Chapter Five.

Chapter Five.The Ethiopian Emissary.The kraals of the chief, Babatyana, lay sleeping. So brilliant was this starlight, however, that the yellow domes of the thatch huts could be distinguished from the ridge—even counted. The latter operation would have resulted in the discovery that the collection of kraals, dotted along the wide, bushy valley, numbered among them some three hundred huts; but these, of course, represented only a section of the tribe over which Babatyana was chief.It is a strange sight that of a large, sleeping kraal—or a number of them, in the wizard hush and calm beauty of an African night. It is so in harmony with setting and surrounding; the starlight showing up the ghostly loom of mountain, or suggesting the weird mystery of dark wilderness lying beneath, where deadly things creep and lurk. And then, these human habitations, themselves constructed of the grass which springs up around them, of the very thorns which impede the progress of their denizens, they stand, in primitive symmetry—not rude, because that which is circular is nothing if not symmetrical—lying there in their pathetic insignificance under the vast height of Heaven’s vault. And the said denizens sleeping there! Hopes and fears, virtues and vices; capacity for intrigue, cupidity; redeeming traits, human weaknesses—all the same, whether sleeping within the kraal of the savage to the lullaby of the voices of prowling creatures of the night, or in stately mansion amid the roar and rattle of the metropolis of the world. All the same—all, all!The air is fresh and sweet with the fragrance of flowering shrubs, is faintly melodious with the ghostly whistle of circling plover invisible overhead. The cry of a jackal rings out from the hillside, receding further and further, to be answered again from another point in the misty gloom—then the bark of a restless dog in some slumbering kraal beneath. Or the hoot of a night bird hawking above the silent expanse, and the droning boom of a great beetle mingling with the shrill, whistling voice of tree frogs. Man is silent, but Nature never.Along the ridge overlooking Babatyana’s kraals a dusty waggon road winds like a riband, distinguishable from the darker veldt in the starlight. It follows the apex of the ridge, and is just the place to avoid during those dry thunder-storms which in Natal seem to hunt in couples nearly every day during the hot months. Then the wayfarer may well leave the highway, and dive down into one of the bushy kloofs on either side, and wait until the turmoil passes; for the lightning will strike down upon that high, exposed pathway, every sheeting flash not much less dangerous than a shell from hostile artillery.To-night, however, the elements are at peace, but man is represented by a single unit.Natives, as a rule, are not given to wandering about alone at night, but this one is obviously here with a purpose. Like a statue he stands, gazing down the road as though on the look-out for something or somebody. He is a tall man, and ringed: and as he wraps his blanket closer around him—for there is a tinge of chill in the night air—and takes a few paces, it might be seen that he walks with a slight limp.Another hour goes by, and still he stands, ever watchful, and suffering nothing to escape him, for the patience of the savage is inexhaustible. And now a glow suffuses the far horizon, widening and brightening; then the broad disc of a full moon soars redly aloft, and lo, the land is steeped in subdued unearthly light—plain, and ridge, and distant mountain, all stand revealed; and the clusters of domed huts in the broad valley beneath show out sharply defined. But these are no longer silent. First a low, long-drawn wail, then another and another from different points, culminating in still more drawn out howls, and the dismal sounds echo through the silence in weird cadence. Half the curs in the slumbering kraals are baying the newly risen moon.Her light falls full upon the watcher, throwing out his tall form into statuesque relief, and glinting on the polished shine of his head-ring. But for the limp his gait as he slowly paces up and down would be a stately one. Even then there is an unconscious dignity about the man, as with head held proudly aloft, he gazes out over the moonlit expanse, and it is the dignity of a natural ruler of men.Suddenly he stops short in his walk, and stands, listening intently. You or I could have heard nothing, but he can, and what he hears is the sound of hoof-strokes.Down the road now he takes his way, walking rapidly, and soon the hoof-strokes draw very near indeed. Then he stops, and starts singing to himself in a low, melodious croon.The horseman appears in sight, advancing at a pace that is half jog-trot, half canter. The moonlight reveals a thick-set, burly figure, encased in a suit of clerical black. But the face which now shows between the bow of the white “choker” and the wide-awake hat is not many shades lighter than the whole get-up.“Saku bona, Mfundisi,” is the greeting of the watcher, whose singing, purposely turned on to guard against the horse shying or stampeding at the sudden appearance of anything living, has had that effect.“Yeh-bo,” answered the other. “Do I see Manamandhla, the Zulu?”“Of the People of the Heavens am I,Umfundisi,” was the reply, but the tone in which the speaker enunciates the word “Umfundisi”—which means “teacher” or “missionary”—contains a very thinly veiled sneer. “The people down there have been awaiting you long.”“In the Cause, brother, in our holy Cause, no man’s time is his own,” answered the horseman, sanctimoniously. “Whau! have not I been inoculating its sacred principles into the people at Ncapele’s kraal—or striving to, for Ncapele is old, and when a man is old enthusiasm is dead within him. It is the young whom we have to teach. Wherefore I could not turn my back upon him too soon.”The speaker did not think it necessary to explain that the undue time it had taken to roast the succulent young goat which Ncapele had caused to be slaughtered for his refection had had anything to do with the lateness of his arrival. For that chief, although “a heathen man,” was not unmindful of the duties of hospitality. Which definition applied equally to Manamandhla the Zulu; wherefore the attitude of that fine savage towards the smug preacher to whom he had undertaken the office of guide, was one of ill-concealed contempt.“And the people—the people of Babatyana,” went on the latter, “are they ready to hear the good news—the glorious gospel of light and freedom?”“They are ready,” answered Manamandhla, who was striding beside the other, easily keeping pace with the horse. “They are ready—ah-ah—very ready.”“That is well—very well.”Here was an edifying picture, was it not, this zealous missionary, labouring day and night to spread the good news among the benighted heathen, and he one of their own colour? They, too, waiting to welcome him, to give up their night’s rest even, in order to hang upon his words—truly a heart-stirring picture, was it not?We shall see.Guided by Manamandhla by short cuts across the veldt, the traveller was not long in reaching his destination. His arrival had been momentarily expected, and with the first distant sounds of his horse’s hoofs, the carcase of a recently slaughtered goat had been quartered up and placed upon a fire of glowing embers. The preacher rubbed his fat hands together with anticipatory delight as his broad nostrils snuffed from afar the savoury odour of the roast.“Ah brother, the people are ever hospitable to those who bring them tidings of the Cause,” he remarked, complacently.“And to those who do not,” rejoined the Zulu.Assuredly the emissary had no reason to complain of the substantial nature of his reception, and so decided that worthy himself, as he sat within the chief’s hut, tearing the juicy meat from the ribs with his teeth, and washing it down with huge draughts from the bowls oftywalawhich had been brought in. Ah, it was good to live like this. Meat—everywhere—plenty of it, wherever he went—meat—fresh, and succulent and juicy, as different as day from night to the dried up, tasteless, insipid stuff to which he sat down when in civilisation.Tywalatoo—newly brewed, humming, and, above all, plentiful. Yes, it was good! He had taken off his black coat and waistcoat, mainly with the object of preserving them from grease. Indeed had he followed his own inclination it is far from certain that he would not have taken off everything else. It was a disgusting spectacle, this fat, smug, black preacher, sitting there in his shirt, his white choker all awry, tearing at the steaming bones like a dog, his face and hands smeared with grease; a revolting sight, immeasurably more so than that of the ring of unclothed savages who were his entertainers and fellow feasters.Nothing was heard but the champ of hungry jaws. Such a serious matter as eating must not be interfered with by conversation. At last there was very little left of the carcase of the goat but the bones, and one by one the feasters dropped out and leaned back against the walls of the hut.The latter was lighted by two candles stuck in bottle necks, a device learned from the white man. Babatyana and several others started pipes, also an institution learned from the white man. But Manamandhla, the conservative Zulu, confined himself to the contents of his snuff-horn. Secretly, in his heart of hearts, he held his entertainers in some degree of contempt, as became one of the royal race. Babatyana was an influential chief, but only so by favour of the whites. What was he but a Kafula (term of contempt used by Zulus for Natal natives)? But Manamandhla was far too shrewd to impair the success of his mission by suffering any of his secret feelings to appear.All the same, although he lived on the wrong side of the river from the other’s point of view, there was very little admixture of baser blood in Babatyana’s system. His father had been a Zulu of pure blood and his mother very nearly so. They had crossed into Natal as refugees, after Nongalaza defeated Dingane, and had there remained. Seen in the dim light of the candles, Babatyana was an elderly man, with a shrewd, lined face; in fact there was no perceptible difference in his aspect or bearing from that of those who affected to despise him. Now he turned to his guest.“The news, brother, what is it?”“The news?Au! it is great. Everywhere we have our emissaries; everywhere the people are listening. They are tired of being dogs to the whites: tired of having to send their children away to work, so as to find money to pay the whites. Soon our plan of deliverance will be complete, soon when we have brought home universal brotherhood to those of one colour—and, brothers, the time is now very near.”“And that time—when it comes—who will lead the people,Umfundisi?” asked an old head-ringed man who was seated next to the chief.“The leader will be found,” was the ready answer. “It may be that he is found—already found.”“Is he found on this side of the river or on the other?” went on the old man, who was inclined to “heckle” the visitor.“That, as yet, is dark. But—he is found.”A murmur went round the group. They were becoming interested. Only Manamandhla remained perfectly impassive. He made no remarks and asked no questions.The conversation ran on in subdued tones, which however grew more and more animated. The emissary was glib of tongue and knew how to hold his audience. At last Babatyana said:“It sounds well, Jobo. Now is the time to tell it—or some of it—to the people outside. They wait to hear.”The Rev. Job Magwegwe—by the way the name by which the chief had addressed him was a corruption of his “Christiana” name—was an educated Fingo, hailing from the Cape Colony, where he had been trained for a missionary, and finally became a qualified minister in one of the more important sects whose activity lay in that direction. But he promptly saw that in the capacity of missionary he was going to prove a failure. Those of his own colour openly scoffed at him. What could he teach them, they asked? He was one of themselves, his father was So-and-So—and no better than any of them. The whites could teach them things, but a black man could not teach a black man anything. And so on.But luck befriended the Rev. Job. The Ethiopian movement had just come into being, and here he saw his chance. There was more to be made by going about among distant races where his origin was not known, living on the fat of the land, and preaching a visionary deliverance from imaginary evils to those well attuned to listen, than staying at home, striving to drill into a contemptuous audience the “tenets” of a dry-as-dust and very defective form of Christianity. So he promptly migrated to Natal, and being a plausible, smooth-tongued rogue soon found himself in clover, in the official capacity of an accredited emissary of the “Ethiopian Church,” whose mission it was to instil in the native mind the high-sounding doctrine of “Africa for its natives.”

