make some coin in Mashonaland, and you stay at home and pull in a bit.
We shall be better friends when I come back. Somehow this town life
doesn't suit either of us. We hit it off a thousand times better when
we lived at the Grange."
He rose and lit a cigarette.
"I'll settle up all outstanding things," he went on; "and if you stay in
town you'll have to do with one pony for riding, and hire a Victoria
when you want it I should advise your staying with your mother for six
months. She'll be delighted to have you and the youngster."
"I can't part with either Dandy or The Barber," returned Sybil hotly,
"and you really needn't bother me as to my movements. I can take care
of myself very well during your absence."
Thirlmere glanced at his wife. She was not looking his way, her
thoughts ran elsewhere. He was extremely fond of her, and, at this
moment, just as he was about leaving her, she looked, he thought, more
charming than ever. He went to her side, stooped, and kissed her soft
cheek. The caress was accepted with something very like indifference.
"Very well, old girl," he said. "Don't worry yourself. I know you are
right enough. You have plenty of wits and abounding common sense. Give
up some of the crowd you are swimming with. I dare say when I'm gone
you'll make a change and pull in. I don't demand it. I hope it, and
expect it, from your good sense, and I know you as well as you know
yourself."
"There, don't preach, Charlie," replied his wife. "I'm awfully busy
this morning. Do go and look after your own work. If you're off to
Rhodesia, you must have heaps to do."
Thirlmere quitted the room, and Sybil breathed a sigh of relief.
Two months after this morning in March, Charlie Thirlmere was in
Mashonaland, wandering about the country in the company of a mining
prospector, shooting and exploring. They had for months very little
success. Most of the likely spots for gold had been already pegged out
by their forerunners. They returned to Salisbury and fitted out an
expedition for the Zambesi Valley. They were away seven months,
discovered indications of a coalfield, and then, on their way into
Salisbury again, stumbled, within fifty miles of the town, upon a strong
gold reef. It was in a broad, rich-looking valley, of romantic beauty,
well-wooded in parts with acacia, Kaffir orange, and other trees, and
hemmed in by massive granite kopjes--huge masses of rock, strewn as if
by the hands of giants--with a pleasant little river, fringed with
palmetto, meandering beneath the rock-walls. So rich, apparently, was
the reef, that they pegged out at once, procured some native labour,
built a couple of huts, and, sending into Salisbury for dynamite, roping
and windlass, and fresh implements, determined to camp for some months,
and go in for a systematic opening up of the reef.
The weeks ran by. The hot season, the second since Thirlmere had left
England, was approaching. Already the rains were upon them, and they
had begun to experience some of the miseries of living under constant
tropical downpours in leaky native huts, thatched carelessly with grass
by lazy Mashonas. Yet the mine prospects were so good that they hung
on.
It was now December. They had sent in a native servant with their last
remaining donkey to bring out supplies and some few luxuries, and
awaited his return impatiently. They had reached the valley with four
donkeys, the poor remnants of their long Zambesi string; but lions,
which were troublesome and daring, had killed three, as well as their
sole remaining horse. The camp was very quiet, only two or three native
workers were with them, and from these they extracted precious little
labour at their shafts and other operations. John Brightling, a Cornish
miner, a capital fellow, Thirlmere's constant companion in his
prospecting operations for a full year past, was down with fever.
Thirlmere himself was feeling none too fit, but was still well enough to
tend his sick comrade.
Night fell. It was a dark night, with no moon, and a threatening of
heavy rain. Charlie Thirlmere had had a fire kindled between the two
huts--their own and the natives'--but at nine o'clock, a drenching
thunderstorm, which came roaring and reverberating with fierce
lightnings and deafening re-echoes among the kopjes, effectually put an
end to it, Brightling had felt better towards night. After a day of
racking pain, the sweating stage had reached him; his head was clear,
the fever had left him, and he had been able to sup some of the
game-broth that Thirlmere had prepared for him. He was now sleeping
quietly.
At ten, Charlie heard the moaning roar of lions not far away. Shortly
after followed the sharp, dissonant yells of the Mashonas from their
hut, fifty yards distant. Lions were abroad, plainly. Thirlmere opened
the hut door and fired a couple of cartridges, by way of scaring off the
night prowlers. Then he lay down on his skin couch, pulled his blanket
over him, and dozed off.
How soon afterwards it was he could never tell, but he was awakened in
the black darkness by hearing some noise at the door of the hut. He
picked up his loaded carbine, and went softly that way. Gently lifting
the latch, he opened the door and peered out. Almost in the same
instant, his left hand, which was thrust a little forward, was seized in
the jaws of some savage creature, armed with frightful teeth. With a
yell that leapt from rock to rock of the quiet valley, and seemed to
split the very darkness, the unfortunate man lifted his carbine and
belaboured the brute that held him fast, fiercely about the head. But
the lion--for such it was--held on grimly, chewing, and crunching, and
tugging hard at the hand now gripped so ruthlessly in those ferocious
jaws. During this frightful struggle Thirlmere felt, curiously enough,
little of actual physical pain. He was conscious of some sudden shock,
just such as he remembered from a heavy fall in hunting; but, chiefly,
his mind was concentrated in a determination to free himself at all
hazards from his captor. He ceased hitting the brute with his carbine,
and instinctively poked at the lion's head with the muzzle end.
