A week went by, and Thornhill got an answer to his letter. His son
could not possibly get away just then. His partner was seriously ill,
and as for business--why, if not as brisk as might be wished, there was
quite enough of it to keep one man's hands full. He was awfully sorry,
but would take a run down as soon as ever he could break away. So wrote
Hyland.
Thornhill was bitterly disappointed. He seemed to feel it far more than
he had thought it possible for him to do. He would have given much at
that juncture to have had the boy at his side, he told himself. He felt
very isolated, very much alone. Edala, though now and then she broke
out into fits of playfulness--and these, he suspected, were, more often
than not, forced--yet kept up a sort of dutiful reserve towards him.
There was no spontaneity in her affection, even when any sign of
possession of any such sentiment did appear. Well, ingratitude was
ingrained in the female. No one had better reason to realise that than
himself.
And this unknown relative who had written to announce her being--nothing
more had been heard of--or from--her. He had expected a wire by return
notifying her start, but a week had gone by, ten days, then a fortnight
and no wire, not even a letter. Did every member of the feminine
persuasion imagine that the universe was built for her sole convenience?
was his comment upon the omission to Edala.
The latter suggested that the telegram might have been twisted into a
wrong meaning by some chuckle-headed operator; would it not be as well
to send another? But her father was in no mood for doing anything of
the kind.
"I don't believe in that theory," he said. "Here's a feminine person
who writes to know if I can take her in. I reply post haste that I can
and welcome, and I hear no more about it. Well, she can stop away if
she prefers it. I'm not going routing around to beseech her to come."
Edala answered that she didn't care either way. As a matter of fact
though enthusiastic enough on the arrival of the unknown's letter the
thing had hung fire. And then, deep down in her innermost mind lay
another reason. She would not have admitted it even to herself, but it
was there for all that and--it spelt Elvesdon.
The latter had been a good deal over at Sipazi. He was an excellent and
astute official, but somehow, while neglecting none of his duties, he
had found time and opportunity to make frequent visits, and he was
always welcome. Thornhill and his daughter treated him, in fact, as if
they had known him all their lives, which caused him intense
satisfaction.
He was interested in this girl--indeed by that time powerfully
attracted. The fair refined face, the straight fearless eyes, the smile
that would light up the whole expression, the merry peal of spontaneous
laughter--all this had an effect upon him that was inexpressibly
bewitching. He had never seen anyone like her before--no, not in the
least like her. That picture of her, standing erect, wide-eyed and
fearless, waiting to be of use in the struggle with the monster serpent,
had never even begun to fade in his mind. She was grand.
Towards himself Edala for her part was undoubtedly attracted. She
looked forward to his visits, and greeted him with unfeigned pleasure
when he appeared. He talked so well, and never failed to interest and
amuse her. He had been about and had seen so much, and moreover there
was a subtle suggestion of strength about him that appealed to her
vividly. To most of her male acquaintance Edala assumed a sort of
unconscious attitude of stiffening up. The youthful side of it
represented to her so many puppies whose eyes had yet to open; the more
mature side so many prigs who bored or patronised her. This man did
neither. He neither talked up to her, nor down--she would have despised
him for the first and resented him for the second. He simply treated
her as a rational being with a full share of intelligence and ideas--and
no surer road could he have taken towards her approval.
Having said so much it is not surprising that Edala's feelings as
regarded her new relative's proposed visit should, by this time, have
undergone some degree of modification. This stranger--of whose very
outward appearance she was entirely ignorant--might conceivably prove
one too many, the more so that the stranger was what her father had just
described as "a member of the feminine persuasion." She was not in the
least in love with Elvesdon; she was far too evenly balanced to let
herself go like that at such short notice. But she felt a strong
proprietary interest in him as a friend worth having; wherefore in the
background lurked that cloud of half unconscious jealousy. Yet that
very jealousy itself ought to have warned her.
Thornhill, watching developments, was anything but displeased. As a
Civil servant Elvesdon was not likely to amass wealth, but he was a good
official and likely to get on. His personal opinion of the man we have
already set forth, and it he had seen no reason to modify. If the
present excellent understanding between him and Edala came to anything
more permanent, why so much the better.
A fortnight had gone by since Manamandhla's craving for beef had so
nearly brought that enterprising savage to an untimely end: and the Zulu
had been comfortably dwelling on the place ever since and showed not the
smallest symptom of moving. He made a show of helping here and there,
as an excuse for drawing his--plentiful--rations, nor was he ever out of
snuff, and he frequently enjoyed other luxuries. But for all this he
knew he was living on a volcano.
Thornhill was getting desperate. For hours he would lie awake at night
devising some scheme for ridding himself of his oppressor. If only that
plan had been carried out on the mountain that day! If only old Patolo
had arrived upon the scene half a minute later! It was no murder, he
decided. A blackmailer was a pest to the human race. Extermination was
only the just fate of such. This one was robbing him of his peace,
therefore his destruction was as nothing to the price he had paid to
purchase that peace. One day Manamandhla said:
"_Nkose_, my brother's son is paying _lobola_ for a girl, over there, in
Zululand. He still needs two cows to complete the price, but the son of
a richer man has offered one cow and a goat beyond the price he can pay.
Shall he not therefore have the two cows--as _Nkose_ has known me so
long and is as our father?"