The kraals of the chief, Babatyana, lay sleeping. So brilliant was this starlight, however, that the yellow domes of the thatch huts could be distinguished from the ridge—even counted. The latter operation would have resulted in the discovery that the collection of kraals, dotted along the wide, bushy valley, numbered among them some three hundred huts; but these, of course, represented only a section of the tribe over which Babatyana was chief.

It is a strange sight that of a large, sleeping kraal—or a number of them, in the wizard hush and calm beauty of an African night. It is so in harmony with setting and surrounding; the starlight showing up the ghostly loom of mountain, or suggesting the weird mystery of dark wilderness lying beneath, where deadly things creep and lurk. And then, these human habitations, themselves constructed of the grass which springs up around them, of the very thorns which impede the progress of their denizens, they stand, in primitive symmetry—not rude, because that which is circular is nothing if not symmetrical—lying there in their pathetic insignificance under the vast height of Heaven’s vault. And the said denizens sleeping there! Hopes and fears, virtues and vices; capacity for intrigue, cupidity; redeeming traits, human weaknesses—all the same, whether sleeping within the kraal of the savage to the lullaby of the voices of prowling creatures of the night, or in stately mansion amid the roar and rattle of the metropolis of the world. All the same—all, all!

The air is fresh and sweet with the fragrance of flowering shrubs, is faintly melodious with the ghostly whistle of circling plover invisible overhead. The cry of a jackal rings out from the hillside, receding further and further, to be answered again from another point in the misty gloom—then the bark of a restless dog in some slumbering kraal beneath. Or the hoot of a night bird hawking above the silent expanse, and the droning boom of a great beetle mingling with the shrill, whistling voice of tree frogs. Man is silent, but Nature never.

Along the ridge overlooking Babatyana’s kraals a dusty waggon road winds like a riband, distinguishable from the darker veldt in the starlight. It follows the apex of the ridge, and is just the place to avoid during those dry thunder-storms which in Natal seem to hunt in couples nearly every day during the hot months. Then the wayfarer may well leave the highway, and dive down into one of the bushy kloofs on either side, and wait until the turmoil passes; for the lightning will strike down upon that high, exposed pathway, every sheeting flash not much less dangerous than a shell from hostile artillery.

To-night, however, the elements are at peace, but man is represented by a single unit.

Natives, as a rule, are not given to wandering about alone at night, but this one is obviously here with a purpose. Like a statue he stands, gazing down the road as though on the look-out for something or somebody. He is a tall man, and ringed: and as he wraps his blanket closer around him—for there is a tinge of chill in the night air—and takes a few paces, it might be seen that he walks with a slight limp.

Another hour goes by, and still he stands, ever watchful, and suffering nothing to escape him, for the patience of the savage is inexhaustible. And now a glow suffuses the far horizon, widening and brightening; then the broad disc of a full moon soars redly aloft, and lo, the land is steeped in subdued unearthly light—plain, and ridge, and distant mountain, all stand revealed; and the clusters of domed huts in the broad valley beneath show out sharply defined. But these are no longer silent. First a low, long-drawn wail, then another and another from different points, culminating in still more drawn out howls, and the dismal sounds echo through the silence in weird cadence. Half the curs in the slumbering kraals are baying the newly risen moon.

Her light falls full upon the watcher, throwing out his tall form into statuesque relief, and glinting on the polished shine of his head-ring. But for the limp his gait as he slowly paces up and down would be a stately one. Even then there is an unconscious dignity about the man, as with head held proudly aloft, he gazes out over the moonlit expanse, and it is the dignity of a natural ruler of men.

Suddenly he stops short in his walk, and stands, listening intently. You or I could have heard nothing, but he can, and what he hears is the sound of hoof-strokes.

Down the road now he takes his way, walking rapidly, and soon the hoof-strokes draw very near indeed. Then he stops, and starts singing to himself in a low, melodious croon.

The horseman appears in sight, advancing at a pace that is half jog-trot, half canter. The moonlight reveals a thick-set, burly figure, encased in a suit of clerical black. But the face which now shows between the bow of the white “choker” and the wide-awake hat is not many shades lighter than the whole get-up.

“Saku bona, Mfundisi,” is the greeting of the watcher, whose singing, purposely turned on to guard against the horse shying or stampeding at the sudden appearance of anything living, has had that effect.

“Yeh-bo,” answered the other. “Do I see Manamandhla, the Zulu?”

“Of the People of the Heavens am I,Umfundisi,” was the reply, but the tone in which the speaker enunciates the word “Umfundisi”—which means “teacher” or “missionary”—contains a very thinly veiled sneer. “The people down there have been awaiting you long.”

“In the Cause, brother, in our holy Cause, no man’s time is his own,” answered the horseman, sanctimoniously. “Whau! have not I been inoculating its sacred principles into the people at Ncapele’s kraal—or striving to, for Ncapele is old, and when a man is old enthusiasm is dead within him. It is the young whom we have to teach. Wherefore I could not turn my back upon him too soon.”

The speaker did not think it necessary to explain that the undue time it had taken to roast the succulent young goat which Ncapele had caused to be slaughtered for his refection had had anything to do with the lateness of his arrival. For that chief, although “a heathen man,” was not unmindful of the duties of hospitality. Which definition applied equally to Manamandhla the Zulu; wherefore the attitude of that fine savage towards the smug preacher to whom he had undertaken the office of guide, was one of ill-concealed contempt.

“And the people—the people of Babatyana,” went on the latter, “are they ready to hear the good news—the glorious gospel of light and freedom?”

“They are ready,” answered Manamandhla, who was striding beside the other, easily keeping pace with the horse. “They are ready—ah-ah—very ready.”

“That is well—very well.”

Here was an edifying picture, was it not, this zealous missionary, labouring day and night to spread the good news among the benighted heathen, and he one of their own colour? They, too, waiting to welcome him, to give up their night’s rest even, in order to hang upon his words—truly a heart-stirring picture, was it not?

We shall see.

Guided by Manamandhla by short cuts across the veldt, the traveller was not long in reaching his destination. His arrival had been momentarily expected, and with the first distant sounds of his horse’s hoofs, the carcase of a recently slaughtered goat had been quartered up and placed upon a fire of glowing embers. The preacher rubbed his fat hands together with anticipatory delight as his broad nostrils snuffed from afar the savoury odour of the roast.

“Ah brother, the people are ever hospitable to those who bring them tidings of the Cause,” he remarked, complacently.

“And to those who do not,” rejoined the Zulu.

Assuredly the emissary had no reason to complain of the substantial nature of his reception, and so decided that worthy himself, as he sat within the chief’s hut, tearing the juicy meat from the ribs with his teeth, and washing it down with huge draughts from the bowls oftywalawhich had been brought in. Ah, it was good to live like this. Meat—everywhere—plenty of it, wherever he went—meat—fresh, and succulent and juicy, as different as day from night to the dried up, tasteless, insipid stuff to which he sat down when in civilisation.Tywalatoo—newly brewed, humming, and, above all, plentiful. Yes, it was good! He had taken off his black coat and waistcoat, mainly with the object of preserving them from grease. Indeed had he followed his own inclination it is far from certain that he would not have taken off everything else. It was a disgusting spectacle, this fat, smug, black preacher, sitting there in his shirt, his white choker all awry, tearing at the steaming bones like a dog, his face and hands smeared with grease; a revolting sight, immeasurably more so than that of the ring of unclothed savages who were his entertainers and fellow feasters.

Nothing was heard but the champ of hungry jaws. Such a serious matter as eating must not be interfered with by conversation. At last there was very little left of the carcase of the goat but the bones, and one by one the feasters dropped out and leaned back against the walls of the hut.

The latter was lighted by two candles stuck in bottle necks, a device learned from the white man. Babatyana and several others started pipes, also an institution learned from the white man. But Manamandhla, the conservative Zulu, confined himself to the contents of his snuff-horn. Secretly, in his heart of hearts, he held his entertainers in some degree of contempt, as became one of the royal race. Babatyana was an influential chief, but only so by favour of the whites. What was he but a Kafula (term of contempt used by Zulus for Natal natives)? But Manamandhla was far too shrewd to impair the success of his mission by suffering any of his secret feelings to appear.

All the same, although he lived on the wrong side of the river from the other’s point of view, there was very little admixture of baser blood in Babatyana’s system. His father had been a Zulu of pure blood and his mother very nearly so. They had crossed into Natal as refugees, after Nongalaza defeated Dingane, and had there remained. Seen in the dim light of the candles, Babatyana was an elderly man, with a shrewd, lined face; in fact there was no perceptible difference in his aspect or bearing from that of those who affected to despise him. Now he turned to his guest.

“The news, brother, what is it?”

“The news?Au! it is great. Everywhere we have our emissaries; everywhere the people are listening. They are tired of being dogs to the whites: tired of having to send their children away to work, so as to find money to pay the whites. Soon our plan of deliverance will be complete, soon when we have brought home universal brotherhood to those of one colour—and, brothers, the time is now very near.”

“And that time—when it comes—who will lead the people,Umfundisi?” asked an old head-ringed man who was seated next to the chief.

“The leader will be found,” was the ready answer. “It may be that he is found—already found.”

“Is he found on this side of the river or on the other?” went on the old man, who was inclined to “heckle” the visitor.

“That, as yet, is dark. But—he is found.”

A murmur went round the group. They were becoming interested. Only Manamandhla remained perfectly impassive. He made no remarks and asked no questions.

The conversation ran on in subdued tones, which however grew more and more animated. The emissary was glib of tongue and knew how to hold his audience. At last Babatyana said:

“It sounds well, Jobo. Now is the time to tell it—or some of it—to the people outside. They wait to hear.”

The Rev. Job Magwegwe—by the way the name by which the chief had addressed him was a corruption of his “Christiana” name—was an educated Fingo, hailing from the Cape Colony, where he had been trained for a missionary, and finally became a qualified minister in one of the more important sects whose activity lay in that direction. But he promptly saw that in the capacity of missionary he was going to prove a failure. Those of his own colour openly scoffed at him. What could he teach them, they asked? He was one of themselves, his father was So-and-So—and no better than any of them. The whites could teach them things, but a black man could not teach a black man anything. And so on.

But luck befriended the Rev. Job. The Ethiopian movement had just come into being, and here he saw his chance. There was more to be made by going about among distant races where his origin was not known, living on the fat of the land, and preaching a visionary deliverance from imaginary evils to those well attuned to listen, than staying at home, striving to drill into a contemptuous audience the “tenets” of a dry-as-dust and very defective form of Christianity. So he promptly migrated to Natal, and being a plausible, smooth-tongued rogue soon found himself in clover, in the official capacity of an accredited emissary of the “Ethiopian Church,” whose mission it was to instil in the native mind the high-sounding doctrine of “Africa for its natives.”

