his polite phrases rather impatiently and seemed a little incredulous
about any danger from Arab attacks. What exercised her mind, she said
frankly, was how to keep the hundred men of his caravan from too close
contact with her twenty or thirty maidens who lived in--what it was
hoped was--"maiden meditation, fancy free," within the stockaded
boundaries of the Mission Station. The local young manhood of the
near-by Ulunga villages was supposed to stand too much in awe of Ann and
to obey too strictly their chief's prohibition of interference with the
young women of the Mission to annoy them with any amorous advances; but
already Ann thought she had seen bold glances cast at her pupils--whom
she was training to be Christian wives of Christian husbands--by the
love-famished stalwarts of the caravan; and a coy recognition of this
admiration on the part of the plump "Big-geru." To ease her
apprehensions the men were soon all drafted off to billets in the native
villages a mile away. To Brentham and his personal servants were
alotted the Boys' School and the Chapel for their accommodation, the
Consul being told that under all the circumstances of his visit there
could be no thought of sacrilege in his using the House of God as a
dwelling-place.
Brentham had told them as soon as he arrived that he was charged with
instructions to escort all the white _personnel_ of Hangodi to some safe
place on the coast whilst this war between Arabs and Germans was going
on. He had started from Medinat-al-barkah and had with great difficulty
and by making the utmost use of the British flag and of the presence of
British war vessels off the coast, pushed his way past the insurgent
Arabs and Waswahili that were attacking the German strongholds.
By forced marches he had reached the mission stations of Uluguru and
Usagara, and had advised the retreat of the older men and all the white
women towards the Kilwa coast, not at present in revolt. He left them
still undecided whether or not to take his advice, but he had furnished
them with a reinforcement of porters and arms.
There was no time to lose, so he was now hurrying on to Ulunga and Ugogo
to put the same proposition before the members of the East African
Mission, except that the safest route to the coast must now be a great
detour towards Kilimanjaro.
Whatever the men decided to do, the women should at any rate come away
with him. He would proceed westward and try to pick up the Stotts; then
with his stout-hearted Wanyamwezi soldier-porters they would all find a
way round the routes and villages dominated by the Arabs and Wangwana[#]
and reach the coast at Mvita, where there was a British Consulate and
where British gunboats were lying off the Arab town. But time was
precious. Already he had heard that bands of plundering Wangwana and
Ruga-ruga[#] were approaching Ugogo from the west.
[#] Wangwana was the general term in the East African interior by which
the "Black Arabs," the Muhammadan Arabized negroes, were known.
[#] Ruga-ruga was the name given to war-like negroes--not necessarily
Muhammadans, armed by the Arabs with flint-lock guns and sent to raid
and ravish those tribes which rebelled against the slave-traders.
"How long can you give us?" said the anguished John, torn between his
sense of duty regarding his wife and his extreme reluctance to abandon
his Mission Station to certain destruction.
"Well, not more than forty-eight hours."
"Brethren," said John, "we must meet in conference and decide this.
Sister Lucy has retired to bed--I advised her to do so. She has left it
to me to settle what she had better do. But for the rest of us, let us
meet after supper in the mess house and talk it over. You, sir," he
said, to the worn and weary-looking Brentham--who, whatever he might
appear in Lucy's eyes as paladin and parfit gentill knight, was streaked
with black and brown after having ridden and walked through the charred
herbage of the burnt plains still smoking with their dry-season bush
fires--"You, sir, would like a rest and a wash and a meal. Shall I show
you your quarters?..."
When the little party met in conclave, how unreal the threat of war and
violence seemed! The open square of the station was bathed in silver
moonlight from a moon three-quarters full; there was the distant
twanging of a native guitar played by some musical porter; a village dog
sent up a complacent howl or two; a goat-sucker churred; a laugh came
from the Big-geru's quarters.
John, not without a hope the Consul might be exaggerating their danger,
said: "Brethren and Sister Jamblin, each of you shall speak in turn, but
as I am regarded as your leader I will give my opinion first. I have
decided that my wife shall leave with the Consul for the coast, perhaps
even for England, unless she recovers her health and things quiet down.
Cruelly hard as it is for me to part with her, I feel it is the right
thing to do. As for me, it is also the right thing that I should stop
here till all danger is over and my place can be taken by some one else.
Sister Jamblin must go with Lucy." (Ann murmured she would do nothing of
the kind.) "Yes, Ann; I must insist. Lucy could not possibly travel
alone--it is not to be thought of...."
_Ann_: "Why, she can take Halima----"
"I say," continued John, wiping the perspiration from his heated face,
"it is not to be thought of. As an unmarried woman, Ann, you could not
remain here with us men----" (Ann: "Pooh, nonsense!") "Supposing we were
really attacked by the Arabs and we men were killed, I dare not think
what might be your fate! Brother Bayley, what do you say?"
_Bayley_: "Why, that I'll stay with you."
_Anderson_: "And I say the same. You've both spoken like jolly good
Englishmen. And--er--let's trust in the Lord, brethren. _He'll_ see us
through, He won't leave His servants in the lurch. To think of all the
work we've put into this place and all the money what's been spent on
it! What are we going to do with our trade goods if we cut and run?
The Consul can't load himself up with them--and our ivory and gum
copal..."
_Brentham_: "I might mention here I can only spare about twenty-five
porters for the whole five of you. We must travel as lightly as
possible, especially if the Stotts want help. They have young children,
I believe."
_Anderson_: "Then I vote we stop. Let the women go. It wouldn't be
right to expose them to the risk.... Ann, what do you say?"
_Ann_: "I say this. Let Sister Baines go to the coast. She's always
ailing and would only be a drag on us if we were hard-pressed. But for
my part I stay with the men, at any rate till things have calmed down.
_I'm_ not afraid. I'll soon learn to handle a rifle, and I'm pretty
good at dressing wounds. And there's my class of girls. It'd pretty
nigh break my heart if I went away and they came to grief after all that
training I've given them--to make them good wives some day."
_John_ (shortly and decidedly): "You can't remain. I've already told you
why. In this matter you must bow to my authority. Lucy in any case is
too ill to stay here--under these circumstances--and it is common
humanity that you should not let her travel alone to the coast. When
our anxiety is over, you and she can come back...." (Ann: "Thank you for
nothing!") "Well, sir, you shall know our definite decision in the
morning. Meantime you must be tired, very tired indeed. We thank you
heartily for coming to our assistance. I'm sure you'd like now to
retire." (Brentham withdraws.) "Brethren, before we separate let us put
our case before God, that He may guide us aright...."
The next morning the decisive answer tendered to the Consul was that the
men would remain and defend their station. Sisters Baines and Jamblin
should return to the coast with Consul Brentham.
Lucy forgot all about her anaemia and weak back and tendency to
dizziness in an excited packing up of necessaries for the journey. She
would not have to take with her more than her clothes and a few
invalid's provisions and appliances. She felt terribly elated, wildly
happy at times. No thought of danger entered her head--how could it,
with Roger as escort? At the same time, the sight of poor John's silent
grief--too deep for words--smote her with reproachfulness; and Ann's
scornful observation of her moments of sparkling gaiety seemed sinister.
