Chapter Eighteen.

Chapter Eighteen.Developments.“Well, who’s for church to-day?” said Brian, one fine Sunday morning as we straggled in to breakfast. “There’s one, anyhow,” he appended, as Beryl appeared, clad in a riding habit. “Wouldn’t you rather drive, Beryl? It’s going to be hot.”“No. I think I’ll ride,” she answered, busying herself with the cups and saucers. “Meerkat wants some exercise, he’s getting too lively even for me. Are you up to going, dad?”“Make it rather a heavy load, won’t it? Still, George might ride. That’ll make three of us—quite enough load too, for that heavy cart.”This was a suggestion which, overtly on the part of one of its hearers, privily on that of another, met with scant approval. On that of George because he preferred being driven, and the shade of the cart tilt, and a comfortable seat, to the trouble of jogging over ten miles of road in the sun, and on a possibly rough-going mount. On that of myself because I did not in the least want George on this occasion, nor anybody else. I wanted the ride alone with Beryl. In fact, I had more than half set up this arrangement when we had heard the day before that there would be church service at Stacey’s farm at the distance above stated, whither a parson had unexpectedly turned up.“Well, I don’t think I shall go at all,” went on the last speaker. “I don’t feel much up to it.”“You’re very wicked, dad,” chipped in Iris, with a shake of the head. “Why, it’s six weeks since last church Sunday.”“Quite right, kitten,” laughed her father, reaching out a hand to stroke her bright sunny hair. “Never mind. You can behave twice as well as usual because I’m not there.”“Well, I’ll stay with you.”“No, no. I can’t allow that,” he laughed. “Not for a moment.”In point of fact, the proposal had required some self-denial, for these occasions were highly popular with the children by reason of the outing involved, and the gathering at the other end, wherefore Miss Iris suffered herself to be over-ruled quite placidly. The said gatherings were of irregular occurrence; this scattered flock for that very reason being but little shepherded.Septimus Matterson hardly ever talked about religion or its principles; he went one better—he practised them. For the young ones that sort of training was Beryl’s province, he reckoned; while as for Brian and myself, why, we were old enough to know our own minds in such matters and act accordingly. If we chose to attend the somewhat irregular ministrations at Stacey’s we could do so; if not, that was our own business.To-day, especially, I very much did so choose. It was one of those heavenly mornings in late autumn which I don’t believe you can get outside South Africa—no, not even in Italy—for where else will you find a sky so deeply, so vividly blue; such a sunlight sweep of gold upon rolling seas of green foliage; or open grass veldt studded with delicate-fronded mimosa; such an atmosphere too, which, with no sharp touch in it, is warm and yet exhilarating at the same time. And the unending vistas opened up—the rise of hills, near and far, green-crested, or stately with a crown of bronze-faced cliff, glowing red gold in the generous sunlight; against a background of ever-vivid unbroken blue. Small wonder that on such a day, as Beryl and I cantered along, our spirits were at the highest.“I don’t ride Meerkat half enough,” she said. “Look how lively he is.”I did look, and the picture was worth it. The horse, holding high his stag-like head, deep-shouldered, delicate-limbed, yet full of fire and muscle, hardly restrainable in his sportive freshness, would have taken a good many women all they knew to manage. Yet this one sat him to perfection, firm, light in the saddle, swaying with his every movement as though for the time being part of the steed himself; graceful, smiling, snowing no sign of heat or effort, just a little glow of health and contentment flushing her cheeks. No, Beryl never looked better than on her favourite horse. To-day she looked splendid.I had arranged this ride along with her for a purpose, and the readiness wherewith she had concurred in the arrangement might have meant nothing, but I preferred to think the contrary—that she understood my purpose and concurred in it. I had been here now some months, and we had seen each other daily, and the complete cordiality of our intercourse, with never a hitch, never a jar, so far from waning, had, if possible, increased. I had resolved to-day to bring matters to a head; yet in the—to me—complete happiness of this our ride together, I seemed to defer anything that might break the charm. I would leave it to our return ride. So we chatted on as usual, and gaily, about one thing and another, and then, even if I had wished it otherwise it was too late, for we could see the white tilts of Cape carts and buggies coming from different directions along road and veldt path—riders, too, like ourselves, but all converging upon the common objective. Then the increasing “whang-whang” of a bell, as we drew nearer to this, seemed to cause a general hurry up on the part of all within sight.I off-saddled our horses and knee-haltered them, among others performing the same operation; Beryl the while having gone forward to greet the people of the place and other acquaintances, and these were many, for of course everybody knew everybody. Just as we were going in Trask bore down upon us.“I say, Miss Matterson, and you, Holt. Come in front, will you, and help to make a choir. I’m rounding up as many as I can.”“Not going to have Christmas over again, eh, Trask?” I said maliciously, the point of which being that Trask, who really did know something about music, and wasex officioorganist, or to be more accurate, harmoniumist, had on the occasion referred to undertaken to launch out into anthems and carols and all sorts of things unknown to the multitude: such ambitious soarings, and the letting off of wholly extemporised and weird harmonic fireworks on the instrument, which he called “accompaniment” resulting in the silence, by relays, of the whole body of singers; though not before the latter had ingeniously if unconsciously blended the “Adeste fideles,” the “Old Hundredth,” “Coming through the Rye,” and other historic and popular melodies into one inspiring whole. It may be readily imagined that of this fiasco Trask did not quickly hear the end, wherefore he liked not my present reference.“Oh, go to blazes, Holt,” he retorted pepperily. “I’d like to know what you’d have done in my place with such a lot of—of—” and here he was obliged to stop short, remembering that Beryl had been one of the offenders. She, catching my eye, was thoroughly enjoying the situation.“All right, Mr Trask,” she answered. “We’ll do what we can. Only you mustn’t try and make us do what we can’t.”The little plain, whitewashed building—which Stacey had erected on his farm, and was inordinately proud of, and fond of alluding to as “my church”—was nearly full, a thoroughly representative congregation of stock farmers, and their families. Many, like ourselves, had ridden over, and there was a sprinkling of habits among the feminine section of the gathering, eke a proportion of pretty faces. But, great Hercules! there was nothing here to come near Beryl. Looking round, I realised with a glow of pride that, compared with these, she was as a lily among daisies and—she was with me, standing by me, sitting by me, kneeling by me. It seemed—or I wanted it to seem—as though I had a kind of proprietary interest in her.Frankly, I own to not being much of a church-goer; far indeed be it from me to cast a slight on those who are. It is sad, though a fact, but the process—especially in the morning—has a soporific effect. Yet here, in this little whitewashed building, with the blue sky glimpsed through the open windows, the hum of bees and the strange call of birds in the bush without, wafting in to mingle with the parson’s voice and the murmurs of the congregation, I did not feel drowsy in the least. The graceful habit-clad figure beside me, the profile at which I stole more than one side glance, the sweet true voice, the mere delight of listening to which constituted, I fear, the sole assistance on my part towards Trask’s choral aspirations—there was no room for boredom or drowsiness in such proximity; and if this be objected to as a substituting of the creature for the Creator, well, still in my blundering untheological mind I have an idea, which I couldn’t express intelligibly to save my life, that on this occasion the influence was something more than a mere earthly one. But let that pass.After the service we streamed out into the sunlight, and tongues began to wag on all sides.“Do persuade your brother to stay and have dinner with us, Miss Matterson,” said a voice on the other side of Beryl. “We can’t; and it’s much too long for poor little Iris to wait if he persists in taking her back at once. Of course you’ll stay—and Mr Holt.”The speaker was one of the two girls who had made their appearance what time I had got Iris out of the sea at East London, and we had often laughed over it together, and the figure I must have cut. Then old Stacey came up and seconded the invite so heartily that Beryl gave way. But Brian was as adamant. He wanted to get back, for several reasons, he said. Beryl and I knew more than one of them at any rate. As a matter of fact, Brian was a bit of a misogynist. He detested fooling around among a pack of women, he used to say; and the Stacey girls he held in particular aversion, which was ungrateful of him, as they happened to cherish a scarcely disguised admiration for his unappreciative self. So George and poor little Iris were carried summarily off, greatly to the disgust of the latter.We who remained made ourselves festive enough. Old Stacey, though somewhat shaky over his aspirates, was not half a bad old sort, and the girls showed to far the best advantage in their own home. They made themselves exceedingly pleasant to Beryl and myself, and if they had a way of bracketing us together, so to say, it was by no means displeasing to me, for I had got into a way myself of feeling a sort of proprietary right in her, when we were among other people. If she noticed this, assuredly she could not have resented it; at times I would even let myself think she unconsciously reciprocated it. She would often refer to me upon some debated matter, for instance, as if mine was the opinion which rendered it final.We took leave of our entertainers a couple of hours before sundown, in great good humour with ourselves and all the world. A misgiving had at one time seized me lest Trask should inflict himself upon us, as at any rate part of our way lay together, but he had taken himself off much earlier—and now we were alone. Not a soul was in sight, not even a house. The undulation of the veldt, green and gold in the westering sun, stretching away on either side, was as if deserted by man. Not by animate Nature, though. A troop of monkeys skipped across our path, momentarily scaring our horses, and chattering at us from the tree-tops; and bird voices were never still. Several blue cranes were shambling along just off our way, and the incessant cooing of doves, near and far, blended melodiously with the fair and peaceful evening scene.Yes, the happiness and peace of the day were upon me, as if this fair scene were an earnest of the happiness and peace which had filled my life of late. Was it a reflection of that which should continue to irradiate it? Alas and alas, could I but have foreseen! Yet what misgiving could strike me then, what foreboding that this day was the last—the very last day of happiness or peace for me, and indeed for others, for a long time to come?“Well, Kenrick, and what is the subject of that very deep meditation?”I started. I had forgotten how long I had been plunged in silence.“You are,” I said.“Me?”Her eyes opened wide. There was the most delightfully alluring little smile, half demure, half mischievous, playing around her lips. Then, as I took in her whole sweet personality, as I looked at her and thought how the next few moments were to decide whether that sweet and gracious personality were to belong to me for the remainder of our lives, or not—my pulses were bounding and beating at such a rate that I wondered how I should get out even two consecutive and coherent words. Yet it must be done, now and here.“Listen, Beryl,” I began. “There is something I want you to hear, and that you must hear. I—”“Hullo! Hi, you good people! Hold on a bit and give us a chance to come up.”And that infernal Trask came clattering upon our heels, having spotted us from the road which led from his place. Well, there was an end of everything. My opportunity was gone—for that day, at any rate; and I hold a superstition to the effect that opportunities have a way of not recurring.“Thought I’d ride over and make an evening of it at your place, Miss Matterson,” he rattled on. “A man gets a bit hipped sometimes all by himself, you know. So glad I fell in with you like this.”Beryl answered sweetly that so were we, and that they were always glad to see him, and so forth. While I—well, at that moment I could cheerfully have murdered Trask with my own hand.

