FRANK MULLER’S FAMILIAR
The study of the conflicting elements which go to make up a character
like that of Frank Muller, however fascinating it might prove, is not
one which can be attempted in detail here. Such a character in its
developed form is fortunately well-nigh impossible in a highly
civilised country, for the dead weight of the law would crush it back
to the level of the human mass around it. But those who have lived in
the wild places of the earth will be acquainted with its prototypes,
more especially in the countries where a handful of a superior race
rule over the dense thousands of an inferior. Solitudes are favourable
to the production of strongly marked individualities. The companionship
of highly developed men, on the contrary, whittles individualities
away; the difference between their growth being the difference between
the growth of a tree on a plain and a tree in the forest. On the plain
the tree takes the innate bend of its nature. It springs in majesty
towards the skies; it spreads itself around, or it slants along the
earth, just as Nature intended that it should, and in accordance with
the power of the providential breath which bends it. In the forest it
is different. There the tree grows towards the light wherever the light
may be. Forced to modify its natural habit in obedience to the pressure
of circumstances over which it has no command, it takes such form and
height as its neighbours will allow it to, all its energies being
directed to the preservation of its life in any shape and at any
sacrifice.
Thus is it with us all. Left to ourselves, or surrounded only by the
scrub of humanity, we become outwardly that which the spirit within
would fashion us to, but, placed among our fellows, shackled by custom,
restrained by law, pruned and bent by the force of public opinion, we
grow as like one to another as the fruit bushes on a garden wall. The
sharp angles of our characters are fretted away by the friction of the
crowd, and we become round, polished, and, superficially, at any rate,
identical. We no longer resemble a solitary boulder on a plain, but are
as a worked stone built into the great edifice of civilised society.
The place of a man like Frank Muller is at the junction of the waters
of civilisation and barbarism. Too civilised to possess those savage
virtues which, such as they are, represent the quantum of innate good
Nature has thought fit to allow in the mixture, Man; and too barbarous
to be subject to the tenderer constraints of cultivated society, he is
at once strong in the strength of both and weak in their weaknesses.
Animated by the spirit of barbarism, Superstition; and almost entirely
destitute of the spirit of civilisation, Mercy, he stands on the edge
of both and an affront to both, as terrific a moral spectacle as the
world can afford.
Had he been a little more civilised, with his power of evil trained by
education and cynical reflection to defy the attacks of those spasms of
unreasoning spiritual terror and unrestrainable passion that have their
natural dwelling-place in the raw strong mind of uncultivated man,
Frank Muller might have broken upon the world as a Napoleon. Had he
been a little more savage, a little farther removed from the
unconscious but present influence of a progressive race, he might have
ground his fellows down and ruthlessly destroyed them in the madness of
his rage and lust, like an Attila or a T’Chaka. As it was he was
buffeted between two forces he did not realise, even when they swayed
him, and thus at every step in his path towards a supremacy of evil an
unseen power made stumbling-blocks of weaknesses which, if that path
had been laid along a little higher or a little lower level in the
scale of circumstances, would themselves have been deadly weapons of
overmastering force.
See him as, with his dark heart filled up with fears, he thunders along
from that scene of midnight death and murder which his brain had not
feared to plan and his hand to execute. Onward his black horse strides,
companioned by the storm, like a dark thought travelling on the wings
of Night. He does not believe in any God, and yet the terrible fears
that spring up in his soul, born fungus-like from a few drops of blood,
take shape and form, and seem to cry aloud, “_We are the messengers of
the avenging God_.” He glances up. High on the black bosom of the storm
the finger of the lightning is writing that awful name, and again and
again the voice of the thunder reads it aloud in spirit-shaking
accents. He shuts his dazed eyes, and even the falling rhythm of his
horse’s hoofs beats out, “_There is a God! there is a God!_” from the
silent earth on which they strike.
And so, on through the tempest and the night, flying from that which no
man can leave behind.
It was near midnight when Frank Muller drew rein at a wretched and
lonely mud hut built on the banks of the Vaal, and flanked by an
equally miserable shed. The place was silent as the grave; not even a
dog barked.
“That beast of a Kafir is not here,” he said aloud, “I will have him
flogged to death. Hendrik! Hendrik!”
As he called, a form rose up at his very feet, causing the weary horse
to start back so violently that he almost threw his rider to the
ground.
“What in the name of the devil are you?” almost shrieked Frank Muller,
whose nerves, indeed, were in no condition to bear fresh shocks.
“It is I, Baas,” said the form, at the same time throwing off a grey
blanket in which it was enveloped, and revealing the villainous
countenance of the one-eyed witch-doctor, who had taken the letter to
Bessie. For years this man had been Muller’s body-servant, who followed
him about like a shadow.
