THE GREAT MAN
Completely overcome by this last remark, Hans collapsed like a
jelly-fish out of water, and reflected in his worthless old heart that
Frank Muller was indeed “a devil of a man.” By this time they had
reached the door of the little house, and were dismounting, and in
another minute Hans found himself in the presence of one of the leaders
of the rebellion.
He was a short, ugly person of about fifty-five, with a big nose, small
eyes, straight hair, and a stoop. The forehead, however, was good, and
the whole face betrayed a keenness and ability far beyond the average.
The great man was seated at a plain deal table, writing something with
evident difficulty upon a dirty sheet of paper, and smoking a very
large pipe.
“Sit, _Heeren_, sit,” he said, when they entered, waving the stem of
his pipe towards a deal bench. Accordingly they sat down without even
removing their hats, and, pulling out their pipes, proceeded to light
them.
“How, in the name of God, do you spell ‘Excellency’?” asked the General
presently. “I have spelt it in four different ways, and each one looks
worse than the last.”
Frank Muller gave the required information. Hans in his heart thought
he spelt it wrong, but he did not dare to say so. Then came another
pause, only interrupted by the slow scratching of a quill across the
dirty paper, during which Hans nearly went to sleep; for the weather
was very hot, and he was tired with his ride.
“There!” said the writer presently, gazing at his handwriting with an
almost childish air of satisfaction, “that is done. A curse on the man
who invented writing! Our fathers did very well without it; why should
not we? Though, to be sure, it is useful for treaties with the Kafirs.
I don’t believe you have told me right now about that ‘Excellency,’
nephew. Well, it will have to serve. When a man writes such a letter as
that to the representative of the English Queen he needn’t mind his
spelling; it will be swallowed with the rest,” and he leaned back in
his chair and laughed softly.
“Now, _Meinheer_ Coetzee, what is it? Ah, I know; the prisoners. Well,
what did you do?”
Hans told his story, and was rambling on when the General cut him
short.
“So, cousin, so! You talk like an ox-waggon—rumble and creak and jolt,
a devil of a noise and turning of wheels, but very little progress.
They will give up their twelve prisoners for our four, will they? That
is about a fair proportion. No, it is not, though: four Boers are
better than twelve Englishmen any day—ay, better than forty!” and he
laughed again. “Well, the men shall be sent in as you arranged; they
will help to eat up their last biscuits. Good-day, cousin. Stop,
though; one word before you go. I have heard about you at times,
cousin. I have heard it said that you cannot be trusted. Now, I don’t
know if that is so. I don’t believe it myself. Only, listen; if it
should be true, and I should find you out, by God! I will have you cut
into rimpis with afterox _sjambocks_, and then shoot you and send in
your carcase as a present to the English.” As he spoke thus he leaned
forward, brought down his fist upon the deal table with a bang that
produced a most unpleasant effect upon poor Hans’s nerves, and a cold
gleam of sudden ferocity flickered in the small eyes, very
discomforting for a timid man to behold, however innocent he knew
himself to be.
“I swear——” he began to babble.
“Swear not at all, cousin; you are an elder of the church. There is no
need for it, besides. I told you I did not believe it of you; only I
have had one or two cases of this sort of thing lately. No, never mind
who they were. You will not meet them about again. Good-day, cousin,
good-day. Forget not to thank the Almighty God for our glorious
victories. He will expect it from an elder of the church.”
Poor Hans departed crestfallen, feeling that the days of him who tries,
however skilfully and impartially, to sit upon two stools at once are
not happy days, and sometimes threaten to be short ones. And supposing
that the Englishmen should win after all—as in his heart he hoped they
might—how should he then prove that he had hoped it? The General
watched him waddle through the door from under his pent brows, a
half-humourous, half-menacing expression on his face.
“A windbag; a coward; a man without a heart for good or for evil. Bah!
nephew, that is Hans Coetzee. I have known him for years. Well, let him
go. He would sell us if he could, but I have frightened him now, and,
what is more, if I see reason, he shall find I never bark unless I mean
to bite. Well, enough of him. Let me see, have I thanked you yet for
your share in Majuba? Ah! that was a glorious victory! How many were
there of you when you started up the mountain?”
“Eighty men.”
“And how many at the end?”
“One hundred and seventy—perhaps a few more.”
“And how many of you were hit?”
“Three—one killed, two wounded, and a few scratches.”
“Wonderful, wonderful! It was a brave deed, and because it was so brave
it was successful. He must have been mad, that English general. Who
shot him?”
