In due course of time--that is to say, from two to three weeks--
Gonjana's sentence was confirmed by the Eastern Districts Court--such
confirmation being required before a judgment involving lashes could be
carried out.
"It's hard lines on the poor devils, Musgrave," observed Mr Van Stolz,
as he received the confirmation. "Instead of getting their warming at
once, and have done with it, they're kept in gaol for about three weeks,
expecting it every day. It may be a necessary precaution with some
magistrates, but I have never had a conviction quashed or a judgment
upset. I don't say it to brag, but it's a fact. But--it's nearly
twelve o'clock now. We'll go down and see it done."
The gaol at Doppersdorp was an oblong brick building containing ten
cells. These formed three sides of a central courtyard, the fourth
constituting the gaoler's quarters and the kitchen where the prisoners'
rations were prepared. A line of men in broad-arrow stamped suits, all
natives, guarded by two armed constables, was filing in from the veldt.
This was the hard-labour gang, returning to the most congenial task in
the whole twenty-four hours, the consumption of dinner, to wit; to-day
combined with a scarcely less attractive one, to those figuring in it
only as spectators--punishment parade.
The convicts, after the regulation search, were drawn up in a line in
the prison yard. A long ladder standing against the wall did duty as
the triangles. There was another to suffer besides Gonjana, a
yellow-skinned Hottentot named Bruintjes, and for a similar offence.
Half beside himself with fear, this fellow stood, shivering and moaning,
with quaking, disjointed appeals for mercy. The Kaffir, on the other
hand, might have been one of the spectators, for all the sign he gave to
the contrary; though now and again his tongue would go up to the roof of
his month in a disdainful "click," as he watched the contortions of his
fellow-sufferer.
"Which shall I take first, sir?" said the gaoler.
"Oh, the Hottentot," answered Mr Van Stolz. "The poor devil will be
dead if he has to wait for the other chap. He isn't quite so cheeky now
as he was in Court. Seems to be taken out of him. Ready, doctor?"
The district surgeon, whose presence on such occasions was required by
law, replied in the affirmative, and the Hottentot, stripped to the
waist, was triced to the ladder. With the first "swish" of the lash,
which the gaoler, an old soldier, understood the use of, he set up a
screech like a cat in a steel trap; and this he kept up throughout. At
the end he was untied, whimpering and howling, and his back sponged.
"Pah! Twenty-five lashes!" growled the gaoler, running his fingers
through the strings of his "cat." "A soldier would have taken it
grinning, in my time."
Then Gonjana was triced up. But he was made of very different
stuff. A slight involuntary quiver in the muscles of the brawny
chocolate-coloured back as the lash cut its terrible criss-cross, but
that was all. Not a sound escaped the throat of the sturdy barbarian,
not even a wriggle ran through his finely-modelled limbs from first to
last. It was like flogging a bronze statue.
"By Jove, he took that well!" exclaimed Roden, moved to admiration.
The Kaffir, who had undergone the sponging as though he were merely
being washed, had now huddled his ragged shirt upon his raw and bleeding
back.
"He's a plucky fellow!" said Mr Van Stolz, going up to him. "Tell him,
Jan, that it will pay him best to be honest in future. But he took his
licking well. He can go now."
This the constable duly interpreted. But Gonjana seemed in no hurry to
enter upon the sweets of his newly restored liberty. He stood looking
at the magistrate with a queer, sidelong expression, his broad nostrils
snuffing the air. Then he said something in his own language. The
constable sniggered.
"He say, sir," interpreted the latter, "he say de lash hurt, but he not
afraid of being hurt. He say, sir--he very hungry. He hope sir will
not send him away without his dinner."
From the open windows of the prison kitchen the strong fumes of a
savoury stew were wafted into the yard, for it was the dinner-hour. The
gaol ration of meat and mealies was a liberal one, and it was noteworthy
that every convict who had completed his term of hard-labour came out of
prison sleek and fat, whatever might have been his condition at the time
of incarceration. Mr Van Stolz burst out laughing.
"Give the poor devil his dinner and let him go," he said. "He took his
dose well. It's little enough dinner I'd want if I were in his shoes,
eh, doctor?"
This to the district surgeon, who had joined them as they left the gaol.
He was a young M.D. named Lambert, a new arrival, newer even than
Roden, having been recently appointed. There was nothing specially
remarkable about him, unless it were a species of brisk
self-assertiveness which some might call bumptiousness, and which might
not altogether be to his disadvantage in a place like Doppersdorp, where
the District Surgeon was something of a personage, and apt to be toadied
accordingly. But between him and Roden Musgrave there was an
indefinable instinct of antipathy, which is perhaps best expressed in
saying that they had not taken to each other.
This feeling being, for the present at any rate, merely a passive one,
they found themselves strolling towards the Barkly Hotel together, Mr
Van Stolz having left them. Two ladies were seated on the _stoep_, who
as they drew near took the identity of Mrs Suffield and Mona Ridsdale.
