The scene was a mission station once more, but a different sort of interest appeared to be paramount in this busy station, other than plain Evangelism. This was a Lutheran Mission, used now in time of war as a collecting centre for the rice of the countryside. The foreboding of Isaka's teacher had come but too true. When Isaka had been telling him (on the day after the great day) his dream of the White Horse and his Rider, he had read to him the story of other horses and other riders out of Saint John's Vision. And his face had grown troubled as he added, 'We have proved what the riding of the black horse means here in this mission of ours. Do you remember years ago how the rains were short here, and how the people went hungry afterwards? And now there are clouds in the sky clouds not of rain. Will the Red Horse be ridden, as some prophesy? I seem to see him with the bit in his teeth spurred by his rider our way. Pray, Isaka, I beseech you, that the Red Horse and his rider be turned in their road.' And he told Isaka something of what he meant, also something of what that riding might mean to them all. And he would have Isaka pray, and his schoolmates pray also. And they prayed, but for all that this mad rider came galloping, the rider of whom Saint John wrote, 'And there went out another horse that was red; and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: . . .'
It was nearly a year now since that morning Isaka remembered so well, when the White Horse was ridden his way. Once again when awaked.
Isaka, Kadona, was not sure if he was dreaming, but this time the main reason for doubt was that things seemed too bad rather than too good to be true, things that had come or were coming, upon the earth. Nearly a year ago now the news of the riding of the Red Horse had come. Europe was in a horrible temper, and Africans must do as usually, not what they wanted to do, but what Europe bade. Isaka's English teacher must leave his school or his liberty, he must either run away or stay fast in the Government's hands a Government that was fighting England. He chose to remain, hoping to help Isaka and others, but he had very little power on earth left to him. For a little while he was allowed to stay in his old home, and the school began to be broken up only little by little. Then the pace quickened; some were drafted off as porters, some as soldiers, some were allowed to stay and cultivate for the Government. Its local officials' tempers had apparently not improved with its troubles. None on this alien mission within its borders were liable to be accounted trustworthy, all were liable to suspicion. Yet Isaka worked on happily for a while. When his teacher was moved to a place of internment he was allowed to keep one body servant. He invited Isaka to come, and Isaka came right willingly. He might have been passed by, and the choice lain among others, but his teacher asked him as the first choice of all, if he would come with him? Was it likely that he would refuse?
Then suspicion fell upon Isaka in a day of rebuke and blasphemy. Probably he was to blame, probably he said more than he should have said, probably he did not recognize how well off he was. Anyhow the blow fell, and he was to be envied no longer, as he had been.
He was beaten rather mercilessly, and taken to be a Government porter in a district far away. The tears came into his teacher's eyes when he bade Isaka farewell; his own captivity was wearisome, he was beginning to feel his age now; also this boy had been as a son to him.
It was all like an evil dream, this war, so fecund of death and parting among friends, this riding of the Red Horse that had haunted Isaka's visions of the night. The light was just coming when he awaked from them at the German Mission Station. He was loath and slow to unroll himself from his one torn blanket and to step out of it. But someone kicked him angrily, and then needs must. He had come on these last days ever so many miles, and carried a full load. He struggled up stiffly, and crept to the little fire that two of his fellows were heaping and lighting while they chattered together. They were tribesmen of a district far from his own. One was telling a story of how their white masters with native soldiers had raided, a village. The other, whose village it was, full-stopped the story with grunts or deprecations. There had been some throats cut. Folk had been bidden to lie down, so the teller said; they had lain down as for the lash, but they had been paid in cold steel. Isaka listened dazedly. The end of his Christian era seemed to have come as suddenly and unexplainedly as the end of his Pagan era. His teacher had preached 'love,' 'love,' 'love,' with Pauline iteration, and not a little self-repetition. His teacher had taught that war was an unclean thing haunting the heathen world, and lurking in the blackness of Pagan villages. His teacher had deprecated violence; it was his rule never to strike, nor ever to rule by such fear as cast out love.
Now, an askari (a native soldier) came up to the three, and he was storming furiously. He laid on his lash right and left. Isaka did not escape. They were to carry their loads at once, it was said, by forced marches to a rice mill at the lakeside. In another five minutes the big train of porters took the road, and spread itself like a serpent up the trackway. Isaka was the twentieth or the twenty-first in their advance. I do not think that his illness which was to show itself in a day or two, was really manifest on that day. Yet he went very heavily. Such maladies were certainly upon him as a poet has diagnosed, 'blank misgivings of a Creature moving about in worlds half realized.' The ridings of Red and White Horses had so fast succeeded one another in Isaka's circle, and had brought such different worlds and atmospheres in their respective wakes!
