beginning to shake again. "It now jumps after them from one tree to
another," and then they both spluttered insanely, and Diana joined in
because it was so infectious, and Ailsa called them all ridiculous
children who ought to be given a sweetie and tucked up in bed.
A little later the cavalcade got under way, and Grenville and his wife
stood waving to them somewhat sorrowfully from their wilderness home.
"They are dear people," Ailsa said; and added, "O, Billy, if Major
Carew would but come out of his shell and love Meryl!... I am sure she
cares for him ... and she is so sweet ... and he--O, he is just like a
figure of stone."
Grenville pinched her ear affectionately. "Little matchmaker! No one
by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature; and no one by just
wishing it, I am inclined to think, can influence the little god Cupid
whither he will aim his arrow. Perhaps, perhaps not; that is all there
is to say ever."
The next morning after a very early breakfast, the travellers started
on their way to Enkeldorn _en route_ for Salisbury. And at the top of
the valley, whither they walked to save the mules, both girls stood
and turned for a long last look at the grey walls of the ancient
temple, lying in a soft haze of morning mists. It seemed to Meryl it
had never held a deeper fascination, a stronger allurement. Just those
old, old walls, and the soft enfolding mists which must have enfolded
them even so for perhaps three thousand years. The red of sunrise was
still in the sky, for Mr. Pym was an early starter, and it tinged the
mist with a soft flush where the sun's rays had not yet lit a clearer
light.
"It was good to come," said Diana simply. "I have to thank you for
it."
But Meryl only smiled in response. She had nothing to say. She felt
she was leaving behind with the ruins the best memory her life would
ever hold. Then they climbed into the ambulance waiting for them, said
"good-bye" charmingly to the lonely dwellers at the store and hotel,
with whom they had had some pleasant chats, drinking tea and admiring
the lovely view from their delightful huts, and went clattering away
down the road, their faces turned to the north.
And in the valley they left behind there was desolation.
Carew arrived back at his quarters, grim and taciturn, in the evening,
to find Stanley looking a veritable image of disconsolate hopelessness
in spite of Moore's persistent droll badinage.
"O, what did they want to come for," he groaned, "if they had to go
away again?"
"Faith!..." said the astute Irishman. "Did ye ask either of them to
share your little wooden hut?..."
But The Kid paid no attention. As Carew stood a moment beside him,
filling a pipe, with a cold, expressionless face, the youngster
glanced up with a momentary gleam, and remarked, "Eh, sir? But women
are the devil, aren't they?"
Carew said nothing; but with a low chuckle Moore ejaculated, "Come,
give the divil a chance; we find him very accommodating sometimes in
auld Erin."
Stanley got up and stretched himself. "Days and weeks of desolation
now," he moaned; "and we were so happy and content before. Moore, old
chap"--giving that harmless individual a smack on the back that nearly
knocked him over--"yours was the wise choice when we spoke of gifts
from heaven. I said, 'Give me millionairesses,' and you, with the
wisdom of the ages, said, 'Give me whisky.' I'll take a little now and
hope for the best."
And still Carew said nothing. The pipe was filled and he slowly lit
it. Then unexpectedly he tapped it with light significance. "This is
the best friend of all," he said, and went away into his hut.
Stanley glanced after him a moment with a curious expression.
"Gad!..." he murmured. "Was our bronze image a bit hit too? He looks
fierce enough and stern enough to be resenting a dent."
In the meantime the travellers reached the Charter Flats, and decided
to camp there for the night. They had travelled for some time along
the sandy tracts, enjoying the sense of space all around and the wide
horizons, and both Mr. Pym and the girls were loth to hurry away. It
is customary to dread these wide sandy tracts, and either hurry across
them or avoid them; but to these city-dwellers their vast calm held a
deep allurement; for though only scrub and sand stretched from horizon
to horizon, with occasional little strips of stunted trees, the clear
southern atmosphere lent a lovely effect of light and shade and
colour. Many large patches here and there were blackened with veldt
fires, but these in the distance formed delicate shadings that
enhanced the charm of a strip of yellow sand or young green grass or
purple-shadowed wilderness. It was like a world that contained only a
colour scheme; no dwellings, no humans, no landmarks, no hills and
valleys, no roads: just delicate shadings and haze as far as the eye
could see, with no clear line between earth and heaven. They might
have been looking over the edge of the world into a delicately tinted
space, so boundless it seemed, so unfathomable, so remote. They
pitched their camp on a little rising ground, near a slow meandering
stream that crept lazily across the miniature desert. And when the
dusk came down the effect was more unusual still, for the flats are on
high ground, and the heavens seem to stoop down all round, hanging a
dark curtain, decorated with brilliant stars, on every side. Across
all the world no sign of human life, no sound; only vast emptiness
everywhere--above, around, below; and for companions, worlds and suns
and solar systems.