"Well, Dr Lambert," said the latter, with a wicked look at Roden, when
greetings had been exchanged; "and how do you like Doppersdorp? But
there, I forgot, I must not ask you that. Well then, what was the
meaning of that dreadful noise we heard going on at the gaol just now,
for we could hear it all the way from here?"
"Only a fellow getting a licking in due course of law--a Hottentot, for
sheep-stealing," answered the doctor. "The other nigger took it like a
man."
"Oh, how dreadful! And do you mean to say you went to see that?"
"I had to. You see I am compelled to be present on such occasions,"
answered Lambert; with a stress on the pronoun, as if to convey the idea
that the other was not, which, strictly speaking, was the case.
"What horrid creatures men are!"
"I agree; they are," said Roden. "The remark is made so often that it
must be true."
Then he went indoors, and Mona, thus deprived of all opportunity of
reply, did not know whether to feel angry or not. For these two had
seen something of each other daring the three weeks which had elapsed
since Roden's first visit to the Suffields. In fact, there were not
lacking ill-natured people, who declared that Mona had got a new string
to her bow, or rather, a new bow to a very well-worn string.
The young doctor, however, who had met her once before, had, for his
part, been very much struck at first sight, as was the wont of Mona's
admirers: they were apt to cool off later, but that was her fault.
Now being left with the coast clear, Lambert laid himself out to be
excessively agreeable, and the bell having rung, hurried them in to
dinner, in order to secure the seat next to Mona before the
objectionable Musgrave should reappear. But the latter did not seem to
care two straws, when he came in presently with Suffield, whom he had
picked up in the bar.
"So he took it well, did he?" that worthy was saying as they sat down.
"Gonjana is a good bit of a _schelm_, but Kaffirs are generally plucky.
Talking of that, there's rumour of a scare in the Transkei."
"There always is a scare in the Transkei," struck in Jones, the
landlord, who was carving.
"Well, scare or no scare, it wouldn't affect us much," said Suffield.
"Oh, wouldn't it? I don't know so much about that. There's them
Tambookie locations out Wildschutsberg way; they're near enough to make
it lively, I imagine."
"That's where you get your best custom from, eh, Jones? They'll come to
you first, if only that they know the way to your grog. What's this,
eh? Not mutton. Buck, isn't it?"
"Yes, rhybok. Mr Musgrave shot it yesterday morning."
"So! Where did you go, Musgrave?"
"As nearly as possible on your own place, Suffield," said Roden,
starting, for he had been in something like a brown study. "You know
that big double _krantz_ you see from the road? Well, just under that."
"Why didn't you come and look us up, man?"
"Hadn't time. You see, I have to turn out almost in the middle of the
night to get among the rocks by the time it's light enough to shoot;
rhybok are precious leery. Then I've got to be back early, too, so as
to be at the office by half-past nine."
"I didn't know you were such a Nimrod," said Mrs Suffield.
"He brings back a buck every time he goes out," said Jones. "Piet Van
der Merwe was here the other day fuming because some one had been
shooting on his farm; but when I told him who it was, he said he didn't
mind, because no Englishman could hit a haystack if he were a yard away
from it. He told Mr Musgrave he could go there whenever he liked, and
I expect soon there won't be a buck left on the place."
"If I were Musgrave, I should make you take me at half-price, on the
strength of keeping your larder supplied, Jones," laughed Suffield. "We
must get up a day's shoot, though. Doctor, are you keen on shooting?"
The doctor replied that he was, and then followed much discussion as to
when a good long day could be arranged.
"Why not come out with us this afternoon?" proposed Suffield. "We could
get away upon the _berg_ by sundown, and perhaps pick up a buck or two."
"Can't do it, unfortunately," said Roden. "Got to go back to office."
But the other accepted with alacrity, though it is I probable that the
venatorial side of the programme is not, if the truth were known,
constitute the most attractive part. All the time they were at table he
had been making the most of his opportunities, apparently to some
purpose, for when they got up, and Mona declared she had some shopping
to do, with her went Lambert in close attendance.
Although continuing to dine at Jones' dubious board, Roden had so far
carried out his project that he had secured for himself a tiny red brick
cottage, which boasted two rooms and a kitchen, with a back yard and
stable. It was large enough for him, however, and he promptly proceeded
to make himself comfortable therein, in a modest sort of way. Hither,
having bidden good-bye to the Suffields, without waiting to see them
inspan, he adjourned, and, in company with a solitary pipe, fell into a
train of thought.
The first thing was to stifle a strong inclination to reconsider
Suffield's proposal. It was not too late now. His pony was only
grazing on the town commonage hard by; he could have him brought in less
than half an hour. And then came the thought that the motive of this
was not the prospect of sport, and the conviction was an unwelcome one.
As we have said, he had already seen a good deal of Mona Ridsdale.
