“And she said, ‘I have heard it said that it was our duty to sacrifice ourselves for the men and women living in the world at the same time as ourselves; but I never before heard that we had to sacrifice ourselves for people that are not born. What are they to you? You will be dust, and lying in your grave, before that time comes. If you believe in God,’ she said, ‘why cannot you leave it to Him to bring good out of all this evil? Does He need YOU to be made a martyr of? or will the world be lost without YOU?’
“He said, ‘Wife, if my right hand be in a fire, shall I not pull it out? Shall I say, ‘God may bring good out of this evil,’ and let it burn? That Unknown that lies beyond us we know of no otherwise than through its manifestation in our own hearts; it works no otherwise upon the sons of men than through man. And shall I feel no bond binding me to the men to come, and desire no good or beauty for them—I, who am what I am, and enjoy what I enjoy, because for countless ages in the past men have lived and laboured, who lived not for themselves alone, and counted no costs? Would the great statue, the great poem, the great reform ever be accomplished, if men counted the cost and created for their own lives alone? And no man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. You cannot tell me not to love the men who shall be after me; a soft voice within me, I know not what, cries out ever, ‘Live for them as for your own children.’ When in the circle of my own small life all is dark, and I despair, hope springs up in me when I remember that something nobler and fairer may spring up in the spot where I now stand.’
“And she said, ‘You want to put everyone against us! The other women will not call on me; and our church is more and more made up of poor people. Money holds by money. If your congregation were Dutchmen, I know you would be always preaching to love the Englishmen, and be kind to niggers. If they were Kaffirs you would always be telling them to help white men. You will never be on the side of the people who can do anything for us! You know the offer we had from—’
“And he said, ‘Oh my wife, what are the Boer, and the Russian, and the Turk to me; am I responsible for their action? It is my own nation, mine, which I love as a man loves his own soul, whose acts touch me. I would that wherever our flag was planted the feeble or oppressed peoples of earth might gather under it, saying, ‘Under this banner is freedom and justice which knows no race or colour.’ I wish that on our banner were blazoned in large letters “Justice and Mercy”, and that in every new land which our feet touch, every son among us might see ever blazoned above his head that banner, and below it the great order:—“By this sign, Conquer!”—and that the pirate flag which some men now wave in its place, may be torn down and furled for ever! Shall I condone the action of some, simply because they happen to be of my own race, when in Bushman or Hottentot I would condemn it? Shall men belonging to one of the mightiest races of earth, creep softly on their bellies, to attack an unwarned neighbour; when even the Kaffir has again and again given notice of war, saying, ‘Be ready, on such and such a day I come to fight you?’ Is England’s power so broken, and our race so enfeebled, that we dare no longer to proclaim war; but must creep silently upon our bellies in the dark to stab, like a subject people to whom no other course is open? These men are English; but not English-MEN. When the men of our race fight, they go to war with a blazoned flag and the loud trumpet before them. It is because I am an Englishman that these things crush me. Better that ten thousand of us should lie dead and defeated on one battlefield, fighting for some great cause, and my own sons among them, than that those twelve poor boys should have fallen at Doornkop, fighting to fill up the pockets of those already oe’r-heavy with gold.’
“And she said, ‘YOU, what does it matter what you feel or think; YOU will never be able to do anything!’
“And he said, ‘Oh my wife, stand by me; do not crush me. For me in this matter there is no path but one on which light shines.’
“And she said, ‘You are very unkind; you don’t care what the people say about us!’ and she wept bitterly, and went out of the room. But as soon as the door was shut, she dried her tears; and she said to herself, ‘Now he will never dare to preach such a sermon again. He dares never oppose me when once I have set down my foot.’
“And the man spoke to no one, and went out alone in the veld. All the afternoon he walked up and down among the sand and low bushes; and I walked there beside him.
“And when the evening came, he went back to his chapel. Many were absent, but the elders sat in their places, and his wife also was there. And the light shone on the empty benches. And when the time came he opened the old book of the Jews; and he turned the leaves and read:—‘If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, ‘Behold we knew it not!’ Doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth he not know it?’
“And he said, ‘This morning we considered the evils this land is suffering under at the hands of men whose aim is the attainment of wealth and power. Tonight we shall look at our own share in the matter. I think we shall realise that with us, and not with the men we have lifted up on high, lies the condemnation.’ Then his wife rose and went out, and others followed her; and the little man’s voice rolled among the empty benches; but he spoke on.
“And when the service was over he went out. No elder came to the porch to greet him; but as he stood there one, he saw not whom, slipped a leaflet into his hand. He held it up, and read in the lamplight what was written on it in pencil. He crushed it up in his hand, as a man crushes that which has run a poisonous sting into him; then he dropped it on the earth as a man drops that he would forget. A fine drizzly rain was falling, and he walked up the street with his arms folded behind him, and his head bent. The people walked up the other side; and it seemed to him he was alone. But I walked behind him.”
“And then,” asked Peter, seeing that the stranger was silent, “what happened to him after that?”
“That was only last Sunday,” said the stranger.
There was silence again for some seconds.
Then Peter said, “Well, anyhow, at least he didn’t die!”
The stranger crossed his hands upon his knees. “Peter Simon Halket,” he said, “it is easier for a man to die than to stand alone. He who can stand alone can, also, when the need be, die.”
Peter looked up wistfully into the stranger’s face. “I should not like to die myself,” he said, “not yet. I shall not be twenty-one till next birthday. I should like to see life first.”
The stranger made no answer.
Presently Peter said, “Are all the men of your company poor men?”
The stranger waited a while before he answered; then he said,—“There have been rich men who have desired to join us. There was a young man once; and when he heard the conditions, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”
There was silence again for a while.
“Is it long since your company was started?” asked Peter.
“There is no man living who can conceive of its age,” said the stranger. “Even here on this earth it began, when these hills were young, and these lichens had hardly shown their stains upon the rocks, and man still raised himself upwards with difficulty because the sinews in his thighs were weak. In those days, which men reck not of now, man, when he hungered, fed on the flesh of his fellow man and found it sweet. Yet even in those days it came to pass that there was one whose head was higher than her fellows and her thought keener, and, as she picked the flesh from a human skull, she pondered. And so it came to pass the next night, when men were gathered around the fire ready to eat, that she stole away, and when they went to the tree where the victim was bound, they found him gone. And they cried one to another, ‘She, only she, has done this, who has always said, ‘I like not the taste of man-flesh; men are too like me; I cannot eat them.’ ‘She is mad,’ they cried; ‘let us kill her!’ So, in those dim, misty times that men reck not of now, that they hardly believe in, that woman died. But in the heads of certain men and women a new thought had taken root; they said, ‘We also will not eat of her. There is something evil in the taste of human flesh.’ And ever after, when the fleshpots were filled with man-flesh, these stood aside, and half the tribe ate human flesh and half not; then, as the years passed, none ate.