The situation was eased by Brentham taking John away for three hours to
confer with Chief Mbogo and his counsellors. Mbogo was sure he could
drive off any number of Arabs or Wangwana if they came to attack his
villages or the Mission Station. He would send out word to the Masai.
The Masai were now his friends through the peace-making of the
missionaries: they hated the Arabs and the "coast people," and said they
would side with the Whites. At the same time he accepted gratefully
Brentham's present of ten Snider rifles and two loads of ammunition.
Another ten rifles and a thousand rounds of ammunition were added to the
armoury of the Mission Station, as well as two revolvers, one of which
Ann took over, for her own defence on the road or that of her
"Big-geru."
Brentham also tendered some expert advice to the Chief on the subject of
entrenchments round his stronghold. The Mission Station already
possessed a pretty strong stockade and a moat outside it. A few years
previously attacks from any quarter might be expected--Muhammadan
slave-traders, impulsive Masai, thievish Wagogo. If the first rush
could be checked the attack was seldom persisted in.
The Consul's _safari_ as it passed down the western slopes of the Ulunga
Hills[#] must have looked quite imposing to the natives who watched its
departure behind their dracaena and euphorbia hedges. First marched
Brentham himself with a stout staff and with his gun-carrier at his
heels. Then came the caravan headman and guide, the Mwinyi-mpara or
Kiongozi, as he was styled. He carried a small British ensign and was
followed by twenty-five armed porters with Brentham's personal loads,
each, however, with a Snider rifle and a neat uniform of cotton vest and
breeches. Next followed Ann Jamblin, riding astride the Consul's Maskat
donkey, every now and then glancing back on her fifteen Amazon porters,
the pick of her Big-geru class who carried their mistress's effects in
bundles on their woolly heads. Behind them was Lucy in her machila, its
long pole borne on the shoulders of two strapping Walunga, with a relief
crew behind of four other men of fine musculature. After that followed
about fifty porters poising on their heads the heavier baggage--bundles
of tents, bedding, water-tight tin boxes, bags of rice, bales of cloth,
boxes of beads, cases of ammunition, cooking implements. Trotting by the
side of this long file of men were two milch goats, bleating and baaing,
but thoroughly enjoying the journey; they were intended to provide milk
for the ladies' tea. One of the two was a special pet of Lucy's. To
look after the goats was a little naked Mgogo boy--a released slave--who
ran and frolicked with them, and kept the porters amused by his impudent
mimicry of the white people. Lastly in the rear of the caravan was a
guard of ten gunmen without loads to embarrass their quick movements.
[#] Ulunga was the southern portion of a country called "Ngulu" or
"Nguru."
Brentham and his charges were bound for the Stotts' station of Burungi,
three or four days' journey--say, fifty miles--to the west. Lucy felt
already many degrees better in health, though she thought it only decent
to conceal her returning vigour and new-found animation. The picnic
meals by the road side stimulated her appetite; her eye took pleasure in
the changes of scenery, the new panoramas of plain and wilderness that
unfolded themselves as she was swayingly borne along. Ann seemed sombre
and preoccupied, as though noting land-marks for after recognition.
Occasionally she pointed to this and that feature in the landscape and
asked her Big-geru for its native name.
The very hot weather which closes the dry season made itself felt, so
that the start from Hangodi had been begun in the early morning
twilight, and each succeeding morning they took to the road at 5.30.
They jogged along, with an occasional five minutes', rest, till
half-past ten or until about that time they had found a stream valley or
a water hole which contained water not too bad for cooking purposes.
Then the caravan halted for the day in such shade as might be found, and
the march was not resumed till 5 p.m.
Owing to the brilliancy of the moonlight it might be continued well into
the night. During the long mid-day halt, the Goanese cook, aided by
Halima and several porters and Brentham's Swahili butler, would prepare
really very creditable little meals, and after eating the travellers
would lie on unfolded deck chairs in some piece of shade where the hard
ground had been swept clear of snakes, insects or scorpions. Brentham,
if the heat were not too scorching, might wander with a shot-gun near by
to try for the chance of a guinea-fowl or francolin or tiny antelope.
At four o'clock they had tea with goat's milk; and at five resumed their
journey. The tents were pitched by moonlight and the beds made by the
light of a candle lantern. Toilet processes were very summary; there
was all too little water to wash in and the travellers must just sleep
in their clothes and put any ideas of effective ablutions out of their
heads till they reached the water supply at the Stotts' station. The
night camp was hastily surrounded by a thorn hedge cut from the acacia
trees, and big fires were lighted to keep off lions and hyenas. Blacks
and whites had to sleep in close proximity and the treasured goats and
donkey in the middle of the circle of loads.
The country they marched over--a northward extension of the "Mkunda
mkali" or "Bitter waste"--was at first steppe-like, then rocky and
rising in a series of escarpments. Almost its only trees seemed to be
flat-topped acacias, without leafage at this season, glistening in the
blazing sun and studded with long white thorns. The thin grass was
mostly burnt; nevertheless it was frequented by much game, and the land
was apparently devoid of human inhabitants. Brentham, always obsessed
by the fear of food scarcity, but hardly liking to absent himself from
the line of march and his following caravan, started each morning a few
minutes ahead of the rest and walked in advance as a pioneer, with his
gun-carrier at his elbow. In this way he sometimes brought down, close
to the path, an inquisitive Grant's gazelle or hartebeest; or a zebra
out of the many herds which closed up to espy the distant concourse of
men and then dissolved into a cloud of dust at the report of the gun.
Even at this lean season of the year the male zebras were in good
condition. Their yellow fat and juicy, sickly-sweet flesh delighted the
hungry porters.
On the early morning of the fourth day, the expedition passed a few
parched native plantations and one or two burnt huts and, as the sun
rose, marched into the irregular circle of the Stott station, across a
half-dry water-course, and found no human being to greet it. Silence
and partially burnt buildings of clay and thatch, torn paper, vultures
on the scorched trees, broken crockery, scraps of cloth, one or two
pools of dried blood, empty cartridge-cases, and the torn sacking and
splintered boards of packing-cases.
"This is pretty ghastly, Miss Jamblin," said Brentham, returning to the
hastily-cleaned camp amid the ruins of the Mission Station.
Lucy, feeling she could do nothing to help and had better not look at
the caked patches of dried blood which the porters were removing, had
withdrawn herself to a folding chair placed by Halima under the thin
shade of a fire-scorched tree. Ann was examining the vestiges of the
Stott property which the looters had left behind: school books and
primers in the Swahili language, empty ink-pots, broken slates,
enamelled iron plates and some substantial tables of native timber, too
heavy for either the fugitives or their enemies to carry away. Ann's
white solar "topi" and white dress were already smudged and sooted from
the burnt wood and thatch.
