"The senses no less than the soul have their spiritual mysteries to
reveal."
We were sitting under a mimosa tree outside the drawing-room hut, elbows
on the tea-table, enjoying the sunset lights and the extraordinary
content that nothing so well bestows as a day's work well done.
It was almost the end of a February day, and everywhere around us
bloomed and flaunted the radiant tints of summer at the full. In a tree
close by a little green-breasted bird was singing a passionate song.
The sea of zinias still swayed its multi-coloured waves below us, but
boundaries had been set, and full-tide now only reached to the foot of
the kopje. Above high-water mark Mgatweli Police Camp and the home of
its commanding officer, picturesque still, but no longer disreputable,
rose like a Phoenix from its ashes.
Stubbly bush had been uprooted from charming slopes to make place for
luxuriant beds of tomatoes and Cape gooseberries; and terraces of
flowers already gave evidence of beauty and fragrance to come. Gnarled
growths had disappeared, and big trees had a clear space to branch
abroad in freedom and grace. A fine tennis-court, the delight of every
player in the town, stretched its gleaming level space near a newly
begun small banana grove.
Each of our huts except the kitchen had now a picturesque rustic porch
added to it, round which were set plants of young grenadilla--the best
shady creeper in Africa, and one that bears a lovely purple passion
flower, and most delicious fruit.
The men's camp was also enormously improved. A little agitation in the
right quarter had resulted in a grant of Government boys to build and
thatch a big mess and club-house. The parade ground had been enlarged,
and the beginning of an out-door gym was visible. The men had something
better to do now than loafing to town in off hours, or getting drunk in
their huts out of sheer boredom with life. There were shooting-butts
up, and regular hours for practice in view of putting forward a Bisley
team. There was also a Sports programme in active rehearsal for a
projected gymkhana meeting in the near future. Under a smart officer
full of initiative and invention the best bred wasters in the world are
bound to "buck up and look slippy" and that is what the Mgatweli
troopers were very busily occupied in doing.
In six months Maurice had done wonders; and the wonders had not ceased
with improvements at home and in the camp. You had only to look at him
sitting there, neat and debonair in his grey uniform, to recognise that
fact. He had the clear eye, healthy skin, and quiet, firm air of a man
with a purpose. Force of character may be cumulative, and six months
may not be a very long time in which to accumulate it. But a will to do
well, and a lovely climate to do it in, is much; and I should say the
matter depended not so much on time as on the number and size of the
difficulties met and overcome. Six months may not be a long time but it
is too long to fight daily battles with your vices without getting
results; and an accumulation of results sat upon the serene brow of
Maurice Stair, and revealed themselves in the firmness of his mouth.
No more sealed wooden cases were surreptitiously carried to his hut. He
drank his whiskey-and-soda from his own sideboard like a sane and decent
gentleman. No more shirking and shelving of duties: but rather a
seeking of fresh ones. No more sloth and skulking and petty sins. The
old vices and weaknesses were under foot at last. He had his heel on
the heads of them.
I know not what upheld him in the fight; what secret dew refreshed his
jaded spirit in the terrible struggles he must have undergone. Often I
saw him stumble and falter, and sometimes (but not often) fall "mauled
to the earth." And I cannot tell where he found the strength to "arise
and go on again;" but he did. There is little one human being can do
for another in these crises of the soul, these fierce battles with old
sins that have their roots in deep. They must be fought out alone.
External aid is of small use. But what I could I did. And perhaps it
helped a little to let him see that I too was fighting and suffering and
striving to climb by his side with my hand in his. But whatever the
means the result was there plain for all who ran to read; and I am bound
to admit that it was so far beyond my dreams and expectations that I
sometimes found it hard to recognise in this new Maurice, whose feet
were so firmly planted on the upward slopes, the old Maurice, my
dark-souled companion in a deep and dread ravine.
Sitting there in the sunset glow he gave me fresh proof of his changed
outlook on life. He offered of his own free will to renounce the five
hundred a year Sir Alexander Stair paid him to live in Africa. A few
days before he had unflinchingly and without preliminaries told me the
meaning of the income he enjoyed from his uncle.
