A light mule-waggon stood at Fullerton's door. By the time the process
of loading it--now begun--was completed it would no longer be a light
waggon.
Before that stage was attained, however, Fullerton was making nasty
remarks on the wholly unnecessary quantity of baggage without which
lovely woman professes herself unable to move--at least his spouse
pronounced them to be nasty, and, of course, she ought to know.
"Do stand up for us, Mr Wyndham," she appealed.
"Wouldn't be fair. You're two to one as it is," answered Wyndham,
tugging at a refractory strap, for he was engaged in harnessing the
mules.
"Oh, here--I say, Clare. We haven't got a traction engine to move this
outfit," grumbled Fullerton, as his sister-in-law appeared, together
with another quite exasperating bundle. "No we haven't. Only mules."
"It's all right, Dick. Put that in somewhere," was the serene answer.
"Only, don't squash it more than you can help, because there are things
in it that'll spoil."
Fullerton grunted, and the work of packing and stowing went on, the
bulkier and heavier articles of baggage having been fastened on behind
with reins.
"That's all right," said Wyndham, looking up from the last buckle. "Now
I think we can all get in."
It had taken some little while and a great deal of importunity to bring
Richard Fullerton round to the Buluwayo scheme, and even then his
womenkind had given every reason but the real one for wanting to go
there. He was endowed with his full share of obstinacy; however, he
came round at last. At last! Just so. A great deal was destined to
turn upon those two monosyllables.
"You take the lines first stage, Fullerton, or shall I?" asked Wyndham,
the outfit being, in fact, his property. On hearing of the Fullertons'
projected move he had immediately proffered it, and volunteered to drive
them himself. Such an opportunity of being in Clare's society for three
whole days was one not to be thrown away, and of showing to advantage
before her during the time, for he was a first-rate whip. Fullerton was
not.
"Er--you'd better tool us, I think," said the latter. "I might be able
to drive four-in-hand, but I believe I'd be rather out of it with
eight."
"Oh, it's just as easy. Still--do as you like." And Wyndham, climbing
to his seat, took the reins, and away went the team at a brisk trot. It
was a lovely morning, but inclined to be hot, and as they topped the
mimosa-studded rise, and in a minute Gandela was shut out of sight
behind them, there was a sense of exhilaration permeating the whole
party which promised that the trip was likely to prove an enjoyable one.
"Well, Lucy," said Fullerton, expanding accordingly, "I believe I'm
rather glad you two girls persuaded me into this run. A spell at the
Buluwayo Club will come in first-rate. You get rather sick of a poky
little hole like Gandela."
"Pity you wouldn't let yourself be `persuaded' a week ago," rapped out
the conjugal retort. "Or even more. You'd have been in the thick of
the Buluwayo Club at this moment."
"Yes, you took a deal of persuading, Dick," supported Clare. "It would
have been much better if we had started a week earlier."
There was an unconscious gravity in her tone that did not seem to fit
the subject or the occasion. But she was thinking of the grave urgency
of Lamont's warning--that they should remove at once; and of this, of
course, the others were in complete ignorance.
"Oh well, a week more or less doesn't matter a row of pins," returned
Fullerton unconcernedly. "That's one good point about this jolly
country, at any rate. No one need ever be in a hurry."
"Nor ever is," appended Wyndham. "Hallo! Here are some police Johnnies
coming along."
Riding single file along a narrow path, which would converge with the
high road a little farther on, they made out a small party of Mounted
Police--a dozen in all. They gained the main road just at the same time
as the mule-waggon crossed the path. The sergeant rode up and saluted.
"Going to Buluwayo?" said Wyndham.
"Yes, sir. And Captain Isard said we'd better keep with you for the
way."
"Sort of escort, eh?"
"That's it, sir."
"Escort!" echoed Fullerton. "Why, what the devil do we want with an
escort? We haven't got the Administrator on board."
"Well, sir," said the sergeant, "the niggers have been a bit sulky of
late, over the wholesale shootin' of their cattle, and it's a wide
stretch of country, and the captain said that as we were going to
Buluwayo in any case, it'd do no harm if we kept with your waggon."
As a matter of fact the men were not `going to Buluwayo in any case,'
but had been specially told off by their commanding officer to escort
this outfit thither. It--for all purposes in his eyes--spelt Clare
Vidal. In spite of his former rejection he had not got over his
weakness for that extremely attractive young person, and here was a
right royal chance to ingratiate himself with her; for of course he
would contrive to let her know later that it was solely upon her account
that the escort had been furnished. Isard had accepted Lamont's warning
with a considerable pinch of salt, still there was no doubt but that
there was unrest among the natives, and where Clare was concerned it was
as well to be on the safe side. The safe side! Well, Isard was steeped
to the crown of his handsome and soldierly head in the British and
military tradition of despising your enemy, wherefore, of course, the
presence of a dozen of his Mounted Police was sufficient to overawe
every squalid nigger in Matabeleland, or the whole lot of them put
together.
"There's something in that, sergeant," said Wyndham, "and it's very good
of the captain to have thought of it." Then, as the sergeant having
saluted again and dropped behind, he went on--
"By George, that's very considerate of Isard. He's not at all the sort
of fellow I should have expected a thing of that sort from. Well, Miss
Vidal, you've got the experience of travelling under an armed escort.