"Ghastly, isn't it!" he went on. "I've just returned from a
reconnaissance in which we rounded up three Masai youths--not warriors
but the hulking boys that attend on the spearmen. Two men in my
_safari_ understand Masai and they are now trying to make out the story
these boys tell. They evidently deny emphatically that the Stotts were
killed. They keep pointing to the north-west as the direction in which
they have gone, and say every now and then 'Irangi.' My interpreters
infer that this place was attacked about a week ago by a party of
Ruga-ruga coming from the Nyaturu country and travelling towards the
coast. They besieged the station, and killed some of the Mission boys,
but the Stotts apparently were not hurt. They defended themselves for
some time, till a party of Masai came to their relief, and then the
Ruga-ruga and 'black' Arabs were beaten off. Nevertheless the Stotts
left the station afterwards and went away to the north-west with the
Masai escorting them.... I want to see if I get on their tracks or if I
can find any real natives who saw the attack.... You seem to have a head
on your shoulders ... and an influence over the natives. I'll leave all
but five of the men here under your orders. Already they're at work
reconstructing the 'boma.' I propose skirmishing around and finding out
also if the Arabs and Ruga-ruga are still in the neighbourhood. I'll be
back before dark...."
_Ann_: "You'd much better give up such a wild-goose chase as looking for
the Stotts. Make for Kilimanjaro and the Mvita coast with Lucy. We've
got mission stations in Taita and at Jomvu, near Mvita, where you could
place her in comparative safety. I'd much rather return to Hangodi
instead of floundering about in the wilderness, mad with thirst and
unable to wash. I'm only a drag on you with my women porters whom your
men can't leave alone--I daren't take my eyes off them. Lucy'll soon be
well enough to ride your donkey--which I'm at present using. If the
Arabs haven't plundered the Wagogo or if there are Masai bands in the
neighbourhood you could easily buy a few donkeys--Masai breed, you know.
They're quickly broken in to riding, especially with your Maskat donkey
to show 'em how. And then you could travel much quicker. I don't think
you'll have trouble with the Arabs farther north. It's a Masai country,
and the Masai and the Muhammadans are at daggers drawn...."
_Brentham_ (hesitating): "No. I don't think I ought to let you go ... I
..." (His thoughts were saying: "_Let_ her go. She's a tiresome
termagant, she, with her fifteen women porters who'll cause the
deuce-and-all of a lot of trouble before we've gone far. It would be
lovely to have a long journey back to the coast with Lucy. _Of course_
I'd respect her. I should simply treat her as a sister" ... and his
pulses quickened)....
_Ann_: "_Let_ me go? I'm my own mistress and not going to be ordered
about by anybody. If I choose to go back, I'll go, even if I have to
walk all the way. But there! I don't want to be tiresome. You go off
on your prospecting and leave Lucy in my charge. I'll promise not to do
a bolt till you return--and whenever I promise, I keep my promise."
(Lucy came up at this juncture and was told rather impatiently by Ann
the dilemma in which the three of them were placed.) Captain Brentham
turned away, called up his headman, gave him instructions, and finally
went off with five gunmen and the three Masai youths. These were put in
a good humour by being crammed with broiled meat and rice, the latter a
food they had never tasted before, but accepted without demur at the
hands of the godlike white man.
Ann, thus placed in authority, set to work to carry out her plans. She
had the interior of the station circle cleaned as much as possible of
half-burnt house material, and gathered together what remained in the
ruins of books, clothes, trade goods. The looting had evidently been
very hurried, and no doubt the Stotts had conveyed some things with them
on their retreat. Lucy, sharply ordered by Ann not to over-exert
herself, sat in the shade in a deck chair, very apprehensive as to the
future and worried that Roger should have gone away.
The news that white people were back at Burungi--as this station was
called--penetrated quickly through this seemingly deserted region. So
often in Africa there occurs this wireless telegraphy, really due
perhaps to the lurking here and there in the brush and herbage of
invisible natives, observing what goes on and bounding away noiselessly
to carry the news to other prowlers. In the afternoon when Ann within
the thorn enclosure had made things a little more tidy and presentable
there appeared in the middle distance numbers of Wagogo warriors gazing
at the new arrivals with kindly neutrality, occasionally calling out
friendly, deprecatory greetings. Encouraged by Ann's answering shouts
in Kagulu they approached the "boma," and even ventured within the camp
enclosure, squatting then on their heels to exchange information. Their
confidence was sealed by little gifts of tobacco. The attack on the
Mission Station was described. The white people had been taken by
surprise, but had held their own till the Wagogo and Masai came to their
assistance. The Ruga-ruga shot fire-arrows in among the thatched roofs
and set fire to some of the houses. They even broke in through one part
of the "boma," but three of them were killed by the white man's people.
The fight had lasted half-a-day and one day. Then the Wangwana had
drawn off--to the south. Two days more and the white people had
gone--there were the white man--"Sitoto," they called him--and the white
woman chief--she was a great "doctor"--and three white children ... they
had all gone off with a party of the Masai--to the north somewhere. The
Masai had sold them donkeys to ride. Some Wagogo had gone with them.
It was perhaps four days since they went away. No! the Wagogo had _not_
plundered the white man's place. They were frightened to come there
because of the white man's "medicine." ...
"Then how did you get that?" said Ann, pointing to a soiled white
petticoat which an elderly man wore over one shoulder and across his
chest.
"That? That had been given him by the white woman herself for running
to summon the Masai." ...
"See here," said Ann, in fragmentary Kagulu. "You've got donkeys--Masai
donkeys--among you. The Ruga-ruga have not raided _you_. You bring me
here _three good strong donkeys_ and I will buy them for a good price:
white cloth, brass rings, iron wire, red cloth and gunpowder."
They conferred among themselves and thought they might produce three
donkeys--for a price.
"Well, then fetch them--_at once_. Otherwise the big white man, the
great chief of all the white men on the coast, the Balozi, will believe
you helped to plunder this station and make you give up the property
you've stolen." ...
Roger returned late that evening in brilliant moonlight to find that Ann
had purchased with his trade goods three good stout grey asses with
broad shoulder stripes. One she reserved for herself, the other two she
transferred to Brentham. They would serve for him to ride and also
provide his Goanese cook with a mount. [This Portuguese-Indian was a
very poor marcher and much inclined to fever; yet in some ways the
second most important person of the caravan, decent cooking being such
an enormous help to good health in Africa.] Lucy, who had grown much
stronger for this change and excitement, could ride the Maskat donkey
and her hammock men could return to Hangodi with some of Ann's loads.
Ann would further borrow five of Brentham's gun-men to escort her and
her fifteen women-porters--her Big-geru--back to Hangodi. She had also
engaged at extravagant pay a dozen of the Wagogo, fleet of foot and
brave hunters. These, armed with their long-bladed spears, would guide
and precede her little party, scaring away the wild beasts by their
cries. Lions and rhinoceroses were distinctly a danger to be reckoned
with.... By forced marching, especially at night, Ann would be back at
Hangodi in two days. It was therefore unwise to miss a single moonlight
night as the moon would soon be on the wane. The Ruga-ruga and Wangwana
never attacked at night, and if they were anywhere in the
neighbourhood--which the Wagogo scouts would soon find out--the party
would hide in the daylight hours.
Meantime Brentham and Lucy could remain encamped at Burungi awaiting the
return of Ann's escort. If the message was "All's well," they could
start off for the coast by the roundabout northern route....
