The walls of the room were hung with dark blue "limbo," which gave an
impression of refreshing coolness and restful, subdued light, in
grateful contrast to the hot, white glare outside. The furniture of the
room was pre-eminently of the useful order, consisting of a plain
`stinkwood' table, three or four ditto chairs much the worse for wear, a
sideboard consisting of two packing-cases knocked into one, a bookshelf,
and a camp bedstead whereon now reclined the, at present, sole occupant
and--in general--proprietor of the place.
He had been indulging in a siesta, which had run into hours. The
naturally dark face was tanned a rich brown by the up-country sun and
winds, and it was just the face that the up-country life would go to
strengthen--with its firm eyes and square, determined chin. As now seen
it was clear that the thoughts of its owner were not of a pleasant
nature. Briefly, they might be summed up somewhat in this wise--
"Is that foolery destined to haunt me for the remainder of my natural
life? I shut it down and turned my back on it more than a year ago--and
yet, and yet, I can't even take an afternoon snooze without dreaming all
that idiocy over again."
The jaded lassitude usually attendant on immediately awakening out of a
day sleep to those who seldom indulge in one was upon this man.
Moreover, the last vision of his dreams had been one of a lovely,
reproachful face--a recollection of a bitter parting and love turned to
hate; a rehearsal of the whole heart-breaking experience, reproduced
with that vivid reality which a dream can infuse. All of which hardly
conduced to a cheerful frame of mind.
"Wonder when Peters will be back," ran on his reflections. "He said
this evening. Peters is a most effectual antidote to the blues, and--By
the way, there's nothing much for skoff. I'd better take a look round
`the poultry yard.'"
With a yawn he rose from the couch and stood upright. His erect,
firmly-knit form was well set off by the prevailing costume of the
country, namely, a light shirt, breeches and gaiters, and leather belt.
He flung on the usual broad-brimmed cowboy hat, and, taking a gun and a
handful of cartridges, stood in the doorway for a moment, looking forth.
The glare of the hot hours was already toning off into that exquisitely
soft and mellow light, where afternoon merges into the African evening.
He looked forth upon an expanse of park-like country, rolling away from
his very door. Three or four great granite kopjes rose farther on, and,
beyond these, a dark line, extending as far as the eye could reach,
marked the margin of a vast forest tract. Taking a few steps forward he
turned. Here an entirely different scene was before his gaze. Behind
the rude house of plaster and thatch, from which he had just emerged,
was a large circular enclosure, stockaded with mopani poles and thorny
mimosa boughs, while another and smaller stockade, similarly
constructed, enclosed several conical huts. He had laughed at his
native servants when they had urged the necessity of building such a
stockade. Lions? Hyenas? Why, no wild animal would venture inside a
hut. Look at his own house. It was not stockaded. To which they had
replied in true native fashion that that might be so. The _Inkosi_ was
a very great and powerful white man, but they were only poor helpless
black men; and, moreover, that wild animals _had_ been known to take
people out of their huts. So he had laughed and let them have their
way.
Such was Piers Lamont's pioneer farm in Matabeleland. It had been
granted him by reason of his services during the war of occupation in
'93, and he had sold it--for a song--when he wanted a run home. He had
bought it back--very much on the same terms--a few months previously, on
his return to the old up-country life.
"Ho, Zingela!" he called.
"_Nkose_!" and a young native appeared from the enclosure containing the
conical huts. He was tall and slim, and straight as a dart, and had a
pleasing face.
"Come with me," said Lamont, speaking the Sindabele very fairly; "I am
going down to the river bank to collect a few birds for the pot. You
shall carry them."
"_Nkose_!" sung out the boy with great heartiness.
The South African native is a born sportsman, and if there is a service
congenial to him it is the participation, even vicariously, in any form
of sport.
They strolled leisurely down among the tree-stems by the river bank.
The francolin, or bush pheasant, whirred up out of the tall tambuti
grass one or two at a time. Crack! crack! went the gun, and in less
than half an hour Lamont's cartridges, of which he had taken ten, were
exhausted, and Zingela was carrying nine birds as they retraced their
steps homeward.
"Cook them all, Zingela. The other _Inkosi_ will be home to-night, and
will be hungry." Then as the boy, with a murmur of assent, withdrew,
Lamont dropped into one of the cane chairs on the low stoep, beneath the
projecting verandah of thatch, and lit a pipe.
The sun sank lower and lower, and the evening light became more golden
and entrancing. It was an hour and a scene to promote meditation,
retrospection, and he did not want retrospection. Still it was there.
Like most things we don't want, it would intrude. The influence of his
recent dream was still upon him, and from it there was no getting away.
Rather more than a year ago, and Violet Courtland had indignantly, and
in public, branded him as a coward. He had striven to put the incident
from his mind and her and her recollection from his life--and had mostly
succeeded. There were times when her recollection would be forced back
upon him, though such occasions were becoming rarer and their effect
fainter. Every occasion of the kind had been succeeded by a fierce
reaction of vindictive rancour against one who could so have misjudged
him, and so would this. Yet it was more vivid, more saturating, than
any of them.
