glanton,” said the latter. “I wonder there ain’t any crocs in it.”

“How do you know there are not?” I said.

“Oh hang it, what d’you mean? Why we’ve swum here often enough, haven’t we?”

“Not very. Still—it’s jolly deep you know. There may be underground tunnels, connecting it with anywhere?”

“Oh hang it. I never thought of that. What a chap you are for putting one off a thing, Glanton.”

“I never said there were, mind. I only suggested the possibility.”

He raised himself on one elbow, and his then occupation—shying stones at every mud-turtle that showed an unwary head—was suspended.

“By Jove! Are there any holes like this round Hensley’s place?” he said earnestly.

“Not any,” I answered. “This one is unique; hence its curiosity.”

“Because, if there were, that might account for where the old chap’s got to. Underground tunnels! I never thought of that, by Jove. What d’you think of that, Edith? Supposing you were having a quiet swim here, and some jolly croc grabbed you by the leg and lugged you into one of those underground tunnels Glanton says there are. Eh?” grinned Falkner, who was fond of teasing his cousins.

“I wouldn’t be having a quiet swim in it, for one thing. I think it’s a horrid place,” answered the girl, while I for my part, mildly disclaimed having made any such statement as that which he had attributed to me.

“Bosh!” he declared. “Why you can take splendid headers from the middle rock there. Oh—good Lord!”

The exclamation was forcible, and to it was appended a sort of amazed gasp from all who saw. And in truth I was not the least amazed of the lot. For there was a disturbance in the depths of the pool. One glimpse of something smooth, and sinuous, and shiny—something huge, and certainly horrible—was all we obtained, as not even breaking the surface to which it rose, the thing, whatever it might be—sank away from sight.

“What was it?”

“Can’t say for certain,” I said, replying to the general query. “It didn’t come up high enough to take any shape at all. It might have been a big python lying at the bottom of the hole, and concluding it had lain there long enough came up, when the sight of us scared it down again. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a crocodile.”

“Tell you what, Glanton. You don’t catch me taking any more headers in there again in a hurry,” said Falkner. “Ugh! If we’d only known!”

“There is prestige in the unknown,” I said. “It may be something quite harmless—some big lizard, or a harmless snake.”

“Well it’s dashed odd we should just have been talking of that very sort of thing,” said the Major. “Let’s keep quiet now and watch, and see if it comes up again.”

We did, but nothing came of it. Indeed if I alone had seen the thing I should have distrusted my senses, should have thought my imagination was playing me false. But they had all seen it.

“I shall come down here again with the rifle and watch for an hour or two a day,” said Falkner. “Or how would it be to try bait for the beast, whatever it is—eh, Glanton?”

“Well you might try to-morrow. Otherwise there isn’t much time,” I answered. “We trek on Wednesday, remember.”

Now all hands having grown tired of sitting there, on the watch for what didn’t appear, a homeward move was suggested, and duly carried out. We had covered a good part of the distance when Miss Sewin made a discovery, and an unpleasant one. A gold coin which was wont to hang on her watch chain had disappeared.

“I must go back,” she said. “I wouldn’t lose that coin for anything. You know, Mr Glanton, I have a superstition about it.”

She went on to explain that she had it at the time we had seen the disturbance in the waterhole so that it must have come off on the way down, even if not actually while we were on the rocks up there. Of course I offered to go back and find it for her, but she would not hear of it. She must go herself, and equally of course I couldn’t let her go alone. Would I if I could? Well, my only fear was that Falkner would offer his escort. But he did not, only suggesting that as it was late it was not worth while bothering about the thing to-night. He would be sure to find it in the morning when he came up with a rifle to try and investigate the mystery of the pool. But she would not hear of this. She insisted on going back, and—I was jubilant.

I knew the coin well by sight. It was of heavy unalloyed gold, thickly stamped with an inscription in Arabic characters. But, as we took our way along the bush path, expecting every moment to catch the gleam of it amid the dust and stones, nothing of the sort rewarded our search, and finally we came to the rocks at the head of the pool.

“This is extraordinary and more than disappointing,” she said, as a hurried glance around showed no sign of the missing coin. “I know I had it on here because I was fingering it while we were looking at the water. I wouldn’t have lost it for anything. What can have become of it, Mr Glanton? Do you think it can have fallen into the water?”

“That, of course, isn’t impossible,” I said. “But—let’s have another search.”

I was bending down with a view to commencing this, when a cry from Aïda arrested me.

“Oh, there it is. Look.”

She was standing on the brink of the rocks where they were at their highest above water, peering over. Quickly I was at her side, and following her glance could make out something that glittered. It was in a crevice about five feet below, but as for being able to make it out for certain, why we could not. The crevice was narrow and dark.

“I think I can get at that,” I said, having taken in the potentialities of hand and foothold.

“No—no,” she answered. “I won’t have it. What if you were to fall into the water—after what we have just seen? No. Leave it till to-morrow, and bring a rope.”

