The scene was a mission station once more, but a different sort
of interest appeared to be paramount in this busy station, other
than plain Evangelism. This was a Lutheran Mission, used now
in time of war as a collecting centre for the rice of the
countryside. The foreboding of Isaka's teacher had come but too
true. When Isaka had been telling him (on the day after the great
day) his dream of the White Horse and his Rider, he had read to
him the story of other horses and other riders out of Saint
John's Vision. And his face had grown troubled as he added, 'We
have proved what the riding of the black horse means here in this
mission of ours. Do you remember years ago how the rains were
short here, and how the people went hungry afterwards? And now
there are clouds in the sky clouds not of rain. Will the Red
Horse be ridden, as some prophesy? I seem to see him with the bit
in his teeth spurred by his rider our way. Pray, Isaka, I beseech
you, that the Red Horse and his rider be turned in their road.'
And he told Isaka something of what he meant, also something of
what that riding might mean to them all. And he would have Isaka
pray, and his schoolmates pray also. And they prayed, but for all
that this mad rider came galloping, the rider of whom Saint John
wrote, 'And there went out another horse that was red; and power
was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth,
and that they should kill one another: . . .'
It was nearly a year now since that morning Isaka remembered so
well, when the White Horse was ridden his way. Once again when
awaked.
Isaka, Kadona, was not sure if he was dreaming, but this time the
main reason for doubt was that things seemed too bad rather than
too good to be true, things that had come or were coming, upon
the earth. Nearly a year ago now the news of the riding of the
Red Horse had come. Europe was in a horrible temper, and Africans
must do as usually, not what they wanted to do, but what Europe
bade. Isaka's English teacher must leave his school or his
liberty, he must either run away or stay fast in the Government's
hands a Government that was fighting England. He chose to remain,
hoping to help Isaka and others, but he had very little power on
earth left to him. For a little while he was allowed to stay in
his old home, and the school began to be broken up only little by
little. Then the pace quickened; some were drafted off as
porters, some as soldiers, some were allowed to stay and
cultivate for the Government. Its local officials' tempers
had apparently not improved with its troubles. None on this
alien mission within its borders were liable to be accounted
trustworthy, all were liable to suspicion. Yet Isaka worked on
happily for a while. When his teacher was moved to a place of
internment he was allowed to keep one body servant. He invited
Isaka to come, and Isaka came right willingly. He might have been
passed by, and the choice lain among others, but his teacher
asked him as the first choice of all, if he would come with him?
Was it likely that he would refuse?
Then suspicion fell upon Isaka in a day of rebuke and blasphemy.
Probably he was to blame, probably he said more than he should
have said, probably he did not recognize how well off he was.
Anyhow the blow fell, and he was to be envied no longer, as he
had been.
He was beaten rather mercilessly, and taken to be a Government
porter in a district far away. The tears came into his teacher's
eyes when he bade Isaka farewell; his own captivity was
wearisome, he was beginning to feel his age now; also this boy
had been as a son to him.
It was all like an evil dream, this war, so fecund of death and
parting among friends, this riding of the Red Horse that had
haunted Isaka's visions of the night. The light was just coming
when he awaked from them at the German Mission Station. He was
loath and slow to unroll himself from his one torn blanket and to
step out of it. But someone kicked him angrily, and then needs
must. He had come on these last days ever so many miles, and
carried a full load. He struggled up stiffly, and crept to the
little fire that two of his fellows were heaping and lighting
while they chattered together. They were tribesmen of a district
far from his own. One was telling a story of how their white
masters with native soldiers had raided, a village. The other,
whose village it was, full-stopped the story with grunts or
deprecations. There had been some throats cut. Folk had been
bidden to lie down, so the teller said; they had lain down as for
the lash, but they had been paid in cold steel. Isaka listened
dazedly. The end of his Christian era seemed to have come as
suddenly and unexplainedly as the end of his Pagan era. His
teacher had preached 'love,' 'love,' 'love,' with Pauline
iteration, and not a little self-repetition. His teacher had
taught that war was an unclean thing haunting the heathen world,
and lurking in the blackness of Pagan villages. His teacher had
deprecated violence; it was his rule never to strike, nor ever to
rule by such fear as cast out love.
Now, an askari (a native soldier) came up to the three, and he
was storming furiously. He laid on his lash right and left. Isaka
did not escape. They were to carry their loads at once, it was
said, by forced marches to a rice mill at the lakeside. In
another five minutes the big train of porters took the road, and
spread itself like a serpent up the trackway. Isaka was the
twentieth or the twenty-first in their advance. I do not think
that his illness which was to show itself in a day or two, was
really manifest on that day. Yet he went very heavily. Such
maladies were certainly upon him as a poet has diagnosed, 'blank
misgivings of a Creature moving about in worlds half realized.'
The ridings of Red and White Horses had so fast succeeded one
another in Isaka's circle, and had brought such different worlds
and atmospheres in their respective wakes!