"Roll out, Dibs. Roll out, you lazy beggar. It'll take us at least
three hours."
Thus Moseley, surveyor, to Tarrant, ditto. The campfire had gone out
during the small hours, and the line of action enjoined upon the latter
by his chum was not a congenial one, for the atmosphere half an hour
before sunrise was chill and shivery. Yet, early as it was, the horses
and pack-donkeys had already been turned out of the "scherm," or
extemporised enclosure, in which they had spent the night, and were
cropping the grass with an enjoyment born of the night's abstinence.
"No hurry," returned he thus unceremoniously disturbed, rolling his rugs
closer around him.
"But there is hurry, Dibs, if we want to get to Hollingworth's by
breakfast-time."
"But _I_ don't want to get to Hollingworth's by breakfast-time, or any
other time for the matter of that."
"Oh yes, you do, once you're up. Come now, old man. Roll out."
The two were old schoolfellows--hence the nickname which still stuck to
one of them--and had met up-country by the merest chance, Moseley we
have already seen, in the capacity of newly landed passenger from the
English mail-steamer. Tarrant was a lean, dark man, with a pointed
beard and a dry expression of countenance. He was inclined to take
things easily, declaring that everything was bound to come right if only
it were left alone. Moseley, on the other hand, was one of those
painfully energetic persons, bursting with an all-pervading and utterly
superfluous vitality. They had been out surveying claims, and were now
on their return to Bulawayo.
The night's camp had been pitched in a romantic glen, with nothing
between the sleepers and the starry heaven but the spreading branches of
a wild fig, nothing between them and Mother Earth but some cut grass and
a rug. Stiff and cold, Tarrant rose from amid his blankets, and stood
rubbing his eyes.
"I'll never come out on survey with you again, Moseley," he declared.
"You're a bore of the first water."
"Won't you, old chap? I seem to have heard something of that sort
before--often before."
"I mean it this time. Er--Mafuta. _Tshetsha_ with that fire.
_Tshetsha umlilo, Umfaan_. You savvy? _Tshetsha_!"
Whether the native boy understood this adjuration in the dialect known
as "kitchen Kafir" or not, he continued stolidly striving to blow into
flame some ends of stick still smouldering from last night's blaze, it
not seeming to occur to him that a couple of handfuls of dry grass would
do the trick in as many seconds. The while the dialogue between his
white masters continued.
"Who the devil is Hollingworth when he's at home, Moseley?"
"Down-country man, up here trying to farm. Served in the war against Lo
Ben, and had ground given him. Rattling good chap. By the way, he's
got rather a pretty wife."
"Kids?"
"Yes; three or four. I forget which."
"Faugh! Hate kids. Always a nuisance. Always yelling. Yell when
they're not happy; yell ten times more when they are. Besides, they
smudge their faces with jam. Damn Hollingworth! I won't go there."
This statement was received by the other with all serenity and without
reply. He knew his chum's little weakness, therefore knew that the bait
thrown out would be not merely nibbled at but swallowed, the
objectionable progeny notwithstanding. So he continued pulling on his
long boots and otherwise completing his not extravagant toilet with
complete equanimity. And then Mafuta, who at length had got the fire to
burn, came along with some steaming coffee.
"That's better," pronounced Tarrant, having got outside the invigorating
brew. "Wonder if there are any crocs in these water puddles, Moseley?
I'm going to tub."
"Tub? Man alive, we're just ready to start. What on earth do you want
to tub now for?"
"I thought you said Hollingworth had a pretty wife," tranquilly rejoined
the other, digging into his kitbag for a towel. "You can't make
acquaintance with a pretty woman when you're in an untubbed state, you
know."
Moseley roared.
"Oh, skittles!" he said. "You can tub when you get there."
"I believe you're right; and the water looks dashed cold at this time of
day."
"And I thought you said you wouldn't go there."
"Did I? Oh, well, I suppose I must if you do. It wouldn't look well,
would it?"
"Why, of course not. Hurry up now. The boys want to load up your kit."
The pack-donkeys had been driven up, and the horses stood ready saddled.