This was absolutely sound sense, but I’ll own to a sort of swagger, show-off, inclination coming into my mind. The climb down was undoubtedly risky, but it would be on her account.

“As to that,” I answered with a laugh, “even if I were to tumble in, I should make such an almighty splash as to scare the father of all crocodiles, or whatever it is down there. By the time he’d recovered I should be out again on the other side.”

“Don’t risk it,” she repeated earnestly. “Leave it till to-morrow. With a longreimyou can easily get down.”

But I was already partly over the rock. In another moment I should have been completely so, with the almost certain result, as I now began to realise, of tumbling headlong into the pool below, when a diversion occurred. Arlo, who had been lying at his mistress’ feet, now sprang up, and charged furiously at the nearest line of bush, barking and growling like mad.

Chapter Thirteen.The Incident of the Lost Coin.The dog stopped short, hackles erect, and fangs bared, emitting a series of deep-toned growls which to the object of his hostility should have been disconcerting, to put it mildly. But, somehow, he seemed disinclined to pursue his investigations to the bitter end. This was strange.“What can it be?” was the thought in my own mind simultaneous with the voiced query of my companion.Natives—Ivondwe excepted—were wont to hold Arlo in respect, not to say awe, upon first acquaintance. The one who now made his appearance, betrayed no sign of any such feeling, as he came towards us. Yet he was armed with nothing more reliable than a slender redwood stick. He came forward, deliberately, with firm step, as though no aroused and formidable beast were threatening him with a very sharp and gleaming pair of jaws, the sun glinting upon his head-ring and shining bronze frame, came forward and saluted. Then I noticed—we both noticed—that he had only one eye.“Ha—Ukozi. I see you—see you again,” I observed, in greeting.“Inkosikazi!” he uttered, saluting my companion.What struck me at that moment was the behaviour of the dog. Instead of rushing in upon the new arrival, and putting him vigorously on the defensive until called off, as was his way, he seemed concerned to keep his distance, and while still growling and snarling in deep-toned mutter I could detect in his tone an unmistakable note of fear. This too was strange.“Who is he?” said Miss Sewin, as the newcomer placidly squatted himself. “Is he a chief?”“Something bigger perhaps,” I answered. “He’s a witch doctor.”“What? A witch doctor?” her eyes brightening with interest. “I thought witch doctors were horrid shrivelled old creatures who wore all sorts of disgusting things as charms and amulets.”“Most of them do, and so would this one when he’s plying his trade in earnest. Yet he’s about the biggest witch doctor along this border, and his fame extends to Zululand as well.”“Ah!” as an idea struck her. “Now here’s a chance for him to keep up his reputation. I wonder if he could find my coin.”As we both knew where it was—or indeed in any case—the opportunity seemed not a bad one. But I said:“You must remember, Miss Sewin, that native doctors, like white ones, don’t practice for nothing, and often on the same terms. What if this one should ask as the price of his services—no—professional attendance, shouldn’t it be?—a great deal more than the lost article’s worth?”“Don’t let him. But in any case I don’t believe he has the ghost of a chance of finding it.”“Don’t you be too sure,” I said. And then, before I could open upon him on the subject Ukozi opened on me on another.“Nyamaki is not home again, Iqalaqala?”I was beginning to get sick of the disappearing Hensley by that time, so I answered shortly:“Not yet.”“Ha! The Queen cannot do everything, then. You did not go home that night, Iqalaqala?”“I did not. Yourmútiis great, Ukozi—great enough to stop a horse.”“Múti! Who talks ofmúti? I did but foresee. And Umsindo? He, too, did not reach Nyamaki’s house that night?”“No.”“What is in the water yonder?” he went on, bending over to look into the pool, for he had squatted himself very near its brink. “It moves.”Both of us followed his gaze, instinctively, eagerly. And by Jove! as we looked, there arose the same disturbance, the same unwinding of what seemed like a shining sinuous coil, yet taking no definite shape. Again it sank, as it had risen, and a hiss of seething bubbles, and the circling rings radiating to the sides, alone bore witness to what had happened.“I declare it’s rather uncanny,” said my companion. “Does he know what it is? Ask him.”I put it to Ukozi. We had swum there several times, dived deep down too, nearly to the bottom, deep as it was, yet we had never been disturbed by anything. Only to-day, before his arrival, had we seen this thing for the first time—and that only once. He echoed my words, or part of them.“Nearly to the bottom! But this place has no bottom.”“Now you forget, father of mystery,” I said, knowingly. “It has, for we have sounded it, with a piece of lead at the end of a line.”He looked amused, shaking his head softly.“Yet, it is as I say,” he answered. “It has no bottom.”Rapidly I gave Miss Sewin the burden of our conversation, and she looked puzzled. The while, Arlo, crouching a few yards off, was eyeing the witch doctor strangely, uttering low growls which deepened every time he made a movement, and still, beneath the sound I could always detect that same note of fear.“What is in the water down there, Ukozi?” I said. “Not a crocodile. What then?”He was in no hurry to reply. He took snuff.“Who may tell?” he answered, having completed that important operation. “Yet, Iqalaqala, are you still inclined—you and Umsindo—to continue swimming there, and diving nearly to the bottom—ah-ah! nearly to the bottom?”He had put his head on one side and was gazing at me with that expression of good-humoured mockery which a native knows so well how to assume. I, for my part, was owning to myself that it would take a very strong motive indeed to induce me to adventure my carcase again within the alluring depths of that confoundedtagatipool, for so it now seemed. Moreover I knew I should get no definite enlightenment from him—at any rate that day—so thought I might just as well try him on the subject of Miss Sewin’s loss. But as I was about to put it to him he began:“That which you seek is not down there.”“Not down there?” I echoed. “But, what do we seek, father of the wise?”“It shines.”The thing was simple. He had found it and planted it somewhere, with a view to acquiring additional repute, and—incidentally—remuneration.“I think we shall recover your coin, Miss Sewin,” I said.