"You seem to be a very capable woman," said Brentham, "as well as being
an obstinate one. I agree to your plan, though I have a presentiment I
may regret it. If you change your mind and come back I shan't reproach
you for being fickle. And besides, you may bring us later news. I must
in any case stay here for a few days to prepare for the big march. I
must shoot game and have a lot of 'biltong'[#] made for the men...."
[#] Strips of lean meat dried in the sun and thus preserved for a
considerable time in dry weather.
"I'm glad you agree," said Ann. "I know I shall be in the right place
at Hangodi--for many reasons. As it is, I've already had an idea. The
Stotts seem to have been saved by the Masai. The Masai that our Walunga
people call 'Wahumba' are on good terms with us. We brought about peace
between them and Mbogo. They come to our station to trade and we have
cured several of their wounded men from bad lion bites. We will send
messengers to the Humba Masai asking for a large war party of spearmen
to await down below in the plains any attack by the Arabs. I think the
mere knowledge the Masai are there will keep the Arabs from coming near
Ulunga."
So the next morning Ann rode off at five o'clock astride her Masai
donkey, on which some makeshift arrangement of padded cloths had been
tied by way of saddle. Her buxom Big-geru hoisted their light loads and
struck up a Moody and Sankey hymn translated by Ann into Kagulu. The
grinning Wanyamwezi gunmen brought up the rear, and the wild, unclothed
Wagogo with fantastic ostrich feather or zebra-mane head-dresses dashed
on ahead, whooping and leaping and shouting their determination to scare
away the beasts of the field from the white woman-chief who talked like
a man.
*CHAPTER XI*
*THE HAPPY VALLEY*
Roger, left alone with Lucy, resolved he would "do the right thing,"
clenched his teeth so to speak on the vow. He was the more fiercely
determined to act honourably because he felt himself to be fighting
against her own weakness of fibre, against her overpowering inclination
as well as his own. Her attractiveness for him had greatly increased
since the renewal of their comradeship. In the early days of the
acquaintance, though her prettiness and virginal charm were appealing,
she had the naivete and insipidity of an inexperienced girl which soon
weary a man of the world who tires of the relation between master and
pupil. Now she was a married woman; tempered, rendered more subtle by
suffering and experience of mankind, who was readier to express her
feelings through her eyes and her reticence than by direct speech. She
talked less unreflectingly, and the things she said were more due to her
own observation and reasoning than second-hand opinions picked up from
other people.
Ann, in the week in which he had seen the two women together, had been
just the right foil to throw up Lucy's charming femininity, her
refinement in dress and appearance and in the tones of her voice. Ann
by contrast was an impudent self-assertive virago with the worth at best
of a good drudge. After a year and a half's absence from Europe he made
this rediscovery of Lucy, set against a background of Savage
Africa--coarse landscapes, jagged rocks, unwieldy trees, bush
conflagrations, naked men, wild beasts just kept at bay. (On moonlight
nights they could actually descry the grey-white forms of lions and
hyenas padding noiselessly round the precincts of their boma.) These
violent incongruities made her seem to him a being of exquisite
refinement and yet of physical charm. Returning health, intense
happiness, the dawning hope of a bright future were dispelling the
anaemia and giving back to her face and neck the tinted white of a
healthy skin, warmed in tone by a good circulation. There was a sparkle
of animation in her violet eyes and a new lustre in her brown gold hair.
It would be a good thing for both, he felt, if he found the Stotts as
soon as possible and induced them to join company in a march to the
coast. His career--Yes, he must remember that. His career above all
things. He must not be turned aside from his great ambitions by any
woman. Yet he had missed fire over the Unguja appointment and wanted
consolation elsewhere. It was rather weary _always_ to be at work, in
an office, or in the field: never to settle down to a honeymoon and the
joys of domesticity. Perhaps he should have taken another line--the
Colonial Office and administrative work, not the Foreign Office and
adventurous diplomacy in Savage Africa.... He wanted to explore,
create, and then administer a great African Empire, tasks infinitely
above the mean capacity of a Godfrey Dewburn or a Spencer Bazzard. Why
could he not now--straight away--plunge into the vast unknown which lay
before him to the north, to the north-west? Where had Stanley
disappeared to? What had become of Emin? What was happening in Uganda
since the death of Mutesa? What unsolved mysteries lay west of the
Victoria Nyanza, north of Tanganyika, south of the Bahr-al-ghazal?
Should he take Lucy to his heart, throw conventions and commissions to
the winds, and start away with her on a wonderful journey of discovery,
leaving the world and the Rev. John Baines to say what they liked, and
covering his private treachery by his amazing discoveries?
Nonsense! Why, Queen Victoria would never overlook this act of
adultery. He might discover twenty lakes and name them all after
princes of her family or annex gold mines and pipes of diamonds and she
would refuse the accolade, and Society at her bidding would close its
ranks against the dishonoured missionary's wife. Besides, he had barely
enough trade goods with which to pay his way back to the coast,
especially by a round-about route. The African soon looks coldly on the
god-like white man if he has no more beads, cloth, copper wire, knives,
and gun-caps with which to pay road dues, "customs" or good-will
presents.
And his armed porters? They were only engaged for a six-months'
_safari_. They must be fed and paid or they would desert.... He must
put all this nonsense out of his head--take a few pills, a little
bromide--tire himself out every day big game shooting or scouting till
the men sent with Ann Jamblin returned with their news.
If he took all this exercise, he would not lie awake at night in his hot
tent, under his mosquito curtain longing, aching to go to Lucy's
quarters and say, "I love you: let us fight against it no longer. We
may all be dead a month hence."
To guard against such impulses he had insisted on Halima's sleeping on
an Unguja mat in her mistress's tent, and had surrounded the tent with a
square of reed fence which gave her a greater degree of privacy than the
wretched tent afforded. Within this there was space for a bathroom and
a "sitting-room," a shaded retreat to which she could retire for a
siesta or a confabulation with Halima who was still giving instruction
in Swahili. Outside this "harim"--as his men who constructed it
certainly took it to be--there was a "baraza" common to them both: a
thatched shelter open all round. Here the camp table was placed for
meals.
Roger determined to shut Lucy out of his thoughts as much as possible,
to think only for the day, for the dangers by which they were
surrounded, the hundred risks which attended their ever getting back to
civilization.... As soon as they could reach the coast he would send
Lucy to England and return to his Consulate at Medinat-al-barkah.... Of
course, should John Baines die of fever--missionaries often
did--or--if--he were killed? ... Suppose his station really was
attacked...? But then, again, such thoughts as these were of the order
of David's when he hankered after Bathsheba....
And then Lucy, again, Lucy might die of fever--she scarcely seemed cut
out for an African life, which is why he had begun pitying her.....
"I've had perfectly splendid sport to-day," said Roger, standing before
Lucy's "baraza" where the camp table was laid for tea. "I've shot a
rhino--they're cutting it up now--two hartebeests, and two impala.
That'll give us all the 'biltong' we can carry. I'm filthily dirty, as
you can see--ash and charcoal from the burnt bush, and sweat--God! It
_has_ been sweltering!--and the run after that--and _from_ that--rhino!