The Riding of the Red Horse 253
Three days after, they were at the rice mill, and a July day was breaking. Isaka lay and listened to the lapping of the lake water lapping of the water in the greatest of African lakes. He was lying beside a creek that was papyrus-fringed with curtains of feathery green. A cloud of lake flies hung dark in the distance. The soft lake haze redeemed landscape and waterscape now from overclarity of outline the besetting blemish, as some might think, of its mid-day. Isaka was really ill that morning. He could hardly stir hand or foot. An askari came and looked at him, and said something to his German officer. The latter came and laid his hand not unkindly on his brow, found what the heat of his body was, and gave him some drug out of their scanty store. The great war with their fellow Christians was pinching them sorely in the matter of medicines these sturdy patriots of Central Europe. They were keeping their flag flying in a feverish land where febrifuges meant much indeed. Isaka was let lie, and he brooded over his dream the old dream that had come back so intrusively last night into such alien surroundings. For he in the province of the red-mounted rider had dreamed that He on the White Horse came as an invader, the light of daybreak in His looks, the faith of conquest in His eyes.
Now, a friend happened upon Isaka that morning, one who had been reared upon the self-same mission-crowned hill whither Isaka's homesick mood harked back. How they spoke of old days together, and warmed their chilled hearts again! Surely Isaka's dream had heralded a measure of restored joy for him that morning, if nothing better and more lasting. He spoke of his dream, and of how it came first as the prelude of that Banquet, and of how his heart had danced on that Banquet morning, and the sun had danced in his sight at the sunrise. His friend was allowed to stay by him, for the transport officer was kindly, and they talked on and on. Isaka knew now that they thought his sickness a great one. Suddenly came a wild stir among porters and native soldiers. One of the English lake ships had shown round the point to northward, and was heading fast for the bay. The one German hurried down among the transport crowd, bidding them make haste and take cover. His friend left Isaka. He was one of the few soldiers who were to line the trench in a banana grove ready to dispute a landing. But Isaka was bestowed in some long grass; there was little time to carry him far. The ship rang and slowed down, then she crept like a lean black panther into the place that suited her spring. Soon she rang again, and stopped dead. There was a ghastly pause of stillness. Crash! Her twelve-pounder spoke. Crash! and crash! again, five times over. The rice mill showed a gaping wound by now. Then two boats were lowered, the Indian Ship's Guard and the British officers crowded into them, and the African sailors pulled for the shore. Isaka crawled to a hummock, and peered out to see what was happening. The shell fire had made him pant and shake, his lips were full of prayers remembered and half-remembered. The boats came nearer, they were almost up to the log-built pier now. Had they been left alone till they had come further, there might have been hope for the ambush of a great bag, while the Indians were bunched together on the landing place. But those in the banana grove trench were eager, they would not hold their fire. The rifles cracked, the bullets thrashed up the water, men crouched down in the drifting boats with oars and rifles waving rather helplessly. It looked as though they were likely to pay toll, wide though the shots had gone as yet. Then the oarsmen pulled themselves together, and rowed back for the ship's protection. There was not even an oar or a boat hit after all.
Isaka stared eagerly at the fight. He showed himself. A minute after the ship's shrapnel burst near him, putting death's fear upon his weakness. Someone had said that the ambush was in the grass rather than in the banana grove, the ambush that was screened so well. Was there just will and time left to invoke the Rider on the White Horse of that unforgotten and abiding vision? I think there was. Then the shrapnel burst over Isaka. He was blotted, as his fellow Christians of the ship and her guns might have expressed it. The twelve-pounder (or was it the four-inch?) crashed again and again. The Maxim coughed and spat in a paroxysm. The Rider on the Red Horse rode on relentlessly.