It is a scene in which a man may seem to get very close to his God;
not a remote, incomprehensible Deity, dwelling vaguely beyond the
stars, but a Presence that is in the breathing silence and the velvety
deeps at hand. And a man may meet himself there also; not the aping,
grinning, chattering mask of a personality custom more or less compels
him to wear in the crowd, but the hidden, mysterious being, conscious
of a soul beyond his ken, that in such quiet hours desires eternally
some goal, some good, afar off. The indestructible, incomprehensible,
infinite hunger, that lies as a germ in every human heart and is man's
best attribute, in that it raises him for ever incontestably above the
beasts that perish, and stands serene and steadfast as the Rock of
Ages, the one barrier past which the materialists and the scientists
cannot go: the divine spark within the human, which no theory can
account for and no learning of sage or cynic obliterate.
The travellers sat round a glowing fire, for the night air was keen
and cold; and much that is inevitably disturbing in the friction of
daily being and daily doing seemed to fall away from them and cease to
exist for that one wonderful night. And the next day, when the small
black attendant brought their early tea and opened wide the tent-flap
to a brilliant morning, yet another picture awaited them. This time it
was a world decked with enormous diamonds. Tall, sparse grasses leant
over and whispered to each other outside the tent, and every ear and
every seed was hung with a lovely brilliant dewdrop. Out beyond was
that same vague, remote, fathomless horizon, painted now with
wonderful rose tints, where the rising sun caught the lingering mists
and merged the dark streaks of blackened veldt into the general scheme
with a softness of shading beyond all description. Meryl lay still,
gazing with her soul in her eyes, but after a time Diana sat up.
"It makes me ache almost like the Victoria Falls did. I wonder why God
painted such lovely scenes where no one ever came, or scarcely ever,
to see them?"
She was silent a moment, then ran on again, "We fight and sweat and
struggle for diamonds, and God hangs them on the dry grass, in the
wilderness. Meryl, I wonder if we shall ever see anything quite like
this again? And they told us to avoid the Charter Flats!... I suppose
God feels about it something as we do. He knows most people like
Brighton parades and Durban sea-fronts, so He lets them arrange their
own sights; and for Himself, in far wonderful places, He paints scene
pictures, and plants lovely gardens, and fills them with birds and
flowers and sunshine, and splashes down upon the world, in some remote
corner, a glorious colour scheme, just for his own delight."
Meryl raised herself on her elbow, with a little tender smile. "And I
suppose He said to Himself, 'I will let Diana and Meryl Pym see one of
my secret, treasured places'?"
"Yes, exactly. And though I don't hold with saying grace before meals,
because, since God made us, it seems the least He can do to enable us
to obtain food to keep us alive, I will say a grace this morning to
Him for letting me see His colour scheme on the Charter Flats at
sunset and sunrise."
A little later they had a fragrant breakfast of liver from a buck the
engineer had shot about daybreak; and that is a delicacy known only to
those who fare forth across the veldt, and have a bright wood fire
burning in readiness for the spoils of the hunt directly they are
brought in.
Then they started away again across the flats, once more moving in a
vague world of soft shadings, with only the long sandy road
stretching away into space behind them and before. And sometimes,
before the sun mounted too high, they found themselves moving across a
space of gold and bronze, where grass that had not been burnt shone
like amber in the morning glory; and again presently a space of
loveliest emerald-green, where the grass had been burnt early and the
new blades were already sending up joyous blades into the sunlight.
And sometimes a Kaffir-boom tree added a splash of brilliant scarlet,
painted upon a canvas of soft, hazy shadings; and sometimes the veldt
showed them a little piece of her flower-carpet--the carpet that was
to spread broadcast presently--of delicate-tinted lovely flowers in
reckless profusion upon a ground of rich terra-cotta soil.