“Ah. He can find it for us then? If he does I shall become quite a convert to witch doctorism, for want of a better word.”“You will see. Now, Ukozi. Where is that which we seek?”“Au! It shines—like the sun. To find it something else that shines will be necessary. Something that shines—like the moon.”I laughed to myself over this “dark” saying, and produced a half-crown—a new one.“Here is what shines like the moon at full,” I said.He held out both hands, looked at it for a moment as it lay in the hollow thus formed, then said:“Halfway between this and where you left the other white people is a redwood tree—of which two sticks point over the path. From the path on the other side, a slope of smooth rock falls away. Just below this—resting upright between two stones—one pointed, the other round—is that which you seek.”Briefly I translated this to my companion. Her reception of it showed a practical mind.“What if he wants to send us off on a fool’s errand while he climbs down to the crevice there and gets hold of the real coin?” she said.“Well, of course, nothing’s impossible. But, do you know, I believe him. I would in fact risk a considerable bet on it.”“Well, I am in your hands, Mr Glanton,” she said. “You know these people thoroughly. I, not at all.”To tell the truth, I believed Ukozi’s statement completely, so much so as not to think it worth while bothering about any thought of the responsibility I might be incurring. Otherwise I might have foreseen a reproachful manner, and a sinking in her estimation, if we found nothing. So I poured the contents of my snuff tube into Ukozi’s hands and bade him farewell.“I declare I feel quite excited over this,” Aïda Sewin said, as we rapidly retraced our steps. “Look. Here is where we left the others—and—there’s the slab of rock.”“Yes. It won’t be a difficult scramble. Now Miss Sewin, you shall have the opportunity of verifying Ukozi’s dictum yourself. So—you go first.”In a moment we were below the rock—a matter of ten yards’ descent—and, in a small dry watercourse beneath we descried the glint of something. A cry of delight escaped her.“Why, here it is. Just exactly as he described. Come and look, Mr Glanton.”Sure enough at our feet, leaning almost upright between the two stones—the pointed one and the round—was the lost coin.“But what was it we saw in the crevice?” she said, when the first astonishment was over. “That seemed to shine, too.”“Probably a point of rock worn smooth. Well, Ukozi has again borne out his reputation.”“Again? Why? Have you tried him before?”Her eyes seemed to search my face. There was—or seemed to be—no prevaricating.“Well, perhaps. Once. Or rather, he tried me. I’ll tell you about it some day. By Jingo, it’s getting dark, and I don’t like the look of the sky. The sooner we’re in the better.”Great solid masses of cloud were banking up beyond the further ridge of the Tugela valley, and a low boom of thunder shivered the still air. A storm was coming up; probably a heavy one.“How do you account for this kind of thing?” she said as we regained the path. “Could he have been passing here at the time I dropped the coin, and deliberately planned a sort ofcoup de theâtre?”“In that case Arlo would have warned us of his presence. Yet he gave no sign.”“Of course. And talking about Arlo, wasn’t it strange how he seemed not to mind that man’s presence? Why he can hardly be held in when a strange native comes about.”“Yes. I noticed it. I suppose his instinct must have told him Ukozi was about to do us a good turn.”She turned towards me, then shook her head.“You are turning it off, Mr Glanton, I can see that. Yet there is something rather weird and inexplicable about the whole thing. You know, I was watching the witch doctor when the reptile or whatever it was came up in the pool, and it looked just as if he had raised it by some incantation. It is interesting very—but—rather eerie.”“Oh they have their tricks of the trade, which they don’t divulge, you may be sure. The coin finding was really cleverly worked, however it was done; for, mind you, he came from quite the contrary direction, and, as a sheer matter of time, could have been nowhere near the place we found it in when we turned back.”“It’s wonderful certainly, and I’m very glad indeed to have found my coin again. You must have seen some strange things in the course of your experience among these people, Mr Glanton? Tell me—what is the strangest of them?”“If I were to tell you you wouldn’t believe me. Hallo! We’d better quicken our pace. I suppose you don’t want to arrive home wet through.”The thundercloud had spread with amazing speed and blackness. The soft evening air had become hot and oppressive. Some self-denial was involved on my part in thus hurrying her, for I would fain have drawn out this walk alone with her, having now become, as you will say, Godfrey Glanton complete fool. Yet not such a fool as not to be blessed with a glimmer of common-sense, and this told me that, woman-like, she would not thank me for bringing her home in a state of draggled skirt and dripping, streaming hair, which would inevitably be the case did we fail to reach the house before the downpour should burst.We did however so reach it, and there a surprise awaited, to me, I may as well own, not altogether a pleasant one, for it took the shape of Kendrew. Now Kendrew, as I have said, was a good fellow enough, yet this was the last evening I should spend here for some time. Kendrew was all very well at his own place or at mine—but somehow I didn’t want him here, at any rate not to-day, added to which he was a good-looking chap, and lively—a novelty too. There, you see—I am not above owning to my own small meannesses. It transpired moreover that I was the indirect agency through which he was there, for the first thing he said on seeing me was:“There you are, Glanton. Thought I’d ride up and see how you were getting on, and when I got to your place they told me you had come down here. So I thought I’d come on and find you, and take the opportunity of making Major Sewin’s acquaintance at the same time. Nothing like getting to know one’s neighbours, and there ain’t so many of them, eh?”