From the moment that Aida Sewin and I had become engaged life was, to
me, almost too good to live. As I have said, I was no longer young, and
now it seemed to me that my life up till now had been wasted, and yet
not, for I could not but feel intensely thankful that I had kept it for
her. I might have been "caught young," and have made the utter mess of
life in consequence that I had seen in the case of many of my
contemporaries, but I had not, and so was free to drink to the full of
this new found cup of happiness. And full it was, and running over.
Of course I didn't intend to remain on at Isipanga. The trading and
knockabout days were over now. I would buy a good farm and settle down,
and this resolve met with Aida's entire approval. She had no more taste
for a town life than I had myself. The only thing she hoped was that I
should find such a place not too far from her people.
"The fact is I don't know how they'll ever get on without you," she said
one day when we were talking things over. "They are getting old, you
see, and Falkner isn't of much use, between ourselves. I doubt if he
ever will be."
This made me laugh, remembering Falkner's aspirations and the cocksure
way in which he had "warned me off" that night in Majendwa's country.
But I was as willing to consider her wishes in this matter, as I was in
every other.
Falkner had accepted the situation, well--much as I should have expected
him to, in that he had sulked, and made himself intensely disagreeable
for quite a long time. I was sorry for him, but not so much as I might
have been, for I felt sure that it was his conceit which had received
the wound rather than his feelings. Which sounds ill natured.
Tyingoza was not particularly elated when I broke the news of my
intended departure.
"So you are going to build a new hut at last, Iqalaqala," he said, with
a chuckle.
"I am, but not here."
"Not here?"
"No. I am going to leave trading, and raise cattle instead."
"The people will be sorry, Iqalaqala, for we have been friends. _Au_!
is it not ever so in life? You hold a man by the hand, and lo, a woman
takes hold of his other hand, and--he holds yours no more."
"But in this case we still hold each other by the hand, Tyingoza," I
said. "For I am not going into another country nor does the whole world
lie between Isipanga and where I shall be."
"The people will be sorry," he repeated.
It was not long before Kendrew found his way over.
"Heard you were back, Glanton," he said. "Well and how did you get on
with Sewin up-country?"
"Middling. He has his uses, and--he hasn't."
"Well, I shouldn't find any use for him for long. It's all I can do to
stand that dashed commandeering way of his, and `haw-haw' swagger, as it
is. Been down there since you got back? But of course you have," he
added with a knowing laugh. "I say though, but doesn't it seem a sin to
bury two splendid looking girls in an out-of-the-way place like this?"
"Don't know about that. At any rate I propose to bury one of them in
just such an out-of-the-way place," I answered. "I believe it's the
thing to offer congratulations on these occasions, so congratulate away,
Kendrew. I'll try and take it calmly."
"Eh--what the dev--Oh I say, Glanton--You don't mean--?"
"Yes, I do mean. Compose yourself, Kendrew. You look kind of
startled."
"Which of them is it?"
"Guess," I said, on mischief intent, for I detected a note of eagerness
in his tone and drew my own conclusions.
"The eldest of course?"
"Right," I answered after a moment of hesitation intended to tease him a
little longer.
"Why then, I do congratulate you, old chap," he said with a heartiness
in which I thought his own relief found vent. "I say though. You
haven't lost much time about it."
"No? Well you must allow for the hastiness of youth."
And then he fired off a lot more good wishes, and soon suggested we
should ride over to the Sewins together as he was so near. And reading
his motive I sympathised with him and agreed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two months had gone by since my engagement to Aida Sewin and they had
gone by without a cloud. If I were to say that a larger proportion of
them was spent by me at her father's place than at my own, decidedly I
should not be exaggerating. But we learnt to know each other very
thoroughly in that time, and the more I learnt to know her the more did
I marvel what I had done to deserve one hundredth part of the happiness
that henceforth was to irradiate my life. Truly our sky was without a
cloud.
I had found a farm that seemed likely to suit me. It was now only a
question of price, and the owner was more than likely to come down to
mine. The place was distant by only a few hours' easy ride, and that
was a consideration.