Chapter Six.A Native Utopia.The open space outside the kraal was thronged. Hundreds had collected in obedience to the word of the chief. More were still coming in, and the preacher rubbed his fat hands together with smug complacency. Your educated native is nothing if not conceited, and the Rev. Job Magwegwe was no exception to this rule. Here was an audience for him; a noble audience, and, withal an appreciative one.His appearance was greeted by a deep murmur from the expectant crowd, which at once disposed itself to listen. He had resumed his black coat and waistcoat and settled his white choker; he was not going to omit any accessory to his clerical dignity if he knew it.He led off with a long prayer, to which most of those present listened with ill-concealed boredom, but the smug self-conceit of the man had captured his better judgment, and he was only brought up by Babatyana remarking in an audible aside that the people had not assembled to take part in a prayer meeting but to hear the news. So he took the hint and started his address.He began by sketching the history of the people, within their own time. Since the days of the old wars they had increased immensely and were still increasing, so that soon the land would not be able to hold its population. It would hold them but for the white man. The white man. But was this the white man’s land? Did Nkulunkulu (Literally, “The Great Guest.” one of the names for the Deity) give him this land? No. The white man came over the sea in ships and took it. Nkulunkulu said “This is the black man’s land and here have I placed him,” yet the white man took it. The whites came over in small numbers, then more. But even now what were their numbers? Why, a handful, a mere handful. The whites who ruled them could live in an ostrich’s nest, when compared to the blacks whom they had dispossessed. And why had they been able to dispossess them? Because there was no unity among the native nations. Each was jealous of the other and none could combine. The time, however, was at hand when these dissensions should be of the past; when all the native nations should unite, when their native land should belong to them and not to the white man, when the Amazulu and the Basutu, the tribes in Natal and the Amampondo and the Amaxosa should all possess their own again, should all dwell together as brothers, none lording it over the other, should dwell together in peace and unity in the land which Nkulunkulu had given to them—to them and not to the white man.The preacher was working himself up to a pitch of eloquence that impressed his audience—and a native orator can be very eloquent indeed. Murmurs of applause greeted his periods, and now as he paused to wipe his clammy forehead with the white handkerchief of civilisation, these grew quite tumultuous. Only Manamandhla the Zulu kept saturnine silence. He knew who, in this wonderful brotherhood of equality, was going to have the upper hand, and any idea to the contrary moved him to mirth, as too absurd to be worthy of a moment’s consideration.But the ways of Nkulunkulu—went on the preacher unctuously—though sometimes slow were always sure, and now He had revealed His will to some who had come across great distances of sea to bring it to them; not white men but black like themselves. These had come hither with a message of deliverance to all the dark races, and he himself was a humble mouthpiece of such. But there were many such mouthpieces. They were everywhere, and were being heard gladly. Who could refuse to hear them? The people of this land were being oppressed and trampled upon; and so it was wherever the white man set down his foot. Let them look at the past. Where were the nations that dwelt proudly in their own lands? Gone, utterly gone, or slaves to the white man; who planted his own laws upon them and punished them heavily if they did not obey.The crafty rascal however found it convenient to ignore the fact that the worst that the white man had ever done to them was a joke when compared with the treatment formerly meted out to the black man by his brother black. Then he proceeded to quote from the Scriptures.There was a fair sprinkling ofamakolwaamong his audience, i.e. those who had been converted to Christianity—of a sort—and these now listened with renewed zest. They would appreciate his arguments, and afterwards make them plain to their fellow countrymen not so privileged, in their discussions from kraal to kraal.He deftly quoted from the history of the Israelites, and their deliverance from the Egyptian bondage, making out that these were in similar bondage, that the promises made to Israel were given to them too. He went further. He even assured them that they were offshoots of Israel, cleverly citing numbers of their national and tribal customs, some obsolete but many still in force, which exactly corresponded with the precepts of the Mosaic law. The great book of the white men which revealed the will of Nkulunkulu, he declared, was wrongly so called, in that it was not revealed to white men at all, but to dark men. The whites had stolen it, as they stole everything.A deep bass hum of applause broke from his audience. It was a strange scene. The vast assemblage held spellbound, the preacher, arrayed as one who preaches the gospel of peace, instead, swaying this multitude of dark savages with the gospel of revolt and war, and all the ruthless atrocity of horror which such represents. All spellbound there in the clear light of the broad moon, flooding down upon ridge and valley, and loom of mountain misty against the stars.For upwards of another hour the preacher went on, the entranced audience drinking in every word. They could have listened to him all night, but he had too much natural astuteness to risk repeating himself.“Brothers,” he concluded, “I have shown you your bondage. You are increasing, as the chosen people of old, and the more you are increasing the more you have to pay in taxes to the white man; the more you have to submit to his slave-imposing laws. You may say—as many have said—‘What can we do? The white man has cannon and we have the assegai, what chance then have we?’ But even the white man’s cannon is not able to go everywhere, and even if it could, there is a more powerful weapon still. There are those who rule the whites who will lift up a voice in your behalf. Who will say—‘Stop. This has gone far enough. We will not have our black brethren butchered solely because they are black.’ I know what I say, for I have seen and talked with such. ‘Stop,’ they will say. ‘Bloodshed must cease.’ And the nation will approve because war costs money, and white people are no fonder of having to pay than are black people. Then when their fighting men are withdrawn—then we will rise in our might, in one overwhelming black wave, and sweep all these whites back into the sea, whence they came. Be patient. You will have ‘the word’ in good time and that time soon. I have shown you your bondage, now I am showing you your way out, for it is the will of Nkulunkulu. I have done.”A deep murmur arose. The vast multitude, moved to the core, took some time to realise that the proceedings were over. Then it broke up. Many remained on the ground, squatting in groups, eagerly discussing the points put forward; others broke up, and in twos or threes, or singly, departed for their homes. Among the latter was Teliso the native detective.Not all, however, so went. There was a disposition among some of the headmen to probe further the speaker’s statements. Who were these rulers among the Amangisi (English) who would call upon their countrymen to stop the war? enquired the old man who had shown a disposition to heckle the preacher in Babatyana’s hut. He was old, but he had never heard of the chiefs of any people who would seek to turn that people back in the moment of their victory.Whau! this was wonderful news, but—who were they?“M-m! Who are they?” hummed the others. But the Rev. Job was not nonplussed.“They are among the head indunas of the nation,” he replied. “The ways of the white man are not as our ways, else that which I have been telling you would seem so much childish folly. Brothers, you will remember how the indunas of the Amangisi treated the Amabuna (Boers) when they had conquered them many years ago. They gave them back all their lands, and went away. They lost hundreds and hundreds of fighting men at the hands of the Amabuna, yet they gave them back all their lands, nor did they even exact any tribute. And what happened yesterday? After three years of fighting, wherein thousands and thousands of Amangisi were slain, did they not pay the Amabuna largely to make peace? Are they not preparing even now to give them back their lands once more?Whau! And even so will they deal with us.”“And the King?” put in Babatyana with his head on one side. “The King of the Amangisi? What will he do with such indunas as they?”“He will do as his indunas advise, brother, for such is the way with the Amangisi.”“A king who is ruled by his indunas is as a dog that is wagged by its tail. U’ Tshaka!” returned Baba tyana vehemently, swearing by the name of the great Zulu. And the others murmured assent.“Yet it is so,amadoda. I, who have seen, I, who know, tell you so.”And the confidence with which the speaker declared this, the certainty in his whole manner and look, staggered the doubters. In such wise was the venom drop injected by these snakes in the grass fostered and educated all unknowingly by the agencies of philanthropy and civilisation.“Great news have we heard this night, brothers. But, even though we drive the Amangisi out, have we not to reckon with the Amabuna? They are terrible fighters. Not all the tribes in the world could drivethemout,impela!”The speaker was Teliso, who had joined a group which was discussing what they had heard.“Not all the tribes in the world!” repeated one, derisively. “Hear that!”“Even that Lion, Dingane, had to flee before them,” urged the detective.“Ha! Was there not another Lion of Zulu that roared louder, and divided the nation? But for this they had been driven out themselves.”“M-m!” hummed another. “That is as the preacher says. Combine—do not divide.”“And this preacher—will he speak again here?” asked Teliso innocently.“Not here. At Nteseni’s Great Place. There will he speak. But many will go from here to listen.”The detective was on the point of asking whether he was likely to cross to the other side, and talk with the chiefs in Zululand, but judged it wise not to seem too curious. He could find that out later, for he had made up his mind to be one of those who should go on from here to Nteseni’s Great Place.For Teliso was having a good time. There had been a fair season and food was plentiful. The people were hospitable; and he was just as fond of meat andtywalaas any other native. He was faithful to his employers, the Government, according to his lights, but his pay was not on a luxurious scale, and the risks he ran were at times considerable. So he made up his mind to combine pleasure with business—to lay himself out to have a good time. And—who shall blame him?

The open space outside the kraal was thronged. Hundreds had collected in obedience to the word of the chief. More were still coming in, and the preacher rubbed his fat hands together with smug complacency. Your educated native is nothing if not conceited, and the Rev. Job Magwegwe was no exception to this rule. Here was an audience for him; a noble audience, and, withal an appreciative one.

His appearance was greeted by a deep murmur from the expectant crowd, which at once disposed itself to listen. He had resumed his black coat and waistcoat and settled his white choker; he was not going to omit any accessory to his clerical dignity if he knew it.

He led off with a long prayer, to which most of those present listened with ill-concealed boredom, but the smug self-conceit of the man had captured his better judgment, and he was only brought up by Babatyana remarking in an audible aside that the people had not assembled to take part in a prayer meeting but to hear the news. So he took the hint and started his address.

He began by sketching the history of the people, within their own time. Since the days of the old wars they had increased immensely and were still increasing, so that soon the land would not be able to hold its population. It would hold them but for the white man. The white man. But was this the white man’s land? Did Nkulunkulu (Literally, “The Great Guest.” one of the names for the Deity) give him this land? No. The white man came over the sea in ships and took it. Nkulunkulu said “This is the black man’s land and here have I placed him,” yet the white man took it. The whites came over in small numbers, then more. But even now what were their numbers? Why, a handful, a mere handful. The whites who ruled them could live in an ostrich’s nest, when compared to the blacks whom they had dispossessed. And why had they been able to dispossess them? Because there was no unity among the native nations. Each was jealous of the other and none could combine. The time, however, was at hand when these dissensions should be of the past; when all the native nations should unite, when their native land should belong to them and not to the white man, when the Amazulu and the Basutu, the tribes in Natal and the Amampondo and the Amaxosa should all possess their own again, should all dwell together as brothers, none lording it over the other, should dwell together in peace and unity in the land which Nkulunkulu had given to them—to them and not to the white man.

The preacher was working himself up to a pitch of eloquence that impressed his audience—and a native orator can be very eloquent indeed. Murmurs of applause greeted his periods, and now as he paused to wipe his clammy forehead with the white handkerchief of civilisation, these grew quite tumultuous. Only Manamandhla the Zulu kept saturnine silence. He knew who, in this wonderful brotherhood of equality, was going to have the upper hand, and any idea to the contrary moved him to mirth, as too absurd to be worthy of a moment’s consideration.