“Even in those days, which men reck not of now, when men fell easily open their hands and knees, they were of us on the earth. And, if you would learn a secret, even before man trod here, in the days when the dicynodont bent yearningly over her young, and the river-horse which you find now nowhere on earth’s surface, save buried in stone, called with love to his mate; and the birds whose footprints are on the rocks flew in the sunshine calling joyfully to one another—even in those days when man was not, the fore-dawn of this kingdom had broken on the earth. And still as the sun rises and sets and the planets journey round, we grow and grow.”
The stranger rose from the fire, and stood upright: around him, and behind him, the darkness stood out.
“All earth is ours. And the day shall come, when the stars, looking down on this little world, shall see no spot where the soil is moist and dark with the blood of man shed by his fellow man; the sun shall rise in the East and set in the West and shed his light across this little globe; and nowhere shall he see man crushed by his fellows. And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. And instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree; and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and man shall nowhere crush man on all the holy earth. Tomorrow’s sun shall rise,” said the stranger, “and it shall flood these dark kopjes with light, and the rocks shall glint in it. Not more certain is that rising than the coming of that day. And I say to you that even here, in the land where now we stand, where today the cries of the wounded and the curses of revenge ring in the air; even here, in this land where man creeps on his belly to wound his fellow in the dark, and where an acre of gold is worth a thousand souls, and a reef of shining dirt is worth half a people, and the vultures are heavy with man’s flesh—even here that day shall come. I tell you, Peter Simon Halket, that here on the spot where now we stand shall be raised a temple. Man shall not gather in it to worship that which divides; but they shall stand in it shoulder to shoulder, white man with black, and the stranger with the inhabitant of the land; and the place shall be holy; for men shall say, ‘Are we not brethren and the sons of one Father?’”
Peter Halket looked upward silently. And the stranger said: “Certain men slept upon a plain, and the night was chill and dark. And, as they slept, at that hour when night is darkest, one stirred. Far off to the eastward, through his half-closed eyelids, he saw, as it were, one faint line, thin as a hair’s width, that edged the hill tops. And he whispered in the darkness to his fellows: ‘The dawn is coming.’ But they, with fast-closed eyelids murmured, ‘He lies, there is no dawn.’
“Nevertheless, day broke.”
The stranger was silent. The fire burnt up in red tongues of flame that neither flickered nor flared in the still night air. Peter Halket crept near to the stranger.
“When will that time be?” he whispered; “in a thousand years’ time?”
And the stranger answered, “A thousand years are but as our yesterday’s journey, or as our watch tonight, which draws already to its close. See, piled, these rocks on which we now stand? The ages have been young and they have grown old since they have lain here. Half that time shall not pass before that time comes; I have seen its dawning already in the hearts of men.”
Peter moved nearer, so that he almost knelt at the stranger’s feet: his gun lay on the ground at the other side of the fire.
“I would like to be one of your men,” he said. “I am tired of belonging to the Chartered Company.”
The stranger looked down gently. “Peter Simon Halket,” he said, “can you bear the weight?”
And Peter said, “Give me work, that I may try.”
There was silence for a time; then the stranger said, “Peter Simon Halket, take a message to England”—Peter Halket started—“Go to that great people and cry aloud to it: ‘Where is the sword was given into your hand, that with it you might enforce justice and deal out mercy? How came you to give it up into the hands of men whose search is gold, whose thirst is wealth, to whom men’s souls and bodies are counters in a game? How came you to give up the folk that were given into your hands, into the hand of the speculator and the gamester; as though they were dumb beasts who might be bought or sold?
“‘Take back your sword, Great People—but wipe it first, lest some of the gold and blood stick to your hand.
“‘What is this, I see!—the sword of the Great People, transformed to burrow earth for gold, as the snouts of swine for earth nuts! Have you no other use for it, Great Folk?
“‘Take back your sword; and, when you have thoroughly cleansed it and wiped it of the blood and mire, then raise it to set free the oppressed of other climes.
“‘Great Prince’s Daughter, take heed! You put your sword into the hands of recreant knights; they will dull its edge and mar its brightness, and, when your hour of need comes and you would put it into other hands, you will find its edge chipped and its point broken. Take heed! Take heed!’
“Cry to the wise men of England: ‘You, who in peace and calm in shaded chambers ponder on all things in heaven and earth, and take all knowledge for your province, have you no time to think of this? To whom has England given her power? How do the men wield it who have filched it from her? Say not, What have we to do with folk across the waters; have we not matter enough for thought in our own land? Where the brain of a nation has no time to go, there should its hands never be sent to labour: where the power of a people goes, there must its intellect and knowledge go, to guide it. Oh, you who sit at ease, studying past and future—and forget the present—you have no right to sit at ease knowing nothing of the working of the powers you have armed and sent to work on men afar. Where is your nation’s sword—you men of thought?’
“Cry to the women of England: ‘You, who repose in sumptuous houses, with children on your knees; think not it is only the rustling of the soft draped curtains, or the whistling of the wind, you hear. Listen! May it not be the far off cry of those your sword governs, creeping towards you across wide oceans till it pierces even into your inmost sanctuary? Listen!
“For the womanhood of a dominant people has not accomplished all its labour when it has borne its children and fed them at its breast: there cries to it also from over seas and across continents the voice of the child-peoples—‘Mother-heart, stand for us!’ It would be better for you that your wombs should be barren and that your race should die out; than that you should listen, and give no answer.’”
The stranger lifted his hands upwards as he spoke, and Peter saw there were the marks of old wounds in both.
“Cry aloud to the working men and women of England: ‘You, who for ages cried out because the heel of your masters was heavy on you; and who have said, ‘We curse the kings that sit at ease, and care not who oppresses the folk, so their coffers be full and their bellies satisfied, and they be not troubled with the trouble of rule’; you, who have taken the king’s rule from him and sit enthroned within his seat; is his sin not yours today? If men should add but one hour to your day’s labour, or make but one fraction dearer the bread you eat, would you not rise up as one man? Yet, what is dealt out to men beyond seas whom you rule wounds you not. Nay, have you not sometimes said, as kings of old: ‘It matters not who holds out our sword, marauder or speculator, so he calls it ours, we must cloak up the evil it has done!’ Think you, no other curses rise to heaven but yours? Where is your sword? Into whose hand has it fallen? Take it quickly and cleanse it!’”