"Not if she went on her knees to me would I ever forgive her that one
thing," he would say fiercely to himself on the occasion of such
reactions, thus unconsciously paraphrasing the very words that had been
said about him, more than a year ago, and upwards of seven thousand
miles away. And there would occur to him the idea that life here was
too easy, too stagnant. Yet he had not had things all his own way. The
dread scourge which had swept steadily down from the north had not
spared him; that rinderpest which had decimated his neighbours' cattle,
as well as that of the natives, had decimated--was still decimating--his
own. Even this, however, could not avail to afford him the anxiety
which might constitute the one nail destined to drive out the other; for
its ravages, however much they might spell loss, and serious loss, could
never to him spell utter ruin, as was the case with some others.
Now a sound of distant lowing, and the occasional clear shout of the
driver, told that his own herd was being driven in for the night; and
then the calves which had already been brought in woke up, in responsive
bellow, to greet the approaching herd. Lamont rose and went round to
the kraal. Here was a possible source of anxiety, and narrowly and
eagerly did he scan the animals as they passed him, lest haply he might
discern symptoms of the dread pestilence. But none appeared, nor did a
closer investigation as he moved about within the kraal show further
cause for anxiety. So preoccupied was he with this that he entirely
failed to notice the approach of a horseman in the growing dusk, until
the circumstance was brought to his notice by the sharp crack of a whip
and a cheery hail.
"Evenin', Lamont."
"Peters, by George! Well, I said you'd be back to-night. You're as
punctual as a jolly clock, old man."
The speaker was outside the gate now, and the two men exchanged a
cordial hand-grip.
"Jolly glad you are back too," he went on. "I've got on a fit of holy
blues to-night."
"Oh well, then, it's a good job I've brought along a chum. He'll help
liven you."
"A chum? Where is he?"
"With the carts. They're about at the three-mile _draai_ now. His
horse knocked out. This was the way of it," went on Peters, who, having
off-saddled his own mount and handed it over to a boy, led the way to
the house. "You know Fuliya's bend on the Pagadi road. No, you don't?
Well, no matter. Here's luck, old man."
Down went two long tumblers of whisky-and-selzogene.
"We'll have another when the other chap turns up," said Peters, with a
jolly laugh. "Well, as I was saying, just before I got to that bend I
saw two ugly Makalakas cross the road."
"Nothing wonderful in that. Most likely they only wanted to get to the
other side," said Lamont slily.
"Eh? Oh, I see. Well they did, of course. They dived into the mopani.
But, you know, they gave me the idea of being up to some devilment.
They didn't see me neither, and they had axes and assegais, but of
course it was none of my business if they were going to stick or hack
some other nigger, so I just rode on. A mile or so farther, just the
other side of a dry _sluit_, I saw a brand-new bush-buck spoor leading
into the mopani. I could do with some fresh meat just then--dead sick
of `bully'--so started to see if I could get near enough to him with the
.303. Well I didn't. I saw something else that drove the other clean
out of my head. On the opposite side of the _sluit_ from me a man
staggered out from the trees--a white man--and fell. `That's what those
two devils were up to, was it,' I thought. They'd assegaied him from
behind, and would be here in a minute to collect the plunder. You know,
Lamont, more than one white man has disappeared in that mopani belt, but
it's always been put down to thirst."
"Yes. Go on."
"Well, I just dropped down in the tambuti grass, and wormed forward to
where I could see over a bit o' rock. Then I drew a careful bead on the
exact spot where the nigger would stand to finish off the chap, and--by
the Lord!--there the nigger was, with an axe all ready in his fist. In
about a second he had skipped his own length in the air, and was
prancing about on the ground. He'd got it through the head, you see."
"Good! Did the other show up?"
"Didn't he? They showed up together. He cleared. But he was too late.
I got him too."
"Good old right and left! Well done, Peters! And the white man--who
was he, and was he badly damaged?"
"He wasn't damaged at all. But he'd have been dead of thirst before
night, even if the niggers had never sighted him. He's a Johnny Raw,
and he'd been drawing sort of figures of eight all about that mopani
patch for the last forty-eight hours. I didn't tell him there'd been
any shootin', or any niggers at all, and ain't going to. That sounds
like the carts," as the noise of wheels and whip cracking drew nearer
and nearer. "Yes; it is."
As the carts drew up, Lamont went back into the room for a moment to get
something he had left. When he turned, a tall figure stood in the
doorway framed against the darkness beyond.
"Lamont--isn't it?"
This was a fairly familiar method of address from a perfect stranger,
even in a land of generally prevailing free-and-easiness, and Lamont
stiffened.
"Let me see, I know the voice," he said, staring at the new arrival.
"But--"
The other laughed.
"Thought I'd give you a little surprise," he said. "I'm Ancram. We
were staying at Courtland together, don't you remember?"
"Oh yes--perfectly. Come in. I didn't recognise you at first because--
er--"
"I haven't had a shave for a week," supplemented the other, with an easy
laugh. "Well, we can put that right now."
"It did make a difference certainly. Well, and how are you, Ancram?"
"Hallo!" sung out Peters, appearing at the door. "Brought off your
surprise yet, Ancram? He said I wasn't to give away his name, Lamont,
because he wanted to spring a surprise on you. Ha-ha!"