“Well, who’s for church to-day?” said Brian, one fine Sunday morning as we straggled in to breakfast. “There’s one, anyhow,” he appended, as Beryl appeared, clad in a riding habit. “Wouldn’t you rather drive, Beryl? It’s going to be hot.”

“No. I think I’ll ride,” she answered, busying herself with the cups and saucers. “Meerkat wants some exercise, he’s getting too lively even for me. Are you up to going, dad?”

“Make it rather a heavy load, won’t it? Still, George might ride. That’ll make three of us—quite enough load too, for that heavy cart.”

This was a suggestion which, overtly on the part of one of its hearers, privily on that of another, met with scant approval. On that of George because he preferred being driven, and the shade of the cart tilt, and a comfortable seat, to the trouble of jogging over ten miles of road in the sun, and on a possibly rough-going mount. On that of myself because I did not in the least want George on this occasion, nor anybody else. I wanted the ride alone with Beryl. In fact, I had more than half set up this arrangement when we had heard the day before that there would be church service at Stacey’s farm at the distance above stated, whither a parson had unexpectedly turned up.

“Well, I don’t think I shall go at all,” went on the last speaker. “I don’t feel much up to it.”

“You’re very wicked, dad,” chipped in Iris, with a shake of the head. “Why, it’s six weeks since last church Sunday.”

“Quite right, kitten,” laughed her father, reaching out a hand to stroke her bright sunny hair. “Never mind. You can behave twice as well as usual because I’m not there.”

“Well, I’ll stay with you.”

“No, no. I can’t allow that,” he laughed. “Not for a moment.”

In point of fact, the proposal had required some self-denial, for these occasions were highly popular with the children by reason of the outing involved, and the gathering at the other end, wherefore Miss Iris suffered herself to be over-ruled quite placidly. The said gatherings were of irregular occurrence; this scattered flock for that very reason being but little shepherded.

Septimus Matterson hardly ever talked about religion or its principles; he went one better—he practised them. For the young ones that sort of training was Beryl’s province, he reckoned; while as for Brian and myself, why, we were old enough to know our own minds in such matters and act accordingly. If we chose to attend the somewhat irregular ministrations at Stacey’s we could do so; if not, that was our own business.

To-day, especially, I very much did so choose. It was one of those heavenly mornings in late autumn which I don’t believe you can get outside South Africa—no, not even in Italy—for where else will you find a sky so deeply, so vividly blue; such a sunlight sweep of gold upon rolling seas of green foliage; or open grass veldt studded with delicate-fronded mimosa; such an atmosphere too, which, with no sharp touch in it, is warm and yet exhilarating at the same time. And the unending vistas opened up—the rise of hills, near and far, green-crested, or stately with a crown of bronze-faced cliff, glowing red gold in the generous sunlight; against a background of ever-vivid unbroken blue. Small wonder that on such a day, as Beryl and I cantered along, our spirits were at the highest.

“I don’t ride Meerkat half enough,” she said. “Look how lively he is.”

I did look, and the picture was worth it. The horse, holding high his stag-like head, deep-shouldered, delicate-limbed, yet full of fire and muscle, hardly restrainable in his sportive freshness, would have taken a good many women all they knew to manage. Yet this one sat him to perfection, firm, light in the saddle, swaying with his every movement as though for the time being part of the steed himself; graceful, smiling, snowing no sign of heat or effort, just a little glow of health and contentment flushing her cheeks. No, Beryl never looked better than on her favourite horse. To-day she looked splendid.

I had arranged this ride along with her for a purpose, and the readiness wherewith she had concurred in the arrangement might have meant nothing, but I preferred to think the contrary—that she understood my purpose and concurred in it. I had been here now some months, and we had seen each other daily, and the complete cordiality of our intercourse, with never a hitch, never a jar, so far from waning, had, if possible, increased. I had resolved to-day to bring matters to a head; yet in the—to me—complete happiness of this our ride together, I seemed to defer anything that might break the charm. I would leave it to our return ride. So we chatted on as usual, and gaily, about one thing and another, and then, even if I had wished it otherwise it was too late, for we could see the white tilts of Cape carts and buggies coming from different directions along road and veldt path—riders, too, like ourselves, but all converging upon the common objective. Then the increasing “whang-whang” of a bell, as we drew nearer to this, seemed to cause a general hurry up on the part of all within sight.

I off-saddled our horses and knee-haltered them, among others performing the same operation; Beryl the while having gone forward to greet the people of the place and other acquaintances, and these were many, for of course everybody knew everybody. Just as we were going in Trask bore down upon us.

“I say, Miss Matterson, and you, Holt. Come in front, will you, and help to make a choir. I’m rounding up as many as I can.”

“Not going to have Christmas over again, eh, Trask?” I said maliciously, the point of which being that Trask, who really did know something about music, and wasex officioorganist, or to be more accurate, harmoniumist, had on the occasion referred to undertaken to launch out into anthems and carols and all sorts of things unknown to the multitude: such ambitious soarings, and the letting off of wholly extemporised and weird harmonic fireworks on the instrument, which he called “accompaniment” resulting in the silence, by relays, of the whole body of singers; though not before the latter had ingeniously if unconsciously blended the “Adeste fideles,” the “Old Hundredth,” “Coming through the Rye,” and other historic and popular melodies into one inspiring whole. It may be readily imagined that of this fiasco Trask did not quickly hear the end, wherefore he liked not my present reference.

“Oh, go to blazes, Holt,” he retorted pepperily. “I’d like to know what you’d have done in my place with such a lot of—of—” and here he was obliged to stop short, remembering that Beryl had been one of the offenders. She, catching my eye, was thoroughly enjoying the situation.

“All right, Mr Trask,” she answered. “We’ll do what we can. Only you mustn’t try and make us do what we can’t.”

The little plain, whitewashed building—which Stacey had erected on his farm, and was inordinately proud of, and fond of alluding to as “my church”—was nearly full, a thoroughly representative congregation of stock farmers, and their families. Many, like ourselves, had ridden over, and there was a sprinkling of habits among the feminine section of the gathering, eke a proportion of pretty faces. But, great Hercules! there was nothing here to come near Beryl. Looking round, I realised with a glow of pride that, compared with these, she was as a lily among daisies and—she was with me, standing by me, sitting by me, kneeling by me. It seemed—or I wanted it to seem—as though I had a kind of proprietary interest in her.

Frankly, I own to not being much of a church-goer; far indeed be it from me to cast a slight on those who are. It is sad, though a fact, but the process—especially in the morning—has a soporific effect. Yet here, in this little whitewashed building, with the blue sky glimpsed through the open windows, the hum of bees and the strange call of birds in the bush without, wafting in to mingle with the parson’s voice and the murmurs of the congregation, I did not feel drowsy in the least. The graceful habit-clad figure beside me, the profile at which I stole more than one side glance, the sweet true voice, the mere delight of listening to which constituted, I fear, the sole assistance on my part towards Trask’s choral aspirations—there was no room for boredom or drowsiness in such proximity; and if this be objected to as a substituting of the creature for the Creator, well, still in my blundering untheological mind I have an idea, which I couldn’t express intelligibly to save my life, that on this occasion the influence was something more than a mere earthly one. But let that pass.

After the service we streamed out into the sunlight, and tongues began to wag on all sides.

“Do persuade your brother to stay and have dinner with us, Miss Matterson,” said a voice on the other side of Beryl. “We can’t; and it’s much too long for poor little Iris to wait if he persists in taking her back at once. Of course you’ll stay—and Mr Holt.”

The speaker was one of the two girls who had made their appearance what time I had got Iris out of the sea at East London, and we had often laughed over it together, and the figure I must have cut. Then old Stacey came up and seconded the invite so heartily that Beryl gave way. But Brian was as adamant. He wanted to get back, for several reasons, he said. Beryl and I knew more than one of them at any rate. As a matter of fact, Brian was a bit of a misogynist. He detested fooling around among a pack of women, he used to say; and the Stacey girls he held in particular aversion, which was ungrateful of him, as they happened to cherish a scarcely disguised admiration for his unappreciative self. So George and poor little Iris were carried summarily off, greatly to the disgust of the latter.

We who remained made ourselves festive enough. Old Stacey, though somewhat shaky over his aspirates, was not half a bad old sort, and the girls showed to far the best advantage in their own home. They made themselves exceedingly pleasant to Beryl and myself, and if they had a way of bracketing us together, so to say, it was by no means displeasing to me, for I had got into a way myself of feeling a sort of proprietary right in her, when we were among other people. If she noticed this, assuredly she could not have resented it; at times I would even let myself think she unconsciously reciprocated it. She would often refer to me upon some debated matter, for instance, as if mine was the opinion which rendered it final.

We took leave of our entertainers a couple of hours before sundown, in great good humour with ourselves and all the world. A misgiving had at one time seized me lest Trask should inflict himself upon us, as at any rate part of our way lay together, but he had taken himself off much earlier—and now we were alone. Not a soul was in sight, not even a house. The undulation of the veldt, green and gold in the westering sun, stretching away on either side, was as if deserted by man. Not by animate Nature, though. A troop of monkeys skipped across our path, momentarily scaring our horses, and chattering at us from the tree-tops; and bird voices were never still. Several blue cranes were shambling along just off our way, and the incessant cooing of doves, near and far, blended melodiously with the fair and peaceful evening scene.

Yes, the happiness and peace of the day were upon me, as if this fair scene were an earnest of the happiness and peace which had filled my life of late. Was it a reflection of that which should continue to irradiate it? Alas and alas, could I but have foreseen! Yet what misgiving could strike me then, what foreboding that this day was the last—the very last day of happiness or peace for me, and indeed for others, for a long time to come?

“Well, Kenrick, and what is the subject of that very deep meditation?”

I started. I had forgotten how long I had been plunged in silence.

“You are,” I said.

“Me?”

Her eyes opened wide. There was the most delightfully alluring little smile, half demure, half mischievous, playing around her lips. Then, as I took in her whole sweet personality, as I looked at her and thought how the next few moments were to decide whether that sweet and gracious personality were to belong to me for the remainder of our lives, or not—my pulses were bounding and beating at such a rate that I wondered how I should get out even two consecutive and coherent words. Yet it must be done, now and here.

“Listen, Beryl,” I began. “There is something I want you to hear, and that you must hear. I—”

“Hullo! Hi, you good people! Hold on a bit and give us a chance to come up.”