Peter Halket crouched, looking upwards; then he cried: “Master, I cannot give that message, I am a poor unlearn’d man. And if I should go to England and cry aloud, they would say, ‘Who is this, who comes preaching to a great people? Is not his mother with us, and a washerwoman; and was not his father a day labourer at two shillings a day?’ and they would laugh me to scorn. And, in truth, the message is so long I could not well remember it; give me other work to do.”
And the stranger said, “Take a message to the men and women of this land. Go, from the Zambezi to the sea, and cry to its white men and women, and say: ‘I saw a wide field, and in it were two fair beasts. Wide was the field about them and rich was the earth with sweet scented herbs, and so abundant was the pasturage that hardly might they consume all that grew about them: and the two were like one to another, for they were the sons of one mother. And as I looked, I saw, far off to the northward, a speck within the sky, so small it was, and so high it was, that the eye scarce might mark it. Then it came nearer and hovered over the spot where the two beasts fed:—and its neck was bare, and its beak was hooked, and its talons were long, and its wings strong. And it hovered over the field where the two beasts were; and I saw it settle down upon a great white stone; and it waited. And I saw more specks to the northward, and more and more came onward to join him who sat upon the stone. And some hovered over the beasts, and some sharpened their beaks on the stones; and some walked in and out between the beasts’ legs. And I saw that they were waiting for something.
“‘Then he who first came flew from one of the beasts to the other, and sat upon their necks, and put his beak within their ears. And he flew from one to the other and flapped his wings in their faces till the beasts were blinded, and each believed it was his fellow who attacked him. And they fell to, and fought; they gored one another’s sides till the field was red with blood and the ground shook beneath them. The birds sat by and watched; and when the blood flowed they walked round and round. And when the strength of the two beasts was exhausted they fell to earth. Then the birds settled down upon them, and feasted; till their maws were full, and their long bare necks were wet; and they stood with their beaks deep in the entrails of the two dead beasts; and looked out with their keen bright eyes from above them. And he who was king of all plucked out the eyes, and fed on the hearts of the dead beasts. And when his maw was full, so that he could eat no more, he sat on his stone hard by and flapped his great wings.’
“Peter Simon Halket, cry to the white men and women of South Africa: ‘You have a goodly land; you and your children’s children shall scarce fill it; though you should stretch out your arms to welcome each stranger who comes to live and labour with you. You are the twin branches of one tree; you are the sons of one mother. Is this goodly land not wide enough for you, that you should rend each other’s flesh at the bidding of those who will wet their beaks within both your vitals?—Look up, see, they circle in the air above you!’”
Almost Peter Halket started and looked upward; but there was only the black sky of Mashonaland over his head.
The stranger stood silent looking downward into the fire. Peter Halket half clasped his arms about his knees.
“My master,” he cried, “how can I take this message? The Dutchmen of South Africa will not listen to me, they will say I am an Englishman. And the Englishmen will say: ‘Who is this fellow who comes preaching peace, peace, peace? Has he not been a year in the country and he has not a share in a single company? Can anything he says be worth hearing? If he were a man of any sense he would have made five thousand pounds at least.’ And they will not listen to me. Give me another labour!”
And the stranger said: “Take a message to one man. Find him, whether he sleep or wake, whether he eat or drink; and say to him: ‘Where are the souls of the men that you have bought?’
“And if he shall answer you and say: ‘I bought no men’s souls! The souls that I bought were the souls of dogs?’ Then ask him this question, say to him, ‘Where are the—’
“And if he cry out, ‘You lie, you lie! I know what you are going to say. What do I know of envoys? Was I ever afraid of the British Government? It is all a lie!’ Then question him no further. But say: ‘There was a rushlight once. It flickered and flared, and it guttered down, and went out—and no man heeded it: it was only a rushlight.
“‘And there was a light once; men set it on high within a lighthouse, that it might yield light to all souls at sea; that afar off they might see its steady light and find harbour, and escape the rocks.
“‘And that light flickered and flared, as it listed. It went this way and it went that; it burnt blue, and green, and red; now it disappeared altogether, and then it burnt up again. And men, far out at sea, kept their eyes fixed where they knew the light should be: saying, ‘We are safe; the great light will lead us when we near the rocks.’ And on dark nights men drifted nearer and nearer; and in the stillness of the midnight they struck on the lighthouse rocks and went down at its feet.
“‘What now shall be done to that light, in that it was not a rushlight; in that it was set on high by the hands of men, and in that men trusted it? Shall it not be put out?’
“And if he shall answer, saying, ‘What are men to me? they are fools, all fools! Let them die!’—tell him again this story: ‘There was a streamlet once: it burst forth from beneath the snow on a mountain’s crown; and the snow made a cove over it. It ran on pure and blue and clear as the sky above it, and the banks of snow made its cradle. Then it came to a spot where the snow ended; and two ways lay before it by which it might journey; one, on the mountain ridges, past rocks and stones, and down long sunlit slopes to the sea; and the other, down a chasm. And the stream hesitated: it twirled and purled, and went this way and went that. It MIGHT have been, that it would have forced its way past rocks and ridges and along mountain slopes, and made a path for itself where no path had been; the banks would have grown green, and the mountain daisy would have grown beside it; and all night the stars would have looked at their faces in it; and down the long sunny slopes the sun would have played on it by day; and the wood dove would have built her nest in the trees beside it; and singing, singing, always singing, it would have made its way at last to the great sea, whose far-off call all waters hear.
“‘But it hesitated.—It might have been, that, had but some hand been there to move but one stone from its path, it would have forced its way past rocks and ridges, and found its way to the great sea—it might have been! But no hand was there. The streamlet gathered itself together, and (it might be, that it was even in its haste to rush onwards to the sea!)—it made one leap into the abyss.
“‘The rocks closed over it. Nine hundred fathoms deep, in a still, dark pool it lay. The green lichen hung from the rocks. No sunlight came there, and the stars could not look down at night. The pool lay still and silent. Then, because it was alive and could not rest, it gathered its strength together, through fallen earth and broken debris it oozed its way silently on; and it crept out in a deep valley; the mountains closed it around. And the streamlet laughed to itself, ‘Ha, ha! I shall make a great lake here; a sea!’ And it oozed, and it oozed, and it filled half the plain. But no lake came—only a great marsh—because there was no way outwards, and the water rotted. The grass died out along its edges; and the trees dropped their leaves and rotted in the water; and the wood dove who had built her nest there flew up to the mountains, because her young ones died. And the toads sat on the stones and dropped their spittle in the water; and the reeds were yellow that grew along the edge. And at night, a heavy, white fog gathered over the water, so that the stars could not see through it; and by day a fine white mist hung over it, and the sunbeams could not play on it. And no man knew that once the marsh had leapt forth clear and blue from under a hood of snow on the mountain’s top: aye, and that the turning of one stone might have caused that it had run on and on, and mingled its song with the sea’s song for ever.’”