“Glad you did,” I answered, shaking hands with him as heartily as ever. Yet at bottom, that “neighbour” idea struck unpleasantly. Kendrew as a neighbour was all very well, and I nailed him as such—for myself, but confound it, I didn’t want him getting too “neighbourly” here; and that, too, just as I was going away myself for a time. And then I realised, more fully than ever, what it meant to me to be fulfilling the rôle of a sort of little Providence to these people. Now Kendrew would lay himself out to do that during my absence, and in short, on my return I might find, to use a vulgar syllogism, that my own nose had been most effectually put out of joint.They had taken to him already, and were on the best of terms—I could see that. Kendrew was one of those jolly, happy-go-lucky souls that people do take to on sight, and he had youth on his side. Moreover my misgivings were in no wise dispelled by the look of surprised whole-hearted admiration which came into his face at sight of Aïda Sewin. There was no mistaking this, for if there is one thing I pride myself on it is a faculty for reading every expression of the human countenance no matter how swift and fleeting such may be. Perhaps it is that constant intercourse with savages has endowed me with one of their most unfailing characteristics, but, at any rate, there it is.“We’re going to have a storm,” said the Major, looking upward. “Aïda—Glanton—you’re only just in time. You too, Mr Kendrew. You’ll stay the night of course?”Kendrew answered that he’d be delighted, and forthwith began to make himself at home in his free and easy fashion. He was not in the least afflicted with shyness, and had no objection whatever to being drawn on the subject of his experiences. He had plenty of stories to tell, and told them well too, only perhaps it was rather mean of me to think that he need not so uniformly have made himself the hero of each and all of them. I don’t know that I can plead in extenuation that when we sat down to table the fellow by some means or other contrived to manoeuvre himself into the chair next to Miss Sewin, a seat I had especially marked out for myself, and in fact usually filled. Added to which, once there, he must needs fill up the intervals between blowing his own trumpet by talking to her in a confoundedly confidential, appropriating sort of style; which I entirely though secretly resented. And I was on the eve of an absence! Decidedly events tended to sour me that evening—and it was the last.“What’s the matter? Did the old witch doctor tell you something momentous that you forgot to pass on to me? You are very silent to-night.”It was her voice. We had risen from table and I had gone out on to the stoep, “to see if the storm was passing off,” as I put it carelessly. There was a chorus of voices and laughter within, Kendrew having turned the tables on Falkner in the course of some idiotic chaff.“Am I?” I answered. “I get that way sometimes. Result of living alone, I suppose. No, Ukozi did not tell me anything stupendous. Amusing chap, Kendrew, isn’t he?” as another chorus of laughter went up from within.“He seems a nice sort of boy. And now—you start on Wednesday? Shall we see you again between this and then?”“I’m afraid not, Miss Sewin. Tyingoza’s nephew has disappointed me over the span of oxen he was going to hire me, and I shall have to spend to-morrow and the day after riding Heaven knows where in search of another span. Oxen—at any rate reliable ones—are precious scarce just now everywhere.”“I’m sorry. I—we—shall miss you so much, Mr Glanton—and you have been so kind to us—”“That all?” I thought to myself bitterly. “Sort of ‘make myself generally useful’ blank that will create.” Her next words made me feel ashamed of myself.“But you will come and see us directly you return, won’t you? I shall look forward to it, mind—and—I hate being disappointed.”Good Heavens! The voice, the gleam of white teeth in the little smile, the softening of eyes in the starlight! Had we been alone I believe I should have lost my head, and uttered I don’t know what. But you can’t say anything of that sort with a lot of people jabbering and laughing, and nothing between you and them but an open door and ditto window.“You shall not be disappointed in that very unimportant particular at any rate,” I answered. “And you are good enough to say you will look forward to it. Why I shall look forward to it every day until it comes.”This was pretty plain-speaking and no mistake, but I had been surprised out of myself. What she might have answered I can’t even conjecture, for at that moment through a lull in the racket within, was raised a voice.“Glanton? Yes. He’s a good old buffer, Glanton. Why, what’s become of him?”Aïda Sewin’s eyes met mine and I could see that she was bubbling over with the humour of the situation. We broke into a hearty laugh, yet not loud enough to reach those within.“There. Now I hope you’re duly flattered,” she said. “A fresh unconsidered outburst like that must be genuine. We don’t often hear so much good of ourselves even without being listeners.”“But consider the qualifying adjective. That, you know, is rather rough.”“Not necessarily. Only a term of good fellowship, I expect. No. You ought to feel brotherly towards him after that.”Somehow the whimsicality of it did avail to restore my good humour, or the words and tone of her utterances that went before may have had something to do with it. Had she been reading my thoughts as I sat silent among the rest? Well, what if she had?The storm had passed us by and a haze of continuous lightning in the loom of a receding cloud together with an occasional mutter away over the further ridge of the Tugela valley was all that remained of it. She had moved towards the end of the stoep as though to obtain a nearer view of this.“I have something on my mind, Miss Sewin,” I began, “and it is this. You are good enough to say I have been of use to you all, needless to say how delighted I am to have been able to be. Well now, I shall be right out of the way for a time, and I am trying to puzzle out a plan of letting me know in case you might urgently want me.”I don’t know what on earth moved me to say this. Why should they want me—urgently or otherwise? To my surprise she answered:“It would be a great relief to my mind if you could. I don’t know what you’ll think of me, Mr Glanton, but there are times when our isolation frightens me, and then I think we never ought to have come here. And now you are going away, and Falkner, too. And—do you know, I have an uneasy feeling that I couldn’t account for to save my life, but it’s there, unfortunately. I believe it has something to do with the witch doctor, and that eerie affair down at the pool.”“As to that don’t let it affect you. Ukozi is a clever specimen of a witch doctor but not a malevolent one. For the rest you are as safe here as you would be in any country part of England, and a good deal safer than in some.”The words “we never ought to have come here” alarmed me. What if when I returned I should find them gone? Oh, but—that wouldn’t bear thinking of. So I did my best to reassure her, and to all appearances succeeded. Yet if I had known then—or had the faintest inkling of—what I afterwards knew—Well when I did it was too late.