In an incredibly short space of time all personal baggage and camp
impedimenta had been removed and stowed upon the backs of the patient
little Neddies--in the long run and the land of horse-sickness and
"fly," perhaps more serviceable all round than that noble animal the
horse. And then, as the first arrowy gleams of the sun began to warm
the world, they started from their night's camp.
It was pleasant country that through which they now rode. Dewdrops
still hung from the sprays of the feathery acacias, gleaming like
diamonds in the rising sunlight; and the thorn-brake was musical with
bird voices, or the clucking of bush-pheasants scuttling alarmed amid
the long grass and undergrowth; and here and there a troop of
guinea-fowl darting away with the rapidity of spiders at the sound of
hoofstrokes, as the wayfarers wended their way along the edge of a
native "land." Kraals, too, the conical roofs of the huts shining
yellow in the sunlight; but from these no reek of blue smoke mounted to
the heavens. Of cattle, either, was there no sign, nor indeed of human
occupancy. The land seemed deserted--dead. What did it mean? Turning
back, Moseley called to the boy to find out what he thought about it.
Mafuta came trotting up. Where were all the cattle? There were no
cattle. They were all dead of the disease. Where were all the people?
They had moved to other parts of the country, or possibly some were
still lying asleep as there were no cattle to tend. He, Mafuta, did not
know. This was not his part. He came from a kraal a long way off--away
beyond the Gwai.
This Mafuta was a young Matabele, who had served in the Ingubo regiment
when Lo Bengula was king, and had entered the white man's service to
earn money in order to buy a wife. He was an intelligent and
warrior-looking youth, but with an expression of countenance as of one
who had gazed on--perhaps taken part in--scenes of cruelty and
bloodshed, and would not in the least object to doing so again. He was
carrying Tarrant's Martini rifle and cartridge-belt, and looked
thoroughly at home with them, as in fact he was, for his masters would
often send him out to shoot game for camp consumption, when the heat
disinclined them for needless activity. Moseley had a shot-gun, which
he preferred to carry himself.
Now, however, they were not on sport intent, but held steadily on their
way; and, after about two hours' riding, a thread of blue smoke
appeared. A little further and they made out a homestead, standing on a
slope beyond the high precipitous banks of a dry river.
"It'll be something to get our heels under a table again," remarked
Tarrant, as they urged their horses up the steep path of the drift.
"Eating your `skoff' in a sort of tied-in-a-knot attitude, with your
plate tobogganing away from you on the very slightest provocation, may
be romantic enough on paper, but it's a beastly bore in actual practice.
Is that Hollingworth?"
"Yes."
A tall man was advancing towards them from the house. He wore a large
beard, and his attire was the same as theirs--a silk shirt, and
riding-trousers tucked into long boots, leather belt, and broad-brimmed
hat.
"Hallo, Moseley!" he sung out. "Back again, eh? What's the news?"
"Oh, rinderpest--always rinderpest. Here, I say, d'you know Tarrant?
No? Well, here he is. Not a bad chap at bottom, but you've got to keep
him at it."
The usual hand-shake followed, and then Hollingworth, farmer-like, began
to growl.
"Rinderpest? I should think so. Why, I've hardly a hoof left. No
fear. I'm going to chuck farming and go prospecting again. But come
along in and have a drop of something after your ride. It'll be
breakfast-time directly."
"Er--could one have a tub--among other things?" said Tarrant.
"Tub? Why, of course. Here--this way." And their host piloted them
behind the scenes.
When the two men re-appeared, refreshed both inwardly and out, the
residue of the household were gathered. Tarrant, already appraising his
hostess, decided that Moseley's judgment was not at fault. She was a
pretty little woman, dark-eyed and sparkling, albeit somewhat overtanned
by sun and air; but it took him just two minutes to determine that she
had not an idea or thought outside her very restive progeny, which, in
proportion of one to the other, were even as a row of organ-pipes. Then
a diversion occurred--a diversion strange and startling. The door
behind him opened, and there entered somebody; yet was that any reason
why Moseley should suddenly jump up from his seat like a lunatic, at the
risk of upsetting no end of things, and vociferate--"Great Heavens!