"He pays me to keep out of his sight. He has always despised me for a
rotter. The reason he put a clincher on my going into the army was
because he thought I'd disgrace the family name there. It makes him
sick to think I'll get the title after him. Rather than see me, and be
reminded of the fact, he pays me nearly half of his income to stay out
here."
I said nothing at the time beyond exclaiming at the arrogant
self-righteousness that made it possible for a man to condemn his only
relative so harshly. But I knew very well that the new Maurice felt the
ignominy attached to such an arrangement, and that his confession to me
heralded some change. Now he volunteered to give up the money, and
asked me if I would leave Africa with him for Australia, where an old
friend of his father's had a large ranch near Melbourne and had offered
him a sort of under-managership on it. Having been out there for
several years before coming to Africa, Maurice thoroughly understood the
life and its conditions.
"As soon as I get back to the ropes, after a year or so Broughton will
offer me the whole thing to manage. And I know well enough I'm able for
it if you will only go with me and back me up."
"Of course I will go, Maurice," I said quietly, and we fell to making
plans; but I looked no longer at the sunlit hills, and in the thorn tree
the note of the little green-breasted robin had changed. It seemed now
to be sobbing its life away in song.
"You see we couldn't go on here at twenty pounds a month, Deirdre. It
is impossible. Living in this country is too high. These billets
aren't meant for men without private incomes. Later, when the railways
get up here, it will be different. But before then we are going to have
another row with the niggers here, or my name is not Jack Robinson.
Then life will be dearer than ever. There's trouble brewing again with
these Matabele fellows. Ever since the rinderpest broke out they've
been queer. They are desperate with vexation at losing their cattle,
and their _Umlimo_, a sort of god or high priest who lives in a cave and
prophesies to them from the depths of it--having carefully collected his
information first, by means of spies--tells them it is the white man who
is causing their cattle to die. The funny thing is that this fellow is
really the god of the Mashonas, yet the Matabele put absolute faith in
him. Old Loben used to send and consult him about everything--"
I was not listening very intently to Maurice. I was wondering whether
it was the bird's song that had suddenly filled me with despair. Why
was I not glad to be escaping at last from the claw of the witch? Was
it these thatched huts that held me--because we had made them so
charming and homelike without and within? I knew it could not be.
Places appealed to me, and people; houses and things never. Goods and
chattels had no hands to hold me as they do some people. Of late I had
come to think that life under a tree without any accessories at all
could be very full and sweet--if one only shared the shade of the
branches with the one right person in sill the world. Moreover, the
legend carved above a door in dead Fatehpur had always struck me as a
peculiarly appropriate motto for people whose lives were cast in Africa.
"_Said Jesus, to whom be peace, the world is a bridge, pass over it, but
build no house there_."
As we talked, Makupi in his brick-red blanket passed down the sloping
pathway towards the zinia-sea, and when he came to its beach squatted
himself down, took his piano from his hair, and began his sombre
beating.
_Tom--brr--torn--brr--torn--brr--tom-tom-tom-brr_.
It seemed to me that I heard the throbbing of a human heart laid upon
the stone altar of some monstrous god. My eyes wandered to the hills
again. Then suddenly I knew that it was the thought of leaving _them_
that filled me with such haunting despair--the far-off Matoppos that
held for me some hidden mystery, some magic that drew my eyes at dawn,
and at setting of sun. On moonlit nights I would often rise from my bed
to gaze at them and wonder.
_Tom--brr--torn--brr--torn--brr_.
"Call him over here, Deirdre," said Maurice suddenly. "Let's give him
back his _e'tambo_."
