A GREAT PERIL AND A GREAT SALVATION
I must now take up some of the ragged ends which I have left behind me.
It is not my task, as I have said, to write the history of the great
Rising. That has been done by abler men, who were at the centre of the
business, and had some knowledge of strategy and tactics; whereas I was
only a raw lad who was privileged by fate to see the start. If I could,
I would fain make an epic of it, and show how the Plains found at all
points the Plateau guarded, how wits overcame numbers, and at every
pass which the natives tried the great guns spoke and the tide rolled
back. Yet I fear it would be an epic without a hero. There was no
leader left when Laputa had gone. There were months of guerrilla
fighting, and then months of reprisals, when chief after chief was
hunted down and brought to trial. Then the amnesty came and a clean
sheet, and white Africa drew breath again with certain grave
reflections left in her head. On the whole I am not sorry that the
history is no business of mine. Romance died with “the heir of John,”
and the crusade became a sorry mutiny. I can fancy how differently
Laputa would have managed it all had he lived; how swift and sudden his
plans would have been; how under him the fighting would not have been
in the mountain glens, but far in the high-veld among the dorps and
townships. With the Inkulu alive we warred against odds; with the
Inkulu dead the balance sank heavily in our favour. I leave to others
the marches and strategy of the thing, and hasten to clear up the
obscure parts in my own fortunes.
Arcoll received my message from Umvelos’ by Colin, or rather Wardlaw
received it and sent it on to the post on the Berg where the leader had
gone. Close on its heels came the message from Henriques by a Shangaan
in his pay. It must have been sent off before the Portugoose got to the
Rooirand, from which it would appear that he had his own men in the
bush near the store, and that I was lucky to get off as I did. Arcoll
might have disregarded Henriques’ news as a trap if it had come alone,
but my corroboration impressed and perplexed him. He began to credit
the Portugoose with treachery, but he had no inclination to act on his
message, since it conflicted with his plans. He knew that Laputa must
come into the Berg sooner or later, and he had resolved that his
strategy must be to await him there. But there was the question of my
life. He had every reason to believe that I was in the greatest danger,
and he felt a certain responsibility for my fate. With the few men at
his disposal he could not hope to hold up the great Kaffir army, but
there was a chance that he might by a bold stand effect my rescue.
Henriques had told him of the vow, and had told him that Laputa would
ride in the centre of the force. A body of men well posted at Dupree’s
Drift might split the army at the crossing, and under cover of the fire
I might swim the river and join my friends. Still relying on the vow,
it might be possible for well-mounted men to evade capture. Accordingly
he called for volunteers, and sent off one of his Kaffirs to warn me of
his design. He led his men in person, and of his doings the reader
already knows the tale. But though the crossing was flung into
confusion, and the rear of the army was compelled to follow the
northerly bank of the Letaba, there was no sign of me anywhere. Arcoll
searched the river-banks, and crossed the drift to where the old Keeper
was lying dead. He then concluded that I had been murdered early in the
march, and his Kaffir, who might have given him news of me, was carried
up the stream in the tide of the disorderly army. Therefore, he and his
men rode back with all haste to the Berg by way of Main Drift, and
reached Bruderstroom before Laputa had crossed the highway.
My information about Inanda’s Kraal decided Arcoll’s next move. Like me
he remembered Beyers’s performance, and resolved to repeat it. He had
no hope of catching Laputa, but he thought that he might hold up the
bulk of his force if he got guns on the ridge above the kraal. A
message had already been sent for guns, and the first to arrive got to
Bruderstroom about the hour when I was being taken by Machudi’s men in
the kloof. The ceremony of the purification prevented Laputa from
keeping a good look-out, and the result was that a way was made for the
guns on the north-western corner of the rampart of rock. It was the way
which Beyers had taken, and indeed the enterprise was directed by one
of Beyers’s old commandants. All that day the work continued, while
Laputa and I were travelling to Machudi’s. Then came the evening when I
staggered into camp and told my news. Arcoll, who alone knew how vital
Laputa was to the success of the insurrection, immediately decided to
suspend all other operations and devote himself to shepherding the
leader away from his army. How the scheme succeeded and what befell
Laputa the reader has already been told.
Aitken and Wardlaw, when I descended from the cliffs, took me straight
to Blaauwildebeestefontein. I was like a man who is recovering from bad
fever, cured, but weak and foolish, and it was a slow journey which I
made to Umvelos’, riding on Aitken’s pony. At Umvelos’ we found a
picket who had captured the _schimmel_ by the roadside. That wise
beast, when I turned him loose at the entrance to the cave, had trotted
quietly back the way he had come. At Umvelos’ Aitken left me, and next
day, with Wardlaw as companion, I rode up the glen of the Klein
Labongo, and came in the afternoon to my old home. The store was empty,
for Japp some days before had gone off post-haste to Pietersdorp; but
there was Zeeta cleaning up the place as if war had never been heard
of. I slept the night there, and in the morning found myself so much
recovered that I was eager to get away. I wanted to see Arcoll about
many things, but mainly about the treasure in the cave.
