27950	----	Transcriber's note: Inconsistent spelling, particularly names of characters in the original text, has been retained, as has variable punctuation. The table of contents has been added for the convenience of readers. In the advertisements at the end, text enclosed by equal signs was in bold face in the original (=bold=) and text enclosed by plus signs was underscored (+underscored+). THE RHODESIAN * * * * * GERTRUDE PAGE'S NOVELS. _In cloth gilt, 6s._ SOME THERE ARE----. FOLLOW AFTER. WHERE THE STRANGE ROADS GO DOWN. WINDING PATHS. _In cloth gilt, 3s. 6d._ TWO LOVERS AND A LIGHTHOUSE. _Also in cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. net._ JILL'S RHODESIAN PHILOSOPHY. _In cloth, uniform with this volume, 1s. net_. PADDY THE NEXT BEST THING. LOVE IN THE WILDERNESS. THE GREAT SPLENDOUR. THE EDGE O' BEYOND. THE SILENT RANCHER. * * * * * THE RHODESIAN by GERTRUDE PAGE Author of "The Edge o' Beyond," "The Silent Rancher," etc. London: Hurst & Blackett, Ltd. Paternoster House, E.C. TABLE OF CONTENTS I THE POLICE STATION II THE MISSION STATION III TWO HEIRESSES IV THE RHODESIAN PROJECT V WILLIAM VAN HERT VI THE JOURNEY VII CAREW IS DISTURBED VIII TWO UNEXPECTED MEETINGS IX THE BEAR X A MINING CAMP XI AN EVENING RIDE XII THE MISSION STATION XIII A DECISION THAT FAILED XIV THE ANCIENT RUINS XV CAREW RIDES AWAY XVI "THE SHIP OF FOOLS" XVII AN EVENING CONVERSATION XVIII THE CHARTER FLATS XIX THE CONVENTIONALITIES ONCE MORE XX FAREWELL XXI A "HOARDING HUSTLING" XXII MERYL'S DECISION XXIII CAREW'S STORY XXIV A RAIN-WASHED MORNING AND A DISCUSSION XXV AILSA LEARNS CAREW'S SECRET XXVI "HOW CAN I GO TO HER!..." XXVII DIANA BEGINS TO GROW PERPLEXED XXVIII DIANA'S PERPLEXITIES INCREASE XXIX A USEFUL BLUNDER XXX DIANA IS RESTLESS XXXI THE SOLUTION IS SEALED XXXII A CHAPTER OF SURPRISES FINIS TO THE PATHFINDERS "Fate lies hid, But not the deeds that true men dared and did." THE RHODESIAN. I THE POLICE CAMP The velvety darkness of a southern night, with its sense of rich, luscious, breathing intensity, lay over that romantic spot in Southern Rhodesia where the grey walls of the Zimbabwe ruins, with a sublime, imperturbable indifference, continue to baffle the ingenuity and ravish the curiosity of all who would read their story. Scientists, archæologists, tourists come and go, but the stern old walls, guarded by the sentinel hills, give back no answer to eager questioning, eager delving, eager surmise. But in the meantime the Valley of Ruins no longer lies alone and unheeded in the sunlight; and no longer do the hills look down upon rich plains left solely to the idle pleasure of a careless black people. The forerunners of to-day's great civilising army have marched into the valley, and beside the ancient walls there is now a police camp of the British South Africa Police, presided over by two robust young troopers. In the velvety darkness on the night in question there is a single bright light pouring through the open doorway of a dwelling-hut. Through the enfolding silence breaks the bizarre music of an indifferent gramophone, recklessly mocking the sublime grandeur of the age-old antiquities. Laughter and gay music and devil-may-care colonists awaking echoes that have been more or less silent to civilisation for how many thousand years? But on this particular evening it is as though some shadow had fallen upon the little camp. Nothing tangible--nothing that changed the general habits or surroundings--but a vague regret and introspective sadness upon the faces of two young men, usually full of careless content. Cecil Stanley, the more refined, a gentleman by birth and education, lounged low in his chair, with his hands behind his head and his feet on the table, and ever and anon his eyes looked with pained regret into the surrounding depths of night. Patrick Moore, with a grave face, cleaned his gun in a deeper silence than usual, proceeding with an occupation that was his joy on many evenings, whether the gun needed cleaning or not, rather as if it eased his mind to have his hands busy. "I wonder if the Major will come through to-night?" he remarked, as if the silence were growing over-oppressive. "Sure to," laconically. "The moon will be up directly, and he can't be very far away." "I suppose he won't have heard?" "Not likely to have done. Gad! I feel as if I'd give anything to have had a chance to stand three hours in that queue. It will hit him hard. If it's bad for us, who have at least known all along, it will be worse for him, hearing it suddenly at this late hour. Those newspapers to-day have made me feel like a kid on his first day at boarding-school. I'd like to cry if I weren't ashamed to." "I liked that professor," said Moore, changing the subject. "Decent old Johnny, wasn't he? Jolly nice of him to bring all those papers in case he came across anyone glad of them." "Quite a good old bird. That's a rum theory of his about the corpses in the temple being buried deeper than anyone has yet dug, and hung with valuable ornaments. Wouldn't it be a jolly lark to dig down for one and have a look at it!..." He gave a low, half-hearted chuckle over his gruesome suggestion, and lazily getting to his feet, selected another tune for his gramophone. Moore, busy still with his gun, gave a corresponding chuckle, and remarked: "Begorra, lad!... if we could get a few out one at a time on moonlight nights, and fill up the blooming holes again, we shouldn't want any blasted machinery for our gold mine, except a pickaxe and a shovel." "We'd want a bit of pluck, though. The ghosts of the corpses might come dancing round to have their say in the matter." "We'd chance the ghosties. Shure! if they've been hanging round for three or four thousand years, they'd maybe like a new sensation by this time." Stanley put on "The Stars and Stripes," wound up the gramophone, and slid into his lounge chair again. Moore glanced up as the music started. "What!... that thing again!... I'm beginning to feel like those old ghosts about it. The same moth-eaten tune for three or four thousand years. I'd like a new sensation." "It can't be much staler than cleaning that old gun." "Shure, she's a daisy." The Irishman looked tenderly at his treasure. "An' she just loves me to be fondlin' her like." "If it weren't for the Major I don't know what is to prevent us proving the old man's theory," said Stanley, evidently harping again on his corpses. "Him, and the bloomin' Company! The old gentlemen sittin' on the Board in London suddenly find that the Yankees have been snaffling a lot of valuable trinkets and things from the ruins while they took forty winks, and then they up and says no one's to look for anything more at all; not even a _boney fidey_ Rhodesian, sweating in the police camp outside the walls." "Still, it would be a rare lark to find a corpse with gold ornaments on it, and say nothing at all." "And what should you be doing with the old corpse when you've taken the gold?" "Oh! put him in the soup!" And Stanley slid lower in his chair, with another chuckle. The gramophone ran down with a horrible grind, but its owner only looked at it dully and took no notice. "Shall I wind up again?" Moore asked. "No, let it rip. It sounds all wrong to-night. Everything is all wrong. The whole world gone awry. It's like being on another planet to be out here in this wilderness at such a time. I don't believe I've ever felt exiled before, but, begad! I do to-night. Let's turn in. Probably he won't come now." Moore carried his gun into one of the huts and stood it carefully beside his little stretcher-bed. Stanley took the gramophone into another hut, and planked it down somewhat roughly on a table, evidently made by an amateur. Without going outside again, he shouted "Good night," and after that no sound broke the silence, except sundry mutterings from the Irishman, who had discovered an enormous frog under his bed, and his beloved pointer pup inside the blankets serenely sleeping. All the next morning Stanley hung about the camp as one who waited, but it was not until three o'clock that Major Carew rode slowly up to the huts. As he dismounted, briefly acknowledging Stanley's salute, there was a characteristic absence of all superfluous words. The latter waited until the soldier-servant had led away the mule and another boy relieved the officer of his water-bottle, which he always carried himself, and then he looked hard at the thin, brown, resolute face, with an expression in his eyes that made Carew ask shortly: "Any news?" "Bad news from England. I suppose you haven't heard?" "I haven't heard anything." For one pulsing second the two men stood and looked at each other; and to a looker-on it might have appeared that, however laconic and indifferent their attitude, their relationship was not solely that of officer and subordinate. The elder man, in his gruff way, was the friend of the man under him. The younger had acquired a respect that held something deeper than casual liking, and his face showed it now as he hesitated before breaking his news. Then he said, very simply: "The King is dead." A quick, incredulous expression filled Carew's eyes. "The King?..." he repeated. "Not ... surely not ..." He paused, leaving his sentence unfinished. "Yes. King Edward. After a few days' illness." The man's mouth grew rigid. He stood like a figure of bronze, staring with unseeing eyes to the far horizon. Stanley drew in his breath a little sharply. Yes, he had been right, the news had hit Carew very hard. "When?..." came at last, abruptly. "A fortnight ago. Just after you left. The funeral took place yesterday." Carew made no comment. Evidently it was true. Little else mattered. Nearly all through this trek of his round those distant kraals his King had been lying dead, and he had not known it. Such a man as he is not stunned by tidings; but he recedes still further into his shell, if possible. There is no comment, no discussion, just a grim silence sealing a deep pain that cannot express itself. He stayed a moment longer, while Stanley told him a few details, and then he went away into his hut and shut his door to the sunlight--one of those exiles for whom the news had, as it were, an added sorrow, because during the first shock he had remained in ignorance, and had thus been prevented joining in the loyal homage of grief that had been offered by his countrymen from the four corners of the earth. It was thus with many of the far-off Empire-builders. They heard so late, so unpreparedly, so suddenly; and in the first shock, an exile which had been a calmly accepted condition, became almost a menace, seemed swiftly to develop a force. The men in the far places _felt_ their aloofness; knew that their souls were beating vainly against prison bars, for the longing to annihilate space and stand beside the beloved dead. That quiet band of men whom we sometimes call "The Pathfinders," and who go away across the world to bring the wilderness into line; to smooth the rough, link the severed, subdue the untamed, and carry prosperity to the waste places. The men who cope with strange, deadly diseases; who fight fever swamps, and compel them to carry a railroad across their reluctant bosoms, though the swamps in turn exact a heavy toll of human life; who make the paths that the women and children will presently pass over, though no such soul-stirring cry urges their exhausting efforts. But it is not usual to laud these men, who win their colours at the dull, prosaic work of path-finding, as it is to laud those who encounter shot and shell in the lurid atmosphere of battle, and one feels they do not ask it. Yet now and then they must surely be glad to know that thoughtful women and thoughtful men follow their work and bless them in silence, sending across the world to them a homage of praise that is, perhaps, richer than the plaudits of the crowd. And not to them only, but also to the mothers who bid them go, accepting their hard part of lonely, anxious waiting without complaint. And if they fall by the wayside, unrecognised, unknown, but having carried the path forward, maybe a mile, maybe a yard, maybe an inch, how great a thing is that compared to the small happenings that of necessity make up most men's lives! In the sultry midday heat Carew sat alone in his hut, and certain memories, that for fifteen years he had tried to crush out of his mind, crowded back upon him with overwhelming force in the grip of his sudden sorrow. For that sad event which had plunged a great nation into grief had been to him a personal loss. In the silence and shadow he mourned deeply, not only the idol of his youth and dear object of his heart's best loyalty, but the memory of a friend. For long ago, or so it seemed, there had been a moment when a royal hand had clasped his, and a royal voice--the royalty all lost in the friend--had said, "Perhaps you are right. It is best to begin again. But do not imagine your life is over and its aims purposeless. Out there you will find renewing. Some day come back and tell me about it." That was fifteen years ago, but he had never gone back. Never sought the second hand-clasp that would have been his. Never unfolded to those interested ears his personal experiences with the pioneer column that led the way to do the path-finding in Rhodesia. In the hush of the afternoon, with his head bowed on his arms, the years between seemed to pass out of mind, and that which once had been to stand alone, awaking within him an infinite regret. He saw again certain lovely park-lands--the woods and hills and dales--of a rich inheritance that should have been his. He saw himself, the gay guardsman. He saw the dear face of the woman for whom he had chosen to cross that arbitrary will which would brook no disobedience, and sought to intimidate him with disinheritance. Through his mind passed in slurred detail the sordid story which had given him a brother's hate in return for a quixotic championing of the weak--a hate which proved to have power enough behind it to draw a devastating hand across the promise of his future. Lastly--and here in the silence it was as though his head sank deeper in its pain--he saw that woman's dear face, as he had last seen it, lying white upon the heather--_dead_. Ah, the memories were terribly alive to-day; not even fifteen years in a new life, with new interests, had done anything but draw a thin curtain of silence over the unforgettable pain. Would anything ever ease it in reality? Had he for a moment believed that it would? Or had he always known, that just as surely as his hand had held the gun which killed her, so to his last breath the tragedy would cast a shadow over the whole of his life? He might look out upon the world with quiet eyes and firm lips and fearless mien, but the gnawing ache would surely go with him to his grave. And because of it he knew that he had grown somewhat churlish; that men who did not understand his unsociable ways and extreme reticence looked at him askance. But what of it? How little such things mattered! The tragedy was his and the silence was his, and he had never asked anyone to share either. Only to-day, for just this one afternoon, fifteen years was as yesterday, and he seemed to realise thoroughly for the first time all that royal hand-clasp had meant, before he went to his voluntary exile in a far wilderness. But after a time, when it grew cool enough to walk, he came out into the sunshine and started off towards the steep rock pathway that leads to the summit of the Acropolis Hill, following an impulse to seek comfort in the fresh hopefulness of a height, and to lessen the pain in his heart by looking out across a world still living and loving and striving. So he climbed on up the winding pathway, enfolded with mystery and romance concerning the feet that trod it in the far-off centuries, and made his way between the mighty natural boulders out on to the high platform, where eyes, all those long centuries ago, must have looked out even as his, across the lovely land. Was it as lovely then?... Could it have been less so?... How the quiet beauty soothed and caressed him! Surely there were moments when the wilderness, tamed at last, like a lovely, wayward mistress become entrancingly docile, fondles the hand, and ravishes the senses of the strong man who conquered it. Is this one of the rich rewards Life holds in the palm of her hand for the path-finders?... This glorious sense of ownership. This winsome soothing of shy gratitude when the fierce first resistance to conquest is overpast. A man may call England his country because he was born there, and his father before him; but, perhaps, after all, that is a small thing compared to standing upon a high eminence, and looking across a quiet world which is your country because of all you yourself have given to it of hope and faith and steadfast purpose. In some such spirit soothing came to the quiet man on the top of the Acropolis Hill, whispering to him that, after all, this was _his_ country, and if the beloved dead did indeed seem so far away in fact, in spirit he was perhaps nearer to his Empire-builders than he had ever been before. He turned his head at last, and his eyes rested upon the circular wall, four hundred feet below, that enclosed the temple ruins. Then for a moment a wave of depression swept over him, blotting out the landscape loveliness. Was it all, then, vanity, this building and striving?... The making of walls and fortifications for another race, centuries afterwards, to look upon with cold wonder and curiosity? Three thousand years ago perhaps another man had stood even there and mourned his king that was dead. And so soon ... so soon ... he also died, and the massive walls became ruins, and the dynasty, or empire, or era, passed away into oblivion. How soon might a similar fate overtake his own great Empire!... and the beloved King, Edward the Peacemaker, be perhaps but a legend to some strange new race. And then it was as though the land to which he had given so much rose up to give in her turn the might of hope and renewing. His eyes wandered again to the distant mountains and over the fertile plain lying between, and all the outspread richness called to him that at least there was no ruin here, no hopelessness, no decay. Progress spoke to him from the rolling plains and from the mysterious kopjes, and his blood warmed to that glad sense of possession--if not in fact, at least in the fancy born of what he had given. For it is when we give, and not when we take, we become the truest possessors, rich owners of so much that neither wealth, nor birth, nor striving can buy. In the quiet evening hour the stars were just beginning to light their brilliant lamps, and a glow like a rose-flush in the west marked the passage of the departed sun. Carew prepared to make the steep descent. And as he looked out across this country, that seemed so intensely his country, he felt himself heir of all the ages, the strong product of long eons of careful development, too rich in those vague splendours of the human and the divine not to realise the weak futility of musing sadly upon dead dynasties and bygone races. On the northernmost point, ere the path drops suddenly on its way to the valley, he stood still once more and gazed steadily to the north where England lay. Then, thinking deep thoughts of love and loyalty of the King who had been his friend, and the friend who had been his King, he gravely gave the salute. II THE MISSION STATION Although only stationed for a short time at the Zimbabwe camp, Carew had chosen always to conduct his own _ménage_, and take his meals in solitary state apart from Stanley and Moore. This was in every case typical of the man, who rarely sought company, and was often quiet to taciturnity when he had it. He had not come to the wilderness for adventure, or for the companionship of the men he might find there; he had come because he wanted to forget. Not even to seek renewing and fresh hopes, but only to crowd out of his life the memory of that upheaval and tragedy that, it seemed, had placed a stern hand upon mere joy for evermore. And he believed he would achieve this best with the vigorous, interesting occupation of helping a young country struggle through to fulfilment. It was not until after the dinner-hour that he again showed himself, and then he came outside his hut, filling his pipe, and stood for a moment beside Stanley and Moore without saying anything. "Did you have a successful trip, sir?" Stanley asked. "Quite," dryly. The young trooper watched him a moment, and then added: "Did you have trouble with M'Basch?" "He tried to make trouble. He is a dangerous native." "And you gave him a lesson?" "I burnt his kraal." "Whew!..." and Stanley gave a low whistle. The man was courageous indeed who dare resort to such a step, now that it was necessary to pamper the natives if one wanted no trouble at headquarters. Carew took no notice of the significant rejoinder, but his firm mouth, if anything, grew a little firmer. "I gave him due warning, but he thought I dare not carry out my threat. He was mistaken. Never make a threat that you can't carry out. It matters more than anything with natives. He will not give trouble again at present." "But they may say a good deal at headquarters if he carries his story there!" "I had to risk that. But he is so entirely in the wrong, and so clearly aware of it, I don't think he will venture to say anything. I have three cases of diabolical cruelty against him, besides stealing and law-breaking generally." Stanley watched him with eyes of admiration. To him the man's strength was ever a source of delight, now that his unsociable ways were no longer a puzzle. "We had a scientific man here yesterday to view the ruins," he continued, as Carew still lingered while he lit his pipe. "He has a remarkable theory for divining corpses by the gold ornaments buried on them. He thinks there are probably several in the temple, deeper than anyone has yet dug." Carew did not look very interested. His eyes had still the retrospective, pained expression that had come into them instantly, when he grasped the import of Stanley's sad tidings. "Where did he come from?" he asked, half turning away. "I don't know. He was only here for a few hours. We gave him some tea, and he left us some interesting papers, if you would care to have them. He seemed rather interested in you!..." and Stanley looked keenly into his face. "In what way?" Carew pulled hard at his beloved pipe and spoke with studied carelessness. "Your name cropped up about something, and he wanted to know if you were a Fourtenay-Carew." The officer started very slightly, but made no comment, and Stanley added, "He particularly wanted to know if you were a Devonshire man. I said you were." "I _was_ a Devonshire man," Carew corrected; "I _am_ a Rhodesian." Then he turned and with a short good night went back into his hut. The next morning, directly his official work was finished, he started to ride over to the mission station, where some far-off connections of his, William and Ailsa Grenville, found by chance in the wilderness, lived the simple life with a contentment that surprised all who beheld them. It was the first visit he had been able to pay for some weeks, and almost before he dismounted a woman stepped out from the large rustic building, with its thatched roof, and came towards him with eagerness and sorrow strangely blended in her eyes. "Ah, how long you have been coming! I have watched for you ever since we heard the sad news. Billy and I so wanted someone from _home_ to talk to." "I could not help it. I have been right away into the Ingigi district. How are you?" He did not give her his hand because the formalities had long been dropped between them, but as he walked beside her to the building his face seemed a shade softer. "We are both well. We are splendid. But we have felt very cut off these two weeks. England seemed so terribly far away. The evening we heard, Billy and I just sat hand in hand under the stars, dabbing the tears away. Don't smile, it was the only thing to do, and we longed so to be in London." As she talked she passed into the cool shade of the hut and busied herself preparing a lemon squash for him, not needing to ask if it were his choice. "We were miserable for days. I'm sure all of you were too." "I did not hear until I came back yesterday." "Ah ... I was afraid so. Of course, that made it worse." She brought him the lemon squash and stood leaning against the table beside him while he drank it, with the gladness of seeing him still in her eyes, though they were grave now with sympathy. It was evident their friendship had in it a wide understanding. She was silent a few moments, and then added simply, "I suppose you knew him personally?" "Yes." He did not tell her more, and she did not ask him. There was one subject that no deepening of friendship had ever made it possible to approach, and that was the story of his past. She knew only, from her husband, who was extremely vague on the subject, that he had once held a commission in the Blues, and been, not only a well-known society man, but the heir of a rich old uncle. And then suddenly something had happened, and his brother became the heir, and England had known him no more. Even William Grenville himself was in the dark as to the cause of the lost inheritance, as he had been abroad at the time, and had never had much intercourse with Carew's branch of the family. He was supposed to be in disgrace himself, because his soul was too honest to allow him to continue in a comfortable country living, after his convictions lost faith in the tenets of the English Church; but if it were so it never troubled him, and he loved his wilderness home dearly. Ailsa had her story also, but she too, it was evident, had found a solution that held satisfaction. After giving Carew his drink she moved away and picked up some needlework, seating herself near the open door, with sympathy in her face and in her silence. "We had a splendid service," she told him. "We did all we possibly could to show our loyalty. But how little it seemed! The far countries hurt at a time like this." He assented in silence, looking out over the lovely landscape as if it were a sight his soul loved, and she bent lower over her needlework. "Tell me about your Ingigi trip, unless you would rather wait for Billy. He will be in directly, and he will want to hear everything." He glanced towards her a moment, noting half indifferently that she looked unusually pretty to-day; but he only said a few generalities about his work, with his eyes again on the landscape. Ailsa sewed on, not in the least dismayed. It was good enough to have him there, whether he were communicative or not, and she was glad she chanced to have put on her new, pretty dress from home. For, of course, all women liked to look fair in the eyes of Peter Carew, quite indifferent to the fact that in all probability he scarcely saw them. But Ailsa Grenville could not have looked other than fair to any man, though to some she looked so much more besides. Her frank grey eyes, full of expression, her low, broad forehead and chestnut hair, were so full of beauty that they seemed to counteract entirely a nose that was a little too small and a mouth a little too large. One felt that nature had intended to make her a beautiful woman, and then changed her mind and allowed a flaw in her beauty, possibly to give her more character and an attraction of a different order. To the lonely men within reach of the mission station she was goddess and angel combined, and knowing it was one of the joys of her uneventful life. Thus they sat on together in the doorway, speaking quietly of the loss they had chosen to make their own, in an intimate sense perhaps only possible to far-off Empire-builders. And while they talked the missionary himself appeared, and all his face lit up when he saw Carew. "By Jove! I'm glad to see you," he exclaimed, tossing his khaki helmet carelessly aside. "We hoped you would come soon. Ailsa was sure you would." He sat on the edge of the table, swinging one putteed leg, a fine, athletic, big fellow, with a khaki shirt open at the throat, and sleeves rolled up above his elbows, and a brown attractive face with honest eyes. "How are the others?... Going strong?... We had them all here for our funeral service: the Macaulays, White, Richards, Henley, the three prospectors out Chini way, everyone within reach. And afterwards we gave them a feed. A homely one, with cakes and jam, as Englishy as possible. By gad, Carew! how a loss like this makes you think of home and country; and how we Britishers in the colonies ought to hang together through thick and thin! If we all felt it more, it would be a great thing for the dear old Mother Country. She'll want her boys in the colonies to stand by her stoutly, if she is to go on holding her own, I'm thinking." He got up and strode about the hut, his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth. "Hang it all!... since I came out here to try and do a little useful development among the blacks, I've grown more and more to feel that helping the settlers to live clean lives and pull together and care about the Old Country, is every bit as important, in fact far more so, than teaching Christianity to the heathen." He stood in the doorway, blocking the view with his immense bulk, a rarely attractive man, with boyish enthusiasm in his eyes, and fearless honesty in his whole aspect, and just that touch of the fanatic which helped him to soar above disappointments and keep his charming wife devoted and content with him out there in the wilderness. From his post in the doorway he swung round suddenly, and was about to launch upon one of his enthusiastic tirades on the natives or settlers or both, when Ailsa stayed him lightly, declaring that lunch was ready, and they all proceeded to the dining-room hut. Afterwards they lazed in a wide verandah, commanding one of the loveliest views in Rhodesia, and talked a little of the West Country, because the ache was still with each one to be at home at that sad time. When Carew, later, prepared to depart homewards, she gave a large plum cake carefully into the hands of his black soldier-servant, telling him, Carew, that it was for The Kid and Patrick, and not to let The Kid overeat himself, and tell him to come over and see her at once. "He is rather interested in the subject of corpses just now," Carew said, with something approaching a gleam in his eye, "but I don't encourage him, because, for two pins, I believe he would dig up the entire temple, if the spirit took him." "The scoundrel!..." with an affectionate laugh. "Tell him if he dares to touch one stone of my temple he shall never, never have a cake again." "Oh, I only surmise it from the expression in his eyes when he told me, rather wistfully, that some scientific visitor had described to him how the corpses, if found, would certainly be decked with valuable gold ornaments." Then he mounted and saluted her gravely as he rode away. III TWO HEIRESSES In a Piccadilly mansion, about the same time that Major Carew returned from his long trek, two girls sat in a wide window-seat and looked somewhat disconsolately across the fresh spring green of the park. Both were the daughters of South African millionaires. Both were motherless, and one an orphan. They were also cousins, and the same roof usually was their home. Two months previously the father of the one and guardian of the other had brought them to England, that they might duly "come out" the ensuing season in London society. Their presentation at Court had taken place in April, followed by a splendid ball at the stately mansion taken for their stay, and both girls had looked eagerly forward to the festivities ahead. And now, a few weeks later, they found themselves suddenly dressed in black, with nearly all the expected gaieties cancelled, and this overshadowing loss weighing upon their spirits. Added to this the death of first one mother and then the other, followed by a period of ill-health to the guardian and father, had postponed that "coming out" long past the ordinary age for such functions; Diana, the orphan, being now twenty-two, and Meryl two years older. Meryl was the graver of the two; graver indeed than is at all usual at twenty-four, but with a quiet fund of humour and a romantic dreaminess, and withal a certain elusive quality that made her always interesting, and pleasantly something of a mystery. Diana was a sparkling, practical, outspoken young woman, much adored of young men whom she treated with scant courtesy, and with a great deal of common sense in her pretty head. The girls' influence upon each other, which was cemented by a very deep affection, was wholly beneficial; for whereas Diana awakened Meryl from too much dreaminess, Meryl's quiet dignity had a softening effect upon Diana's too great exuberance of spirits and occasional boyish lack of refinement, which was more the result of a boisterous capacity for enjoyment than inbred. Meryl, as became the dreamer, had been profoundly touched by the event which had called forth that swift grief; and whereas Diana could not refrain from bemoaning all she must necessarily lose through the season of mourning, Meryl thought chiefly of how they could get away quickly into the country and replace the lost gaieties with quiet delight. She had already spoken to her father about her wish to leave town, but he had been much occupied of late, and not yet had time thoroughly to discuss the question. And meanwhile she and Diana waited a little disconsolately to see what the days brought forth. Diana was disposed for a trip to Switzerland, or Norway, or even Iceland, but she wanted to go in a party, and not just they two and a chaperon. Meryl was not enthusiastic and it nettled her a little, so that, on the wide window-seat, there was a cloud on her face as she drummed idly with her fingers and watched the traffic go by. "If you would only say what you _do_ want," she asserted impatiently, "instead of just mooning about and making no plans whatever." But the fact was, Meryl could not quite make up her mind what she did want. In some vague way a kind of upheaval had been taking place in her heart, and left her high and dry upon the rocks of uncertainty and dim dissatisfaction. New thoughts, new questions, new desires had risen in her during that sad month of May, and she felt as one seeking vainly she knew not what. She looked beyond the trees of the Green Park to the far skies with wistful eyes, and asked herself deep questions concerning many things, born of the thoughts that arose in her mind when she stood amid a people mourning tenderly a dearly loved sovereign, and beheld how in hearts all over the world he had won love and admiration, in that, to the best of his endeavour, he had splendidly fulfilled his high trust. And a high trust was hers. How could she not know it, when she was sole heiress to her father's millions; and yet, what was she doing, or preparing to do, in fulfilment of that trust? That it was no less so with Diana did not weigh with her. Diana was different. When she was allowed a free hand with her fortune she would buy yachts and houses and diamonds, and scatter it right and left, which was good in its way; but it would never satisfy her, Meryl, the visionary and dreamer, who looked with grave eyes to the far skies, and asked vague questions. Presently, with an impatient little kick at a footstool, Diana broke the silence. "_Do_ you know what you want? Have you any ideas at all, or are you just a blank?" Meryl smiled charmingly. "I'm not exactly a blank, but something of a confusion. I confess crowded Swiss hotels do not sound alluring. I like Iceland better, but it seems rather ... well ... purposeless." "And what in the world do you want it to be? Do you want to go a journey to convert heathen, or preach Christian Science, or explore untrodden country? If so, you had better take Aunt Emily and go alone. I'm hoping for a little life and amusement." "We always have that. I want something bigger for a change." "O, now you're getting to high altitudes. Meryl, do come down and be rational. I just feel as if I could shake you." She got up and roamed round the room, then returned to the window-seat and leaned out of the window watching some workmen who were painting the balcony below them. Meryl sat on silently, still seeking some sort of a solution to something she could not name. "There's such a good-looking workman," Diana remarked presently, "I'm sure he's an artist. I wish he would look up, but he is too shy." "Too wise, perhaps. Why are you sure he is an artist?" "O, well, because he looks like it. He has a Grecian head, and his hair curls adorably, and I'm certain his eyes are blue. He'll be just underneath the window soon, and if he doesn't look up then I shall drop something to make him." "Come away to lunch and don't be a goose. The gong sounded quite five minutes ago." Diana withdrew her head reluctantly. "Who wants to eat cutlets when they can watch a Grecian profile!" "Perhaps you would sooner drop one on his head to make him look up?" "I would; much sooner. Do you think they've brought their lunch with them, or shall we send them some?" "I