But the ways of Nkulunkulu—went on the preacher unctuously—though sometimes slow were always sure, and now He had revealed His will to some who had come across great distances of sea to bring it to them; not white men but black like themselves. These had come hither with a message of deliverance to all the dark races, and he himself was a humble mouthpiece of such. But there were many such mouthpieces. They were everywhere, and were being heard gladly. Who could refuse to hear them? The people of this land were being oppressed and trampled upon; and so it was wherever the white man set down his foot. Let them look at the past. Where were the nations that dwelt proudly in their own lands? Gone, utterly gone, or slaves to the white man; who planted his own laws upon them and punished them heavily if they did not obey.

The crafty rascal however found it convenient to ignore the fact that the worst that the white man had ever done to them was a joke when compared with the treatment formerly meted out to the black man by his brother black. Then he proceeded to quote from the Scriptures.

There was a fair sprinkling ofamakolwaamong his audience, i.e. those who had been converted to Christianity—of a sort—and these now listened with renewed zest. They would appreciate his arguments, and afterwards make them plain to their fellow countrymen not so privileged, in their discussions from kraal to kraal.

He deftly quoted from the history of the Israelites, and their deliverance from the Egyptian bondage, making out that these were in similar bondage, that the promises made to Israel were given to them too. He went further. He even assured them that they were offshoots of Israel, cleverly citing numbers of their national and tribal customs, some obsolete but many still in force, which exactly corresponded with the precepts of the Mosaic law. The great book of the white men which revealed the will of Nkulunkulu, he declared, was wrongly so called, in that it was not revealed to white men at all, but to dark men. The whites had stolen it, as they stole everything.

A deep bass hum of applause broke from his audience. It was a strange scene. The vast assemblage held spellbound, the preacher, arrayed as one who preaches the gospel of peace, instead, swaying this multitude of dark savages with the gospel of revolt and war, and all the ruthless atrocity of horror which such represents. All spellbound there in the clear light of the broad moon, flooding down upon ridge and valley, and loom of mountain misty against the stars.

For upwards of another hour the preacher went on, the entranced audience drinking in every word. They could have listened to him all night, but he had too much natural astuteness to risk repeating himself.

“Brothers,” he concluded, “I have shown you your bondage. You are increasing, as the chosen people of old, and the more you are increasing the more you have to pay in taxes to the white man; the more you have to submit to his slave-imposing laws. You may say—as many have said—‘What can we do? The white man has cannon and we have the assegai, what chance then have we?’ But even the white man’s cannon is not able to go everywhere, and even if it could, there is a more powerful weapon still. There are those who rule the whites who will lift up a voice in your behalf. Who will say—‘Stop. This has gone far enough. We will not have our black brethren butchered solely because they are black.’ I know what I say, for I have seen and talked with such. ‘Stop,’ they will say. ‘Bloodshed must cease.’ And the nation will approve because war costs money, and white people are no fonder of having to pay than are black people. Then when their fighting men are withdrawn—then we will rise in our might, in one overwhelming black wave, and sweep all these whites back into the sea, whence they came. Be patient. You will have ‘the word’ in good time and that time soon. I have shown you your bondage, now I am showing you your way out, for it is the will of Nkulunkulu. I have done.”

A deep murmur arose. The vast multitude, moved to the core, took some time to realise that the proceedings were over. Then it broke up. Many remained on the ground, squatting in groups, eagerly discussing the points put forward; others broke up, and in twos or threes, or singly, departed for their homes. Among the latter was Teliso the native detective.

Not all, however, so went. There was a disposition among some of the headmen to probe further the speaker’s statements. Who were these rulers among the Amangisi (English) who would call upon their countrymen to stop the war? enquired the old man who had shown a disposition to heckle the preacher in Babatyana’s hut. He was old, but he had never heard of the chiefs of any people who would seek to turn that people back in the moment of their victory.Whau! this was wonderful news, but—who were they?

“M-m! Who are they?” hummed the others. But the Rev. Job was not nonplussed.

“They are among the head indunas of the nation,” he replied. “The ways of the white man are not as our ways, else that which I have been telling you would seem so much childish folly. Brothers, you will remember how the indunas of the Amangisi treated the Amabuna (Boers) when they had conquered them many years ago. They gave them back all their lands, and went away. They lost hundreds and hundreds of fighting men at the hands of the Amabuna, yet they gave them back all their lands, nor did they even exact any tribute. And what happened yesterday? After three years of fighting, wherein thousands and thousands of Amangisi were slain, did they not pay the Amabuna largely to make peace? Are they not preparing even now to give them back their lands once more?Whau! And even so will they deal with us.”

“And the King?” put in Babatyana with his head on one side. “The King of the Amangisi? What will he do with such indunas as they?”

“He will do as his indunas advise, brother, for such is the way with the Amangisi.”

“A king who is ruled by his indunas is as a dog that is wagged by its tail. U’ Tshaka!” returned Baba tyana vehemently, swearing by the name of the great Zulu. And the others murmured assent.

“Yet it is so,amadoda. I, who have seen, I, who know, tell you so.”

And the confidence with which the speaker declared this, the certainty in his whole manner and look, staggered the doubters. In such wise was the venom drop injected by these snakes in the grass fostered and educated all unknowingly by the agencies of philanthropy and civilisation.

“Great news have we heard this night, brothers. But, even though we drive the Amangisi out, have we not to reckon with the Amabuna? They are terrible fighters. Not all the tribes in the world could drivethemout,impela!”

The speaker was Teliso, who had joined a group which was discussing what they had heard.

“Not all the tribes in the world!” repeated one, derisively. “Hear that!”

“Even that Lion, Dingane, had to flee before them,” urged the detective.

“Ha! Was there not another Lion of Zulu that roared louder, and divided the nation? But for this they had been driven out themselves.”

“M-m!” hummed another. “That is as the preacher says. Combine—do not divide.”

“And this preacher—will he speak again here?” asked Teliso innocently.

“Not here. At Nteseni’s Great Place. There will he speak. But many will go from here to listen.”

The detective was on the point of asking whether he was likely to cross to the other side, and talk with the chiefs in Zululand, but judged it wise not to seem too curious. He could find that out later, for he had made up his mind to be one of those who should go on from here to Nteseni’s Great Place.

For Teliso was having a good time. There had been a fair season and food was plentiful. The people were hospitable; and he was just as fond of meat andtywalaas any other native. He was faithful to his employers, the Government, according to his lights, but his pay was not on a luxurious scale, and the risks he ran were at times considerable. So he made up his mind to combine pleasure with business—to lay himself out to have a good time. And—who shall blame him?