There was something about her that attracted him powerfully. What was
it? He was not in love with her; the bare idea that he might ever
become so stirred him uncomfortably. She was a splendid creature, a
physical paragon, but love! ah, that was another thing. Besides, what
had he to do with love, even were he capable of feeling it? That sort
of blissful delusion, veiling Dead Sea ashes, was all very well when one
was young; which he no longer was. His life was all behind him now,
which made it perhaps the more easy to start again almost where others
left off. The modest salary wherewith the Colonial Government saw fit
for the present to requite his services, did not constitute his sole
means of existence; he possessed something over and above it, though
little, and all combined gave him just enough to get along with a
moderate degree of comfort. And as his thoughts took this practical
turn, the association of ideas caused him to rise suddenly in disgust.
It was time to be doing something when his meditations landed him in
such a slough of grotesque idiocy, and with that intent he went straight
away to his office.
But times were easy just then. He wrote a couple of official letters,
and took down the deposition of a lanky Boer with a tallow countenance,
adorned by a wispy beard, who, amid much expectoration and nervous
shifting of his battered and greasy wide-awake from one hand to another,
delivered himself of a long and portentous complaint against a
neighbour, for rescuing by force certain cattle, which his servants were
driving to the nearest pound. Then, having satisfied this seeker of
redress, with the assurance that justice would overtake the footsteps of
the aggressor in the shape of a summons, and thus got rid of him, Roden
took down two or three of the office volumes and set to work to study a
little statute law, in which occupation he was presently disturbed by
the cheery, bustling step of Mr Van Stolz.
"Well, Musgrave, not much doing!" cried the latter, perching himself on
the side of the table and relighting his pipe. "What's this?" picking
up the official letters. "`With reference to your circular--um--um--
asking for a return of--um--um--' Those damn circulars! Every post we
get about twenty of them. Return! They'll soon want a return of the
number of buttons each official wears on his shirt,"--signing the
letters. "What's this? Another complaint? `Pound rescue,--Willem
Cornelia Gerhardus Van Wyk.' One of the biggest liars that ever trod
God's earth. I've fined him over and over again for licking his niggers
or trying to do them out of their pay or something; and you'll see him
in church on Sunday with a face as long as a fiddle; he's one of the
`elders,' too. He'll have to come in and swear this, though."
"He said he couldn't wait, sir, but he'll be in the first thing
to-morrow, before court time."
"Oh, that'll do just as well, as I wasn't here, I say, Musgrave, old
boy, we'll shut up shop and go for a walk. Got your pipe with you? Try
some of this tobacco. Yes, we may as well take it easy while we can; we
shall have enough to do next week with the monthly returns."
So away they started, leaving the little baked-mud town behind them;
away over the open veldt, with its carpet of wax blossoms, lying beneath
the slopes of the great hills which stood forth all green and gold in
the afternoon sun.
"What do you think of the new doctor, Musgrave?" said the magistrate at
last, as they were discussing things and people in general.
"Lambert? H'm! Well, strictly between ourselves--not much."
"Not, eh? I thought he seemed a nice fellow."
"I don't want to prejudice anybody against him, far from it; but I've
noticed that between two given people there often exists an antipathy at
sight. Now, Lambert may be a decent fellow enough in the main; but
between him and me that antipathy exists."
He did not add that from unerring signs he had taken the measure of the
subject under discussion, and that that measure was as mean as mean
could be.
"You don't take to Lambert, then?"
"No. But I know nothing against him, and so it wouldn't be fair to say
anything against him on the score of a mere instinctive dislike."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"How is it you didn't go out to the Suffields this afternoon, Mr
Musgrave?" said the magistrate's wife as, having returned from their
walk, they were sitting on the _stoep_ awaiting dinner--for with
characteristic geniality his official superior had insisted upon Roden
considering himself on a "run-of-the-house" footing.
"I don't know," was the reply. "There was something to be done at the
office, I suppose, or perhaps I felt lazy."
Mrs Van Stolz laughed. She was a pretty, dark-eyed woman, also of
Dutch extraction, as amiable and sunny-natured as her husband.
"Oh yes, of course," she retorted mischievously. "But Miss Ridsdale was
consoling herself with the new doctor--at any rate, as they drove past
here. He'll cut you out, Mr Musgrave, if you don't take care. But,
seriously, how do you like her on further acquaintance?"
"Oh, we seem to get along fairly well. Fight without ceremony, and all
that sort of thing."
"And make it up again. Take care, Mr Musgrave; she's dangerous. Poor
Mr Watkins completely lost his heart."
"Well, I haven't got one to lose, Mrs Van Stolz; so I'm safe."
"I don't know. I've already heard in two quarters that you are engaged
to her."
"Hardly surprising, is it? I believe we have been seen twice in the
same street. That would be more than enough for Doppersdorp."
"Don't you let the new doctor cut you out," she rejoined merrily.
"He has the advantage of youth on his side, at any rate," responded
Roden. And thus the conflict of chaff went on.