No. I'm not wounded--there's no need for emotion--but the rhino as he
charged--and _I_ doubled--squirted blood over me from his nostrils--I
must look like a fighting chimney sweep--I'll go and have a bath and
then you shall give me tea."
"Don't be long," said Lucy. "There's _such_ lots to talk about. Your
men have come back from Hangodi with a note to me from John! He says so
far 'all's well.' And two Masai, Halima says, are waiting to see you.
They keep saying 'Sitoto,' which means, I suppose, some news about the
Stotts' whereabouts. _How_ exciting it's all getting. I _am_ enjoying
it!"
"Halima" (to her maid): "Waambia watu wa mpishi tunataka chai, _marra_
moja!"
Four days afterwards, everything being ready for the fresh venture into
the unknown, loads lightened and tightened, and the biltong sufficiently
dry to be tied on top of the loads (imparting a disagreeable smell of a
butcher's shop to the caravan as it passed in single file), they set out
with Masai guides to find the Stotts. They travelled over the
water-parting from the rivers flowing to the Indian Ocean to those that
ended in vague marshes and bitter lakes. They climbed great escarpments
and descended into broad valleys between high cliffs and found
themselves amongst strange peoples, chiefly pastoral, keepers of great
herds of sleek, humped cattle, of dwarf African goats and fat-tailed
sheep.
The first of these, the Warangi, were fortunately allied in speech to
the Wagogo--so could be communicated with. They were a truculent lot,
inclined to make trouble with strangers. They seemed on this occasion,
however, too much excited over affairs of their own to be much
interested in the arrival of white folk, whom they had probably never
seen before except in the form of pale-faced Arabs. They replied
briefly that a white man and woman and their children had preceded
Brentham's party by a few days--when the moon was still at the full.
They were accompanied by a band of Masai with whom the Warangi were
friends....
"Are there any Arabs here?" asked Brentham through his interpreter.
"Waalabu?" No! They came sometimes to buy ivory, but on their last
visit they had tried to carry off some Rangi people as slaves, and if
they showed their faces again in Burangi, they would be driven away.
"Then what are you all so excited about?"
They replied it was an affair of their clan, of the people who lived in
these villages. Their young married men had gone out this dry season to
kill elephants as was their custom, but had returned after three months
with no luck at all: hardly a tusk worth looking at, very little meat,
and two men killed by the elephants. There could be but one explanation
for this. Their wives had been unfaithful to them as soon as their
backs were turned. It was well known that if a wife and husband were
separated and the wife was unfaithful, a misfortune at once fell on the
husband. Consequently the custom of their tribe in such cases was to
burn the guilty women on large pyres of brushwood. These pyres were now
finished--the white man could see them there along the bank of the
river.... Presently the adulterous ladies whose husbands had returned
from the luckless elephant-shoot would be led out, tied to the brushwood
bundles, and set on fire. He might stay and witness the imposing
spectacle if he chose. They learnt that he too was accompanied by a
wife--a white woman. It might be a moral lesson to her--if white women
were ever unfaithful....
Roger begged the Warangi to spare the women this time. By and bye he
would come back to them and explain the whole mystery of luck in sport
and the ensuring of an accurate aim, perhaps give them a "medicine," to
produce the result they wanted. But meantime he assured them that if
they burnt so much as one woman's little finger a terrible curse would
fall on the land.
Lucy asked what all this talk was about, and he replied: "Oh, nothing
very important--big game shooting." She was preoccupied with pleasanter
subjects, the greater coolness of the air now that they had ascended to
a higher level, the new green grass of the coming spring, and her own
greatly improved health....
"If all goes well," said Roger, "we ought to reach the place where the
Stotts are in two long days' march."
"Shall we? I'm rather sorry, as though something was going to break our
delicious dream. I should like to go on and on like this for a
year...."
"And what about my official duties? I, too, am enjoying this to the
full, but I am worried about whether I have done the right thing....
With a desire to please every one all round I sometimes fancy I have
embarked on a perilous adventure.... However we must hope for the best.
Of course all this is absolutely new ground. I ought to be earning a
Geographical medal; instead of which I shall only get an official
rebuke.... Did you notice that we seem to have entered a new
watershed?"
_Lucy_: "Although I taught Geography at school, I never really
understood what a 'watershed' was. What is it?"
_Roger_: "I suppose it means the area in which all the waters flow to
the same receptacle--a sea, a lake, a marsh. We've just left a river
which was flowing steadily to the south, to some unknown end. We rode
up a small rise, and now, see, the gathering streams are all flowing
northwards. The Masai say these brooks unite farther on to form a river
which ends in a lake. Think of _that_, Lucy! We shall discover a new
lake! It ought to be called 'Lake Lucy.'..."
_Lucy_ (blushing): "Oh no, indeed, I should feel quite uncomfortable if
I were made so prominent.... But the country seems to get lovelier and
lovelier...."
The new streams to which Roger referred irrigated a broad and even
expanse of fertile plain sloping gently to the north, and seeming to
terminate at the base of gigantic cliffs or lofty mountains which
surrounded this valley on three sides. They could only make out dimly
the forms of the highest mountains because of the dry-season haze, but
they seemed like the craters of volcanoes. Riding to the top of an
isolated hillock Roger obtained confirmation of the guides' story. The
valley ended in a lake of respectable size.
The grassy flats between the converging rivulets swarmed with big game
which showed comparatively little fear of man and might be seen grazing
with herds of the natives' cattle. A succession of exclamations, half
wonderment, half fear, came from Lucy.
"Oh! ... I ... _say_! ... I thought those were great tree trunks till
they moved, but ... they're..."
"They're _giraffes_, by Jove! I wonder whether I ought to bring one
down? Better not ... might delay us ... and I don't know how the
natives 'ud take it...."
A herd of six or seven stately giraffes suspended their browsing on the
upper branches of an acacia tree, and gazed at them with their liquid
eyes, flicking their satiny bodies with tails that terminated in large
black tassels.
"O-oh!'" came from Lucy, as she reined in her donkey. "_Look_ at those
things over there! Like houses or great rocks, but they're moving too!"
She pointed with her riding whip to some grey bulks in the middle
distance which, as they swished through the herbage, showed here and
there a gleam of polished tusks.
"Shoot! Master, shoot!" exclaimed the Wanyamwezi.... "Elephants,
Master!" But Roger called for silence and held his hand. Supposing the
elephants charged down on Lucy? And then he did not know how the sounds
of guns would be received in this new country, what the unknown natives
might think, and lastly, perhaps there was beginning to dawn on him an
appreciation of what this spectacle meant: a piece of absolutely
unspoiled Africa, not yet ravaged by the white man or the native hunter,
armed with the white man's weapons. His caravan had plenty of dried
meat. They should not break the charm of the Happy Valley--the phrase
came suddenly into his mind, some dim remembrance of Dr. Samuel
Johnson's ponderous romance.
As they advanced northwards the scenes grew more idyllic. Herds of
gnus, hartebeests, elands, and zebras, intermingled with reed buck and
impala, alternately stared in immobility, then dashed off in clouds of
yellow dust, and once more stood at gaze. Gazelles with glossy black,
annulated horns and bodies brilliant in colour--golden-red,
black-banded, and snowy-white below--cropped the turf a few yards from
the faintly marked track which the caravan was following; and though the
bucks lifted their heads to observe this advancing file of human beings
they scarcely moved away more than a few yards.
