too, of a very dangerous type. Frank directed his waggon for the
Limpopo River, and, still battling with the pestilence, kept up his
shooting so long as he had strength. At last came a time when his drugs
were conquered, the fever held him in a death-like grip, and he lay in
his kartel gaunt, emaciated, weak, almost in the last stage of the
disease. The fever had beaten him, and he turned his face southward and
trekked for civilisation.
The waggons--he had a friendly trader with him by this time--had crossed
the Limpopo and outspanned one hot evening in a tiny Boer village, the
most remote of the rude frontier settlements of the Transvaal Republic.
Frank, now in a state of collapse, was lifted from his kartel and
carried into the back room of the only store in the place--a rude wattle
and daub shanty thatched with grass. He was delirious, and lay in high
fever all that night. In the morning he seemed a trifle better, but not
sensible of those about him. At twelve o'clock he was once more fast in
the clutches of raging fever; his temperature ran up alarmingly; he
rambled wildly in his talk; at this rate it seemed that life could not
long support itself in so enfeebled a frame.
Towards sundown, the fever had left him again; he lay in a state of
absolute exhaustion, and presently fell into a gentle sleep. The
trader, who had tended him day and night for a week, now absolutely
wearied out, sought his own waggon and went to sleep. The storekeeper
had retired, only a young woman, passing through the place, a governess
on her way to some Dutchman's farm, watched by the sick man's bed.
It was about an hour after midnight, the African dawn had not yet come,
but the solitary candle shed a fainter light; a cock crew, the air
seemed to become suddenly more chill. The woman rose from her chair,
fetched a light kaross [a fur cloak or rug] from the store, and spread
it gently over the sick man's bed. Then she lifted his head--it was a
heavy task--and administered some brandy and beef-tea. Again the young
man slept, or lay in torpor. Presently the girl took his hand in her
right, then, sitting close to his bedside, she, with her left, gently
stroked his brow and hair. A sob escaped her. She kissed the listless,
wasted hand; then with a little cry she half rose, bent herself softly
and kissed tenderly, several times, the brow and the hollow, wasted
cheek of the fever-stricken man. As she did so, tears escaped from her
eyes and fell gently, all unheeded, upon Frank's face and pillow.
"Oh, my love, my love!" cried the girl, in a sobbing whisper, "to think
that never again can I speak to you, take your hand in mine! To think
that I, who would have died for you, am now ashamed as I touch you--
ashamed for the vile wrong that was done to you in those miserable days.
My love, my darling, I must now kiss you like a thief. Our ways are
apart, and the journey--my God--is so long."
Once more, leaning over the still figure, she kissed Frank's brow, and
then, relapsing into her chair, cried silently for a while--a spasmodic
sob now and again evincing the bitter struggle within her. The cold
grey of morning came, and still she sat by the bedside, watching
intently, unweariedly, each change of the sick man's position, every
flicker of the tired eyes.
During the long hours of the two next days, Frank lay for the most part
in a torpor of weakness. The fever had left him; it was now a struggle
between death and the balance of strength left to a vigorous
constitution after such a bout. Save for an hour or so at a time, Nina
had never left his side. Hers was the gentle hand that turned the
pillows, shifted the cotton Kaffir blankets that formed the bedding,
gave the required nourishment, and administered the medicine. On the
evening of the fourth day, there were faint symptoms of recovery; the
weakened man seemed visibly stronger. Once or twice he had feebly
opened his eyes and looked about him--apparently without recognition of
those at hand.
It was in the middle of this night that Frank really became conscious.
He had taken some nourishment, and after long lying in a state betwixt
sleep and stupor, he awoke to feel a tender stroking of his hand.
Presently his brow was touched lightly by soft lips. It reminded him of
his mother in years gone by. Frank was much too weak to be surprised at
anything, but he opened his eyes and looked about him. It was not his
mother's face that he saw, as he had dreamily half expected, but the
face of one he had come to know almost as well.
Close by him stood Nina Staarbrucker, much more worn, much graver, much
changed from the sweet, merry, piquant girl he had known so well at
Kimberley. But the dark friendly eyes--very loving, yet sad and
beseeching, it seemed to him dimly--of the lost days, were still there
for him.