We all three went a common way with rather a bad grace, and Africa in a measure dominated our movements, or at least our proposed destinations. I think she tightened her grip on all our three affections by that journey, she made us more of her slaves she has ever a hankering after the slave-trade, has she not? In her shrewdness she gained a grip on us by very diverse expedients. Me the restless, so feverishly tired of her, she exercised in fresh fields. One result was, that I found out in those trial-grounds ever so many reasons why flight from Africa would be unthinkable for me. While as to him, my friend, whose doom of exile from her she had herself done much to bring about, I am sure that she dazzled him on that his road to the railway (his Via Dolorosa,) making assurance much more sure that he must leave his heart with her. As to her, my other friend, who had taken Africa so complacently and so very much for granted, Africa made revelations to her at each stage of a journey that was rousing in itself, for it brought her away from her western station to a very different countryside. And if these revelations were not prone to stimulate affection, I am quite mistaken. I could make out a strong case against Africa, on the grounds of that journey, as capricious, inconsiderate, and so on. Yet before I have done, I want to indicate pleas of extenuation.
We were going with a donkey-wagon, he and I, the wagon wherein she, my other friend, was riding. He had been in the Civil Service, and suffered much from fever; yet he was leaving the Service for other reasons as well as that particular one. He was traveling cross-country to his exit station, prolonging thus his pangs of farewell; he was making himself useful by escorting her on her desolate road. Moreover, I was making myself courteous by adding my own escort. I was under no delusion as to my being useful.
The donkeys were none too fat; they looked as if they had not been used well, and were far on in life. With their driver I differed as to beating them, but I will allow that they were dear to him on the whole, and that he made progress in by no means easy places. Indeed the road had been against us for many days before the day on which I left the wagon; and I as wagon conductor was to blame for the choice of it. I should have yielded myself patiently to go the mighty round that the main roads went. I had come almost due east at a venture, and when I had lost my first stake by being disappointed of the by-road I sought, I went on gambler-fashion. I had seen already how the wagon stuck in a big river's sand-bed. How many times we had dug out, how the whip and the driver's voice had plied, how we had filled up the ruts with sods and grass-tufts, striving to gain purchase for the wheels! And yet I was obstinately sanguine when I heard a tale of an ancient trading road. It would be wondrously direct, if one could win through by it. So along it, by my own decision, we went. That first night that we turned off by it, we stuck long in the waning light, trying to pull through a neck in the hills. It was grievously cumbered with boulders, and we were long in trying. Yet at last the driver rallied his team, and we slept on the right side of the pass, clear of the granite, ready for an early inspan next day. Then on the morrow we but crawled along, till at last we stuck fast in a spruit's spongy floor. That time we were not to pull out before we slept. Darkness drew in on the struggles of the dead-beat donkeys. We outspanned and went on with the struggle soon after sunrise, putting shoulders to wheels in wild earnest. At last we were through, but we had been delayed far into another day. That noon and afternoon the disused road traveled through bush-veld. It had been ridden over so little in the last few years, that there was much wood-cutting now to be done.
Our voorlooper was no scraggy piccanin, he was brawny and bearded, an expert Mashona woodman. Now the woods bowed beneath his sturdy stroke. But his labors took time. One shrank in shame from the reckoning of miles covered on those days. Sunday came to our rescue, and we lay encamped in the granite-country, very grateful for our rest. On the Monday, its results showed. We trekked gallantly for hours and hours, we pulled out of a swamp at the first attempt; we even essayed a dreaded ford before we outspanned. But we did not win our stake. Not till we had knocked under, and outspanned once more did we struggle through. The lady of the wagon waded barefoot to lighten it, she even helped to coax a wheel up the further bank. At last we were saved from relapse. But that night our travelers' joy flickered and faded. We stuck grimly at a crossing; stuck at a mean little stream; there we found odds against us, both rocks and also deep mire. So we camped, leaving our wagon jammed in the stream's bed.
Now I would tell you about that night and the next morning. We got the lady's mattress out of the wagon. She could not well sleep on it, where it was. There were many midges and mosquitoes about then, for March was the time of the year; so we made her bed on some high ground, close but not too close to our camp-fire. After supper we sat about the fire long, the branch-heaped blaze was comfortable after our chilly paddling. The wisdom or folly that we puffed and inhaled and toasted and sucked and munched over the fire is the making of my story. It is its best excuse for a yawning lack of plot.
Delia Moore, lady mission-worker, roasted monkey-nuts for us.When they were at last ready, we all three munched at them. Butmeanwhile Richard Anson and I smoked Shangaan tobacco, and MissMoore ate sweets out of a screw-topped bottle.
