his execution was to take place, was followed by mounted police into the
Kalahari, and, as he refused to surrender, was shot dead in the scuffle
that ensued.
To me, the strangest part of this tragedy lies in the fact that
Strangeways' death came to him, apparently, by the merest accident in
the world. It is absolutely certain that Rinaldi had no knowledge
whatever--until he set eyes on him at the camp fire that night--of
Strangeways' presence in Africa. Was it, indeed, pure chance--or was
it, in truth, the subtle machinery of a remorseless fate--that induced
him to take the desert road south, by Boatlanama? It was a still
stranger accident--apparently--by which the mining party took the wrong
route north, and trekked by the same westerly road upon which the two
men had met. Accident--or inexorable retribution? That is a question I
often ask myself.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
QUEEN'S SERVICE.
It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon of a desperately hot October
day, 1899, in British Bechuanaland. The rains, although close at hand,
had not yet fallen. For the last twenty-four hours the weather had been
of that peculiarly oppressive kind, familiar in South Africa towards the
end of the dry season. The wind came from the heated north-west, laden
with the parched breath of a thousand miles of sun-scorched plains.
Yet, strangely enough, around the little English farmstead on the
Setlagoli River, the low forests of camelthorn acacia were, although
untouched by moisture, already putting forth greenery and fresh
leafage--even at this dire time of drought--against the coming of the
rains.
May Felton, a pleasant looking, brown-eyed girl of nineteen, came out on
the shadier side of the square, low, grass-thatched house, and stood
beneath the shelter of the veranda, her face held up a little towards
the air. She had come out for the third time within the hour to see if
some faint breath of fresher atmosphere might not be detected towards
sundown from out of that withering north-west breeze. Alas, there was
none! It meant, then, another night of stifling discomfort within
doors. The climate of this part of Bechuanaland is normally so clear,
so brilliant, and so exhilarating, save for the few weeks before the
summer rains, that this period of heat seems doubly trying to the
settlers. May Felton sighed, and looked around. She had a kettle on
the fire within doors, preparing against afternoon tea--a pleasant
thought in this depressing hour--and, meanwhile, looked about her for a
few minutes. The place seemed very dull. Her father and two brothers
had ridden off three days since, driving before them all their cattle
and goats, with the intention of placing the stock as far as possible
out of the reach of the Transvaal and Free State Boers, just then
raiding and free-booting across the border. Vryburg, some fifty miles
south, was practically defenceless, and lay, too, in the midst of a
Dutch farming population, already more than disaffected towards the
British Government. Mafeking, forty or fifty miles to the north, thanks
to Baden-Powell's energy and military talent, was in a good state of
defence, but was already practically invested by a strong Boer Commando.
May's father, John Felton, was well known and liked by many of the Dutch
farmers on either side of the border. But in the time of war and
stress, which he saw close upon him, he knew well enough that friendly
feelings would speedily give place to racial hatred, plunder, and
marauding. He had, therefore, carried off all his stock, with the
intention of putting them as far as possible beyond the grasp of raiding
Dutchmen, at a remote run on the edge of the Kalahari, nearly a hundred
miles away to the westward. This ranch belonged to an English
Afrikander friend of his, and he had every hope that there his cattle--a
goodly herd--and some hundreds of goats might be safe.
May looked round rather disconsolately upon the hot quiet landscape.
The acacia groves which girdled in the little homestead, behind the dry
river-bed, showed small signs of life. A grotesque hornbill sat in a
tree near, gasping under the heat, as these birds do, occasionally
opening its huge bill, crying "toc-toc," in a curious yelping tone,
opening its wings restlessly as if for air, and lowering its head. In a
bush, on the left hand, a beautiful crimson-breasted shrike occasionally
uttered a clear ringing note. Two hundred yards away, a scattered troop
of wild guinea-fowl, returning to the last remaining pool in the now
parched and sandy river-bed, after a day of digging for bulbs in the
woodlands, were calling to one another, with harsh metallic notes, "Come
back! Come back! Come back!"