It was an easy journey to Bruderstroom through the meadows of the
plateau. The farmers’ commandoes had been recalled, but the ashes of
their camp fires were still grey among the bracken. I fell in with a
police patrol and was taken by them to a spot on the Upper Letaba, some
miles west of the camp, where we found Arcoll at late breakfast. I had
resolved to take him into my confidence, so I told him the full tale of
my night’s adventure. He was very severe with me, I remember, for my
daft-like ride, but his severity relaxed before I had done with my
story.
The telling brought back the scene to me, and I shivered at the picture
of the cave with the morning breaking through the veil of water and
Laputa in his death throes. Arcoll did not speak for some time.
“So he is dead,” he said at last, half-whispering to himself. “Well, he
was a king, and died like a king. Our job now is simple, for there is
none of his breed left in Africa.”
Then I told him of the treasure.
“It belongs to you, Davie,” he said, “and we must see that you get it.
This is going to be a long war, but if we survive to the end you will
be a rich man.”
“But in the meantime?” I asked. “Supposing other Kaffirs hear of it,
and come back and make a bridge over the gorge? They may be doing it
now.”
“I’ll put a guard on it,” he said, jumping up briskly. “It’s maybe not
a soldier’s job, but you’ve saved this country, Davie, and I’m going to
make sure that you have your reward.”
After that I went with Arcoll to Inanda’s Kraal. I am not going to tell
the story of that performance, for it occupies no less than two
chapters in Mr Upton’s book. He makes one or two blunders, for he
spells my name with an “o,” and he says we walked out of the camp on
our perilous mission “with faces white and set as a Crusader’s.” That
is certainly not true, for in the first place nobody saw us go who
could judge how we looked, and in the second place we were both smoking
and feeling quite cheerful. At home they made a great fuss about it,
and started a newspaper cry about the Victoria Cross, but the danger
was not so terrible after all, and in any case it was nothing to what I
had been through in the past week.
I take credit to myself for suggesting the idea. By this time we had
the army in the kraal at our mercy. Laputa not having returned, they
had no plans. It had been the original intention to start for the
Olifants on the following day, so there was a scanty supply of food.
Besides, there were the makings of a pretty quarrel between Umbooni and
some of the north-country chiefs, and I verily believe that if we had
held them tight there for a week they would have destroyed each other
in faction fights. In any case, in a little they would have grown
desperate and tried to rush the approaches on the north and south. Then
we must either have used the guns on them, which would have meant a
great slaughter, or let them go to do mischief elsewhere. Arcoll was a
merciful man who had no love for butchery; besides, he was a statesman
with an eye to the future of the country after the war. But it was his
duty to isolate Laputa’s army, and at all costs, it must be prevented
from joining any of the concentrations in the south.
Then I proposed to him to do as Rhodes did in the Matoppos, and go and
talk to them. By this time, I argued, the influence of Laputa must have
sunk, and the fervour of the purification be half-forgotten. The army
had little food and no leader. The rank and file had never been
fanatical, and the chiefs and indunas must now be inclined to sober
reflections. But once blood was shed the lust of blood would possess
them. Our only chance was to strike when their minds were perplexed and
undecided.
Arcoll did all the arranging. He had a message sent to the chiefs
inviting them to an indaba, and presently word was brought back that an
indaba was called for the next day at noon. That same night we heard
that Umbooni and about twenty of his men had managed to evade our ring
of scouts and got clear away to the south. This was all to our
advantage, as it removed from the coming indaba the most irreconcilable
of the chiefs.
That indaba was a queer business. Arcoll and I left our escort at the
foot of a ravine, and entered the kraal by the same road as I had left
it. It was a very bright, hot winter’s day, and try as I might, I could
not bring myself to think of any danger. I believed that in this way
most temerarious deeds are done; the doer has become insensible to
danger, and his imagination is clouded with some engrossing purpose.
The first sentries received us gloomily enough, and closed behind us as
they had done when Machudi’s men haled me thither. Then the job became
eerie, for we had to walk across a green flat with thousands of eyes
watching us. By-and-by we came to the merula tree opposite the kyas,
and there we found a ring of chiefs, sitting with cocked rifles on
their knees.
We were armed with pistols, and the first thing Arcoll did was to hand
them to one of the chiefs. “We come in peace,” he said. “We give you
our lives.”