expect they've got their dinners in red pocket-handkerchiefs, hidden away somewhere at the back." "Except my Greek"--with a little smile--"and I'm sure his is in a Liberty silk square." They sat down to lunch in the big, oppressive dining-room alone, as their chaperon, Aunt Emily, was laid up with a headache, and Mr. Henry Pym, Meryl's father, was usually in the City at midday. And after lunch, for the sake of something to do, they ordered the motor and drove out to Ranelagh to see the polo. Then came dinner, and with it in quiet, unsuspected guise the news that would presently change their lives. Henry Pym, a small, dark man, with the keen eyes and quiet manner that so often go with success, told them that because there would be practically no London season at all that year he had decided to go back to Africa, and he would take a country house for them anywhere they liked and leave them there for the summer with Aunt Emily. Aunt Emily nodded her head with an approving air. A quiet country house instead of a season's racketing was quite to her taste, and she felt dear Henry, as ever, was showing the marked common sense for which she humbly worshipped him afar off. Meryl looked at her father inquiringly and with a thoughtful air. Diana remarked, rather disgustedly, "O, uncle, what rot! Why should we be condemned to some dull little hole of an English village, just because there is to be no London season?" "My dear Diana," remonstrated the lady who was supposed to fill the post of mother and chaperon to both girls, and was therefore in duty bound to express disapproval of Diana's English, "you surely do not imagine your uncle admires that unladylike mode of speech!" "But he understands it," said the incorrigible, "and that is far more important." There was a decided gleam in the millionaire's eyes as he inquired, "And what do you want to do instead, Di?" "Oh, yacht, or travel, or go in an aeroplane, or anything. I simply can't sit down in an English village until further notice." Then Meryl spoke: "Why can't we go back with you to South Africa, father?" "Because I'm going to take a trip north. I'm going up to Rhodesia about some mining claims." "And couldn't we go there with you?" "Not very well. I'm not going to the towns, except for a day or two. I shall have to do a lot of trekking in the wild, outlying parts. You couldn't manage that." "Of course not," murmured Aunt Emily. "How dreadful that you should have to go, Henry! Why, there are lions and elephants and things, and the natives are savages; surely no mines are worth running such risks?" "Not quite as bad as all that, Emily, but hardly the place for you and the girls. Would you all like to go to Norway?" "And fish?..." from Diana, with a sudden light in her eyes. "You could have a yacht and take a party," he continued, "and come back when you are all tired of it. I'll ask Sir Robert to let me have the 'Skylark,' because his captain is so reliable. What do you say, Meryl?... Shall you like that?..." "I wish you could come," was her rather evasive answer, and she gazed at the table decorations as if pondering something in her mind. "Well, you can think it over," said the millionaire quietly, "and if there is something you would like better tell me." He was peeling a pear in a slow, methodical fashion, and his face quickly seemed to assume the expression of one whose thoughts were already elsewhere; but not before, with a quick, characteristic movement, he had glanced keenly and surreptitiously into Meryl's face and read her indecision. Something was on her mind. He knew it quite well; and his busy brain, under its mask of complacent thoughtfulness, probed into the question. Ever since the day of the King's funeral she had worn that thoughtful air and baffled him a little with her wistful indecision. And though he said nothing, he thought about it in his leisured moments; for dearer than all his wealth and his power and his success was his only child. That night, trying still to probe the unrest in her heart, Meryl stepped out on to their balcony and looked at the stars. Straight before her, outlined in a misty moonlight that was almost overpowered by the glare of the city's lights, were the tall towers of Westminster. Down below the traffic passed ceaselessly to and fro. From all sides came the mysterious hum of a great city's life. And as she leaned listening, and gazing at the far-off stars that seemed such mere pin-pricks above the glare, there came to her a thought of the majestic stars that hung over Africa and the majesty of silence upon the African veldt. And then gradually there stirred in her a warm remembrance of Africa, and of how she had always loved it, and a swift, unaccountable feeling of kinship with all the Britishers scattered far and wide who called some colony "home." True, she was English born and English educated; but so also was she South African, for quite half her life had been passed in Johannesburg, and it was there that her actual home existed. And so, by slow imperceptible degrees, out of nowhere and without explanation, crept into her mind the sudden realisation of Africa's claim upon her. She remembered that it was there her father had amassed his wealth. There had been won for her all the smooth, luxurious ways of her life; and, but a step further, as it were, stood out the answer to her questioning doubts. Whatever trust is yours in the future, whatever life asks of you in return for all she has given, it must be for Africa. Her heart warmed and swelled swiftly, and her eyes glowed in the misty darkness. She felt in her blood that Africa was calling. Africa, so sunny, so gay, so breezy, so lovable, and withal with so great a need of strong women as well as strong men, to help her to win through to the great future that should be hers. She leaned lower, and it was as though her gaze looked beyond the darkness to some unseen horizon. She saw the veldt with its far blue mountains, that called to men again and again with such resolute calling. Overhead, in her fancy, she saw the luminous Southern Cross. All around were the wide, boundless horizons, the swift, scented winds. In her spirit she was back again in the sun-soaked land, breathing the sun-soaked atmosphere, looking far to the "never, never" country that called from the clear distance. And it was her Africa,--hers, hers, hers. What did she want with an English village? What to her was a yachting cruise in Norway? These might be won some day as restful leisure hours in a strenuous life; but without the just winning, what had they to do with her? Africa needed strong women as well as strong men; and, strong or weak, Africa was calling--calling. She had come to London for the season because it was what all the other rich men's daughters did; but was she honestly grieved that their plans had all to be changed? Surely, now she was free, she could find something to do that would fill her hours afterward with gladder remembrance than just a season's triumphs. But what?... She leaned on in the starlight, chin sunk in hands, thinking, dreaming. And so presently, still by those imperceptible degrees, through which works the hand of Fate, her thoughts came at last to the dinner-table conversation. As in a flash, she remembered Rhodesia; and, remembering, it was as though the romance of the land reached out strong arms to enfold her. Here in very truth was a young country, offering a wide field to all who sought work, adventure, achievement. Her thoughts ran on exultantly. She was rich, she was free, she was young, she was strong; why dawdle and dream among the fiords of Norway? Why scale Swiss mountains? Let that come later, when she had earned a playtime. In the first vigorous years of her youth, let her go out to the sunny land that was her home and give it of her best. Let her go north and see a young country struggling towards fruition, and perhaps win the joy and privilege, generally reserved for men, of helping it forward. All in a moment her decision was made. If she could anyhow win her father's consent, she would go with him on his trip to Rhodesia. She stood up, tall and slim, and the subdued light glowed more deeply in her eyes. The eyes of the visionary, who sees great things and dreams great dreams, and, alas! how often, breaks a heart that of its very fineness could only do or die. Yet better, how much better, to hope and dare and die upon the heights, than linger content in the warm, snug valley of little joys and little sorrows! And then across her dreams broke the sound of a sleepy voice from the room behind her. "If you stay out there any longer, Meryl, you will grow wings and fly away. Do be rational enough to come in and go to bed." "I thought you were asleep, Di. I'm sure I haven't been keeping you awake." "No, but you are doing so now; and, besides, it's so imbecile to stand out there and stare at the stars." "I've been thinking hard, Di." She came in and sat on the little gilt bedstead, with its dainty hangings, and looked lovingly at the pretty head on the lace-decked pillow. "That's nothing new. If you _hadn't_ been thinking hard it would be worth while mentioning it," and there was half a pout and half a smile on the winsome mouth. "But there was more object than usual to-night. Listen. If I persuade father to take me up to Rhodesia with him, will you come too?..." "O, golly!... to be eaten by lions, and tigers, and savages, and elephants, and things!..." "Well, there wouldn't be much apiece if they all had a bite." Diana sat up and shook the hair out of her eyes, looking very much like a small imp of ten, instead of a finished young lady of twenty-two. "There's just a chance they would eat Aunt Emily first," said she, "and as that is a consummation devoutly to be wished, I think we'll go...." They both laughed, but Meryl soon grew serious again. "I'm awfully in earnest, Di. Who cares about Norway when they might go to Rhodesia! You'll perhaps fall overboard and be eaten by commonplace fishes if you go there." "What has given you the notion, Meryl? I thought only miners and farmers went to Rhodesia, except a few tourists to the Victoria Falls. Do you think there is anything to eat there except locusts and wild honey?" "Let's go and see. I ... I ... want to do some Empire work or something. I can't explain. But we've just got into such a maze of petty happenings and petty pleasures, and since the King died ..." "Of course!... you've been miles away ever since, dreaming and romancing and imperialising. But it won't last, and when you've landed us all high and dry in some Rhodesian wilderness we shall just hate each other and everything else, and be ready to murder you." "Nonsense. We shall explore all round, and study the natives and the animals, and make friends with the settlers; and it will all be just new and big and teeming with interest." "Not if you are chewing the mule harness, because you've had nothing to eat for days." "O yes, even that; why not?... We should love it all when we came safely back." "Well, I'll have the bridle, then. It won't, perhaps, be quite so greasy." "Now you're disgusting. Just put your head back on the pillow, and register a vow to see me through this craze, if you like to call it so, and I'll love you for ever. I like to think of it as Empire work. Come and do a little Empire work too." "But I don't want to. I'm bored to tears with the Empire. We hear a great deal too much of it nowadays; that and Standard Bread. I don't know which is the worst"--making a wry face--"and, besides, if you really want to do Empire work, your plain duty is to marry Dutch Willie and cement the races." A cloud flitted for a moment across Meryl's fair face, which Diana was quick to see, and she snoozled down into her cosy bed with a little chuckle. "Got you there, my fair Imperialist! Dutch Willie, or let us call him William van Hert, will drop this wild anti-British policy of his like a hot brick, if you will only make up your mind to be Madam van Hert, and bless his hearth with a Dutch doll or two, having good English blood in their veins as well as eighteen-carat Dutch," and the chuckles grew more and more audible. But Meryl only got up slowly and moved away to her own little bed. "Well, I shall ask father to-morrow, and if you won't come I shall try to make him take me without you. I think he will." "O, no he won't. If you are really quite obdurate, I shall do a little Imperial work also. I shall come along to keep watch and ward, and see that you don't fail the Empire by losing your heart to some fascinating young Rhodesian settler and forget your own South Africa altogether. Dutch Willie is a lot the nicest Dutchman who ever belonged to that obtuse people, and I foresee it will be my lot to guide you to your high destiny on behalf of the two races." Meryl only smiled dreamily, as if she scarcely heard. Swiftly, mysteriously, unaccountably, as is her way, Rhodesia had caught her senses and filled all her horizon for the time being. She nestled down into her own pretty bed, with the unrest already fading from her eyes, and a new gladness in her heart, as of one renewed with a great purpose and comforted with a wide hope. IV THE RHODESIAN PROJECT Aunt Emily represented what Diana was pleased to call "the family skeleton in the flesh." She was Henry Pym's only sister, and there had been a time when she shared a pound a week with him in a tiny cottage in Cornwall, while he worked as a miner in order to teach himself all he could about mining. After that she had taken a situation as housekeeper, while he went out to South Africa to make his fortune. Later she had spent a year or two with him, sharing his struggles in the new country, and then he had married, and she was once more left to take care of herself; for at that stage Henry's finances would barely keep himself and his wife. Three years afterwards, when his genius for finance was bearing fruit, his wife died, and at twenty-seven he found himself a childless widower just becoming prosperous. He again offered his sister a home, but her recollections of Africa were none to draw her back thither, and she chose to continue life in the comfortable situation she had procured as companion to an invalid lady. So Henry devoted himself entirely to the science of money-making, and at thirty-five he was a rich man. He married a second time, choosing for his wife among the gentlest-born Johannesburg could offer, and winning the sweet woman who was Meryl's mother. About the same time his brother came out from England and joined him, and in fifteen years they were two of Johannesburg's wealthiest millionaires. A few years later both were widowers, and very shortly afterwards John Pym died, leaving his only daughter and all the wealth that would be hers to his brother's care. Thus the household became as we have seen it, for Henry, remembering gratefully how his sister had stood by him in his days of struggle, now insisted upon her sharing his luxurious homes and acting as chaperon to the two girls. That she was a little trying he knew perfectly, but his sense of fair play and kinship resolutely turned a deaf ear to the half-spoken pleas of the girls, that he would give her instead a cosy home of her own, and procure a younger and brighter chaperon for them; and she had now become a fixture. But what irritated Diana so was the fact that had the good lady consulted her own taste, she would infinitely have preferred the cosy, independent home; but just as Henry's sense of fair play offered her a place in his, so her sense of duty to the two motherless girls made her accept it in spite of her inclination. "If people would but consult their comfort instead of their duty," quoth poor Diana, "how much nicer it would be all round! Uncle doesn't really want her here, and she doesn't really want to come, and we'd give our heads to be rid of her; but just because Old Man Duty loves to make people supremely uncomfortable, here we all are!" and her expressive gesture made further comment unnecessary. But, as a matter of fact, she made a very easy and good-natured chaperon, and it was only some of her irritating little ways that troubled them. Without being really deaf, she usually failed to hear any opening speech, and this Diana coped with very summarily. "Aunt Emily," she would begin. "Eh ... eh ... eh ... eh ... ah," and when Aunt Emily had duly enquired, "What did you say, my dear?" she would speak her sentence for the first time. Or, again, with reference to her propensity to get exceedingly worked up upon a subject of very little general interest, she would say, "The great point is, not to start her off, and not to give her a chance to start herself off. A little perspicacity will soon tell you what subject to nip in the bud, or when to talk as hard and fast as you can about something else." "And as for her mournfulness," declared the matter-of-fact young heiress, "well, that's genuinely funny. If I've got a bit of a hump myself, and I hear Aunt Emily, with a face of heroic resignation, say, 'I can bear it,' I begin to feel quite chirpy at once." But when the Rhodesian project came seriously under discussion, they were all a good deal surprised to hear Aunt Emily take part in it as one who must inevitably be of the party. Henry Pym was a reserved, undemonstrative man, and when Meryl begged him to let them accompany him on his travels, though he said very little, he was secretly a good deal gratified and pleased. His own early hardships had taught him the inestimable value of learning self-dependence and plucky endurance, and it was not without some regret he viewed a future for the girls entirely of rose leaves. Yet how could it very well be otherwise? When, however, Meryl pleadingly asked him to take them to Rhodesia with him, he perceived that the trip might be beneficial in more ways than one. "You probably don't understand," he told her quietly, "that I am going on a business, prospecting trip. I am going right away from hotels and railways to see mines, and I don't intend to be bothered with anything elaborate in the way of an outfit. I suppose I shall take a tent, and travel in a travelling ambulance, but certainly nothing out of the way in food or equipment. You would have to do the same, and as you know absolutely nothing in the world about 'roughing it,' you probably wouldn't like it at all." "But that is just what we should like," Meryl urged. "That is one reason why we want to come." They were sitting in the smoke-room with him, as was often their habit in the evening, preferring it, as he did, to the stately drawing-room. Meryl sat on a footstool near him, watching his face anxiously, while Diana, with an open book on her knee, listened from the depths of an enormous arm-chair in which she had curled herself. "Shouldn't we ever need to wash?" she asked suddenly, in a sprightly voice that set them all laughing. "Well, it's a hot country, you know," said her uncle, "but it might be more or less optional." "Scrumptious!" and Diana snoozled lower into her chair. "Uncouth," remarked Aunt Emily, disapprovingly. "Or do you mean unclean?" enquired the sinner. "It is quite the maddest idea I ever heard of." Ignoring her, and growing more and more mournful, the poor lady heaved a deep sigh. "But need you be bothered with us?" enquired Meryl, diplomatically. "Wouldn't you rather have a nice quiet summer in England?" "And let you go alone?... How could I?... Your father will be much engaged with his business, and it would be most unseemly for two girls of your age to be left so much alone. I believe it is a dreadful country, but if you can face it, I think I can find the courage to come with you." "Think you can bear it, aunty?..." chirped the voice from the arm-chair, and Meryl frowned in a little aside at the snoozler. "If they decide to come at all, they would be all right with me out on the veldt," put in Mr. Pym. "If they are prepared to eat 'bully beef' and probably do their own washing-up." "How horrible!..." from the arm-chair. "It sounds worse than chewing mule harness." "What do you mean, Diana?" her aunt asked, nervously. "Oh, didn't you know there was nourishment in mule harness?... It's simply splendid stuff when you've had nothing else for days." The poor lady shuddered, and her brother chuckled, but Meryl interposed with, "Don't listen to her, Aunt Emily. It isn't likely we shall ever have had nothing for days." "I once heard of a man ..." began the spinster, putting down her work, and raising her head with the air they all knew so well, denoting a long rigmarole about some exceedingly uninteresting person, and Diana immediately chimed in with, "Shall you wear a knickerbocker suit, aunty, or just a commonplace divided skirt?" "Neither will be in the least necessary," was the decided answer. "I have met people from Rhodesia, and they dress quite ordinarily." "Oh, that's when they're in another country," insisted the incorrigible. "Up there you simply must wear knickers, or a divided skirt; it's ... it's ... such a high altitude ... and so ... windy!..." "Diana, be quiet," interrupted Meryl, now sitting on the arm of her father's chair. "If you don't mind we shall leave you behind." "Well, I don't know that I particularly want to go. It doesn't sound very inviting except about the washing." "I think you had all better take a week to decide in," said Henry Pym, finally. "I won't say anything about the yacht at present, and you can change your minds and have it if you like. And if your aunt chooses to stay quietly in England, I'll take a house for her anywhere she likes, and I'll look after you both myself. You can take care of each other when I have to be absent for a day." "Would you like us to go?" asked Diana, screwing her head round impishly. "Or are we going to be a ... a ... frightful nuisance?" "I'd like you to come, if you can make up your minds thoroughly to take the rough and the smooth together, and make the best of it. I think it will be an experience for you, and a wholesome change from too much luxury. But mind"--and his strong, dark face looked very determined--"I want no grumbling and no fretfulness. If you think you've any real, genuine pioneer spirit in you, _come_. If you're in doubt about it, stay behind, and go to Norway and have your gaiety." "I don't think I've very much," said Diana, "but Meryl has enough for two, I'm sure; and for the rest, I never grumble, and I'm only peevish with very young men. That, of course, I might work off on the niggers." "Has Meryl a lot of pioneer spirit?" asked her father, watching her with quiet, affectionate eyes. "Stacks of it. She wants to become an Empire-builder. I don't. I'm bored with the Empire. But I don't mind sampling just one dive into the wilderness, to see how I like primitive conditions. I don't know what Aunt Emily wants with the wilderness though, unless she has a secret fancy for niggers!..." "I think that is a little coarse of you, Diana. I have no fancy either for a wilderness or niggers; but if either you or Meryl were ill, or anything happened to you, I should never forgive myself had I remained comfortably at home." "Nothing will happen to us, aunty. I think you are rather unwise to think of coming," said Meryl. "If you go, I shall come as far as Bulawayo anyhow. Then I shall at least be within reach." "Well, think it over for a week," said Henry Pym again, getting up and moving towards his writing-table. "I don't like hurried decisions at any time. If you like to come and take pot-luck with me I shall be glad to have your company, but do not let that influence you. Come for your own sakes, and prepared for anything, or remain behind." They understood that he wished to be left to do some reading or writing, and after kissing him good night, went upstairs to their room. But Meryl's eyes had already a new glow of hopeful anticipation, and it was easy to see she did not intend to waste much time in making up a mind already entirely decided. Diana found her a little irritating. "Really, Meryl!" she said, "you look as ridiculously pleased as a cat with kittens. You are quite the most unaccountable creature in the world. What, in the name of fortune, _is_ the good of going to Rhodesia? Frankly, I'd rather stay in England." But Meryl only smiled happily, and made no comment. "Oh, put the light out," snapped Diana. "I really can't stand that superior, complacent air of yours any longer." For answer the elder girl crossed the room and gave her a hug. "Don't be cross, Di. You know you'll love the atmosphere of adventure when you are fairly started. Anyone can go to Norway." "Adventure! Stuff! Heat and flies and sand, that's all we're in for; and uncle in a prosaic, 'I told you so' mood." "We may see lions when we are trekking." Diana put her head on one side, like a small, bright-eyed bird. "We can see those in the Zoo, beloved." "Well, and you can see Norway on a cinematograph." Diana turned away with a low laugh. "Clean bowled. Good for you, O wise Hypatia! Well, we'll go to this heathen land and be horribly uncomfortable for a time, and then we'll come back and make things hum in London as they never hummed before. Where is Jeanne, I wonder? If I've got to do my own hair for two solid months I'll never touch a wisp of it until we go," and she rang the bell peremptorily. Later, for a few moments, Meryl again stood out on the balcony, enjoying the June night, and as she looked at the stars she smiled softly. She was going back to Africa, after all--her Africa, and perhaps Life would give her something big to do yet. And half unconsciously, though with a sense of pleasurable possession, she stood with her eyes to the south. And away in a distant land, on a high hill, strewn with ruins of an ancient, mysterious race, a man stood with his eyes to the north. A taciturn, difficult, unaccountable man, who baffled the people that would fain be friendly with him, and chilled any who showed him warmth, and yet was invariably liked and trusted by all who had the perspicacity to see beyond the rigid exterior. Even to-day, though he was mourning his sovereign, he had shown no softening of grief to those who beheld him. Rather, if anything, he had been more silent, more taciturn, more aloof than ever. Yet the enfolding night and the quiet stars saw what none others saw. They saw the ache in the steady eyes, the compression as of pain on the resolute lips, the swift, unusual hunger, sternly suppressed, for something that had once been in some old life and was now for ever ended. V WILLIAM VAN HERT They, that is, the Pyms, stayed in Johannesburg before they started on their travels. Mr. Pym had built for himself a charming house in the Sachsenwald neighbourhood, architectured, of course, by Mr. Herbert Baker, and having a lovely view to far blue hills. Few people who have never seen Johannesburg have the smallest conception of the charm of its best suburbs, with their wonderful far vistas to a dream country of blue mountains on the horizon. To most it suggests little beyond dump-heaps of white powdered quartz, tall machinery, tall chimneys, with a town of tramways and offices and wealthy people all struggling together for more wealth. Yet in a few minutes one may leave all this behind, and drive along tree-lined roads and avenues to where, probably amidst swaying firs, a "stately home" of South Africa is picturesquely standing. Mr. Pym's house was not of the largest, for he had never been ostentatious of his wealth, and much of it was represented by large tracts of land, where he generously experimented for the benefit of the country. As with several rich South Africans, he had his stud farm and his agricultural farm; and both were kept up to a very high standard, without any particular consideration for profit and loss. But his house in the Sachsenwald neighbourhood had more of charm and comfort in it than display. The rooms were very high and airy and well ventilated, with artistic colour effects which the girls had achieved, and something of an Italian air about it. Along one side, widening into an embrasure at the middle, where doors from the drawing-room and dining-room stood open to it, ran a broad tessellated terrace; and from the terrace one looked out over a lovely garden, gorgeous with the flaming flowers of South Africa, yet softened by velvety turf such as is seldom seen "over there," and can only be attained by much consistent care and attention. It was here the girls loved best to sit: Diana because the prospect was fresh and breezy and wide, and, true to her namesake, she loved the smell of the firs and the earth; Meryl because of those far blue hills which made so fitting a background to the dreamland thoughts that filled her mind; and, moreover, Aunt Emily did not particularly love light and air, so she usually remained in her own sanctum, and Diana was able to enjoy, not one cigarette, but two or three, after each meal without the tiresome accompaniment of a disapproving eye. They reached Johannesburg in the latter half of July, and those people who had not already fled from the high winds and driving dust were hurriedly preparing to do so. In consequence, few friends were there to welcome them on their return, and their plans proceeded apace. Diana had a smart khaki knickerbocker suit made, and a wonderful broad-brimmed hat with a long feather to go with it. When they laughingly told her she was not journeying to an uncivilised country, and could not possibly wear such a garb in modern Rhodesia, she merely asserted she was going into the wilderness to please them, and in return they must put up with her in any sort of garb she chose. In the end Meryl was persuaded to have a knickerbocker garb also, though she insisted that she would never wear it. Aunt Emily bought yards and yards of green and blue muslin, in which she proposed to tie up her head. "You must have a particularly ugly helmet, and a pair of smoked spectacles, and a butterfly-net as well," said Diana, "and then you will look as if you belonged to the British Association." Her uncle, sitting back silently in his big arm-chair, with the quiet twinkle in his keen eyes, remarked, "And you will look like the principal boy at a pantomime." "How heavenly!..." said outspoken Diana, and Aunt Emily raised her hands in horror. It was on one of the last evenings before their final departure that William van Hert came from a quiet sea-side place above Durban to see them. He was taking a long rest there, after a strenuous parliamentary campaign, and only discovered through a belated newspaper that they had returned from England, and were contemplating a journey north. He immediately took a day's road journey to the nearest railway and departed for Johannesburg. Diana saw him arrive, and executed a remarkable spring into the air, finished off with a little kick. "Oh, golly!..." she breathed. "Here's Dutch Willy come flying to the arms of his ladylove!" Meryl looked up with swift, questioning eyes. "Impossible!... He is down at M'genda." "A little bird whispered, 'She, the fair one of many millions, has returned,' and straightway the thousand white arms of M'genda failed to hold him." "Don't be spiteful, Di. Mr. van Hert cares nothing for anyone's millions. You know it well." "I do; and for that reason he should be kept in a glass case. Still, he cares for a fair Englishwoman who has been--well, kind to him." "He is interesting. Was there any special kindness in letting him know that I had the perspicacity to see it?" And they went downstairs together to receive him. William van Hert was at that time one of the most disliked, one of the most attractive, and one of the most disturbing men in South Africa. Gifted with brains and polish, he was yet, at present, marred by bigotry, narrowness of vision, and an unreasonable antipathy to the advance of English ways and customs. Furthermore, having obtained for himself a considerable following, he was, unfortunately, powerful. When genuine efforts were being made to bury the hatchet over the racial question, this man had more than once dug it up again; but it was not entirely clear at present whether he was actuated by motives of misguided patriotism, or whether, like far greater men, he only wanted to make himself thoroughly heard in the world first, and when that object was satisfactorily attained, he would modify his tendency to rabid policies and prove himself a reliable statesman. In the meantime he was dangerous. In England there were many who quite seriously believed the racial feud was over. There were others who knew that it was still exceedingly bitter. There were others again who said very little, and perhaps professed to know very little, but in the quietness of their own thoughts pondered deeply and patriotically how a real and sincere union, and not a merely public newspaper one, was to be wrought between two fine races, so that in true harmony they might bring a country of great promise to its day of fulfilment. The men who saw any solution in making both languages compulsory were not men of true insight; neither were those who retrenched Englishmen in one direction, and created new posts for Dutchmen in others. One could but suppose these men were content to be patriots, not in a big sense to the whole country, but in a limited one to their own countrymen. To be patriots of South Africa herself, in her widest sense, seemed too much to ask of them. Yet, because of the fine qualities many of these men possessed, one could but hope that ere long what was good for South Africa would be good for each individual, whether in private life he called himself English or Dutch. That William van Hert was ever a welcome guest in the Pyms' household showed that he had many excellent qualities besides his undisputed personal attractiveness to counterbalance his obstinate bigotry. Otherwise Mr. Pym would not have shown him the friendliness he did; for in his quiet way Henry Pym possessed greatness, and everyone throughout the land knew that he was of those resolute, reliable few who would let all their wealth go before they would pander to any government or any party to save it. Meryl talked to him because she perceived there was a rough sincerity in the man underneath his bigotry, and hoped because he was powerful he would presently expand. Diana alone crossed swords with him, and though perhaps he did not know it, it was no small thing that she thought it worth while. He stayed to dine with them in a simple, homely manner, and his conversation at the table was sparkling and vivacious. He told them some excellent stories, concluding with one in very broad Dutch that they had great difficulty in following. And then Diana opened fire. "Such a monstrous, face-distorting language," she remarked coolly. "I wonder you don't forbid its use instead of urging it." The gleam came quickly to her uncle's eye, though he appeared to take no heed. It was left to Meryl to frown cautiously, and shake a wise head. "Don't frown at me, Meryl," said the incorrigible. "It's a hideous tongue, and he knows it, and what's the good of pretending anything else? I don't hold with pretence in anything." "It is the tongue of my country," van Hert told her, more amused than annoyed. "Every true patriot loves his mother tongue." "O, nonsense!" with a charming insolence. "Meryl and I both have Norse blood in us. If you go far enough back we probably are Norse. But where would be the sense in our professing to love our country by talking her tongue, when it served every reasonable purpose in the world better to talk English? You're so one idea'd, you Dutch folk, at least some of you," pointedly. "The language and the Bible and your early-morning coffee!" They could not help laughing at her, but van Hert indignantly repudiated her charge. "O well!..." she continued, airily. "You know perfectly well you do make a fetish of the Language Question; and that your back-veldt followers believe the Bible was written in Dutch for the Dutch race alone; and that you start having coffee at daybreak, with relays up to breakfast-time. And you don't expect your natives or your women to possess such a thing as an individual will. That is a luxury for the strong sex only!... It all means just one thing. Out in the back veldt you are years and years and years, positive, æons, behind the times; and you'd sooner represent a big dam to the progress of the world than yield one little silly, rotten cotton prejudice to help it forward. So there!..." And having delivered herself of this piece of oration Diana got up, pushed her chair back with a jerk, and finished, "I'm going out on the terrace. When I think of your back-veldters, and your back-veldt policy of suppressing all individualism and all advance, I need the company of a few worlds and solar systems to regain my equilibrium. No, don't expostulate," as he rose in his eagerness to confront her. "I seldom argue. It is not worth while. I merely 'express an opinion,' having the good fortune to belong to a race in which women are permitted such an indulgence," and she threw a laughing glance back at him from the window before she stepped out. Meryl watched her with a swift look of deep affection in her eyes, and then glanced at her father. Henry Pym's face was expressionless, but his eyes seemed to reply to her unspoken