The stranger was silent for a while.
Then he said, “Should he answer you and say, ‘What do I care! What are coves and mountain tops to me? Gold is real, and the power to crush men within my hand’; tell him no further.
“But if by some chance he should listen, then, say this one thing to him, clearly in the ear, that he may not fail to hear it: ‘The morning may break grey, and the midday be dark and stormy; but the glory of the evening’s sunset may wash out for ever the remembrance of the morning’s dullness, and the darkness of the noon. So that all men shall say, ‘Ah, for the beauty of that day!’—For the stream that has once descended there is no path upwards.—It is never too late for the soul of a man.’
“And if he should laugh, and say: ‘You fool, a man may remake himself entirely before twenty; he may reshape himself before thirty; but after forty he is fixed. Shall I, who for forty-three years have sought money and power, seek for anything else now? You want me to be Jesus Christ, I suppose! How can I be myself and another man?’ Then answer him: ‘Deep in the heart of every son of man lies an angel; but some have their wings folded. Wake yours! He is larger and stronger than another man’s; mount up with him!’
“But if he curses you, and says, ‘I have eight millions of money, and I care neither for God nor man!’—then make no answer, but stoop and write before him.” The stranger bent down and wrote with his finger in the white ashes of the fire. Peter Halket bent forward, and he saw the two words the stranger had written.
The stranger said: “Say to him: ‘Though you should seek to make that name immortal in this land; and should write it in gold dust, and set it with diamonds, and cement it with human blood, shed from the Zambezi to the sea, yet—.” The stranger passed his foot over the words; Peter Halket looked down, and he saw only a bed of smooth white ashes where the name had been.
The stranger said: “And if he should curse yet further, and say, ‘There is not one man nor woman in South Africa I cannot buy with my money! When I have the Transvaal, I shall buy God Almighty Himself, if I care to!’
“Then say to him this one thing only, ‘Thy money perish with thee!’ and leave him.”
There was a dead silence for a moment. Then the stranger stretched forth his hand. “Yet in that leaving him, remember;—It is not the act, but the will, which marks the soul of the man. He who has crushed a nation sins no more than he who rejoices in the death throe of the meanest creature. The stagnant pool is not less poisonous drop for drop than the mighty swamp, though its reach be smaller. He who has desired to be and accomplish what this man has been and accomplished, is as this man; though he have lacked the power to perform. Nay, remember this one thing more:—Certain sons of God are born on earth, named by men Children of Genius. In early youth each stands at the parting of the way and chooses; he bears his gift for others or for himself. But forget this never, whatever his choice may be; that there is laid on him a burden that is laid not on others—all space is open to him, and his choice is infinite—and if he falls beneath it, let men weep rather than curse, for he was born a Son of God.”
There was silence again. Then Peter Halket clasped his arms about the stranger’s feet. “My master,” he cried, “I dare not take that message. It is not that men may say, ‘Here is Trooper Peter Halket, whom we all know, a man who kept women and shot niggers, turned prophet.’ But it is, that it is true. Have I not wished—” and Peter Halket would have poured out all his soul; but the stranger prevented him.
“Peter Simon Halket,” he said, “is it the trumpet which gives forth the call to battle, whether it be battered tin or gilded silver, which boots? Is it not the call? What and if I should send my message by a woman or a child: shall truth be less truth because the bearer is despised? Is it the mouth that speaks or the word that is spoken which is eternal? Nevertheless, if you will have it so, go, and say, ‘I, Peter Halket, sinner among you all, who have desired women and gold, who have loved myself and hated my fellow, I—‘” The stranger looked down at him, and placed his hand gently on his head. “Peter Simon Halket,” he said, “a harder task I give you than any which has been laid upon you. In that small spot where alone on earth your will rules, bring there into being the kingdom today. Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you. Walk ever forward, looking not to the right hand or the left. Heed not what men shall say of you. Succour the oppressed; deliver the captive. If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he is athirst give him drink.”
A curious warmth and gladness stole over Peter Halket as he knelt; it was as, when a little child, his mother folded him to her: he saw nothing more about him but a soft bright light. Yet in it he heard a voice cry, “Because thou hast loved mercy—and hated oppression—”
When Trooper Peter Halket raised himself, he saw the figure of the stranger passing from him. He cried, “My Master, let me go with you.” But the figure did not turn. And, as it passed into the darkness, it seemed to Peter Halket that the form grew larger and larger: and as it descended the further side of the kopje it seemed that for one instant he still saw the head with a pale, white light upon it: then it vanished.
And Trooper Peter Halket sat alone upon the kopje.
It was a hot day. The sun poured down its rays over the scattered trees, and stunted bush, and long grass, and over the dried up river beds. Far in the blue, so high the eye could scarcely mark them, vultures were flying southward, where forty miles off kraals had been destroyed and two hundred black carcasses were lying in the sun.
Under a group of tall straggling trees among the grass and low scrub, on the banks of an almost dried up river bed, a small camp had been pitched.
The party had lost their mules, and pending their recovery had already been there seven days. The three cart loads of provisions they were conveying to the large camp were drawn up under the trees and had a sail thrown across them to form a shelter for some of the men; while on the other side of the cleared and open space that formed the camp, a smaller sail was thrown across two poles forming a rough tent; and away to the left, a little cut off from the rest of the camp by some low bushes, was the bell-shaped tent of the captain, under a tall tree. Before the bell-shaped tent stood a short stunted tree; its thick white stem gnarled and knotted; while two stunted misshapen branches, like arms, stretched out on either side.
Before this tree, up and down, with his gun upon his arm, his head bent and his eyes fixed on the ground, while the hot sun blazed on his shoulders, walked a man.
Three or four fires were burning about the camp in different parts, three cooking the mealies and rice which formed the diet of the men, their stock of tinned meats having been exhausted; while the fourth, which was watched by a native boy, contained the more appetising meal of the Captain.
Most of the men were out of camp; the coloured boys having gone to fetch the mules, which had been discovered in the hills a few miles off, and were expected to arrive in the evening; and the white men had gone out to see what game they could bring down with their guns to flavour the mealie pots, or to reconnoitre the country; though all native habitations had been destroyed within a radius of thirty miles, and the land was as bare of black men as a child’s hand of hair; and even the beasts seemed to have vanished.