The Valley was not entirely given up to wild life, though it seemed
likely that it was only used by man as a pasture ground, and that he
preferred the higher country, the hillocks on either side of the plain,
for his habitations, out of the way of floods and swamps. But large
herds of cattle browsed among antelopes and zebra and were watched over
by herdsmen who displayed singularly little curiosity over this first
invasion of the Happy Valley by the white man. The Stotts who had
preceded Roger and Lucy seemed to have satisfied their curiosity, once
and for all. These cattle-tenders were different in physical type to
the ordinary Bantu Negro. They were tall; gracefully, slenderly built;
and reminded Brentham of Somalis, though their head-hair was
close-cropped. Such women as were met showed no sign of fear. They
were clad in ample garments of dressed leather. But the men had all the
gallant nakedness of the Masai--a skin cape over the shoulders,
otherwise only ivory arm-rings and metal-chain necklaces.
The Masai guides occasionally plucked handfuls of grass and exhibited
them to the groups of herdsmen as a testimony to the peaceful intentions
of the white man's caravan. This voucher was further confirmed by the
returning band of Masai who had escorted the Stotts to this Arcadia and
were now returning to northern Nguru. They exchanged musical
salutations with Roger's guides and told them the "Sitoto" were camped
in a village one day's further journey to the north, near the shores of
the lake.
"That's all right," said Roger, his mind greatly relieved. "Then let's
give our _safari_ a half-holiday and take things easy. We'll pitch our
camp on that knoll. How delightful is this short green turf after the
miles and miles of burnt grass we've passed through. The spring has
begun here a month earlier than in the lower-lying country. I expect
the high mountains to the north have attracted the rains, though it's
only October. Have you noticed, also, since we entered this valley
we've had no mosquitoes? I wonder why? Something p'raps they don't
like in the water, or not enough long grass?..."
As soon as the camp was finished, the pastoral people brought them rich,
sweet milk for sale, in tightly-woven grass receptacles, in calabashes,
or clay pots. Sometimes this milk had a smoky taste from the rough
methods by which the milk pots were cleansed. But it was as sweet as a
nut and seemed to Lucy, who had long been deprived of milk, except doled
out in small quantities for tea, incomparably delicious as a
thirst-quencher. And these Egyptian-like people--so often showing a
Pharaonic profile and speaking a language which Roger afterwards
declared not very far removed from Gala--also traded in honey, honey
flavoured with the scent of the acacia blossoms, appearing now as golden
fluff on the awakening trees.
The next day, the seventh since they left Burungi, Brentham's caravan
came into full view of the lake, its shores lined with dense ranks of
pinkish-white flamingoes. To the south-east was a native village of
long, continuous "tembe" houses, arranged more or less in
parallelograms, or hollow squares, enclosing for each family or group a
turfy space where the cattle passed the night and family life was
carried on in the open air and in security.
One of these enclosures had evidently been given over to the Stotts for
a temporary home. And from out of it Mr. and Mrs. Stott might be
descried, hurrying to meet the caravan. Before they could arrive, Roger
halted his men and surveyed the whole scene before him from a grassy
mound where he thought to pitch his camp. Projecting mountain
buttresses shut in the valley and the lake, west, north and east. West
and north these mountains almost overhung the flat lake shores in an
abrupt escarpment, blue, without details, in the afternoon shadow. To
the east of the lake, though there were great heights and in the
north-east a hint of giant summits capped with snow, the rise was not so
abrupt, more broken, and the rocks more arid, but vivid and variegated
in colour---red, yellow, greenish grey, purple black and creamy white.
The mountains on the west were diversified with combes and glens, were
carved, moulded, seamed with watercourses; embroidered and mantled with
dark green forests. Where the lake was deep its waters were a pure
cobalt, but its shallows were whitish-green with salt or soda, and the
level shores from which the waters had retreated were greyish white,
probably with the guano of the countless flamingoes, who had their
nesting-stools some distance back from the water's edge. Herds of cattle
browsed peacefully on the green water-meadows of the river-delta; nearer
at hand flocks of black and white sheep mingled with half-shy gazelles
of golden brown. Great Secretary birds--grey, black, and white--stalked
through the herbage looking for snakes and lizards, knowing no fear of
man in their honourable calling. Blue whorls of smoke arose from the
fishermen's fires on the lake shore, where fish was being smoked on
wooden frames. All this was irradiated by the yellow light of the
westering sun. Before, the Stotts could reach them and break their
silence of contentment, Roger turned to Lucy and said: "This _is_ the
Happy Valley!"
The Stotts were of course full of questions and wonderment. Mr. Stott
was a middle-aged man of strong build, honest hazel eyes, clipped beard,
tanned face and generally pleasing appearance. He had never before met
either Lucy or Brentham, so Mrs. Stott had to make the introductions.
After these surprised and joyous greetings, an adjournment took place to
the Stotts' quarters. Although they had only been about a week
established here, in a portion of the village of Mwada lent them by the
native chief, the practical and never defeated Stotts---the born
colonists, the realized Swiss Family Robinson--had already made
themselves a new home in the wilderness. They had swept out and cleaned
the "tembes," the continuous huts of wattle and daub, divided into many
compartments, which enclosed the turfy square; and in the centre of
their "compound" had erected a circular building of stout palm poles and
grass that covered a swept space of ground. In the middle of this they
had fashioned a table of reed-bundles fastened to upright posts and had
manufactured rough forms and stools of hyphaene palm trunks. This was
their "baraza" or reception-room, their eating-house, and shaded
playground for their hardy children. Within the enclosed ground they
kept their milch goats, sheep, and riding donkeys. Of these they had
quite a troop, purchased from the Masai. These asses had proved most
useful as beasts of burden for the transport of their loads, so that
they almost managed without human porterage. Mr. Stott had constructed
very practical pack saddles.
"Come along to our baraza," said genial Mrs. Stott. "Let us try and make
you up some kind of a meal before we begin talking."
Roger gave a few directions about his own camping, a quarter of a mile
distant, and then joined Lucy and the Stotts, who were walking to "our
new mission station," as Mrs. Stott called it.
"You know we are _never_ down-hearted; we _know_ God orders everything
for the best! I am sure He thought we were settling down too
comfortably among the Wagogo, and so gave us a hint to press farther
into the interior. _Of course_, when things quiet down: for either the
Germans or the English _must_ conquer East Africa: it would be sickening
to leave the Arabs and Ruga-ruga in control--we shall build up again our
Burungi station and put capable people in charge of it, people who'll
get on well with the Wagogo.... They want a bit of managing. You see
how well it would suit as a halt on the way to this wonderful
country--What do you call it? 'The Happy Valley'? Yes, _that_ shall be
its name. _How_ the Lord's ways are _past_ finding out! I felt _so_
sick at heart when we were leaving Burungi.... I'll tell you how it all
happened. Our Masai friends had beaten off the Ruga-ruga, but the Wagogo
thought they intended to return, probably with real Arabs in command.