Chapter Seven.Of a Day of Rest.Sunday had come round—had dawned, just such a morning as anybody could have wished, cloudless, glowing—warm of course, it would be hot in an hour or so, but Elvesdon, like other people, was used to this at the time of year and cared not a rush for it, especially as he was dressed accordingly.His horse was being led up and down before the stoep by his native servant. The animal was chafing impatiently as though aware that it was bound for its old home. It was the horse that Thornhill had pressed upon his acceptance, and somehow Elvesdon could not help wishing that he had not. The animal was a fine, useful, well-looking beast—this he fully appreciated; but somehow he could not shake off the idea that it was a sort of compensation for what he had been able—privileged—to do, and this idea he did not like in the least.Well, after all, it was a mistake to be too thin-skinned, he decided. Probably the donor did not look at it in that light at all. At any rate he was going to put in a long, enjoyable day in the company of the said donor—and in that of somebody else; so, in the best of spirits, he raised the stirrups by a hole or two and swung himself into the saddle.“So long, Prior,” he called out to the clerk, who was standing by, watching his departure. “I may or may not be back to-night, but in any case shall be here in the morning in time to open as usual.”“All right, sir. So long.”The young man gazed after him, perhaps a trifle wistfully. The day would be a bit dull without him. He had grown to like his new chief more than a little, as we heard him admit to Thornhill in no uncertain tones, and enjoyed his conversation. Well, he would get through the day as he had got through so many other Sundays—taking it thoroughly easy; with a pipe, and the last illustrated papers out from England and a magazine or two: then a snooze in the heat of the afternoon, and perhaps a smoke and chat with the sergeant of Mounted Police. And he was used to it.Elvesdon rode on, his pulses keeping pace with every elastic bound of his steed. He was in the very heyday of his prime, and in the full health and strength of his physical being rejoiced in the sheer joy of living. Higher and higher mounted the flaming wheel of the sun above the roll of those golden plains; and sheeny winged birds, flashing from frond to frond, seemed to echo in their gladsome piping the exaltation which thrilled through his own heart. What was it that had given rise to this new exaltation, this new interest? He did not trouble to answer the mental, unformed question; he realised it, and that was sufficient.From the open, undulating plains his way dived down suddenly, by a rocky path, into the rugged broken country where deep kloofs, dense with thick growth, fell away, their black slopes overhung perchance with craggy rock walls whose ledges gave anchor to the spiky aloe, or scarlet hung Kafferboen. Each labyrinthine defile widened out into another, or to a grassy bottom shaded by the smooth wall of a red ironstone krantz rising majestic and sheer. The chatter of monkeys skipping among the tree-tops, mingled with the clear whistle of spreeuws in the cool shade, the whole dominated by the deep, hoarse bark of the sentinel baboon, aloft among the crags, keeping wary watch upon the unseen troop digging for succulent roots on the hillside below.On high, beyond the wildering trees cresting the ridge on the further side of the valley, a great red turret stood forth against the blue of the heavens. Elvesdon recognised that he was near the scene of the adventure, and now the deep-mouthed baying of dogs, as though suddenly roused, yet somewhat distant, showed that he was nearing his destination; for the clink of hoof-stroke, and the jingle of bit, carries far in a still, clear atmosphere and hilly country.A rush of dogs, bellowing, open-mouthed, met him as he paced up the last slope, but their hostility died down to muttered grumblings as they recognised the horse, if not the rider, as they escorted both to the house. Thornhill came forth.“Glad to see you,” he said as they clasped hands. “Going to be hot, I think. Come inside.”Then a hail having extracted a boy, from somewhere behind the house, Ratels was taken away to be off-saddled, and was soon seen, prancing and neighing in an adjoining paddock, as though in sheer delight at finding himself at home again. Then Edala appeared. Her greeting of the visitor was perfectly frank and self possessed, but Elvesdon was surprised to find himself feeling, for the moment, a trifle disappointed that there was not a little more cordiality about it. But the straight glance of her blue eyes was charming, so too was the lift of upper lip shewing the gleam of white teeth, in her welcoming smile.“I’ve kept my resolution, Mr Elvesdon,” she said. “I haven’t been out by myself without a shot-gun since. In fact, I believe I’ve caught myself almost wishing anotherindhlondhlowould show up so that I might try conclusions with him, this time not at a disadvantage.”“I wouldn’t like to insure the snake, Miss Thornhill,” laughed the other.“Thanks. You know—old Tongwana was round here a day or two afterwards, and he was saying you must betagatiindeed to have escaped. In fact I don’t think he and the others who were with him more than half swallowed what had happened—a set of unbelieving Jews.”“Well, do you know, it would make rather a tall story. It was so absolutely a case of poetic justice. I don’t believe I should get more than seven people in ten to swallow it myself—and snake stories always are received with prejudice.”“Rather,” said Thornhill. “And yet more than one fact I have actually known in my up-country experience would knock out anything I’ve ever heard, or read in fiction for sheer incredibility of coincidence.”Elvesdon pricked up his ears.“I’d like to hear about those,” he said.“Some day perhaps,” answered the other carelessly. “Edala dear, get Mr Elvesdon something after his ride. I believe he’d appreciate it, and I know I should—although I haven’t had a ride. It’s a ‘dry’ sort of morning. Then I move that we go and sit under the fig-trees, and smoke pipes.”“Carried nem. con.,” pronounced Edala.“Pipes and all—all round I mean, Miss Thornhill?” said Elvesdon.She looked at him with a smile of half lofty merriment.“I’m surprised at you, Mr Elvesdon. Disappointed too. Really I am. That’s too thin, yet you could not resist it.”“Frankly it is,” laughed the culprit. “I’m surprised at myself. Will that do?”“This time—yes. But—” with a deprecatory shake of the golden head. “Well, let’s make a move.”“This is no end of a jolly spot whereon to laze away a restful morning,” declared Elvesdon, as snugly disposed in a cane-chair he puffed out contented clouds of smoke.“Isn’t it?” said Thornhill, who was similarly employed. “And it’s always cool here, however broiling it may be outside, unless of course there’s the hot wind on. That always rakes everything.”Overhead the boughs of the tall fig-trees, with their wealth of broad leaves, made a most effective canopy. Behind was a high pomegranate hedge, in front young willows fringing a small runnel fed by the dam lower down, where bevies of finks fluttered in and out of their pendulous nests, making the air lively with their cheerful twitter. Glimpsed through an opening here and there the warm sun-rays shot down in golden kiss upon drooping loads of peaches and pears hanging from the fruit trees beyond.“What’s the latest, Mr Elvesdon? Is there any fresh development in this unrest movement?”It was Edala who spoke. Elvesdon had been contemplating her with a furtive but admiring satisfaction, as she sat there in her low chair, the gold aureole of her head resting back against her clasped hands. There was something in her every movement—her every pose—that fascinated him; yet not an atom of self-consciousness or posing was there about her. And her very attire. The well-fitting blouse of light blue, set off the blue of her eyes, the gold of her hair; the cool white skirt, from which peeped one white shoe—all, he decided, was perfect. At the question he half started.“The latest?” he echoed. “Well, Miss Thornhill, I don’t think there is any ‘latest.’ Things are much the same as ever, and likely to remain so.”Her eyes were full upon his face, which they seemed to be reading like an open page. She shook her head slightly.“Ah—you are not going to tell me. You won’t say anything before me because I’m a girl. That’s what you’re thinking. Now—isn’t it?”Elvesdon, whom we believe we have shown was as far from being a fool as the small minority of people, felt a little disconcerted, and only hoped he was not showing it. As a matter of fact that was exactly what he had been thinking. All his official instincts were dead against discussing official matters in the presence of the other sex; and the question she had asked certainly covered very official matters; far more official—even delicate—at that juncture than his light and ready answer should have led his questioner to believe. Equally, as a matter of fact, she was not deceived by its lightness and readiness for one moment. But before he could frame a second answer Thornhill came to the rescue.“What should there be of the ‘latest,’ child?” he said, dropping a sinewy sun-browned hand caressingly upon her long slim, and yet also sun-browned one. “You shouldn’t rush Mr Elvesdon in his official capacity you know. It isn’t playing the game. Besides, it’s a sort of ‘day of rest’ remember, so we mustn’t talk shop.”“Ah-ah-ah! That’s all very well,” she answered, with a laugh, but not wholly a mirthful one. “If you two were alone together you’d be talking no end of that very kind of shop. I know.”Elvesdon had quite recovered his self-possession. His official susceptibilities were somewhat ruffled by the remark. It was not a question thoughtlessly put by a mere thoughtless girl. This was nothing of the kind, but a woman, with infinite capacity for thought. The question was nothing, but the manner in which the answer had been taken argued something of petulance, even obstinacy. Now the latter is not an attractive quality in the other sex, he decided, even less, if possible, than in his own.Then he mentally damned himself for a suspicious and most ill-conditioned curmudgeon, an official prig. This girl with the thoughtful eyes, and quick, bright, intelligent mind, had asked him a mere harmless question—only for information, for she was interested in everything; not out of motives of curiosity—and lo, he had shrunk into his official shell, and had more than half snubbed her; snubbed her by implication at any rate. But—how she puzzled him. He had seen her but once before, but he had thought of her a good many more times than that. She was so totally unlike any other girl he had ever seen in his life.“Have you been drawing much lately, Miss Thornhill?” he said, interestedly, as though to make up for his former answer. But the remark had just the opposite effect. He was ‘talking down to’ her now, Edala was thinking. Drawing, painting, singing—those were interests enough for a girl. She must not raise her eyes to weightier and more human matters. But her nature was an intensely self-concentrated one, and self-controlled.“Oh, yes,” she answered easily, and as if the other matter had clean passed from her mind. “I’m thinking of going in for native studies. Would they catch on in Europe should you think, Mr Elvesdon?”“They’d have the advantage of originality, at any rate,” he answered. A merry peal escaped Edala.“What a goodofficialreply,” she cried. “Never mind, Mr Elvesdon. I like it. If you had declared they could not do otherwise I don’t know what I should have thought of you, if only that never having seen a sample you couldn’t possibly know that they were any good at all.”“Why, obviously,” rejoined Elvesdon, secretly pleased with himself for having refrained from giving utterance to a second banality. “I’m afraid I’m too old to launch out into paying compliments; and”—he added slyly—“tooofficial.”Thornhill chuckled. He, silently emitting puffs of smoke, was watching the battle of wits between the pair and keenly enjoying it. Moreover he rejoiced that Edala should have found a foeman worthy of her steel, one with whom she could sharpen wits. It would relieve the dulness of her life, render her more contented perhaps. Nor did the admiration which would now and then shine out prominently in the eyes of their visitor, when the latter was animated, and therefore off his guard, escape him. So he listened, and smoked complacently, as they branched off from one topic to another, sometimes indulging in a passage of arms, frequently agreeing enthusiastically. Yes, it was a pleasant way of getting through the morning of a “day of rest.”

Sunday had come round—had dawned, just such a morning as anybody could have wished, cloudless, glowing—warm of course, it would be hot in an hour or so, but Elvesdon, like other people, was used to this at the time of year and cared not a rush for it, especially as he was dressed accordingly.

His horse was being led up and down before the stoep by his native servant. The animal was chafing impatiently as though aware that it was bound for its old home. It was the horse that Thornhill had pressed upon his acceptance, and somehow Elvesdon could not help wishing that he had not. The animal was a fine, useful, well-looking beast—this he fully appreciated; but somehow he could not shake off the idea that it was a sort of compensation for what he had been able—privileged—to do, and this idea he did not like in the least.

Well, after all, it was a mistake to be too thin-skinned, he decided. Probably the donor did not look at it in that light at all. At any rate he was going to put in a long, enjoyable day in the company of the said donor—and in that of somebody else; so, in the best of spirits, he raised the stirrups by a hole or two and swung himself into the saddle.

“So long, Prior,” he called out to the clerk, who was standing by, watching his departure. “I may or may not be back to-night, but in any case shall be here in the morning in time to open as usual.”

“All right, sir. So long.”

The young man gazed after him, perhaps a trifle wistfully. The day would be a bit dull without him. He had grown to like his new chief more than a little, as we heard him admit to Thornhill in no uncertain tones, and enjoyed his conversation. Well, he would get through the day as he had got through so many other Sundays—taking it thoroughly easy; with a pipe, and the last illustrated papers out from England and a magazine or two: then a snooze in the heat of the afternoon, and perhaps a smoke and chat with the sergeant of Mounted Police. And he was used to it.

Elvesdon rode on, his pulses keeping pace with every elastic bound of his steed. He was in the very heyday of his prime, and in the full health and strength of his physical being rejoiced in the sheer joy of living. Higher and higher mounted the flaming wheel of the sun above the roll of those golden plains; and sheeny winged birds, flashing from frond to frond, seemed to echo in their gladsome piping the exaltation which thrilled through his own heart. What was it that had given rise to this new exaltation, this new interest? He did not trouble to answer the mental, unformed question; he realised it, and that was sufficient.

From the open, undulating plains his way dived down suddenly, by a rocky path, into the rugged broken country where deep kloofs, dense with thick growth, fell away, their black slopes overhung perchance with craggy rock walls whose ledges gave anchor to the spiky aloe, or scarlet hung Kafferboen. Each labyrinthine defile widened out into another, or to a grassy bottom shaded by the smooth wall of a red ironstone krantz rising majestic and sheer. The chatter of monkeys skipping among the tree-tops, mingled with the clear whistle of spreeuws in the cool shade, the whole dominated by the deep, hoarse bark of the sentinel baboon, aloft among the crags, keeping wary watch upon the unseen troop digging for succulent roots on the hillside below.

On high, beyond the wildering trees cresting the ridge on the further side of the valley, a great red turret stood forth against the blue of the heavens. Elvesdon recognised that he was near the scene of the adventure, and now the deep-mouthed baying of dogs, as though suddenly roused, yet somewhat distant, showed that he was nearing his destination; for the clink of hoof-stroke, and the jingle of bit, carries far in a still, clear atmosphere and hilly country.

A rush of dogs, bellowing, open-mouthed, met him as he paced up the last slope, but their hostility died down to muttered grumblings as they recognised the horse, if not the rider, as they escorted both to the house. Thornhill came forth.

“Glad to see you,” he said as they clasped hands. “Going to be hot, I think. Come inside.”

Then a hail having extracted a boy, from somewhere behind the house, Ratels was taken away to be off-saddled, and was soon seen, prancing and neighing in an adjoining paddock, as though in sheer delight at finding himself at home again. Then Edala appeared. Her greeting of the visitor was perfectly frank and self possessed, but Elvesdon was surprised to find himself feeling, for the moment, a trifle disappointed that there was not a little more cordiality about it. But the straight glance of her blue eyes was charming, so too was the lift of upper lip shewing the gleam of white teeth, in her welcoming smile.

“I’ve kept my resolution, Mr Elvesdon,” she said. “I haven’t been out by myself without a shot-gun since. In fact, I believe I’ve caught myself almost wishing anotherindhlondhlowould show up so that I might try conclusions with him, this time not at a disadvantage.”

“I wouldn’t like to insure the snake, Miss Thornhill,” laughed the other.