In the shade of the tent, formed of the canvas across two posts, lay three white men, whose work it was to watch the pots and guard the camp. They were all three Colonial Englishmen, and lay on the ground on their stomachs, passing the time by carrying on a desultory conversation, or taking a few whiffs, slowly, and with care, from their pipes, for tobacco was precious in the camp.
Under some bushes a few yards off lay a huge trooper, whose nationality was uncertain, but who was held to hail from some part of the British Isles, and who had travelled round the world. He was currently reported to have done three years’ labour for attempted rape in Australia, but nothing certain was known regarding his antecedents. He had been up on guard half the night, and was now taking his rest lying on his back with his arm thrown over his face; but a slight movement could be noted in his jaw as he slowly chewed a piece of tobacco; and occasionally when he turned it round the mouth opened, and disclosed two rows of broken yellow stumps set in very red gums.
The three Colonial Englishmen took no notice of him. Two, who were slowly smoking, were of the large and powerful build, and somewhat loose set about the shoulders, which is common among Colonial Europeans of the third generation, whether Dutch or English, and had the placidity and general good temper of expression which commonly marks the Colonial European who grows up beyond the range of the cities. The third was smaller and more wiry and of an unusually nervous type, with aquiline nose, and sallow hatchet face, with a somewhat discontented expression. He was holding forth, while his companions smoked and listened.
“Now what I say is this,” he brought his hand down on the red sand; “here we are with about one half teaspoon of Dop given us at night, while he has ten empty champagne bottles lying behind his tent. And we have to live on the mealies we’re convoying for the horses, while he has pati and beef, and lives like a lord! It’s all very well for the regulars; they know what they’re in for, and they’ve got gentlemen over them anyhow, and one can stomach anything if you know what kind of a fellow you’ve got over you. English officers are gentlemen, anyhow; or if one was under Selous now—”
“Oh, Selous’s a MAN!” broke out the other two, taking their pipes from their mouths.
“Yes, well, that’s what I say. But these fellows, who couldn’t do as farmers, and couldn’t do as shopkeepers, and God knows what else; and their friends in England didn’t want to have them; they’re sent out here to boss it over us! It’s a damned shame! Why, I want to know, amn’t I as good as any of these fellows, who come swelling it about here? Friends got money, I suppose!” He cast his sharp glance over towards the bell tent. “If they gave us real English officers now—”
“Ah!” said the biggest of his companions, who, in spite of his huge form, had something of the simplicity and good nature of a child in his handsome face; “it’s because you’re not a big enough swell, you know! He’ll be a colonel, or a general, before we’ve done with him. I call them all generals or colonels up here; it’s safest, you know; if they’re not that today they will be tomorrow!”
This was intended as a joke, and in that hot weather, and in that dull world, anything was good enough to laugh at: the third man smiled, but the first speaker remained serious.
“I only know this,” he said, “I’d teach these fellows a lesson, if any one belonging to me had been among the people they left to be murdered here, while they went gallivanting to the Transvaal. If my mother or sister had been killed here, I’d have taken a pistol and blown out the brains of the great Panjandrum, and the little ones after him. Fine administration of a country, this, to invite people to come in and live here, and then take every fighting man out of the country on a gold hunting marauding expedition to the Transvaal, and leave us to face the bitter end. I look upon every man and woman who was killed here as murdered by the Chartered Company.”
“Well, Jameson only did what he was told. He had to obey orders, like the rest of us. He didn’t make the plan, and he’s got the punishment.”
“What business had he to listen? What’s all this fine administration they talk of? It’s six years since I came to this country, and I’ve worked like a nigger ever since I came, and what have I, or any men who’ve worked hard at real, honest farming, got for it? Everything in the land is given away for the benefit of a few big folks over the water or swells out here. If England took over the Chartered Company tomorrow, what would she find?—everything of value in the land given over to private concessionaires—they’ll line their pockets if the whole land goes to pot! It’ll be the jackals eating all the flesh off the horse’s bones, and calling the lion in to lick the bones.”
“Oh, you wait a bit and you’ll be squared,” said the handsome man. “I’ve been here five years and had lots of promises, though I haven’t got anything else yet; but I expect it to come some day, so I keep my mouth shut! If they asked me to sign a paper, that Mr. Over-the-Way”—he nodded towards the bell tent—“never got drunk or didn’t know how to swear, I’d sign it, if there was a good dose of squaring to come after it. I could stand a good lot of that sort of thing—squaring—if it would only come my way.”
The men laughed in a dreary sort of way, and the third man, who had not spoken yet, rolled round on to his back, and took the pipe from his mouth.
“I tell you what,” said the keen man, “those of us up here who have got a bit of land and are trying honestly and fairly to work, are getting pretty sick of this humbugging fighting. If we’d had a few men like the Curries and Bowkers of the old days up here from the first, all this would never have happened. And there’s no knowing when a reason won’t turn up for keeping the bloody thing on or stopping it off for a time, to break out just when one’s settled down to work. It’s a damned convenient thing to have a war like this to turn on and off.”
Slowly the third man keeled round on to his stomach again: “Let resignation wait. We fight the Matabele again tomorrow,” he said, sententiously.
A low titter ran round the group. Even the man under the bushes, though his eyes were still closed and his arm across his face, let his mouth relax a little, and showed his yellow teeth.
“I’m always expecting,” said the big handsome man, “to have a paper come round, signed by all the nigger chiefs, saying how much they love the B.S.A. Company, and how glad they are the Panjandrum has got them, and how awfully good he is to them; and they’re going to subscribe to the brazen statue. There’s nothing a man can’t be squared to do.”
The third man lay on his back again, lazily examining his hand, which he held above his face. “What’s that in the Bible,” he said, slowly, “about the statue, whose thighs and belly were of brass, and its feet of mud?”
“I don’t know much about the Bible,” said the keen man, “I’m going to see if my pot isn’t boiling over. Won’t yours burn?”
“No, I asked the Captain’s boy to keep an eye on it—but I expect he won’t. Do you put the rice in with the mealies?”
“Got to; I’ve got no other pot. And the fellows don’t object. It’s a tasty variety, you know!”
The keen-faced man slouched away across the square to where his fire burnt; and presently the other man rose and went, either to look at his own pot or sleep under the carts; and the large Colonial man was left alone. His fire was burning satisfactorily about fifty feet off, and he folded his arms on the ground and rested his forehead on them, and watched lazily the little black ants that ran about in the red sand, just under his nose.
A great stillness settled down on the camp. Now and again a stick cracked in the fires, and the cicadas cried aloud in the tree stems; but except where the solitary paced up and down before the little flat-topped tree in front of the captain’s tent, not a creature stirred in the whole camp; and the snores of the trooper under the bushes might be heard half across the camp.
The intense midday heat had settled down.