"Everything seems to favour us," Aida said. "You know, dear, it is such
a relief to me to know that we need not be far away from the old people
after all. I would of course go to the other ends of the earth with you
if necessity required it, but at the same time I am deeply thankful it
does not. And then, you know, you needn't be afraid of any of the
`relations-in-law' bugbear; because they look up to you so. In fact we
have come to look upon you as a sort of Providence. While you were
away, if anything went wrong, father would fume a bit and always end by
saying: `I wish to Heaven Glanton was back. It would be all right if
Glanton were here!' mother, too, would say much the same. So you see
you will have very amenable relations-in-law after all."
"Oh, I'm not afraid of that in the least," I answered. "As a matter of
fact, as you know, I don't think your father was at all well advised in
coming out here to set up farming at his age and with his temperament.
But now he is here we must pull him through, and we'll do it all right,
never fear. But Aida, if it was a wrong move on his part think what it
has resulted in for me."
"And for me," she said softly.
I have set out in this narrative deliberately to spare the reader
detailed accounts of love passages between myself and this beautiful and
peerless woman whose love I had so strangely won; for I hold that such
are very far too sacred to be imparted to a third person, or put down in
black and white for the benefit of the world at large. Suffice it that
the most exacting under the circumstances could have had no reason to
complain of any lack of tenderness on her part--ah, no indeed!
This conversation took place during a long walk which we had been
taking. Aida was fond of walking, and, except for long distances,
preferred it to riding; wherein again our tastes coincided. She was
observant too and keenly fond of Nature; plants, insects, birds,
everything interested her; and if she saw anything she wanted to look at
she could do it far better, she said, on foot than on horseback. So we
had taken to walking a good deal. This afternoon we had been to a
certain point on the river which she had wanted to sketch, and now were
returning leisurely through the bush, picking our way along cattle or
game paths. Arlo, for once, was not with us. Falkner had taken him in
the other direction. He wanted to train him as a hunting dog, he said,
and now he had gone after a bush-buck.
The glory of the slanting sun rays swept wide and golden over the broad
river valley as the sinking disc touched the green gold line of the
further ridge, then sank beneath it, leaving the sweep of bush-clad
mound and lower lying level first lividly clear, then indistinct in the
purple afterglow. Birds had ceased to pipe farewell to the last light
of falling day, and here and there along the river bank a jackal was
shrilly baying. But if the light of day had failed, with it another
lamp had been lighted in the shape of a broad moon approaching its full,
its globe reddening into an increasing glow with the twilight darkening
of the sky.
"We shall pass by the waterhole," I said. "You are not afraid."
"Afraid? With you? But it is an uncanny place. We have rather avoided
it since that time we first saw that weird thing in it. But we have
been there since in the daytime with Falkner, and father, and whatever
the thing may have been we have never seen it since."
"Well, we'll have a look at it in this grand moonlight. Perhaps the
bogey may condescend to appear again."
"Hark!" exclaimed Aida suddenly. "What is that?" Then listening--"Why,
it's a lamb or a kid that must have strayed or been left out."
A shrill bleat came to our ears--came from the bush on the further side
of the hole to us, but still a little way beyond it.
"Couldn't we manage to catch it?" she went on. "It'll be eaten by the
jackals, poor little thing."
"Instead of by us," I laughed. "Well, it doesn't make much difference
to it though it does to its owner. Wait--Don't speak," I added in a
whisper, for my ears had caught a sound which hers had missed.
We stood motionless. We were on high ground not much more than twenty
yards above the pool, every part of which we could see as it lay, its
placid surface showing like a dull, lack-lustre eye in the moonlight.
In the gloom of the bush we were completely hidden, but through the
sprays we could see everything that might take place.
Again the bleat went forth shrilly, this time much nearer. But--it
ceased suddenly, as if it had been choked off in the middle.
A dark figure stood beside the pool, on the very brink, the figure of a
man--a native--and in his hands he held something white--something that
struggled. It was a half-bred Angora kid--the little animal whose bleat
we had heard. I could see the glint of the man's head-ring in the
moonlight; then for a moment, as he turned it upward, I could see his
face, and it was that of Ukozi, the one-eyed witch doctor. An increased
pressure on my arm told that my companion had seen it too. I dared not
speak, for I was curious to see what he was about to do. I could only
motion her to preserve the strictest silence.