Putting his hand into an inner pocket he drew out a small black object
and handed it to me. It was a little bone taken from the joint of a
sheep (the boys call them _dolour-ossi_, and often play with them). But
this one was black, either with age or by some artificial process, and
polished until it gleamed like a jewel. On it was traced in spidery
lines the profile of some weird quadruped of the same description as the
Hottentot drawings on the rocks; otherwise there was not the slightest
thing about it to suggest mystery or romance. Yet Makupi was eating his
heart out and growing hollow-eyed for lack of it. He wanted to go back
to his kraal in Mashonaland, he told me, but would never leave until he
got his _e'tambo_ back from the _Inkos_. He had even offered me some
mysterious bribe if I would steal it for him. Something about a
mysterious gold mine, no doubt, I thought, and laughed. But I always
wished Maurice would give it to the poor fellow. Lately we had become
so accustomed to seeing him about that I think we had almost forgotten
what he was there for.
But _he_ had not forgotten. When I called to him to come, that the
_Inkos_ had something for him, his thoughts flew at once to his charm,
and he leaped to his feet and came running. He guessed what it was
Maurice had hidden in his hand.
"But what about that wonderful secret you were going to tell me,
Makupi?" I laughed. He rolled his eager sad eyes at me.
"Give me my _e'tambo_ first. You will be glad."
"Give it to him, Maurice. Let us be glad," said I, still laughing, and
suddenly feeling, in spite of my sad thoughts of the last hour,
extraordinarily light-hearted and happy.
One swift glance at the small black bone, and then Makupi's lithe hand
closed over it. He made a movement with both hands over his body and
hair, and then his palms hung empty by his sides, and we never saw the
charm again.
He looked at Maurice first, then his eyes came to me and rested there
while he spoke a brief sentence in the pigeon-Makalika which he knew I
understood.
"_In the cave of the Umlimo in the Maloppos, there is a white man
hidden. He wears blue charms in his ears_."
For one moment he watched the paralysing effect of his statement, gazing
at me in astonishment as though he saw a spectre, and afterwards at
Maurice who had risen from his seat and was holding to the tree as if
for support. Then his eager voice continued. He poured out the strange
story now in his own tongue, of which I only understood a word here and
there. But I understood enough to make the blood fly rustling through
my veins, leaping from my heart to my ears and cheeks. When he had
spoken a few sentences he made a gesture towards me and waited for
Maurice to translate. I kept my eyes averted from my husband's.
"He says--that in the cave of the _Umlimo_ a white man has been hidden
and kept prisoner ever since the Matabele war--he is a man whom a party
of Matabele warriors came upon just at the close of the campaign--alone
in the bush, not far from the Shangani. He was wounded in the head, and
had gone raving mad--was singing and laughing when they came upon hint--
that is why they did not kill him. They are afraid to kill the mad--the
mad are sacred. They took him prisoner and carried him to the camp
where Lobengula lay dying."
Makupi took up the tale once more.
"He says--that the King forbade them to kill the man, but to take him by
out-of-the-way routes to the cave of the _Umlimo_ who would get wisdom
from his madness, and be able to advise the Matabele how to defeat the
white men later, if they were beaten in the war. A wife of Lobengula
who had skill in sickness took charge of him and after the death of the
King he was taken by devious ways to the Matoppos, where he has been
ever since."
Maurice paused a minute moment. He seemed to be suffering. His lips
twisted as with some agonised effort to produce words from a lacerated
throat. Later, he took up Makupi's tale. Unconsciously he adopted the
boy's chanting tone, and used the native phraseology.
"He says--the wound in the head took long to heal--only in the last few
months has wisdom fully returned to the man--and since then the _Umlimo_
keeps him in bonds for fear he should escape and tell of the things he
has seen and heard in the cave where the Deity sits brooding over the
fate of Matabeleland and Mashonaland. They are afraid to kill him, not
only because Lobengula put the command on them not to, but because he is
a great white man with strong eyes that make them afraid to strike--he
sits all day with his hands bound--but when the stars come out and on
nights that the moon shines he commands to be taken out, and he walks
for many hours among the hills."
Another swift flow of words from Makupi.
"He says--that two men of the old Imbezu Regiment are with him always--
armed with assegai--but there are never any horses near, and they never
unbind his hands. He eats well, with the air of a man who is content--
but his eyes are looking always beyond the hills and though he pretends
to be content they see that his desire lies in Mashonaland."