Frank opened his parched lips and in a husky voice whispered, "Nina?"
"Yes," said the sweet, clear voice he remembered so well, "I am here,
nursing you. You must not talk. No, not a word," as he essayed to
speak again, "or you will undo all the good that has been done. Rest,
my darling (I can't help saying it," she said to herself; "it will do no
harm, and he will never hear it again from my lips); sleep again, and
you will soon be stronger."
Frank was still supremely weak, and the very presence of the girl seemed
to bring peace and repose to his senses. He smiled--closed his eyes
again, and slept soundly far into the next day.
That was the last he ever saw of Nina Staarbrucker. She had vanished,
and although Frank, as he grew from convalescence to strength, made many
inquiries as the months went by, he could never succeed in gaining
satisfactory tidings of her. He once heard that she had been seen in
Delagoa Bay, that was all. Whether in the years to come they will ever
meet again, time and the fates alone can say. It seems scarcely
probable. Africa is so vast, and nurses safely within her bosom the
secret of many a lost career.
CHAPTER TEN.
A TRAGEDY OF THE VELDT.
The circumstances attending the fate of Leonard Strangeways were very
extraordinary, and the three years of silence and doubt that followed
the discovery of his body in the veldt seemed but to enhance among white
men in the Bechuanaland Protectorate the mystery of that most singular
affair. The whole tragedy, from the very remoteness of the place in
which it was enacted, was little known south of the Orange River. I
have, therefore, thought it worth while to rescue from complete oblivion
the grim, strange, and unwonted circumstances of that dark business.
Leonard Strangeways was, in the year 1890, when I first met him, one of
the pioneers who entered Mashonaland. He was one of those
devil-may-care, reckless, wandering fellows, so many of whom are to be
found upon the frontiers of civilisation in Southern Africa. I first
saw him, outspanned at breakfast, near Palla Camp on the Crocodile
River, with a number of other men, going into Mashonaland upon the same
errand as himself. He was the life and soul of the party, and was
superintending the "bossing-up" of the meal. For the next week our
waggons moved on together and I saw a good deal of Strangeways. He was
a tall, handsome fellow of thirty or thirty-one. He seemed to be a
general favourite with his party--mainly, I imagine, because he was one
of those capable men who excel in everything they undertake. He shot
most of the francolins and other feathered game for the half-dozen chums
he was travelling with; he had not been long in South Africa, and yet he
seemed to comprehend the ways of the native servants and the methods of
travel exceedingly well; he evidently understood horses thoroughly, and
personally superintended the score of nags that were travelling up with
the waggons. He could inspan and outspan oxen, and was already master
of other useful veldt wrinkles, which usually take some time to acquire.
He could paint remarkably well, I have seen him, in a short hour's work
with water-colours, turn out a very charming sketch of African scenery.
And at night, by the camp fire, Strangeways' banjo and his deep, rich
voice were in inevitable request. It is not judged well to inquire too
closely into the antecedents of men in the South African interior. I
gathered, during the week of travel alongside of Strangeways, that he
had led a wandering life for some years, and had recently come across to
the Cape from Australia, where he had done little good for himself.
I parted from Strangeways and his fellow pioneers at Palachwe, and saw
no more of him for rather more than a twelve-month, when I met him
coming down-country, at Boatlanama, a water on the desert road, between
Khama's old town of Shoshong and Molepolole. In latter days this was
not the usual route to and from Palachwe and Matabeleland, but having
been several times by the Crocodile road, I happened to have taken the
more westerly route for a change. On waking up next morning, after a
hard and distressing trek from the nearest water in this thirsty
country--Lopepe--I was surprised to see another waggon outspanned almost
alongside. Still more surprised was I to find one of its two occupants
Leonard Strangeways, also with a fellow pioneer travelling down-country.
Our greeting was a hearty one, and indeed, I, for my part, was
exceedingly well pleased to have encountered once more so genial and
pleasant an acquaintance.