“Breytenbach. Colley held up a white handkerchief in his hand, and
Breytenbach fired, and down went the general of a heap, and then they
all ran helter-skelter down the hill. Yes, it was a wonderful thing!
They could have beat us back with their left hand. That is what comes
of having a righteous cause, uncle.”
The general smiled grimly. “That is what comes of having men who can
shoot, and who understand the country, and are not afraid. Well, it is
done, and well done. The stars in their courses have fought for us,
Frank Muller, and so far we have conquered. But how is it to end? You
are no fool; tell me, how will it end?”
Frank Muller rose and walked twice up and down the room before he
answered. “Shall I tell you?” he asked, and then, without waiting for a
reply, went on: “It will end in our getting the country back. That is
what this armistice means. There are thousands of _rooibaatjes_ there
at the Nek; they cannot therefore be waiting for soldiers. They are
waiting for an opportunity to yield, uncle. We shall get the country
back, and you will be President of the Republic.”
The old man took a pull at his pipe. “You have a long head, Frank, and
it has not run away with you. The English Government is going to give
in. The stars in their courses continue to fight for us. The English
Government is as mad as its officers. They will give in. But it means
more than that, Frank; I will tell you what it means. It means”—and
again he let his heavy hand fall upon the deal table—“the triumph of
the Boer throughout South Africa. Bah! Burgers was not such a fool
after all when he talked of his great Dutch Republic. I have been twice
to England now and I know the Englishman. I could measure him for his
_veldtschoens_ (shoes). He knows nothing—nothing. He understands his
shop; he is buried in his shop, and can think of nothing else.
Sometimes he goes away and starts a shop in other places, and buries
himself in it, and makes it a big shop, because he understands shops.
But it is all a question of shops, and if the shops abroad interfere
with the shops at home, or if it is thought that they do, which comes
to the same thing, then the shops at home put an end to the shops
abroad. Bah! they talk a great deal there in England, but, at the
bottom of it, it is shop, shop, shop. They talk of honour, and
patriotism too, but they both give way to the shop. And I tell you
this, Frank Muller: it is the shop that has made the English, and it is
the shop that will destroy them. Well, so be it. We shall have our
slice: Africa for the Africanders. The Transvaal for the Transvaalers
first, then the rest. Shepstone was a clever man; he would have made it
all into an English shop, with the black men for shop-boys. We have
changed all that, but we ought to be grateful to Shepstone. The English
have paid our debts, they have eaten up the Zulus, who would otherwise
have destroyed us, and they have let us beat them, and now we are going
to have our turn again, and, as you say, I shall be the first
President.”
“Yes, uncle,” replied the younger man calmly, “and I shall be the
second.”
The General looked at him. “You are a bold man,” he said; “but boldness
makes the man and the country. I dare say you will. You have the head;
and one clear head can turn many fools, as the rudder does the ship,
and guide them when they are turned. I dare say that you will be
President one day.”
“Yes, I shall be President, and when I am I will drive the Englishmen
out of South Africa. This I will do with the help of the Natal Zulus.
Then I will destroy the natives, as T’Chaka destroyed, keeping only
enough for slaves. That is my plan, uncle; it is a good one.”
“It is a big one; I am not certain that it is a good one. But good or
bad, who shall say? You may carry it out, nephew, if you live. A man
with brains and wealth may carry out anything if he lives. But there is
a God. I believe, Frank Muller, that there is a God, and I believe that
God sets a limit to a man’s doings. If he is going too far, God kills
him. _If you live_, Frank Muller, you will do these things, but perhaps
God will kill you. Who can say? You will do what God wills, not what
_you_ will.”
The elder man was speaking seriously now. Muller felt that this was
none of the whining cant people in authority among the Boers find it
desirable to adopt. It was what he thought, and it chilled Muller in
spite of his pretended scepticism, as the sincere belief of an
intellectual man, however opposite to our own, is apt to chill us into
doubt of ourselves and our opinions. For a moment his slumbering
superstition awoke, and he felt half afraid. Between him and that
bright future of blood and power lay a dark gulf. Suppose that gulf
should be death, and the future nothing but a dream—or worse! His face
fell as the idea occurred to him, and the General noticed it.
“Well,” he went on, “he who lives will see. Meanwhile you have done
good service to the State, and you shall have your reward, cousin. If I
am President”—he laid emphasis on this, the meaning of which his
listener did not miss—“if by the support of my followers I become
President, I will not forget you. And now I must up-saddle and ride
back. I want to be at Laing’s Nek in sixty hours, to wait for General
Wood’s answer. You will see about the sending in of those prisoners;”
and he knocked out his pipe and rose.