May looked at the absurd hornbill, with its long yellow beak, and smiled
faintly. Just at that moment it seemed almost as much exertion as she
felt capable of in the withering heat. She leaned against one of the
posts supporting the veranda, her slim, shapely form expressing in its
listless attitude the relaxation of that melancholy hour. For two or
three minutes she stood thus listlessly, then, remembering the kettle
boiling within doors, bestirred herself and turned away. Just at that
moment there came a faint cry from among the camelthorn trees on the
right of the homestead. It sounded strangely like a man's voice. She
stood listening intently. In ten seconds the cry came again; this time
it seemed more faint.
The girl threw off her langour upon the instant. "Seleti!" she cried,
in a clear ringing voice, "Seleti, _Tlokwaan_!" (come here).
In two minutes Seleti, a Bechuana youth, clad in a ragged flannel shirt
and a pair of his master's discarded riding breeches, came shuffling
round. She spoke to him in Sechuana.
"Seleti," she said, "I heard some one calling in the trees there not
very far away. Go and look. Straight beyond that biggest tree there!"
The lad went off, walked two hundred yards into the woodland, becoming
lost amid the timber, and then his voice sounded back towards the house.
"Missie May! Missie May! Here is Engelsman. Come quick." Snatching
up a broad-brimmed straw hat from within doors, the girl went quickly in
Seleti's direction. In less than three minutes she was by his side,
among the trees and tall grass, leaning over the body of a young
sunburnt Englishman, which the Bechuana supported in his arms. The man
had no coat on, and May Felton saw at once, from the blood-stained
flannel shirt, that he was badly wounded, he looked just now so lifeless
that he might well be dead; yet the girl remembered that only a few
minutes before she had heard him call. She had plenty of courage, and,
young as she was, in that rough farming life amid the wilderness she was
accustomed, as a matter of course, to many things that a girl at home
would shrink from.
As she looked intently at the inert figure before her, she noted that
the man still breathed; once he groaned very softly. There was nothing
for it but to pick him up and carry him to the house. It was a heavy
task, but with May carrying him by the legs and Seleti supporting him
under the arms, they managed, with great exertion, to get him to the
stoep.
There they laid him down for a moment, while May ran indoors and fetched
out her mother.
As they came out to the stoep, bearing brandy and water, it was apparent
that the young man's wound had broken out afresh. Blood was slowly
soaking through the already blood-soddened shirt, and silently forming a
pool on the stone flooring. There was no time to be lost. They got him
to bed and washed and bound up his wound. A bullet had gone right
through the shoulder, making clear ingress and egress, but cutting some
vein in its passage, and he had lost evidently quite as much blood as he
could afford. Then they gave him brandy and water, and presently he
came round from his long faint. When he had had some soup and a little
bread later on, he was able to tell them something of his tale.
His name was James Harlow. He was a Volunteer under Lieutenant Nesbitt,
in an expedition in an armoured train, which had been turned over and
shelled at Kraaipan, on the border, some twenty miles away. After
keeping the attacking Boers at bay for several hours, things began to
look queer for the small British party. Nesbitt and a number of his men
were wounded, the Dutch were creeping up.
Nesbitt had a letter which he wanted delivered somehow at Vryburg. It
was urgent, and he gave it to Harlow to get away with and carry somehow
to its destination. Harlow crept away through the grass, but, just as
he thought he was getting out of range, and raised himself for a moment
to reconnoitre, a bullet pierced his left shoulder and laid him in the
dust. He rose presently and crawled on. Out of sight of the Boer
fighting men, he had got to his feet, and, notwithstanding his wound,
walked westward. A friendly native had given him a lift for twelve or
fourteen miles on a led horse, but, towards sundown, having sighted
three or four mounted men, had become alarmed and abandoned him. After
a miserable night, he had crept about--sometimes walking feebly,
sometimes moving on hands and knees--all that blazing day, trying to
find some house or farmstead. No water or food had touched his lips.
Towards evening, just as he had given up all hope, and sunk down
despairingly, he had set eyes on the Feltons' homestead through the
trees. His last remaining strength was ebbing from him--his
consciousness failing; but he raised two feeble shouts and then fell
senseless. The rest May and her mother knew.
"And now," said the poor fellow, with a painful grin at his own
weakness, "how am I to get my dispatch down to Vryburg? Somehow Mr
Tillard, the resident magistrate there, must have that letter by
to-morrow evening. I know it's important I doubt if I can ride
to-morrow. What's to be done?"