And that infernal Trask came clattering upon our heels, having spotted us from the road which led from his place. Well, there was an end of everything. My opportunity was gone—for that day, at any rate; and I hold a superstition to the effect that opportunities have a way of not recurring.

“Thought I’d ride over and make an evening of it at your place, Miss Matterson,” he rattled on. “A man gets a bit hipped sometimes all by himself, you know. So glad I fell in with you like this.”

Beryl answered sweetly that so were we, and that they were always glad to see him, and so forth. While I—well, at that moment I could cheerfully have murdered Trask with my own hand.

Chapter Nineteen.Concerning a Tragedy.A shot rang out, faint and distant, upon the slumbrous morning air.“There’s that youngschelmGeorge at work,” remarked Brian, raising himself on one elbow to listen.“At play, rather,” I laughed.“That’s it. He’s a jolly sight too fond of cutting school in favour of a buck-hunt. The governor spoils him far too much. I wouldn’t.”George’s education at that time was effected through the agency of a farm-school about seven miles off, whither he rode over five days per week; in theory at least, for few indeed were the weeks out of which he did not contrive to filch one extra day—not to help us in any work, oh dear no, for he looked upon it as a distinct grievance to be required to do any such thing—but to amuse himself. To-day he had started for the Zwaart Kloof alone to try and sneak a bush-buck. But if the young rascal was at play, Brian and I were tolerably hard at work; had been rather, for we had spent the morning strengthening and repairing the bush fence of one of our enclosures; and chopping mimosa boughs and then beating them into place is a fairly muscular phase of manual labour on a hot day. Now we were pausing for a rest.But if it was a hot day it was a lovely one—lovely and cloudless. A shimmer of heat lay upon the wide valley, and all the life of the veldt was astir—bird voices calling far and near, the melodious hoot of the hoepoe from the distance, the quaint, half-whistling, half-rasping dialogue of a pair of yellow thrushes hard by, or the bold cheery pipe of sheeny-winged spreuws flashing among the bush sprays. Insect sounds, too; the bass boom of some big beetle rising above the murmuring hum of bees, and the screech of innumerable crickets. In sooth, if our work was hard, it was set amid exquisite surroundings, and, as though no element of romance should be lacking, I thought to discern from time to time the flutter of a light dress about the homestead, nearly a mile distant beneath us, as though reminding myself, at any rate, that after labour came recreation, which to me spelt Beryl.No opportunity had I found for renewing the subject so ruthlessly interrupted yesterday during our ride home, and now I was tormented by an uncomfortable misgiving as to whether Beryl was not purposely avoiding any such opportunity.We got up from the grateful shade under which we had been resting, and, hatchet in hand, started in on another spell, and for nearly an hour were chopping and hauling, and banging the great mimosa boughs into place so that the thorns should interlace with those already laid down. Then Brian suggested we should go back to dinner, and return and finish up when it was cooler, but before we could put this plan into execution the trampling of hoofs was heard drawing rapidly near, at a pace that was out of the way reckless and unnecessary.“That’s George,” said Brian, “but if he’s shot anything he hasn’t loaded it up. Hey! Hullo! What luck, George?”The latter would have passed without seeing us. Now as he reined in and approached us we saw that the boy’s face was as white as death, and his eyes staring with the most awful look of horror and fear.“Man, what’s wrong?” said Brian sharply, his own bronzed countenance turning a kind of whitey-brown. “Not shot yourself, have you?”“No, not myself—not myself,” the boy managed to jerk out. And then he broke into a wild fit of sobbing.Brian’s face grew still whiter.“Is it somebody else, then? But you went out alone.”“Yes—I—I—I w-went out alone.”“George, pull yourself together, man. Whatever’s happened; we’re losing time. Don’t be an ass now. Tell us all about it.”This he managed to do; and a woeful and dismaying tale it was that he spasmodically unfolded. Reft of its incoherencies—natural under the circumstances—this was the sum of it.He had reached the Zwaart Kloof, and having left his horse was stealthily advancing to peer over the brink of a small krantz, beneath which a bush-buck was sometimes lying. This time, instead of a bush-buck there were a lot of Kafir boys larking about the kloof. He told them to clear out, but, seeing he couldn’t get at them immediately, they were cheeky and laughed at him. So he pointed his gun at them, calling out that he’d shoot the whole lot if they didn’t clear—intending, of course, only to frighten them—and then—how it happened he could not for the life of him tell—but the gun went off, the heavy charge of treble A simply raking the group. Two were killed outright, for they never moved, and two more lay wounded and screaming. The rest ran away, and he himself, reckoning that the best plan was to get help as soon as possible, had started for home as fast as his horse could carry him.Such was the miserable story which the wretched boy managed to unfold, and meanwhile we were walking rapidly towards the house.“Oh, I never meant to do anything but scare them, Brian—I swear before God I didn’t!” sobbed the poor little chap, in an agony of remorse.“Of course you didn’t, George. We all know that. Here, give me the gun.”“Take it—take it. I never want to touch a gun again in my life. Oh, what is to be done? What will the dad say?”Septimus Matterson did not “say” much, but the expression of his face was as that of a man undergoing acute physical pain. Meanwhile Brian had been thinking out a plan, which was to proceed at once to the spot with two of the farm Kafirs, and see what could be done for the wounded boys. Beryl volunteered to accompany him, but this he vetoed with his wonted decisiveness.“On no account, Beryl. You stay here—you’ll be far more useful that way. Now turn me out some bandages, and a flask of brandy.”This was done in a moment, and he was ready to start.“No, no, Kenrick,” he said, as I announced my intention of accompanying him. “You must stay here too. Don’t move from the house either. Do you hear? It’s hard to say what may happen, and you’ll be wanted. There’s no telling what trouble this affair may stir up. You understand?”Then I did understand. The ominous significance of his tone sufficed for that. But all attempts to convince him that his place lay here too, were futile.“Those who ran away will have obtained help from their own people by now,” I urged. But in vain.The while Beryl was striving to reassure her young brother, and she had all her work cut out for her, for the poor boy’s remorse was dreadful to witness, and to do him justice no thought of potential pains and penalties hanging over his own head entered into this, which was actuated by sheer horror of having taken life—several lives, for all we could at present tell.“It was pure accident, George, we all know that,” she said. “And you must do all you can in reparation. You will remember that, dear, won’t you, whatever happens.”“Oh, they can hang me if they like. The sooner the better.”“They won’t do that, at any rate. It was an accident.” And then Beryl went on to soothe and comfort the poor boy, and the sweet magnetism of her voice and words bore good effect.This and more I overheard while discussing the situation with their father.“This is a most awful and deplorable thing to have happened, Kenrick,” the latter was saying. “As soon as Brian comes back, and we know the extent of the damage, I shall have to send into Fort Lamport and notify the Resident Magistrate. The boy may even be sent for trial for manslaughter.”“But the thing was a sheer accident. Surely they won’t hold a kid like that criminally responsible.”“There’s no knowing what Shattuck’ll do or won’t do—he’s such an officious fool.”“Yes, he’s all that,” I agreed, having an acid recollection of the demeanour of the official in question over such a trivial matter as signing a firearm permit.“He has a ‘down’ on us farmers too, and will always favour a Kafir under the Masters and Servants Act if he gets a chance. It’s just the same in stock stealing cases. They ought to have put him into some Western Province magistracy. A man like that has no business on the frontier.”“I blame myself mostly,” went on the speaker. “I ought never to have allowed a young feather-head like George to go out alone with a gun. The only thing is, I have always believed in boys learning to shoot as soon as possible in a country like this. Even girls ought to. Beryl can.”“Rather,” I said. “Haven’t I seen evidence of that?”Septimus Matterson was looking worn and ill, and very anxious. He had been ailing for some days past, and this deplorable eventuality had not exactly gone towards setting him up. I remembered Beryl’s remark about her father’s life not being a “good” one, from an insurance point of view, and felt more than anxious on his behalf.“You are not looking at all well yourself,” I said. “Now, don’t let this affair get on your mind too much. It’ll all blow over, depend upon it.”“Oh, I’m all right, Kenrick. Don’t you worry about me. I suppose Beryl has been filling you up with some of her coddling notions. She wants to coddle me, the dear girl—always telling me to take care of myself; and so on. I pretend to take it all in, of course. Hallo! Wait a minute—” he broke off.He went outside, returning directly with a field-glass.“Quite a lot of them,” he said, handing it to me after a look down the kloof. “We shall have trouble over this, Kenrick, apart from any cussedness Shattuck may spring on us. I wish Brian was back again.”So did I, as I stood with the glass to my eyes. For a number of Kafirs were coming up the kloof, some mounted but most on foot—the latter coming along at a swinging trot to keep pace with the horsemen. And that there might be no doubt as to their hostile intent, I could see that all carried a couple of business-like kerries apiece, and not a few of them assegais as well.“Hadn’t we better arm ourselves and barricade the house?” I suggested.“No, no. We mustn’t seem afraid of them. Still, there’s no harm in dropping a revolver into our right hand pockets, in case of accidents. We’ll talk to them here.”We went inside and quickly loaded a revolver apiece. At a word from her father Beryl got down her own pistol, loaded it, and tranquilly pocketed it. Poor little Iris was looking very scared, but was quite quiet.“Keep these children entirely out of sight, Beryl,” enjoined her father, “and it’ll be no harm if you don’t show yourself during theindaba. There may be a lot of bluster and talking big; but it won’t come to anything worse, so don’t be scared, any of you.”“I wish Brian were here, father,” said Beryl anxiously.“So do I, but he isn’t. And if ever you’ve known of a situation in which Brian has proved unable to take care of himself, I haven’t. He’ll be all right.”The dogs, which had been walking up and down outside, growling, now broke into such a clamour as to drown all speech, and charged furiously down upon the advancing Kafirs as the foremost came in sight round the bend of the cattle kraal, and would hardly be called off, even by their master’s most imperative tones, aided by two or three kerries shied at them by the newcomers, an act in itself significant of the ugly and dangerous mood which was upon our unwelcome visitors.“Seems as if we’d got the whole of Kuliso’s location,” said Septimus Matterson, as we took in the crowd which was advancing upon us. The kloof indeed seemed black with Kafirs. Those who had horses dismounted as they came in sight of the house, and the whole body of them came straight on with a fellness of purpose that augured the worst.It was a tense moment. Our unpleasantness with the people at the kraal on our way in pursuit of the stolen oxen was nothing to this for a situation. There must have been hundreds and hundreds of Kafirs here; hulking, ochre-smeared barbarians, some of gigantic stature, all with an expression of menace and determination and ferocity upon their savage faces. Others, too, were coming on in the distance to swell their numbers. My hand was closed round the butt of the revolver in my pocket. I looked at Septimus Matterson. He had not moved, and was still standing, calm and undismayed, confronting the furious and threatening rout.