Miss Commerell, who'd have thought of meeting _you_ here? When on earth
did you get here? Well, I _am_ glad!" No; there was no need for
Moseley to kick up such a fuss. It was beastly bad form; but then,
Moseley always was such an impulsive chap.
"So you've met before?" cried Mrs Hollingworth, who had been about to
introduce them.
"Rather. I should rather think we had met before," sung out Moseley, in
what his travelling chum was wont to call his "hail-the-maintop"
voice. "Why, we were fellow-passengers, fellow-actors,
fellow-all-sorts-of-things, weren't we, Miss Commerell? But how did you
find your way up here, and when?"
"You've asked me about four questions at once, Mr Moseley," said Nidia,
in her bright, laughing way, "but I'll only ask you one--How am I going
to answer them all at once?"
Tarrant, the while, was murmuring to himself, "Oh, never mind me.
Perhaps in half an hour or so he may remember that we are pards, and
that I'm entitled to share his acquaintance with the young lady." And
indeed at that moment the same idea occurred to Moseley himself, and he
proceeded to introduce them.
Nidia was looking her very best. Here, in a settler's homestead,
perforce rough, in the hot steamy wilds of Matabeleland, she looked as
cool and fresh as with all the appliances of comfort and civilisation
ready to hand. Tarrant, who rather fancied himself as a connoisseur in
that line, was struck. Here was something quite out of the common, he
thought to himself, as his glance took in the animated, expressive face,
the lighting up of the blue eyes, the readiness wherewith the lips would
curve into the most captivating of smiles, the dainty figure, and the
cool, neat, tasteful attire. Mrs Hollingworth was a pretty woman,
Moseley had declared, and rightly; but his chum had never prepared him
for anything like this.
The while Nidia herself was replying to the questions volubly fired into
her by Moseley. They had come up to Bulawayo in due course. Fatiguing!
No; on the whole she had rather enjoyed the journey--the novelty and so
on--and everybody they met had been very kind to them, and had done all
they knew to make things easy. How was Mrs Bateman? Oh, flourishing.
In fact, when Mr Bateman returned she herself had, of course, felt _de
trop_, and so had come to inflict herself on Mrs Hollingworth, and see
some of the real wild side of the country.
The last in her most arch and quizzical manner.
"It's a poor time you've chosen to look at it in, Miss Commerell,"
remarked Hollingworth. "Rinderpest has about done for us all, and bar
that the whole show has been as dry as chips."
"Yet, it's all very interesting to me, at any rate," she returned. "And
the savages. I can hardly believe they are the wicked ferocious beings
you all make out, poor, patient, put-upon looking mortals! Some of the
old men have such really fine faces, and their voices are so soft and
kindly--though, of course, I can't understand a word they say," she
broke off, with a whimsical candour that made everybody laugh.
Hollingworth whistled.
"`Soft and kindly!' Why, they are just about as sulky and discontented
as they can well be--though, poor devils, one can hardly blame them. It
must be hard, rough luck to see their cattle shot down by hundreds--by
thousands--under their very noses. Of course they abuse the Government
for giving them back the cattle with one hand only to take it away with
the other. It's only what we should do ourselves."
"I should think so. Poor things! Really, Mr Hollingworth, I think you
seem to have treated them all very badly."
Such a sentiment was not popular in Matabeleland then, nor, for the
matter of that, has it ever been. In fact, it is about as heterodox an
utterance as though some rash wight were to pronounce the former realm
of Lo Bengula a non-gold-producing country. But it was impossible to be
angry with the owner of the voice that now made it.
"I don't know that we have, Miss Commerell," replied Hollingworth.
"Indeed, I think, on the whole, we haven't. Now, I can always get boys
enough--so can my neighbours--and that's the best test. A nigger won't
stop a week with anybody who treats him badly."
"Oh, I didn't mean that way, Mr Hollingworth. I meant as a nation."