My husband is obliged to shoot game; otherwise we couldn't live, much
less feed our people. They raided us chiefly for arms and
ammunition.... We beat them off, but the Wagogo thought they would be
sure to return--much stronger next time. So after thinking it over and
putting our case before God in prayer we decided that night after the
attack ceased, to spend the hours of darkness packing. The next morning
we bought ten more donkeys from the Masai, besides the ten we had
already, loaded them up and then said to our Masai friends--my husband
speaks Masai pretty well: 'Now, can you guide us to some country where
we can be safe from the Lajomba--their name for the Arabs--for a time?'
And they led us here ... let us say, rather, they were God's agents in
leading us here. Isn't this a _wonderful_ country? We have never seen
the like. Somehow we feel so _safe_ here. You can't think of any enemy
coming over those high mountains--one of them has snow on the summit--or
over the cliffs. They can only come up the river valley. And to do that
they must fight their way through the Rangi and Fiome peoples. The
Rangi people speak a language like Chi-gogo, and so--oddly enough--do
the fisher folk round this extraordinary lake. But the others don't
look like ordinary Negroes. They are more like Somalis. And I can't
make anything out of their language. But although they're different to
the Masai they seem to have some kind of alliance with them, and they
received us here as friends, because the Masai brought us. _What_ a
field for the Lord's work! And to think I almost _doubted_ God when He
let the Ruga-ruga attack Burungi!...
"But here we are, at our temporary home, and I must go to the cook-house
and see about your meal. You won't mind native stuff, will you? You see
we've lost most of our tinned provisions, and indeed we had been living
on the country long before the Ruga-ruga attacked us. Like all the
other missionaries of late we've had very few caravans from the coast."
Mr. Stott led the way to the "baraza" with its rough table of
reed-bundles on a framework of sticks and its palm trunks to sit on.
The Stott children were playing on the dusty turf of the cleared ground
in front of the baraza.
"I'm afraid you'll think our little 'uns rather uncared for," said Mr.
Stott apologetically; "but my poor wife's had too much to do in our
hurried flight and after we got here to spend much time on their
clothing or even getting them clean!" The eldest of the three was a
pretty boy with light flaxen hair and blue eyes, very tanned of skin,
very grubby of face and hands. He wore a tattered smock and short
breeches, vestiges of a "sailor suit." On his feet were cleverly made
native sandals, as on those of his younger brother and little sister,
whose legs and feet were otherwise naked, and the two smaller children
had little on but a yard or two of calico wound round the waist. Lucy
recognized in the youngest the solemn baby she had seen at Unguja
playing with the large cockroaches; and said so.
"Yes," replied Mr. Stott. "Afraid of nothing, poor little mite. When
the Ruga-ruga came I hurriedly built up a sort of zariba of boxes and
stones, and put a tarpaulin over it and told the little 'uns to keep
quiet; and there they were, all through the fighting. Mother and I
would go and give 'em food every now and again, and Edgar
here"--pointing to the boy--"'ud say, 'How's the fight going, Daddy?'
And Edgar's bin a rare good boy since we came here, helping to tie these
bundles of reeds and making himself useful. Our eldest's at home in
Ireland with her grandmother--for her education. The next one we buried
years ago in the Nguru country, and the very youngest--bless her--died
of infantile diarrhoea last March at Burungi. That accounts for the six
of 'em; and I'll lay there aren't many British children have had such an
adventurous bringing-up, 'cept the young Livingstones and Moffats."
Mrs. Stott was now spreading a wrinkled, grey-white cloth over the reed
table-top. And the children were up on their feet helping her and a
native servant bring the meal from the cook-house to the baraza.
"We're giving you just the native _ugali_--porridge, you know," said
Mrs. Stott, "but there's a lovely pot of fresh milk from the natives'
cattle. Here's some honey in a calabash. Here are the rest of the
scones we had for breakfast. I've made you some tea--rather weak, but
it is so precious. And whilst you're tackling _that_ I'm going to fry
some fish we got from the lake this morning--bony, but very sweet."
During their meal Roger and Lucy tried to give in instalments a
description of the extraordinary circumstances which had brought them
here in company. Mrs. Stott, who had fetched her sewing so that she
might not be wasting time (Mr. Stott had excused himself, having urgent
work to do till the evening), looked a little puzzled and not quite
acquiescent over Brentham's explanations.
"Here, children! You go now and help Brahimu and Kagavezi. Don't get
into mischief. Keep out of the sun, don't pick up scorpions, and don't
go outside the boma.... I'm an outspoken woman, you know, Lucy. I
can't help saying I think you ought to have stuck by your husband."
"But I was so _ill_, Mrs. Stott, and John _insisted_ on my going.
Didn't he ... Captain Brentham?"
"He did really, Mrs. Stott. I had instructions to advise all the
missionaries to leave their stations and return to the coast--indeed, I
come here to you with that message, but I suppose you won't obey it?"
"Indeed I won't, Captain Brentham, though I thank you for your efforts
to find us and help us. I do indeed. But wherever my husband is, there
will I be too, unless he absolutely ordered me to go away.... And I saw
it was the will of God that I should go."
"Well: that was what John did to me--absolutely _ordered_ me to go,"
said Lucy, beginning to cry. "He ordered Ann to go with me. It isn't
my fault--our fault--that Ann has gone back, in spite of John's
_positive commands_. Ann never obeys any one. Oh dear, oh dear! _what_
should I do ... I feel if I go back to that place I shall simply die ...
and yet I shall lose your good opinion ... if I go to the coast with
Captain Brentham...."
"Oh, I don't say that. I'm not one for passing judgments on my fellow
creatures. It's between them and God. But look here, Captain Brentham:
I don't want to keep you idle. I'll be bound there's a hundred things
you want to see to in your camp. I'll keep Lucy with me. She and I are
old friends, as you know. If you'd send over her loads and her native
woman--let's see, what was her name? I remember how she nursed you when
your poor baby came--and went--Halima? Yes. Well, send over everything
that belongs to Lucy and her tent shall be pitched inside our boma
whilst she stays here. She and I will talk things over a bit and then,
maybe, we'll call you into consultation. I'm sure you want to do what's
best for us all. What a _strange_ place to meet in! The last time we
spoke together was in your grand Arab house at Unguja and I was more
than a bit afraid of you."
Mrs. Stott rose up from her sewing, walked with Brentham to the exit
from the compound, and gazed across the outer greensward to the very
blue lake, with its whitish rim of scum or salt. In the distance the
blush-tint flamingoes flew with wings of black and scarlet in V
formations, against an azure background of colossal mountains rising
tier above tier; or, their glistening plumage showed up more effectively
against the violet shadows of the western cliffs and wooded gorges
bordering the lake, and still more strikingly when contrasted with the
cobalt surface of the lake itself. Other flamingoes waded into the
lake, filtering through their laminated beaks the minute organisms
evidently abundant in its water. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of
these birds stood in serried ranks along the curving, diverging shores.