A shot rang out, faint and distant, upon the slumbrous morning air.

“There’s that youngschelmGeorge at work,” remarked Brian, raising himself on one elbow to listen.

“At play, rather,” I laughed.

“That’s it. He’s a jolly sight too fond of cutting school in favour of a buck-hunt. The governor spoils him far too much. I wouldn’t.”

George’s education at that time was effected through the agency of a farm-school about seven miles off, whither he rode over five days per week; in theory at least, for few indeed were the weeks out of which he did not contrive to filch one extra day—not to help us in any work, oh dear no, for he looked upon it as a distinct grievance to be required to do any such thing—but to amuse himself. To-day he had started for the Zwaart Kloof alone to try and sneak a bush-buck. But if the young rascal was at play, Brian and I were tolerably hard at work; had been rather, for we had spent the morning strengthening and repairing the bush fence of one of our enclosures; and chopping mimosa boughs and then beating them into place is a fairly muscular phase of manual labour on a hot day. Now we were pausing for a rest.

But if it was a hot day it was a lovely one—lovely and cloudless. A shimmer of heat lay upon the wide valley, and all the life of the veldt was astir—bird voices calling far and near, the melodious hoot of the hoepoe from the distance, the quaint, half-whistling, half-rasping dialogue of a pair of yellow thrushes hard by, or the bold cheery pipe of sheeny-winged spreuws flashing among the bush sprays. Insect sounds, too; the bass boom of some big beetle rising above the murmuring hum of bees, and the screech of innumerable crickets. In sooth, if our work was hard, it was set amid exquisite surroundings, and, as though no element of romance should be lacking, I thought to discern from time to time the flutter of a light dress about the homestead, nearly a mile distant beneath us, as though reminding myself, at any rate, that after labour came recreation, which to me spelt Beryl.

No opportunity had I found for renewing the subject so ruthlessly interrupted yesterday during our ride home, and now I was tormented by an uncomfortable misgiving as to whether Beryl was not purposely avoiding any such opportunity.

We got up from the grateful shade under which we had been resting, and, hatchet in hand, started in on another spell, and for nearly an hour were chopping and hauling, and banging the great mimosa boughs into place so that the thorns should interlace with those already laid down. Then Brian suggested we should go back to dinner, and return and finish up when it was cooler, but before we could put this plan into execution the trampling of hoofs was heard drawing rapidly near, at a pace that was out of the way reckless and unnecessary.

“That’s George,” said Brian, “but if he’s shot anything he hasn’t loaded it up. Hey! Hullo! What luck, George?”

The latter would have passed without seeing us. Now as he reined in and approached us we saw that the boy’s face was as white as death, and his eyes staring with the most awful look of horror and fear.

“Man, what’s wrong?” said Brian sharply, his own bronzed countenance turning a kind of whitey-brown. “Not shot yourself, have you?”

“No, not myself—not myself,” the boy managed to jerk out. And then he broke into a wild fit of sobbing.

Brian’s face grew still whiter.

“Is it somebody else, then? But you went out alone.”

“Yes—I—I—I w-went out alone.”

“George, pull yourself together, man. Whatever’s happened; we’re losing time. Don’t be an ass now. Tell us all about it.”

This he managed to do; and a woeful and dismaying tale it was that he spasmodically unfolded. Reft of its incoherencies—natural under the circumstances—this was the sum of it.

He had reached the Zwaart Kloof, and having left his horse was stealthily advancing to peer over the brink of a small krantz, beneath which a bush-buck was sometimes lying. This time, instead of a bush-buck there were a lot of Kafir boys larking about the kloof. He told them to clear out, but, seeing he couldn’t get at them immediately, they were cheeky and laughed at him. So he pointed his gun at them, calling out that he’d shoot the whole lot if they didn’t clear—intending, of course, only to frighten them—and then—how it happened he could not for the life of him tell—but the gun went off, the heavy charge of treble A simply raking the group. Two were killed outright, for they never moved, and two more lay wounded and screaming. The rest ran away, and he himself, reckoning that the best plan was to get help as soon as possible, had started for home as fast as his horse could carry him.

Such was the miserable story which the wretched boy managed to unfold, and meanwhile we were walking rapidly towards the house.

“Oh, I never meant to do anything but scare them, Brian—I swear before God I didn’t!” sobbed the poor little chap, in an agony of remorse.

“Of course you didn’t, George. We all know that. Here, give me the gun.”

“Take it—take it. I never want to touch a gun again in my life. Oh, what is to be done? What will the dad say?”

Septimus Matterson did not “say” much, but the expression of his face was as that of a man undergoing acute physical pain. Meanwhile Brian had been thinking out a plan, which was to proceed at once to the spot with two of the farm Kafirs, and see what could be done for the wounded boys. Beryl volunteered to accompany him, but this he vetoed with his wonted decisiveness.

“On no account, Beryl. You stay here—you’ll be far more useful that way. Now turn me out some bandages, and a flask of brandy.”

This was done in a moment, and he was ready to start.

“No, no, Kenrick,” he said, as I announced my intention of accompanying him. “You must stay here too. Don’t move from the house either. Do you hear? It’s hard to say what may happen, and you’ll be wanted. There’s no telling what trouble this affair may stir up. You understand?”

Then I did understand. The ominous significance of his tone sufficed for that. But all attempts to convince him that his place lay here too, were futile.

“Those who ran away will have obtained help from their own people by now,” I urged. But in vain.

The while Beryl was striving to reassure her young brother, and she had all her work cut out for her, for the poor boy’s remorse was dreadful to witness, and to do him justice no thought of potential pains and penalties hanging over his own head entered into this, which was actuated by sheer horror of having taken life—several lives, for all we could at present tell.

“It was pure accident, George, we all know that,” she said. “And you must do all you can in reparation. You will remember that, dear, won’t you, whatever happens.”

“Oh, they can hang me if they like. The sooner the better.”

“They won’t do that, at any rate. It was an accident.” And then Beryl went on to soothe and comfort the poor boy, and the sweet magnetism of her voice and words bore good effect.

This and more I overheard while discussing the situation with their father.

“This is a most awful and deplorable thing to have happened, Kenrick,” the latter was saying. “As soon as Brian comes back, and we know the extent of the damage, I shall have to send into Fort Lamport and notify the Resident Magistrate. The boy may even be sent for trial for manslaughter.”

“But the thing was a sheer accident. Surely they won’t hold a kid like that criminally responsible.”

“There’s no knowing what Shattuck’ll do or won’t do—he’s such an officious fool.”

“Yes, he’s all that,” I agreed, having an acid recollection of the demeanour of the official in question over such a trivial matter as signing a firearm permit.

“He has a ‘down’ on us farmers too, and will always favour a Kafir under the Masters and Servants Act if he gets a chance. It’s just the same in stock stealing cases. They ought to have put him into some Western Province magistracy. A man like that has no business on the frontier.”

“I blame myself mostly,” went on the speaker. “I ought never to have allowed a young feather-head like George to go out alone with a gun. The only thing is, I have always believed in boys learning to shoot as soon as possible in a country like this. Even girls ought to. Beryl can.”

“Rather,” I said. “Haven’t I seen evidence of that?”

Septimus Matterson was looking worn and ill, and very anxious. He had been ailing for some days past, and this deplorable eventuality had not exactly gone towards setting him up. I remembered Beryl’s remark about her father’s life not being a “good” one, from an insurance point of view, and felt more than anxious on his behalf.

“You are not looking at all well yourself,” I said. “Now, don’t let this affair get on your mind too much. It’ll all blow over, depend upon it.”

“Oh, I’m all right, Kenrick. Don’t you worry about me. I suppose Beryl has been filling you up with some of her coddling notions. She wants to coddle me, the dear girl—always telling me to take care of myself; and so on. I pretend to take it all in, of course. Hallo! Wait a minute—” he broke off.

He went outside, returning directly with a field-glass.

“Quite a lot of them,” he said, handing it to me after a look down the kloof. “We shall have trouble over this, Kenrick, apart from any cussedness Shattuck may spring on us. I wish Brian was back again.”

So did I, as I stood with the glass to my eyes. For a number of Kafirs were coming up the kloof, some mounted but most on foot—the latter coming along at a swinging trot to keep pace with the horsemen. And that there might be no doubt as to their hostile intent, I could see that all carried a couple of business-like kerries apiece, and not a few of them assegais as well.

“Hadn’t we better arm ourselves and barricade the house?” I suggested.

“No, no. We mustn’t seem afraid of them. Still, there’s no harm in dropping a revolver into our right hand pockets, in case of accidents. We’ll talk to them here.”

We went inside and quickly loaded a revolver apiece. At a word from her father Beryl got down her own pistol, loaded it, and tranquilly pocketed it. Poor little Iris was looking very scared, but was quite quiet.

“Keep these children entirely out of sight, Beryl,” enjoined her father, “and it’ll be no harm if you don’t show yourself during theindaba. There may be a lot of bluster and talking big; but it won’t come to anything worse, so don’t be scared, any of you.”

“I wish Brian were here, father,” said Beryl anxiously.

“So do I, but he isn’t. And if ever you’ve known of a situation in which Brian has proved unable to take care of himself, I haven’t. He’ll be all right.”

The dogs, which had been walking up and down outside, growling, now broke into such a clamour as to drown all speech, and charged furiously down upon the advancing Kafirs as the foremost came in sight round the bend of the cattle kraal, and would hardly be called off, even by their master’s most imperative tones, aided by two or three kerries shied at them by the newcomers, an act in itself significant of the ugly and dangerous mood which was upon our unwelcome visitors.

“Seems as if we’d got the whole of Kuliso’s location,” said Septimus Matterson, as we took in the crowd which was advancing upon us. The kloof indeed seemed black with Kafirs. Those who had horses dismounted as they came in sight of the house, and the whole body of them came straight on with a fellness of purpose that augured the worst.

It was a tense moment. Our unpleasantness with the people at the kraal on our way in pursuit of the stolen oxen was nothing to this for a situation. There must have been hundreds and hundreds of Kafirs here; hulking, ochre-smeared barbarians, some of gigantic stature, all with an expression of menace and determination and ferocity upon their savage faces. Others, too, were coming on in the distance to swell their numbers. My hand was closed round the butt of the revolver in my pocket. I looked at Septimus Matterson. He had not moved, and was still standing, calm and undismayed, confronting the furious and threatening rout.