Neither girl talked. It was not a scene to talk in. It did not call
for raptures and exclamations; only for dreaming and absorbing. It
seemed as if it might have been the spot where God rested upon the
seventh day, so utter and absolute and complete was the sense of
detachment from all the exigencies of being and doing.
Two verses of a poem by Arthur Symons repeated themselves in pleasant
rhythm in Meryl's mind:--
"I leave the lonely city street,
The awful silence of the crowd;
The rhythm of the roads I beat,
My blood leaps up, I shout aloud,
My heart keeps measure with my feet.
"A bird sings something in my ear,
The wind sings in my blood a song
'Tis good at times for a man to hear;
The road winds onward white and long,
And the best of earth is here!"
XIX
THE CONVENTIONALITIES ONCE MORE
Later in the day they reached Enkeldorn and once more pitched their
tent beside the police camp; but the place is not inviting, and they
were glad to leave early the following morning; for Enkeldorn is the
centre round which many Dutch people congregate to farm small farms,
in what it must be confessed is often the most slovenly and lazy
fashion conceivable. And some of them speak quite openly of how they
hate the English, and look forward to a day when they will be strong
enough to turn them out of the country.
But before that day can come, before union with a South Africa in
which there is Dutch predominance, it is to be hoped England will send
out more and yet more strong, vigorous young settlers, to put brains
and heart and energy into the virgin soil, waiting only for the
craftsman's hand; and so ensure for ever, in union or out of it, an
unswerving predominance of Cecil Rhodes's countrymen: holding his high
aims and hopes and splendid Imperialism in Cecil Rhodes's land.
Two days later the party arrived in Salisbury, and not a little to
their regret, the fashionable garments that had travelled thither by
train to await their arrival had to be duly unpacked and worn. Diana
glanced at herself disconsolately the first afternoon, dressed in an
elegant summer frock, awaiting tea in a drawing-room, and one or two
lady callers known to Mr. Pym who were likely shortly to arrive.
Meryl, seeming lovelier than ever, though perhaps a trifle frailer, as
if some sadness in her mind weighed upon her waking and sleeping
hours, stood at the window, looking over the pretty, well-kept town.
"Why are we here? This is not the wilderness," Diana said grumblingly;
"this is suburban mediocrity. It was not fair to bring me all this way
from home, to have to dress up and look pleasant, and talk banalities
to people I have never seen before and probably shall never see
again."
"You are so inconsistent, Di," Meryl said, with a little affectionate
laugh. "When we arrived at Zimbabwe you said you did not want only old
ruins, you wanted a man. Judging by the number of cyclists in
flannels, carrying tennis racquets or golf clubs, who have passed this
window in the last half-hour, you will find more men, ready no doubt
to hang upon your lightest smile, than you will know what to do with."
"I don't want them," with an impish pettiness. "I hate young men in
flannels. I hate houses. I hate afternoon frocks. I hate clean hands.
I hate having to be polite. I want The Kid, giggling insanely at his
own silly jokes. I want The Bear's den and The Bear inside it. I want
to have grubby hands and old shoes and a red face, and eat things in
my fingers, and forget I have heaps and heaps of money for the simple
reason that it is no earthly use if I have."
Meryl smiled softly and wistfully. "I wonder what they are doing?... I
think they will miss us. It is extraordinary how Zimbabwe gets into
one's heart. I have never seen anything anywhere that appealed to me
quite like those old walls, with their untold story and their patience
of the ages. The Sphinx in Egypt may be older, but we know how it came
to be there and who built it. One of Zimbabwe's fascinations seems to
be the absence of all knowledge about it, of all why and wherefore."
She broke off as a Cape cart drove up to the door. "Here is someone
coming to call. I think it is Mrs. Cluer, by father's description."
"Then bother Mrs. Cluer!" snapped the peevish one. "In this country I
wonder if people say they are 'out' or 'asleep' when they do not want
to be found 'at home'?"
But Mrs. Cluer knew both Major Carew and Stanley, so the conversation
was not quite so uninteresting as Diana had anticipated. She was,
moreover, a woman of exceptional charm, and at any other time they
would both have lost their hearts to her.
"You probably did not see much of Major Carew," she said. "He is the
most unsociable man in the country. One can get him to a man's
bridge-party, but not much else; and most of us have given up trying.