Then the indaba began, Arcoll leading off. It was a fine speech he
made, one of the finest I have ever listened to. He asked them what
their grievances were; he told them how mighty was the power of the
white man; he promised that what was unjust should be remedied, if only
they would speak honestly and peacefully; he harped on their old
legends and songs, claiming for the king of England the right of their
old monarchs. It was a fine speech, and yet I saw that it did not
convince them. They listened moodily, if attentively, and at the end
there was a blank silence.
Arcoll turned to me. “For God’s sake, Davie,” he said, “talk to them
about Laputa. It’s our only chance.”
I had never tried speaking before, and though I talked their tongue I
had not Arcoll’s gift of it. But I felt that a great cause was at
stake, and I spoke up as best I could.
I began by saying that Inkulu had been my friend, and that at Umvelos’
before the rising he had tried to save my life. At the mention of the
name I saw eyes brighten. At last the audience was hanging on my words.
I told them of Henriques and his treachery. I told them frankly and
fairly of the doings at Dupree’s Drift. I made no secret of the part I
played. “I was fighting for my life,” I said. “Any man of you who is a
man would have done the like.”
Then I told them of my last ride, and the sight I saw at the foot of
the Rooirand. I drew a picture of Henriques lying dead with a broken
neck, and the Inkulu, wounded to death, creeping into the cave.
In moments of extremity I suppose every man becomes an orator. In that
hour and place I discovered gifts I had never dreamed of. Arcoll told
me afterwards that I had spoken like a man inspired, and by a fortunate
chance had hit upon the only way to move my hearers. I told of that
last scene in the cave, when Laputa had broken down the bridge, and had
spoken his dying words—that he was the last king in Africa, and that
without him the rising was at an end. Then I told of his leap into the
river, and a great sigh went up from the ranks about Me.
“You see me here,” I said, “by the grace of God. I found a way up the
fall and the cliffs which no man has ever travelled before or will
travel again. Your king is dead. He was a great king, as I who stand
here bear witness, and you will never more see his like. His last words
were that the Rising was over. Respect that word, my brothers. We come
to you not in war but in peace, to offer a free pardon, and the redress
of your wrongs. If you fight you fight with the certainty of failure,
and against the wish of the heir of John. I have come here at the risk
of my life to tell you his commands. His spirit approves my mission.
Think well before you defy the mandate of the Snake, and risk the
vengeance of the Terrible Ones.”
After that I knew that we had won. The chiefs talked among themselves
in low whispers, casting strange looks at me. Then the greatest of them
advanced and laid his rifle at my feet.
“We believe the word of a brave man,” he said. “We accept the mandate
of the Snake.”
Arcoll now took command. He arranged for the disarmament bit by bit,
companies of men being marched off from Inanda’s Kraal to stations on
the plateau where their arms were collected by our troops, and food
provided for them. For the full history I refer the reader to Mr
Upton’s work. It took many days, and taxed all our resources, but by
the end of a week we had the whole of Laputa’s army in separate
stations, under guard, disarmed, and awaiting repatriation.
Then Arcoll went south to the war which was to rage around the
Swaziland and Zululand borders for many months, while to Aitken and
myself was entrusted the work of settlement. We had inadequate troops
at our command, and but for our prestige and the weight of Laputa’s
dead hand there might any moment have been a tragedy. The task took
months, for many of the levies came from the far north, and the job of
feeding troops on a long journey was difficult enough in the winter
season when the energies of the country were occupied with the fighting
in the south. Yet it was an experience for which I shall ever be
grateful, for it turned me from a rash boy into a serious man. I knew
then the meaning of the white man’s duty. He has to take all risks,
recking nothing of his life or his fortunes, and well content to find
his reward in the fulfilment of his task. That is the difference
between white and black, the gift of responsibility, the power of being
in a little way a king; and so long as we know this and practise it, we
will rule not in Africa alone but wherever there are dark men who live
only for the day and their own bellies. Moreover, the work made me
pitiful and kindly. I learned much of the untold grievances of the
natives, and saw something of their strange, twisted reasoning. Before
we had got Laputa’s army back to their kraals, with food enough to tide
them over the spring sowing, Aitken and I had got sounder policy in our
heads than you will find in the towns, where men sit in offices and see
the world through a mist of papers.
By this time peace was at hand, and I went back to Inanda’s Kraal to
look for Colin’s grave. It was not a difficult quest, for on the sward
in front of the merula tree they had buried him. I found a mason in the
Iron Kranz village, and from the excellent red stone of the
neighbourhood was hewn a square slab with an inscription. It ran thus:
“Here lies buried the dog Colin, who was killed in defending D.
Crawfurd, his master. To him it was mainly due that the Kaffir Rising
failed.” I leave those who have read my tale to see the justice of the
words.