Chapter Twenty.A Fell Alternative.“Halt!”Septimus Matterson put forth his hand and uttered just the one word, and the effect was like fire applied to the train. A roar of menace and fury ran through the whole crowd. A forest of dark grisly hands seemed to tighten with murderous grip upon kerries, and assegais were shaken at us; but the injunction was obeyed. The foremost were about fifty paces from us, and others came swarming up in the background, forming an immense half circle.“We have come for the boy. He must die. He has slain two of our sons—and they are of the House of Kuliso. He must die.”Such was the promising manner in which negotiations were opened. Now I had been studying the Xosa tongue rather diligently since I had been at Gonya’s Kloof, and had acquired quite a smattering of it. Septimus Matterson, of course, spoke it perfectly.“Were they of the house of the chief?” he said. “But where is Kuliso?”“Bring out the boy,” they roared in response. “He must die. He has taken two lives, and he must die twice. Bring him out,Umlúngu, or it will be the worse for all of you.”“Hear now,amadoda” came the reply, “the thing was an accident, entirely an accident, and for it I will make due and complete compensation according to your custom. Retire now and carry my word to Kuliso and hisamapakati, for surely I see no man of any note here.”This was indeed the case, and augured the worst. The wily chiefs could plead afterwards that any outrage that might occur was the work of an irresponsible mob. The latter, in no wise pacified, broke forth again.“Compensation? Not so. Blood for blood. A life for a life—or rather for two lives. That is the word of the people. And the two lives were of the house of the chief. Bring out the boy. Bring him out.”The wild hubbub of voices grew louder and louder, and the ferocious crowd closed in upon us nearer and nearer. Sticks were brandished, and I could see more than one ruffian handling his assegai all ready for a cast. It was a fearful moment. Our lives seemed to hang upon a hair—and worse, for were we struck down or assegaied, would these barbarians, in the fury of their blood lust, spare one living being within that house?“Shall we get inside and shoot?” I said hurriedly and in a low tone, without turning my face from the enemy.“No. We’d do no good that way. The bluster may wear itself out.”“Attend,Umlúngu,” called out one great voice. “If the boy is not handed over to us immediately, we will take him. But first of all we will kill all here.”“You will have to do that first, Sibuko,” was the stern reply, “and in doing it many of yourselves will die.”Sibuko! I remembered the name, and now, looking at its wearer, I remembered him. It was the big Kafir to whom Brian had administered a well-deserved thrashing on the morning after my arrival, and now this ruffian was the leading spirit of the whole ferocious crew. We were indeed in a bad way. It was manifest that no white man could surrender his son into the power of these savages, even apart from their curiously significant promise that he should die “twice.” But—the way out?“This is what shall be done,” went on Matterson. “The boy shall be sent into the town to be tried by the magistrate. The laws of the Government are there, and are for all. Kuliso cannot make his own laws, unless the Amandhlambe are prepared to make war upon the Government. When a white man kills another he is tried and punished for it. When a Kafir kills another the same happens. Both are punished by the same laws, the laws of the Government.”I thought I observed a tendency among them to cool down at these words, but that ruffian Sibuko walked up and down, haranguing them and flourishing his kerrie, and in the result a number of them went round to the back of the house. Well, this did not distress us much. We thought that Beryl would know what to do in such an emergency.“The boy!” they howled again. “Give him up to us, or we will kill you all and roast you in the flames of your burning house. Now,Umlúngu, bring out the boy.”Septimus Matterson put up his hand. The clamour stilled.“Listen,” he said, and his voice rang out loud and clear. “You shall not have the boy. We hold twelve lives here,” drawing his revolver and pointing it, an example I promptly followed. “Before you kill us twelve men shall die. You know me.”The silence that followed upon the tumult was well-nigh alarming. The clamourous savages had imagined that they had two unarmed men to deal with, and now the sight of two business-like six-shooters pointed straight at them seemed to throw a different light on affairs. They were hundreds, it was true. But that twelve men, or near it, would certainly fall before they could reach us they fully realised, the point of which was that none of them wanted to constitute one of the twelve. I stole a sidelong look at Septimus Matterson, and thought to discover something of what had daunted them, for his face wore the aspect of the strong, quiet man thoroughly roused, and, more dangerous still, deadly cool through it all. At the same time came Beryl’s voice from the other side of the house, sharp and clear upon the silence, saying in their tongue—“These two guns are heavily loaded with buckshot. I will pour all four barrels into the mass of you if you make a step forward. After that I still hold six lives.”Looking back, I can hardly ever have gone through a more strained crisis of tense excitement than that moment afforded. The great crescent of ochre-smeared, infuriated savages seemed to shrink into itself, as though concentrating for a decisive rush, and indeed I don’t care to think what the next moment might have brought forth had not a diversion occurred.Coming up the kloof at a swift canter were four mounted figures. Police? No. Three of them were Kafirs, the fourth a white man.“Au!Namhlanje!” went up from the crowd, and heads were turned to watch the new arrivals.Now “Namhlanje” was Brian’s native name, which, meaning “to-day,” had been bestowed upon him as characterising his quick decisive way of doing things, and when linked with it was uttered another name, Usivulele, I began to think the crisis was past, for the name was that of one of the Ndhlambe chiefs, whose influence was hardly inferior to that of Kuliso himself.Hostilities were suspended pending the arrival of these, and, as they rode up, the threatening and tumultuous clamour was changed into deep-toned salutations addressed to the chief.The latter was a well-built elderly man, with no insignia of chieftainship about him, not even the thick ivory armlet which he wore just above the left elbow, for several of his followers wore this adornment too. But the deference displayed towards him by this unruly mob, that told its own tale. For such is the prestige and authority of a tribal chief among the Amaxosa that if you have him on your side in any dispute with his subjects, why, the matter is settled. That now Usivulele was upon our side I had no doubt, seeing that Brian was riding with him. The other two were old men with grizzled heads, and wereamapakati, or councillors. Way was at once made for the group, and a rush to hold their horses as they dismounted.“I see a chief,” said Septimus Matterson in figurative greeting—he had already put away his revolver, and so had I, with a feeling of relief it would be impossible to exaggerate. “Now we can talk.”“My heart is very sore over what has happened, my friend,” he went on. “Yet he who has done this thing is a child, and he has done it by accident. When a child does that for which a grown man would be killed, he is not killed because he is only a child. He is not killed, but he is punished. Is it not so?”The three uttered a murmur of assent. Brian said nothing.“Well, then, although this thing was an accident, and although the child is my own son, I do not propose to shield him from punishment. But it is not for me, and it is not for these here, to decide on what punishment he shall receive. It is for the law. Therefore I am going to send to Fort Lamport for theamapolise, and the boy will be taken to the magistrate there. After that we must leave him to the laws of the Government. Say. Is not that just and fair?”“Ewa,” assented the three, and I observed that a like murmur went up from not a few in the listening crowd.“Hau!” broke forth one voice. “What of our father, Kuliso? Those who are killed were of his house.”The interruption had proceeded from Sibuko. The hulking ruffian, standing there in the forefront, his muscular frame smeared from head to foot with red ochre, a vengeful sneer upon his savage face as he significantly gripped his kerries, struck me as about as evil and formidable an impersonation of barbarism as it would be possible to present.“Yes. What of our father, Kuliso?” echoed others. But Usivulele merely waved a hand, and there was silence as by magic.“You all know me,amadoda,” went on Septimus Matterson. “Now I will write a letter to the magistrate, and two of your number shall carry it. By to-night theamapolisewill be here.”“Hau! Theamapolisewill be here. But will the boy be here?” said the abominable Sibuko, with his head craftily on one side.“You can see for yourselves. Let some of you watch the house until theamapolisearrive.”“But how do we know he is here now?” went on this persistent savage. “He may have been taken away quietly during all this time. Bring him out, and let us see him.”“Ewa,ewa!” shouted several.This would have been acceded to, when a sudden instinct of the impolicy of such a course flashed across my mind, and I take a sneaking pride in having supplemented judgment to so experienced and judicious a mind when for once that attribute seemed to fail.“Don’t you do it,” I said hurriedly and in an undertone. “No point in making the boy toomarked, under the circumstances. Show him to the chief only.”“You’re right, Kenrick.” Then aloud: “The chief will satisfy you. He will come into my house and see the boy.”While this was being done Brian quickly put me up to his own movements. There was no doubt about it but that two of the Kafir boys were dead. It was a most lamentable and unfortunate affair for everybody concerned. How had he fallen in with Usivulele? Ah, that was something of a piece of luck. He had got wind of a dangerous demonstration being organised, had seen the Kafirs swarming along the hillsides from different points, but all converging upon the same—our valley to wit. Only one way to counteract this had suggested itself, and accordingly he had ridden straight and hard for Usivulele’s kraal. He and his were on exceedingly friendly terms with that chief, and he had soon prevailed upon him to intervene.“Well, Brian, if ever a man did the right thing at the right time, you did it then. A few minutes later would have been so many minutes too late.”“I believe so,” he said. “I could see that things were looking as ugly as they could. Well, it’ll be all right now, at least as far as Kuliso’s people are concerned.”Then Usivulele came forth again, and began haranguing the crowd. The whole thing was as had been said, he informed them, and they might now go home. The matter was in his hands now, and he would remain until the boy was handed over to theamopolise. This he himself would see done. Then he chose two men to carry the letter in to Fort Lamport, and the crowd began to break up. A few manifested a disposition to hang around and see the thing out, and this was not objected to, but the remainder scattered off in groups, or by twos and threes, and glad indeed we were to see the last of them.It may be imagined what a gloom there was over us all during the remainder of that day. Beryl hardly appeared, and George not at all, and even poor little Iris had lost her sunny flow of spirits. We three men had hardly the heart for anything, and got through time chatting with the chief and his councillors, who, incidentally, were lavishly entertained. But it was not until late at night that a squad of Mounted Police arrived, under a sergeant, to take charge of the boy.We were not sorry to learn either from the same source that a strong patrol would be working along this side of Kuliso’s location, for it was arranged that we should all start for Fort Lamport together at daybreak.

“Halt!”

Septimus Matterson put forth his hand and uttered just the one word, and the effect was like fire applied to the train. A roar of menace and fury ran through the whole crowd. A forest of dark grisly hands seemed to tighten with murderous grip upon kerries, and assegais were shaken at us; but the injunction was obeyed. The foremost were about fifty paces from us, and others came swarming up in the background, forming an immense half circle.

“We have come for the boy. He must die. He has slain two of our sons—and they are of the House of Kuliso. He must die.”

Such was the promising manner in which negotiations were opened. Now I had been studying the Xosa tongue rather diligently since I had been at Gonya’s Kloof, and had acquired quite a smattering of it. Septimus Matterson, of course, spoke it perfectly.

“Were they of the house of the chief?” he said. “But where is Kuliso?”

“Bring out the boy,” they roared in response. “He must die. He has taken two lives, and he must die twice. Bring him out,Umlúngu, or it will be the worse for all of you.”