The dog stopped short, hackles erect, and fangs bared, emitting a series of deep-toned growls which to the object of his hostility should have been disconcerting, to put it mildly. But, somehow, he seemed disinclined to pursue his investigations to the bitter end. This was strange.

“What can it be?” was the thought in my own mind simultaneous with the voiced query of my companion.

Natives—Ivondwe excepted—were wont to hold Arlo in respect, not to say awe, upon first acquaintance. The one who now made his appearance, betrayed no sign of any such feeling, as he came towards us. Yet he was armed with nothing more reliable than a slender redwood stick. He came forward, deliberately, with firm step, as though no aroused and formidable beast were threatening him with a very sharp and gleaming pair of jaws, the sun glinting upon his head-ring and shining bronze frame, came forward and saluted. Then I noticed—we both noticed—that he had only one eye.

“Ha—Ukozi. I see you—see you again,” I observed, in greeting.

“Inkosikazi!” he uttered, saluting my companion.

What struck me at that moment was the behaviour of the dog. Instead of rushing in upon the new arrival, and putting him vigorously on the defensive until called off, as was his way, he seemed concerned to keep his distance, and while still growling and snarling in deep-toned mutter I could detect in his tone an unmistakable note of fear. This too was strange.

“Who is he?” said Miss Sewin, as the newcomer placidly squatted himself. “Is he a chief?”

“Something bigger perhaps,” I answered. “He’s a witch doctor.”

“What? A witch doctor?” her eyes brightening with interest. “I thought witch doctors were horrid shrivelled old creatures who wore all sorts of disgusting things as charms and amulets.”

“Most of them do, and so would this one when he’s plying his trade in earnest. Yet he’s about the biggest witch doctor along this border, and his fame extends to Zululand as well.”

“Ah!” as an idea struck her. “Now here’s a chance for him to keep up his reputation. I wonder if he could find my coin.”

As we both knew where it was—or indeed in any case—the opportunity seemed not a bad one. But I said:

“You must remember, Miss Sewin, that native doctors, like white ones, don’t practice for nothing, and often on the same terms. What if this one should ask as the price of his services—no—professional attendance, shouldn’t it be?—a great deal more than the lost article’s worth?”