Anson spoke about the charms of Mashonaland. He had been quartered in many parts of her those last ten years; his admiration had been consistent, it had also stood the test of her feverish dealings with him. He said that she was the only country worth inhabiting in a cursed world, that she was God's own country. Then I fanned his flame with my own home-sick talk. The wind was blowing chillily north-westward that night on the other side of our ant-hill shelter. A kindred wind was blowing just as steadfastly in my own soul. I had had my contrarieties lately, both of hard times and pastoral reverses; but, and that seemed to matter more, I was beginning to feel my age, its untimely growth as my work grew. Had I not done my share by now? I painted scenes in south-eastern England for my private view frequently now, scenes in cool greens and sober blues and restful grey scenes of weald and down-land, of hop-garden and country rectory. Over this last my fancy played and kindled ruddily in tiles and roses.
When I found words for these scenes they proved so many battlefields, for Dick gave battle to my panegyrics impartially, as I filed them up before him. He seemed to be very hard hit that night, savagely bludgeoned by his doom of banishment. He said that he hoped to come back someday. Anyhow, he said, would I try to remember that he had chosen his burial-place a place where two rivers commingled some two hundred miles north of where we were camping? I promised to try. It seemed to me a pity that we Could not interchange health and abiding-places he so ague-wrung, so plainly doomed to go, yet withal so keen to stay. I, on the other hand, full of home lust, England-amorous, yet so robust, so lacking in any decent excuse to give over my job and go in that green old age of mine. Then, at last, Delia Moore chimed or rather clashed in, when she had roasted her monkey-nuts and found a dish for them. She said that we were both wrong, we were both so clearly called to do just what we were doing, he to go his way, and I to stay on. But, contended she, her own move was a more than doubtful one; she had been made into a rolling stone, against her own judgment, by church despotism; the odds were against her gathering moss to any reasonable extent. 'O,' she appealed to me, 'look after my west-country work, whatever else you do. My going east bids you in honor to stay.' I allowed her plea with a nod. It was not till some while afterwards that I propounded Africa's apology, as I had guessed it. Dick had been talking, rather bitterly as well as floridly, about sighting the cold Northern Star and losing the Southern Cross. I lay back and gloated over the starry picture overhead through a crisscross picture-mount of ragged grass. I left the confutation of the scoffer to Miss Moore. There was an edge on many of her remarks that night, and I could trust her to deal with him. But what she said I have forgotten. Only I remember that he gave her best at last. Then, and not till then, I broke silence, submitting subjects for inquiry.
'Are not countries and subcontinents like men born under stars What star was South Africa herself born under? Not the Lyre surely, her poetry is comparatively so negligible. Not the Plough, nor yet Aquarius, for she is not blest with overmuch irrigation, nor brilliant at agriculture. Neither was it the Northern Star surely; constancy does not easily beset her. No, it was the Southern Cross. Take the cross as a symbol inclusive of more than Christian symbolism. Take it as a symbol signifying peine forte et dure. Is it not peculiarly characteristic of Africa to deal with us as she is doing? Does she not truly follow her star in banishing you, and shifting you, and detaining me'?
'That's all very well,' said Dick truculently, 'but I want to know what WE are going to do. Are we going to take it lying down?'
I sniffed. 'I suppose we had better,' I said. 'And if we want a decent handbook of procedure I am told that the Imitatio Christi is excellent.'
'Promise me you'll not leave the Station, so help you, at least not till I come back.' Miss Moore plunged for a particular shallow just when I was floating in gay generalities.
'Let me have till to-morrow,' I asked. Then I spoke in Africa's defense, setting out her case as well as I could. 'She's emphatically a feminine continent,' I said. 'I learned only the other day from a modern novelist that a woman's possibly at the height of her power with a man, just when her contact with him is but one of hope and memory. Surely that is true enough of some women and some men. Isn't Africa one of such women, and Dick one of such men? She knows her own business, and sends him to a distance, bidding him consecrate "a night of memories and sighs" to her. It's a doom that tends to bitterness on his part now. But trust him by and by to taste the bitter-sweet of it. It's the same sort of thing that I wrote raw verses about after I left Oxford behind: "Not until you go from her will she come to you" you know the sort of thing.'
Dick grunted. Miss Moore complimented me on my preaching. My lucidities, I feared, were missing fire.
A donkey saved the situation, one of the two that were not harnessed up for the night, there being no trek-gear for them. With a grassy mouth he was chewing at Miss Moore's pillow-slip. After many and shrill cries, it was rescued, but not before it had taken stains of a deep green color. After such a misfortune had been properly keened for, we sat down by the fire again.