“Thanks. You know—old Tongwana was round here a day or two afterwards, and he was saying you must betagatiindeed to have escaped. In fact I don’t think he and the others who were with him more than half swallowed what had happened—a set of unbelieving Jews.”

“Well, do you know, it would make rather a tall story. It was so absolutely a case of poetic justice. I don’t believe I should get more than seven people in ten to swallow it myself—and snake stories always are received with prejudice.”

“Rather,” said Thornhill. “And yet more than one fact I have actually known in my up-country experience would knock out anything I’ve ever heard, or read in fiction for sheer incredibility of coincidence.”

Elvesdon pricked up his ears.

“I’d like to hear about those,” he said.

“Some day perhaps,” answered the other carelessly. “Edala dear, get Mr Elvesdon something after his ride. I believe he’d appreciate it, and I know I should—although I haven’t had a ride. It’s a ‘dry’ sort of morning. Then I move that we go and sit under the fig-trees, and smoke pipes.”

“Carried nem. con.,” pronounced Edala.

“Pipes and all—all round I mean, Miss Thornhill?” said Elvesdon.

She looked at him with a smile of half lofty merriment.

“I’m surprised at you, Mr Elvesdon. Disappointed too. Really I am. That’s too thin, yet you could not resist it.”

“Frankly it is,” laughed the culprit. “I’m surprised at myself. Will that do?”

“This time—yes. But—” with a deprecatory shake of the golden head. “Well, let’s make a move.”

“This is no end of a jolly spot whereon to laze away a restful morning,” declared Elvesdon, as snugly disposed in a cane-chair he puffed out contented clouds of smoke.

“Isn’t it?” said Thornhill, who was similarly employed. “And it’s always cool here, however broiling it may be outside, unless of course there’s the hot wind on. That always rakes everything.”

Overhead the boughs of the tall fig-trees, with their wealth of broad leaves, made a most effective canopy. Behind was a high pomegranate hedge, in front young willows fringing a small runnel fed by the dam lower down, where bevies of finks fluttered in and out of their pendulous nests, making the air lively with their cheerful twitter. Glimpsed through an opening here and there the warm sun-rays shot down in golden kiss upon drooping loads of peaches and pears hanging from the fruit trees beyond.

“What’s the latest, Mr Elvesdon? Is there any fresh development in this unrest movement?”

It was Edala who spoke. Elvesdon had been contemplating her with a furtive but admiring satisfaction, as she sat there in her low chair, the gold aureole of her head resting back against her clasped hands. There was something in her every movement—her every pose—that fascinated him; yet not an atom of self-consciousness or posing was there about her. And her very attire. The well-fitting blouse of light blue, set off the blue of her eyes, the gold of her hair; the cool white skirt, from which peeped one white shoe—all, he decided, was perfect. At the question he half started.

“The latest?” he echoed. “Well, Miss Thornhill, I don’t think there is any ‘latest.’ Things are much the same as ever, and likely to remain so.”

Her eyes were full upon his face, which they seemed to be reading like an open page. She shook her head slightly.

“Ah—you are not going to tell me. You won’t say anything before me because I’m a girl. That’s what you’re thinking. Now—isn’t it?”

Elvesdon, whom we believe we have shown was as far from being a fool as the small minority of people, felt a little disconcerted, and only hoped he was not showing it. As a matter of fact that was exactly what he had been thinking. All his official instincts were dead against discussing official matters in the presence of the other sex; and the question she had asked certainly covered very official matters; far more official—even delicate—at that juncture than his light and ready answer should have led his questioner to believe. Equally, as a matter of fact, she was not deceived by its lightness and readiness for one moment. But before he could frame a second answer Thornhill came to the rescue.

“What should there be of the ‘latest,’ child?” he said, dropping a sinewy sun-browned hand caressingly upon her long slim, and yet also sun-browned one. “You shouldn’t rush Mr Elvesdon in his official capacity you know. It isn’t playing the game. Besides, it’s a sort of ‘day of rest’ remember, so we mustn’t talk shop.”

“Ah-ah-ah! That’s all very well,” she answered, with a laugh, but not wholly a mirthful one. “If you two were alone together you’d be talking no end of that very kind of shop. I know.”

Elvesdon had quite recovered his self-possession. His official susceptibilities were somewhat ruffled by the remark. It was not a question thoughtlessly put by a mere thoughtless girl. This was nothing of the kind, but a woman, with infinite capacity for thought. The question was nothing, but the manner in which the answer had been taken argued something of petulance, even obstinacy. Now the latter is not an attractive quality in the other sex, he decided, even less, if possible, than in his own.

Then he mentally damned himself for a suspicious and most ill-conditioned curmudgeon, an official prig. This girl with the thoughtful eyes, and quick, bright, intelligent mind, had asked him a mere harmless question—only for information, for she was interested in everything; not out of motives of curiosity—and lo, he had shrunk into his official shell, and had more than half snubbed her; snubbed her by implication at any rate. But—how she puzzled him. He had seen her but once before, but he had thought of her a good many more times than that. She was so totally unlike any other girl he had ever seen in his life.

“Have you been drawing much lately, Miss Thornhill?” he said, interestedly, as though to make up for his former answer. But the remark had just the opposite effect. He was ‘talking down to’ her now, Edala was thinking. Drawing, painting, singing—those were interests enough for a girl. She must not raise her eyes to weightier and more human matters. But her nature was an intensely self-concentrated one, and self-controlled.

“Oh, yes,” she answered easily, and as if the other matter had clean passed from her mind. “I’m thinking of going in for native studies. Would they catch on in Europe should you think, Mr Elvesdon?”

“They’d have the advantage of originality, at any rate,” he answered. A merry peal escaped Edala.

“What a goodofficialreply,” she cried. “Never mind, Mr Elvesdon. I like it. If you had declared they could not do otherwise I don’t know what I should have thought of you, if only that never having seen a sample you couldn’t possibly know that they were any good at all.”

“Why, obviously,” rejoined Elvesdon, secretly pleased with himself for having refrained from giving utterance to a second banality. “I’m afraid I’m too old to launch out into paying compliments; and”—he added slyly—“tooofficial.”

Thornhill chuckled. He, silently emitting puffs of smoke, was watching the battle of wits between the pair and keenly enjoying it. Moreover he rejoiced that Edala should have found a foeman worthy of her steel, one with whom she could sharpen wits. It would relieve the dulness of her life, render her more contented perhaps. Nor did the admiration which would now and then shine out prominently in the eyes of their visitor, when the latter was animated, and therefore off his guard, escape him. So he listened, and smoked complacently, as they branched off from one topic to another, sometimes indulging in a passage of arms, frequently agreeing enthusiastically. Yes, it was a pleasant way of getting through the morning of a “day of rest.”