Strangeways had passed a year in Mashonaland, and, like most of the
other Mashonalanders of that distressful season, '90-'91, had had some
pretty tough experiences. However, he had weathered the storm, had sold
his pioneer farm, and the options over a number of mining properties,
for cash at a good price, and was now going down to Cape Town to enjoy
himself, and, as he expressed it, to "blow some of the pieces." He was
in the highest spirits. He had trekked down by this more westerly route
for the purpose of getting some shooting. He was a keen sportsman, and
was anxious as he came down-country to secure the heads of the gemsbok
and hartebeest, two large desert-loving antelopes, not found in
Mashonaland. He had succeeded in bagging two gemsbok to the westward of
Lopepe, and, after breakfast, was riding out in search of hartebeest.
I had had a hard ride in the sun on the day preceding, and my horse was
knocked up. I was not inclined to accompany Strangeways on his quest,
therefore I did not see him again till late in the evening, when he
returned with a native hunter. It was an hour or two after dark when
they came up to the camp fire, where we were drinking our coffee and
enjoying a quiet smoke. He rode into the cheerful blaze and dismounted.
He had upon his saddle-bow the head and horns of a fine hartebeest
bull, the trophy he had coveted, and behind were the skin and a good
quantity of meat from the same antelope. "There!" said he, flinging
down the head triumphantly, "that's been a devilish tough customer to
bring to bag, but we did the trick after all. If it hadn't been for
Marati, here," jerking his head at a grinning Bechuana boy, "we should
have lost the buck. We followed the blood spoor for five mortal hours,
and but for Marati I should have given it up as a bad job. By Jove!
I'm fairly beat."
"Your supper's in the pot," I replied, "and there's enough coffee to
float you. Sit down and the boy will bring you a plate and cup. Put
your coat on first though, it's getting chilly."
As I lay on my rug, Strangeways stood above me in his flannel shirt
sleeves, a fine figure of a man, in the flickering blaze. Suddenly his
eye caught the white tent of another waggon, which had come in during
the afternoon, and was on its way up-country. "Hallo!" he said, "what's
this?"
"Oh, don't bother about it," I replied, "they are a mining party going
up to Mashonaland. They won't interest you. Sit down and have your
supper."
But Strangeways was curious; I often think that if he had been less
curious he would have been alive at this moment. The third waggon stood
about sixty yards away.
"Get my supper ready," he said, "I'll be back in a moment," and walked
across to the other camp fire.
I directed his native cook-boy to bring plates and a cup, and have all
in readiness for his master's supper. In less than three minutes
Strangeways strode up to the fire again. As he approached, he looked
furtively behind him I never saw a man so utterly changed within the
space of three short minutes. His face was ghastly pale, he trembled
visibly. He said not a single word, but went straight to his horse,
which was being off-saddled. He picked up the saddle again, clapped it
on the poor tired brute's back, and to my intense astonishment put his
foot in the stirrup and mounted.
"Strangeways," I said, "what in Heaven's name are you going to do. Come
and sit down and let the nag alone."
He turned on me a white, terror-stricken face.
"Sh! for God's sake," was all he said, under his breath. One glance he
threw towards that other camp fire, and then, kicking his horse with the
spur, he passed behind our two waggons and rode straight out into the
gross darkness of the veldt.
I was so astounded at this extraordinary proceeding, that I confess I
let Strangeways ride away without any further protest than the few words
I had uttered. I now jumped to my feet and followed in the direction he
had taken. I saw and heard nothing. I was about to shout his name, but
I had been so impressed with the terror depicted on his face, that I
forebore to cry out after him. Somehow, it struck me that he wanted
silence. I had always found him a most sensible, level-headed fellow.
He had some reason undoubtedly for this sudden fear and strange
departure. I waited by the fireside for half an hour, all sorts of
doubts and hypotheses thronging my brain. What could it mean? Here was
a man, tired, worn-out and hungry, and, above all, desperately thirsty,
after a hard day's hunting and eleven hours spent in the saddle under a
burning sun, suddenly flying off from his supper, his rest, and the
pleasant camp fire, mounting his tired horse and riding straight out
into the veldt with some strong terror gripping at his heart. And such
a veldt as it was here. Sheer desert, except for a scanty pit of foul
water now and again at long intervals. He could not be mad. He was
sane as a judge before he visited the other camp fire; what in God's
name could it mean? I worried my brain for half an hour, and then gave
it up. I now roused Strangeways' pioneer comrade, who had retired early
and had been asleep all this time, and talked the thing over with him.