“Hear now,amadoda” came the reply, “the thing was an accident, entirely an accident, and for it I will make due and complete compensation according to your custom. Retire now and carry my word to Kuliso and hisamapakati, for surely I see no man of any note here.”

This was indeed the case, and augured the worst. The wily chiefs could plead afterwards that any outrage that might occur was the work of an irresponsible mob. The latter, in no wise pacified, broke forth again.

“Compensation? Not so. Blood for blood. A life for a life—or rather for two lives. That is the word of the people. And the two lives were of the house of the chief. Bring out the boy. Bring him out.”

The wild hubbub of voices grew louder and louder, and the ferocious crowd closed in upon us nearer and nearer. Sticks were brandished, and I could see more than one ruffian handling his assegai all ready for a cast. It was a fearful moment. Our lives seemed to hang upon a hair—and worse, for were we struck down or assegaied, would these barbarians, in the fury of their blood lust, spare one living being within that house?

“Shall we get inside and shoot?” I said hurriedly and in a low tone, without turning my face from the enemy.

“No. We’d do no good that way. The bluster may wear itself out.”

“Attend,Umlúngu,” called out one great voice. “If the boy is not handed over to us immediately, we will take him. But first of all we will kill all here.”

“You will have to do that first, Sibuko,” was the stern reply, “and in doing it many of yourselves will die.”

Sibuko! I remembered the name, and now, looking at its wearer, I remembered him. It was the big Kafir to whom Brian had administered a well-deserved thrashing on the morning after my arrival, and now this ruffian was the leading spirit of the whole ferocious crew. We were indeed in a bad way. It was manifest that no white man could surrender his son into the power of these savages, even apart from their curiously significant promise that he should die “twice.” But—the way out?

“This is what shall be done,” went on Matterson. “The boy shall be sent into the town to be tried by the magistrate. The laws of the Government are there, and are for all. Kuliso cannot make his own laws, unless the Amandhlambe are prepared to make war upon the Government. When a white man kills another he is tried and punished for it. When a Kafir kills another the same happens. Both are punished by the same laws, the laws of the Government.”

I thought I observed a tendency among them to cool down at these words, but that ruffian Sibuko walked up and down, haranguing them and flourishing his kerrie, and in the result a number of them went round to the back of the house. Well, this did not distress us much. We thought that Beryl would know what to do in such an emergency.

“The boy!” they howled again. “Give him up to us, or we will kill you all and roast you in the flames of your burning house. Now,Umlúngu, bring out the boy.”

Septimus Matterson put up his hand. The clamour stilled.

“Listen,” he said, and his voice rang out loud and clear. “You shall not have the boy. We hold twelve lives here,” drawing his revolver and pointing it, an example I promptly followed. “Before you kill us twelve men shall die. You know me.”

The silence that followed upon the tumult was well-nigh alarming. The clamourous savages had imagined that they had two unarmed men to deal with, and now the sight of two business-like six-shooters pointed straight at them seemed to throw a different light on affairs. They were hundreds, it was true. But that twelve men, or near it, would certainly fall before they could reach us they fully realised, the point of which was that none of them wanted to constitute one of the twelve. I stole a sidelong look at Septimus Matterson, and thought to discover something of what had daunted them, for his face wore the aspect of the strong, quiet man thoroughly roused, and, more dangerous still, deadly cool through it all. At the same time came Beryl’s voice from the other side of the house, sharp and clear upon the silence, saying in their tongue—

“These two guns are heavily loaded with buckshot. I will pour all four barrels into the mass of you if you make a step forward. After that I still hold six lives.”

Looking back, I can hardly ever have gone through a more strained crisis of tense excitement than that moment afforded. The great crescent of ochre-smeared, infuriated savages seemed to shrink into itself, as though concentrating for a decisive rush, and indeed I don’t care to think what the next moment might have brought forth had not a diversion occurred.

Coming up the kloof at a swift canter were four mounted figures. Police? No. Three of them were Kafirs, the fourth a white man.

“Au!Namhlanje!” went up from the crowd, and heads were turned to watch the new arrivals.

Now “Namhlanje” was Brian’s native name, which, meaning “to-day,” had been bestowed upon him as characterising his quick decisive way of doing things, and when linked with it was uttered another name, Usivulele, I began to think the crisis was past, for the name was that of one of the Ndhlambe chiefs, whose influence was hardly inferior to that of Kuliso himself.

Hostilities were suspended pending the arrival of these, and, as they rode up, the threatening and tumultuous clamour was changed into deep-toned salutations addressed to the chief.

The latter was a well-built elderly man, with no insignia of chieftainship about him, not even the thick ivory armlet which he wore just above the left elbow, for several of his followers wore this adornment too. But the deference displayed towards him by this unruly mob, that told its own tale. For such is the prestige and authority of a tribal chief among the Amaxosa that if you have him on your side in any dispute with his subjects, why, the matter is settled. That now Usivulele was upon our side I had no doubt, seeing that Brian was riding with him. The other two were old men with grizzled heads, and wereamapakati, or councillors. Way was at once made for the group, and a rush to hold their horses as they dismounted.

“I see a chief,” said Septimus Matterson in figurative greeting—he had already put away his revolver, and so had I, with a feeling of relief it would be impossible to exaggerate. “Now we can talk.”

“My heart is very sore over what has happened, my friend,” he went on. “Yet he who has done this thing is a child, and he has done it by accident. When a child does that for which a grown man would be killed, he is not killed because he is only a child. He is not killed, but he is punished. Is it not so?”

The three uttered a murmur of assent. Brian said nothing.

“Well, then, although this thing was an accident, and although the child is my own son, I do not propose to shield him from punishment. But it is not for me, and it is not for these here, to decide on what punishment he shall receive. It is for the law. Therefore I am going to send to Fort Lamport for theamapolise, and the boy will be taken to the magistrate there. After that we must leave him to the laws of the Government. Say. Is not that just and fair?”

“Ewa,” assented the three, and I observed that a like murmur went up from not a few in the listening crowd.

“Hau!” broke forth one voice. “What of our father, Kuliso? Those who are killed were of his house.”

The interruption had proceeded from Sibuko. The hulking ruffian, standing there in the forefront, his muscular frame smeared from head to foot with red ochre, a vengeful sneer upon his savage face as he significantly gripped his kerries, struck me as about as evil and formidable an impersonation of barbarism as it would be possible to present.

“Yes. What of our father, Kuliso?” echoed others. But Usivulele merely waved a hand, and there was silence as by magic.

“You all know me,amadoda,” went on Septimus Matterson. “Now I will write a letter to the magistrate, and two of your number shall carry it. By to-night theamapolisewill be here.”

“Hau! Theamapolisewill be here. But will the boy be here?” said the abominable Sibuko, with his head craftily on one side.

“You can see for yourselves. Let some of you watch the house until theamapolisearrive.”

“But how do we know he is here now?” went on this persistent savage. “He may have been taken away quietly during all this time. Bring him out, and let us see him.”

“Ewa,ewa!” shouted several.

This would have been acceded to, when a sudden instinct of the impolicy of such a course flashed across my mind, and I take a sneaking pride in having supplemented judgment to so experienced and judicious a mind when for once that attribute seemed to fail.

“Don’t you do it,” I said hurriedly and in an undertone. “No point in making the boy toomarked, under the circumstances. Show him to the chief only.”

“You’re right, Kenrick.” Then aloud: “The chief will satisfy you. He will come into my house and see the boy.”

While this was being done Brian quickly put me up to his own movements. There was no doubt about it but that two of the Kafir boys were dead. It was a most lamentable and unfortunate affair for everybody concerned. How had he fallen in with Usivulele? Ah, that was something of a piece of luck. He had got wind of a dangerous demonstration being organised, had seen the Kafirs swarming along the hillsides from different points, but all converging upon the same—our valley to wit. Only one way to counteract this had suggested itself, and accordingly he had ridden straight and hard for Usivulele’s kraal. He and his were on exceedingly friendly terms with that chief, and he had soon prevailed upon him to intervene.

“Well, Brian, if ever a man did the right thing at the right time, you did it then. A few minutes later would have been so many minutes too late.”

“I believe so,” he said. “I could see that things were looking as ugly as they could. Well, it’ll be all right now, at least as far as Kuliso’s people are concerned.”

Then Usivulele came forth again, and began haranguing the crowd. The whole thing was as had been said, he informed them, and they might now go home. The matter was in his hands now, and he would remain until the boy was handed over to theamopolise. This he himself would see done. Then he chose two men to carry the letter in to Fort Lamport, and the crowd began to break up. A few manifested a disposition to hang around and see the thing out, and this was not objected to, but the remainder scattered off in groups, or by twos and threes, and glad indeed we were to see the last of them.

It may be imagined what a gloom there was over us all during the remainder of that day. Beryl hardly appeared, and George not at all, and even poor little Iris had lost her sunny flow of spirits. We three men had hardly the heart for anything, and got through time chatting with the chief and his councillors, who, incidentally, were lavishly entertained. But it was not until late at night that a squad of Mounted Police arrived, under a sergeant, to take charge of the boy.

We were not sorry to learn either from the same source that a strong patrol would be working along this side of Kuliso’s location, for it was arranged that we should all start for Fort Lamport together at daybreak.