At last there was the sound of someone breaking through the long grass and bushes which had only been removed for a few feet round the camp, and the figure of a man emerged bearing in one hand a gun, and in the other a bird which he had shot. He was evidently an Englishman, and not long from Europe, by the bloom of the skin, which was perceptible in spite of the superficial tan. His face was at the moment flushed with heat; but the clear blue eyes and delicate features lost none of their sensitive refinement.
He came up to the Colonial, and dropped the bird before him. “That is all I’ve got,” he said.
He threw himself also down on the ground, and put his gun under the loose flap of the tent.
The Colonial raised his head; and without taking his elbows from the ground took up the bird. “I’ll put it into the pot; it’ll give it the flavour of something except weevily mealies”; he said, and fell to plucking it.
The Englishman took his hat off, and lifted the fine damp hair from his forehead.
“Knocked up, eh?” said the Colonial, glancing kindly up at him. “I’ve a few drops in my flask still.”
“Oh, no, I can stand it well enough. It’s only a little warm.” He gave a slight cough, and laid his head down sideways on his arm. His eyes watched mechanically the Colonial’s manipulation of the bird. He had left England to escape phthisis; and he had gone to Mashonaland because it was a place where he could earn an open-air living, and save his parents from the burden of his support.
“What’s Halket doing over there?” he asked suddenly, raising his head.
“Weren’t you here this morning?” asked the Colonial. “Didn’t you know they’d had a devil of a row?”
“Who?” asked the Englishman, half raising himself on his elbows.
“Halket and the Captain.” The Colonial paused in the plucking. “My God, you never saw anything like it!”
The Englishman sat upright now, and looked keenly over the bushes where Halket’s bent head might be seen as he paced to and fro.
“What’s he doing out there in this blazing sun?”
“He’s on guard,” said the Colonial. “I thought you were here when it happened. It’s the best thing I ever saw or heard of in my whole life!” He rolled half over on his side and laughed at the remembrance. “You see, some of the men went down into the river, to look for fresh pools of water, and they found a nigger, hidden away in a hole in the bank, not five hundred yards from here! They found the bloody rascal by a little path he tramped down to the water, trodden hard, just like a porcupine’s walk. They got him in the hole like an aardvark, with a bush over the mouth, so you couldn’t see it. He’d evidently been there a long time, the floor was full of bones of fish he’d caught in the pool, and there was a bit of root like a stick half gnawed through. He’d been potted, and got two bullet wounds in the thigh; but he could walk already. It’s evident he was just waiting till we were gone, to clear off after his people. He’d got that beastly scurvy look a nigger gets when he hasn’t had anything to eat for a long time.
“Well, they hauled him up before the Captain, of course; and he blew and swore, and said the nigger was a spy, and was to be hanged tomorrow; he’d hang him tonight, only the big troop might catch us up this evening, so he’d wait to hear what the Colonel said; but if they didn’t come he’d hang him first thing tomorrow morning, or have him shot, as sure as the sun rose. He made the fellows tie him up to that little tree before his tent, with riems round his legs, and riems round his waist, and a riem round his neck.”
“What did the native say?” asked the Englishman.
“Oh, he didn’t say anything. There wasn’t a soul in the camp could have understood him if he had. The coloured boys don’t know his language. I expect he’s one of those bloody fellows we hit the day we cleared the bush out yonder; but how he got down that bank with his leg in the state it must have been, I don’t know. He didn’t try to fight when they caught him; just stared in front of him—fright, I suppose. He must have been a big strapping devil before he was taken down.
“Well, I tell you, we’d just got him fixed up, and the Captain was just going into his tent to have a drink, and we chaps were all standing round, when up steps Halket, right before the Captain, and pulls his front lock—you know the way he has? Oh, my God, my God, if you could have seen it! I’ll never forget it to my dying day!” The Colonial seemed bursting with internal laughter. “He begins, ‘Sir, may I speak to you?’ in a formal kind of way, like a fellow introducing a deputation; and then all of a sudden he starts off—oh, my God, you never heard such a thing! It was like a boy in Sunday-school saying up a piece of Scripture he’s learnt off by heart, and got all ready beforehand, and he’s not going to be stopped till he gets to the end of it.”
“What did he say,” asked the Englishman.
“Oh, he started, How did we know this nigger was a spy at all; it would be a terrible thing to kill him if we weren’t quite sure; perhaps he was hiding there because he was wounded. And then he broke out that, after all, these niggers were men fighting for their country; we would fight against the French if they came and took England from us; and the niggers were brave men, ‘please sir’—(every five minutes he’d pull his forelock, and say, ‘please sir!’)—‘and if we have to fight against them we ought to remember they’re fighting for freedom; we shouldn’t shoot wounded prisoners when they were black if we wouldn’t shoot them if they were white!’ And then he broke out pure unmitigated Exeter Hall! You never heard anything like it! All men were brothers, and God loved a black man as well as a white; Mashonas and Matabele were poor ignorant folk, and we had to take care of them. And then he started out, that we ought to let this man go; we ought to give him food for the road, and tell him to go back to his people, and tell them we hadn’t come to take their land but to teach them and love them. ‘It’s hard to love a nigger, Captain, but we must try it; we must try it!’—And every five minutes he’d break out with, ‘And I think this is a man I know, Captain; I’m not sure, but I think he comes from up Lo Magundis way!’—as if any born devil cared whether a bloody nigger came from Lo Magundis or anywhere else! I’m sure he said it fifteen times. And then he broke out, ‘I don’t mean that I’m better than you or anybody else, Captain; I’m as bad a man as any in camp, and I know it.’ And off he started, telling us all the sins he’d ever committed; and he kept on, ‘I’m an unlearned, ignorant man, Captain; but I must stand by this nigger; he’s got no one else!’ And then he says—‘If you let me take him up to Lo Magundis, sir, I’m not afraid; and I’ll tell the people there that it’s not their land and their women that we want, it’s them to be our brothers and love us. If you’ll only let me go, sir, I’ll go and make peace; give the man to me, sir!’” The Colonial shook with laughter.
“What did the Captain say?” asked the Englishman.
“The Captain; well, you know the smallest thing sets him off swearing all round the world; but he just stood there with his arms hanging down at each side of him, and his eyes staring, and his face getting redder and redder: and all he could say was, ‘My Gawd! my Gawd!’ I thought he’d burst. And Halket stood there looking straight in front of him, as though he didn’t see a soul of us all there.”
“What did the Captain do?”