“Curse you, you dog! What do you mean by hiding up like that? It is one
of your infernal tricks; be careful”—tapping his pistol case—“or I
shall one day put an end to you and your witchcraft together.”
“I am very sorry, Baas,” said the man in a whine, “but half an hour ago
I heard you coming. I don’t know what is the matter with the air
to-night, but it sounded as though twenty people were galloping after
you. I could hear them all quite clearly; first the big black horse,
and then all those that followed, just as though they were hunting you.
So I came out and lay down to listen, and it was not till you were
quite close that one by one the others stopped. Perhaps it was the
devils who galloped.”
“Damn you, stop that wizard’s talk,” said Muller, his teeth chattering
with fear and agitation. “Take the horse, groom and feed him well; he
has galloped far, and we start at dawn. Stop, tell me, where are the
lights and the brandy? If you have drunk the brandy I will flog you.”
“They are on the shelf to the left as you go in, Baas, and there is
flesh too, and bread.”
Muller swung himself from the saddle and entered the hut, pushing open
the cranky, broken-hinged door with a kick. He found the box of
Tandstickor matches, and, after one or two attempts—due chiefly to his
shaking hand—succeeded in striking fire and lighting a coarse dip such
as the Boers make out of mutton fat. Near the candle were a bottle of
peach brandy two thirds full, a tin pannikin and a jug of river water.
Seizing the pannikin, he half filled it with spirit, added a little
water, and drank off the mixture. Then he took the meat and bread from
the same shelf, and, cutting some of each with his clasp-knife, tried
to eat. But he could not swallow much, and soon gave up the attempt,
consoling himself instead with the brandy.
“Bah!” he said, “the stuff tastes like hell fire;” and he filled his
pipe and sat smoking.
Presently Hendrik came in to say that the horse was eating well, and
turned to go out again, when his master beckoned him to stop. The man
was surprised, for generally his master was not fond of his society,
except when he wanted to consult him or persuade him to exercise his
pretended art of divination. The truth was, however, that at the moment
Frank Muller would have been glad to consort with a dog. The events of
the night had brought this terrible man, steeped in iniquity from his
youth up, down to the level of a child frightened at the dark. For a
while he sat in silence, the Kafir squatting on the ground at his feet.
Presently, however, the doses of powerful spirit took effect on him,
and he began to talk more unguardedly than was his custom, even with
his black “familiar” Hendrik.
“How long have you been here?” he asked of his retainer.
“About four days, Baas.”
“Did you take my letter to _Oom_ Croft’s?”
“Yah, Baas. I gave it to the missie.”
“What did she do?”
“She read it, and then stood like this, holding on to the verandah
pole;” and he opened his mouth and one eye, twisting up his hideous
countenance into a ghastly imitation of Bessie’s sorrow-stricken face,
and gripping the post that supported the hut to give verisimilitude to
his performance.
“So she believed it?”
“Surely.”
“What did she do, then?”
“She set the dog on me. Look here! and here! and here!” and he pointed
to the half-healed scars left by Stomp’s sharp fangs.
Muller laughed a little. “I should like to have seen him worry you, you
black cheat; it shows her spirit, too. I suppose you are angry, and
want to have a revenge?”
“Surely.”
“Well, who knows? Perhaps you shall; we are going there to-morrow.”
“So, Baas! I knew that before you told me.”
“We are going there, and we are going to take the place; and we are
going to try Uncle Silas by court-martial for flying an English flag,
and if he is found guilty we are going to shoot him, Hendrik.”
“So, Baas,” said the Kafir, rubbing his hands in glee, “but will he be
found guilty?”
“I don’t know,” murmured the white man, stroking his golden beard;
“that will depend upon what missie has to say; and upon the verdict of
the court,” he added, by way of an afterthought.
“On the verdict of the court, ha! ha!” chuckled his wicked satellite;
“on the verdict of the court, yes! yes! and the Baas will be president,
ha! ha! One needs no witchcraft to guess that verdict. And if the court
finds Uncle Silas guilty, who will do the shooting, Baas?”
“I have not thought of that; the time has not come to think of it. It
does not matter; anybody can carry out the sentence of the law.”
“Baas,” said the Kafir, “I have done much for you, and had little pay.
I have done ugly things. I have read omens and made medicines and
‘smelt out’ your enemies. Will you grant me a favour? Will you let me
shoot _Oom_ Croft if the court finds him guilty? It is not much to ask,
Baas. I am a clever wizard and deserve my pay.”
“Why do you want to shoot him?”