question, and tell her that he, too, recognised a little more thoroughly that under the surface flippancy and light raillery there was depth. In the meantime, feeling she had not been quite fair to her opponent, to go off without allowing him to defend himself, he purposely discussed the language question a little more openly than was at all his wont with such prickly subjects, speaking a few quiet truths in a way that even a firebrand like van Hert could not possibly resent. When they joined Diana she was sitting on a table, swinging her feet, and singing a new music-hall ditty. "Touching that slander of yours," van Hert began, good-humouredly, for few could ever be seriously annoyed with Diana, "I should like to say ..." "No, I forbid it," she interrupted. "Arguments bore me. Have you heard that little song before that I was singing? It's a ripping little ditty. Chain Aunt Emily to the drawing-room sofa and I'll sing it all through to you; but if she were to hear it she might faint, and that is so tiresome." He laughed, and sat on the table beside her, and the rabid sectarian politician, so given to raising storms and creating scenes in that most remarkable of parliaments, the South African Union Assembly, forgot his pet injustices and prejudices, and was quickly the versatile, virile, engaging social man. Meryl sat a little apart, with some dainty crochet-work in her delicate fingers, and though the visitor chatted with Diana, his eyes were almost always upon her. They had purposely put out the electric light after their coffee was served, preferring only the lights in the rooms behind them and the splendour of the night before. And in the dimness Meryl's fair skin gleamed unusually white beside her dusky hair, and the velvety, blue-grey eyes, when she looked up, had caught the dreaming darkness of the heavens. Only now and then she glanced round. Mostly she sat with her eyes on the shadowy darkness and her work in her lap. And the Dutchman, gazing, felt with a sort of fierce reluctance that there were no women in the world for calmness and strength quite like the Englishwomen, nor more delicately, entrancingly fair. Then, suddenly, Meryl heard her name and looked up. "Why in the world do you want to go to Rhodesia?" he had said; and Diana answered, "I don't know that we do want to go; but Meryl has suddenly developed into a violent Imperialist, and we go at her desire." "What to do?" and he asked the question a little sharply of the dark eyes now turned to theirs. Quite suddenly and unaccountably he resented their going; resented, at any rate, that she, Meryl, should go. There had been so much "Rhodesia" of late. Everyone seemed bitten with a kind of silly craze for the place. Now it was gold; now it was land; now it was union or no union; now it was annexation and "twenty pieces of silver"; such a lot of fuss about some square miles of wilderness, containing odd outcrops of gold-bearing reef. "There is nothing worth seeing in Rhodesia, except the Victoria Falls," he asserted; "and you can run up there and see all you want to and get back in a week!" And still he looked enquiringly at Meryl. "We want to see the people," she said, half turning. "The pioneers, who went first to investigate, the settlers who followed, the women who went forward with their husbands into the wilderness." He got off the table and came and leaned against a verandah-post beside her with folded arms, looking down. "But that is what you won't see; how should you? You will only see dusty, upstart towns, with horrible corrugated-iron hotels, where you will swelter in heat and flies and eat abominable tinned stuffs. It is a barren, comfortless land at present, with a possibility of being useful some day. They want money, energy, brains to develop it thoroughly; and they won't accept them when they are offered, because a few stiff-necked Englishmen happen to be in power. It is absurd to go there at present. You will only get typhoid and malaria, and be excruciatingly uncomfortable." "It sounds a pretty rotten sort of place! What do you and your colleagues want it for so badly, anyway?..." asked Diana, throwing her head back and narrowing her eyes as she looked at him with a shrewd questioning air. He coloured slightly under the sunburn on his cheeks. "We want a United South Africa. Why should one country stand aloof!" "Meinheer van Hert," said she, coming down from her table and taking a step forward to confront him, "for any man with your political views to talk about including Rhodesia in the Union solely for the sake of a United South Africa and for her own good, is the veriest cant. There's gold up there, and perhaps tin; and there's land for farming, and land for ranching, and hunting grounds, and a big river. In your United South Africa you want your people to be 'top dog' always, and as long as Rhodesia stands out there's a menace in the north. That's one reason why you want her! Rumour tells us there's a fine race of men up there, who don't mean to have any tongue but Cecil Rhodes's tongue taught in Cecil Rhodes's country, so it certainly is no place for you! You've got to learn more thoroughly what an Englishman means by 'cricket' before your overtures will be considered; and we're all hoping you'll learn it quickly, because we want to be friends, good friends, just as soon as ever we can." He bit his lip and looked angry, but she was already laughing the moment's tension aside. "You didn't know I was a politician, did you?... As a matter of fact, I'm not!... I'm sick of the whole bag of tricks, and the Empire that fills Meryl with heaves and swells isn't half so much to me as winning a tennis tournament or a golf championship. But when you Hollanders are bursting with pride of place and achievement, and offering energy and brains to help Britishers along, I just feel as if you'd got to be told a few home-truths for your good. Now I'm going to liven the meeting with a little operatic music," and she tripped indoors to the piano. Van Hert shrugged his shoulders expressively, and then stood silently beside Meryl for some moments looking into the night. And as he stood he became conscious of a vague sort of dissatisfaction with himself. It was a sensation he knew only at rare moments, and those moments were chiefly at the Pyms' house. He admired the two cousins more than any women he knew; he admired Henry Pym; he loved the homyness of their household; and he had to remember that they were English. There must, of course, be many others like them. Were there many like them among his own countrymen? When Diana told him his people had yet to learn more thoroughly what was meant by "cricket" she had hit him hard. He would never have admitted it for one moment, but, nevertheless, when he was at the Pyms' house he _wondered_.... Densely, stubbornly patriotic to his own people and his own tongue he might be, but he had travelled enough to recognise certain traits in the English "old public-school boy" which it was good for a country there should be in her young men, and which were not noticeably present in his countrymen of the back veldt. Then his eyes rested on Meryl, and all his pulses throbbed with her nearness. He had known for many months now that he loved her, yet he had never actually told his love. At first there had been a disinclination to marry an Englishwoman because of the unbending, resolute policy he had identified himself with in the Union Parliament. No one spoke of anti-British and anti-Dutch nowadays. It was impolitic. But whereas certain men genuinely tried to ease the forced situation and meet with fairness and justice upon common ground, others still kept the flag of discord in their hands, though they hid it under the table, so to speak, and only produced it when, as they chose to assert, some pet foible of their countrymen was overruled or some indignity threatened. And of this section in Parliament van Hert was the leader. If he then married an Englishwoman, not even South African born, would he not be held up to ridicule by his colleagues? And then he would see Meryl again, and all his feelings would merge into one great longing for her; not for her money--she had been right when she said such a charge was unjust, indeed, he almost wished she had been poor--but her quiet dignity and calm strength and the exquisite fairness that held all his senses. And as he stood beside her now he hated more and more, without knowing why, that she should go to Rhodesia. Whatever he had said to the contrary, he knew that there was a romance about that far land that might fascinate her. He knew that up there there were some of the cream of England's men. "The second son's country," he had heard it called, and that meant very often the well-born, high-bred gentleman who was not afraid to work, who had never been pampered, and was full of the best sportsman's spirit. The man of all others to attract such a woman as Meryl Pym. The mere thought of it seemed to fill him with a growing alarm, and presently, almost before he knew it, he found himself pouring into her ears the story of his love. Meryl was startled and taken aback. She had known perhaps that he had a special liking for her; seen it often in his eyes when he gazed at her. But that he should speak now was a little sudden, and she wished Diana had not left them alone. She tried to meet his eyes, but something a little too ardent in them abashed her, and she looked out into the darkness, nervously twisting and untwisting the thread of her work. He saw that she was taken aback, and tried somewhat to curb the eager intensity that he felt was unnerving her. "You are going away up there, and I shall be very anxious about you," he pleaded. "If you would only give me your promise before you go, and let me have the right to follow at once if you are ill or anything, it would make it so much easier." She stood up, agitated, still gazing wistfully into the night. "It is very sudden.... I did not know.... I hardly thought.... Have you ... have you ... remembered everything?..." "That you are English and I am Dutch?... What of it, Meryl?... I may call you Meryl, mayn't I?... Are we not both South Africans?..." He tried to take her hand and draw her to him, but she shrank away and he did not urge it. "Have you remembered it long enough?... Thought it out thoroughly?... It all seems somehow so sudden." "I have known long that I loved you. Does anything else really matter if you can love me in return?" "Ah!..." she breathed and stopped short. She had liked him long. She had always liked him. Away from his politics he was liked by most people. Huguenot blood was in his veins, and it showed itself in a French charm of manner that came to him naturally when he could get away from that bigoted, narrow obstinacy that marred him. She felt he was a man who might be led to many things, though driven to none. Because he attracted her she felt she half loved the Huguenot side of him already. If only the other side did not so insistently repel! Could it perhaps be overruled? Could she love him truly enough to hold his love for ever, and through it lead him to heights he might never even sight without her? Yet her eyes were wistful, gazing out there at the dreaming stars, and her face gleamed whiter and whiter. This was not the love that whispered to her when she looked to the far blue hills. This was not the consummation the high stars in far infinities told her vaguely might some day bless her life. And then he pleaded again in low-voiced eagerness, and in distress she turned to him. "I'm so sorry. I can't bear to think of perhaps making you unhappy. But ... but ... I'm afraid I don't love you in the way you want. I hadn't thought about it." "I have been too sudden." He drew himself up, and his eyes followed hers out to the darkness. And a touch of latent nobility seemed to come out in him; a quiet dignity like her own that appealed to her strongly. "I won't take your answer to-night. I shall come to you again when you come back. Perhaps then ... when you have thought about it ..." He broke off abruptly. "May I write to you?... Will you sometimes write to me?... Perhaps I could follow ..." They heard steps and voices coming towards them from the drawing-room where Diana had wearied of her operas, and in sudden haste he caught her hand and raised it to his lips. "I think I have to thank you for a good deal," he told her a trifle huskily. "Men of all nations are better for being admitted to the friendship of women like you. If there were anything I could do to serve you?..." and he waited for her to speak. "Serve South Africa," she breathed tensely. "I could ask no more of any man." His hand tightened upon hers. "Serve her with me. Together we could do so much." He saw her waver. "Let me tell you when I come back. Yes ... together we might do so much...." "When you come back ..." he said, and pressed her hand in understanding. Then Diana stepped out of the brightness of the drawing-room. "How can you two stay sleepily there, looking at the stars like two cats, when I am trying to lure you indoors with the latest comic-opera music! Meinheer van Hert, Mister Pym says, will you drink with him?..." VI THE JOURNEY As he had three ladies with him Mr. Pym decided to take a private saloon-car, but no saloon in the world could prevent them being nearly smothered with the dust through Bechuanaland and Matabeleland in August, and while Aunt Emily rent the air with her complainings and sufferings, Diana chose to pass disparaging remarks upon the long-suffering British Empire, which she considered responsible for her journey north. Meryl said nothing, but there was often a wistful expression in her eyes as they sighted a lonely farmstead, or stood in a little wayside station with perhaps one corrugated-iron building, where some white-faced woman looked listlessly at the train. When she tried to voice her sympathy with their loneliness, however, Diana snapped her up a little impatiently. "My dear Meryl, you will look at things always in the sentimental light. A woman with a husband and child in this freshness and sunshine is at least better off than if she were in a city slum, and her man probably out of work, and her child dying for want of fresh air." "But that is not the only alternative!... And in any case to suffer in company is almost always easier than to suffer alone." "But they don't suffer, or, at any rate, they needn't necessarily. That is where you are so short-sighted. The average woman wants a husband and a child, and I don't see that it matters much whether she has them in the wilderness or in a city; the main thing is to have them." "Well, for my part," put in Aunt Emily in an aggrieved voice, "if I could only have a man in a cloud of dust I'd sooner never see the species again," which tickled Diana hugely and caused her to horrify her aunt by adding, "But what an advantage for him never to be able to see what you were doing! One could have such high jinks!..." Then, changing her voice subtly, she enquired, "Is it too much for you, aunty?... I mean the dust and the journey? because there must be such very much worse things ahead, and ..." "That will do, my dear. I can bear it," and her expression of mournful resignation tickled Diana more than ever. On the day before they reached Bulawayo, however, when hour after hour brought very little but scrub and sand, she and her aunt were very nervy and irritable, and only Meryl, with her dreams and ideals, continued quietly interested. When they reached Bulawayo matters did not improve much, because a sand-storm was blowing and it was almost impossible to go out. Mr. Pym packed them off to the Victoria Falls as soon as possible, and remained behind himself to complete the arrangements for his trip. On the further railway journey the dust was worse than ever, and utterly out of heart with everything Rhodesian, Aunt Emily retired to a suite of rooms at the hotel on their arrival and said she should stay there until the cool of the evening. So Diana and Meryl stood on Danger Point alone, when they took their first long look at the amazing cataract of waters. Neither spoke for many seconds, and then Diana breathed, "I'm glad Aunt Emily didn't come. She would have called it 'lovely' or 'sweet.'" Meryl laid a sympathetic hand on her arm and murmured, "And you?..." "One couldn't call it anything. It just _is_." And Meryl with her understanding heart pressed her arm in silence. They walked together through the rain forest, getting drenched with spray and hardly noticing it, until they came to the opening near the Devil's Cataract at the south end, and sat down to gaze at the splendour and wonder outspread. Then Diana spoke a little in something of an undertone, half to Meryl, half to the air: "A god did it. I don't know which--Jupiter or Pan, or Apollo or Hercules--and when they grew tired of the earth and went off to other planets, they just left it behind as a child might a castle he has built in the sand; and by and by some crabs crawled along and found the castle, and sat down and looked at it because it seemed to them so wonderful; and by and by some humans found the gods' waterfall, crawled up to it, and sat down and wondered. That's all there is to do. O, Meryl, I wish I were a goddess and not a worm. The waters are mocking us. Don't you hear them?... I just feel as if there were something about it all I can't bear." Meryl smiled a little tender smile. To her Diana in all her moods was adorable. In her shy, fierce, tense ones, as now, she was best of all. "What does it say to you, Meryl?..." the girl went on. "Do you feel as if you hated it and worshipped it both together? Hated its remote magnificence and devilish cruelty, and worshipped it because you couldn't help yourself, either from fear or wonder? I don't know which, only I feel ... I feel ... as if I ought to throw over something I loved as a sacrifice of propitiation. And it goes on just the same--think of it--year after year, century after century, just calmly spilling magnificence on the desert air! I believe I'm frightened, Meryl. Tell me what it all says to you." Meryl looked dreamily along the glistening mighty cascades, and then spoke softly: "I feel I'm in the presence of one of the world's biggest things, and it is inspiring. You know that sentence of James Lane Allen's, 'When one has heard the big things calling, how they call and call, day and night, day and night!...' Here they call louder, that is my chief feeling. I look at this great natural wonder, and whatever there is in me most akin to it swells upward. I feel I must do great things or die ... be great or not at all. And while I feel like this there is a sense of kinship, as if some spirit of the waters understands." "Perhaps that is why I am afraid," breathed Diana. "I don't care about greatness. I don't want to be great. It all seems so unreal. I like the sunshine, and flowers, and trees, and birds, and four-footed things. I don't want to be bothered with my fellow-creatures; they are a nuisance. If they are in difficulties, and can't find a way out for themselves, they might just as well go under." "You heartless little heathen!" affectionately. The girl brightened suddenly. "Why! it understands, Meryl!... The Spirit of the Waters heard me, and now it is laughing. It is great enough to understand and appreciate the feelings of both of us. Don't you hear the note of revelling now?... Why!... it's all revelling. The waters are shrieking with joy. They've come tearing down the Zambesi valley for the rapture of plunging over the precipice, and now they are just beside themselves with the excitement and delight of it. O!... they heard me say I don't care about my fellow-creatures, that they are just a nuisance, and they're shouting to me, 'Neither do we ... neither do we!... Silly, wide-eyed, open-mouthed humans come and stare at us, and try to describe us, saying we are lovely and wonderful and pretty and such-like, and we just roar at them and their puniness and take our glorious plunge.' That is what the waters are saying to me now, Meryl. I feel as if I simply must plunge with them. Take me away. I can't bear any more to-day." And they went silently back through the lovely plantations to the hotel. But in the evening, in the moonlight, her mood changed again. "I feel a little like you to-night, Meryl. The big things do matter, of course. If I'm such a silly little goat I can't do anything big myself, I guess I'll help you whenever it's possible. And, of course, even humans matter a little, though I do like dogs and horses so much better; but there's something so calm and big and strong about the waters to-night, they are telling me all the time that the big things matter. O, Meryl, it's so lovely--so lovely--it hurts dreadfully...." And after a pause: "If it hadn't been for you I should never have taken the trouble to come and see it. I won't grouse at the dust any more." And later: "I'm glad there's no sign of a human habitation at hand, and that the wilderness is all round. They had to be splendidly isolated--magnificently alone--the god who did it understood that. One can think of the wide reaches of Africa afterwards, and the gem, like a priceless jewel, set in them. Deep silence, wide horizons, untrodden country on every hand, and this in the midst like a treasure tenderly enfolded." After three days they returned to Bulawayo, and found their pilot impatient to be off. He unfolded his plans, and the two girls listened eagerly when he said: "I am told there is every indication of gold in the Victoria district, and my engineer is anxious I should journey down there and see one or two properties. The railway does not extend beyond Selukwe, so if we go we must take a travelling ambulance and tents and sleep out in them for three or four weeks. I think there is a pretty good hotel in Edwardstown, where you could remain if you like while I travel round, and then we might all journey to Salisbury up the old pioneer route." The girls were delighted, but Aunt Emily's mournful resignation had reached its limit. She informed them, in a voice which implied, no matter how they pleaded with her, she should remain firm, that nothing would induce her to accompany them upon such a journey. Her brother said quietly, "Just as you like, Emily. I think I can take care of the girls. Will you stay in Bulawayo, or go back to Johannesburg?" Aunt Emily's face wore rather a reproachful expression as she replied, "I suppose I had better return to Johannesburg, and then if any of you get ill with malaria or typhoid, you must wire for me and I will come back." "You were very good to come so far," said Meryl gently, seeing the veiled disappointment that they could dispense with her so easily. "If it is any consolation," volunteered Diana, "you may be quite sure we are all going to be most horribly uncomfortable for the next month or two. The only illness I anticipate is an utter and complete weariness of life. I don't know which sounds the most dreadful: being bumped along dusty roads in an ambulance, and sleeping with snakes and toads under a tent; or being stifled in an odious little corrugated-iron hotel, living on poisonous tinned stuffs in a perpetual odour of stale roast nigger. If I am going to endure it for my country, I hope my country will give me the only fitting reward--the Victoria Cross." "Perhaps we needn't stay in the hotel," said Meryl hopefully. "We can probably camp out. Surely the wonderful old ruins are somewhere near Edwardstown, father? How splendid if we could camp beside them!..." "Quite near. We will certainly go and see them. They tell me there is a police camp there, and at this time of the year it is quite healthy." "But how glorious!..." cried Meryl. "I had no idea you were going in their direction." "I meant to if possible," her father said; and so the trip was decided upon. Three days later the cavalcade started off from Gwelo with great _éclat_. Two ambulances: one containing the two girls, a driver, a fore-looper, and a small black boy named Gelungwa, who was everything from ladies' maid to general adviser; and the other containing Mr. Pym, his engineer, driver, fore-looper, and the engineer's black cook-boy, who proved himself an invaluable asset. Each ambulance was drawn by eight mules, and carried its share of the paraphernalia necessary to a long sojourn in the wilderness, and being thoroughly well equipped, they had decided to dispense with any further railway service until they reached Salisbury. They started from Gwelo, with its wide, tree-lined roads, in the freshness of the morning, and leaving the surrounding bare, uninteresting common quickly behind, dived straightway into a track of Rhodesia that is like a vast, undulating park. The red road wound across a wide, breezy stretch of veldt to wooded hills and valleys, and beyond this was an enchanting vista of dreaming blue kopjes on a far horizon. Even Diana found nothing to grumble at. Like Meryl, her eyes rested often on that dreaming distance, and the unique charm of a journey into the unknown, independent of railways and hotels, held her senses. When two graceful buck sprang up in the grass near them, stood a moment to investigate, and then fled away, leaping and bounding to safety, she drew a deep breath of delight. "Di, it's going to be a glorious trip!" Meryl exclaimed in low-voiced ecstasy. Diana paused before she remarked in answer: "It seems so natural somehow, to be journeying out to an unknown bourne in this primitive fashion. I wonder if, in another existence, I was one of the wives or handmaidens in Abraham's caravanserai? Perhaps I was his favourite concubine!... How interesting!... I'm sure I've journeyed like this into a far land before." And again: "How jolly to have two drivers who don't understand a word we say, instead of a chauffeur who is all ears and an Aunt Emily who is all prejudices!" "Still," said Meryl, "you couldn't very well have a coachman in England wearing a sky-blue felt hat that was obviously meant for a lady, and with a large blue patch upon brown trousers." "He's just a dear," was Diana's laughing comment. "I love his awful solemnity. He's like a Hindoo idol. And what luck to have a side wind instead of a forward one!" At twelve they stayed in a welcome piece of shade for their first veldt meal. Lounge-chairs were untied for them to rest in, and an excellent little repast prepared by the cook-boy, while the small black imp waited upon them like a trained butler. Then they dozed through the hot midday hours, continuing their journey to those alluring blue distances after all were rested, until they reached the first night's camping place and pitched their tents near a rippling river--as Diana described it, "all mixed up with stars, and dreams, and niggers, and kopjes, and mules." For a week they journeyed on, each day seeming lovelier than the last, and the dreaming repose of a great content hovered over all of them. There was no need for haste and none was made. There was no pitiless urging of tired mules as in the post-cart; no shouting natives, no hurried pauses for a snatched rest. The mules jogged contentedly along, realising they were in good hands, and always through the midday hours everyone lazed. An early spring had brought many young leaves out, although it was still August, and these were often beautiful shades of red, bronze, orange, scarlet, gold, and emerald-green, beyond or through which blue kopjes took on a yet more dream-like, ethereal air. Sometimes the red road wound along through woods of loveliest colouring, carpeted already with spring flowers. Sometimes it ran out into open spaces where the trees stood back in line, revealing wonderful glimpses of the fascinating land to their eager gaze. Strange, fantastical, granite kopjes like mighty mausoleums adorned with ilex trees barred their path, and Diana was convinced some of the bones of her ancestors lay buried there, because she felt so weirdly at home with them. "This is my natural environment," she informed her uncle and the engineer. "I ought to be dwelling here in state, as the favourite wife of the greatest chief in the land." Meryl grew dreamier with every day, though sometimes her eyes were sad as she looked out over the country, as if she already loved it with a love that was akin to pain. Had he, that great Imperialist, looked at it with those calm eyes of his, and known just that sense of aching love?... When he journeyed out into its enchanting untrodden spaces, accompanied only by some kindred spirit, had the land risen up and enslaved and enfolded him, like some enchantress who bound men's souls for ever?... Had Rhodesia, in her sunny loveliness, been wife and child to the great man who went lonely to his grave?... As they drove along and the fascination increased, far outweighing any discomfort of glare and dust and jolting roads, Meryl felt herself engraving the sight and the sound and the freshness of it upon her soul, that she might have hidden pictures to gaze upon with closed eyes when the exigencies of life called her back into the throng. Her father was mostly silent as was his wont, planning and scheming with a brain that knew little other rest than following its natural bent, yet with that in his silence, and in his watchful eyes that made one feel he too loved the land for itself, as well as for what he could get out of it; and that when occasion came, like Alfred Beit and Cecil Rhodes, he would pay his debt a hundredfold. So they came at last to the wide, open veldt where Edwardstown was situated, and knew themselves in the district teeming with pioneer memories. Meryl and Diana descended reluctantly at the hotel, and looked round disparagingly at their little hot bedroom, thinking regretfully of their tent in the wilderness. "How awful," said Diana, "if we find ourselves never able to exist in an ordinary house again! We shall have to pitch two tents in Hyde Park. Ugh!... it positively smells of walls and doors and windows; how I hate them!" "We'll go on to Zimbabwe to-morrow and camp beside the ruins," answered Meryl. "How splendid to be going there so soon!" "Ruins are not much in my line," quoth the outspoken. "Let's hope there'll be a man there as well." VII CAREW IS DISTURBED The news that the millionaire Henry Pym with his daughter and a niece were journeying to Great Zimbabwe reached the police camp first through a letter from the Administration to Major Carew, requesting him to have the long, disfiguring dry grass burnt, and the surroundings of the temple tidied up a little, and to show every attention to the travellers. When he received the letter it was obvious at once that the information did not give him any pleasure. On the contrary, his expression as nearly approached a frown as he was likely to permit it on receiving orders from headquarters. He had opened the letter standing outside his hut, where it had been handed to him by the native runner, and Stanley was reading a newspaper near, while Moore affectionately handled an antediluvian gun he was thinking of buying from a prospector. Stanley glanced up, wondering what letters had come, and saw the hovering frown. "Any news, sir?" he asked frankly, for he was no longer in awe of his silent chief. As a matter of fact, he never had been to any degree. The Kid would have found it difficult to be in awe of anyone, but for a few days Carew had baffled him. "Henry Pym, you've probably heard of him, is likely to arrive here in a few days." Stanley opened his eyes a little. "What! the millionaire?... Good biz! We'll rook him at poker and bridge and shooting, and a few other things. It isn't right for him to have all that money. It would even things up a little if we could transfer some of it to poor, penniless policemen." "He is accompanied by his daughter and a niece," said Carew in even tones. "Lord love a holy duck!..." exclaimed the young policeman, and was fairly astonished on to his feet. "Coming here, sir?... Coming here to Zimbabwe?" "So the letter says. It also adds that they may wish to camp near, and they are to be shown every attention." "_They shall be_ ..." quoth The Kid, so comically that even Carew's lips relaxed. "I suppose the letter doesn't specify the attention?... Christopher Columbus!... Great Scott!... Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!... To think of two millionaires' daughters all at once in this benighted, thirsty land!... It fairly catches me in the breath," and he sat down again suddenly as if the news was too much for him. "By gad, Moore!... do you hear that?... a bloated millionaire and two millionairesses are about to descend upon us from the skies. Talk of manna and blessings coming down from heaven!... Give me millionairesses!..." The Irishman looked up with a knowing smile. "Shure!" said he, "give me whisky...." "Begorra, Pat!" laughed The Kid. "If you got the heiress you could swim in whisky." Then he looked again at Major Carew and observed the suggestion of a frown still on his face while he stood with the letter in his hand. "Heiresses are seemingly not much in your line, sir?" he suggested humorously. "You ... well, you don't quite look overjoyed!..." Carew in his quiet way had grown fond of the gay young trooper, and he showed no offence at the attitude of familiarity. "We shall have to consider a good camping-place for them, and probably give up two huts to the ladies. I gather they may be here in two or three days. Is the grass dry enough to burn to-night?" The Kid glanced round doubtfully. "Hardly; and the place won't look well all black." "That's why I thought we had better begin at once. If they are some days the ash will have had time to blow away. Arrange for a gang of boys to be ready at six o'clock, and we will light up and see what we can do." In the hut he tossed the letter down on to his table. "Confound it!..." he said under his breath. "Fancy women down here, staring and chattering, and prying! I suppose they will expect the entire police force in the neighbourhood to be at their disposal, and nothing else will matter at all." His face grew more and more gloomy. "If I had only started to M'rekwas yesterday, I could have been absent a fortnight, and by then they would have departed again." He stood a moment considering if he could start at once, and decided, as the letter was sent specially to him, he could hardly leave before carrying out his instructions. Stanley and the other trooper meanwhile made hurried preparations for a great fire. They lit up in the evening, having stationed boys at intervals to keep the flames within bounds, and themselves stood posted with their guns, hoping for a shot at wild pig or cheetah, or possibly a lion or leopard. Carew kept guard at the huts, with a few boys to beat off the flames that encroached to any danger points and watch for flying sparks that might ignite the thatch. It was a wonderful sight, and his eyes were full of appreciation as he watched it. The gathering darkness, the lurid flames lighting up with swift brightness the ancient ruins; the high Acropolis Hill on one side, the low granite-strewn kopjes on the other, and running between the Valley of Ruins, now a vale of fire. It crossed his mind that it was almost a pity they had not left the burning of the grass until the travellers arrived, that they might see the strange, fantastic sight. But he cogitated that the millionaires he had known hitherto had little appreciation for much beyond money-making, and no doubt they were merely taking a passing glimpse at the ruins; the man on some money-making quest, and the girls just to be able to say they had seen them. His eyes rested on the temple wall, and he felt suddenly absurdly resentful that these rich pleasure-seekers should come even there to gape and stare. He had grown to love the ruins dearly, until that moment he had scarcely known how dearly, and to him it seemed for the moment like showing some treasured personal relics to barbarians. There were so many other things for the pleasure-seekers. Let them go to the Falls, and Lake Nyassa, and the Himalayas, and those tourist treasures; but why come and chatter inane banalities about his ruins: his treasured, mysterious relic of perhaps the oldest civilisation the world has known? Of course, he knew perfectly that much controversy had raged round the question, and that one or two learned scientists had definitely stated their belief that the ruins were of comparatively recent date, and deduced more or less convincing proofs in support of their theory; but controversies and carefully worded reports were small things to the man who had dwelt beside the mysterious temples and fortifications, and learnt to love and treasure them. He had his proofs too and his deductions, and such as they were they satisfied him, in the face of all opposition, that the curious remains were indeed of great antiquity, quite probably the ancient Havilah of the Scriptures. To him every nook and every corner had its meaning and its history. In the play of his fancy he had seen the white-robed priests and acolytes in stately procession, amid the old, old walls; heard strains of far-off music when an ancient worship offered its votary of prayer and praise to that mysterious deity whom they believed in; heard perhaps a single lovely voice, or seen a single lovely convert kneel before the Sacred Enclosure. He had seen their strong men and their brave men and their great men marshalling a host of women and children and infirm citizens safely into the fastnesses of the Acropolis Hill, where, with a sufficient supply of food and water, three thousand people might be safely shielded for any length of time. He had seen them stand on the high battlements, and look out across the plain or into the rock-hewn kopjes for the hosts of the enemy. He had seen them, even when besieged upon that mighty hill, assembling together to worship in the temples they had laboriously raised upon the giant granite ledges. Were they fair, those women of that old, old day? Were they brave, were they mighty in stature, those men who evolved and achieved those wonderful defence works? Did they love the fair land that fed them with the love of home and country, or were they but sojourners for a while amid unfriendly, cruel tribes, that needed watchful eyes day and night? Led perhaps by a spirit of adventure, or by persecution elsewhere, or by the lust of gold, yet faithful always to the worship of their race, and building at infinite, incomprehensible pains those temples in the alien land. How they held him; how they fascinated; how they soothed with infinite soothing the bitter sorrow, the gaping, stinging wound that had driven him furiously away, all those years before, from the flesh-pots of a modern Babylon! Had he cared for it all very much then?... He wondered, looking full and deep into his hidden memories. Had the lights and the music, the song and dance, the laughing women and reckless men, the midnight orgies and morning headaches, really given him so much pleasure that he must needs fling it all aside with such bitter anger and harsh regret when the thunderbolt fell and the searching dart stabbed him awake? Outraged, hurt-maddened, he had flung away, as he believed, to outer darkness, and to a joyless, purposeless, colourless life. And he had found?... Ah!... when he looked at the ancient, mysterious ruins he had grown to love, and around upon a country that was life-hope and life-interest to him, he knew that it was the other life which had been purposeless, and all of one colour, and the self-chosen exile that had given him the things it is good to live and breathe and die for. And thinking of it all, with that shy softness which sometimes stole, as it were, stealthily into his strong face in moments of dreaming thought, he remembered with growing regret the advent of the party for which he was bidden to make preparations, and resented it yet more forcibly. Why need they come?... these women ... these spoiled, flattered, perhaps vulgar, heiresses. What did they want with ancient rites and wonderful relics of antiquities? What were they doing in Rhodesia at all, flaunting their finery and their possessions before the eyes of the hardy settlers and the plucky women who shared their difficulties and disappointments? In a young, struggling country what place was there for the idly, gracefully rich? In his goaded fancy he saw their elegant, costly garments, and he heard strident voices exclaiming shrilly at his treasure, perhaps calling it an interesting heap of stones. Was there still time to get away, he wondered? Could a sudden call be arranged?... a sudden need for hasty departure?... Let The Kid laugh the hours away with them, and take his fill of gay companionship; and let him return when the siege was over, and the soothing and the restfulness and the splendour had come back. Wondering still, and with the sore regretfulness growing, he looked round to make sure all was safe, and that no further danger need be feared from blowing sparks or creeping flames; and then went gravely into his hut to read. The next morning he told Stanley that he might be obliged to go east the following day on important business, and leave him to receive the travellers, and remained imperturbably grave and non-seeing when Stanley raised his eyebrows and regarded him with a little amused twinkle of understanding. But in the afternoon the party quite unexpectedly turned up, and somewhere away in the blue, dreaming kopjes the voice of a following fate laughed softly. VIII TWO UNEXPECTED MEETINGS Early in the afternoon Carew rode to the mission station to tell Ailsa Grenville and her husband of the expected visitors, and of how he was likely to depart in the morning for M'rekwas and be away about a fortnight. Ailsa Grenville smiled at him archly when he told her. "Why do you run away when, for once in a way, you have the chance of a little companionship? It would do you more good to stay." "I think not; and besides," he added, hastily, "I am going on business." "A convenient sort of business, I fancy. Why not wait and see them first?" "Well, I could hardly go away immediately after their arrival, when Mr. Pym probably knows of the letter despatched to me from headquarters. It is far simpler to send a runner back with excuses." "But why go at all?" in a persuasive voice. Carew walked to the door and knocked the ashes out of his pipe against the heel of his boot; and Ailsa knew by his face that, though he did not resent her questioning, he would take no notice of it. And it made her a little sad, for of all the men she knew, next to Billy, her husband, she admired Carew, and she regretted deeply his insistent determination to stand aloof from mankind generally behind the barriers he had built up. Then Billy himself came in: khaki-clad, vigorous, and gay as ever; and when he heard the news he was less reticent, and exclaimed outright, "But what do you want to go away for? Why, it will be quite a treat for you to have ladies there; and who knows, one of the heiresses may be very charming--charming enough even for your fastidious taste!" "I prefer the company of the veldt," was all he said, without relaxing the fixity of his face; "ladies are more in Stanley's line." "The Kid must be awfully pleased," Ailsa said, smiling. "I'm sure he isn't going away." Carew, lying back in a big chair, was leisurely lighting his pipe, and he did not reply. All his attitude showed only cold indifference, and it would have been difficult to believe that, even in his heart, he had taken the trouble to be resentful. Ailsa, watching, felt a little impatient with him. She wanted to break through the shell in which he chose to hide that self which her instinct told her was so different to his outward seeming. What had become of the gay Londoner, who drove the smartest four-in-hand in the park, and rode the fastest horse to hounds? She longed to write home and ask her people of his story, but bitter things had been said when she elected to go into exile with her husband, and there had been almost no correspondence since. And Billy had been away in South Africa at the time of the crash and heard nothing about it. All he could tell her was that Carew of the Blues had been known as one of the gayest of the gay fifteen years or so ago, and that suddenly he had seemed to vanish off the face of the earth; and that Carew of the B.S.A.P. was the same man, only different, and he must be over forty years of age. So she had to content herself as well as she could, and be glad that, at any rate, while he remained in the Victoria district, they could have his companionship, though he chose to keep his own counsel as to why he was there. At first she had been rather afraid of him, and felt shy and awkward when he came to see them; but Billy's attitude of jovial good fellowship, in no way repulsed by the other's cold reserve, had helped to reassure her, and now they both appeared unconscious of any lack of warmth in their visitor. If he liked to be silent he could, and if he seemed in a taciturn mood they took no notice. When he called for his horse to return he said good-bye to her before mounting, and spoke of not coming again for a fortnight, and she watched him ride away regretfully. Evidently he did not mean to be sociable, even to the lady travellers, and it was no use hoping anything for him. In the meantime, the first ambulance, containing Meryl and Diana, arrived at the ruins. Mr. Pym was detained in Edwardstown with his engineer, and might not join them until the next day, but the girls begged him to let them go on, longing to be out in the open again, away from hotels and bungalows. So a police-boy from the town camp was sent on to escort them, and the Zimbabwe camp notified by runner of their approach. Stanley opened the letter in the absence of his chief, and much to his own delectation, was waiting alone to receive them upon the chosen camping-ground on their arrival. Diana saw him first, and remarked joyfully that he was white. "Hooroosh!..." said she, "there's a man as well as ruins." And a little later, "I'm afraid he's only a boy, but he looks a nice boy, and there are occasions when the 'half a loaf' proverb applies to 'half a man.'" Then he helped her out of the ambulance after receiving them with a grave salute, and regretted that, in the absence of Major Carew, there was no one but himself to receive them. He was evidently a trifle shy and embarrassed, stammering a little as he offered his services to superintend the pitching of their camp, with eyes that would wander from the elder cousin to Diana's small, impish, alluring face. "Have some tea with us first," said she. "We've already acquired a few Rhodesian vices, such as an unlimited capacity for tea-drinking, and Gelungwa can make quite a decent apology for the beverage which cheers but not inebriates." They sat down, and laughed and chatted together until the kettle boiled, and before the tea was finished The Kid had fallen in love with both, and was congratulating himself that Carew had taken that afternoon ride. Then the girls said they would ramble while their tent was pitched, but disagreed as to which direction they would take first. Meryl had left her little guide-book with her father, and wanted to postpone the temple until she had it. Diana said it was too hot to attempt the Acropolis Hill. In the end they separated. Meryl strolled towards the Acropolis and Diana sought the cool shadiness of the temple. About the same time Carew started his homeward ride, and when he reached the base of the Acropolis Hill he gave his horse to the runner who had gone with him to carry some books for Ailsa Grenville, and climbed a little way into the hill to remark a point of investigation he had been discussing with Grenville; and, quite suddenly, round a sharp piece of masonry, he came upon Meryl Pym. She wore a large, shady hat, and she was standing quite still, gazing across the country. For a moment Carew stood quite still also. It was odd that she had not heard his steps upon the rough footpath, but apparently she was too absorbed to hear anything at all. He was exceedingly relieved and drew aside stealthily, prepared to return quickly the way he had come. But before he started he glanced once more, for something in her quiet pose struck oddly upon his heart. She looked very slim and graceful and girlish in a simple washing frock of some soft grey material, with little Quakerish cuffs and collar, and the big, shady hat tied on with a ribbon. And all in a moment he was transported years before, and there was a Devonshire wood, and a slim lassie, and little Quakerish cuffs and collar, and eyes that watched and waited--watched and waited for him. And then.... No, not even in thought would he dwell again upon what followed. It was a weakness he had fought down. A weakness that even now, given rein, could unman him. The quick light vanished from his eyes, the mouth grew stern again, and he turned to descend. At the same moment Meryl turned also and came towards his hiding-place. He had just time to step further back and take shelter behind a low, bushy tree, which would hardly reveal his khaki, before she passed. And just in front of him she raised her head and glanced upwards, so that he saw her eyes, and for a moment his pulses seemed to stop beating. If her pose had reminded him of someone it was as nothing compared to her face with that upward glance. The delicate contour, the fine features, the wistful, dreamy, quiet eyes. Were they blue, or were they grey?... How came they with long, dark, curling lashes when her hair was a dusky, light shade, with soft waves and gleams of sunlight? In his hiding-place he stood very still and very rigid. For a moment he might have been part of the rock behind him. Then she passed on up the steep ascent, and he came out and retraced his steps, feeling a little dazed. Who could she be?... But, of course, the party must have arrived unexpectedly: had not remained in Edwardstown as they intended. And she was one of the heiresses--one of the flaunting, gaping, vulgar, dressed-up young women he had been secretly so resentful over. And, of course, she was none of these. Then suddenly he almost laughed; almost laughed aloud. For she was worse--far, far worse. The gushing, loud-voiced heiress he might have coped with. His frigidity froze most people if he chose; and avoidance was not difficult. But what could he do with Joan--his love, his dead love Joan--looking at him out of this girl's beautiful eyes, touching him with this girl's slender hands, speaking to him from this stranger's lips? It was impossible--impossible; all the careful training of that fifteen years in exile would be undone. His very life would be undermined again. For the moment it seemed incredible, preposterous. He felt stunned by it. Then his rigid self-control came to his aid, and his face grew stern and hard. The preposterous thing was that he should let a chance resemblance hit him so; should even admit the possibility of being undone after all his careful self-training. No, a thousand times no; he was not such a weak fool as that. The strength he had won was his still. He had only to go on being resolute and cold and the past would lie down again, and once more go quietly to sleep. He defied it to overcome him now. By every agonised pang, by every hour of unfathomable bitterness, by every solitary year of self-chosen exile, he insisted that he must prevail. He strode on, scarcely seeing anything about him, and his face grew sterner and sterner. Then he came within sight of the camping-place, and saw the white tent, and Stanley giving directions, while Moore and some black boys unpacked things from the ambulance. And he thought he would get more complete control of himself before he joined them; take this thing fairly by the throat and throttle it, that he might regain his peace of mind absolutely before the second encounter with the owner of the face and form that seemed for a moment to have made an upheaval in his life. So he turned aside and made for the temple, feeling glad and relieved at the consciousness that the mood was passing, and reassured that, being no more taken by surprise, he would successfully master it. Probably he could still go away on the morrow, and once away, Rhodesia would take him to her heart again. He knew it full well. Every day now the country was giving back to him of what he had given to her; lulling him, soothing him, revivifying him with her freshness and her charm. But his mind was very occupied still and his vision clouded as he passed into the cool shade of the temple, and he did not see a small, dainty person with an impish face perched high on a broken wall, with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, and a queer, fitful, half-serious, half-bored expression in her dark eyes. Instead, seeing no one and thinking himself alone, he sat down on a low wall quite near to her and stared gloomily at the ground. Diana, not a little amused, surveyed him at her leisure. "What in the world," she wondered, "was this smart, soldierly looking man, correctly booted and spurred, sitting down there for in the ruins?..." The great temple at Zimbabwe has never been roofed. The ruins consist of a wonderful outer wall, from twenty-two to thirty-two feet high and in some places fifteen feet thick, of an elongated shape, and within this wall are remnants of other walls which formed separate small enclosures. There is also the sacred enclosure with the conical tower, and leading into it from the north entrance the wonderfully contrived passage, between two high walls, scarcely more than a shoulder's breadth apart in one place. Amid the ruins trees have grown up, many of them higher than the outer wall, and these shade the glare of the sun, casting cool shadows and networks of sunlight upon the broken walls. And on the afternoon in question here and there were splashes of brilliant scarlet, where a Kaffir Boom tree flowered with a flaunting indifference to the passing of centuries and races. Diana, with her whimsical, artistic temperament, was fully alive to the fascination and uniqueness of her surroundings, but being a little tired with the drive, she felt for the moment somewhat impatient with ruins generally, and just a shade depressed with a certain air of dead forlornness that hovered all around. Then into the midst of this dream of antiquity strode a stern, fierce-looking, very up-to-date sportsman, who sat, for no conceivable reason, on a broken wall and stared at the ground. For one moment her sense of the ludicrous made her almost laugh aloud. Then, with sudden, upleaping interest, she sat still as a mouse and watched him. Once she half smiled to herself. There was a man, then, as well as a boy! She was not going to be entirely stifled in ruins, after all! She went on with her cogitations, staring hard, her head a little to one side. A real man, too, with a lean, brown face, and a square, determined chin, and a nose quite Roman enough to suit any novelist, and dark hair a little thin on the top and a little grey at the temples. She could not be sure if he were a soldier or not, but evidently he had been riding, for he still carried a hunting-crop; and also, judging by his face and attitude, something was considerably on his mind. Without the slightest movement she sat on and waited; and that was exceedingly characteristic of Diana. Where another girl would have felt embarrassed and made some sound to relieve the tension, she almost held her breath to retain it. The situation was unique. In a life that offered deplorably little of novelty and adventure she would not for worlds have thrown away such a chance. Meryl, on the other hand, would probably not have felt the tension; she would have quietly walked past him out at the entrance. Diana felt the atmosphere of the footlights and calmly waited. And, of course, in the end, vaguely conscious of some disturbing, not quite accountable element, Carew looked up straight into her eyes. Diana looked straight back and tried hard to keep her lips from twitching. She noticed pleasurably that he did not start; that he scarcely even showed surprise. Such a man, she felt, would not. Yet the very fact that for several seconds he remained perfectly still, staring at her, showed that he was quite satisfactorily astounded. Then he stood up, and waited a moment as if he expected her to speak. She thought he might have smiled. The hero on the stage, of course, would smile--divinely--and a blush like a tender dawn would overspread the heroine's rose-leaf cheeks. But he did not smile; to be honest, he looked excessively annoyed, and no tender blush of any sort could possibly have shown upon her sunburnt face. Still, she did not intend to flinch, and if the mischievous smile lurking at the corners of her mouth died away, she still regarded him with a calmness equal to his own, and with the impishness quite emphatically still in her eyes. Then suddenly she felt as if there had been some invisible sword-play between them. Her instinct told her he resented her silent watching, and that his cool, collected front now and his silence were the expression of his resentment. It was not in the least like a fairy story, of course; here was the prince, surly, stony, and bearish, and the princess, red and brown with sunburn, on the point of being caught at a disadvantage. But there Diana's native wits came to her aid, and she did a clever thing. "Would you mind helping me down?" she asked, sweetly. "I climbed up here to get a good view of the interior, and when I try to descend the stones slip so, I am nervous. I did not like to disturb you before," she finished, unabashed and unblushing, but carefully lowering her eyes a moment. He stepped forward at once and reached his hand up to her, and she saw that his keen eyes were of that intense clear blue seen in so many strong, notable men, but that they looked at her in a cold, aloof manner which made her feel rather small and childish. "Surely," she thought, "he is not genuinely angry just because I did not tell him I was there?" Aloud she said: "Thank you," and placed her hand quite calmly in the strong, inviting brown one upheld to her. Then, taken with a fit of devilry out of growing exasperation, she added, "I'm not the daughter, I'm the niece." "Miss Pym, I presume," he said, coldly, and bowed to her. "Miss Diana Pym," she replied, and slightly inclined her head. "My name is Carew," he told her, with bluntness. "And are you ... er ... a scientist, evolving a theory about the ruins?" "I am a policeman." He said it brusquely, almost rudely, and Diana was taken with a sudden desperate inclination to laugh. All in a moment he reminded her forcibly of the uniformed autocrat holding up one lordly hand to stop the traffic. She moved towards the entrance, keeping her face averted. "The same sort of policeman as Mr. Stanley, I suppose?" she suggested, affably, but he seemed not to hear her, and a covert glance at his face was not reassuring. But the mere fact only spurred her on. If she was silent he might think he had overawed her. Goodness! how appalling! She quickened her step, and tossed her small head a little with a kind of challenging jerk. "I rather like your ruin," she said. "It's quite a nice old heap of stones." IX THE BEAR Once more Carew vouchsafed no reply, but Diana knew perfectly well that his lips tightened slightly, which signified that in some way she had hit him. So pretending to be perfectly unaware of his non-responsive attitude, she ran airily on: "Such a mad idea to travel hundreds of miles to see a few old remains of a doubtful edifice, built by Bantus! or is the plural Bantams?... I'm sure when you heard we were coming you wondered if you had better prepare a dwelling for us with padded walls. Now, didn't you?..." and she looked up archly into his face. "I understood Mr. Pym had come to this neighbourhood about some gold claims," in cold, even tones. "Yes, so he has. But we haven't; at least Meryl hasn't. She came to see Rhodesia. I don't quite know what I've come for," naïvely. "I was just wondering about it sitting on that wall." And still he refused to be drawn. "You were looking very grave. Were you wondering what you are here for too?" At that moment they reached a spot where the path divided into two: one fork leading to their tent and the other to the police camp. He stood still. "I believe I was considering the best solution to a native problem that has lately arisen." He glanced towards their tent. "I see Mr. Stanley is helping to arrange your camp. Please let him know of anything you want. You will find him an excellent guide." Then, scarcely looking at her, he saluted and walked away. Diana returned to their tent feeling baffled and interested, half-inclined to be cross and half-inclined to laugh. And almost at the same time from the other direction came Meryl. "O, it's wonderful!" Meryl cried softly, with all her face aglow. "I never imagined anything half so fascinating; and I haven't even seen the temple yet. Mr. Stanley, do stay and dine with us. Our cook-boy is quite good." "All except his soup," put in Diana, "and he is only good at that in the sense of making it out of nothing. Sometimes I think he just boils a bit of the harness, or a corner of the tent-flap, or probably he makes it of rats if he can catch enough." Stanley looked at her with all his eyes and accepted the invitation eagerly, saying that he must first go back to the camp to change. Half an hour later he reappeared, looking quite smart in a white duck dress-jacket and a starched collar. As they sat down to their alfresco meal, taken under the stars, with two lanterns suspended on sticks for lights, Diana suddenly said to him: "Who is the bear?..." "The bear?..." doubtfully. "Yes. The bear who lives down there in the police camp, and rejoices in the name of Carew." Stanley, looking much amused, replied, "You must mean the Major; but you haven't met him, have you?" "I had the pleasure of being snarled at for about fifteen minutes this afternoon." Stanley laughed outright. "But where? He never said that he had seen you." "I don't think he did see me. We merely met. Most of the time he either looked away or looked through me at something beyond. Still, he might have mentioned the meeting. I don't feel flattered." "O, but that is nothing with Carew. He is an awfully silent chap." "Silent!... do you call it?... I never felt so ... so ... suppressed ... in my life. I thought he seemed rather inclined to bite me." "But where did you meet him, Di?..." asked Meryl, with interest. "I was sitting on a wall in the temple, and he strode in and sat on another wall and stared at the ground ... and I stared at him ... and then he looked up and saw me ... and afterwards ..." she paused. "Do you mean to say you sat perfectly still in front of him, and let him sit on, thinking himself alone, and then suddenly discover you?..." "Yes. Why not?" "Well, it wasn't very fair on him." "Such nonsense, Meryl! That's just what he seemed to think. Why shouldn't I have a little romance if I want to? Such a dull, prosaic, commonplace old world as it is, generally speaking! I was having a lovely one. He was a great hunter who had lost his way, and dragged himself into the temple to die...." "I thought you said he strode in?..." "Don't be silly; he wasn't in the romance then. And I was a lovely, mysterious veiled lady who lived in the wilderness; but my veil happened to be thrown back, and when the dying hunter raised his eyes...." she stopped short. "Well?..." "That's where the romance stopped, where he brutally spoilt it, because when he raised his eyes and saw me there he just scowled horribly." Stanley and Meryl laughed whole-heartedly, but Meryl told her it served her right because she was unfairly taking him at a disadvantage. "But I did nothing of the kind. No one was at a disadvantage except myself." "I'm sure you weren't," Meryl remarked. "You never have been yet." "That's where you are mistaken, my dear. When you are sitting in a lovely romance, gazing at a dreadfully handsome, distinguished-looking man who is the hero prince, and will presently discover you and smile divinely with all his soul in his eyes, and when instead an iron-visaged person looks up at you, and scowls and grows as black as thunder, I defy any woman not to find herself at a disadvantage." "Well, how did you get out of it?... What did you do?..." The alluring twinkle shone suddenly in Diana's eyes, and her lips twitched mischievously, as she replied: "Well, I smiled divinely instead, and asked him to help me down from my high wall." "O, you are quite incorrigible," laughed Meryl. "If I had been him I would have left you there to get down the same way you went up. But who is he?..." turning to Stanley. "He sounds rather interesting." "He's a splendid fellow," The Kid asserted, warmly. "We couldn't stick him at first, Moore and I, but we soon found he only wants knowing. There's some history attached to his being out here that no one quite knows; but he is a Fountenay-Carew and used to be in the Blues." "But how nice!" quoth Diana. "This is much more interesting than the old ruins. Is he rich and haughty, with lovely estates left to dishonest stewards, and all that?..." "No very poor, I should imagine; nothing but his pay, anyhow. I believe when he was in the Blues an old uncle gave him a big allowance, but something happened, and he threw the money in the old chap's face, and the old chap chucked him out." "And what happened to cause the quarrel?" asked Diana, all ears. "Why, he is more romantic than my prince!" "That is what I fancy no one knows. Anyhow, in a country like this, no one asks. It isn't quite the game, you see; and, anyhow, no one is interested now. He has done a tremendous lot for Rhodesia in one way and another, especially for the police force and natives; and we're quite proud of him in our way for that, independent of his history." "How nice!" and Meryl's eyes grew very soft. "It is a much finer reward than he would probably ever have gained in the Blues. I hope he thinks so?" "I don't suppose he cares either way. Certainly, he doesn't appear to. He just loves the country, and seems only to want to stay here; but he never speaks even of that. Since he came here a few months ago he has done a lot of investigation work among the ruins privately. He is most awfully attached to them." Suddenly Diana asked, "I suppose he is pretty sick about two modern young women presuming to journey here to gaze at his treasure?" Stanley coloured up, and Diana laughed. "O, don't bother to deny it. I could feel it in my very bones when we met this afternoon." They finished their meal, and the boys moved the table away, so that they could sit round the glowing embers of a small fire, not so much for warmth as for the idea, and they lazed low in their chairs, talking idly and enjoying the cool, fragrant night. And presently, not à propos of anything in particular, Diana said, quite aloud, "I guess The Bear is growling and scowling away nicely to-night down there in his den. I expect the first time we meet I shall forget and call him Bear Carew instead of Major Carew, and then he'll shrivel me up with a glance." A sound beside them in the shadow made all look up suddenly, and the lamplight fell full upon Carew's face as he stood near Diana's chair. Meryl rose hurriedly, blushing to the roots of her hair, while Stanley, secretly much amused, stood up likewise. Only the culprit remained unperturbed to outward seeming, glancing archly round. "I'm afraid you overheard what I said ... _Major_ Carew.... I'm quite ready to apologise, only ..." "Please, don't...." For one instant the coldly even voice had a tiny inflection in it, as of humour, though he stifled it immediately, as he turned to Meryl and said, gravely, with a bow, "Miss Pym, I think?... A letter has come for you from Edwardstown by runner. I brought it on in case you might wish to send a reply, and to enquire if you are quite comfortable here for the night." Meryl took it from him, thanking him in her low, sweet voice, and with a rather shy, upward glance. And Diana, in the shadow, saw the soldier suddenly flinch and suddenly grow sterner, standing in an attitude of almost unnatural rigidity. "There is no heed to reply," Meryl said, after reading her note. "It is only a message from father to say he may be detained until afternoon. Thank you so much for bringing it. Won't you sit down? Can I offer you anything? I'm afraid there is not much choice. Father does not like luxuries in the wilderness, and we only carry whisky." "No, thank you." The tones were even again now, and he made no movement towards a chair. "Have you everything you need for the night? I hope Mr. Stanley has made himself very useful?" "He has been splendid. I am only afraid we have tired him out. Won't you sit down?" and she shyly motioned to a chair. "Thank you. I'm afraid I must get back. I have some despatches to write. Would you like a police-boy to keep guard here all night? There is nothing whatever to fear, but if it would add to your comfort?..." "O no, thank you," warmly. "We are not in the least nervous. I think there are no lions very near," with a little laugh. Diana, lying back in her chair, had scarcely taken her eyes off the tall soldier, though she watched him covertly, and without seeming to; and her quick brain perceived dimly that his aloof attitude was partly a mask which had become a habit, and that, however much he suppressed her, there was nothing whatever repellant about his chilly reserve. And then, suddenly, the little mischievous devil possessed her again, and she longed to try her arts upon him, just to see what happened, and to show him she was not seriously in the least afraid of him. And no sooner had Meryl remarked that there were no lions near them, than she could not for the life of her help murmuring, "No lions, only bears." Again there was an instant's answering gleam in Carew's eyes, but he only smiled very slightly, and said, "Perhaps a bear's growl, like a dog's bark, is worse than his bite." It was as though something altogether too much for him was struggling with an inclination to relax just the least bit on Diana's behalf and insistently conquering. With scarcely a second look at her he drew himself up tautly and said he must be going. Then he saluted gravely, said good night in a voice that included them all, and strode away through the darkness towards the police camp. For a moment there was silence round the glowing embers. "It was kind of him to say good night," said Diana, sarcastically. "What a fine-looking man!" commented Meryl. "He is gruffer than usual to-night. Perhaps something has happened to upset him. I think I must be going also," and Stanley reluctantly rose to follow his chief. "Of course he is gruffer," said Diana. "Two tiresome women have dared to journey to Zimbabwe to look at his ruins." In the darkness Carew strode on to where a light shone through the doorway of a hut, but his eyes were looking straight before him into the night, and had the expression of one whose thoughts were very far away. It had cost him an effort to go up there with the note, but he had made it purposely, determined to take in hand quickly that vein of weakness which threatened him at sight of Meryl. He would go up and speak to her and break the spell as quickly as possible, regaining his old fortitude. More particularly as he felt he could not now leave on the morrow, just as Mr. Pym was arriving expecting to find him there. Not that there appeared any reason why, just because he happened to be a millionaire, a police officer should be expected to wait on him, but no doubt the Administration had its own reason for showing special attention to a very rich man, and hoped for some benefit to the country thereby. So he had taken the bull by the horns and strode up to the lamplit camp, where the travellers sat over the glowing embers; and, of course, he had heard Diana's remark, and smiled grimly to himself, in no way displeased, for it suited him perfectly to be shunned as a bear. And then, keeping an iron control over himself, he had addressed Meryl, and looked straight into her face without flinching. The upward look, for one second, had shaken him, but the iron control held good, and before he left them he had spoken to her and looked at her with perfect calmness. The visit had been quite as he wished it, and for a few seconds, striding into the dark, he congratulated himself upon having so satisfactorily coped with a situation that had threatened to be a little difficult and had disturbed him so in the afternoon. Of course, she wasn't really like Joan, except in a very general way. Just her height and figure and graceful movements and colouring; and, of course, the upward glance from confiding, thoughtful, blue-grey eyes that had humour lurking in them, and power and possibilities, and were so curiously framed in dark lashes in spite of light hair. In the midst of his self-congratulation he remembered the upward look again, and all in a moment once more it shook him. His gaze went blindly to the stars, and his mind flew back. Ah! how sweet Joan had been; how strong, how true! How she had stood by him through the beginning of the storm, turning the clouds to sunshine, making everything worth while! And then, the swift tragedy, the climax; the awful, awful days and nights that followed. How he had trodden the lonely Devon moors, blindly, passionately seeking a dead weariness of body that would dull his mind! How he had cursed the two men who drove in the final barb, and vowed never to see their faces again! And then the little note-book he had found, in which Joan had inscribed some of her thoughts from time to time, and copied a few favourite passages from favourite authors! It had come to him like a voice from the dead--Joan's voice, calling to him to rise above his despair and prove himself still worthy of her. And out there on the moors at sunrise he had vowed that he would. Calmly, coldly, as an austere monk, he had laid down for ever the things that had made his life gay and joyous before, and prepared to turn his back on England and all that it held pertaining to him. And now there is a distant wilderness and great southern stars, and mysterious, antique ruins, and a man who has grown strong and silent in aloofness, and won a sort of soothing content out of what he has given, seeking no reward. Not, perhaps, that "renewing" a royal friend had spoken of fifteen years ago, for the contentment was void of hope and fear and joy, but balm upon the passionate, frantic bitterness and despair. But the "renewing" might come even yet, however much he scorned the thought; for forty-two is at the prime of years, and Life has a tender way of her own of healing when she will. But to-night the memories are bitter, and the reopened wound throbs and burns. Carew strode up to his hut, with only a curt good night to the trooper, and when Stanley arrived back there was no light burning, only darkness and silence. X A MINING CAMP The following day Carew avoided the camp, after telling Stanley he might devote his time to the ladies if he wished. In the afternoon, however, he saw Mr. Pym and his engineer arrive, and then, presently, the party all went down to the ruins together. About an hour later they re-emerged, and while the two girls went back to the tents, the millionaire strolled towards the police camp. Carew, seizing his opportunity, came out, and went to meet him. He considered himself fortunate in being able to offer the necessary courtesies when the ladies of the party were absent. Mr. Pym hid his surprise at seeing so distinguished-looking an officer at such an out-of-the-way camp, and received his somewhat curt greetings in his own quiet, business-like manner. He thanked him for the attentions he had already rendered, and hoped they were not causing any inconvenience in pitching their tents near the ruins. Carew assured him they were not, and mentioned that Mr. Stanley would be happy to place his time at their service and do anything he could to make their stay agreeable. Henry Pym, noting the obvious intention of the officer not to place much of his own time at their disposal, looked quietly into the resolute face, and felt his interest growing apace. At the same time, following his lead, he made no attempt to lengthen the interview, which he felt was more or less regarded as an official duty; and with courteous thanks said good night, hoped Major Carew would dine with them one evening, and returned to his tent. "Well, uncle," was Diana's greeting, "what do you make of The Bear?" "The Bear?..." questioningly. "The cast-iron soldierman, who condescends to breathe the same air as ordinary mortals down there in the police camp." "O, Major Carew!..." with a quick gleam in his eyes. "I thought him rather a fine fellow. Don't you?" and he smiled at her slyly. "A fine bear," quoth Diana, with a little pout. "I prefer a man with a little more flexibility. A little more commonplace flesh and blood, so to speak." "I asked him to dinner to-morrow," her uncle remarked. "And is he coming?" with ill-concealed interest. "No. He is going to see two young miners named Macaulay a few miles away, and was regretfully compelled to decline," and the humorous smile on his face widened, for he knew that Diana would be piqued. "As if he couldn't go there any day!" she grumbled. "O, of course, he is perfectly odious." Meryl's eyes met her father's, and they both laughed, while he remarked, "Never mind; perhaps we can lay a trap for him another time. Evidently he has no particular fancy for ladies' company." "Do you know the Macaulays?" Meryl asked. "No, but I am going to see them in two or three days on business." "And you will take us?..." she pleaded. "I do want so to see all we can of the settlers as well as the country." "We will see later," he said, and made a move to prepare for dinner. During the next two days he and his engineer made sundry small excursions on business. Their investigation of several outcrops in the Victoria district had convinced them the gold was by no means worked out by that ancient people who had left so many traces of mining operations, and Mr. Pym was prepared to buy up claims and properties. On the fourth day he went to see the Macaulays, and took the girls with him, having procured a mule each for them to ride. Stanley and Carew were also to be of the party; the latter not a little to everyone's surprise. All through the four days he had held consistently aloof, personating merely the courteous official upon whom Mr. Pym had a certain claim because of the letter from headquarters. As a matter of fact, he had undertaken a journey of some length on two of the days to outlying kraals; and Diana, hearing of it from Stanley, had laughed a little grimly, and said, "He need not have troubled. We have no wish to speak to him"; and Stanley, not quite clever enough to understand, remarked regretfully, "But you would like him so much if you knew him properly." The reason was not very apparent for his accompanying them to the Macaulays' mine, but Meryl shrewdly suspected her father, who had gone quietly to smoke a pipe in the police camp with him on one or two occasions, had asked him to come more or less as a personal favour. For though Stanley knew the road perfectly he knew very little about the surrounding country itself; and Mr. Pym, with his unerring instinct, had quickly discovered that Carew's mind was a well of knowledge on most things Rhodesian. So the taciturn soldier joined the cavalcade, though he succeeded in attaching himself to Mr. Pym and riding well on ahead. The two Macaulays were "small miners," working on tribute a mine belonging to a block owned by a company in which Henry Pym had large interests. Complaints had come through to his ears concerning the difficult conditions upon which the two young miners, and many others like them, struggled to make a fortune or a livelihood, and he had a fancy to go and see them for himself. The mine was in a hollow, banked round by tall, gloomy kopjes, which seemed to stand like a bodyguard, sternly shutting them off from all sight or sound of the outside world. At the same time, the road to it was delightful. Sometimes they climbed nearly to the top of a kopje, the mules going up stairways of granite as if born to it, and the lovely country lay outspread in a glorious panorama before them. The party said very little, but their eyes told that the fascination had crept into their hearts already, though they could only appreciate in silence, wondering, perhaps, why they felt this strong attraction for a land that was chiefly kopjes and veldt. Was it, perhaps, the marvellous, translucent atmosphere, or was it the blue intensity of the dreaming kopjes, ornamented ever and anon by gleaming white battlements of granite, where the sun blazed down on giant boulders, or was it the unfathomable, mysterious, syren-like allurement of the country, that, without effort, without thought, steeped the senses in an irresistible fascination? Why does Rhodesia fascinate? Why does she call men back again and again to her manifold discomforts and unnerving disappointments, to her pests and glare, to her bully beef and unwashed Kaffirs? Who shall say?... Who shall attempt to explain?... There is no explanation; only the foolish would seek it. The country just gets up and takes hold of one and smiles, and men become enslaved to her. Ever after "the hazy blue of her mountains, the waft of the veldt-born scent," is like a germ in the blood. The discomforts are forgotten, the disappointments dissolve into air, the noontide glare and choking dust are a mere nothing: libellous creations of some discontented grumbler. And in the midst of the crowd, or in England's green lanes, or on some far shore, the wanderer is caught in the old mesh suddenly, and all his pulses beat with swift longing at just that heaven-sweet impression: "The hazy blue of her mountains, the waft of the veldt-born scent...." And she, the syren, lies there in her sunshine and her loveliness; locked in the arms of the deep, luscious, dreaming nights, whispering and murmuring softly under embracing, star-lit heavens; making wild riot when the splendid storms fling after each other across her bosom, while the thunders roll deafeningly amidst her kopjes, and the lightning pierces brilliantly the riotous clouds and makes a glory of the mighty scene. Sulky and colourless when she is waiting impatiently for the delayed rains; resplendent, and with a colouring that is like a Te Deum, when the renewing has come, and all her soul sings aloud in the joy of spring, and all her flowers and trees lend her loveliness past telling, and her hills a yet deeper blueness under yet intenser, rain-washed skies. All this--all her moods and whims and waywardness--going serenely on--splendidly, superbly indifferent to the men who come to tame her and stay to love in silent enslavement; as also to the men who come solely for gain and gold, and go away shrieking their complainings to the four winds. Because, perhaps, the enchantress has not troubled to show them her allurements, and ruffled, discontented minds have discovered only the dust and heat and pests. But what of it to the syren?... There are others who stay, as many, perhaps, as she wants, and to whom she puts out a shy hand of friendship, and presently soothes and consoles as the strong, silent, storm-tossed man who rode with so soldierly a bearing beside Mr. Pym; suffering no stab of love and longing any more as he looked over her fair bosom, because the shy hand was in his, because there was that subtle sense of understanding in his heart which seemed to tell him that even as he loved Rhodesia, Rhodesia loved him. And so they came to the Saucy Susan Gold Mine, at least to the ridge of the surrounding kopjes, and looked down to where a cluster of huts like beehives told them humans dwelt down there in the hollow. "It can't be a mine," said Diana. "It's just a hollow in the hills; the sort of place giants hide in when they play hide-and-seek." "But it is," Stanley assured her. "We shall see a little more as we wind down." And presently they came within view of a shaft, and two honest-eyed young Englishmen, both old Charterhouse boys, came forward to greet them. Meryl shook hands with her face all aglow with interest; and to their humble apologies that they had only huts to invite them into, she said, "But it is so nice of you to invite us at all. You wouldn't believe how proud I am to come here to see you, and how tremendously interested." And Diana, with a droll expression, remarked, "You seem to live rather in the nethermost depths. You must feel as if you were going to heaven literally and figuratively every time you ascend to the outer world." The elder brother laughed pleasantly, but the younger, who had a white face and a delicate, refined air, looked at her a little wistfully. Meryl chatted on with the elder, but Diana, with her quick perception, scented a silent, wordless, plucky endurance of adverse conditions in the younger, and gave her attention to him. Then they went into the dining-room hut, and found a meal spread on a roughly made table, with only two chairs for seats and all the rest packing-cases. "Who has to sit on a chair?" asked Diana. "I needn't, need I?..." "Why, they are quite sound!... Are you afraid of a spill?..." asked Lionel Macaulay, looking amused. "No, only I can sit on a chair any day of my life. I simply insist upon having a packing-case when such a good opportunity offers." So Meryl and her father were duly ensconced in the only two chairs, and Diana mounted gaily on to a tall, thin packing-case, which would certainly have gone over backwards if Colin, the rather sad-eyed brother, had not caught her just as she was overbalancing. "How clever of you!..." she laughed. "What happens when you two overbalance and don't happen to be near enough to catch each other?... Does the dinner come in and find you both sprawling on the floor?" "Well, we've had a good deal of practice, you see," he told her, already cheering visibly. "The tables are turned for us, and we choose a chair when we can get it, for a treat." Afterwards she made him show her all his clever contrivances for packing-case furniture, and admired his sackcloth curtain, barrel washhand stand, and made him feel vigorous and hopeful. Stanley was talking to Meryl, and Lionel Macaulay was showing Mr. Pym, the engineer, and Carew over the mine, so she gossiped away to him all by herself. And she drew from him a little of the bitter disappointments they had encountered in the country. A story of first one mine and then another failing them; of capital slipping away and bills mounting; of the gradual cutting down of comforts and increased austerity of living: a story common enough in all colonies where Life puts men through the mill again and again to prove and harden them. Acting perhaps on the lines: "It is easy enough to be pleasant When life moves along like a song, But the man worth while is the man who can smile When everything goes dead wrong." Life wants a lot of men and women whom she knows are "worth while" in carrying out her great affairs, and that is perhaps why so often "everything goes dead wrong." Diana maintained her rôle of gay inconsequence because it pleased her best. "It all sounds very superior and all that rot, and I'm sure Meryl would call you a hero; but I should swear myself black and blue in your shoes, and that's about what you do pretty often, I expect." His smile grew fresher and more genuine. "It doesn't do much good though." "O yes it does. Don't tell me! When things get into a silly stupid mess with me I just shut the door and say every swear word I know until I feel better. That's one advantage of living in a hollow in the desert. You needn't even bother to shut the door!... You can shout your ruffled feelings to the kopjes, and I suppose they echo the words back to you. How perfectly splendid! That's a thing about Rhodesia I hadn't thought of before. Of course, the echoes are sometimes wonderful; so if you were to shout a few swear words the kopjes would shout them after you; and that's much better than 'dreaming stillness' in my opinion. But why aren't you and your brother making a fortune? I thought everyone in Rhodesia was making one who had a mine." "We don't get up enough gold. By the time we have paid our royalty and the expenses there is nothing left." "Then the royalty must be too big. Who do you pay it to?" He coloured, and she watched him humorously. "Has my uncle something to do with your company? O, don't look uncomfortable. I'll just talk to him about it. There ought to be occasions when no royalty is taken at all. I'll tell him so." Colin Macaulay laughed into her smiling eyes. "As it is, there is a charge for everything, even the grass the donkeys eat!..." "O, monstrous! I never heard of such a thing. I'll interview the board about it if you like. Tell your donkeys they may eat anything they choose in future, it is not going down in the bill any more!..." and they both laughed gaily. In a more serious mood, however, she asked him presently, "I suppose it has been rather a disappointment?... This coming out to Rhodesia to make a fortune!" "Why do you think so?" "O, well, lots of reasons. You haven't come within sight of the fortune, for one thing; and you've still got packing-case furniture and live in huts. And you eat a lot of bully beef, now don't you?" "We do." "But that isn't what you came for?" "Still"--meditatively--"it's not a small thing to be in a country where a fortune may be won any day. It is that, of course, which keeps us going. It is better anyhow than a stool and one hundred and fifty pounds a year in England." "Are you sure?" And she watched him with keen eyes. He coloured slightly, but answered with firmness: "Quite." "But not better than something else, perhaps?" He saw that her interest was kindly and genuine, and suddenly drawn to expand he told her simply: "It's the isolation that hurts. Day after day, day after day, just this hollow and these kopjes, and never anyone to speak to except each other. We send for the mail once a week, but sometimes very little comes by it; and we get nothing fresh to read except a weekly Rhodesian paper. That is a gold mine to us for just one evening; but for all the rest there is nothing. Lionel is studying French, and I do a little also, but it palls after a time badly." "I should think so. It sounds as dry as dead bones." They were sitting upon a rocky knoll, and Diana had her hands clasped round her drawn-up knees, presenting a very attractive picture. "I'm not a true Imperialist at heart," she informed him. "I hate gush and talk and heroics, but between you and me I think an awful lot of you men making your solitary fight in the wilderness. It's always a lot easier to put up with discomforts when you know your next-door neighbour is jolly uncomfortable too. Of course, most people don't say so, but that's because they are conventional, and fondly try to persuade themselves, very unselfish also; but when they are honest they know quite well a misfortune is lightened when several others are in the same box. That's why, on a wet day, I console myself sitting at the window and watching folks struggling with drenched umbrellas and bedraggled skirts. It's so good to be safe inside." He waited with amused eyes. "And, of course, the trouble for you is just sitting down here among these monotonous kopjes and being uncomfortable all alone. No one to grumble to--ugh, how I should hate that!--no one to feel superior with; no one to envy you, even if there were anything to envy. It's a positive grave." "You've left out one of the worst contingencies. No one to discuss with; no friction of mind and opinions." "That comes under the heading of grumbling. When I discuss I almost always grumble about something. It is good for the progress of the world." And she laughed whimsically. Then, with one of her sudden changes, "How long do you expect to stay on trying to dig up a fortune, and pretending it is worth while when you know you hate it like Old Harry?" "We shall probably try another mine soon. That is what we want to do; but it cost so much to get our machinery down into this hollow we don't quite know where to find the money to get it out again. So we just go on hoping we shall strike a good reef soon." She remained thoughtful and silent some moments, and then, as if to change the subject, remarked, "Mr. Stanley seems happy enough in his solitary place. He says he used to be in Salisbury, but very much prefers Zimbabwe." "Most of the police prefer a quiet place with good shooting; and now that he has Major Carew there so much it must often be interesting." "Do you know Major Carew well?" and her quick voice failed to entirely hide her interest. "As well as perhaps anyone does. He comes to see us fairly often on Sundays." "But he is so silent, he can't be very interesting." "He is not always silent." "No, sometimes he snarls," with a little laugh. "Ah! you don't know him. Get him to talk to you about the natives; about their habits and legends and customs. There isn't a man in Rhodesia knows more, and there isn't one they trust more absolutely. He is down in this district now on their behalf, and before he set foot here they knew all about him. Natives a hundred miles apart communicate that sort of thing to each other. Every kraal here knew perfectly that he was stern and rigid, but absolutely just. If he once says a thing he stands by it, even if he gets into trouble at headquarters, which isn't so very unusual. Someone out of jealousy or pique or utter inability to understand stern justice, will misrepresent his actions and misreport him for doing his duty. It's a heart-breaking business for him sometimes; but he never gives in when it is keeping his word one way or the other with natives. He would sooner resign, and they know it; and fortunately they recognise his value and meet him somehow. Of course, he isn't in the Native Department, properly speaking, but he has done a lot of work with them for some time." "And what do you think he is down here for now?" "I don't know; but it is some abuse or other that has reached the ears of the administration. This sort of thing happens among the short-sighted, small-minded Native Commissioners. There was a man a short time back who charged his house boys five shillings for everything they broke. At the end of six months they had had no pay at all, and were pretty heavily in debt. He was magistrate as well as commissioner and had them brought before his court, and promptly sentenced them to work six months for nothing." "What a shame!" she burst out indignantly. "Or a Native Commissioner may terrorise a native into selling cattle to him for a mere song by nothing but a look. Of course, they are not allowed to buy cattle really, but if they are married their wives buy them instead sometimes, and then the Commissioner in an outlying district can fairly easily fix the price, if he has made himself a dread to all the kraals round. He can collect taxes, too, not strictly just, to make his accounts look well at headquarters." "But I thought Native Commissioners were always gentlemen?" "They are generally, but they don't all live up to the usually accepted standard. Some of them seem rather to glory in behaving like bounders and treating the native unjustly. It is bad for the country, but things are improving. Almost all new appointments now are made among public-school boys and Varsity men." "And do you think Major Carew is here about some such matters?" "Yes; but it isn't given out so, and no one knows just what. But the natives are fortunate to have him on their side. He is not in the least afraid, and he won't shelter any unjust steward. On the other hand, whatever complaints there are against the natives will be just as honestly examined, and woe betide the kraals that are in the wrong! He is no Exeter Hall sentimentalist, and they must know it pretty well by now." "Why do you think he is out here at all? Surely he might have been a general with his K.C.M.G. if he had stayed in the army?" "I rather fancy Carew would think that a small thing compared to what he has done in Rhodesia. After all, K.C.M.G.'s are pretty cheap nowadays, aren't they? But it isn't every man who can know a new country is grateful to him, and who has achieved all he has at a work he loves." "Why did he come?" Still Diana strove vainly to hide her interest. "Do you know?" "Adventure, probably. A good many men from crack regiments came in the early days." "There must have been something more." "Perhaps." "Don't you _know_?" "No." He looked at her with a little smile. "It isn't the game to ask questions out here." "That is just what Mr. Stanley said, and it is so dull of you both. The man's a perfect bear. I christened him 'The Bear' before I had known him an hour. But why is he? Why should he be? That's what I want to know." "I don't fancy you will. I doubt if anyone knows. He has never made friends, I think, out here, except with the Grenvilles, and they are some connection." "That's the missionary and his wife, isn't it? What in the world can a man like that see in a missionary? Of all the soppy, flabby individuals give me the usual specimen who goes out to preach Christianity to the heathen, and generally disgusts them and everyone else." "Not this missionary." "O, is he an original also?" "He's one of the finest men I've ever known." "Then what in the world is _he_ buried in the wilderness for? I never knew anything so absurd. A fine soldier and administrator, just a policeman; a splendid man, just a missionary. And you and your brother just grubbing about in a God-forsaken mine, apparently for nothing. It is enough to make anyone wild." And she faced him with that smouldering indignation she rarely allowed to come to the surface. "But they are both in Rhodesia"--ignoring her kindly inclusion of himself and his brother--"and Rhodesia wants good men." "And when she gets them just buries them at her outposts. I haven't much faith in your Rhodesia. She is a capricious jade. She absorbs a man's finest qualities and best years and gives him nothing in return." "Ask Carew if she gives him nothing. Probably she has given him more than anyone else could give." She got up impatiently. "All the more reason why he shouldn't be such a bear. People who have got what they want out of life ought to be amiable and friendly." She turned round, and found herself face to face with Carew himself, looking, if anything grimmer than ever. "I came to tell you that tea is ready, and the others have already commenced." Diana looked straight into his eyes, with a daring, challenging expression. "And you heard me discussing your amiable attributes? I'm sorry, but"--with a swift gleam--"I do discuss something else sometimes." "I heard nothing," he answered, returning her direct gaze, and stood aside for her to pass. XI AN EVENING RIDE As they rode home in the evening Diana, more nettled with Carew's impassivity than she would have cared to own, contrived to get a little apart from the others with her uncle, and in her frank, engaging way explained to him the rapaciousness of certain mining companies and her own promise on behalf of the donkeys. Mr. Pym regretted that he could not immediately grant her request without consulting his co-directors, but Diana knew perfectly, by the friendly gleam in his eye, that he meant to look into the question; and because he was impressed by the sturdy, plucky fight of the two brothers he would probably do a good deal more for them in the end. After which she prattled to him gaily, until Stanley was clever enough to distract her attention and remanipulate the party. He had been riding with Carew, and the engineer with Meryl; but on the party being disarranged the engineer joined Mr. Pym to discuss the mining properties they had been visiting, and Carew found himself unavoidably partnered with Meryl, while Stanley and Diana went gaily on ahead. It was the first time, what he was pleased to term "his luck" had deserted him. Heretofore there had been no single _tête-à-tête_ between him and either of the cousins since Diana surprised him in the temple ruins. It was his fixed intention that there should be none. He argued in himself that he had no "small talk" in his vocabulary, and would only reciprocate the boredom he would himself suffer, and rather than either should be inflicted he steered a resolute course which partnered him with a man. In vain Diana, spurred by pique, had once or twice laid a trap for him; and Meryl, with growing interest, had sought to draw him into conversation. With masterly art he had steered clear of both, and continued his serene, impassive way. But on that homeward ride Fate, for once, got the better of him. Stanley and Diana were cantering gaily ahead along the narrow path, that meant smooth-going for one horse and a stumbling amid small rocks or long, dry grass for the other; while Mr. Pym and his engineer conversed with a solemnity no one could lightly disturb between the two front horsemen and the two back. At first Carew rode along with his eyes fixed rigidly on the horizon, and, except for its innate strength, an almost expressionless face. Meryl was a little amused. She realised thoroughly that the situation was none of his seeking, and she was in two minds whether to give him expressionless rigidity in return, or purposely tease him with questions. At first she chose silence, and looked around her with eyes of growing tenderness at the kopje-strewn country. And so, instead of being irritated with the "small talk" he dreaded, Carew found himself left entirely to his own cogitations; while, judging from her rapt expression, she scarcely realised his presence. And then, just because human nature is stronger, after all, than most things, memory, for the sake of a dream-face he would treasure while he had breath, made him look at her covertly with seeing eyes. He noted first that she was a perfect horsewoman--slim and upright and easy, almost like a part of her horse. Both girls rode astride, wearing long holland coats and specially made light top-boots, with large shady sun helmets; and because for a long time he had not seen anything much but slipshod garments among women riders, or exceedingly warm-looking correct home attire, he appreciated their cool smartness. Unconsciously it took him back to the old buried days, when the Devonshire moors and Devonshire lanes knew no hotter rider than Peter Carew. To the steeplechases, when he was so slim and wiry that, in spite of his height, he had ridden many a horse to victory. To the polo matches, when his matchless horsemanship had scored goal after goal for his regiment of picked riders. She recalled to his mind the stag-hunting in Devon and Somerset, where the first women had ridden astride to the meet, realising mercifully how the steep ascents and descents were eased for their horses, without the tightly girthed side-saddle, and for themselves without the side-seat strain. Almost as if it were a carefully permitted luxury, he saw the wide, wind-swept moors, heard the cheery shouts and the excited hounds, felt his thoroughbred sweeping gloriously along, as if its soul and his soul were both one in feeling the joy and exhilaration of the chase. What glories there were in those wind-swept, sun-bathed mornings in Devon! What joy of life! What lust of manhood! What splendid, whole-hearted young inconsequence! In his heart he smiled a little grimly. Peter Carew of the Blues had been no shunner of women in those days; no taciturn, silent, unappreciative onlooker. Rather he had loved too many, kissed too freely, ridden away too light-heartedly. Until the blue-grey eyes, so like Meryl's, looked shyly up, and then in their turn ran away from him. Of course, he had followed blindly like the hot-headed, hard-riding sportsman he was--followed blindly, wooed irresistibly, and won gloriously. And then ... Over the kopjes, over the vleis, over the veldt a black cloud came down, and suddenly all the picture was blotted out. An expression that was momentarily almost wistful left the fine mouth; the far-away softness left the keen blue eyes, and his face hardened strangely. Then he looked up at Meryl, riding beside him, and saw all the questioning interest in her face. "I'm afraid you have a very dull companion," he said; but it was in the voice that Diana usually called his snarl. Meryl smiled. "I did not for a moment suppose that you would talk." She could hardly say that his face relaxed, but at least there was that in it which suggested he liked her answer far better than any conventional politeness. Suddenly a wholly unlooked-for twinkle lurked somewhere in his eyes. "Bears don't usually," he said. Meryl laughed. "Diana is too fond of nicknaming her friends and acquaintances; but on the whole I think she has let you off lightly. A bear is a magnificent animal." "Not given to much amiability. No Prince Charming, for instance," and he smiled a little grimly. "But strong--and--well--dangerous, which is better." "You think so?" He looked at her rather curiously. "Decidedly." They rode on in silence, and, for a little way, the road being rough, he reined in his horse to the narrow path behind her. Then, when it grew smoother again, she waited for him to come alongside. "You haven't always been in this part of Rhodesia?" "No; only recently." "Long enough to get very attached to it." "More or less," and suddenly his voice hardened a little, as if scenting a discussion and wishful to ward it off. "I wonder why Rhodesia is so fascinating?" And her eyes roved with love in them from far horizon to far horizon. "I suppose you do not attempt to analyse it? You are content to care unquestioningly." "Yes"--with an effort--"after a time, one just cares." "And at first?..." "At first one has to find one's footing, so to speak. She is somewhat the bewildering, uncomfortable stranger to the new-comer." She marvelled that he should say so much, but hid her pleasure lest she should unwittingly change his mood. "She has never seemed that to me. Something has attracted me from the very first. I came, I saw, I loved." "You must remember that you came under exceptional circumstances." "And you?" "I was among the early pioneers." "How splendid! I wish I could say the same." "It was extremely uncomfortable." "But you didn't mind. I don't need to be told that. There was so much to make up for it. How good it must be to be a man!" "Yet the women are the true heroes out here." "Why?" "We get what we came for. Interest, excitement of a kind, freedom...." "And the women?" "There is not much for the women, but the plucky ones are often heroines." "Only no one tells them so?" "No one tells them so; therein lies the heroism." "I see. They put up a good fight, and no one says, 'Well done!' Isn't it the same with the men?" "The men get many compensations." "Compensations that make it worth while?" "Distinctly." They rode on in silence, both looking ahead to the blue mountain that guards the north of Zimbabwe. The peaceful loveliness soothed his spirit because he loved it, but in her it awakened a vague, swift ache. She felt somehow that he had a right to love the country, because he had made it his and given it of his best; that, for all his presumable poverty in many things, he was yet so rich in what he had achieved, and in what he had won for himself of interest and usefulness. While for her?... She was an alien, a mere tourist, a looker-on; the daughter of a millionaire who came to Rhodesia for wealth, and gave--how little in return! He might look at the tender outline of the lovely mountain with the glad, restful consciousness of work well done. She could only look at it with that ache of divine discontent: unplumbed, wordless longing. Even the heroism of the settler's wife was not for her. The women who were plucky enough to put up that good fight, although no one ever said "Well done!" Compared with them, in his eyes she was probably a mere cumberer of the earth; an ornament, intended only to be admired by the leisured classes. The young splendid country had no use for her, no place for her. She was an alien, an interloper; child of a man who came only for gain, and took his gain elsewhere, recognising no claim from a land that was no home to him, only an investment. Her soul cried out it was no wish of hers that it should be so; but only silent condemnation seemed to echo back to her from the far blue hills. She glanced at the strong, serene face of her companion, and because somehow he seemed a little less stern and uncompromising to-day she said to him simply, leaning a little to his side: "I envy you so, the sense that you have won the right to love her. I envy the plucky settlers' wives who are the mothers of her future. I feel myself so utterly an alien. Has Rhodesia any use for ... for such as I?" He looked at her strangely, and as he looked she saw an expression almost like hungry longing come into his eyes; then as suddenly vanish again, leaving him utterly amazingly stony. He turned his head sharply, and his gaze became fixed and rigid. "Millionaires' daughters can usually be pretty useful if they like," he said almost brutally; and she felt as if he had struck her. In sudden anger and bewilderment she touched her horse with her whip and darted ahead. It was not the words, but the way in which he had said them. What did he mean?... What did he not mean?... She bit her lips to keep back the smarting tears that blinded her eyes. She felt as if she hated him. For a little space he had been so different to the cold, callous soldier, and in quiet response she had spoken from her heart; and in return he had said this cutting thing with cold intent, making her feel that he despised her. Did he see in her only a willing accomplice to her father's money-making schemes? The one perhaps who spent the gains heartlessly and carelessly elsewhere? Beside those settlers' wives he had said were heroines, was she but an idle, contemptible, useless heiress? She spurred her horse on, letting her thoughts run away with her, unwilling that he should overtake her until she had got herself well in hand; and Carew followed behind, feeling again that sense of a black, rayless abyss all about him. Why had he looked full and deep into her eyes like that?... Why had he not gazed only upon the mountains that soothed and refreshed him?... The mere discovery that the past he thought to have outlived slept so lightly was a shock to him. Had he not then outlived anything? Had he only put his memories lightly to sleep, and dreamt all the life he had lived since? He was scarcely conscious that he had said anything inconsiderate; he hardly knew what he had said. He only remembered he had looked full and deep into beautiful eyes, and suddenly it was as though his dead love Joan had come back to him. Presently she slowed down so that he came up to her, and it was noticeable that something in her whole attitude had changed. She was as upright as he now, and her eyes also looked rigidly ahead. He saw the change without understanding it and wondered a little, without troubling to probe. "Your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Grenville," she said coldly, "would they care to see us if we called, or would they think it perhaps just vulgar curiosity?" "They would be delighted; visitors are a very rare treat to them." He was puzzled a little at her manner, but let it pass. Meryl had it on the tip of her tongue to add, "They don't mind even