Chapter Eight.Her “Aerial Throne.”“I know what we must do this afternoon, father,” said Edala, when dinner was nearly over. “We’ll take Mr Elvesdon to the top of Sipazi.”Elvesdon looked puzzled.“Do you mean on to the roof, Miss Thornhill?” he said.The girl went off into another merry peal; the point of the joke being that the farm was so named, after a certain striking mountain which stood opposite, but this their visitor did not know.“I don’t believe you meant that seriously,” she said.“But I did. Why not?”“When you come to know your own district a little better, Mr Elvesdon,” she pronounced with mock severity, “you will know that that flat topped mountain over there beyond the kloof—the one with that splendid red krantz at the top—is called Sipazi-pazi, on account of the glimmer which seems to set it on fire when the sun gets on to it at a certain angle.”“Good name that,” he answered, looking at the stately pile with renewed interest. “But then, unfortunately, I have only just come into my ‘own district’ and haven’t quite had time to ‘know’ everything.”“Well then, this place is named after the mountain,” she went on, loftily ignoring the retort. “But the doubled word is too much of a mouthful, so we cut it down, and call both just Sipazi. In fact so do the natives themselves.”“I shall be delighted to make the acquaintance of its summit. When shall we start?”“Oh, not yet. When it’s cooler. It doesn’t take long to go up, and the sunsets from there are simply indescribable.”Throughout dinner Edala had seemed quite outside of herself. She had descanted volubly on all her favourite topics; had bantered, and argued, and pretended to disagree for the sake of arguing again. Her father was not a little astonished. He had never seen her as animated as this for years—certainly not since she had been grown up. Elvesdon was amusing, and talked well, but Thornhill would never have suspected him of being able to draw Edala out of her shell as he had succeeded in doing.Dinner was over at last, and an uncommonly good one it had been; so much so as to move Elvesdon to congratulate his host on the excellence of his cook.“Oh, he’s a coolie,” answered Thornhill. “He’s a great rascal, and was kicked out of one of the hotels in Maritzburg for boozing. I take jolly good care he gets no chance of that here, but he must have been bad if they had to get rid of him, for hecancook.”(Coolie: In Natal all natives of India, of whatever occupation or profession, are so called. It is an absurd misnomer of course; about as much so as to talk about a ‘Boer Judge’ or a ‘Boer engineer’—but it sticks, and always will.)“By Jingo he can!” assented Elvesdon emphatically. “Those sasaatjes were simply divine.”“Mr Elvesdon clearly appreciates good ‘skoff’,” said Edala. “Great minds skip together, for so do I.”“I appreciate good everything, I believe,” he answered as they got up, “especially good singing. Won’t you give us a song, Miss Thornhill? I haven’t heard you yet.”“Immediately after dinner? Why, I should positively croak. No, that’s no time for vocal exercise. To-night perhaps—you will stay the night, won’t you? Well, so long. I am going to take it easy in private life until it gets cooler. Meanwhile I’ll leave you to exchangeofficialnews,” she added maliciously, over her shoulder.“I can’t think what you’ve done to that child, Elvesdon,” remarked his host, when they were sitting alone together on the stoep. “I never saw her so lively before, or anything like it; certainly not since she was a little girl. Yet you managed to ‘draw’ her most effectually.”Elvesdon was human, and at this profuse anointment of his self-esteem he mentally purred. Yet he did not know what the very deuce to answer. He could not, for instance, tell his host that this sort of life must be rather a monotonous one for a girl, and therefore anyone from outside, he supposed would make a welcome change.“I don’t know how it was done,” he said, with a deprecatory laugh. “Your daughter evidently has very artistic instincts, Thornhill. I can’t say I have, but I’ve been a bit among people who cut in for that sort of thing, and may have absorbed some of their jargon. I suppose that is what interested her.”“Heard any more about that suspicious stranger I came over to tell you about the other day?” said Thornhill, characteristically changing the subject without any sort of prelude.“Yes, I have. As you supposed, he’s a Zulu from beyond the river, one of Mehlo-ka-zulu’s chief men. He’s got no business at all in these locations, but you know as well as I do that it’s sometimes sound policy to shut one eye. To interfere with him just now would do more harm than good; the tax-collecting time is coming on, and the people want smoothing down, not brushing up.”“That’s so,” said the other, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. “Oh he belongs to Mehlo-ka-zulu does he? M’yes. Mehlo-ka-zulu’s a fine fellow but a bit of a firebrand. If anything went wrong here it wouldn’t be long before he had a finger in the pie. At least—soIpredict.”Thus they talked on, airing official matters even as Edala had declared they would. Elvesdon for his part rejoiced at finding a man such as this, right at his very door, so to say; from the well of whose shrewdness and experience he could draw at will. Then they went round to the stables, and soon the slant of the sunbeams told that the heat of the day was passed.“Well, are we ready for Sipazi? The sun is going off the valley, and we shall have it splendidly cool.”They turned. Edala was looking fresh, and even, for her, rosy, after her nap. Elvesdon almost started. This dash of colour was all that was needed to render the face absolutely a lovely one.“Look, Mr Elvesdon,” she went on. “Now is the time when the sun gets on the big krantz, and makes it gleam like fire. Look.”He did look. The majestic mountain towered up from the sombre moist depths of the now shaded valley below, its slopes striped with tongues of dark bush, shooting up to where they culminated in a sheer wall of cliff, smooth, absolutely perpendicular where not overhanging. Upon this now, the slanting rays of the westering sun were striking at an angle, and the whole face of the gigantic rock wall, scarcely less than three hundred feet sheer, was glowing and sparkling as though it had suddenly burst into flame.“Wo! Sipazi-pazi!” exclaimed Edala, shading her eyes, in laughing imitation of the natives. “Now, haven’t we got something to be proud of, Mr Elvesdon? Fancy owning such a fragment of the globe as that—you see, I can’t help bragging about it. Now come along and let’s get to the top. Here are the horses.”Those useful quadrupeds were being driven in by a mounted boy, and soon the saddles were on them and the three were in the saddles. In about half an hour they had dived down through the broad, shaded valley beneath, now delightfully cool, and stumbling up a rugged bush path had gained the tree-lined ridge, or saddle, which connected the splendid mountain with the opposite range.“We’ll leave the horses here,” said Edala. “You can ride to the top by the other side but it’s an awful long way round, nearly an hour, whereas here we can climb up by a cleft in the rock in about a quarter of an hour. Can you climb, Mr Elvesdon?”“I believe I can do most things when I’m put to it.”“Well then come along,” she cried, taking the lead. “There are such jolly maidenhair ferns, too, all the way up.”“I think I’ll wait for you here and smoke a pipe,” said Thornhill.“No, no, father. You must come up too.”“Well, I will then. By the way Elvesdon. Take care how you move about when you’re on top. There are some rock crevices there, hidden away in the long grass, and if you got into some of them we should have to send round to about ten farms before we could get hold of enough combined length of reims to get you out, even if we could then.”“By Jove, are there?”“Never mind. I’ll take care of you,” called Edala. “Come on after me.”And in her lithe agility she drew herself up from rock to rock, now poising for a moment on one foot, then springing higher to another point of vantage.The place they were now in was a very steep, chimney-like rock gully, such as would be known in Alpine parlance as a ‘couloir.’ To those of weak nerve or dizzily inclined heads it would have looked formidable enough, for, besides its own height, from a little way up it seemed as if it overhung the whole depth of the valley. Above, too, craggy jutting rocks, shooting forth savagely against the sky, looked as though about to fall on and overwhelm the invaders of their mountain solitude. In hard fact it was safe enough, being indeed a gigantic natural stairway thickly coated with oozy moss, while the sides were festooned with masses of beautiful maidenhair fern.“Here we are at last,” cried Edala as they gained the summit. “Confess. Doesn’t this repay any amount of trouble?”“I should think it did,” answered Elvesdon, “or would, rather; for getting here has been no trouble at all.”It was as though they were poised in mid-air. Beneath, the homestead lay, like a group of tiny toy buildings. Around, everywhere billowing masses of mountain, dark recesses of forest grown kloofs, gleaming cliffs now catching the westering sun’s parting kiss; the roll of the mimosa strewn plains seeming absolutely flat from this altitude. Here and there too the circle of a native kraal surmounted by its inevitable thread of blue smoke, and far-away in the distance the dim peaks of the Drakensberg range.“Come and look over the Sipazi krantz,” said Edala, at length, when the awed silence with which this stupendous panorama could not fail to strike a newcomer, had been broken.“Look over it!” echoed Elvesdon. “Why it seems to me that the ground slopes down to its brink at a pretty steep angle. You can’t lie flat there. You’d tilt over head first.”“You’ll see,” was the answer. And the speaker proceeded to climb down, face to the mountain, a very steep grass slope indeed, so steep as to be almost a precipice. Tough roots, however, grew here, strong enough to afford a securer hold than might have been expected; then where the slope ended she stopped. A stunted tree grew here on the very edge of the abyss, and horizontally over the same, shooting first slightly downwards and then up, the bend of its trunk forming a seat. And into this seat did the girl by a deft movement, and without the slightest hesitation, quickly glide.“This is how you look over the Sipazi krantz,” she laughed up at him, her blue eyes dancing. “It’s the only way in which you can look over it at all.Whata drop!”Holding on to the bough above her shoulder with one hand she sat there, gazing down, her feet dangling over the ghastly abyss. Elvesdon seemed to feel his blood freeze within him, and his knees knocked together. Even the tree shook and trembled beneath her weight.“Isn’t it rather dangerous?” he called out, striving to master the tremulous anxiety of his voice. “The tree might give way, you know.”“It never has yet, which of course is not to say it never will—as you were about to remark,” she laughed back. “Well, I’ll come up.”“Yes do,” he said, bending over the brow of the grass-roll as though to help her. But she needed no help. She sprang up, lithe, agile as a cat, and in a moment was beside him.“Would you like to try it?” she said eagerly, as if the feat was the most ordinary one in the world. “Would you like to look over Sipazi? I can tell you it’s worth it. It feels like flying. But don’t if you think you can’t,” she added, quick to take in the not to be concealed momentary hesitation.That challenge settled it; yet the words were not meant as a challenge at all, but as sheer practical warning. She would not have thought an atom the worse of him if he had laughingly declined, but Elvesdon did not know this. Was he going to shrink from a feat which a girl could perform—had often performed? Not he.“Yes. I think I should,” he answered. “I should like to be able to brag of having looked over Sipazi.”Yet as he let himself down over the grass and root-hung brow which led to the actual brink, he owned to himself that by no possibility could he ever tell a bigger he, and further, that at that moment he would cheerfully have forfeited a year’s pay to find himself standing safe and sound on the summit again. Well, he would not look down. He would get through the performance as quickly as possible, and return.He was out on the tree, grasping the branch her hand had held on by. Yet why did the confounded trunk tremble and sway so, and—horror! it seemed to be giving way, actually sinking under him. The ghastly thought darted through his mind that there was all the difference in their weight—that that which would carry her would break down with him. His nerve was tottering. His face grew icy cold, and the hand which held the bough trembled violently. He was perched over that awful height even as she had been. He was not unused to heights, but to be suspended thus between heaven and earth in mid-air—no, to that he was not used. Beneath him the face of the great rock wall sloped awayinwards. Anyone falling from here would strike the ground about thirty feet from its base. All the world seemed going round with him—not even the thought that Edala had just done the same thing availed to pull him together. He must go—must hurl himself off and end this agony of nightmare—when—“You down there, Elvesdon? Well, come up, because it’s getting late, and it’s time to think of getting back.”The calm, strong, matter of fact tones of Thornhill broke the spell like magic. This was an everyday performance after all, was the effect they conveyed. Elvesdon’s nerve had returned. He was himself again.“Let’s see. What’s the best way of getting off?” he asked, trying to suppress the tremor in his voice.“Same as you got on. Grab hold of that root above, there under the stone, and—don’t look down. Look up. That’s all right,” as Elvesdon, panting somewhat, stood once more on the summit beside them.“Well done,” cried Edala enthusiastically. “You are the only one besides myself who has ever looked over the Sipazi krantz. Several have tried but none of them had the nerve to get as far as the tree. Some wouldn’t even go at all.”“The only sensible ones of the lot,” said Thornhill shortly. “It’s a fool’s trick, anyway.”“Have you done it yourself, Thornhill?” asked Elvesdon. “I suppose you have?”“Not any. Anyone could see that the thing wouldn’t stand my weight for a minute: even if I were such a—” He checked himself, remembering that his guest had just qualified for the uncomplimentary substantive he had been on the point of defining. “But I’m going to have a charge of dynamite brought up here and the thing blown to blazes. It’s too silly risky.”Elvesdon was rather astonished. Thornhill was undergoing the process known as ‘working himself up.’ Yet when he himself was down there, his host’s tone had been absolutely level. And Thornhill himself was making up his mind to talk very seriously to Edala on the subject, little thinking that before any opportunity of doing so should come round, that might occur which should put any such idea clean out of his mind.

“I know what we must do this afternoon, father,” said Edala, when dinner was nearly over. “We’ll take Mr Elvesdon to the top of Sipazi.”

Elvesdon looked puzzled.

“Do you mean on to the roof, Miss Thornhill?” he said.

The girl went off into another merry peal; the point of the joke being that the farm was so named, after a certain striking mountain which stood opposite, but this their visitor did not know.

“I don’t believe you meant that seriously,” she said.

“But I did. Why not?”

“When you come to know your own district a little better, Mr Elvesdon,” she pronounced with mock severity, “you will know that that flat topped mountain over there beyond the kloof—the one with that splendid red krantz at the top—is called Sipazi-pazi, on account of the glimmer which seems to set it on fire when the sun gets on to it at a certain angle.”

“Good name that,” he answered, looking at the stately pile with renewed interest. “But then, unfortunately, I have only just come into my ‘own district’ and haven’t quite had time to ‘know’ everything.”

“Well then, this place is named after the mountain,” she went on, loftily ignoring the retort. “But the doubled word is too much of a mouthful, so we cut it down, and call both just Sipazi. In fact so do the natives themselves.”

“I shall be delighted to make the acquaintance of its summit. When shall we start?”

“Oh, not yet. When it’s cooler. It doesn’t take long to go up, and the sunsets from there are simply indescribable.”

Throughout dinner Edala had seemed quite outside of herself. She had descanted volubly on all her favourite topics; had bantered, and argued, and pretended to disagree for the sake of arguing again. Her father was not a little astonished. He had never seen her as animated as this for years—certainly not since she had been grown up. Elvesdon was amusing, and talked well, but Thornhill would never have suspected him of being able to draw Edala out of her shell as he had succeeded in doing.

Dinner was over at last, and an uncommonly good one it had been; so much so as to move Elvesdon to congratulate his host on the excellence of his cook.

“Oh, he’s a coolie,” answered Thornhill. “He’s a great rascal, and was kicked out of one of the hotels in Maritzburg for boozing. I take jolly good care he gets no chance of that here, but he must have been bad if they had to get rid of him, for hecancook.”

(Coolie: In Natal all natives of India, of whatever occupation or profession, are so called. It is an absurd misnomer of course; about as much so as to talk about a ‘Boer Judge’ or a ‘Boer engineer’—but it sticks, and always will.)