“Don’t let him. But in any case I don’t believe he has the ghost of a chance of finding it.”

“Don’t you be too sure,” I said. And then, before I could open upon him on the subject Ukozi opened on me on another.

“Nyamaki is not home again, Iqalaqala?”

I was beginning to get sick of the disappearing Hensley by that time, so I answered shortly:

“Not yet.”

“Ha! The Queen cannot do everything, then. You did not go home that night, Iqalaqala?”

“I did not. Yourmútiis great, Ukozi—great enough to stop a horse.”

“Múti! Who talks ofmúti? I did but foresee. And Umsindo? He, too, did not reach Nyamaki’s house that night?”

“No.”

“What is in the water yonder?” he went on, bending over to look into the pool, for he had squatted himself very near its brink. “It moves.”

Both of us followed his gaze, instinctively, eagerly. And by Jove! as we looked, there arose the same disturbance, the same unwinding of what seemed like a shining sinuous coil, yet taking no definite shape. Again it sank, as it had risen, and a hiss of seething bubbles, and the circling rings radiating to the sides, alone bore witness to what had happened.

“I declare it’s rather uncanny,” said my companion. “Does he know what it is? Ask him.”

I put it to Ukozi. We had swum there several times, dived deep down too, nearly to the bottom, deep as it was, yet we had never been disturbed by anything. Only to-day, before his arrival, had we seen this thing for the first time—and that only once. He echoed my words, or part of them.

“Nearly to the bottom! But this place has no bottom.”

“Now you forget, father of mystery,” I said, knowingly. “It has, for we have sounded it, with a piece of lead at the end of a line.”

He looked amused, shaking his head softly.

“Yet, it is as I say,” he answered. “It has no bottom.”

Rapidly I gave Miss Sewin the burden of our conversation, and she looked puzzled. The while, Arlo, crouching a few yards off, was eyeing the witch doctor strangely, uttering low growls which deepened every time he made a movement, and still, beneath the sound I could always detect that same note of fear.

“What is in the water down there, Ukozi?” I said. “Not a crocodile. What then?”

He was in no hurry to reply. He took snuff.

“Who may tell?” he answered, having completed that important operation. “Yet, Iqalaqala, are you still inclined—you and Umsindo—to continue swimming there, and diving nearly to the bottom—ah-ah! nearly to the bottom?”

He had put his head on one side and was gazing at me with that expression of good-humoured mockery which a native knows so well how to assume. I, for my part, was owning to myself that it would take a very strong motive indeed to induce me to adventure my carcase again within the alluring depths of that confoundedtagatipool, for so it now seemed. Moreover I knew I should get no definite enlightenment from him—at any rate that day—so thought I might just as well try him on the subject of Miss Sewin’s loss. But as I was about to put it to him he began:

“That which you seek is not down there.”

“Not down there?” I echoed. “But, what do we seek, father of the wise?”

“It shines.”

The thing was simple. He had found it and planted it somewhere, with a view to acquiring additional repute, and—incidentally—remuneration.

“I think we shall recover your coin, Miss Sewin,” I said.

“Ah. He can find it for us then? If he does I shall become quite a convert to witch doctorism, for want of a better word.”

“You will see. Now, Ukozi. Where is that which we seek?”

“Au! It shines—like the sun. To find it something else that shines will be necessary. Something that shines—like the moon.”

I laughed to myself over this “dark” saying, and produced a half-crown—a new one.

“Here is what shines like the moon at full,” I said.

He held out both hands, looked at it for a moment as it lay in the hollow thus formed, then said:

“Halfway between this and where you left the other white people is a redwood tree—of which two sticks point over the path. From the path on the other side, a slope of smooth rock falls away. Just below this—resting upright between two stones—one pointed, the other round—is that which you seek.”

Briefly I translated this to my companion. Her reception of it showed a practical mind.

“What if he wants to send us off on a fool’s errand while he climbs down to the crevice there and gets hold of the real coin?” she said.

“Well, of course, nothing’s impossible. But, do you know, I believe him. I would in fact risk a considerable bet on it.”

“Well, I am in your hands, Mr Glanton,” she said. “You know these people thoroughly. I, not at all.”

To tell the truth, I believed Ukozi’s statement completely, so much so as not to think it worth while bothering about any thought of the responsibility I might be incurring. Otherwise I might have foreseen a reproachful manner, and a sinking in her estimation, if we found nothing. So I poured the contents of my snuff tube into Ukozi’s hands and bade him farewell.

“I declare I feel quite excited over this,” Aïda Sewin said, as we rapidly retraced our steps. “Look. Here is where we left the others—and—there’s the slab of rock.”

“Yes. It won’t be a difficult scramble. Now Miss Sewin, you shall have the opportunity of verifying Ukozi’s dictum yourself. So—you go first.”

In a moment we were below the rock—a matter of ten yards’ descent—and, in a small dry watercourse beneath we descried the glint of something. A cry of delight escaped her.