"Certainly you can't ride to-morrow; you couldn't sit a horse if you
tried; so don't think about it," said May, decidedly. "I scarcely know
what's to be done. Our two native boys are poor, trembling creatures,
scared at the mention of a Boer. I'll go myself. It's barely fifty
miles from here, and I know the road well."
"My dear May," put in her mother. "You couldn't think of such a thing.
Why you might be stopped by Boers. It's quite possible they will be
holding the old road by this time. I can't have you go, really!"
"My dear mother," returned the girl, with a bright look in her dancing
brown eyes. "I _must_ go. This letter has to be delivered. It is
probably of the greatest importance, and may even mean the safety of
Vryburg. You and father pride yourselves on being loyal subjects of the
Queen. You wouldn't have me hold back from so small a piece of service.
Why I can ride the distance easily on `Rocket' in eight hours, allowing
for off-saddles."
May was a girl accustomed to having her own way in the Feltons'
household, and so, with a sigh and a protest, her mother gave in and the
thing was settled.
At sunrise next morning, after looking in on the wounded trooper, who
had had a feverish night, May, kissing her mother tenderly, mounted her
chestnut pony and rode off. The precious dispatch, stained with
Harlow's blood, she had neatly sewn up in the inner part of her stays.
She carried with her in her saddle-bag some sandwiches, another letter,
requesting the Vryburg doctor to come up and see the wounded trooper,
and a water bottle full of limejuice and water hung from her saddle.
Pulling her broad-brimmed felt hat over her eyes, the girl cantered off
and was soon lost to view amid the woodlands.
She struck, in the first instance, by a rough track across country, for
the old post-road, running south from Setlagoli to Vryburg. Her good
pony sped along with free elastic strides, and at a steady pace they
reeled off mile after mile. It was hot, but not so oppressive as the
day before. Presently, cutting the old road, they pushed steadily on
beneath that aching void of sky above them--a sky of brass with just a
suspicion of palest blue far up in the zenith. Fifteen miles were
traversed and they stood at Jackal's Pan, a lonely little oasis on the
road, where they could off-saddle, and the horse could be watered.
Half an hour's rest, and then on again. The blazing ride now became
infinitely monotonous. From Jackal's Pan to the next stopping place,
Monjana Mabeli, the flat veldt road runs alongside the telegraph wires.
How sick May became of that gaunt, unending line of posts stretching
before her. She counted them--seventeen to the mile they went--oh! how
often! and then hated herself for having counted them.
No sign of life cheered her ride, save now and again a desert lark,
which rose suddenly from the grass, clapping its wings loudly, for
twenty or thirty feet, uttered an odd, sustained, single note, and sank
to earth again. May felt grateful even to the dull, speckled brown lark
for its presence; anything to break that wearisome monotony. Even her
good pony, "Rocket," seemed to feel the isolation, the endless void of
that mighty grass plain. He seemed depressed and dull. Still when his
mistress spoke to him and patted his neck, he pricked his ears gaily,
shook his bit, and reached out with never tiring stride.
At last! at last! May sighted in the distance the twin, rounded hills
of Monjana Mabeli, and in another three quarters of an hour had ridden
up to the farmhouse. Three waggons were outspanned there, and, before
she could realise her danger, the girl found herself in the centre of a
little knot of the Boers of the district, on their way to welcome their
brethren of the Transvaal, now raiding across the border. A quarter of
a mile away she had some thought of turning from the road to avoid the
outspan and its risks, but it was too late. She saw that she was
watched, that mounted men were ready for a pursuit, and so she judged it
better to go boldly on. The leader of the band interrogated her as to
her business. She produced her letter to the Vryburg doctor and stated
her mission. Her story was evidently only half believed, and she was
requested to step into the farmhouse and submit to be searched by the
Commandant's wife, a grim-looking Boer woman, who seemed quite in
earnest over her task. The door of the inner room being shut and
locked, May made the best of a hateful business, and, taking off some of
her things, let the woman search her. She could have struck with her
clenched fist that dull, emotionless face so close to hers, had she
dared, but it would not do. Neither would it do to appear backward.