“By Jingo he can!” assented Elvesdon emphatically. “Those sasaatjes were simply divine.”

“Mr Elvesdon clearly appreciates good ‘skoff’,” said Edala. “Great minds skip together, for so do I.”

“I appreciate good everything, I believe,” he answered as they got up, “especially good singing. Won’t you give us a song, Miss Thornhill? I haven’t heard you yet.”

“Immediately after dinner? Why, I should positively croak. No, that’s no time for vocal exercise. To-night perhaps—you will stay the night, won’t you? Well, so long. I am going to take it easy in private life until it gets cooler. Meanwhile I’ll leave you to exchangeofficialnews,” she added maliciously, over her shoulder.

“I can’t think what you’ve done to that child, Elvesdon,” remarked his host, when they were sitting alone together on the stoep. “I never saw her so lively before, or anything like it; certainly not since she was a little girl. Yet you managed to ‘draw’ her most effectually.”

Elvesdon was human, and at this profuse anointment of his self-esteem he mentally purred. Yet he did not know what the very deuce to answer. He could not, for instance, tell his host that this sort of life must be rather a monotonous one for a girl, and therefore anyone from outside, he supposed would make a welcome change.

“I don’t know how it was done,” he said, with a deprecatory laugh. “Your daughter evidently has very artistic instincts, Thornhill. I can’t say I have, but I’ve been a bit among people who cut in for that sort of thing, and may have absorbed some of their jargon. I suppose that is what interested her.”

“Heard any more about that suspicious stranger I came over to tell you about the other day?” said Thornhill, characteristically changing the subject without any sort of prelude.

“Yes, I have. As you supposed, he’s a Zulu from beyond the river, one of Mehlo-ka-zulu’s chief men. He’s got no business at all in these locations, but you know as well as I do that it’s sometimes sound policy to shut one eye. To interfere with him just now would do more harm than good; the tax-collecting time is coming on, and the people want smoothing down, not brushing up.”

“That’s so,” said the other, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. “Oh he belongs to Mehlo-ka-zulu does he? M’yes. Mehlo-ka-zulu’s a fine fellow but a bit of a firebrand. If anything went wrong here it wouldn’t be long before he had a finger in the pie. At least—soIpredict.”

Thus they talked on, airing official matters even as Edala had declared they would. Elvesdon for his part rejoiced at finding a man such as this, right at his very door, so to say; from the well of whose shrewdness and experience he could draw at will. Then they went round to the stables, and soon the slant of the sunbeams told that the heat of the day was passed.

“Well, are we ready for Sipazi? The sun is going off the valley, and we shall have it splendidly cool.”

They turned. Edala was looking fresh, and even, for her, rosy, after her nap. Elvesdon almost started. This dash of colour was all that was needed to render the face absolutely a lovely one.

“Look, Mr Elvesdon,” she went on. “Now is the time when the sun gets on the big krantz, and makes it gleam like fire. Look.”

He did look. The majestic mountain towered up from the sombre moist depths of the now shaded valley below, its slopes striped with tongues of dark bush, shooting up to where they culminated in a sheer wall of cliff, smooth, absolutely perpendicular where not overhanging. Upon this now, the slanting rays of the westering sun were striking at an angle, and the whole face of the gigantic rock wall, scarcely less than three hundred feet sheer, was glowing and sparkling as though it had suddenly burst into flame.

“Wo! Sipazi-pazi!” exclaimed Edala, shading her eyes, in laughing imitation of the natives. “Now, haven’t we got something to be proud of, Mr Elvesdon? Fancy owning such a fragment of the globe as that—you see, I can’t help bragging about it. Now come along and let’s get to the top. Here are the horses.”

Those useful quadrupeds were being driven in by a mounted boy, and soon the saddles were on them and the three were in the saddles. In about half an hour they had dived down through the broad, shaded valley beneath, now delightfully cool, and stumbling up a rugged bush path had gained the tree-lined ridge, or saddle, which connected the splendid mountain with the opposite range.

“We’ll leave the horses here,” said Edala. “You can ride to the top by the other side but it’s an awful long way round, nearly an hour, whereas here we can climb up by a cleft in the rock in about a quarter of an hour. Can you climb, Mr Elvesdon?”

“I believe I can do most things when I’m put to it.”

“Well then come along,” she cried, taking the lead. “There are such jolly maidenhair ferns, too, all the way up.”

“I think I’ll wait for you here and smoke a pipe,” said Thornhill.

“No, no, father. You must come up too.”

“Well, I will then. By the way Elvesdon. Take care how you move about when you’re on top. There are some rock crevices there, hidden away in the long grass, and if you got into some of them we should have to send round to about ten farms before we could get hold of enough combined length of reims to get you out, even if we could then.”

“By Jove, are there?”

“Never mind. I’ll take care of you,” called Edala. “Come on after me.”

And in her lithe agility she drew herself up from rock to rock, now poising for a moment on one foot, then springing higher to another point of vantage.

The place they were now in was a very steep, chimney-like rock gully, such as would be known in Alpine parlance as a ‘couloir.’ To those of weak nerve or dizzily inclined heads it would have looked formidable enough, for, besides its own height, from a little way up it seemed as if it overhung the whole depth of the valley. Above, too, craggy jutting rocks, shooting forth savagely against the sky, looked as though about to fall on and overwhelm the invaders of their mountain solitude. In hard fact it was safe enough, being indeed a gigantic natural stairway thickly coated with oozy moss, while the sides were festooned with masses of beautiful maidenhair fern.

“Here we are at last,” cried Edala as they gained the summit. “Confess. Doesn’t this repay any amount of trouble?”

“I should think it did,” answered Elvesdon, “or would, rather; for getting here has been no trouble at all.”

It was as though they were poised in mid-air. Beneath, the homestead lay, like a group of tiny toy buildings. Around, everywhere billowing masses of mountain, dark recesses of forest grown kloofs, gleaming cliffs now catching the westering sun’s parting kiss; the roll of the mimosa strewn plains seeming absolutely flat from this altitude. Here and there too the circle of a native kraal surmounted by its inevitable thread of blue smoke, and far-away in the distance the dim peaks of the Drakensberg range.

“Come and look over the Sipazi krantz,” said Edala, at length, when the awed silence with which this stupendous panorama could not fail to strike a newcomer, had been broken.

“Look over it!” echoed Elvesdon. “Why it seems to me that the ground slopes down to its brink at a pretty steep angle. You can’t lie flat there. You’d tilt over head first.”

“You’ll see,” was the answer. And the speaker proceeded to climb down, face to the mountain, a very steep grass slope indeed, so steep as to be almost a precipice. Tough roots, however, grew here, strong enough to afford a securer hold than might have been expected; then where the slope ended she stopped. A stunted tree grew here on the very edge of the abyss, and horizontally over the same, shooting first slightly downwards and then up, the bend of its trunk forming a seat. And into this seat did the girl by a deft movement, and without the slightest hesitation, quickly glide.

“This is how you look over the Sipazi krantz,” she laughed up at him, her blue eyes dancing. “It’s the only way in which you can look over it at all.Whata drop!”

Holding on to the bough above her shoulder with one hand she sat there, gazing down, her feet dangling over the ghastly abyss. Elvesdon seemed to feel his blood freeze within him, and his knees knocked together. Even the tree shook and trembled beneath her weight.

“Isn’t it rather dangerous?” he called out, striving to master the tremulous anxiety of his voice. “The tree might give way, you know.”

“It never has yet, which of course is not to say it never will—as you were about to remark,” she laughed back. “Well, I’ll come up.”

“Yes do,” he said, bending over the brow of the grass-roll as though to help her. But she needed no help. She sprang up, lithe, agile as a cat, and in a moment was beside him.

“Would you like to try it?” she said eagerly, as if the feat was the most ordinary one in the world. “Would you like to look over Sipazi? I can tell you it’s worth it. It feels like flying. But don’t if you think you can’t,” she added, quick to take in the not to be concealed momentary hesitation.

That challenge settled it; yet the words were not meant as a challenge at all, but as sheer practical warning. She would not have thought an atom the worse of him if he had laughingly declined, but Elvesdon did not know this. Was he going to shrink from a feat which a girl could perform—had often performed? Not he.

“Yes. I think I should,” he answered. “I should like to be able to brag of having looked over Sipazi.”

Yet as he let himself down over the grass and root-hung brow which led to the actual brink, he owned to himself that by no possibility could he ever tell a bigger he, and further, that at that moment he would cheerfully have forfeited a year’s pay to find himself standing safe and sound on the summit again. Well, he would not look down. He would get through the performance as quickly as possible, and return.

He was out on the tree, grasping the branch her hand had held on by. Yet why did the confounded trunk tremble and sway so, and—horror! it seemed to be giving way, actually sinking under him. The ghastly thought darted through his mind that there was all the difference in their weight—that that which would carry her would break down with him. His nerve was tottering. His face grew icy cold, and the hand which held the bough trembled violently. He was perched over that awful height even as she had been. He was not unused to heights, but to be suspended thus between heaven and earth in mid-air—no, to that he was not used. Beneath him the face of the great rock wall sloped awayinwards. Anyone falling from here would strike the ground about thirty feet from its base. All the world seemed going round with him—not even the thought that Edala had just done the same thing availed to pull him together. He must go—must hurl himself off and end this agony of nightmare—when—

“You down there, Elvesdon? Well, come up, because it’s getting late, and it’s time to think of getting back.”

The calm, strong, matter of fact tones of Thornhill broke the spell like magic. This was an everyday performance after all, was the effect they conveyed. Elvesdon’s nerve had returned. He was himself again.

“Let’s see. What’s the best way of getting off?” he asked, trying to suppress the tremor in his voice.

“Same as you got on. Grab hold of that root above, there under the stone, and—don’t look down. Look up. That’s all right,” as Elvesdon, panting somewhat, stood once more on the summit beside them.

“Well done,” cried Edala enthusiastically. “You are the only one besides myself who has ever looked over the Sipazi krantz. Several have tried but none of them had the nerve to get as far as the tree. Some wouldn’t even go at all.”

“The only sensible ones of the lot,” said Thornhill shortly. “It’s a fool’s trick, anyway.”

“Have you done it yourself, Thornhill?” asked Elvesdon. “I suppose you have?”

“Not any. Anyone could see that the thing wouldn’t stand my weight for a minute: even if I were such a—” He checked himself, remembering that his guest had just qualified for the uncomplimentary substantive he had been on the point of defining. “But I’m going to have a charge of dynamite brought up here and the thing blown to blazes. It’s too silly risky.”

Elvesdon was rather astonished. Thornhill was undergoing the process known as ‘working himself up.’ Yet when he himself was down there, his host’s tone had been absolutely level. And Thornhill himself was making up his mind to talk very seriously to Edala on the subject, little thinking that before any opportunity of doing so should come round, that might occur which should put any such idea clean out of his mind.

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