millionaires' daughters?" but her own good taste saved her from a momentary satisfaction that a man of his breeding could only have considered bourgeoise. "Perhaps Mr. Stanley would take us," was all she suffered herself; and added, "From his account Mrs. Grenville is evidently one of Rhodesia's heroines." "She is," he answered so simply that Meryl felt a little nonplussed. When they reached the camp Diana had already dismounted and gone into their tent, whither Meryl followed her. "Well," she said, "how did you get on with The Bear? Did he chore you up over anything?" Meryl considered a moment before replying. "One moment I thought him the rudest man I have ever met, and the next ..." she seemed puzzled how to explain. "And the next I suppose he didn't seem a man at all, only a pillar of stone!..." For answer, she said thoughtfully, "I wonder if something hurt him very badly some time or other?" "If it did, it doesn't exempt him from the ordinary amenities of human intercourse. He isn't the only man who has been hurt." And Diana kicked off her boots impatiently. "No," said Meryl; "but it makes it a little easier to forgive him." "Don't do anything so foolish. You'll end by thinking him interesting and falling in love with him; which would be too utterly silly when you are as good as engaged to Dutch Willy, and when he, The Bear, would care about as much as my foot," with which dictum she put her head out through the tent flap, and called to Stanley and Carew, "Hey! Mr. Stanley! don't go away. Stay and keep us company in my uncle's absence. I believe he is venturing into The Bear's den to-night." Carew smiled quite frankly for him. "Can't I tempt you to come also? I daren't promise you a decent dinner, but I've some fresh Abdullah cigarettes out from home, if you care to come down afterwards." Diana was disarmed in spite of herself. "And will you promise to growl very prettily?" with an arch expression. "I'll try not to frighten you away too quickly." Diana withdrew into the tent. "O!" she said, "he's a bear with two faces; and that's the most difficult to cope with of all." XII THE MISSION STATION They went to the Grenvilles' the next day, while Mr. Pym took another of his investigation trips. Stanley acted as escort, and Carew went to Edwardstown on business. Ailsa Grenville met them with her brightest smile, and ushered them proudly into her cool, picturesque drawing-room hut. "How charming!" they cried, with genuine delight; and Diana added, "O! why can't I have a hut in the wilderness?..." Then the khaki-clad, sportsmanlike missionary strode in, and after the preliminary greetings Diana asked with charming piquancy, "O! are you really and truly a missionary?" "Really and truly," he told her gaily, and came over to her side of the hut to sit beside her. "Why do you ask it like that?" She considered a moment, and then declared impishly, "Because it doesn't seem possible that a man like you should never say 'Damn.'" He laughed outright. "Well, I'm not going to tell tales out of school; but if you'd only got one pair of brown boots in the world and one pair of brown gaiters, and the boy tried to clean them with blacklead and paraffin oil!..." Diana moved nearer to him, with her prettiest and most ingratiating air. "O, tell me some more!... Tell me lots more." "I don't think that is half so bad as the boy washing the saucepans and the teacups all in the same water together," put in Mrs. Grenville. "How perfectly delicious of him!" cried Diana. "What else did he do?" "You ought to have been here this morning when our stores came out from Edwardstown," the missionary told her. "The boy carries them on his head, you know; and there was a tin of golden syrup ..." "Yes ... yes ... and it leaked!..." gleefully. "Trickled all down his head and neck; you never saw such a sticky mess! And as soon as the other boys discovered ..." "Did they duck his head in a bucket?..." "O, dear no!... _licked_ him!..." Diana fairly howled with delight; and then Stanley came in, after seeing that the horses were properly watered and fed, and was immediately accosted by Grenville with, "Hullo, Kid! you're quite a deserter! What have you been doing all the week?" "Do you call him Kid?" Diana asked. "What a capital name for him!" "He has been 'The Kid' almost ever since he came to this district." "It pays," remarked Stanley jocularly; "they give me sugar." "And he lives with The Bear; how comical! Instead of the lion lying down with the lamb, in Rhodesia you have The Kid feeding with The Bear." "Who is The Bear?" Ailsa Grenville asked, from the packing-case cupboard, where she was reaching down cups and saucers. "Need you ask?" queried Diana. "Doesn't Major Carew ever growl when he is here?" Ailsa looked much amused. "Not exactly," she said; "but I admit sometimes he rolls himself up into a ball, so to speak, and relapses into a sort of winter sleep." "I hope you prod him," said Diana. "Billy wouldn't let me," glancing affectionately at her husband. "There is only one Major Carew for him." "Still, it might do him good. We prodded him last night, didn't we?" addressing Stanley. "We went right into his den, and gave him a good baiting, while we smoked his new Abdullah cigarettes," and she smiled gleefully at the remembrance of the stern soldier, in an astonishingly sociable mood for him, humorously parrying her chaff. "You know," she ran on, "he simply hated our coming. I almost wonder he didn't dig impassable trenches across the road, or fortify himself in the Acropolis Hill. Anyone might have thought we were the bears, and he the woman." "I expect he was afraid of your charms," said Grenville smilingly. "We wilderness-dwellers have none of the townsmen's armour to withstand fair women." "Well, growling and scowling are very fair substitutes," quoth Diana; "and, besides, he didn't even trouble to observe if we had charms. As far as he decently could he looked the other way altogether." While she chatted on, delighting the missionary and his wife with her gaiety, Meryl sat in a low chair, and gazed through the doorway out over the smiling country, much as Carew usually did. "It must be very wonderful," she said at last, aroused by a sympathetic question from Ailsa Grenville, "to live day after day with such a scene as that in one's doorway." "Yes," Ailsa told her. "The wonder never grows less, nor the mystery, nor the beauty. Major Carew, when he is here, loves just to sit and look at it; and so do I." Diana, with the two men, had strolled outside; and Ailsa and Meryl sat alone in the cool interior. Meryl sat very still, with her hands lightly clasped on her knees, and her eyes always--always--to the lovely prospect that was like a mighty ocean in which the waves were blue, mystical kopjes; and over which the first clouds, that heralded the approach of the rainy season, shed entrancing lights and shadows. Ailsa sat a little behind, and her eyes roved back from the view that had grown into her being and become part of her life to the face of the young heiress. She noted at once its instinctive charm; the charm of a woman blessed with most of the traits that hold and bind men for ever. Strength was there without masterfulness; sweetness that would never cloy; a dreamy elusiveness that meant a closed book it would be a joy to study chapter by chapter; and some of the chapters would surprise with their lightness and mirth, while others would surprise with their depth of sympathetic understanding, and yet others would bewilder alluringly with their whimsical, irresistible uncertainty. She knew that society papers sometimes spoke of the well-known millionaire's daughter as beautiful, but to her it seemed the word was hardly the right one. Meryl's face had in it something too strong and too distinctive for actual beauty; and yet Ailsa thought of all the lovely women she had ever seen none were quite so attractive. And because she was a tender-hearted woman, the thought crossed her mind to wonder if perhaps, out of the dark shadow that she knew hung ever over Peter Carew's life, there might yet be a way of escape; a gracious healing, and a final joy. Could two such humans meet and not love? Could anything truly separate them if once the love were born? She mused a moment or two happily, sublimely ignorant of all the forces that warred between; of what caused the shadow; of the power of a dead face; of the pride of a resolute man; of that attractive Huguenot Dutchman biding his time down south. At last Meryl broke the silence. As she sat gazing through the open doorway her mind had lingered unconsciously over that last sentence. "Major Carew, when he is here, loves just to sit and look at it," and in her fancy she saw the silent, watching form of the grim soldier-policeman. "He is an interesting man," she said simply. "I think I understood he was some connection of yours?" "You mean Major Carew? Yes; he is a distant sort of cousin, but we are two entirely different branches of the family, and had drifted widely apart until we three met out here. Yet it was not surprising we should meet like this. The Carews were always wanderers and adventurers, like Drake and Frobisher and the other fine old pirates. A humdrum career in the Blues would hardly have continued to satisfy Major Carew, any more than the conventions and hide-bound prejudices of the Established Church could hold my husband." "Yet, if you will forgive my seeming rudeness, both of them apparently took a decided step downwards from the social point of view." "That would not trouble either of them for a moment. They sought Freedom, and found it." "Yet it meant, in a sense, what some people call being buried alive." "Ah, those people do not understand. That is how I took it at first. Shall I tell you a little, or will it bore you?" "Please tell me. I think it is kind of you to trust me so soon with your confidence." Ailsa smiled. "One always knows. Anyone with insight would trust you instinctively. But there isn't much to tell. Only that when I married my husband he held a living in Shropshire, with a sure promise of quick promotion; and then Doubt crept in which he could not overthrow, and after a long struggle he gave it up because his conscience would not let him be a hypocrite." "But he is still a Church missionary, is he not?" "In a sense; but he is not paid by any society, and works on his own lines entirely. He had a little money of his own, and I have also, and out here it is ample. But at first I was very bitter with him, and let myself be influenced by my people who were still more bitter, and I would not join him. I went back home and lived the old life of my girlhood. He never uttered one word of reproach, although he was just breaking his heart for me, and--for which I bless him every day of my life--he wrote every mail telling me about the country and his work. At first I scarcely read the letters, and often did not reply; but he wrote on patiently and waited. And at last my mood changed. The endless tea-parties began to pall, and the insipidity of my home life. Week after week, week after week, the same round of social gatherings; the same people, the same conversations, the same everlasting tea, buns, and gossip. In each parish around, so many, many unmarried women, so many empty, monotonous lives. I think the condition of England's country villages is becoming almost a tragedy; all the men seem to have gone away to a bigger and wider world, and all the women to have been left behind to feed on emptiness. There are the clergyman's daughters, the doctor's daughters, the solicitor's daughters, and perhaps a few retired veterans and their daughters; all struggling through the same old empty round; while the men go out to conquer the earth." She paused a moment, but seeing Meryl's rapt attention, went on uninterruptedly, "And one day I awoke to the fact that I had a special right to one of the finest men who had gone out to do his share, and a special place at his side. To cut a long story short, I won through the frantic opposition of my family, cut myself adrift, and came out here to see for myself what Billy was doing that gave him a satisfaction he had never found in his peaceful easy living; in spite of the hunger I had always known was wearing out his soul for me." She looked out across the country dreamily, before she finished. "I shall never forget when I first saw this," motioning to the sunny prospect. "We arrived here in the dusk, owing to a breakdown, and so I had a long night's rest before Billy first showed it to me. I must tell you I was already tremendously impressed, on the quiet, with my brown, stalwart, khaki-clad husband in place of the decorous, black-coated parson I had parted with; and although the journey had been very exhausting, for I had to travel in the post-cart, my interest in him and the country had never abated. Then he opened the door wide about sunrise, and said casually, 'Sit up and look at my view, Ailsa.' I sat up, and for a moment I could not speak at all. Do you know, Miss Pym, the country looked positively hung with diamonds that wonderful morning. I shall never forget it. Just outside the door, forming a sort of framework to the scene beyond, was some tall, dry grass, thin and straggly enough to let the light through. And where at the top it spread into graceful, hanging, feathery seed-ears, it was hung with large dewdrops, reflecting all the colours of the rainbow. Behind them was the bluest of early-morning skies. Beyond them, what you see here, a far dream-country of untold loveliness. I said, 'O, Billy! have you lived beside this all these months?' And then I began to cry, because I didn't know what else to do, and I was so glad that I had come." A fleeting shadow of sadness seemed to cross Meryl's face. "I envy you," she said in a low voice. "You can stay on with the man you love, and see it every day. I must go back to the tea-parties." "Most people pity me." "I dare say; and they envy me," with a little forlorn smile. "You have much power, and power is good," softly. "Have I?... How, why, where?... What shall I do with all this money my father makes? I wonder what I could do to take from my heart this feeling that I am an alien and an intruder in this lovely country, among you people who are quietly making history? If your husband wants money for his mission, I could get him a cheque for a thousand pounds from my father, I know; but what is that compared to giving one's life as you do, and growing right into the heart of the country, and feeling just that it is yours because of what you have given? I know that is how Major Carew feels also. One can see it in his rapt gaze. He does not care for very much else in the world. But we, my father and I, we just take riches out, and give nothing but cheques which we never even miss." She got up and moved to the doorway, controlling with an effort her sudden, unexpected show of emotion. "The others have been looking at your fowls and cattle," she said, "and now they are coming back. I hope Mr. Grenville will show us over the mission station." "He will be delighted," Ailsa answered, following her lead with quick understanding; "and another day you must come and sit in my doorway again." "I should love to;" and she stepped out into the sunlight to join the gay trio Diana was still the life of. Then Mr. Grenville took them into his workshops and his little mission hall, and showed them how he taught the boys carpentering and blacksmithing, and reading and writing and farming; making good, useful labourers of them with even greater zeal than that with which he made them Christians. Diana, the outspoken, could not resist a surprised comment. "I thought people who had been abroad always ran down missionaries, and scoffed at missionary work?" "They do very often," Grenville replied, with frankness, "and not without reason. A great many missionaries are naturally not very suitable men. It is almost impossible to pick and choose." "There are some," put in Stanley disgustedly, "who just confirm all the blacks they can, without bothering about how much they understand, and then make communicants of them so that they can send good figures home to their society for the missionary magazines. They don't teach them anything useful at all, and they do a roaring trade with the garments sent out by pious ladies' work guilds; as if the natives weren't better in their own natural state than they are ever likely to be dressed up in clothes and fuddled with doctrines." Mr. Grenville, standing very upright and looking every inch a man, said simply, "It isn't entirely their fault always. The home folk like the figures; they imagine they stand for progress, and they know nothing about the conditions. Many missionaries are very fine men, and they would do even better work if left a little more to their own initiative, and not cursed with this atmosphere of competition in figures. It isn't fair to damn the whole flock because a few of the sheep are black." "And don't you ever feel you are wasting your talents?" Meryl asked him a little shyly. He threw his head back and squared his shoulders with a characteristic movement. "It is better than the hypocrisy and feebleness of the condition of affairs at home; and I am very fond of the natives. They are most lovable, when one once gets their confidence and understands them. And the freedom is good, and the primitive conditions. The getting right down to the bedrock of nature, so to speak, without too much highly developed civilisation. Yes, it is a good life for a man. Sometime I should like to show you the mission farm. We've made tremendous strides lately." "And you?..." Diana turned with a winsome air to Ailsa Grenville. "Do you find the natives lovable, and the primitive conditions?... And are you proud of the mission farm?... Or doesn't it all sometimes make you just long to scream?... It would me!..." Ailsa smiled into her eyes. "One grows adaptable very quickly. I confess I am very happy here. Certainly there are times when one feels rather as if one had dropped off the world into space, but it doesn't take long to struggle through it. But then, of course, it is well to remember that Billy and I are rather an exceptional couple; quite absurdly, idiotically satisfied with each other's company. If it were not so our lives would be purgatory. The tragedies of these far countries are for the husbands and wives isolated from all other companionship, and having perhaps nothing in common with each other. There are few conditions worse than isolation under those circumstances. It breaks the woman's spirit and sours the man and brings shipwreck, where a little other congenial companionship might have brought them through in safety." They were interrupted by the sound of voices outside, and found that Mr. Pym and his engineer, having encountered Major Carew returning from Edwardstown, had persuaded him to show them the way to the mission. Mr. and Mrs. Grenville greeted them with eager warmth, and, the afternoon sun having sunk behind some trees, tea was spread outside the huts, so that they could drink it while admiring the view. Carew, though silent as ever, was less rigid, and Meryl saw how insistently his eyes strayed back to the blue vista of kopjes. She wondered what he thought of all day long, in his continuous silences, and behind the quiet, forceful eyes. It was noticeable that Diana seemed to have outgrown both her awe and chagrin towards him; and though at first he proved very unbending, she eventually won something like a repartee out of him. Ailsa watched them quietly from the background, and waited hopefully, but in vain, to see his eyes stray to Meryl. Indeed, he seemed almost to shun her, and she noted it with regret. Was it possible that already his preference was given to Diana, with her light raillery and ready laugh? Diana so pretty, so attractive, so original, and yet to Ailsa's thinking, so far less reliable and restful than Meryl. In the end, by a clever little manoeuvre, she brought Carew and Meryl together. "You are almost outvied, Major Carew," she told him lightly. "Miss Pym likes my view already, as much, if not more, than you. I told her you loved to sit and look at it, and that is exactly what she likes to do." Meryl smiled, but made no comment. Mere admiration seemed superfluous, and Carew was grateful that she spared him raptures. So they sat quite still, and instead of any constraint between them because of the silence, there was a vague sense of restfulness and understanding. Meryl spoke first, and then she made no allusion to his love of the spot. "I think you were right," she said simply. "Mrs. Grenville must be one of Rhodesia's heroines." "How do you specially mean it?" "I mean it, because one _knows_ there must be times when the isolation is almost unendurable, and when she must long for many of the things of her old life, however much she declares otherwise." "Yes, I think there are. She evidently had many friends, and she has almost lost them all. It is difficult to keep up friendships by post." Then Ailsa herself joined them. "Has Major Carew been with you into the temple, yet?" she asked Meryl. "He is better than any guide-book for information." Meryl coloured faintly, but looked a little amused. He had so persistently withstood every friendly hint or invitation to accompany them among the ruins. "He has been very much occupied ever since we came," she said, glancing towards him. Carew looked quite unconcerned, and merely assented, which made Ailsa rather want to shake him. "But it ought to be part of your business," she told him, "to interest visitors in our wonderful old ruin." "I can hardly imagine anyone needing any incentive to that from me," he said. Meryl glanced at him humorously. Some new phase she had detected in him, since Diana persisted in what she called "baiting" him, made her more ready to overlook his bearishness and less quick to feel repulsed. "Will you take me if I promise not to ask any silly questions?" she asked, with a smile. He looked up, and for a brief moment the past seemed to lie still as one that is dead. His keen, direct eyes looked straight into hers, and he said simply, "I should like to take you." Meryl felt her cheeks glow a little with sudden, swift, indefinable pleasure, and almost at the same moment Diana broke in upon them. "Do you know, Major Carew, your singularly appropriate nickname has been subjected to a little embroidery?... You are now called, after the Coeur de Lion, 'The Bear with two faces.'" All in a moment he stiffened and the shadow loomed; and while Meryl wondered Diana ran on unheedingly, "If I say to you when we meet, 'Which face is it to-day?' you will know that I mean, is it your day of lordly graciousness, or is it the cast-iron, beware-of-the-bull frown day?" "I think you are excessively rude, Diana," Meryl said, though she smiled with the rest. Carew smiled too, but he rose from his seat and moved away on some small pretence. And as he went, Meryl, watching with eyes that were daily gaining clearer sight, saw that the shadow was as of some deep, unfathomable pain. She too got up and moved a little away from the rest, gazing with grave, tender eyes across the kopjes, lying how bathed in a faint ethereal flush of rose and gold. "He had not always two faces," she said in her heart. "Something hurt him badly once, and ever since he has taken refuge behind the iron mask." "Rhodesia," her heart whispered, almost without her consciousness, "cannot you with your fairness reward him for his work by soothing away the memory so that the refuge is no longer needed?..." A little later, as they all prepared to ride home, she saw how resolutely he took his place with the engineer, and hastened on ahead, quenching even Diana by the stoniness of his mien. XIII A DECISION THAT FAILED As Carew sat outside his hut that evening smoking a solitary pipe, two thoughts seemed to fill his mind. The one that he had told Meryl he would be pleased to visit the temple ruins with her; the other the warning unconsciously conveyed in Diana's raillery, reminding him that he was in danger of straying from the rigid pathway he had chosen of unsociable aloofness, and therefore in a measure, perchance, inviting trouble. But of course he need not go. A polite message by Stanley, or a call as he rode past perhaps, already starting on some convenient engagement. Yet as he sat on he knew it was not entirely his wish to resort to either subterfuge. Why, after all, should he not go with her just once, and no doubt Diana also, and tell them a little about the mysterious walls? He pulled hard at his pipe, staring into the darkness. Why not go and get it over, instead of troubling to send an excuse? Surely that were the simpler plan? One moment he thought he would, and the next he found himself shrinking unaccountably, warned again by Diana's chaff. He knew quite well she was right. He was a man, or a bear if she preferred it, with two faces; but the trouble was that she should so thoroughly have grasped the fact. He had only intended to show one face, the uninviting, frigid one; and yet unconsciously she had won from him more than one glimpse of the other. And if he unbent so far as to act as their escort to the ruins, he was yielding still further to an atmosphere of friendliness he had forsworn. He turned in at last, still in indecision, but the next morning he said he would not go. So Meryl waited a little forlornly through the morning hours. It was unusually cool for Zimbabwe, the hot sun being hidden by grey clouds, and she knew no question of heat could possibly be detaining him. She had hoped he would call for her about eleven and then come back to lunch; but the morning wore on, and no tall figure in khaki strode out from the clearing where the police camp stood. Neither did the afternoon bring any word or sign, until Stanley arrived for a cup of tea and to ask them to stroll up to the store with him at the head of the valley. Diana agreed readily, having found the hours somewhat tedious; but Meryl felt tired and headachy, and chose to remain behind. Once, as casually as she could, she asked if Carew had gone anywhere for the day. "No, he's grinding away at his report for the Native Commission, and as solemn as a judge. I don't think he has spoken two words all day." "Is there some special haste then?" "O no; it is just his mood. He gets a sort of black day sometimes, when he barely answers if you speak to him, and looks like a bronze figure. Then he grinds away at something or other as if his life depended on it, and Moore and I have to just shut up." When they had gone away up the valley Meryl sat on alone in the shade, thinking deeply. Evidently he had some reason of his own for not following up his promise, and she need not any longer expect him. He did not want to take her, and probably was vexed that he had said that he would. It did not seem very polite, but she hardly looked at it in that way. Somehow, with this stern-featured soldier-policeman, the ordinary amenities of conventional intercourse seemed to have little weight. If he regretted his words and did not want to go, she liked him better for calmly remaining away, than coming against his wish, because he felt he ought. Another man would have done that, any man, in fact; only Peter Carew, and a few like him, would calmly change his mind and remain aloof without saying anything. Yet how keenly she was disappointed. It was quite idle to pretend otherwise to herself, and with a strength like his she calmly faced the fact. When she went to bed the previous night she had lain awake thinking of the morrow, hugging to her consciousness with shy gladness that he was on the point of unbending at last and showing a little friendliness. In a few days now they would be journeying on, and she had begun to expect he would remain unbending to the last, and let them go away, perhaps never to meet again, with nothing beyond the official courtesy and the occasional sparring with Diana. And then had come this sudden hope, and she had been strangely glad. One might live a lifetime and not again meet a man quite like him. Even if their intercourse were to be of the merest afterwards, still it was better than nothing, better than a final end to all friendship when they journeyed on again, leaving him and the ruins behind. And now had come this swift disappointment. He must have regretted his move instantly, and made up his mind to be more rigid than ever. She hardly troubled to ask why. Doubtless he had his own reasons, and whatever they were, they were nothing petty or small. Her eyes strayed a little longingly to the police camp, and she watched the door of his hut from her chair securely hidden behind some low bushes. Was he still grinding at his report, she wondered, looking like a bronze figure? The simile pleased her, and she smiled. Yes, bronze was the right word to use, for his face and hands and arms were tanned almost to the colour of his khaki with exposure, so that he sometimes looked all of a piece, except for the close-clipped dark moustache and keen, intense blue eyes. Then as she looked she saw some movement in the camp. A boy appeared, apparently in answer to a call, and stood a moment receiving directions. Then the tall figure itself appeared, stood a moment to give an order, and strode down towards the little gate. She sat up, and her breath came a little unevenly. Was he really coming at last? Had he, after all, been seriously delayed? No; outside the gate, without one glance towards the tents on the hill-side, he turned to the left and disappeared in the direction of the Acropolis Hill. So there was nothing further to hope for. He would never come now. It was the end. She got up, feeling suddenly a new tiredness, and wishing vaguely that they were leaving on the morrow. Perhaps it would be possible to persuade her father to do so without exciting much comment. Diana was already a little bored with their camping-place and ready to be off, and she ... without daring to probe too deeply, Meryl felt, for the sake of her own peace of mind, it would be wiser to go quietly away from a presence so likely to disturb her peace. Yes, she would ask her father to plan a move as soon as he came in, and in the meantime she must do something herself to pass the next hour more helpfully than sitting alone in the shade. The greyness had rolled away now, and the evening grown exceptionally lovely, with clear skies overhead and great banks of pearly tinted clouds on the horizons. Where should she go? Only two ways lay open. Either she must follow Diana and Stanley up the valley, or she must stroll down to the temple alone. The third route lay to the Acropolis Hill, and that was formidably closed by the presence of the man who should have been her companion. Finally she decided on the temple, and tying on the large grey hat that blended so charmingly with her eyes and the soft tints of her skin, she walked along the little footpath skirting the police-camp vegetable-garden to the western entrance. Inside the temple walls all was very peaceful and still, while the sunshine made a network of gold through the leafy trees upon the antique masonry. Yet as she looked around upon the empty desolation her heart grew sad with a nameless sorrow; that old, old ache, and old, old tiredness, for the utter futility of work and of striving, that sometimes seems to fill the human heart, when in a depressed mood it looks upon the ruins of something that has once had strength and greatness. Meryl carried in her hand a little pocket edition of Omar, but she did not open the leaves nor read the lines. In a vague way it was enough to have it with her; it was like having in her hand the hand of a friend who understood. For of all poets the world has known, perhaps none have so perfectly voiced the cry of the human heart when it questions the why and the wherefore and the worthwhileness of its own mysterious existence. So she sat very still in the ancient temple, and pondered the old questions that live from age to age--unanswered. And because Sorrow seemed for the moment to have her in his keeping, all her thoughts were tinged with sadness. She looked around upon the broken walls, and it seemed to be brought home to her with sudden force, how little time was given to each one to play his part before he must make room for another. The Bird of Time has but a little way To fly, and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing. And because there was that element of greatness in her, which was also in her father, she thought less of the "worthwhileness" of doing than of the poorness of _not_ doing. His talents were given to money-making, because it was the thing he had a genius for; but she knew that in a measure he fulfilled his trust, and besides subscribing generously to charities, helped many a "lame dog" over his stile in secret. But what had this to do with the trust that was hers? She who did not even bear the heat and burden of the day in making the money?... She who had but to spend it. In the ruined temple she sat on--thinking, thinking. How the spot fascinated her! In this far Rhodesia, how strange that she, the product of the most modern and presumably enlightened age, should linger there amidst these broken walls, and feel strange kinship and fascination about those old people in that remote age; should stretch a hand out to them, as it were, across the centuries, with this feeling that their thoughts had been even as her thoughts, and that the passing of the ages could never eradicate the essential likeness of one people to another in those old eternal questions of whence and why and wherefore. And they, the maidens of that day, had loved the man who was big and strong and true, even as the maidens of to-day; the man who achieved; who was ever fearless to do and dare; who gave his service to the world quietly, unostentatiously, indifferent to praise or reward. And what was the use of it all: the love, the heartache, the silent admiration.... The maidens were dust now, and all the strength and the heroism of the strong men could not give them one age longer to do and dare ere they too made room for others. Yet always--always--deep-rooted in the heart and mind of humanity, was this ineradicable belief in the simple act of _doing_; this half-contempt of the lives content to flutter their little way in aimless self-seeking. The spirit that took men through the terrible solitudes of untrodden places, that urged them across uncharted seas, that carried them fearlessly aloft to conquer the air--not for gain, not for notoriety, not for praise, but just that simple splendid need to be _doing_. How it appealed to her, how it enthralled her senses, how it made her ache with a great overwhelming desire to discover quickly what "doing" in a big sense there might be for her! Of course he, the stern soldier-policeman, was of the fearless band. In his quiet way he was "doing" with the foremost, though it might be a work that would never bring him anything in this world but enough pay just to live upon. But that was beside the point. The band to which he belonged did not linger in the shallows, counting the cost, counting the gain; they plunged straightway into the deep waters, and struggled to some mysterious, perhaps fugitive, goal ahead, finding their reward in the struggle itself and the difficult headway won. And afterwards!... O, what did it matter about afterwards, if one had put up a good fight and dared the deep waters? How much better to be overwhelmed there, than to fritter away a butterfly life in the shallows! How splendid to win through and stand on the far bank with the quiet band of strong workers, even though no one knew aught of the struggle, instead of being lauded to the skies by the playing butterflies! Only, what could she do; ah, what? A wave of hopelessness seemed to seize upon her, and back across her mind like a lash cut the dictum of the strong, rigid man, "A millionaire's daughter can generally be pretty useful if she likes." Of course, signing cheques, cheques, cheques--a mere machine--and never to get in touch with the deep need, the inarticulate sorrow of the world that her soul ached to comfort. It would seem that even to him, the figure of bronze, it was what she should seek as her _métier_. She almost wondered if somewhere in his heart he had a faint contempt for her, because she was a millionaire's daughter: a product of the new régime; someone who could not be permitted to stand in the same light as the women of his ancient, illustrious name; who had no part with the proud, patrician ladies of his great family. She rose to her feet suddenly, feeling unaccountably hurt by the thought, and her eyes roved half unconsciously, and fixed themselves upon the spot where the scarlet petals of the Kaffir boom showed blood-red against the ancient northern wall. The ache in her heart coloured all her mind for the moment, shutting out the glad sunshine with its golden evening glow resting tenderly upon the granite blocks, showing her only the splashes of scarlet like blood upon the ancient walls. Was it the altar of sacrifice? Did the Kaffir boom shed its great red flowers for ever, like drops of blood upon the altar of the world's pain? The sound of a step