The witch doctor stood waving the kid--held in both hands by the fore
and hind feet--high over his head, and chanting a deep-toned
incantation; yet in such "dark" phraseology was this couched that even I
couldn't make head or tail of it. It seemed to call upon some "Spirit
of the Dew" whatever that might be, and was so wrapped up in "dark" talk
as to be unintelligible failing a key. Then, as we looked, there arose
a splashing sound. The surface of the pool was disturbed. A sinuous
undulation ran through it in a wavy line, right across the pool, and
then--and then--a mighty length rose glistening from the water,
culminating in a hideous head whose grisly snout and sunken eye were
those of the python species. This horror glided straight across to
where the witch doctor stood, and as it reached him its widely-opened
jaws seemed to champ down upon his head. Not upon it, however, did they
close, but upon the body of the white kid which he had deftly placed
there, quickly springing back at the same time. Then it turned, and as
it glided back, the wretched little animal kicking and bleating
frantically in its jaws, it seemed as if the hideous brute were rushing
straight for us. Aida's face was white as death, and I had to repress
in her a panic longing to turn and fly. My firm touch however sufficed
to calm her, and we crouched motionless, watching Ukozi on the further
side. The serpent had disappeared from our view.
The whole thing was horrible and eerie to a degree. The witch doctor
now was in a species of frenzy, walking up and down, with a half-dancing
movement, as he called out, thick and fast, the _sibongo_ of the
serpent. It was a nasty, uncanny, heathenish performance, and revolted
me; although through it there shone one redeeming--even humorous--side.
We had sat and watched it while Ukozi was blissfully ignorant of our
presence. He, the great witch doctor, had no inspiration or inkling
that he was being watched! One day I would twit him with it.
Not long, however, did he stay there, and on Aida's account I was glad
to see the last of him. Had I been alone I might have gone after him
and asked the meaning of the performance. As it was, she had better
forget it. For a time we sat there in the dead silence of the
moonlight.
"What does it mean?" she whispered, when we had allowed Ukozi sufficient
time to make himself scarce.
"Oh, some Mumbo Jumbo arrangement all his own," I answered. "Well that
certainly is a whacking big python--the very biggest I've ever seen. If
I had anything in the shape of a gun I'd be inclined to try and sneak
the brute wherever he's lying."
"Wouldn't it be in the water then?"
"No. Lying up somewhere under the banks. In hot weather they're fond
of lying in a waterhole, but on a cool night like this--not. I must
come and stalk the brute another night though; and yet, do you know, it
seems strange, but I don't like interfering with anything that bears a
sort of religious significance to anybody. And the snake does come in
that way with Zulus."
She thought a moment. Then:
"You remember, dear, how I told you that one of the things this man was
going to show father was the mystery of the waterhole. Now supposing
that horror had suddenly seized him?"
An uncomfortable wave swept through me. The fact is that no white man,
however well he is known to natives, ever gets really to the bottom of
the darker mysteries of their superstitions, which indeed remain utterly
unsuspected in most cases, so well are they concealed. Who could say
what might underlie this one! However I answered:
"I don't think there would have been danger of that sort. Ukozi would
have shown him the performance we have witnessed, as something very
wonderful. As a matter of fact it isn't wonderful at all, in that it
resolves itself into a mere question of snake charming. Ukozi has half
trained this brute by feeding it periodically as we have seen. That's
all. Hallo!"
Well might I feel amazement, but the exclamation had escaped me
involuntarily. We had come round the pool now, and here, very near the
spot whereon Ukozi had gone through his strange performance--
instinctively we had kept a little back from the water--an odour struck
upon my nostrils, and it was the same sickly overpowering effluvium that
had filled the air when my horse had refused to proceed on that
memorable night I had intended to ride back from Kendrew's.
"What is it?" exclaimed Aida, with a start.
"Nothing. Nothing at all. I've frightened you, and you are a little
wound up already by that uncanny performance," I answered.
"Frightened? No. I don't believe I could be that when I'm with you. I
always feel so safe. Otherwise it would seem strange that this witch
doctor whom we have not seen for so long, and in fact whom we thought
had left this part of the country, should have been here right in our
midst all the time."
"He may not have been. He may only just have returned," I said.
"Worthies of his profession are inclined to be somewhat sporadic in
their movements. Meanwhile if I were you, I wouldn't say anything about
what we've just seen until I've had time to make a few inquiries."
She promised, of course, and as we took our way homeward in the
splendour of the clear African night we thought no more of the uncanny
episode we had just witnessed, except as something out of the common
which had lent an element of unexpected excitement to our walk.