I expect it is partly his own doing that he is down there. He always
manages to get work that takes him out on the veldt, if possible."
"He appears to like it," Meryl commented; "and Mr. Stanley and his
companion are very fond of him, in spite of his unsociable ways."
"O, all the men are fond of him," she told them, evidently glad of an
opportunity to sing his praises. "He never gives himself any airs with
them for one thing, and he's just a man all through, living a clean,
sportsman's life; and whether they do the same themselves or not, they
all look up to him and admire him for it, without being afraid he will
come down like a sledgehammer upon their failings. One knows the tone
of the whole police force is better for having an officer like Major
Carew, and it is a thousand pities there are not more like him. And
Cecil Stanley is just the dearest boy in the world. Every one in
Salisbury was fond of him. He is so good at games and dancing, and
always so jolly and boyish and natural. We miss him badly, but I
believe he likes being down there better than in the town."
"I think he does; he seemed perfectly happy."
They went on to speak of the gaiety of Salisbury; its golf and tennis
and polo and dancing; and their visitor urged them to stay for a
fancy-dress ball, when four hundred guests all in costume were
expected. But neither of them were in the mood for balls, and the only
attraction they cared about was an early-morning gallop with the
hounds after jackal. Nothing could solace them for the careless, happy
days they had left, and as soon as Mr. Pym had transacted his
business, they persuaded him to take them out to Lomagundi with him,
rather than be left behind in the town.
"They seem to be rather touchy ladies here, and so superior," Diana
urged, when he demurred; "and you know I am never safe for two minutes
with that type. I should be driven into saying appalling things, and
our reputation might be ruined for ever."
In the end, as usual, they won him round, and departed one morning
gleefully in the little toy train that runs out across the Gwebi Flats
to the Eldorado Gold Mine. And to Diana's joy, they had a luggage-van
fitted up as an impromptu saloon for them, and were able to spin along
with both doors wide open, enjoying the air and the country. The
Eldorado is the show mine of Rhodesia, having a native compound equal
to any in South Africa, and charming bungalows for the staff, and an
airy, comfortable hospital. But mines were not likely to hold much
interest to lady travellers from Johannesburg, and all their eagerness
was to go out to Sinoia to see the limestone caves, where, like an
exquisite jewel in a massive setting, an underground lake, of
wonderful colouring, lies in lonely loveliness.
Or perhaps it were better likened to a butterfly, with its wings
closed, and only the more or less drab outside showing. The veldt,
somewhat uniform and colourless, with its surrounding hills, is the
butterfly with its wings closed. Enter the wide hole in the ground,
beside the hidden lake, and descend the rough natural staircase of
rocky boulders, to where the sun through an opening in the ground
above shines down on to the translucent water, and there lies the
butterfly with its wings open, and all their exquisite design and
colouring and blending unfolded to the eye.
"You have some rare treasures in this far Rhodesia," Meryl said to
their guide and host as they reluctantly left the hidden jewel behind;
"treasures that your children and your children's children will be
very proud of some day."
"If they have time," he answered a trifle cynically. "Not many
Rhodesians to-day have time to care for any but the treasures that
they can work for and grasp and carry away. The time for natural
beauties to be appreciated is not yet. Why, we do not even pay a
native half-a-crown a week to keep the caves free from the baboons and
bats that defile them. I am afraid, at present, Rhodesia lives almost
entirely for to-day," he continued. "The spirit ready to sacrifice
itself for the good of future generations has yet to be developed." He
was a clever-looking man, with quiet, thoughtful eyes, and he and
Meryl had talked much together during her short stay. "The nobility of
the bee is not found much among humans. In all the annals of the race,
is there anything to compare with their service to the coming swarm?"
"Only that we do not know it is the result of calm reasoning," she
answered. "The bee perhaps comes into existence, permeated through and
through with this one idea, and lives solely to fulfil it. The service
humanity asks of humanity is something even higher, surely--a
willing, conscious sacrifice of present ease to future good. The
spirit of heroes and fools"; and she smiled a little sadly,
remembering Ailsa Grenville's verse and her enthusiasm for the dear
Ship of Fools. "But you have some fine men out here," she added. "I
think your future looks exceedingly hopeful."