“Why, here it is. Just exactly as he described. Come and look, Mr Glanton.”

Sure enough at our feet, leaning almost upright between the two stones—the pointed one and the round—was the lost coin.

“But what was it we saw in the crevice?” she said, when the first astonishment was over. “That seemed to shine, too.”

“Probably a point of rock worn smooth. Well, Ukozi has again borne out his reputation.”

“Again? Why? Have you tried him before?”

Her eyes seemed to search my face. There was—or seemed to be—no prevaricating.

“Well, perhaps. Once. Or rather, he tried me. I’ll tell you about it some day. By Jingo, it’s getting dark, and I don’t like the look of the sky. The sooner we’re in the better.”

Great solid masses of cloud were banking up beyond the further ridge of the Tugela valley, and a low boom of thunder shivered the still air. A storm was coming up; probably a heavy one.

“How do you account for this kind of thing?” she said as we regained the path. “Could he have been passing here at the time I dropped the coin, and deliberately planned a sort ofcoup de theâtre?”

“In that case Arlo would have warned us of his presence. Yet he gave no sign.”

“Of course. And talking about Arlo, wasn’t it strange how he seemed not to mind that man’s presence? Why he can hardly be held in when a strange native comes about.”

“Yes. I noticed it. I suppose his instinct must have told him Ukozi was about to do us a good turn.”

She turned towards me, then shook her head.

“You are turning it off, Mr Glanton, I can see that. Yet there is something rather weird and inexplicable about the whole thing. You know, I was watching the witch doctor when the reptile or whatever it was came up in the pool, and it looked just as if he had raised it by some incantation. It is interesting very—but—rather eerie.”

“Oh they have their tricks of the trade, which they don’t divulge, you may be sure. The coin finding was really cleverly worked, however it was done; for, mind you, he came from quite the contrary direction, and, as a sheer matter of time, could have been nowhere near the place we found it in when we turned back.”

“It’s wonderful certainly, and I’m very glad indeed to have found my coin again. You must have seen some strange things in the course of your experience among these people, Mr Glanton? Tell me—what is the strangest of them?”

“If I were to tell you you wouldn’t believe me. Hallo! We’d better quicken our pace. I suppose you don’t want to arrive home wet through.”

The thundercloud had spread with amazing speed and blackness. The soft evening air had become hot and oppressive. Some self-denial was involved on my part in thus hurrying her, for I would fain have drawn out this walk alone with her, having now become, as you will say, Godfrey Glanton complete fool. Yet not such a fool as not to be blessed with a glimmer of common-sense, and this told me that, woman-like, she would not thank me for bringing her home in a state of draggled skirt and dripping, streaming hair, which would inevitably be the case did we fail to reach the house before the downpour should burst.

We did however so reach it, and there a surprise awaited, to me, I may as well own, not altogether a pleasant one, for it took the shape of Kendrew. Now Kendrew, as I have said, was a good fellow enough, yet this was the last evening I should spend here for some time. Kendrew was all very well at his own place or at mine—but somehow I didn’t want him here, at any rate not to-day, added to which he was a good-looking chap, and lively—a novelty too. There, you see—I am not above owning to my own small meannesses. It transpired moreover that I was the indirect agency through which he was there, for the first thing he said on seeing me was:

“There you are, Glanton. Thought I’d ride up and see how you were getting on, and when I got to your place they told me you had come down here. So I thought I’d come on and find you, and take the opportunity of making Major Sewin’s acquaintance at the same time. Nothing like getting to know one’s neighbours, and there ain’t so many of them, eh?”

“Glad you did,” I answered, shaking hands with him as heartily as ever. Yet at bottom, that “neighbour” idea struck unpleasantly. Kendrew as a neighbour was all very well, and I nailed him as such—for myself, but confound it, I didn’t want him getting too “neighbourly” here; and that, too, just as I was going away myself for a time. And then I realised, more fully than ever, what it meant to me to be fulfilling the rôle of a sort of little Providence to these people. Now Kendrew would lay himself out to do that during my absence, and in short, on my return I might find, to use a vulgar syllogism, that my own nose had been most effectually put out of joint.

They had taken to him already, and were on the best of terms—I could see that. Kendrew was one of those jolly, happy-go-lucky souls that people do take to on sight, and he had youth on his side. Moreover my misgivings were in no wise dispelled by the look of surprised whole-hearted admiration which came into his face at sight of Aïda Sewin. There was no mistaking this, for if there is one thing I pride myself on it is a faculty for reading every expression of the human countenance no matter how swift and fleeting such may be. Perhaps it is that constant intercourse with savages has endowed me with one of their most unfailing characteristics, but, at any rate, there it is.

“We’re going to have a storm,” said the Major, looking upward. “Aïda—Glanton—you’re only just in time. You too, Mr Kendrew. You’ll stay the night of course?”