Boldness might save her. She slipped off her stays and carelessly
offered them for the woman's inspection. The woman looked at them,
turned them over, and handed them back. The girl's heart, which had
stood still for a thrilling second or two, beat easily again. She had
triumphed. The missive, so cunningly hidden within her stays, still
reposed snugly in its hiding-place. Her wonderfully neat sewing had
passed muster. She was safe--safe, that is, if she could get away. The
search was at length over, and the Vrouw Erasmus, in a grumbling way,
expressed herself satisfied. As she buttoned the last button of her
holland riding bodice, May turned, with flashing eyes, upon her
tormentor. She spoke Cape Dutch fluently and her words told.
"I shall not forget your insulting search, Mevrouw Erasmus," she said,
"as long as I live. I know quite well who you are and where you come
from. You have made a big mistake. You think your people are going to
get the best of this war. You know nothing about the strength of
England. You don't know, and I suppose you won't believe until it is
too late, that the Queen of England will send out ten thousand men after
ten thousand, until your insolent attack is beaten down and put an end
to. When it is all over," she went on, in more cutting tones, "you will
look very foolish. You and your husband will lose your good farm here
in Bechuanaland, and what will you do then? Instead of being prosperous
on your own farm, under a good Government, you will become mere wretched
Trek Boers, without a morgen of land you can call your own. You really
ought to be ashamed of yourselves, coming out to fight against a
Government, which, here in British Bechuanaland, has done nothing but
good for you!"
The girl had better have held her tongue. Vrouw Erasmus was mad, her
huge, pallid face was flushed to a deep crimson.
"You schepsel!" she cried, "to speak to me, the wife of a good burgher,
like that! I have a mind to take a sjambok to you. You shall stay in
this house no longer. This is my man's farm now. You English never had
a right in the country, and the Burghers will in future enjoy the land.
Go you out, and sit there under the waggon shade, and keep a civil
tongue in your head!"
May was more than pleased; she had no wish at all to remain indoors.
She walked out to the nearest waggon, found her saddle, took her
sandwiches from the saddle-bag, and, with the help of her limejuice and
water, made a good lunch.
Meanwhile Vrouw Erasmus went up to her husband, who with the rest of the
Dutch farmers was saddling up for some expedition, and spoke earnestly
to him. She was evidently impressing commands, for in a minute or two
he came up to May and told her she was not to go for the present. She
would stay at the waggons till evening, when he and some of his men
would be back. Then he would see what should be done with her. May
protested, but unavailingly, and the big Dutchman moved away, mounted
his horse, and rode off with the rest of the Boers waiting for him.
In spite of her practical duress, there were two little gleams of
satisfaction radiating in the mind of the English girl. One of these
arose from the fact that there was not a single Dutchman left at the
camp; the other for the reason that she saw an instrument of release
lying almost ready to her hand. When Commandant Erasmus had taken down
his Mauser rifle from the inside of the waggon just in front of her, she
noted that he had left another weapon hanging on its hooks. From the
same hooks depended a bandolier, well filled with cartridges. There was
only one doubt in her mind. Did those cartridges fit the Martini-Henry
carbine hanging there? She was a courageous girl, quick-witted, and
knowing her own mind. If the cartridges were right, she meant to make a
bold stroke for freedom.
For half an hour she sat there, demurely enough, in the shade of the
waggon, now keeping an eye on the retreating forms of the Boer horsemen
disappearing westward, now looking at the grim, massive Boer woman
sitting under the shelter of a waggon sail on the far side of her
husband's waggon. At length the last Dutchman's head had vanished in
the warm distance.
It was very hot, and Vrouw Erasmus, sitting guard there over the English
girl, palpably dozed at her post. She had lately dined, and she was in
the habit of sleeping after the mid-day meal. Her eyes closed. May
rose, crept to the waggon, climbed softly to the box; in another second
she had taken down the carbine from its hooks, slung the bandolier over
her shoulder, opened the breech of the weapon and pushed in a cartridge.
Thank Heaven it fitted! She was safe! The click of the breech action
roused the sleeping woman. She opened her eyes, looked across to the
other waggons, her prisoner was gone! She rose hastily, came forward,
and there, on the voor-kist of her own waggon was this terrible English
girl, pointing her husband's carbine at her. She retreated a few paces
at the apparition.
"Now, Mevrouw Erasmus," said May, smilingly, in Dutch, "it is my turn.