The rear ranks were composed of immature birds of dirty-white plumage
streaked with brown; but these were masked by the front rows of adults,
affectedly conscious of their beauty of plumage and outline. They
exhibited a hundred mannerisms in their poses: lowered their kinky necks
to dabble in the ooze, or raised them perpendicularly and "honked" to
let the humans know they were on their guard (though never a man in
these parts thought of harming them). Or they cleaned their backs with
rosy coils of neck, stood on one vermilion leg and bent the other limb
beneath the belly feathers. Or they fenced at each other with decurved
bills of purple and red in make-believe petulance, and because
life-conditions were so perfect that they had nothing whatever to
grumble at.... Some Wambugwe canoes were approaching the lake shore
with fish to sell to the white men. A considerable section of the
flamingoes rose into the sky with a display of roseate tints against the
blue ... then landed and folded their wings in assurance of safety.
"Yes," continued Mrs. Stott, "I little thought we should meet under
circumstances like these. Aren't those flamingoes _wonderful_? Like a
revelation of God--almost. I shall stay here if only to look after
them. _They_ shall be the roses in my garden. I shan't want any others.
You see they're not afraid of man and they don't get in man's way. They
aren't good to eat--much too fishy. And, as far as I can see, they
don't eat fish; only mud, seemingly--shrimps, p'raps...."
"Well, Consul: come again at supper-time; and if I'm too stingy over my
precious tea, at any rate I'll give you hot milk and pancakes and
honey."
Left with Lucy, Mrs. Stott first took her to the washing hut and
provided the means for a good bath and next lent her some garment of the
dressing-gown order with which to clothe herself till her luggage and
her attendant arrived.
"I'll tell you what I am going to advise Captain Brentham to do, Lucy,"
said Mrs. Stott. "Come what may, you'll be none the worse for a good
rest here. This place is evidently far healthier than the lower country.
The Consul shall bargain with your Masai guides to go as fast as they
can back to Ulunga and find out what has happened at Hangodi. If things
are still quiet there, the probability is they are going to remain
quiet. In that case--if your husband does not absolutely forbid it,
Captain Brentham ought to take you back to Hangodi and leave you there.
He can then find his own way _somehow_ to the place he lives at--Medina.
If the messengers come back with _bad_ news about the Arabs, or if John
Baines positively vetoes your returning, _then_ all you can do is to put
yourself under the Consul's care and travel with him to Mvita ... unless
you like to stop with me and live on country produce. I think we
can--whilst you're waiting here--get in touch with the Masai beyond the
mountains and by giving them a present induce them to guide you to the
Kilimanjaro country, to one of the mission stations there--Evangelical
or Methodist, don't matter which. After that all would be plain
sailing, for I don't believe the Arabs of the British sphere are going
to rise."
When in the evening of that day, by the light of a camp fire--they had
practically no artificial light--Mrs. Stott put this plan before Roger,
he promptly agreed. It would show he had done the right thing. It would
go far to save Lucy's good name, especially among Mission folk. And it
would give him nearly a month to stay and explore the Happy Valley. He
had spent much of the day with James Stott helping him in his work on
the embryo station, and Stott had told him of wonderful things he had
seen or had gleaned from native information. There was the new lake to
survey roughly; there was a paradise of big game to shoot in. Here Mrs.
Stott intervened: "I hope you and my husband will go slow as regards
shooting. I know we must have the meat and we're so nearly bankrupt at
the coast that a few tusks of ivory would come in handy. But somehow I
should like to think of this Happy Valley as a sort of preserved
zoological gardens where all these innocent creatures of God's
handiwork----"
"I shouldn't call a rhinoceros innocent, Mrs. Stott," said Roger,
smoking his pipe with such contentment as he had not known for
months--"I have rather a tender conscience about antelopes and zebras,
but rhinos attack you absolutely unprovoked...."
_Mrs. Stott_: "Only because men began humbugging them first of all, long
ago, I expect. However, if ever I lived to see our mission stations
self-supporting and growing all the food they needed, I'd never let
James fire another shot at the game."
The next morning the two Masai guides, well rewarded, started off with a
package. It contained letters home from the Stotts, telling of their
wonderful deliverance; a brief despatch from Captain Brentnam to H.M.
Agent at Unguja, and letters to John Baines and Ann Jamblin. John was
asked how things were going, and whether on second thoughts he would
prefer Lucy to return to Hangodi, and if he could take the next
opportunity of having the accompanying letters sent to the coast; and
Ann was given--curtly--information as to Lucy's reaching the temporary
station of the Stotts. However expansive the Stotts might be, within
the compass of one sheet of paper, they said very little about the
situation of the Happy Valley; and Brentham was still more reticent.
Both no doubt for the same reason, that the Happy Valley was too good a
proposition to be given away lightly to a greedy world. Mrs. Stott
still hoped, despite concluded boundary conventions, it might be brought
within the British sphere; Brentham did not want any other fellow to
have a go at its big game or an examination of its alluring secrets till
he had had a chance to return.
Whilst these letters were being carried to their destination by two
lithe, naked men of red-brown skin, with hair done up in periwigs of
twine soaped with mutton fat and the same red-ochre as coloured their
sleek bodies, men who carried knobkerries in their waistcords and
long-bladed spears in the right hand, great oval shields on the left
arm, and who ran on sandalled feet a steady six miles an hour when they
were on the road: Lucy and Roger disposed themselves to await patiently
the news which--they felt--was to determine their fate.
Twenty days went by in the Happy Valley in blissful sameness. Lucy had
her very limited wardrobe washed in the lake waters which had some oddly
cleansing, blanching effect--something chemical which both Roger and Mr.
Stott would discuss in muttered phrases. Lucy and Mrs. Stott together,
with many a laugh at blunder or foiled hopes of success, at length
succeeded in ironing the skirts and bodices and petticoats and linen
with a parody of a flat-iron, made for them by a naked Elkonono
blacksmith in a native forge.
Brentham and his Wanyamwezi porters helped Mr. Stott complete his new
station. Or they organized great shooting parties which enriched Mr.
Stott with ivory that he might some day sell, as against trade goods and
tea; or they accumulated biltong for Roger's expedition, besides finding
meat for the day-by-day food of these hungry Wanyamwezi. To meet Mrs.
Stott's scruples and objections they had themselves paddled in Wambugwe
canoes farther up the lake and shot elephants, zebras, buffaloes,
antelopes, on the flats twenty miles to the north of the Stotts'
station. Or they rode donkeys and travelled twenty miles southwards,
back along the road they had come (and got faint, far-off rumours of men
fighting, leagues and leagues away, which made them anxious).
Or they laid out plantations in the rich alluvial soil behind the
station and fenced them in. There Mr. Stott could plant his poor
remnant of English vegetable seeds, or with greater hope the maize,
pumpkins, sweet potatoes, ground-nuts, beans, and manioc of the
agricultural and fishing Bantu population.
Then, on the twenty-first day of this busy three weeks, the Masai
messengers once more squatted before the Stotts' baraza. Silently one
of them tendered to Mrs. Stott a little package of dried banana leaves,
tied with some native fibre. Inside a fold of old newspaper and a
makeshift envelope made out of a copy-book cover, on one half-sheet of
dirty copy-book paper, Ann sent Lucy this message:
Mbogo's Village,
NOVEMBER SOMETHING OR OTHER, 1888.