The outrageous impudence of this demand hardly surprised Thornhill, who,
of course, was fully aware that the needs of the `brother's son' did not
exist. He gazed fixedly at the Zulu for some moments and the faces of
both men were like stone.
"I think I will give you the two cows, Manamandhla, but you can take
them away yourself and--not come back. Do you hear--not come back?"
The speaker's expression was savage and threatening. He felt cornered.
"_Au_! Not come back?" repeated the Zulu, softly.
"Not come back. Go all over the world, but this place is the most
deadly dangerous spot in it--for you. I solemnly advise you not to
return to it. This evening I will give you the two cows--for your
brother's son's _lobola_"--he interpolated with a sneer, "and you can go
back to Zululand and stay there."
"_Nkose_!"
This conversation took place at the back of the house and the concluding
remarks were overheard by Edala. She had never heard her father's voice
raised in that tone for many years, and now as she connected the
circumstance a dreadful suspicion came into her mind. This Zulu knew
too much, and now he was being bribed and threatened in about equal
proportions in order in induce him to make himself scarce. Her father's
reply that the man was useful, had struck her as hollow and half-hearted
at the time it was made.
"I have a bit of good news for you, child," said Thornhill that evening.
"Your aversion, Manamandhla, is going--if he hasn't already gone."
"A good thing too," answered the girl, to whom it was no news. "I hope
you won't let him come back."
"I think not," said Thornhill, with a dry laugh. "We have had enough of
each other."
Edala had been observing the change in her father of late, and now she
studied him more closely than ever. The harassed, worried look that had
been upon him had suddenly dropped off; simultaneously with the
departure of Manamandhla--she did not fail to observe. He became his
old calm, even-minded self. But a week later the Zulu returned.
"I would like to serve _Nkose_ a little longer," was his tranquil
explanation, when tackled by Thornhill. The latter looked at him in
silence for a few minutes. To the Zulu this deliberation gave no
anxiety.
"You can stay then," was the reply, uttered grimly.
"_Nkose_ is my father. He will care for me. Were I dead there are two
others, two of my own blood, who know that there are `mouths' on Sipazi
which swallow up men--who know which one it is that gives not back that
which it swallows--but yet that which it swallows could be brought back
with long lines. And I--_whau_, I know of one of these `mouths' which
gives back that which it swallows, but gives them back lame for the rest
of life."
Here was a contingency that had clean escaped Thornhill's calculations.
However, he showed no sign of being perturbed by the statement. Was it
true? A little reflection convinced him that in all probability it was
not. Manamandhla would never be such a fool as to share a momentous
secret--a, to him, valuable secret--with another, let alone with two
others. But he would pretend to believe it, all the same; so would the
blackmailer be thrown the more off his guard.
"Did your brother's son succeed with the additional two cows,
Manamandhla?" he said, airily, taking no notice of the Zulu's last
remark.
"Nearly. Not quite. It is in the air still. _Nkose_, two more would
complete the _lobola_, for the girl is fine and much sought after, and
her father--_whau_! he is miserly and loves cattle much."
"Yet I think one more will content him. We will talk further about it."
And Thornhill laughing to himself turned away.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So we have got that beast back again? I thought he had gone for good,"
said Edala, her straight, clear glance full on her father's face.
"Meaning Manamandhla? So did I, but I don't think he'll stay long--no,
not long."
Still she kept her glance upon him, and though the words were spoken
easily, naturally, and without any outward intonation of significance,
it seemed to Thornhill that the girl read his thoughts, his intent.
She, like himself, could school her face, yet not altogether. Its
expression now seemed to reveal horror, loathing, repulsion--yet not for
Manamandhla. Reading it, something moved him to say:
"I have been thinking things over, Edala, and perhaps, after all, I can
see my way towards letting you carry out your cherished wish--that of
going to Europe to study art seriously. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
She made no answer. He had expected her to brighten up at the
suggestion.
"You are not happy here, and I--well perhaps I am getting more than a
little tired of living in an atmosphere of chronic suspicion and
repulse. And yet, child, the time may come--and come too late--when you
will bitterly regret the care of a father who has been to you as very
few fathers within my experience have ever been to their children--in
fact, I can hardly recall the case of one. But there--ingratitude is
only to be expected, in fact nothing else could be under all the
circumstances."
This with intense bitterness. His self control had momentarily broken
down. The girl, who had begun to soften, grew hard again.
"I don't know that I've anything to be so thankful and appreciative
over--under all the circumstances," she said, with a scathing emphasis
on the echo of his words. He looked at her fixedly, sadly.
"Not now, but that will come. That will come--perhaps when it is too
late."
His tone was quiet, and there was a sad conviction of prophecy in the
words that again softened her--almost frightened her--as he turned away.
In a moment a huge impulse moved her to go after him and declare that
she had no wish whatever to leave him; that she would give no thought in
the world to any consideration but himself; that she had been horribly
hard and ungrateful and selfish; but assuredly some demoniacal influence
was floating in the air just then, for the impulse passed. And her
father, too, was striving to harden his heart. Why not? A man never
ceased to gain in experience of life and human nature even if he lived
to a hundred; and he himself was only in his prime. Why then break his
heart over that which was only to have been expected?
By an effort he dismissed the subject from his mind. The latter then
reverted to the subject of Manamandhla, and the result of his
meditations boded no good to that ill-advised Zulu.