Kendrew answered that he’d be delighted, and forthwith began to make himself at home in his free and easy fashion. He was not in the least afflicted with shyness, and had no objection whatever to being drawn on the subject of his experiences. He had plenty of stories to tell, and told them well too, only perhaps it was rather mean of me to think that he need not so uniformly have made himself the hero of each and all of them. I don’t know that I can plead in extenuation that when we sat down to table the fellow by some means or other contrived to manoeuvre himself into the chair next to Miss Sewin, a seat I had especially marked out for myself, and in fact usually filled. Added to which, once there, he must needs fill up the intervals between blowing his own trumpet by talking to her in a confoundedly confidential, appropriating sort of style; which I entirely though secretly resented. And I was on the eve of an absence! Decidedly events tended to sour me that evening—and it was the last.

“What’s the matter? Did the old witch doctor tell you something momentous that you forgot to pass on to me? You are very silent to-night.”

It was her voice. We had risen from table and I had gone out on to the stoep, “to see if the storm was passing off,” as I put it carelessly. There was a chorus of voices and laughter within, Kendrew having turned the tables on Falkner in the course of some idiotic chaff.

“Am I?” I answered. “I get that way sometimes. Result of living alone, I suppose. No, Ukozi did not tell me anything stupendous. Amusing chap, Kendrew, isn’t he?” as another chorus of laughter went up from within.

“He seems a nice sort of boy. And now—you start on Wednesday? Shall we see you again between this and then?”

“I’m afraid not, Miss Sewin. Tyingoza’s nephew has disappointed me over the span of oxen he was going to hire me, and I shall have to spend to-morrow and the day after riding Heaven knows where in search of another span. Oxen—at any rate reliable ones—are precious scarce just now everywhere.”

“I’m sorry. I—we—shall miss you so much, Mr Glanton—and you have been so kind to us—”

“That all?” I thought to myself bitterly. “Sort of ‘make myself generally useful’ blank that will create.” Her next words made me feel ashamed of myself.

“But you will come and see us directly you return, won’t you? I shall look forward to it, mind—and—I hate being disappointed.”

Good Heavens! The voice, the gleam of white teeth in the little smile, the softening of eyes in the starlight! Had we been alone I believe I should have lost my head, and uttered I don’t know what. But you can’t say anything of that sort with a lot of people jabbering and laughing, and nothing between you and them but an open door and ditto window.

“You shall not be disappointed in that very unimportant particular at any rate,” I answered. “And you are good enough to say you will look forward to it. Why I shall look forward to it every day until it comes.”

This was pretty plain-speaking and no mistake, but I had been surprised out of myself. What she might have answered I can’t even conjecture, for at that moment through a lull in the racket within, was raised a voice.

“Glanton? Yes. He’s a good old buffer, Glanton. Why, what’s become of him?”

Aïda Sewin’s eyes met mine and I could see that she was bubbling over with the humour of the situation. We broke into a hearty laugh, yet not loud enough to reach those within.

“There. Now I hope you’re duly flattered,” she said. “A fresh unconsidered outburst like that must be genuine. We don’t often hear so much good of ourselves even without being listeners.”

“But consider the qualifying adjective. That, you know, is rather rough.”

“Not necessarily. Only a term of good fellowship, I expect. No. You ought to feel brotherly towards him after that.”

Somehow the whimsicality of it did avail to restore my good humour, or the words and tone of her utterances that went before may have had something to do with it. Had she been reading my thoughts as I sat silent among the rest? Well, what if she had?

The storm had passed us by and a haze of continuous lightning in the loom of a receding cloud together with an occasional mutter away over the further ridge of the Tugela valley was all that remained of it. She had moved towards the end of the stoep as though to obtain a nearer view of this.

“I have something on my mind, Miss Sewin,” I began, “and it is this. You are good enough to say I have been of use to you all, needless to say how delighted I am to have been able to be. Well now, I shall be right out of the way for a time, and I am trying to puzzle out a plan of letting me know in case you might urgently want me.”

I don’t know what on earth moved me to say this. Why should they want me—urgently or otherwise? To my surprise she answered:

“It would be a great relief to my mind if you could. I don’t know what you’ll think of me, Mr Glanton, but there are times when our isolation frightens me, and then I think we never ought to have come here. And now you are going away, and Falkner, too. And—do you know, I have an uneasy feeling that I couldn’t account for to save my life, but it’s there, unfortunately. I believe it has something to do with the witch doctor, and that eerie affair down at the pool.”

“As to that don’t let it affect you. Ukozi is a clever specimen of a witch doctor but not a malevolent one. For the rest you are as safe here as you would be in any country part of England, and a good deal safer than in some.”

The words “we never ought to have come here” alarmed me. What if when I returned I should find them gone? Oh, but—that wouldn’t bear thinking of. So I did my best to reassure her, and to all appearances succeeded. Yet if I had known then—or had the faintest inkling of—what I afterwards knew—Well when I did it was too late.

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