'Go on,' Dick said. 'Let's have your peroration.'
'Well, as to Miss Moore Africa has shaken her up by shifting her, and by giving her a lesson in local values, just as the donkey has done about linen or calico, I forget which.'
That started the keening again.
'O,' said the mourner, 'my poor pillow-slip! But I'd give it by the dozen to get back just to the one place the same old Mission. You will promise to stop there till I come back, at any rate?'
Worn out by continual dropping-fire, I promised, starry Heaven being my helper. 'Let's go to bed after that,' I pleaded. 'I've soared in an airy disquisition and I've come to earth in a gross sort of pledge.'
'No, you're to go on,' Dick told me.
'What about yourself?'
'O, I'm led out on a string. I'm given trotting exercise by Africa within her own confines. I'm kept hanging about on her veld, while she delays my donkeys. Meanwhile she shows me out-of-the-way holes and corners where there's nobody to do the work she wants done. She appeals to my shame and pity, she has made a study of weak spots of mine. Has she not method? I meant to leave the wagon last week, but I'm lucky if I get off tomorrow. What with bad roads, spongy crossings, and indifferent donkeys, she's landed me in a pledge to-night a pledge to keep me hanging on. I'm in honor bound now to try to turn her night into day, just like a cock in one of her kraals. While all the time I want to be flitting North like one of her swallows this month of all months in the year.'
In the morning I renewed my pledge at a rock's altar a rock that lichen had stained bright orange. I professed resignation, as did the other two beside me. Then after breakfast, we shook hands. I gave Dick a motto about Africa:
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,For 'ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
I gave Delia a prayer to say for her westward return. 'Turn our captivity … as the rivers in the south.' Then I knelt by the grey flat stone and prayed audibly, 'Give me a blessing; for Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water.'
Soon I was striding away. There was little time to reach home by the hour when home wanted me. Pity and shame, pity pointing east and west, while shame spurns and aspires these two beams seem to make up my own Cyrenian's burden the burden of the Southern Cross for me. On the other hand, regret and adoration seem to supply the same office for Dick, if I may judge by his letters. As for Miss Moore, by far the most deserving of us three admittedly, doubtless her faith is firmly rooted wherever she is, and her sympathy spreads east or west, whichever way her duty calls her. Nevertheless she would be still glad should the Voice call and the Wind blow westward again, at least that is my own conviction. In our several ways we three are devoted to Africa: one way or another the Southern Cross is the constellation ascendant in each of our three careers.
We had been dining on the bridge of H.M.S. Kampala the captain, the two ship's officers, the gunnery lieutenant and he who writes this story. We had come in as it grew dark that August evening, and anchored some few miles out from the German's great place. For that great place a big gun, rumored or real, commanded respect.
I suppose our main object on that patrol trip of ours was the stopping of rice-running, the preservation of our lake blockade. We had had some firing a few days ago at presumptive stores, also at a dhow and lighter dimly descried (they were in the papyrus-fringed labyrinth of a boat-passage). But of late we had been lying up for the most part off a lonely island. Perhaps they would think we were out of the way, perhaps not. We should see what we should see.' I suppose that the gunnery lieutenant was almost as sanguine of adventure as I was of humdrum peace in this after-dinner hour on the darkened bridge. Adventure, or at least what seemed to be its promising prelude arrived quite suddenly.
There was a sudden announcement to our captain about a light being seen, a brief one-sided discussion, the whistle blowing for 'Stations,' the rattle of arms as the Indian ship's-guard fell in. These all affected me with strange twinges of futile protest. Surely there was a time for all things, and this was the time for coffee and tobacco, not for disconcerting risks and detestable noises. I wanted never to hear our four-inch gun again by day. The idea of its shaking the peace of night to bits was preposterous. Yet a light was reported ahead, a moving light on the lake itself. 'You haven't much time, Craig,' I heard the lieutenant cry to our captain. The engine-room bells rang ominously, there was much puffing and spouting, then we were off. I stole into a safe sort of corner, as corners went, by the doctor's cabin. I edged out of the way of the Indian riflemen who were sorting themselves, making ready for action. We were running along somewhither. I didn't know much about our bearings, but I had misgivings as to whether that big gun of the Germans was not getting nearer. 'I've been thinking it may be a lure to draw us on,' hazarded the Eurasian doctor by and by. That was just what I'd been thinking. I was glad when the tension ceased suddenly, not so many minutes after it had started. The light had vanished; we were out of the hunt somehow it seemed; our captain meant to wait till morning, then possibly he would show us a thing. Meanwhile there were some hours to morning. We had had no night-firing after all. Nor did there seem to be much prospect of any. One might as well go to bed in the dark without delay.