Quite romantic, isn't it?"
"Quite. But, as you say, it's very kind of Captain Isard all the same,"
answered Clare, the only one who was behind the scenes as to the
situation. Lamont's warning to herself had been urgent and definite,
yet her brother-in-law's provoking obstinacy had caused him to put off
and put off. The limit of the time named must nearly have been reached,
and, remembering this, secretly she hailed the presence of those armed
police with a feeling of devout thankfulness.
"But--is there really any danger?" said her sister anxiously. "Because
if there is, I, for one, vote we turn back."
"Danger! Pho!" rapped out Fullerton contemptuously. "I suppose Lamont
has been putting about one of his chronic scares, or something of that
sort. Turn back? No fear. We're in for a jolly trip."
Whereby it is manifest that in a small place like Gandela, things will
leak out. Assuredly nothing could look more peaceful than the aspect of
things as they pulled up at the mixture of store and wayside inn where
they were to outspan after the first stage. The wild veldt, aglow in
the shimmering heat, the drowsy hum of native voices, the sleepiness and
calm of the place--no suggestion of a cataclysm lay here.
"Hallo, Langrishe!" sang out Wyndham, as a lank, parchment-faced man
lounged forward, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "Any news? We're
bound for Buluwayo. How's the scare getting on?"
"Scare? I don't know nuth'n about any bloomin' scare, and don't want
to."
"Don't believe in it, eh?"
The storekeeper fired off a very contemptuous ejaculation, and turned to
help Wyndham to unharness the mules. Fullerton also bore a hand,
contriving however to be of more hindrance than help.
"What'll you take, sergeant?" said Wyndham, as, the above operation
completed, they adjourned to the bar. The sergeant named his--and
taking up the usual dice-box Wyndham and Fullerton threw between them.
"Mine," pronounced the former. "By the way, Langrishe, there are a
dozen thirsty police outside. Serve them a good tot all round."
In the rough dining-room a small Makalaka boy was spreading a murky
cloth on a murkier table. The inhabitants of the room were mostly
flies, and, incidentally, Lucy and Clare. But they were used to these
little defects of detail, by that time.
"Can't give you anything but tinned stuff, ladies," said Langrishe,
gruffly apologetic. "Everything fresh has died of the drought or the
rinderpest."
That too, did not afflict them, and they discussed Paysandu tongue in
that rough-and-ready veldt shanty with an appetite not always present at
the most dainty and glittering of snowy tables. Then after a brief rest
the mules were inspanned again. "Going to outspan at Skrine's?" said
Langrishe, as, having settled up, they bade him good-bye.
"Don't know," answered Wyndham; "I'd like to get on to the Kezane."
"You can't. It's too far and too hot. You'll bust them mules."
"Oh well, I'll see how they get on. So long, Langrishe, we'll look in
on the way back."
Poor Langrishe! he was a rough pioneer in a rough country, but a good
fellow enough according to his lights. Little they thought, that gay
and light-hearted party, as they bade him good-bye--little he thought
himself--that not merely his days, but his hours were numbered--and that
not even two figures would be needed to write the number of them; for
one of the awful features of that ghastly rising was that it whirled
down upon its victims as a veritable bolt from the blue. And its
victims were scattered, singly or by twos and threes, throughout the
length and breadth of the land.
Craftily Wyndham had manoeuvred that Clare should share the front seat
with him. She could see the country better, he declared, and if there
was more sun there was more air than in the back seat. Clare herself
was nothing loth, and moreover the move met with Fullerton's approval.
That sybaritic engineer, feeling genial after a plain but plentiful
lunch and two or three long whiskies-and-sodas, felt likewise a little
drowsy; and the back seat was more comfortable for the purpose of forty
winks. Wyndham was actuated by another motive. He was proud of his
driving and he wanted the girl to witness and appreciate it. And she
did, and said so, thereby raising Wyndham to the seventh heaven of
delighted complacency.
More than once he stole a glance of admiration at the beautiful,
animated face beside him. The heat, and a modicum of dust, seemed to
affect her not one whit. Poor Lucy Fullerton in the back seat, not less
drowsy than her proprietor, was looking a trifle red and puffy from the
effects of both, but Clare, in her fresh and cool attire and straw hat,
was as fresh and cool and smiling as though heat and dust did not exist.
She did not even want to put up a sunshade, that most abominable of
nuisances on the part of the sharer of your driving seat, what time your
way lies over none too smooth roads, and through an occasional stony and
slippery drift. And they chatted and joked merrily and light-heartedly
as they sped over the sunlit landscape with its variety of towering
granite kopje near by and hazy line of distant ridge far away against
the deep blue of heaven's vault, what time both Fullertons snored
placidly behind, one discordantly, the other lightly.
"Our good Fullerton is guilty of a snore fit to give a dead man the
nightmare, isn't he, Miss Vidal?" said Wyndham presently, turning his
head to look at the offender. That estimable engineer lay back in his
corner in an uncomfortable attitude, his mouth wide open and emitting
sounds that baffle description. "I really think we ought to wake him."