“Because he flogged me once, years ago, for being a witch-doctor, and
the other day he hunted me off the place. Beside, it is nice to shoot a
white man. I should like it better,” he went on, with a smack of the
lips, “if it were missie, who set the dog on me. I would——”
In a moment Muller had seized the astonished ruffian by the throat, and
was kicking and shaking him as though he were a toy. His brutal talk of
Bessie appealed to such manliness as he had in him, and, whatever his
own wickedness may have been, he was too madly in love with the woman
to let her name be taken in vain by a man whom, though he held his
“magic” in superstitious reverence, he yet ranked lower than a dog.
With his nerves strung to the highest possible state of tension, and
half drunk as he was, Frank Muller was no more to be played with or
irritated than is a mad bull.
“You black beast!” he yelled, “if ever you dare to mention her name
again like that I will kill you, for all your witchcraft;” and he
hurled him with such force against the wall of the hut that the whole
place shook. The man fell and lay for a moment groaning; then he crept
from the hut on his hands and knees.
Muller sat scowling from under his bent brows, and watched him go. When
he was gone, he rose and fastened the door behind him, then suddenly he
burst into tears, the result, no doubt, of the mingled effects of
drink, mental and physical exhaustion, and the never-resting
passion—one can scarcely call it love—which ate at his heart, like the
worm that dieth not.
“Oh, Bessie, Bessie!” he groaned, “I have done it all for you. Surely
you cannot be angry when I have killed them all for you? Oh, my
darling, my darling! If you only knew how I love you! Oh, my darling,
my darling!” and in an agony of passion he flung himself on to the
rough pallet in the corner of the hut and sobbed himself to sleep.
It would seem that Frank Muller’s evil-doing did not make him happy,
the truth being that to enjoy wickedness a man must be not only without
conscience, but also without passion. Now Frank Muller was tormented
with a very effective substitute for the first—superstition, and by the
latter his life was overshadowed, since the beauty of a girl possessed
the power to dominate his wildest moods and to inflict upon him
torments that she herself was incapable even of imagining.
At the first light of dawn Hendrik crept humbly into the hut to wake
his master, and within half an hour they were across the Vaal and on
the road to Wakkerstroom.
As the light increased so did Muller’s spirits rise, till at last, when
the red sun came up in glory and swept away the shadows, he felt as
though all the load of guilt and fear that lay upon his heart had
departed with them. He could see now that the death of the two Boers by
lightning was a mere accident—a happy accident, indeed; for, had it not
so chanced, he would have been forced to kill them himself, if he could
not have obtained possession of the warrant by other means. As it was,
he had forgotten about this document; but it did not matter much, he
reflected. Nobody would be likely to find the bodies of the two men and
horses under that lonely bank. Certainly they would not be found before
the _aasvogels_ had picked them clean, and these would be at work upon
them now. And if they were found, the paper would have rotted or been
blown away, or, at the worst, rendered so discoloured as to be
unreadable. For the rest, there was nothing to connect him with the
murder, now that his confederates were dead. Hendrik would prove an
alibi for him. He was a useful man, Hendrik. Besides, who would believe
that it was a murder? Two men were escorting an Englishman to the
river; they became involved in a quarrel; the Englishman shot them, and
they shot the Englishman and his companion. Then the horses plunged
into the Vaal upsetting the cart, and there was an end of it. He could
see now how well things had gone for him. Events had placed him beyond
suspicion.
Then he fell to thinking of the fruits of his honest labours, and
Muller’s cheek grew warm with the mounting blood, and his eyes flashed
with the fire of youth. In two days—forty-eight hours—at the outside,
Bessie would be in his arms. He could not miscarry now, for was he not
in absolute command? Besides, Hendrik had read it in his omens long
ago.[*] Mooifontein should be stormed on the morrow, if that were
necessary, and _Oom_ Silas Croft and Bessie should be taken prisoners;
and then he knew how to deal with them. His talk about shooting on the
previous night had been no idle threat. She should yield herself to
him, or the old man must die, and then he would take her. There could
be no legal consequences now that the British Government was in the act
of surrender. It would be a meritorious deed to execute a rebel
Englishman.
[*] It is not a very rare thing to meet white men in South Africa who
believe more or less in the efficacy of native witchcraft, and,
although such a proceeding is forbidden by law, who at a pinch will not
hesitate to consult the witch-doctors.—Author.
Yes, it was all plain sailing now. How long had it needed to win
her—three years? He had loved her for three years. Well, he would have
his reward; and then, his passion satisfied, he would turn his mind to
those far-reaching, ambitious schemes, whereof the end was something
like a throne.