Morning came and we hunted around, but drew blank. Then we started away to look for a supposed dhow in likely covers of creeks or inlets, but we drew these blank also. What was the vanished light? That of the resurrected German steam-tug? Possibly. Possibly it was not that of a dhow after all. Anyhow it was gone out of our ken. 'There's dirty work in there of night, Craig,' the gunnery-lieutenant had said with a stern eye on that German harbor. He spoke as a partisan. Was it such very dirty work if they did run a little food across to feed their own people? Anyhow their dirty work, whatever it was, had seemingly baffled our immaculate patrol under our white ensign, for that time at any rate.
I don't think there is anything strange about this story as it stands up to this point, do you? There may have been a dhow ahead of us that night in August, and it may have been its light that our watchman spied. Also it may have put out its light all of a sudden, and so we may have lost it in the darkness. That simple explanation sounds probable enough, doesn't it, when you come to think of it?
Nevertheless in the following week, a more romantic explanation was tendered to me it concerned a gramophone.
'That was the last tune before the light was seen,' a bluejacket told me solemnly. 'It's a good tune, you perhaps know it, sir, "Ave Maris Stella"'? We had fraternized over recollections of Hastings, that was his birth-place. I told him how I had been into his church there, which was not mine, Saint Mary's, Star of the Sea. I recalled the blue-circled chancel and its glittering stars with admiration. Now he was confidential about what had happened a few nights before. He seemed to regard the putting-on of that particular gramophone record at that particular moment as significant. I was sympathetic, but I only grasped his point vaguely. 'You mean,' I said. 'I mean that She may have meant it,' he said rather confusedly. 'She may have meant us luck. If we'd only gone in straight where Her light showed, we might have found our luck.' 'You mean we might have captured Muanza, I suppose,' I said rather skeptically. 'Well, we might have killed a lot of Germans, sir, and done a lot of good. But our captain's too cautious altogether.'
'It's possible,' I said. 'She may have meant to give us the tip,' he went on. 'I don't think it's likely, but you may be right,' I said with some detachment. The notion of Our Lady illuminating the lake that she might give us the tip to kill Germans was not so very convincing. I'm afraid I choked off the surmiser a bit with my Tolstoyite incredulity. He drew in his horns there and then; he confided none of his views to me again on similar subjects. He was to die at sea a year or so after. They had got him on to a ship from an island hospital, but he never reached the South African port they had shipped him for. I am glad now to think of his faith in Our Lady, Our Lady good at need.
It was before he went down to the coast, that we advanced and took a great island renowned for its rice commerce. Then the day came only a month or so after that our troops marched into Muanza. The main body of its German defenders had steamed away down that land-locked sound of theirs a little while before. We had not stormed the place from the lake after all, we had arrived by a back-door road among the kopjes. Yet there we were at last. It seemed curious to be in the place that I had peered at apprehensively on patrol. How mysterious its lights and its harbor had looked from a darkened bridge or a deck of old. Now I went to and fro in the glaring Boma square, climbed the road among the rocks to the Fort Hospital with the tower and its dummy guns, patrolled the palm-tree promenade where no band played, but lake-water provided placid music much more to my taste than that of drums and brass.