We could find no solution.
The other camp fire seemed to contain the only possible explanation of
this strange event. We walked across to it. I had previously spoken to
these wayfarers, who consisted of a mining engineer and three
prospectors. The engineer received us civilly. He inquired in a
bantering way after our friend, who, he averred, had come across, stared
like a stuck pig for a moment, and then suddenly turned on his heel and
vanished. Two of his prospectors, one a Cornishman, the other a Yankee,
sat by the fire, smoking. They were decent, quiet, civil-spoken men.
The third, an Italian, had, they informed me, turned into his waggon and
gone to sleep. We had a quarter of an hour's chat, and then, finding
that we could make nothing of the mystery over here, we went back to our
own fire again. We had not thought it necessary to enlighten the mining
party as to Strangeways' sudden departure; nor, indeed, did they
manifest any further interest in him. They had caught but a fleeting
glimpse of his face, and then, as they said, he had turned and bolted.
Halton, Strangeways' comrade, and I returned to our camp fire, waited up
till eleven o'clock--a late hour for the veldt--and then, seeing that
nothing further was to be done that night, we turned in, tired enough,
and slept soundly.
I was awake at six next morning. My native boy brought me, as usual, my
coffee.
"Baas," he said, "did Baas know that a man from the other waggon came
over here in the night with a lantern and looked in Baas's waggon and
into the other waggon too." No, I knew nothing of this, and I told the
boy so. I looked into Strangeways' waggon. Halton was just getting up.
He, too, had slept heavily, and had neither seen nor heard of any one's
approach during the night.
We swallowed our coffee and ate some breakfast, debating with serious
faces what step we were to take next. While we sat by the embers of the
overnight fire thus employed, the engineer from the other camp came
across. He had fresh food for bewilderment. His Italian prospector was
missing. His native driver averred that Rinaldi had risen before dawn,
taken some food and a water bottle, saddled a horse, and just as
daylight came left the camp. He came, the man said, in our direction,
and then disappeared behind the waggons and into the veldt.
The mystery was clearly thickening. Halton and I now took the engineer
into our confidence, and told him of the strange occurrence of the
evening before. We finished breakfast, and then decided to proceed at
once with the adventure. First we called up a first-rate Bakalahari
hunter, who had been for some time attached to my camp, and was an
extraordinarily skilful spoorer. After a cup of coffee and a pinch or
two of snuff, both inestimable luxuries to a poor, despised desert man,
he quickly got to work. His narrative lay there in the sand before him,
as clear to his bleared, half-shut eyes as God's daylight itself.
First he traced the progress of Strangeways. After some little trouble
about the camp, where the trail was much mingled with others, he
presently got the spoor away into the bush, to the west of the outspan.
Shortly, with a cluck of the tongue, the native drew our attention to
other marks. Here, he said, Strangeways' trail had been joined by that
of another, a man walking with his horse. The man, said the Bakalahari,
was following the spoor of Strangeways, and had got off his horse for
the purpose. As the ground became clearer and the country more open,
this man had mounted and followed more quickly upon the trail. At
times, the tale was plain enough even to the eyes of us Europeans.
Well, to make a long story short, we followed the two spoors all through
that long hot day. We had water and food with us, and we meant to see
the thing out. At first, in the darkness, Strangeways had evidently
wandered a good deal from the straight line, but as light had come, he
had travelled due west, and then after mid-day struck in a southerly
direction. I guessed his purpose, to seek the road and water south of
Boatlanama. Towards sundown, when we had ridden between thirty and
forty miles, we saw by the trail that Strangeways' horse was failing.
The wonder was that after two days of such work it had stood up so long.
Night fell before we could arrive at any solution of the mystery. We
made a good fire, drank some water, ate some supper, and then lay down
upon the dry earth and slept. At earliest daylight we were moving
again. We followed the two spoors for something more than an hour, and
then, rather suddenly, in some thickish bush, came upon a sight that
smote us all with horror. A cloud of vultures fluttered heavily from
the dead body of Strangeways' horse, which lay stretched upon the sand,
now nearly devoid of what flesh it had once carried upon its bones.