"Even there, Lo Bengula and the old chiefs didn't rule them with sugar
and honey, let me tell you. But, squarely, I believe they did prefer
the kicks of Lo Ben to the halfpence of the Chartered Company; and I
suppose it's natural. A nigger's ways are not a white man's ways, and
never will be."
And then as the shrill yells and other vociferations raised by the
Hollingworth posterity in fierce debate over the limit of its jam
allowance rendered further conversation impossible, an adjournment was
made outside.
"Were you all the time at the Cape before coming up here, Miss
Commerell?" began Moseley, as they found seats beneath the shade of a
large fig-tree.
"Yes. We remained on at Cogill's. It was rather fun. I think there
was hardly a corner of the whole neighbourhood we didn't explore."
"--With John Ames."
The tone, slightly bantering, was thoroughly good-natured. Even one
more touchy than Nidia Commerell could hardly have taken offence. But
nothing was further from her thoughts.
"You know him, then?" And the expressive face lighted up with genuine
pleasure.
"Not personally; only by name."
"Then, how did you know--"
"--About the explorations? The Cape Peninsula is a very gossipy place."
"I suppose so. Most places are," said Nidia, tranquilly; "but that sort
of thing never troubles me one little bit. Mr Ames lives somewhere up
here, doesn't he? I wonder where he is now?"
Cool and at ease they sat there chatting. Had she been a clairvoyante a
vision might have been vouchsafed to Nidia--the vision of a man,
crouching in a thicket of "wacht-een-bietje" thorns, his face and hands
lacerated, his clothes torn--a hunted man, with the look of some recent
horror stamped upon his pale, set face; the last degree of desperation,
of despair, yet of resolution, shining from his eyes; his hand grasping
a sword-bayonet, already foul with the dried stains of human blood; and
flitting through the brake, their dark forms decked with cowhair and
other fantastic adornments, glistening in the sun, a band of armed
savages bent on the shedding of blood. But not being blessed--or the
reverse--with the faculty of clairvoyance, all she did see was the
eminently peaceful scene around her--the two men lazily smoking their
pipes beneath the shade of the great tree, while the third moved about
attending to some of the hundred and one details of his farm business;
the figure of her hostess, her head protected by an ample white "kapje,"
coming forth to see that four of her young, disporting themselves in the
open in front of the house, were not getting into more mischief than
usual, and retiring precipitately within to assuage the yells of the
fifth, and haply to attend to some household duty, "Where he is now?"
repeated Moseley. "Why, he can't be far from here. He's Native
Commissioner of Sikumbutana. I don't suppose his place can be more than
twenty or twenty-two miles off. Eh, Dibs?"
"About that," assented Tarrant, laconically.
"I should so like to see him again," pursued Nidia.
"Nothing easier, Miss Commerell. Get Hollingworth to send over a boy
with a note, or a message to that effect, and I predict Ames will be
here like a shot."
"I'm sure he would," assented Nidia, in such a genuinely and naturally
pleased tone as to set Tarrant the cynic, Tarrant the laconic, Tarrant
the incipient admirer of herself, staring. "We were great friends down
at the Cape, and made no end of expeditions together. Yes; I would like
to see him again."
"Phew!" whistled Tarrant to himself, not entirely deceived by her
consummate ingenuousness. "Lucky Ames! Well, there's no show for me in
that quarter, that's manifest."
"Isn't he that rather good-looking chap who was sitting at our table the
day I had lunch with you at Cogill's?" said Moseley.
"Yes. That's the man. We soon got to know him, and saw a great deal of
him."
"And thought a great deal of him?"
"Well, yes. I can see that you're trying to tease me, Mr Moseley, but
I don't care. I don't know when I've seen a man I liked better."
"`Present company--' of course?"
"No; not even present company. No; but really, I would like to let Mr
Ames know I am here. But I don't like to ask Mr Hollingworth. It's a
long way to send, and he may not be able to spare a boy."
Thought Tarrant, "She's a puzzler! She's playing on the innocent stop
for all the instrument will carry, or--she's genuine. Can't make her
out."