It was in the church above the bay, the church of the White Fathers, that I came upon my sequel, or at least what looks like the earthly sequel of my story. Afterwards, of course, I may hear much more. The White Father I had gone to see, took me into the church one morning and showed me Our Lady's altar. Over it was an altar-piece of familiar design I think it represented Our Lady of Good Counsel, but I am not sure. In front votive candles blazed, in very creditable profusion for those hard times surely. A silver star with about two-inch points caught my eye. There were other stars hung there too, much less conspicuous ones. There were also two or three little models of dhows or boats set on a ledge before that altar. I pointed to the silver star, and my guide answered my mute question: 'A gift to Our Lady, Star of this lake and these lake-shores,' he said. 'It was one night in August of last year that it happened, the miracle or whatever you wish to call it.' 'Did Our Lady appear on the lake?' I asked keenly, for memories began to stir in me. 'No, not quite that,' said the White Father. He had a brown beard, and a very white face, and he spoke clear-cut English. 'There was a light seen over the water.' Then it was that the surmise about the gramophone recurred to me. 'Do you really think,' I asked, 'that there was a light to be seen? If so, what was there strange about it?' 'Well, it was a miracle of sorts,' he said. 'I didn't believe about it at first, for I didn't see reason for it. They said it was a light given to lure the English within range. That was the talk of some of our Catholics in the town, but it wasn't good talk. I argued against it.' He paused. Then I told him, smilingly, the story of the gramophone. 'It's a parallel story,' I said. 'Our Lady was indeed divided against herself that night in her clients' estimation.' 'It shows the absurdity of war between Catholics,' he murmured. 'Yes, of war between so-called Christian nations,' I agreed. In an impulse I shook his hand. 'But there was a light,' I said: 'I saw it.' 'So did I,' he said. 'Was it the light of a dhow?' I wondered. 'No,' he said, surprisingly, 'the dhow was on the other side of your ship.' He pointed to the votive star. 'That star commemorates this sight of a light, or rather of a star,' he said. 'I veritably believe that the star light was Our Lady of the Lake's work. Yet she did not in the least mean to show the English where to land and slaughter us, nor on the other hand to lure them on to a fiery doom. Our Lady wants the salvage of men's lives not their destruction. Guess what happened that night.'
I was puzzled. I took the star into my hand and looked it over. It only had 'Muanza' graved upon it, 'Muanza' and the date of that August evening. No, I gave it up. So he told me his version of events. 'There was a dhow beating round the corner of an island. The Goanese skipper had no idea that you were there. It was a near thing. He was lucky, wasn't he, that the alarm of the light seen by your watch came just then? He was running almost straight for your war-ship. But you started off on a course that took you far out of his way, started off on a light's chase or rather a star's chase. He is a very pious man, that Goanese skipper; he was here for two Masses this morning. He has a great devotion to Our Lady, as I believe, and he knows how to pray. He vowed a silver star to Our Lady Our Lady of the Lake, if she would but bring him through with his ship safe. He made a fair voyage after all. But he thanked the star that led you off from him for it, say rather Her who kindled that star. He is a man of prayer, the sort of prayer that invites miracles.' I was very silent. I knelt before the statue a little. Then I said 'Good-bye.' When I had said it I looked at two of the stars (that were not silver) curiously. Were they not Belgian officers' stars, and were they not likely to have a tragical history? 'Ask the silver star-man, please,' I said, 'to pray for God's miracle of peace. It does seem to me as if his prayers might do a lot of good. I'd give Our Lady of the Lake a whole Southern-Crossful of stars should peace come before the year's out.' Did he forget to ask that star-man for his prayers?
With shoes of crystal peace and gleeChristmas his clients proves:They're misfits for those masters paleAnd their white lady-loves;But O they fit black boys and girlsWho clean their knives and stoves!
I slipt from out the white men's church,The northern chants rang cold,And with the preacher's war-time wordsMy heart it would not hold,Gay hymns and I alike had grownIn exile grave and old.
I said 'I'll wander from the townThis cheerless Christmas Day.'A church stood up beside my road,And I turn'd in to pray.Buff-brick its walls were, and its roofOf ridg'd unlovely grey.
I enter'd in, and joy was thereThe Mass had just begun.They filled the place from screen to doorThe children of the sun.Me seem'd that southern sun was glass'dIn eyes of ev'ryone.
The server-men had lawn and laceAnd crimson pageantry,And boys were in their best, and girlsWore kerchiefs bright to see.Me seem'd those bare brown feet were shodWith crystal peace and glee.
The incense-smoke it skein 'd and spir'd,The vowell'd hymns rang clear,A shrill bell rung by a brown handSaid Christ was very near.Me seem'd a sun-tann'd Angel stooptAnd caroll'd in mine ear.
I Bless God for this our Christmas BallAbout our Christmas Board!Our Church that faery GodmotherHer child hath not ignor'd,And Africa, with heart in sky,Is dancing to the Lord.
The Old World's and the New World's drudgeWhom few would praise beforeNow from the kitchen hath been claim 'd,The stable and the store,Christ claims her heart to dance with hisWhere Europe's danced of yore.'
With shoes of crystal peace and gleeChristmas his clients proves:They're misfits for those masters paleAnd their white lady-loves;But O they fit black boys and girlsWho clean their knives and stoves!