Under a pile of thorns, close by, was the body of Strangeways himself.
The body, for some extraordinary reason, which I was then not able to
fathom, had been carefully protected by these thorn branches, and the
vultures had not been able to accomplish their foul work upon it. We
pulled away the thorns, and examined the poor dead body; it was marked
by two bullet wounds, one in the right shoulder, the other, fired at
close quarters, through the head. The flannel shirt, in which
Strangeways had ridden, had been torn roughly off the upper part of the
body, and upon the broad chest had been slashed, with the point of a
sharp knife, these letters, MARIA. The blood, now dark and coagulate,
had run a little, but there was not the least difficulty in making out
the name. There were traces of the Italian and his horse about the
spot, and then the murderer's spoor led away northward.
Even with this sad and infernal discovery before us we were no nearer
the elucidation of this strange mystery. Revenge seemed to be at the
bottom of it, but the reason of that revenge was absolutely hidden from
us. We held a long council on the body, took what few trifles there
were upon it, Strangeways' watch, his hunting belt and knife, spurs, and
a silver bangle upon the wrist. Then we buried him in that desolate
spot. Our horses were already suffering from lack of water. It was
madness to think of following the Italian, who would probably himself
perish of thirst. We turned for our waggons, therefore, and with great
difficulty reached them late that night. The next thing to do was to
report the murder and set the Border Police upon the affair. This was
done as speedily as possible. I remained with Halton for the space of a
month in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, hoping to hear of the Italian's
capture. Nothing whatever was heard of him, however, and I resumed my
journey south, and returned to Europe.
For three years I heard--although I made repeated inquiries, and read
each week the few newspapers of Bechuanaland and Rhodesia--not a whisper
that would elucidate this incomprehensible tragedy. Then, as I
travelled once more through Bechuanaland, the cloud suddenly lifted and
the mystery stood revealed.
Upon reaching Vryburg, the capital of British Bechuanaland, I found the
little town in a state of intense excitement. The Italian, Rinaldi, had
been captured, after three years of a wandering life, far up-country; in
a trader's store, near the Zambesi. He had been arrested and brought
down for trial. Halton and other witnesses had been procured from
Matabeleland to give evidence against him. But Rinaldi had not
attempted to escape the consequences of his crime; on the contrary, he
gloried in it, and had given in his broken English, in open court, his
version of the whole miserable business and its origin. Briefly
condensed, this was his tale.
His name, he said, was Guiseppe Rinaldi, and he was a native of
Sardinia. Nine years before, he had met Strangeways, who was then an
artist wandering through Sardinia. Rinaldi himself was deeply attached
to Maria Poroni, a beautiful girl of his village, whom he hoped to
marry. But he had to be away at his work at the lead mines, thirty
miles off, and only saw her occasionally. Strangeways came on the
scene, became acquainted with Maria, had grown quickly infatuated with
her, and had persuaded her to leave the island with him. After living
some months with her in various parts of Italy, he left her with a
certain sum of money in Rome, and finally abandoned her. The poor girl
crept back home with a child, and died, a broken woman, two years later.
Rinaldi had known Strangeways and swore to take a terrible revenge if
occasion ever offered. But he had no money. Tired of poverty in
Sardinia, he went out to Argentina and from there drifted to South
Africa. It was by the merest accident in the world that he had obtained
employment as a miner with the outfit going up from Cape Town to
Mashonaland. And it was still more of an accident that he had seen
Strangeways' face at the camp fire that night at Boatlanama. The rest
is briefly told. He had crept across in the darkness and found that
Strangeways was not in his waggon. At earliest dawn he had taken a
horse, provisions, water, and a rifle, and followed his spoor into the
desert. Thanks to his life in the mountains of Sardinia, and his
experience of cattle ranching in the Argentine, he was an expert
tracker, and had no difficulty in following the trail. He had come up
with Strangeways, whose horse had foundered, just at sundown.
Strangeways fired a shot, which grazed Rinaldi's ear. Rinaldi's first
bullet brought his victim down and he had then finished him. He had
scored the name MARIA upon the dead man's chest, covered him with thorns
that the mark of his vengeance might not be obliterated by the wild
beasts, and left him. He had then escaped north and wandered to the
Zambesi.