When Makupi's tale was finished the sun was gone, and nothing was left
of the sunset but a little red light and one last streak of gold that
lingered between two hills. He folded his hands upon his breast and
stood still with his eyes drooped to the ground.
"Poor Kinsella!" said Maurice abstractedly, almost like a man speaking
in his sleep. "What a dog's life--for nearly two years!"
Like a little codicil to a last will and testament Makupi added a few
more words.
"This is a very secret matter, and forbidden by the _Umlimo_ to be
spoken of to any, under pain of--" he made a dramatic gesture of
stabbing. "It would have been better for me to have told any of the
secrets of the Matabele and the Makalikas than this. But because the
_Inkosizaan_ is like the departed glory of the Matabeleland, and her
hands are kind and healing to all she touches, I have told."
"You have done well," said Maurice firmly. He had wakened from his
dreaminess now; "and we'll take care you don't suffer for it. But look
here, Makupi, will you go with me to the Matoppoe and show me the way to
the cave of the _Umlimo_?"
Makupi looked at me for a moment.
"If the _Inkosizaan_ wishes, I will go and show the way," he said. "But
it will not be easy to overcome those men of the Imbezu with their
assegais and stabbing knives; some of the _Umlimo's_ people have guns
too, which they did not give up after the war. We will have to wait in
secret places of the hills with horses always ready to start, and coming
upon them by surprise spring on the guard and kill them, then quickly
unbind the white man and ride away. But it is hard to say how long we
shall have to wait hiding in the hills."
"That's nothing. Be ready to start the dawn after to-morrow's dawn,
Makupi. Do not fail me--or the _Inkosizaan_."
"No, _Inkos_."
He went away with a spring to his walk. I turned to Maurice and spoke
as steadily as I could.
"Do you not think you should tell the Company and have an expedition
sent?"
"No!" he said abruptly. "I shall take Makapi and go alone. They would
get wind of an expedition--you can't keep anything dark from kaffirs for
long--and then they would kill Kinsella as sure as a gun. After holding
him so long they know well enough that some one will have to pay when he
is released, and they'll think nothing of killing him off and denying
that there was ever any one there at all. We can't risk that. I must
go alone and very quickly. There will be nothing unusual in a police
inspector setting off alone, and they will suspect nothing. We won't
give them time to suspect."
"I think you should tell the Company," I persisted. There was something
terrifying and awful to me in letting my husband go off alone on this
dangerous mission to bring back the man I loved.
"Of course I shall tell the Company--as much as is good for them to
know. I must get my chief on the wire at once, and get leave to go off
on urgent secret inquiry work. There are any amount of reasons to go
secretly to the kraals, now that the natives are so unsettled. He'll be
glad enough to have me visit the Matoppo kraals and see what is going
on." He turned on me suddenly. "Do you grudge me this work to do for
you?" he said strangely, and I knew not how to answer him, but at last I
faltered:
"For _us_, Maurice. I think it is splendid of you to offer to go. It
will be no child's play, but a brave, big thing. Whether you succeed or
not no one will be prouder of you than I. It is the going that counts.
But I know you will succeed."
And indeed I had always known that I should see Anthony Kinsella again
before I died.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maurice and I were closer in spirit during the next few hours than we
had ever been. They were hours of unceasing occupation, swift
consideration and selection.
There was the route to be planned, and where to have horses waiting for
him on his return; leave to be got from headquarters and arrangements to
be made for his absence; double arms to be prepared, so that Anthony
might be able to fight for himself if the need arose; food for two to be
prepared and packed--medicines and bandages!
To avoid rousing the suspicions of any of the _Umlimo's_ spies that
might be in the town, Maurice decided to leave about an hour after
midnight, when all the boys were in their quarters asleep. Thus even
speculation would be unaroused. Makupi was not to travel openly with
him, but to meet him at various given points, guide him, and disappear
again until they reached the final place selected to hide in until an
opportunity for the rescue occurred.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was little time for reflection during those rushing hours of
preparation: but when at last all was complete and ready for Maurice's
departure within the hour, I had that to think on which gave me pause.