A few days later they started on their return to Bulawayo, and the
tour was practically ended. There was nothing more now but dusty
railway journeys and elegant garments and conventionalities.
"No more grubby hands and red faces and 'anyhow' clothes that did not
matter," was Diana's constant lament. Meryl said nothing. What was
there to say? But the pain that dwelt in her eyes sometimes, when she
thought no one was looking, sent deep stabs to her father's heart.
With all his money, and all his power and influence, what could he do
in this one thing that seemed to matter beyond all other things?
Nothing except to look quietly on, and hope the wound was not too deep
for healing. That, and to humour her in anything she asked. Which was
partly why some of the long hours of the hot, dusty journey were spent
in discussing plans for the settlement of young men upon his land, on
exceptionally easy terms. He was not quite sure that the country was
ripe for such a scheme yet; but Meryl's great wish for it, and obvious
pleasure in the discussions, took him to lengths he might otherwise
have avoided.
So they came to Bulawayo, and as they stepped out on to the platform,
Meryl saw suddenly among the other passengers a tall form in khaki
that caused her to draw in her breath with a little catch, while her
eyes grew strained and anxious. Diana was still in the saloon, only
half dressed, and her father was talking aside to someone who had come
to the station to meet him. She was quite alone, rooted momentarily to
the spot, waiting for the tall man to turn in her direction, if he
chanced to look that way at all before hurrying off.
Then someone accosted him, and she saw the strong, self-contained
face, as he turned to the speaker. A moment's suspense followed; then
the man who had accosted him went towards the station entrance, and
Carew came slowly in her direction, with his helmet low over his eyes.
Thus he did not see her until they were face to face, and in the
first moment of recognition she saw him start, as one taken in swift
surprise. Then a slow colour crept up under the sunburn on his cheeks,
and something came into his eyes that she had never seen there before.
But he only came forward with a formal air and saluted her solemnly.
"I joined the train in the night," he said. "I had no idea you would
be coming to Bulawayo so soon."
It was all very ordinary, very sedate, and a little wooden, but Meryl
paid no heed to that, paid no heed to the obvious conclusion he had
taken no chance journey hoping to see her again. For what his lips
could not say, and his manner would not, his eyes had revealed to her
in that first swift moment of surprise. She knew that whatever came
between them in the future, whatever was between them now, Peter Carew
was not indifferent to her.
XX
FAREWELL
"Did I hear the growl of a bear?" sang out a voice from behind a drawn
blind of the saloon coach beside which they were standing.
"I'm afraid you did," said Carew, addressing the blind.
"O, joy! joy! Growl again, growl again--like the Christmas bells. How
would it go?... 'Growl out, wild bear'--I forget the rest, but it's a
silly song I learnt to sing when I was young. Don't go away; I shall
be dressed directly. If these God-forsaken railways had not such a
mania for landing you at your destination when all respectable people
are snug in bed!..." and sundry sounds suggested the impatient speaker
was flinging things about. Then a face with bright eyes appeared over
the blind, which was a wooden shutter, and could be lowered to a
discreet distance. "Hullo!... I simply had to take a look at you. I've
been pining for a glimpse of The Kid's smile and your scowl. It's been
deadly since we left Zimbabwe. Ugh!... how I hate civilisation!"
Carew looked at her with his rare, slow smile. "Is that why you keep
the whole train waiting in the station, and the station-master,
conductor, and guard in a state of ferment, because they cannot clear
the line until you are dressed?"
"Rude man!" came back the quick retort. "You haven't yet said, How do
you do?"
"How do you do, Miss Diana Pym?" gravely. "I hope I see you well! And
how did you leave Salisbury?"
"I do very nicely, thank you, Major Carew. You cannot see me very well
through a wooden shutter, I imagine. And how is your old heap of
stones?" ... with which she vanished again to the interior. "Tell the
conductor I've come to the last curl and the last hook and eye," she
called, and a few minutes later stepped out on to the platform, a
vision of fresh daintiness. "I'm rather glad," she remarked to Carew,
with a twinkle, "that you will have an opportunity of seeing us in our
best clothes"; then running on, "I see you look as fierce and
awe-inspiring as ever; but having learnt, in Rhodesia, to keep quite
calm with cockchafers and beetles running about in my bed, I am not
likely to be afraid of a bear."