“Oh, as soon as Halket turned away he started swearing, but he got the tail of one oath hooked on to the head of another. It was nearly as good as Halket himself. And when he’d finished and got sane a bit, he said Halket was to walk up and down there all day and keep watch on the nigger. And he gave orders that if the big troop didn’t come up tonight, that he was to be potted first thing in the morning, and that Halket was to shoot him.”
The Englishman started: “What did Halket say?”
“Nothing. He’s been walking there with his gun all day.”
The Englishman watched with his clear eyes the spot where Halket’s head appeared and disappeared.
“Is the nigger hanging there now?”
“Yes. The Captain said no one was to go near him, or give him anything to eat or drink all day: but—” The Colonial glanced round where the trooper lay under the bushes; and then lowering his voice added, “This morning, a couple of hours ago, Halket sent the Captain’s coloured boy to ask me for a drink of water. I thought it was for Halket himself, and the poor devil must be hot walking there in the sun, so I sent him the water out of my canvas bag. I went along afterwards to see what had become of my mug; the boy had gone, and there, straight in front of the Captain’s tent, before the very door, was Halket letting that bloody nigger drink out of my mug. The riem was so tight round his neck he couldn’t drink but slowly, and there was Halket holding it up to him! If the Captain had looked out! W-h-e-w! I wouldn’t have been Halket!”
“Do you think he will try to make Halket do it?” asked the Englishman.
“Of course he will. He’s the Devil in; and Halket had better not make a fuss about it, or it’ll be the worse for him.”
“His time’s up tomorrow evening!”
“Yes, but not tomorrow morning. And I wouldn’t make a row about it if I was Halket. It doesn’t do to fall out with the authorities here. What’s one nigger more or less? He’ll get shot some other way, or die of hunger, if we don’t do it.”
“It’s hardly sport to shoot a man tied up neck and legs,” said the Englishman; his finely drawn eyebrows contracting and expanding a little.
“Oh, they don’t feel, these niggers, not as we should, you know. I’ve seen a man going to be shot, looking full at the guns, and falling like that!—without a sound. They’ve no feeling, these niggers; I don’t suppose they care much whether they live or die, not as we should, you know.”
The Englishman’s eyes were still fixed on the bushes, behind which Halket’s head appeared and disappeared.
“They have no right to order Halket to do it—and he will not do it!” said the Englishman slowly.
“You’re not going to be such a fool as to step in, are you?” said the Colonial, looking curiously at him. “It doesn’t pay. I’ve made up my mind never to speak whatever happens. What’s the good? Suppose one were to make a complaint now about this affair with Halket, if he’s made to shoot the nigger against his will; what would come of it? There’d be half-a-dozen fellows here squared to say what headquarters wanted—not to speak of a fellow like that”—turning his thumb in the direction of the sleeping trooper—“who are paid to watch. I believe he reports on the Captain himself to the big headquarters. All one’s wires are edited before they go down; only what the Company wants to go, go through. There are many downright good fellows in this lot; but how many of us are there, do you think, who could throw away all chance of ever making anything in Mashonaland, for the sake of standing by Halket; even if he had a real row with the Company? I’ve a great liking for Halket myself, he’s a real good fellow, and he’s done me many a good turn—took my watch only last night, because I was off colour; I’d do anything for him in reason. But, I say this flatly, I couldn’t and wouldn’t fly in the face of the authorities for him or anyone else. I’ve my own girl waiting for me down in the Colony, and she’s been waiting for me these five years. And whether I’m able to marry her or not depends on how I stand with the Company: and I say, flatly, I’m not going to fall out with it. I came here to make money, and I mean to make it! If other people like to run their heads against stone walls, let them: but they mustn’t expect me to follow them. This isn’t a country where a man can say what he thinks.”
The Englishman rested his elbows on the ground. “And the Union Jack is supposed to be flying over us.”
“Yes, with a black bar across it for the Company,” laughed the Colonial.
“Do you ever have the nightmare?” asked the Englishman suddenly.
“I? Oh yes, sometimes”; he looked curiously at his companion; “when I’ve eaten too much, I get it.”
“I always have it since I came up here,” said the Englishman. “It is that a vast world is resting on me—a whole globe: and I am a midge beneath it. I try to raise it, and I cannot. So I lie still under it—and let it crush me!”
“It’s curious you should have the nightmare so up here,” said the Colonial; “one gets so little to eat.”
There was a silence: he was picking the little fine feathers from the bird, and the Englishman was watching the ants.
“Mind you,” the Colonial said at last, “I don’t say that in this case the Captain was to blame; Halket made an awful ass of himself. He’s never been quite right since that time he got lost and spent the night out on the kopje. When we found him in the morning he was in a kind of dead sleep; we couldn’t wake him; yet it wasn’t cold enough for him to have been frozen. He’s never been the same man since; queer, you know; giving his rations away to the coloured boys, and letting the other fellows have his dot of brandy at night; and keeping himself sort of apart to himself, you know. The other fellows think he’s got a touch of fever on, caught wandering about in the long grass that day. But I don’t think it’s that; I think it’s being alone in the veld that’s got hold of him. Man, have you ever been out like that, alone in the veld, night and day, and not a soul to speak to? I have; and I tell you, if I’d been left there three days longer I’d have gone mad or turned religious. Man, it’s the nights, with the stars up above you, and the dead still all around. And you think, and think, and think! You remember all kinds of things you’ve never thought of for years and years. I used to talk to myself at last, and make believe it was another man. I was out seven days: and he was only out one night. But I think it’s the loneliness that got hold of him. Man, those stars are awful; and that stillness that comes toward morning!” He stood up. “It’s a great pity, because he’s as good a fellow as ever was. But perhaps he’ll come all right.”
He walked away towards the pot with the bird in his hand. When he had gone the Englishman turned round on to his back, and lay with his arm across his forehead.
High, high up, between the straggling branches of the tree, in the clear, blue African sky above him, he could see the vultures flying southward.
That evening the men sat eating their suppers round the fires. The large troop had not come up; and the mules had been brought in; and they were to make a start early the next morning.
Halket was released from his duty, and had come up, and lain down a little in the background of the group who gathered round their fire.
The Colonial and the Englishman had given orders to all the men of their mess that Halket was to be left in quiet, and no questions were to be asked him; and the men, fearing the Colonial’s size and the Englishman’s nerve, left him in peace. The men laughed and chatted round the fire, while the big Colonial ladled out the mealies and rice into tin plates, and passed them round to the men. Presently he passed one to Halket, who lay half behind him leaning on his elbow. For a while Halket ate nothing, then he took a few mouthfuls; and again lay on his elbow.
“You are eating nothing, Halket,” said the Englishman, cheerily, looking back.
“I am not hungry now,” he said. After a while he took out his red handkerchief, and emptied carefully into it the contents of the plate; and tied it up into a bundle. He set it beside him on the ground, and again lay on his elbow.