Handsome and business-like in his khaki and leather, my husband sat down
at his desk to put in order some papers dealing with the police work
during his absence. It would only take him a quarter of an hour or so
he told me, then there would be time for a last talk together before his
horse came round.
"Will you come to my room then?" I said in a low voice, and swiftly
left him.
Strange thoughts were mine as I stood at my dressing-table, combing my
hair with shaking hands, until the little short curls lay like
wallflower petals on my forehead, and my ghostlike face was framed in
waves of bronze. Yes, my face was ghostlike. I was obliged to take
some powered rouge and introduce a subtle pale rose flush to the faint
hollows of my cheeks, and with a little camel's-hair brush to outline
carefully the curve of my white lips with liquid crimson. It was a
difficult process for there was a mist before my eyes, and my hand
trembled so much that I sometimes made a false line and had to wipe all
out and begin again. For it would not do to let Maurice see that I had
had recourse to make-up. His eyes were strangely keen those days, and
his vision clear, like his skin. I wondered would he notice the look in
my eyes. Within the next hour I must veil them often with my lashes
lest they betray me.
When all was finished I was very charming to look at: a slim,
subtle-looking woman, with bronze hair and a curved mouth, bare armed
and white bosomed, in a low cut gown of black lace.
Only the strange shadow in my eyes could not be treated with. It looked
out like a desperate hunted thing, but it would not come forth. I knew
it well. It was the shadow of the soul I had given to Anthony Kinsella,
awaiting affrightedly for the desolation I was going to work upon it
before Anthony Kinsella came riding back into my life to claim it. It
knew that I was resolute to sign and seal myself away to Maurice Stair
before that hour, and it was sick unto death.
But the thing had to be. I had practically accepted it on that sinister
night six months past, when the black vultures swarmed and the eyes of
the Mother of Consolation terribly accused me. It had come nearer and
nearer with every fresh victory Maurice gained over his devils. I had
always known there was to be no escape. But, ah, God! why had I not
embraced my fate before this hour in which I knew that Anthony still
dreamed of me behind the hills?
Maurice came in, forage-cap in hand, riding-crop tucked under his arm,
and stood by me in the place where six months before he had cowered, and
I had spurned him with my foot. What a different man was this! Pride
and _elan_ in his gait, and in the old enchanting smile upon his lips
real chivalry at last. I felt my heart stir strangely, as very
deliberately I put out both my hands to him. He took them, kissed them,
and lightly let them fall again.
"Well! Expect us back in about a week, Deirdre. I shall not fail."
I stood looking at him with my lids drooped a little to hide my eyes.
Why had he let my hands fall so quickly? My first effort had gone
astray.
"No, you will not fail, Maurice. You and the word `failure' are never
going to have anything to say to each other again. I am glad now that
you are going alone, and will have all the honour and glory of it to
yourself. I want people in this country to appreciate your courage
before we leave it."
I thought of Dr Abingdon, and the other man on the Salisbury road. It
was odd what a thrill of pride I felt that all the world would soon know
that whatever had happened in the past, in the future none might ever
again call this man coward.
"Leave it?" he said. "You still hold to that plan?"
"Of course." I looked at him in surprise. "Is it not all settled?
Didn't you speak to your chief about it on the wire this morning as you
said you would?"
"No--I thought it had better wait over--until I came back you know."
"You should have done it at once, Maurice. I wanted to begin to do
things--sorting, packing, arranging what we are going to take with us.
The delay about your resignation will keep us here months longer
perhaps. Will you let me write it for you and send it in while you're
away?"
"Oh! all right then," but his tone was still hesitating. I turned on
him reproachfully. It seemed hard to have to be firm for him as well as
myself.
"Is it that you have changed your mind again--after all our plans?"
"No, dear--but I don't want to fasten you down to anything we planned.
_You_ may want to change."
"Why should I?" I asked quietly. "Nothing is changed because of
_this_: except that in our future life together we shall both be the
happier for it."
He stood looking at me with glad though doubtful eyes then, tapping his
gaiter with his crop. But always he stayed at a little distance, almost
as though he feared I might touch him. I went over to him, and put my
hands on his shoulders.