See, this carbine is loaded,"--she opened the breech, took out the
cartridge and replaced it, and snapped the action to again. "I know how
to use a rifle, and I mean to shoot if you try to hinder me. Your
`boys' are all away in the veldt with the trek oxen. I heard your man
say so. I know there is only that one Griqua lad about, and I am not
afraid of him. Remember, I shoot if I am interfered with."
The woman was paralysed at the audacity of her prisoner. She could do
nothing. She looked across the empty plain and then at the ragged
Griqua herd lad, sitting there on his heels at the ashes of the fire,
scraping out a cooking pot with a piece of wood, and grinning at the mad
English girl, and she found no help. There was not another gun handy;
nor, if there were, did she know whether, with this formidable,
accursed, well-armed girl, she or the boy would dare to lay hold of it.
She muttered something very unpleasant between her teeth, and then spoke
aloud, in her sourest tones, to May Felton.
"Have your own way," she said, "I cannot prevent you. What do you
want?"
"I mean to saddle up and be off," returned May, in her most angelic
voice, "I know, dear Mevrouw Erasmus, that you hate English company, and
as I don't approve of your husband having so many weapons about him in
these troublous times, I am going to take this rifle and these
cartridges with me. They belong fairly--considering that your man is
playing a traitor's game--to the British Government."
Vrouw Erasmus took a step forward, as if she would have made for the
girl, but, as May raised her weapon, thought better of it. Once in her
huge arms, she could have easily mastered the girl, but the risk was too
great.
"If you take the gun," she said, threateningly, "it is stealing, and if
we catch you again we shall try you under Transvaal law. We are all
Transvaalers now, or shall be directly," she added, triumphantly.
"There you are quite wrong, dear mevrouw," returned May, in her sweetest
tones. "Now if you had behaved nicely and politely, as I know you can
do, I might, yes, really, I think I might have returned the gun. But
you know perfectly well that it is fairly forfeited, and I shall hand it
over to the resident magistrate at Vryburg."
Vrouw Erasmus ground her teeth again, shook her head, and growled
dissent. How she hated this bantering English girl.
"Now, mevrouw," pursued May, "if you will seat yourself nicely under the
tent-sail there, and if your boy remains quietly where he is, I shall do
you no injury."
The vrouw sat down heavily on her waggon chair, with an air of gloomy
resignation. There was nothing to be done. May went to her pony, which
stood tied up to the waggon wheel, and still holding her carbine and
keeping a watchful eye on her two guardians, picked up her saddle,
adjusted it, girthed up, and put on the bridle. Then she mounted and
rode off at a smart canter.
"Farewell, dear Mevrouw Erasmus," she cried as she went. "We'll take
great care of the carbine; don't forget to give my compliments to your
husband."
The Boer woman waited till she had gone a hundred yards or more, and
then roused the Griqua lad. "Get a rifle and cartridges," she cried,
pointing to the house. "Indoors, yonder. Quick, you schelm!"
The lad rose and went indoors, none too willingly, and brought out a
sporting rifle and a cartridge belt.
"Put in a cartridge and shoot, you fool," shrieked the enraged vrouw,
pointing to the retreating figure. "Hit the horse! Hit the girl; stop
them somehow!" The Griqua lad put in a cartridge and raised the rifle.
The girl was now two hundred and fifty yards away, galloping fast.
"No, mevrouw," he said, lowering the gun again, "you can sjambok me, but
I can't fire. If I hit her, it's murder, and I daren't do it."
Speechless almost with rage, the woman struck him in the face with her
hand.
"You dog," she shouted. "By the Almighty, you shall suffer for this."
Meanwhile May Felton was speeding along over the eighteen miles of veldt
road that led her to Vryburg and comparative safety. (It was before
Vryburg had been surrendered.) She galloped it in one piece, and,
thanks to her good pony, compassed the distance in rather more than two
hours, having ridden close on fifty miles since dawn.
Arrived at Vryburg, she delivered her dispatch, together with the
captured rifle and cartridges, to the resident magistrate, receiving his
hearty congratulations in return. Next day, accompanied by the doctor,
and a couple of policemen, she started for home again. Making a long
detour, and avoiding Monjana Mabeli, they reached her father's homestead
just at sunset.
CHAPTER TWELVE.
A TRANSVAAL MORNING.