Chapter Twenty One.In Court.Shattuck, C.C. and R.M., was not a genial type of Civil servant, in that he was cold and short of manner, and always intensely official. Moreover, he was popularly credited with a strong native bias, which alone was sufficient to constitute him a round peg in a square hole, in a frontier magistracy such as Fort Lamport. Personally, he was a middle-aged man with a high bald forehead, and wearing a light full beard—would have been a good-looking one but for a normally acid expression of countenance.Poor George stood limply in the dock, all the cheek taken out of him, as Brian and I had laughingly told him, as we tried all we knew to hearten him up just before he was placed there. Indeed, there were not wanting those who thought ill of the magistrate’s curt refusal of our attorney’s application to allow him to stand beside his father throughout the preliminary examination, on account of his youth.“I cannot make such exceptions as that, Mr Pyle,” had been the answer. “Had it been the case of a native no such application would have been made.”This, by the way, was the sort of remark which did not precisely tend to enhance Shattuck’s popularity.The Courthouse was a dingy, stuffy little enclosure, and it was crowded to overflowing, the back part of the room, usually occupied by natives, being closely packed with dark faces and rolling eyeballs; but scattered among the townspeople was a large number of stock farmers, many of whom had travelled considerable distances in order to render the Mattersons a kind of moral support.The first called was the District Surgeon, who made a post-mortem of the two bodies. The deceased, he deposed, were boys of about fifteen or sixteen, as far as he could judge. Then he proceeded to technical detail, such as the number of shot-wounds in each, when and where placed, and so forth. As to the other two who were wounded, he, the District Surgeon, could not say they were out of danger yet. Their injuries were undoubtedly severe.Then followed, severally, the three or four boys who had been in the company of those shot, and at the time. These gave their version of the affair pretty much as George had given his. He had abused them for being there, they said, and ordered them away. They laughed at him, and he called out that if they did not go at once he would shoot them. He was pointing his gun at them at the time, and the next thing they knew was that it went off and four of them were lying on the ground. The remainder ran away.The tale of each tallied, but Pyle, the attorney who was watching the case on behalf of George, after a bit of a wrangle with the Court interpreter as to the exact shade of meaning which the order to move on would or would not bear in the native vernacular, fastened upon two points in cross-examination. One was the distance between the slayer and slain, but there was no room for doubt here. He was on the top of the cliff while they were beneath it. But it was not a high one. How high? As high as the Court room?—Higher, perhaps twice as high. Obviously any one shooting at that short distance would be shooting to kill, not merely to frighten. Even a boy who was accustomed to firearms, like George was, and however careless, could be under no mistake on that head. This to dispose of any idea that he had intended merely to “pepper” the deceased without intent seriously to wound.The other point upon which our attorney harped was the demeanour of the accused. Was he angry when he ordered them away?—Yes. He said they were spoiling his hunt. Did they seriously think he meant to shoot them when he threatened to?—Well, they didn’t know. But if anybody points a gun at you and you think he means to shoot you, you don’t stand still and laugh at him?—Whau! They hadn’t thought of it in that light. No, they supposed he had not intended to shoot. Then it had been an accident?—Yes, they supposed so.All this was put by Pyle to the witnesses in due order, and they were unanimous in their answers. Pyle was radiant. During the slight commotion of finding the next witness he leaned back and whispered to us—“He’ll be discharged. Even Shattuck can’t send him for trial on top of that admission.”All the same, we were not quite so sure.Then was led a good deal of Kafir evidence, that of parents and other relatives of the dead boys, but this dealt mainly with identification, and was of little or no value for or against our side. It was tediously drawn out too by reason of the interpreting, and was not completed by the time the Court adjourned for lunch.“Buck up, old chap,” said Pyle, going over to poor George, who was not allowed to leave with us. “Buck up. You’ll be having it with your governor next grub time.”“Thanks, Mr Pyle, but I don’t believe I shall,” was the doleful reply as he was taken into the chief constable’s room to devour some sandwiches which Beryl had sent him.As we passed out of the dingy hall into the glare of the sunlight, the contrast was a relief. It was good to be out in the open air again, but the contrast was sharper as we thought of the poor boy we had just left. What if imprisonment, even for a comparatively short time, was before him?The native end of the Courthouse had emptied out its malodorous crowd, but this was nothing to the number of those who had been unable to gain admission, for to-day the whole township seemed to grow Kafirs, who had come in from near and far by reason of the excitement of the case. Some were squatting around in groups, lustily discussing it; others lounging around the general stores; while others again were shaping a course for the nearest canteen. All had sticks, and not a few a pair of them.“The sooner they pass a bye-law against carrying kerries in the streets the better,” said Brian, as we walked over to the hotel. “There are enough of these chaps here to-day to take the town if they made up their minds. Hullo!”The last was evoked by the sound of a great voice haranguing one of the groups we were passing. Looking round, we recognised Sibuko.This pestilent savage was squatting on his haunches, holding forth volubly, emphasising his points with a flourish of his kerrie in the air, or bringing it down with a whack on the ground. But to me he was of secondary interest beside a face in the group that caught my eye.“Brian, twig that chap three doors off from Sibuko,” I said hurriedly. “That’s the one who was going to cut my throat in the cave that morning. By Jove! I wonder if he remembers the knock-out I gave him. I wouldn’t mind repeating it either.”“Well, you can’t—not here and now. In the first place, there are too many of them; in the next, Shattuck would fine you about twenty pounds; and thirdly, we don’t want to stir up that stew over again.”The hotel was pretty full, and the first person to catch my eye as we entered the dining-room, rather late, was that infernal Trask, who had calmly appropriated the seat next to Beryl, and which I had mentally marked out for myself. Moreover, he was in train of trying to be excessively funny, which was his way of keeping everybody’s spirits up.“Hallo, Holt,” he sang out. “Got your seat, I’m afraid. We’d given you up. Plenty of room down there, old chap. By the way, how are things going?”“Well, we think,” I answered curtly, moving to the vacant part at the far end of the room.“Ha-ha! Holt seems a bit raggy to-day about something,” I distinctly heard Trask say. “What an uncertain tempered Johnny he is.”But I did not hear Beryl’s reply, and—I should have liked to.We had to hurry back to court again, and, the native evidence concluded, Brian was called to the witness-box. He deposed to George’s return home directly after the tragedy, and how he and I were the first to hear the boy’s account of the same, and from that, his first account, he had never swerved in any detail. Also how he himself had proceeded to the scene of the tragedy in the hope of being of some aid. Pyle then questioned him about the accused’s disposition. Was he inclined to be careless with firearms?No, Brian didn’t think he was. All boys were more or less careless about most things. Whereat a titter ran through the crowd.Was the accused of a mischievous disposition?“Not more than most other boys of his age.” And at this the titter became a laugh, causing the magistrate, whose official soul was scandalised, to glance up sharply.Was he of a passionate or vindictive disposition?“Not in the least,” answered Brian decisively. “I am as convinced that the whole affair was a sheer accident—the thoughtless pointing of a gun at anybody I don’t defend—as I am that I stand here at this moment.”A murmur of applause greeted this remark, and then Brian being done with, I was invited to take his place, but as all that was wanted from me was a mere confirmation of George’s first narrative of the affair, I soon got down again.Septimus Matterson followed. He was very much affected, but gave his evidence in a sensible straightforward manner that was worthy of all praise. He told of the irruption of indignant natives on to his place, but without any rancour or ill-will. As for the accident, no one regretted and deplored it more than he did, unless it was his unfortunate son, and he fully intended, according to Kafir custom in the matter of homicide, to make liberal compensation to the relatives of the slain boys. As to which he would be glad if the magistrate would allow this to be made known by the interpreter for the satisfaction of the natives at the back of the court.He had always lived on friendly terms with his Kafir neighbours, he went on when the hum of applause that greeted the last announcement had subsided, and hoped always to do so, in spite of this deplorable accident; several of their chiefs, too, were well known to and esteemed by him and his, and now in this case he had been the first to surrender up his own son to justice.“That will do, Mr Matterson,” said Pyle hurriedly, seeing signs of an utter breakdown. And he beckoned him from the box.Then he began a fervid appeal to the Bench. If all the testimony they had just listened to was worth a jot, he said, it was clear as clear could be that the case was not one of culpable homicide or of manslaughter, but of accidental death. The evidence of the native witnesses, fair and straightforward as, to their great credit, it had been, made this way, even more if possible than that of the relatives and friends of the accused. The only eyewitnesses of the tragedy, besides the accused, had frankly admitted when it was put fairly to them, that the lamentable and deplorable affair must have been an accident.Then he went on to enlarge upon the terrible mental punishment this boy—this mere child—had already undergone, a consciousness which would last far into his after and maturer life, of what one act of carelessness had involved; and having expatiated thus and at some length, concluded by pathetically urging his worship to discharge the accused, and not to add further to his own sufferings and to those of his sorrowing relatives.There was dead silence as the attorney ended this appeal. We, and indeed all in the room, took for granted that it would bear fruit, and that George’s discharge would follow. But we reckoned without Shattuck.“As Mr Pyle has observed,” began the magistrate, “this is a painful and deplorable case. Even an accident may have its culpable features, rendering its perpetrator amenable to the law. Here two lives have been sacrificed owing to a most culpable piece of thoughtless bravado on the part of the accused, and I should not be doing my duty in summarily discharging him. It is a case for a judge and jury to decide, and the accused stands committed to the next Circuit Court here.”Then the formality of asking him if he wished to make a statement being gone through, and having been duly cautioned, George, instructed by the attorney, repeated, “It was an accident,” and in a scrawling, shaky, schoolboy hand signed his statement.Then Pyle applied that bail should be granted. There was plenty of substantial security available, he added. And at his words at least a dozen men stood up. But the next words that fell from the Bench were even a greater thunderbolt to us than the decision to commit.“I cannot grant bail, Mr Pyle.”“Not grant bail, your worship?”“No. Not in a case of this nature.”“But there’s no more substantial man in the district than the boy’s father, your worship.”“I am far from denying it. But—I cannot grant bail.”Quite an angry murmur ran through the audience at this. But the magistrate merely looked up.“Several persons here are committing a very distinct contempt of court,” he observed coldly. “Remove the prisoner.”The poor little chap kept up bravely till he was out of sight. Then he broke down and fairly howled.To do Shattuck justice, his apparent hard-heartedness was not without motive, for on the rising of the Court—that is to say immediately, for there were no more cases that day—he asked us to step into his office.“I am very grieved, Mr Matterson, over the course I have been obliged to take,” he began, stiffly and constrainedly, “but I fully believe I am serving your best interests in doing as I have done. If the boy were given back to you now, would not all the Kafirs around, and Kuliso’s people in particular, at once jump to the conclusion that justice had not been done, and that there was one law for the black and another for the white? In short, I believe his life would be in hourly danger. Their demonstration on your farm seems to point that way, doesn’t it? Well now, if they know he is here in prison—I am not going to have him put in an ordinary cell, by the way—they will be to that extent satisfied, and it will give any strong feelings time to die down a bit. The case is out of my hands now. The records will be forwarded immediately to the Solicitor-General, and of course it rests with him whether the matter goes any further.”There was sound sense in this, and indeed the magistrate had shown a consideration we had not expected from him. So we parted good friends, and rather arriving at the conclusion that Shattuck was not such a bad sort of fellow after all.

Shattuck, C.C. and R.M., was not a genial type of Civil servant, in that he was cold and short of manner, and always intensely official. Moreover, he was popularly credited with a strong native bias, which alone was sufficient to constitute him a round peg in a square hole, in a frontier magistracy such as Fort Lamport. Personally, he was a middle-aged man with a high bald forehead, and wearing a light full beard—would have been a good-looking one but for a normally acid expression of countenance.

Poor George stood limply in the dock, all the cheek taken out of him, as Brian and I had laughingly told him, as we tried all we knew to hearten him up just before he was placed there. Indeed, there were not wanting those who thought ill of the magistrate’s curt refusal of our attorney’s application to allow him to stand beside his father throughout the preliminary examination, on account of his youth.