“By the way, _Meinheer_,” said Muller, suddenly adopting a tone of
respect, “I have a favour to ask.”
“What is it, nephew?”
“I want a pass for two friends of mine—English people—in Pretoria to go
down to their relations in Wakkerstroom district. They sent a message
to me by Hans Coetzee.”
“I don’t like giving passes,” answered the General with some
irritation. “You know what it means, letting out messengers. I wonder
you ask me.”
“It is a small favour, _Meinheer_, and I do not think that it will
matter. Pretoria will not be besieged much longer; I am under an
obligation to the people.”
“Well, well, as you like; but if any harm comes of it, you will be held
responsible. Write the pass; I will sign it.”
Frank Muller sat down and wrote and dated the paper. Its contents were
simple: “Pass the bearers unharmed.”
“That is big enough to drive a waggon along,” said the General, when it
was handed to him to sign. “It might mean all Pretoria.”
“I am not certain if there are two or three of them,” answered Muller
carelessly.
“Well, well, you are responsible. Give me the pen,” and he scrawled his
big coarse signature on the paper.
“I propose, with your permission, to escort the cart down with two
other men. As you are aware, I go to take over the command of the
Wakkerstroom district to-morrow.”
“Very good. It is your affair; you are responsible. I shall ask no
questions, provided your friends do no harm to the cause;” and he left
the room without another word.
When the great man had gone, Frank Muller sat down again on the bench
and looked at the pass, and communed with himself, for he was far too
wise to commune with anybody else. “The Lord hath delivered mine enemy
into mine hand,” he said with a smile, and stroked his golden beard.
“Well, well, I will not waste His merciful opportunities as I did that
day out buck-shooting. And then for Bessie. I suppose I shall have to
kill old Croft too. I am sorry for that, but it can’t be helped;
besides, if anything should happen to Jess, Bessie will take
Mooifontein, and that is worth having. Not that I want more land; I
have enough. Yes, I will marry her. It would serve her right if I
didn’t; but, after all, marriage is more respectable; also one has more
hold of a wife. Nobody will interfere for her. Then, she will be of use
to me by-and-by, for a beautiful woman is a power even among these
fellow-countrymen of mine, if only a man knows how to bait his lines
with her. Yes, I shall marry her. Bah! that is the way to win a
woman—by capture; and, what is more, they like it. It makes her worth
winning too. It will be a courtship of blood. Well, the kisses will be
the sweeter, and in the end she will love me the more for what I have
dared for her.
“So, Frank Muller, so! Ten years ago you said to yourself: ‘There are
three things worth having in the world—first, wealth; secondly, women,
if they take your fancy, or, better still, one woman, if you desire her
above all others; thirdly, power.’ Now, you have got the wealth, for
one way or another you are the richest man in the Transvaal. In a week
you will have the woman you love, and who is sweeter to you than all
the world besides. In five years’ time you will have the power—absolute
power. That old man is clever; he will be President. But I am cleverer.
I shall soon take his seat, thus”—and he rose and seated himself in the
General’s chair—“and he will go down a step and take mine. Ay, and then
I will reign. My tongue shall be honey and my hand iron. I will pass
over the land like a storm. I will drive these English out with the
help of the Kafirs, and then I will kill the Kafirs and take their
country. Ah!”—and his eyes flashed and his nostrils dilated as he said
it to himself—“then life will be worth living! What a thing is power!
What a thing it is to be able to destroy! Take that Englishman, my
rival: to-day he is well and strong; in three days he will be gone
utterly, and I—I shall have sent him away. That is power. But when the
time comes that I have only to stretch out my hand to send thousands
after him!—that will be absolute power; and then with Bessie I shall be
happy.”
And so he dreamed on for an hour or more, till at last the fumes of his
untutored imagination actually drowned his reason in a spiritual
drunkenness. Picture after picture rose and unrolled itself before his
mind’s eye. He saw himself as President addressing the _Volksraad_, and
compelling it to his will. He saw himself, the supreme general of a
great host, defeating the forces of England with awful carnage, and
driving them before him; ay, he even selected the battle-ground on the
slopes of the Biggarsberg in Natal. Then he saw himself again, sweeping
the natives out of South Africa with the relentless besom of his might,
and ruling unquestioned over a submissive people. And, last of all, he
saw something glittering at his feet—it was a crown!
This was the climax of his dream. Then there came an anticlimax. The
rich imagination which had been leading him on as a gaudy butterfly
does a child, suddenly changed colour and dropped to earth; and there
rose up in his mind the memory of the General’s words: “God sets a
limit to a man’s doings. If he is going too far, _God kills him_.”
The butterfly had settled on a coffin!