"That real life you and I are going to live presently, in--
"Some neater, sweeter country,--
Some greener, cleaner land."
My voice gave a little catch in my throat, but I struggled on.
"Life is full of possibilities for us, Maurice--I believe we are going
to be very happy."
But he turned aside moodily, hanging his head a little. I had not seen
him look like that for, many months.
"What is the good of pretending to me, Deirdre? I have been too bad a
brute and a devil to you--and you love Kinsella--I know you can never
love me."
His sullen misery made me take trembling resolution by the throat and
vacillate no longer. I lied firmly, though my voice had a strange sound
in my ears.
"Yes I can--I have already begun to love you. You have shown yourself
worthy of any woman's love, Maurice, and who am I--?"
A cold hand gripped my heart; my soul cried out to me in its despair.
He stared at me amazedly for a moment, then caught me by the wrists,
trying to look into my eyes. But I dared not let him see that stricken,
dying thing.
"Is it true?--do you mean it?"
"Yes," I said suffocating, and sank half fainting to my bed. He still
held my hands but he came no nearer, and for a moment a gleam of light
radiated through the darkness; a little radiant bird of hope flew
through my mind. Could it be that he no longer cared for me--that I had
killed desire in him--that he would be content to go on for ever as we
had lived, and never require of me this terrible immolation of body and
soul? The thought unsealed my closed eyes, and I looked at him keenly.
But what I saw staring in _his_ eyes was not distaste nor hatred, but
something no woman wishes to see except in the eyes of the man she
adores. The hour for sacrifice had struck. I put up my arms and wound
them round his neck.
"Kiss me, Maurice," I whispered, and drew him down beside me. He flung
his arms about me and held me tight.
"Is it true? Do you mean it? You are going to give yourself to me at
last--at last?"
"Yes--"
"When I come back?"
"No--" I tried to say a word that my stiff lips refused--"when you
will."
Then he kissed me at last: terrible kisses that crushed my lips upon my
clenched teeth, bruising and cutting them; that scorched my eyes and my
throat.
"Say you love me," he demanded.
"Kiss me, Maurice--take me," I cried in a whispering voice. But
something in me was dying a little death--hope, youth, love, all were
passing. I saw like a drowning woman all the glory of life depart. And
in that moment I realised a terrible thing. All was in vain. I could
never love my husband. Something in his touch, in his nearness, in the
scent of his hair as he bent over me, sent an agony of revulsion
shuddering through me, as though some spider of which I had a peculiar
fear and horror was creeping over me. I knew not whether it was of the
flesh or of the soul, or a terrible mingling of both. I only knew that
this piercing agony of the Magdalene who loves not where she gives would
always be mine to suffer as the wife of Maurice Stair. One other thing
I knew, too: I should not long be able to sustain that agony; it would
kill me. Almost I believed myself dying then. My limbs turned to
stone, my veins seemed filled with lead. He might have been showering
his passionate kisses on a marble image.
Perhaps no other woman in the world would have been affected in that
terrible way by his personality: perhaps no other man in the world would
have inspired such a feeling in me. That it should be so was my
tragedy--and his!
"Why are you so white?" he cried between his blazing kisses. "So
white--like a snowdrop? Open your eyes, Deirdre--let me see love in
them."
"No--no," I cried, resolute to drown, to die. I wound my stone arms
round his neck and drew him close to my cold face. But I dared not open
my eyes for fear he should see the dying gestures of my soul.
Then a strange thing happened. He leaned over me once more and put one
more kiss like a coal of fire on my lips, then drew gently away from my
arms. There was a jingle of spurs, the tread of heavily booted feet,
and presently the sound of a galloping horse. I lay very still where he
had left me, my eyes still closed, my leaden arms where they had fallen
at my sides, the words of reprieve ringing like little bells in my
brain:
"I am not worthy--first I will earn this gift of you. Good-bye."
If my soul (which was Anthony Kinsella's) sang a chant of praise because
of respite, that other physical me (which was Maurice Stair's) had
heaviness and sorrow because of the knowledge that the battle was all to
fight again, the agony to re-endure.