upon broken stones roused her suddenly; a man's firm tread close beside her. She looked round slowly as it stood still, and with the ache and the question lingering in her face, found herself looking into blue eyes of a disconcerting directness--the eyes of the soldier-policeman. "I saw you from the Acropolis Hill," he said, "and so I came." No word of why he had not come sooner; no explanation of his presence on the Acropolis Hill when she had a right to expect him with her; no preliminaries at all, no self-conscious excuses, no apparent realisation that he had behaved a little oddly; only the simple, direct announcement, "I saw you, so I came." Yet there was something more--a vague intangible something, that made the directness of his eyes disconcerting in a way it had not been before. Meryl felt a pink flush stealing over her face, and turned her head away to hide it. "I wonder what you were thinking about just then?" he said, with the slightest softening. "I awoke you from a very deep reverie." She raised her eyes, and they fell again upon the scarlet flowers. Something born of her own deep understanding told her, give this man straightness for straightness always if you would stand well with him; no begging the question, no subterfuge. "I was thinking," she answered simply, "that those scarlet petals of the Kaffir boom, falling on these ancient walls, suggest great blood drops offered, upon the altar of the world's pain throughout the ages." "Ah!..." The exclamation escaped him quickly, unheedingly--sharp, short, abrupt. It was as though she had struck him suddenly in a vulnerable place. It told her, as perhaps nothing else could have done, she had gauged rightly when she remarked to Diana that sometime something had hurt him very much. For a moment there was a tense, pulsing silence, and then he turned aside towards the sacred enclosure which stood behind them. Meryl turned also, and ventured as she did so to glance into his face. It was stern again now, but she knew for a brief moment as he made the exclamation it had not been so, and for a reason she did not seek to fathom her heart was strangely glad. XIV THE ANCIENT RUINS When Carew had started up into the Acropolis Hill an hour previously, he had not had the faintest intention of fulfilling his engagement and going in search of Meryl. On the contrary, he had gone there to avoid her. All day long, as Stanley described, he had been grinding away at his native report in a gruff, determined silence: a silence even gruffer and more determined than usual. Because of his thoughts the previous evening and of his decision in the morning, he had finally made up his mind not to visit the temple with Meryl Pym, and not to run any further risk of slipping unconsciously into the friendly attitude he was so anxious to avoid. When Stanley set out towards the tents, he mentioned casually that he was going up the valley to the store, which is also a most attractive and comfortable hostel for Zimbabwe visitors, and should ask the two girls to go with him. A little later, glancing in the valley direction, Carew saw the khaki figure for a moment going up the pathway, and the flutter of a light dress, or possibly two, just ahead. He took it for granted that Meryl and Diana had both accompanied Stanley, and that his escort was no longer expected. He told himself he was glad, and decided to go into the Acropolis Hill, about that point of interest still unravelled between himself and Grenville, and so avoid any chance encounter. But when he found himself among the ruined fortifications, he became conscious of a flagging interest wholly unlooked for. Something seemed to have gone out of him, or out of the ancient stones, and he knew himself in some vague way not in tune. He gazed at the amazing walls, erected upon granite boulders two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet above the valley, and the marvel in him that never seemed to die was, at any rate, less arresting than it had ever been before. Here, on an isolated hill, rising to a height of three hundred and fifty feet, were fortifications which in their ingenuity, massive character, and persistent repetition at every point of vantage had astonished the highest experts of modern military engineering. Rampart walls, traverses, screen-walls, intricate entrances, narrow and labyrinthine passages, sunken thoroughfares, banquettes, parapets, and other devices of a people thoroughly conversant with military engineering and defence, and not one word, not one line, not one clue as to the identity of the builders nor the object of their colossal labours; labours which one felt could only have been achieved through the compulsory service of many slaves, for thousands of tons of granite blocks had been transported up the precipitous kopje to a height of no less than two hundred feet, which a careful examination of the rocks on the hill proves must mostly have been quarried from granite about twelve miles distant. And all this in spite of the fact that Nature alone had made the hill already impregnable, it being inaccessible on three sides and very difficult of ascent on the fourth. It is one of Rhodesia's mysteries, and one also of its fascinations; those mysteries and fascinations which so far have effectually baffled all efforts to find the clue and read the closed book. Who was it came for gold in those old, old days? Who was it built the line of forts to Solfala on the coast to guard the route along which the gold was undoubtedly carried, and of which remains may still be seen at regular intervals the whole distance? Where was the gold taken to from Solfala, and by whom? And no less strange perhaps is the absence of all clue to the burial-ground of this stalwart race; for only a stalwart people could have built those temple walls and those amazing fortifications. Where then are the bones of their dead? Strange and incomprehensible as it may seem, no excavations have yet unearthed human bones, or brought to light any spot that might be supposed to have been a burial-ground. To Peter Carew the mystery and the fascination had become such an ever-present companion in his thoughts, that it was not surprising a moment should come when he stood among the ramparts and found their interest for the time being crowded out. The surprising thing was the source of that crowding out. For it was not even the lengthy report for the Native Commission to which he was giving such infinite thought and pains that filled his mind; neither was it anything to do with the police force he had grown to care for as truly as his old regiment; nor any far-reaching, visionary dream for the welfare of the country. Chiefly it was a pair of grave blue-grey eyes, with a gleam in them as their owner said, "Will you take me if I promise not to ask any silly questions?" And he had said "Yes." Yet now he was here on the Acropolis Hill alone. He stared moodily at the broken walls and pondered within himself. Why had he not taken her? Or why, since he had chosen not to do so, could he not put the whole remembrance from his mind? Nay, why did he half begin to wish that he had not let himself be overruled by his own counsel of prudence? They would be going so soon now, and it might be long before he would again be given an opportunity to speak with any woman of Meryl's charm, or look into any face so full of attraction. And yet that was just what he wished; was actually the chief reason for his unsociable resolutions. His own inconsistency puzzled and worried him, and his eyes as he looked steadily to the horizon had a lurking cloud in them. Then quite suddenly and unexpectedly he had turned his gaze to the temple walls lying far below, and seen the figure seated idly on fallen masonry, lost in thought. Then she had not gone with Stanley and Diana? She had remained behind alone, nettled perhaps by his bearishness, and choosing to be independent, and still take her stroll to the temple without him. But it was not the thought of her possible censure that spurred him unexpectedly to a new decision. He had accustomed himself to be indifferent to that in most people. It was a perfectly simple and direct desire to join her. And because at heart he was a perfectly simple and direct man, he suddenly left off cogitating and started down the hill. Perhaps until that moment he had not truly known which way his desire lay. Perhaps in the first discovery he had purposely not chosen to give himself time to weigh and probe. Anyhow, he hesitated no more, until he stood at her side and looked into her eyes with that direct gaze that Meryl so unexpectedly found disconcerting. But the sensation passed rapidly, and in its place came a quiet content. Whether he had avoided her all day or not, at least he came now entirely of his own initiative, and for the time it was enough. She was too honest to pretend anything herself, and possessed too fine a nature to cover what might have held embarrassment by a coquettish taunt or feigned pique. "I had given you up," she said; "it seemed probable that you had spoken unthinkingly when you said you would come." "I have been working all day at my report," he replied simply. He seemed a little different somehow, and besides, he had come entirely of his own free will. She remembered it, and put away all sense of restraint, fought down and conquered the self-consciousness that sometimes seemed to grip her when he was taciturn and aloof. He had placed one foot on a low wall, and leaned back against a tree in a natural, unrestrained attitude, and quite naturally she seated herself on the wall before him. "You found it very engrossing?" "It is interesting work." "Has it any special object, or just a general one?" "A little of both. We want to benefit the natives as a whole and improve their conditions; and we want also to make some changes in the native administration of the country." "And you are fond of the natives? For you at least they are worth while?" "Emphatically so." "To any particular end?" His face grew grave and thoughtful, but the hardening stayed away still--the hardening that so often came when either she or Diana, sought to draw him. Only apparently to men would he speak of his work and his beliefs. "It is difficult to say. Probably nothing but time will show us the true solution of the problem of the black and the white race living together in one country. But meanwhile the black man is eminently worth while. With firm and just treatment he is capable of great development." He raised his eyes and looked out into the distance. "If only we could ensure it for him everywhere! Native commissioners and their clerks and the magistrates, all men of fine fibre, who honestly care about the natives under them and the welfare of the country. So much could be done if ... if ..." He smiled a little grimly. "We are so apt to expect the impossible," he finished. "How should numbers of men of fine fibre ever reach Rhodesia at all? In so many cases we must just take what we can get." "But the standard will improve as the country grows?" "O yes; it is improving steadily. All the signs are hopeful, if we can but light upon what is truly the best method of administering the native laws, and get good men to carry the work out." And still the heavenly sense of unrestrained mental kinship lingered. Happy, yet fearful, Meryl ventured a word of appreciation. "It must make you glad to feel you are doing such a useful work for a young country. It seems as if ... as if ... it is just what a man might ask to be doing." He drew himself up with a slightly taut movement, and she divined he did not wish for any personal praise; yet, because a tinge of red showed under the bronze, she was glad she had seized the opportunity to offer a tribute that might at some odd moment heal a passing sense of uselessness and appreciation. She stood up also, and they moved slowly round the ruins together, while he explained to her much that he had read and gathered and surmised in his leisure hours, not only about the temple itself, but about all the ancient remains and the mysterious people who had dwelt there long ago. Told as he told it, the listener could only find it enthralling, for the man's heart was in his subject; and where another might have rhapsodised or sentimentalised, he only stated certain remarkable facts, and gave her the simple reasons for and against certain deductions, that she might decide her own view for herself. "But you?..." she questioned at last. "In spite of the scientific men who have scoffed, and their followers who have thrown cold water upon all enthusiastic belief in the antiquity of the ruins, you are quite satisfied that they are really of a very great age, are you not?" "Absolutely." "Can you tell me why chiefly?" She smiled a little. "I believe it absolutely myself, but I am afraid it is partly a sentimental belief. Already I love them, and it makes me jealous for them. I feel I cannot bear anyone to throw doubt upon their antiquity." "It is not easy to explain in a few words, without a great many facts and a lot of detail, but I can tell you one or two salient points. For one thing, Zimbabwe was evidently connected with a gold industry on a very large scale. Mr. Telford Edwards, a well-known and able mining engineer in Rhodesia, measured up, about fourteen years ago, the length, breadth, and depth of most of the then known old workings in Rhodesia, and calculated the cubic contents of what had been taken out. And taking the assay value in each old working to be per ton the same as it is in the reef in each case now, he estimated that at the present value of gold more than one hundred million pounds' worth had been taken out. Even two hundred years ago gold was worth very much more than it is now; so that it is inconceivable that such an amount had been produced within the last two thousand years without any mention of it anywhere. Such a production of gold would have upset the markets of the world." "Yes," she said eagerly as he paused; "please go on." He did so, but without withdrawing his gaze from the distance. "Another point is that the workings are so widely dispersed and so numerous, requiring such an enormous amount of time and labour, that it seems only reasonable to believe that the gold-mining went on for many hundreds of years, probably before the age of writing at all. I am not prepared to agree offhand that Zimbabwe is probably the ancient Havilah of the Scriptures, but I see no very good reason why it should not be. On the other hand, the ancient workings and fortifications and temples may have been the work of Phoenicians or Mongols several thousand years ago. Certainly against Mr. McIver's theory, that the Temple was the work of Bantus a few hundred years ago, I think we may put the fact that an admirable drainage system has been unearthed;--drainage systems of any kind being more or less unknown to black races of a low order. In the meantime, we can but await fresh clues, which may put us upon the track of proofs, and hope that the day is not very far distant when much of the mystery will be cleared." "O, I hope so," she said; "and thank you so much for telling me all that you have. I shall think of it often when I am back in 'the cities of the plain,'" and she smiled a little wistfully. He did not answer, and she wondered what deep thoughts at the back of his brain made him always so grave. She felt instinctively he had not always worn this serious, preoccupied air, and her heart grew tender anew at the thought of that "something" which had hurt him long ago. Had he ever told anyone? she wondered. Would he ever tell anyone?... or would he go quietly on through his life, self-contained, self-dependent, aloof? Well, it was good to have met him and known him; a simple, strong soul going quietly about its appointed service is always good to have known. Perhaps the recollection of the meeting later would help her to do likewise, and in the maze of her life learn at least to do the simple, strong thing at the moment. They were moving towards the western entrance now, and she wondered if he would accompany her back to the tents, and perhaps stay a little, as Stanley did evening after evening. But just as they approached the opening voices were heard, and a moment later Diana and Stanley stood in the wide aperture. Diana's winsome face was lit with whimsical mischievousness, but it fell somewhat when she beheld Carew. "O goodness!" she remarked comically. "Who would have thought of finding you here?" Stanley and Meryl laughed at her apparent discomfiture, and even Carew relaxed as he replied, "You don't seem entirely pleased." "Well, no, I'm not; but if you are just leaving it doesn't matter." "I think I shall stay; I scent some vandalism." "O well," airily, "if you will have it, we were just coming to dig for corpses;" and she tossed her head with an independent air. "It is strictly forbidden to dig for anything on pain of various dire penalties," Carew told her. "I know it is, and that is just exactly why it interferes with my plans to find _you_ here." "I see. And what about Mr. Stanley, who is also a representative of the Government that made the laws?" "Mr. Stanley is only a trooper, and I am Diana Pym. It is not his place to interfere with my actions. It would only be mine to shield him if he was persuaded to help me and got into trouble." "And what in the world do you want with a corpse, Di?" asked Meryl. "Why gold, of course! Mr. Stanley has been telling me a perfectly thrilling theory about corpses with a lot of antique gold ornaments on them being buried in the ruins; and he knows where one or two are, because a gold-diviner showed him with his divining-rod, and he marked the places in case he wanted to remember later; and to-day is when he did want to remember later, and he's just strolled round with me to point out the spots; and if that isn't a long enough sentence for you, you must add some more yourself," drawing a long breath. The Kid, enjoying himself hugely, hastened to add for Carew's benefit, "It's only just a joke. Miss Pym wanted me to show her where our visitor of the other day said he had divined gold." "It's not a joke at all," declared Diana defiantly. "It's the key to the whole mystery. While all you scientific folks are arguing this, that, and the other, I want to look and see. Besides, if there are antique gold ornaments, perhaps a few thousand years old, I want some. I'm not specially in love with your old broken walls, but I'm ready to be in love with your jewellery, worn a few thousand years ago." "You Philistine!" exclaimed Meryl. "If you can't appreciate the ruins, you certainly ought not to be allowed to possess a single treasure taken from them." "O rot!... What's the use of decayed old walls anyway? You and Major Carew can have the heaps of stones. We don't want to rob you of so much as a pebble. But we do badly want to dig down and look for a corpse." "And when did you propose to begin?" asked Carew. "Well, I suppose a moonlight night would be best, when you're rolled up in your den or else when you've gone off to a distant kraal." "You would see a ghost in about half an hour," from Meryl, "and fly for your life." "O, are there ghosts?" looking suddenly dubious. "Did your diviner divine any ghosts while he was about it?..." turning to Stanley. "You never told me that. Of course, I shouldn't much like to be handling a corpse, and feel its ghost put a cold, clammy hand on my shoulder. What a horrible idea! Do you think there are any?" "There might be;" and The Kid's eyes twinkled. "Of course, I supposed you would imagine we ran risks of that sort." "Ugh!..." with a cold shudder. "I believe I can see one now. It must have overheard me saying I coveted those gold ornaments. Come away quickly. I want ... I want ... now don't look shocked, Meryl; I want a whisky and soda!..." They followed her out from the gathering gloom of the walls into the quick-coming darkness, and as she and Stanley pressed on ahead, Carew and Meryl could only follow. As they did so they spoke little. It was as though some bond of sympathy between them had slipped into being of itself outside their consciousness altogether, and with a blessed sense of quiet understanding neither attempted to make conversation; and neither questioned as yet whence came this unsought bond, this link forged as by a power outside themselves. The time for probing was near, but it lingered yet a little. As they approached the tents and joined the other two waiting to make their adieux, Diana's voice again broke in upon their quiet, dispelling its curious sense of unreality. "It wasn't you I was afraid of, Major Carew," she called lightly. "Baboons and owls and bears I dare tackle any day; but a ghost three thousand years old!... ugh!... I give it up!... You will not need to add to that precious native report another one, concerning the daring theft of a corpse from the ancient ruins of Zimbabwe by a well-known young lady from Johannesburg." He smiled into her laughing eyes in a manner that surprised her, and made his face extraordinarily attractive in a way she had not yet seen it. "And what would have happened to Stanley, do you suppose?... I'm afraid the police force might have considered it necessary to dispense with his services." "O, that wouldn't have mattered in Rhodesia in the least! He'd have opened a butcher's shop, or come on with us as our butler, or gone and dug a hole in a kopje and called it gold-mining. No one would have thought any the worse of him, and I'd have felt indebted to him for life. We'd both have had a run for our money, anyhow!..." and she laughed gaily as she turned away. But in their tent, alone together, she suddenly made the epigrammatic remark, "Dangerous, very dangerous indeed; like most bears. Mind you don't get badly clawed, Meryl!..." and then with her usual lightness ran off into another subject. XV CAREW RIDES AWAY With the coming of the dark, velvety southern night, resplendent with brilliant southern stars, it would seem the time for probing was at hand. By the tents on the hill-side Mr. Pym, the engineer, Meryl, and Diana sat outside in the starlight, rather a silent party, listening to the intermittent sound of tom-toms coming from some kraal near by. Then Mr. Pym alluded somewhat suddenly to their departure, and Meryl made the discovery that it was a topic she had been dreading all the evening. Diana, on the other hand, seemed relieved. "I have one more journey to make," he told them, "and then I propose to start at once for Enkeldorn and Salisbury. Unfortunately, I am afraid this journey will take two and possibly three days." "Then take us with you," said Diana at once. "It is an unhealthy district or I would. I do not think it would harm you, but I am afraid for Meryl." There was a slight pause, then he added, "As we returned to-day we stayed for a cup of tea at the mission station with Mr. and Mrs. Grenville. I happened to mention my journey, and Mrs. Grenville said she would be delighted if you would both go and spend the two or three days with her." "But I want to come with you," Diana cried; and leaning towards him added confidently, "Uncle, you will have to take me; don't make a fuss." "Why shall I have to take you?" with amusement in his small, keen eyes. "Because I have made up my mind to go," was the prompt rejoinder; and he gave an amused chuckle. "And what do you say, Meryl? Will you spend two or three days with Mrs. Grenville?" "I should like to, if Di really wants to go; otherwise we could quite well have remained on here, couldn't we?" There was a note of anxiety in her voice that she was unable to entirely hide. Only three more days, and they to be spent several miles away! "I do not particularly want to leave you here as long as that. I would rather you visited Mrs. Grenville, and I think it would be an interesting change. She invited you both." "It was very kind of her," said Diana, "but I am quite decided about wanting to go with you. I suppose we could both come?" "I think I would as soon go to Mrs. Grenville"; and Meryl sat very still, gazing at a distant star. "What do you think?" said Mr. Pym to his engineer. "Will it be all right for my niece to accompany us?" "Why, yes, certainly, if she takes quinine regularly. It is a beautiful neighbourhood. She can either ride her mule or be carried in a machila." Diana clapped her hands, feeling her point was won easily, and then added, "Couldn't we take Mr. Stanley with us? He would so love the shooting, and he is such good company." "As I came past to-night I called in and asked both him and Major Carew. Stanley accepted at once." There was a slight movement where Meryl sat, but she did not speak; and her father, almost as if with intent, kept his eyes turned away. "What did Major Carew say?" asked Diana. "He was uncertain. He thought he might be obliged to go to Edwardstown on business, and he left the question open." Diana laughed. "He wanted to make quite certain sure that there were to be no ladies in the party." "I don't know why he should suppose there were likely to be." "Possibly not, but he is a cautious man. Anyhow, when you tell him I am going he will make ready to start to Edwardstown on business." So they sat on under the stars, each busy with thoughts. Henry Pym's were a trifle anxious. So little ever escaped his clear eyes that it was not in the least surprising he had seen whither Meryl's mind was trending, almost before she knew of it herself. And much as he admired Major Carew, he feared, with the clear sight of a great love, that indefinable something that stood as a barrier between the man and his outlook upon certain phases of life. Whatever it was, his studied avoidance of social intercourse, and his turning his back so resolutely upon England and all his people there, suggested to the astute man of the world that he had taken out of his life's plan all thought of marriage, and was not very likely to turn from his purpose. Hence the shadow of anxiety in the father's eyes, for his deep knowledge of Meryl told him further that she would neither love lightly nor forget easily. And still the girl herself sat on and made no sign. The joy of the evening hour was still too new. Under the stars at present she asked nothing better than to live through it again and again in her memory. For whereas a woman is often fearful to anticipate a joy for dread of a disappointment, afterwards, when the realisation is sure and sweet and all her own, she will draw delight from it for many a silent hour in quiet contentment. And down at the police camp the two troopers and the officer sat likewise under the stars. Stanley was very full of his trip, for Carew had readily given him the two or three days' leave; and in the direction whither they journeyed were roan and sable and water-buck and probably lions to rejoice the heart of a game young British South African policeman with a bloodthirsty desire to kill. Moore, in his quaint, Irish way, chaffed him a good deal, as was his wont; for though one had received his education at the Bedford Grammar School and was a clergyman's son, and the other at a board-school and was the son of a small innkeeper, in the Rhodesia police force all troopers are equals, and there is a frank camaraderie which is very creditable to its members. Carew himself showed very little difference, and in the same spirit the homely Moore had received a cup of tea from Diana's dainty hands, poured out for him by Meryl. Only, as they twitted each other in slow, easy tones, neither of them attempted to include Carew, who sat a little apart in the darkness smoking his beloved pipe; and when they rose to turn in, he merely acknowledged their pleasant "Good night, sir," with a short "Good night" in reply, and made no movement himself. Even when the lights at the hill-side tents went out he still sat on, alone with the night and the stars. Later, because he knew he should not sleep, he started off up the valley towards the store, feeling a need for action. And all the time, under the covering darkness, his face seemed to grow graver and graver. He was too wise not to know when danger threatened, and too direct not to face it squarely at once. And the danger that seemed to threaten him now was the likelihood that if he saw much of Meryl Pym he would grow to love her, and perhaps she would reciprocate his love, and for them both there would be only a great pain. That it could by any possibility be anything else did not enter his cogitations. According to his own ideas he could not marry, and least of all could he marry the only child of a millionaire. And it seemed to him further that if he cut off all intercourse at once the danger would be averted. He was quite satisfied in his own mind that the evident attraction had not had time to sink very far down. In two or three days she would go away again and he would go on with his work, and it would all be the same as if they had never met. Manifestly the chief consideration now was to avoid any further friendliness whatever, except the merest courtesy which had obtained at the beginning. If possible, he decided it would be better not to meet any more at all. When a man is strong in one thing, he is usually strong in others; and the quiet strength that had enabled him to break away from an old life of leisure and ease and excitement, and build up another life for himself on entirely different lines in a new country, helped him now quietly to make his decision and try to take the simple, direct course, out of a threatening danger. And yet it was not entirely easy; the simple, direct way very seldom is. Byways are apt to have softer grass for the feet, deeper shade from the sun, smoother banks to rest upon. The direct, straightforward way often goes on mercilessly up the steep hill, having sharp flints in its pathway, cold winds, dry dust, untempered glare. But the man who dares it with steady eyes usually arrives first at the goal, tempered metal ringing true, while he who dallies in the pleasant byways may find his armour has grown rusty and his powers lax. As he walked quietly back to the police camp Peter Carew looked straight before him to the dim horizon, and in his eyes there was an expression that few, if any, had ever been permitted to behold. For the hidden sorrow that was his was his alone, and he had never sought nor asked the sympathy of a fellow-creature. In the starlight he looked back into the eyes of his dead love, and it was between him and her only the sorrow might be shared. As he had loved her memory all these years, he would love her still, though in the great loneliness of his heart he might be drawn to that one other woman who so strangely resembled her and so deeply attracted him. But Meryl was not for him, the penniless policeman, and he knew it. The hour spent together in the temple ruins had been too sweet, too dangerously sweet, and therefore he would run no further risk. He would not go with Mr. Pym, because that might forge a link of friendship it would be difficult to break; and he would not remain at the camp, because that might involve considerable intercourse if Meryl and Diana stayed behind at the hill-side home alone. He would instead retire to Segundi on the pretext of meeting the Resident Commissioner expected there, and stay until the millionaire's party had departed from Zimbabwe for good. It would be as well to start early, he could easily manage it; and if he saw no prospect of saying good-bye to Mr. Pym in person, he would write him a short note giving some sort of explanation. So it happened the next morning, before anyone at the hill-side camp was dressed, a Black Watch boy presented a note to Mr. Pym's boy, and a little distance off on the road Major Carew waited on his horse for a message. And in his tent, still in a sleeping-suit, Mr. Pym read the note, and looked hard for a moment at the sunshine beyond the open flap, as if seeking out there to read, not what was said in the little letter, but what was _not_ said. Then he stood up, slipped on some shoes, and went outside into the fragrant morning air. Directly he saw Carew on his horse, he took the little path through the scrub and rocks and went towards him. Carew alighted, and came a short distance along the path. Mr. Pym spoke first. The other had already done his speaking in the note. "This is very sudden. I hoped you would have accompanied us to Susi." He looked up hard into the soldier's bronzed face, though without seeming to do so. To any other man the steadiness of Carew's eyes might have been disconcerting. "I hardly expected to be able to. Mr. Jardine was almost certain to be at Segundi one day this week, and I knew I should have to meet him." "How long will you be away?" "Possibly a week." Henry Pym was a little taken aback, but he did not show it. The cool brain that had manufactured the income of a millionaire was fully alert now, not so much because he did not wish to be taken unawares, but because Carew interested him beyond most men, and he wanted to try and grasp the working of his mind. "Then we may not see you again before we start for Salisbury?" "Possibly not. Will you kindly say good-bye to the ladies for me, should I be prevented doing so in person?" "They will be disappointed not to see you." "I am sorry also." A little smile of grim humour played suddenly about his lips. "You must tell your niece The Bear sent her a farewell growl, and he hopes she will find more amiable Rhodesians at her future camping-places." "I think she is not one to care much about the average type of amiable cavalier. She will miss The Bear's growl a good deal. But we shall see you again shortly, I hope," he hastened to add. "Any time if you care to come to Johannesburg we shall be delighted if you will visit us at Hill Court." "Thank you. If I come that way, I shall remember." Then he held out his hand. Mr. Pym grasped it with unwonted warmth. "Good-bye, sir," said the soldier simply. "Good-bye, Carew; I have been glad to meet you," answered the millionaire. And then as the horseman rode away without one backward look, he walked slowly along the little path to the tents. At breakfast he broke the news quite simply, but once more he did not look at Meryl. He told them Major Carew had been called away to Segundi, and would not return before they had departed north. "Gone?..." echoed Diana blankly. "Do you mean he has gone already and without saying good-bye?" He felt Meryl's eyes upon him with a strained expression, and he turned lightly to Diana to give her time to grasp the news. "Yes; but he left you a message. He passed before you were up, and I went out to speak to him. He asked me to make his farewells to both of you, and particularly to tell you that The Bear sent you a growl, and he hopes you will find more amiable Rhodesians at your other camping-places." But Diana was in no mood for light messages; rather unaccountably, she received it with impatience. "O, he is simply odious!" she exclaimed. "I have no patience with him. Why can't he behave like an ordinary man just once in a way? Going off at sunrise, and never stopping to say good-bye! It is downright rudeness, and there is no reason why he should conclude he can be as rude as he likes with impunity. You don't seem to mind his bearishness, Meryl? but I hope you have spirit enough to resent his casual departure." Meryl was rather pale, but she managed to reply lightly, "I can't see why you seem so surprised. He is only acting as he has done all along. It is his affair, whether he keeps it up to the last, or suddenly changes altogether and becomes the polite, conventional society man. Personally, it would have surprised me far more to see the change." "O, you're just shielding him," with impatient disdain; "I suppose because he happens to be rather good to look at. But I call it rude; just plain, unvarnished rudeness to go off like that for some trumped-up reason and never say good-bye to you and me. I hope I _shall_ meet more amiable Rhodesians elsewhere, and I should like to have a chance to tell him so." Then she rattled off into another subject, leaving neither Meryl nor her uncle any necessity to help the conversation, for which, in their secret hearts, they were deeply grateful. And perhaps Diana's clever little head made an effort which had no appearance of an effort; for like the two brothers who had been respectively her father and her uncle, very little transpiring in her immediate circle ever escaped her notice. XVI "THE SHIP OF FOOLS" Meryl had not been long with the Grenvilles before Ailsa's sympathetic nature divined that some shadow seemed to be brooding upon the girl's spirit. She was so pensive and silent, with sad eyes turned often to some far horizon full of wistful thought. And then perhaps suddenly she would make an effort and be unusually gay, but the gaiety was not spontaneous nor the laughter frank. In truth, it had been a weary two days and nights for Meryl, since the early morning when her father and Diana, with the engineer and Stanley, rode away, after escorting her to the Mission Station and leaving her there to await their return. It was as though the very abruptness of Carew's departure had crystallised all her wavering, uncertain thoughts, and told her bluntly what he