“You won’t come nearer to the fire, Halket?’ asked the Englishman.
“No, thank you, the night is warm.”
After a while Peter Halket took out from his belt a small hunting knife with a rough wooden handle. A small flat stone lay near him, and he passed the blade slowly up and down on it, now and then taking it up, and feeling the edge with his finger. After a while he put it back in his belt, and rose slowly, taking up his small bundle and walked away to the tent.
“He’s had a pretty stiff day,” said the Colonial. “I expect he’s glad enough to turn in.”
Then all the men round the fire chatted freely over his concerns. Would the Captain stick to his word tomorrow? Was Halket going to do it? Had the Captain any right to tell one man off for the work, instead of letting them fire a volley? One man said he would do it gladly in Halket’s place, if told off; why had he made such a fool of himself? So they chatted till nine o’clock, when the Englishman and Colonial left to turn in. They found Halket asleep, close to the side of the tent, with his face turned to the canvas. And they lay down quietly that they might not disturb him.
At ten o’clock all the camp was asleep, excepting the two men told off to keep guard; who paced from one end of the camp to the other to keep themselves awake; or stood chatting by the large fire, which still burnt at one end.
In the Captain’s tent a light was kept burning all night, which shone through the thin canvas sides, and shed light on the ground about; but, for the rest, the camp was dead and still.
By half-past one the moon had gone down, and there was left only a blaze of stars in the great African sky.
Then Peter Halket rose up; softly he lifted the canvas and crept out. On the side furthest from the camp he stood upright. On his arm was tied his red handkerchief with its contents. For a moment he glanced up at the galaxy of stars over him; then he stepped into the long grass, and made his way in a direction opposite to that in which the camp lay. But after a short while he turned, and made his way down into the river bed. He walked in it for a while. Then after a time he sat down upon the bank and took off his heavy boots and threw them into the grass at the side. Then softly, on tip-toe, he followed the little footpath that the men had trodden going down to the river for water. It led straight up to the Captain’s tent, and the little flat-topped tree, with its white stem, and its two gnarled branches spread out on either side. When he was within forty paces of it, he paused. Far over the other side of the camp the two men who were on guard stood chatting by the fire. A dead stillness was over the rest of the camp. The light through the walls of the Captain’s tent made all clear at the stem of the little tree; but there was no sound of movement within.
For a moment Peter Halket stood motionless; then he walked up to the tree. The black man hung against the white stem, so closely bound to it that they seemed one. His hands were tied to his sides, and his head drooped on his breast. His eyes were closed; and his limbs, which had once been those of a powerful man, had fallen away, making the joints stand out. The wool on his head was wild and thick with neglect, and stood out roughly in long strands; and his skin was rough with want and exposure.
The riems had cut a little into his ankles; and a small flow of blood had made the ground below his feet dark.
Peter Halket looked up at him; the man seemed dead. He touched him softly on the arm, then shook it slightly.
The man opened his eyes slowly, without raising his head; and looked at Peter from under his weary eyebrows. Except that they moved they might have been the eyes of a dead thing.
Peter put up his fingers to his own lips—“Hus-h! hus-h!” he said.
The man hung torpid, still looking at Peter.
Quickly Peter Halket knelt down and took the knife from his belt. In an instant the riems that bound the feet were cut through; in another he had cut the riems from the waist and neck: the riems dropped to the ground from the arms, and the man stood free. Like a dazed dumb creature, he stood, with his head still down, eyeing Peter.
Instantly Peter slipped the red bundle from his arm into the man’s passive hand.
“Ari-tsemaia! Hamba! Loop! Go!” whispered Peter Halket; using a word from each African language he knew. But the black man still stood motionless, looking at him as one paralysed.
“Hamba! Sucka! Go!” he whispered, motioning his hand.
In an instant a gleam of intelligence shot across the face; then a wild transport. Without a word, without a sound, as the tiger leaps when the wild dogs are on it, with one long, smooth spring, as though unwounded and unhurt, he turned and disappeared into the grass. It closed behind him; but as he went the twigs and leaves cracked under his tread.
The Captain threw back the door of his tent. “Who is there?” he cried.
Peter Halket stood below the tree with the knife in his hand.
The noise roused the whole camp: the men on guard came running; guns were fired: and the half-sleeping men came rushing, grasping their weapons. There was a sound of firing at the little tree; and the cry went round the camp, “The Mashonas are releasing the spy!”
When the men got to the Captain’s tent, they saw that the nigger was gone; and Peter Halket was lying on his face at the foot of the tree; with his head turned towards the Captain’s door.
There was a wild confusion of voices. “How many were there?” “Where have they gone to now?” “They’ve shot Peter Halket!”—“The Captain saw them do it”—“Stand ready, they may come back any time!”
When the Englishman came, the other men, who knew he had been a medical student, made way for him. He knelt down by Peter Halket.
“He’s dead,” he said, quietly.
When they had turned him over, the Colonial knelt down on the other side, with a little hand-lamp in his hand.
“What are you fellows fooling about here for?” cried the Captain. “Do you suppose it’s any use looking for foot marks after all this tramping! Go, guard the camp on all sides!”
“I will send four coloured boys,” he said to the Englishman and the Colonial, “to dig the grave. You’d better bury him at once; there’s no use waiting. We start first thing in the morning.”
When they were alone, the Englishman uncovered Peter Halket’s breast. There was one small wound just under the left bosom; and one on the crown of the head; which must have been made after he had fallen down.
“Strange, isn’t it, what he can have been doing here?” said the Colonial; “a small wound, isn’t it?”
“A pistol shot,” said the Englishman, closing the bosom.
“A pistol—”
The Englishman looked up at him with a keen light in his eye.
“I told you he would not kill that nigger.—See—here—” He took up the knife which had fallen from Peter Halket’s grasp, and fitted it into a piece of the cut leather that lay on the earth.
“But you don’t think—” The Colonial stared at him with wide open eyes; then he glanced round at the Captain’s tent.
“Yes, I think that—Go and fetch his great-coat; we’ll put him in it. If it is no use talking while a man is alive, it is no use talking when he is dead!”
They brought his great-coat, and they looked in the pockets to see if there was anything which might show where he had come from or who his friends were. But there was nothing in the pockets except an empty flask, and a leathern purse with two shillings in, and a little hand-made two-pointed cap.
So they wrapped Peter Halket up in his great-coat, and put the little cap on his head.
And, one hour after Peter Halket had stood outside the tent looking up, he was lying under the little tree, with the red sand trodden down over him, in which a black man and a white man’s blood were mingled.