Suddenly he encountered something soft. It was the brute's eye. His
forefinger slipped from the trigger-guard to the trigger itself and
pulled. The bullet crashed deep into the lion's brain, and upon the
instant the fierce creature fell dead at his feet, dragging him to earth
in its fall. Then his mind reeled into unconsciousness and he
remembered no more.
Three minutes later, John Brightling, who had started from his bed of
fever at the sound of Charlie's yell and the report of the rifle, had
lit a lantern, and was outside. He could scarcely believe his senses
when he found, just beyond the doorway, the body of the dead lion, with
his comrade's senseless form lying across the grim beast's forelegs, his
left hand still imprisoned in that terrible grip.
Rousing the trembling natives from the adjacent hut, John, after some
trouble, succeeded in prising open the huge teeth, forcing the jaws
apart, and releasing the mangled hand--or rather, what remained of it.
For the lion had bitten three parts of that member from the rest of the
limb. They got Thirlmere into the hut; and then, while he lay still
insensible, Brightling tied a ligature tightly round the wrist, trimmed
off the ghastly wound, washed the poor maimed stump, and wrapped it in
linen. Then he administered a stiff dose of brandy and water, and
Thirlmere presently began to come round. In a little while he had
pulled himself together wonderfully, and they discussed the situation.
It would take two days at least to get the doctor from Salisbury; and
they had no carbolic, meanwhile, to keep the wound sweet. What was to
be done? A pot of liquid pitch stood in one corner of the hut. Into
that they inserted the still bleeding stump, and bound up the wound
again. It seemed the only thing to be done, rude and barbarous as was
the precaution. At the first streak of dawn they despatched the
fleetest among their native boys, with an urgent letter to Salisbury for
help. Fired by the promise of two sovereigns on his return, the man set
off at a steady jog-trot, vowing he would be in at the township that
evening. By eleven o'clock next day Brightling was down again in a hot
fit of malaria, while Charlie Thirlmere lay in his corner, feeling the
fever of his wound coursing through his veins and mounting to his brain.
Presently he wandered in a delirium; strange shapes and scenes passed
before his distempered mind; his tongue rambled. He called incessantly
for Sybil. So the two men lay: the hours passing on leaden wings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
And Sybil herself was near. For a month or two after her husband's
departure for Africa, she had led pretty much her old whirling life of
pleasure and excitement. Then things began to pall a little, and she
took breath and thought. After all, without Charlie, life seemed
somehow different. She missed him in a thousand ways. Even Cecil
Cloudesley began to seem empty and inane, and, after all, horseflesh and
the society of smart people have their limitations. By the time
Goodwood was reached Sybil had made up her mind. She had been chiefly
to blame; she would try and do something for dear old Charlie, grinding
in the hot sun, in some horribly uninteresting place, out there in
Rhodesia. She sold off her ponies, gave up the flat, went down to her
mother's, and announced that she and her child had come to stay for six
months. The stay resolved itself into much more than that period. A
year and more went by; Sybil wrote often to Charlie, but, during his
long absence towards the Zambesi, very few letters of his reached her.
She became more and more uneasy, and presently, hearing at last that he
had settled for a time near Salisbury, she determined to go out to him.
Persuading her brother to accompany her, the pair sailed for Cape Town,
trained thence to Mafeking (the then limit of the railway), and made
their way by road to Salisbury. As fortune willed it, they reached that
place early in December, and made preparations to take Charlie Thirlmere
by storm. Their Cape cart and a buggy were loaded up with a supply of
good things, and they were to start at daybreak next morning. Late that
evening the Salisbury doctor came round to their hotel with a grave
face. He had had serious news of Thirlmere by a native runner; an
accident had happened; could he accompany them early next morning?
The matter was urgent; they set off with four horses in each trap, two
hours before sun-up, and, travelling rapidly, reached Charlie
Thirlmere's hut soon after three o'clock. Right or wrong, Sybil could
not, would not, be gainsaid. She slipped down, ran to the hut, and,
standing at the open door, looked at her husband lying there, drawn,
pale, and dishevelled, in the corner. All her heart leaped out to him.
He was conscious, and knew her.
"Sybil!" he cried feebly. "Where in God's name have you sprung from?"
"My darling old boy," she returned, kneeling at his side, and kissing
him tenderly, "it is I, surely enough, come to nurse you and get you
well, and," (she whispered in his ear) "never to let you go again, my
husband."
She kissed him again and again, and then the doctor came forward. It
was a very near thing. Another dozen hours or so, and mortification
would have set in. They amputated above the wrist, and, after a most
anxious and most miserable time, pulled Charlie Thirlmere through
towards Christmas. He lost his left hand, it is true; but, as he always
says, it was cheap at the price of his subsequent happiness.
They sold the gold claims excellently well, and the Thirlmeres now live
the happiest of lives in a pleasant English country home. No two
married people can be more devoted, or faster friends and comrades. One
of the most treasured mementoes of their African days stands in their
big, cosy hall. It is the grim, white skull of the lion, whose grinning
teeth so nearly ended Charlie Thirlmere's existence.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The End.