“I cannot make such exceptions as that, Mr Pyle,” had been the answer. “Had it been the case of a native no such application would have been made.”

This, by the way, was the sort of remark which did not precisely tend to enhance Shattuck’s popularity.

The Courthouse was a dingy, stuffy little enclosure, and it was crowded to overflowing, the back part of the room, usually occupied by natives, being closely packed with dark faces and rolling eyeballs; but scattered among the townspeople was a large number of stock farmers, many of whom had travelled considerable distances in order to render the Mattersons a kind of moral support.

The first called was the District Surgeon, who made a post-mortem of the two bodies. The deceased, he deposed, were boys of about fifteen or sixteen, as far as he could judge. Then he proceeded to technical detail, such as the number of shot-wounds in each, when and where placed, and so forth. As to the other two who were wounded, he, the District Surgeon, could not say they were out of danger yet. Their injuries were undoubtedly severe.

Then followed, severally, the three or four boys who had been in the company of those shot, and at the time. These gave their version of the affair pretty much as George had given his. He had abused them for being there, they said, and ordered them away. They laughed at him, and he called out that if they did not go at once he would shoot them. He was pointing his gun at them at the time, and the next thing they knew was that it went off and four of them were lying on the ground. The remainder ran away.

The tale of each tallied, but Pyle, the attorney who was watching the case on behalf of George, after a bit of a wrangle with the Court interpreter as to the exact shade of meaning which the order to move on would or would not bear in the native vernacular, fastened upon two points in cross-examination. One was the distance between the slayer and slain, but there was no room for doubt here. He was on the top of the cliff while they were beneath it. But it was not a high one. How high? As high as the Court room?—Higher, perhaps twice as high. Obviously any one shooting at that short distance would be shooting to kill, not merely to frighten. Even a boy who was accustomed to firearms, like George was, and however careless, could be under no mistake on that head. This to dispose of any idea that he had intended merely to “pepper” the deceased without intent seriously to wound.

The other point upon which our attorney harped was the demeanour of the accused. Was he angry when he ordered them away?—Yes. He said they were spoiling his hunt. Did they seriously think he meant to shoot them when he threatened to?—Well, they didn’t know. But if anybody points a gun at you and you think he means to shoot you, you don’t stand still and laugh at him?—Whau! They hadn’t thought of it in that light. No, they supposed he had not intended to shoot. Then it had been an accident?—Yes, they supposed so.

All this was put by Pyle to the witnesses in due order, and they were unanimous in their answers. Pyle was radiant. During the slight commotion of finding the next witness he leaned back and whispered to us—

“He’ll be discharged. Even Shattuck can’t send him for trial on top of that admission.”

All the same, we were not quite so sure.

Then was led a good deal of Kafir evidence, that of parents and other relatives of the dead boys, but this dealt mainly with identification, and was of little or no value for or against our side. It was tediously drawn out too by reason of the interpreting, and was not completed by the time the Court adjourned for lunch.

“Buck up, old chap,” said Pyle, going over to poor George, who was not allowed to leave with us. “Buck up. You’ll be having it with your governor next grub time.”

“Thanks, Mr Pyle, but I don’t believe I shall,” was the doleful reply as he was taken into the chief constable’s room to devour some sandwiches which Beryl had sent him.

As we passed out of the dingy hall into the glare of the sunlight, the contrast was a relief. It was good to be out in the open air again, but the contrast was sharper as we thought of the poor boy we had just left. What if imprisonment, even for a comparatively short time, was before him?

The native end of the Courthouse had emptied out its malodorous crowd, but this was nothing to the number of those who had been unable to gain admission, for to-day the whole township seemed to grow Kafirs, who had come in from near and far by reason of the excitement of the case. Some were squatting around in groups, lustily discussing it; others lounging around the general stores; while others again were shaping a course for the nearest canteen. All had sticks, and not a few a pair of them.

“The sooner they pass a bye-law against carrying kerries in the streets the better,” said Brian, as we walked over to the hotel. “There are enough of these chaps here to-day to take the town if they made up their minds. Hullo!”

The last was evoked by the sound of a great voice haranguing one of the groups we were passing. Looking round, we recognised Sibuko.

This pestilent savage was squatting on his haunches, holding forth volubly, emphasising his points with a flourish of his kerrie in the air, or bringing it down with a whack on the ground. But to me he was of secondary interest beside a face in the group that caught my eye.

“Brian, twig that chap three doors off from Sibuko,” I said hurriedly. “That’s the one who was going to cut my throat in the cave that morning. By Jove! I wonder if he remembers the knock-out I gave him. I wouldn’t mind repeating it either.”

“Well, you can’t—not here and now. In the first place, there are too many of them; in the next, Shattuck would fine you about twenty pounds; and thirdly, we don’t want to stir up that stew over again.”

The hotel was pretty full, and the first person to catch my eye as we entered the dining-room, rather late, was that infernal Trask, who had calmly appropriated the seat next to Beryl, and which I had mentally marked out for myself. Moreover, he was in train of trying to be excessively funny, which was his way of keeping everybody’s spirits up.

“Hallo, Holt,” he sang out. “Got your seat, I’m afraid. We’d given you up. Plenty of room down there, old chap. By the way, how are things going?”

“Well, we think,” I answered curtly, moving to the vacant part at the far end of the room.

“Ha-ha! Holt seems a bit raggy to-day about something,” I distinctly heard Trask say. “What an uncertain tempered Johnny he is.”

But I did not hear Beryl’s reply, and—I should have liked to.

We had to hurry back to court again, and, the native evidence concluded, Brian was called to the witness-box. He deposed to George’s return home directly after the tragedy, and how he and I were the first to hear the boy’s account of the same, and from that, his first account, he had never swerved in any detail. Also how he himself had proceeded to the scene of the tragedy in the hope of being of some aid. Pyle then questioned him about the accused’s disposition. Was he inclined to be careless with firearms?

No, Brian didn’t think he was. All boys were more or less careless about most things. Whereat a titter ran through the crowd.

Was the accused of a mischievous disposition?

“Not more than most other boys of his age.” And at this the titter became a laugh, causing the magistrate, whose official soul was scandalised, to glance up sharply.

Was he of a passionate or vindictive disposition?

“Not in the least,” answered Brian decisively. “I am as convinced that the whole affair was a sheer accident—the thoughtless pointing of a gun at anybody I don’t defend—as I am that I stand here at this moment.”

A murmur of applause greeted this remark, and then Brian being done with, I was invited to take his place, but as all that was wanted from me was a mere confirmation of George’s first narrative of the affair, I soon got down again.

Septimus Matterson followed. He was very much affected, but gave his evidence in a sensible straightforward manner that was worthy of all praise. He told of the irruption of indignant natives on to his place, but without any rancour or ill-will. As for the accident, no one regretted and deplored it more than he did, unless it was his unfortunate son, and he fully intended, according to Kafir custom in the matter of homicide, to make liberal compensation to the relatives of the slain boys. As to which he would be glad if the magistrate would allow this to be made known by the interpreter for the satisfaction of the natives at the back of the court.

He had always lived on friendly terms with his Kafir neighbours, he went on when the hum of applause that greeted the last announcement had subsided, and hoped always to do so, in spite of this deplorable accident; several of their chiefs, too, were well known to and esteemed by him and his, and now in this case he had been the first to surrender up his own son to justice.

“That will do, Mr Matterson,” said Pyle hurriedly, seeing signs of an utter breakdown. And he beckoned him from the box.

Then he began a fervid appeal to the Bench. If all the testimony they had just listened to was worth a jot, he said, it was clear as clear could be that the case was not one of culpable homicide or of manslaughter, but of accidental death. The evidence of the native witnesses, fair and straightforward as, to their great credit, it had been, made this way, even more if possible than that of the relatives and friends of the accused. The only eyewitnesses of the tragedy, besides the accused, had frankly admitted when it was put fairly to them, that the lamentable and deplorable affair must have been an accident.

Then he went on to enlarge upon the terrible mental punishment this boy—this mere child—had already undergone, a consciousness which would last far into his after and maturer life, of what one act of carelessness had involved; and having expatiated thus and at some length, concluded by pathetically urging his worship to discharge the accused, and not to add further to his own sufferings and to those of his sorrowing relatives.

There was dead silence as the attorney ended this appeal. We, and indeed all in the room, took for granted that it would bear fruit, and that George’s discharge would follow. But we reckoned without Shattuck.

“As Mr Pyle has observed,” began the magistrate, “this is a painful and deplorable case. Even an accident may have its culpable features, rendering its perpetrator amenable to the law. Here two lives have been sacrificed owing to a most culpable piece of thoughtless bravado on the part of the accused, and I should not be doing my duty in summarily discharging him. It is a case for a judge and jury to decide, and the accused stands committed to the next Circuit Court here.”

Then the formality of asking him if he wished to make a statement being gone through, and having been duly cautioned, George, instructed by the attorney, repeated, “It was an accident,” and in a scrawling, shaky, schoolboy hand signed his statement.

Then Pyle applied that bail should be granted. There was plenty of substantial security available, he added. And at his words at least a dozen men stood up. But the next words that fell from the Bench were even a greater thunderbolt to us than the decision to commit.

“I cannot grant bail, Mr Pyle.”

“Not grant bail, your worship?”

“No. Not in a case of this nature.”

“But there’s no more substantial man in the district than the boy’s father, your worship.”

“I am far from denying it. But—I cannot grant bail.”

Quite an angry murmur ran through the audience at this. But the magistrate merely looked up.

“Several persons here are committing a very distinct contempt of court,” he observed coldly. “Remove the prisoner.”

The poor little chap kept up bravely till he was out of sight. Then he broke down and fairly howled.

To do Shattuck justice, his apparent hard-heartedness was not without motive, for on the rising of the Court—that is to say immediately, for there were no more cases that day—he asked us to step into his office.

“I am very grieved, Mr Matterson, over the course I have been obliged to take,” he began, stiffly and constrainedly, “but I fully believe I am serving your best interests in doing as I have done. If the boy were given back to you now, would not all the Kafirs around, and Kuliso’s people in particular, at once jump to the conclusion that justice had not been done, and that there was one law for the black and another for the white? In short, I believe his life would be in hourly danger. Their demonstration on your farm seems to point that way, doesn’t it? Well now, if they know he is here in prison—I am not going to have him put in an ordinary cell, by the way—they will be to that extent satisfied, and it will give any strong feelings time to die down a bit. The case is out of my hands now. The records will be forwarded immediately to the Solicitor-General, and of course it rests with him whether the matter goes any further.”

There was sound sense in this, and indeed the magistrate had shown a consideration we had not expected from him. So we parted good friends, and rather arriving at the conclusion that Shattuck was not such a bad sort of fellow after all.

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