was to her. Before she had been half dreaming; now she knew. And it seemed to her that she knew also, beyond any questioning, that he had no feeling whatever for her beyond the merest friendliness; and since they would probably never meet again, she must, if possible, conquer her own foolish heart, and resolutely withdraw the love she had given unasked. It seemed to her, at any rate, the strongest thing to do, and while she made the effort she would turn a smiling face to the world and let no one suspect. If she failed--well, that would still be her own affair and no one need know. So she rallied herself often and talked gaily, encouraging an interest in all Mr. Grenville's plans and hopes that she did not always feel. What she liked best was to sit silently before the large sitting-room hut, with her hands on her knees, gazing at the wonderful prospect, while Ailsa sewed beside her and talked quietly. Ailsa who knew him so well, and loved him so well, and appeared to be the only woman friend he possessed. Ailsa also who loved this far country so well, the country he had adopted for his own land, and seemed quite content, as he, to give the best years of her life, in her small measure, to its welfare. Meryl thought much of the lives of these three quiet workers in the wilderness, and mused a little sadly upon what seemed but gilded pleasure-seeking emptiness to which she would presently go back. It was in one of these thoughtful moods she asked Ailsa with plain directness how she thought a millionaire might best benefit Rhodesia, supposing he were willing to make an effort in that direction. Having asked, she added with a light touch, "I imagine you are hardly ready yet for libraries and public parks and orphanages?" "No," Ailsa answered; "but we want settlers badly. Think what it would mean to the country if just one rich man or company, instead of acquiring large tracts of land and holding it until the price mounts to a high figure, were to make a genuine effort to get a white population upon it as quickly as possible, even though it meant small or no profits. It is too much to expect from any company naturally, but there are individuals holding up their land, and therefore holding back the country, who might show a more generous spirit. I could name a well-known man who owns immense tracts, one of them two hundred thousand acres not far from a town, and there it lies in idleness, awaiting a land boom. Not long ago it was given out through the newspapers that he had a great scheme in hand for getting settlers, but nothing has come of it yet, and no one has much hope that it ever will." "I wonder if my father owns land here? Do you happen to know?" "I think he does." "And it is lying idle?" divining that her companion knew more than she implied. "As far as any outsider knows, it is." "I see." Meryl got up and moved down the rustic verandah, standing a moment at the far end and looking across the country with grave eyes. Then she came back. "Has anyone ever thought of a Rhodes Scholarship, that might take the form of grants of land and be won by competition, I wonder? Would a scheme like that work, do you think?" "I have often thought that it would. Besides bringing the settler, it would more or less ensure a desirable one, if he had to prove himself a useful, hard-working youth of good sound education. But, of course, it would mean a big outlay. A man might inaugurate such a scheme to be carried out by his will, but he would hardly be likely to do it in his lifetime." "Still, I suppose something of the kind might prove workable if the owner of the land were content to forego a large profit, and let settlers have farms or plots on exceptional terms, if they could prove themselves capable, useful men?" "Yes, that is very much what we want. The owner of the land a patriot, keeping an eye on the scheme himself, and helping it forward for love of the country, not holding it back and keeping it idle for the sake of his own already well-filled pocket." "I will sound my father about his possessions," the girl said simply, looking to the far blue hills. Ailsa watched her a moment covertly, and then asked with a little wonder in her voice, "The country seems to have taken hold of you very quickly. You speak as one who already loves it." "I love all South Africa. I have always been happier out here than in England. In some way it seems more thoroughly my own land." "Why is that, do you think?" "I hardly know, unless it is the remembrance that all we have we owe to Africa. I believe my father was penniless when he came out here." "It has been the same with many, but they do not remember. It is more usual to come here for gain, and go away to spend it in more luxurious countries." "Perhaps, but it has never seemed to me to be fair. My father is not like that. He loves Africa as I do, but he is a very hard-working man, and perhaps some things do not occur to him. I think he is up here now to see the country, as well as acquire fresh mining properties, and all the time he seems so busy and preoccupied, he is probably thinking out development schemes of general benefit." "I hope so," and Ailsa spoke very earnestly. "Your father is a fine man; one has only to talk to him to perceive that quickly, and it would be a good day for Rhodesia if he began to take a genuinely practical interest in her welfare. I know he has talked much of it to Major Carew, and no one could tell him more of our hopes and needs." They were silent a few moments, and then Ailsa added with a touch of emotion, "You know, when one thinks of the service some men give so quietly and unquestioningly to the far-off lands, it seems, after all, but a small thing for rich men who have benefited by them to give of their riches. Yet how few ever do! There are more men ready to risk their lives than to put their hands in their pockets. But then that is just perhaps because they are fools, and fools never make any money to give; have nothing, in fact, except their lives to offer." She smiled with a little twist to her lips, playing fitfully with a thread in her fingers. Evidently it was a subject that moved her deeply. "Of course, you know the verse from 'The Ship of Fools': 'We are those fools who could not rest In the dull earth we left behind, And burned with passion for the West, And drank strange frenzy from its wind. The world where wise men live at ease Fades from our unregretful eyes, And blind, across uncharted seas, We stagger on our enterprise.' "Those are the men who appeal to me; the men to whom gain is the secondary consideration; who come blindly out just as much to give as to take. My husband is one, Major Carew is another, Stanley under Carew's influence will become a third. Think of them all, all over the world; guarding the frontiers, making the paths, exploring the danger-zones! "Think of the little band now gone into the sleeping-sickness belt to investigate the disease, and try to learn how best to cope with it! How little reward will they get! how little acclaim! But that is just a side issue. They did not go for reward. Disaster shook a threatening hand at a splendid young country, and instantly some from The Ship of Fools were ready to risk their lives in going to the rescue. God bless them for it, and bring them safely back! But in any case one knows they will be content, if but the work is carried forward and the new pathways rendered safe. "Those types of men are the heroes of to-day, because the spread of the Empire, and the welfare and progress of the colonies, grows every year a more important factor to England; yet many a good football player, and many a popular actor, will win an honoured name, while the man who died at the outposts in some dangerous investigation work will pass away unknown and unheard of. But they do not mind, that is the splendid thing. They are just fools, fools, fools 'Who burned with passion for the West, And drank strange frenzy from its wind. * * * * * And blind, across uncharted seas, They stagger to their enterprise.' "How many threw up everything at home and came out in the time of the Boer War! Think of the men who carried the railways across Canada and America, fighting for the pathway, step by step! Think of them in the awful climate of West Africa, laughing and playing and singing one evening and dead the next! Think of them struggling up here in the early days, and undaunted by the horrors of the Matabele rebellions, going steadily on with their railways, making their homes! Think of them in India! Ah! what The Ship of Fools has achieved in India is beyond telling. Only one doesn't feel it in the same way at home. One has to come out oneself, and see the path-finders at their work, to realise all it means. It does one good just to hear them grumble. How shall I explain? It makes you understand that they are the sort of heroes who hate to be thought heroic; so they grouse and swear and grumble; and talk about a God-forsaken country and a God-forsaken existence, and wonder what in the name of all that is wonderful they are here for. And perhaps they go off home vowing never to return; until the 'strange frenzy' catches them again, and back comes the dear Ship of Fools, with every berth taken and the stoutest grumblers hurrying to be the first ashore. Fools or heroes, it is much the same. I think I have read somewhere that a man couldn't be a hero unless he were also a fool." Meryl got up, and moved behind her companion's chair that she might not see the glisten in her eyes, for the longing for that one Fool-Hero who had brought such sudden desolation in her heart. Placing her hands on the back of it, she leaned over her affectionately and said, "It doesn't carry men only, that ship of yours: some of the fools are women. O, I know, I know; you are one of the chief among them and I envy you." In a whisper, "God knows, I envy you." Ailsa reached a hand back and laid it over the girl's. "It is very sweet of you to say so, but I mayn't accept it. Seeing I have a husband like Billy, I should be a very real fool in the most literal sense if I stayed away. No, the women-heroes in this land are those who face it with a careless, selfish husband, or perhaps in a home having no love, and who win through their little day and make no plaint. God help them!" "And you mustn't envy me," she added after a moment, "for presently, you will be doing far more than I can ever hope to do. Because it is in your heart it will find a way, and then your money will give you a great power and influence. Be hopeful, you sweet child," with a little playful pat. "Your eyes are over-sad for twenty-four, and sometimes when you smile it goes no further than your lips." Meryl brushed her hand quickly across her eyes, and tried to laugh with an attempt at lightness. "O yes, I will. When I get back home I'll sign cheques, and more cheques, it is so easy for me. And I'll persuade father to plan out a scheme to bring settlers on the land; land scholarships for public-school boys, or something of that sort; and I'll try and comfort myself with the thought that in this way he is giving back for what he has received. I think I'll take a stroll now it is cooler. The others will no doubt come back to-morrow, and this may be my last evening in this part of the world. I know you want to worry your cook-boy and your head about the dinner, so I'll just go a little way alone." "Very well," Ailsa answered cheerily, guessing that she wished to take the stroll in solitude; but as she moved away towards her kitchen she said to herself, "Poor little girl! you will comfort yourself you are helping your father to fulfil his trusts, and at the back of it all quietly, silently, you will be breaking your heart for a man of iron who unbends to none." And along the rocky pathway, that was a short cut to Edwardstown and led along a low ledge of kopjes commanding a lovely view of the valley which lay between the Mission Station and Zimbabwe's lofty northern mountain, Meryl walked slowly, with a sense of desolation she could neither gauge nor dispel; and over and over through her mind as she looked to the far kopjes passed the lines of England's strong woman-poet, Emily Brontë: "What have those lonely mountains worth revealing? More glory and more grief than I can tell: The earth that wakes _one_ human heart to feeling Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell." What have those lonely mountains worth revealing? was the dumb, inarticulate cry in her heart. Ah! what?... what?... And it seemed as if all the loneliness in the world were brooding over the blue kopje and over the spot where the ancient ruins lay, and creeping into her heart and her life for ever. Would he ever come again, that grim soldier-policeman, who just once or twice had shown her a glimpse of the strong man's heart behind the barrier, and the strong man's everlasting charm?... Or was it indeed all finished for ever? Just an episode that came and went and had no sequel, except in that brooding sense of a great loneliness upon the distant hills and upon the path of her life. She told herself again that it must be so; that evidently the momentary softness had been only passing moods; that she counted for nothing at all to him, not even a friend it was worth while saying "good-bye" to. With the deep sadness still in her face she turned, because a step was approaching round a tall boulder beside her. And a moment later she was looking full and deep into Peter Carew's eyes. "You?..." she said. "_You?_ ..." as if she could not believe her own eyes. He said nothing. Suddenly speech seemed to have gone from him, but an expression in his face that was new to her quickened her pulses with a strange glad quickening. After a moment he spoke, and it was as though his whole expression and figure stiffened. "I did not expect to find you here," he said. "I was told you had gone with your father." "Not I; Diana only." And her eyes fell, and a faint colour dyed her cheeks. There was a moment's awkward pause: she remembering his unceremonious departure, wondering at his unceremonious return; he nonplussed at the trick Fate had played him, bringing him again, in spite of his decision, into the sphere of her beauty and her quiet charm. "I was going to the Grenvilles'," he told her at last. And suddenly a tiny smile played about the corners of Meryl's mouth. "I thought you could not possibly return from Segundi for a week?" She looked away as she said it, so she could not see the swift contraction of his face and the swift gleam in his eyes. For one moment, of all things in heaven and earth, he felt suddenly that he wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her--roughly perhaps; yes, roughly and masterfully, for daring to aim her little shaft at him. Instead he replied gravely, "I had to come, because Mr. Jardine wanted Grenville's opinion on a particular native question, and it was a difficult matter to explain in a letter." "Then I mustn't hinder you." And she stood aside. "Of course you are thinking of starting back to-night and are in a great hurry?" And then for once the man's armour failed him. "No, I am not going back to-night, and I am not in any special hurry. If you were going on to the top of the kopje, may I come with you?" XVII AN EVENING CONVERSATION As they climbed slowly up the zigzag path, neither of them troubled to make conversation. All in a moment it had come back--mysteriously, unaccountably--the sense of understanding, the quiet kinship of minds--for her, the sudden utter content at his nearness. While he was there beside her, by his own seeking, what did the future matter?--the future might wait. It is generally so with women. In the "afterwards," the deepest pain is usually theirs, because it is not given them to break away and drown the ache and the longing in action and change; but in the present, if he, the loved, is with her, she can forget so much in that blessed sense of nearness. The man's ache, perhaps, spreads more uniformly over both presence and absence, for in each, for him, there is the very human craving to possess. So they reached the summit, and stood a moment gazing at the prospect outspread. A sunset in a novel has become too banal for repetition; it seems, indeed, almost the last word in literary mediocrity; and yet at the evening hour in Rhodesia, in September, when the rains are nearly due, and great masses of cloud begin to gather on the horizon, there is again and again a pageant of wonder and colouring to steep man's senses afresh at every renewal, as if it was the first time of beholding. Nothing banal, nothing mediocre in the actual phenomenon--just a riot of colouring, a riot of splendour, a riot of revelation. It is not a glory in the west spreading a little way overhead. It is an all around, north, south, east, and west, colouring beyond all telling--something aloof, overpowering, incomprehensible, with the remote majestic splendour of the Rockies, or the Sahara, or the Victoria Falls. Neither Carew nor Meryl spoke. They were of those who know that the highest appreciation of all is in silence. But to herself Meryl whispered: "Lord, Thy glory fills the heavens." At last he turned and glanced at the little book in her hand. "You read Omar?" "Yes. And you?" "I like Adam Lindsay Gordon better. Omar is apt to undermine a strong purpose. Gordon inspires one." "Doesn't Omar help one to see things as they _are_, and dare to be strong in spite of it, while Gordon avoids many essentials, and writes chiefly of how we would have things be?" "But surely the inspiration is the chief thing. The man who inspires is better than the man who reveals, and in revealing unnerves." She was silent, and he added, "I suppose it is the difference between the æsthetic and the practical, and so they appeal to the æsthetic or the practical side of man." She wondered if it were possible such as he should have an æsthetic side, and presently said: "You are all practical, I should imagine." He glanced at her half humorously. "I wonder why you say that?" "I don't know, except that one does not usually associate æstheticism and strength." Another man might have asked her if she was satisfied he _was_ strong, but Carew only looked to the horizon. He was asking it of himself instead. And he asked it, because he was leaning there beside her, alone on the kopje top. Suddenly yielding to an impulse he did not seek to analyse, he said quietly, "I have never been a great reader of poetry, but long ago I was engaged to be married, to some one who cared very much for it. Omar was one of her favourites, and sixteen years ago he was very little known compared with to-day." Meryl felt the colour ebbing from her face, and averted her eyes. Without any telling, she knew that this woman he had loved sixteen years ago was the cause of that mysterious shadow on his life to-day. When she felt she had complete control of her voice, she asked, "And you were never able to be married?" "She died." There was a pause, before he added, "You remind me of her more than anyone I have ever known." And for both their sakes he finished, "That is one reason why I have been glad to talk to you one day, and found it perhaps too painful the next." Meryl felt suddenly as if an icy hand had closed on her heart. His meaning to her was so obvious. But she managed to say naturally, "I am afraid it has been a great sorrow to you. Was she ill for long?" "She died suddenly. There was a tragedy. Afterwards I came out here." "And you have never been back?" "No, I have never been back." "But you will go?" "I think not. When I came away it was like closing a book and writing 'Finis.' I do not want to reopen the book for many reasons." "But your people?" she ventured, longing to hear more, yet fearful of staying his unexpected confidence. "I have no people," and his voice was suddenly stern. "But your home?..." bravely; "your country?..." "My home is here. My country is here. I am a Rhodesian." Still with her face averted, she looked to the far kopjes lost in thought. She seemed to be realising slowly all that his words meant; feeling throughout her consciousness the utter exclusion of herself from any plan of life he might formulate. It was as she had seen before. His work, the country were everything to him--would continue to be everything. Any unusual softness he had shown to her, any unexpected pleasure in her company, was just for the sake of a certain memory he held very precious, for the sake of what the book contained, upon which he had written "Finis." Of course, she might have known. What should such a man as he be drawn to except in friendly intercourse in a girl as young and simple and undeveloped as herself? What a madness it had been, what a foolishness! and yet how it hurt, how it hurt! With a sudden blind sense of ineradicable pain, she breathed over to herself one verse of the "Immortal Persian" that is not contained in many editions: "Better, oh better, cancel from the scroll Of universe one luckless human soul, Than drop by drop enlarge the flood that rolls Hoarser with anguish as the ages roll." What pain there had evidently been for him! What pain for her now--and to what end.... "Tis all a chequer-board of nights and days Where Destiny with men for pieces plays; Hither and thither moves, and mates and slays, And one by one back and closet lays." She stood up suddenly and brushed her hands across her eyes. This was a weakness, and she knew it. He must not know, he must not guess. But he saw enough to cause him to say suddenly, with quick concern, "You are not well. Something is troubling you." "O no," and she gave a little laugh that he could not but know was forced. "I've been rather bothered with a headache to-day. Shall we go back?" She had been carrying the large grey hat slung over her arm, but now she tied it on, pulling it down over her face, so that he could see nothing but the small, firm chin and sensitive mobile mouth. And neither could she see that, under or through the rigidity, his face wore now a troubled aspect, and his eyes looked to the horizon seeing nothing. Why had he come back? he was asking. Why was he hovering in the grip of it again, that strong need of the human, however resolute, for sympathy, for companionship, for understanding? For now, as they stood together alone on the kopje, all the ache of the last sixteen years seemed to be merged into one great longing for her. And then in his heart he laughed harshly. He, the British South African policeman, not even a regular soldier; and she, the only child, and sole heiress, of a millionaire father who adored her. He, with his tragedy in the background, that he could not speak of, in his forty-third year. She young, beautiful, fresh, with all the world at her feet. Ah, of course, he had been a fool to run any risk of another encounter; and he was sore with the fate that had led him thither in ignorance. And Meryl, walking a little stumblingly over the rough pathway, was glad of the big shady hat that hid her eyes and gave her time to pull herself together. Of course, that other woman he had loved sixteen years ago had been one of his own people--one of those whom the great Fourtenay family of Devon regarded as an equal. Whereas she was just Meryl Pym, and though many needy peers chose rich wives from across the sea, anyone might know Peter Carew was not of these, and would sooner shun such riches than seek them. So they walked back, mostly in silence, only no longer the silence of quiet, contented understanding, but rather a silence which she showed no inclination to break, and he felt baffled, and worried, and anxious. And at dinner, though Meryl made one of her spasmodic efforts and contrived to be gay, he remained somewhat preoccupied and taciturn. And Ailsa looked from one to the other secretly, and wondered what had been said before they reached the Mission Station; and felt again that womanlike desire to shake the man for the very resoluteness she most admired in him. When she said good night to Meryl she could not refrain, from just one little delve into the perplexing situation. "If you and Major Carew met at six o'clock and did not get back until seven, you must have had quite a long chat together. Such a new thing for him! I don't think even I, his trusted friend, can boast of such an incident." "We just stayed to watch the sunset," and Meryl turned away on some slight pretext. "He certainly was a little more communicative than usual. Did you know he was once engaged to someone who died?" "No," in slow surprise, "I had never heard of it. But then, he never speaks of himself, and I did not know his branch of the family at all. We lived near London about that time, and seldom went into Devonshire. Still, I wonder Billy did not know. Probably he heard it, and took no notice. That would be so like Billy. He was perhaps scheming some new move for his boys, as he used to call his parishioners." "Perhaps he would rather I had not mentioned it," Meryl said. "It will be safe with me, dear. I shall only speak of it to Billy. How terrible it must have been! It is impossible not to feel it has shadowed all his life. And for her!--he must have been a very striking, attractive man in those days. One hears rumours without attaching much interest to them at the time, but looking back now, I remember my father alluding once or twice to the two brothers as if they were very well-known men. But that would be when I was but a schoolgirl, and soon afterwards I went abroad for a year with an aunt." She lingered a moment longer. "I am glad he told you. It was nice of him. And he tells so little. It was a great compliment. Good night, dearie. Sleep well." Meryl sat on the little bed, in the round wattle and daub hut, and pressed her fingers against her eyes to still their throbbing. Then she looked round at her surroundings, and a little wry smile twisted her lips. A rough floor of ant-heap composition and cow-dung hardened to cement, with some native reed matting laid down; a small stretcher bed; a packing-case for a washhand-stand, and enamel ware. Another packing-case for a dressing-table, and a little cheap glass nailed to the wall. Walls of baked mud, which had fallen in places, laying bare the wattle stems, and a door made from packing-cases which fitted badly, and was fastened only by a string and a nail. For ceiling long, thin wattle stems converging upwards, and outside a thatch of dried grass. And against this in her mind she placed the Johannesburg bedroom, with its costly appointments, its beautiful windows opening to a wide, flower-decked verandah, which commanded a lovely view of distant hills; its lavish display of wealth and luxury. And she smiled that little wry smile, because for the sake of just one man, a mere soldier-policeman, this room might have been a paradise, and the other a grave. In truth she had learnt much from her sojourn in the wilderness--much beyond the life and aspect of a far country. Then she crept to bed feeling tired and disheartened, but finding a little comfort in the thought that she would see him in the morning. But at sunrise Carew aroused Grenville and said good-bye, and rode away before breakfast. XVIII THE CHARTER FLATS Later in the day the party arrived back from Susi, and in the cool of the afternoon a last good-bye was said to the mission station, and they all returned to the Zimbabwe camp for their last night. It had been casually mentioned that Carew had paid a flying visit the previous evening and gone again early that morning, but very little was said about the circumstance. Stanley was already beginning to look and feel disconsolate over the approaching exodus, and Diana was very full of the fact that she had shot a duyker. "I didn't really aim at him, you know," she told Grenville naïvely; "I just held up the gun and pulled the trigger. I couldn't believe my own eyes when I saw the buck lying dead. All the same I did shoot him, and I've got his horns, and they will occupy the place of honour when I get back in my own private sanctum. I shall not tell the Jo'burg folk about not aiming; why should I? If I describe the buck going at full speed, and how I bowled him over with one shot, it won't be any more of a lie, if as much, as most of you colonists tell when you get home to civilisation." "Certainly not," agreed Grenville gravely; "but why not make it a lion while you are about it, or even a rhinoceros?" The Kid began to giggle. "And let it be just charging you," he suggested joyfully. "And first you must take a snapshot of it charging, and then you must fire into its mouth and blow its brains out." "And you might have its horns polished and mounted and its tail stuffed," added Grenville. "Silly idiots," scornfully. "You're both jealous. If you could have _seen_ the things The Kid _missed_!" "The Kid generally misses," chimed in Ailsa cheerfully. "He gets so excited, he quivers all over, and the wild beast, or whatever it is, just lollops away, throwing a grin over his shoulder at him." "If you don't mind," threatened Stanley, "I'll give away your hippo story." "It has increased," said Ailsa's big, schoolboy husband, chuckling to himself. "Impossible!..." ejaculated The Kid. "Surely it had already reached the limit of human ingenuity?" They both spluttered, and Ailsa threw a newspaper at them, but Diana demanded to be told the story. "O, it's only about a hippo in the Zambesi, above the Victoria Falls," began Stanley; "a perfectly harmless hippo really, but it had the impudence to look at the canoe in which Mrs. Grenville was travelling back to the hotel in the dusk." "I thought it bumped the canoe up and down on its back," said the missionary, still chuckling. "That came later"; and Stanley addressed himself gravely to Diana. "But at one time the story really did stop at the hippo chasing them on to an island and off it again, and opening and shutting its mouth at them." "If you had been there you would have been terrified, and had hysterics or something," Ailsa flung at him. "I certainly should at the later period of the story," he assured her. "When it played catch-ball with them?" suggested the missionary. "Threw them all into the air and caught them again in the canoe." "That wasn't so bad, since it _did_ catch them," said Stanley. "My horror would have been when it climbed the tree after them!..." "That is the part that has increased," put in the schoolboy husband, beginning to shake again. "It now jumps after them from one tree to another," and then they both spluttered insanely, and Diana joined in because it was so infectious, and Ailsa called them all ridiculous children who ought to be given a sweetie and tucked up in bed. A little later the cavalcade got under way, and Grenville and his wife stood waving to them somewhat sorrowfully from their wilderness home. "They are dear people," Ailsa said; and added, "O, Billy, if Major Carew would but come out of his shell and love Meryl!... I am sure she cares for him ... and she is so sweet ... and he--O, he is just like a figure of stone." Grenville pinched her ear affectionately. "Little matchmaker! No one by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature; and no one by just wishing it, I am inclined to think, can influence the little god Cupid whither he will aim his arrow. Perhaps, perhaps not; that is all there is to say ever." The next morning after a very early breakfast, the travellers started on their way to Enkeldorn _en route_ for Salisbury. And at the top of the valley, whither they walked to save the mules, both girls stood and turned for a long last look at the grey walls of the ancient temple, lying in a soft haze of morning mists. It seemed to Meryl it had never held a deeper fascination, a stronger allurement. Just those old, old walls, and the soft enfolding mists which must have enfolded them even so for perhaps three thousand years. The red of sunrise was still in the sky, for Mr. Pym was an early starter, and it tinged the mist with a soft flush where the sun's rays had not yet lit a clearer light. "It was good to come," said Diana simply. "I have to thank you for it." But Meryl only smiled in response. She had nothing to say. She felt she was leaving behind with the ruins the best memory her life would ever hold. Then they climbed into the ambulance waiting for them, said "good-bye" charmingly to the lonely dwellers at the store and hotel, with whom they had had some pleasant chats, drinking tea and admiring the lovely view from their delightful huts, and went clattering away down the road, their faces turned to the north. And in the valley they left behind there was desolation. Carew arrived back at his quarters, grim and taciturn, in the evening, to find Stanley looking a veritable image of disconsolate hopelessness in spite of Moore's persistent droll badinage. "O, what did they want to come for," he groaned, "if they had to go away again?" "Faith!..." said the astute Irishman. "Did ye ask either of them to share your little wooden hut?..." But The Kid paid no attention. As Carew stood a moment beside him, filling a pipe, with a cold, expressionless face, the youngster glanced up with a momentary gleam, and remarked, "Eh, sir? But women are the devil, aren't they?" Carew said nothing; but with a low chuckle Moore ejaculated, "Come, give the divil a chance; we find him very accommodating sometimes in auld Erin." Stanley got up and stretched himself. "Days and weeks of desolation now," he moaned; "and we were so happy and content before. Moore, old chap"--giving that harmless individual a smack on the back that nearly knocked him over--"yours was the wise choice when we spoke of gifts from heaven. I said, 'Give me millionairesses,' and you, with the wisdom of the ages, said, 'Give me whisky.' I'll take a little now and hope for the best." And still Carew said nothing. The pipe was filled and he slowly lit it. Then unexpectedly he tapped it with light significance. "This is the best friend of all," he said, and went away into his hut. Stanley glanced after him a moment with a curious expression. "Gad!..." he murmured. "Was our bronze image a bit hit too? He looks fierce enough and stern enough to be resenting a dent." In the meantime the travellers reached the Charter Flats, and decided to camp there for the night. They had travelled for some time along the sandy tracts, enjoying the sense of space all around and the wide horizons, and both Mr. Pym and the girls were loth to hurry away. It is customary to dread these wide sandy tracts, and either hurry across them or avoid them; but to these city-dwellers their vast calm held a deep allurement; for though only scrub and sand stretched from horizon to horizon, with occasional little strips of stunted trees, the clear southern atmosphere lent a lovely effect of light and shade and colour. Many large patches here and there were blackened with veldt fires, but these in the distance formed delicate shadings that enhanced the charm of a strip of yellow sand or young green grass or purple-shadowed wilderness. It was like a world that contained only a colour scheme; no dwellings, no humans, no landmarks, no hills and valleys, no roads: just delicate shadings and haze as far as the eye could see, with no clear line between earth and heaven. They might have been looking over the edge of the world into a delicately tinted space, so boundless it seemed, so unfathomable, so remote. They pitched their camp on a little rising ground, near a slow meandering stream that crept lazily across the miniature desert. And when the dusk came down the effect was more unusual still, for the flats are on high ground, and the heavens seem to stoop down all round, hanging a dark curtain, decorated with brilliant stars, on every side. Across all the world no sign of human life, no sound; only vast emptiness everywhere--above, around, below; and for companions, worlds and suns and solar systems. It is a scene in which a man may seem to get very close to his God; not a remote, incomprehensible Deity, dwelling vaguely beyond the stars, but a Presence that is in the breathing silence and the velvety deeps at hand. And a man may meet himself there also; not the aping, grinning, chattering mask of a personality custom more or less compels him to wear in the crowd, but the hidden, mysterious being, conscious of a soul beyond his ken, that in such quiet hours desires eternally some goal, some good, afar off. The indestructible, incomprehensible, infinite hunger, that lies as a germ in every human heart and is man's best attribute, in that it raises him for ever incontestably above the beasts that perish, and stands serene and steadfast as the Rock of Ages, the one barrier past which the materialists and the scientists cannot go: the divine spark within the human, which no theory can account for and no learning of sage or cynic obliterate. The travellers sat round a glowing fire, for the night air was keen and cold; and much that is inevitably disturbing in the friction of daily being and daily doing seemed to fall away from them and cease to exist for that one wonderful night. And the next day, when the small black attendant brought their early tea and opened wide the tent-flap to a brilliant morning, yet another picture awaited them. This time it was a world decked with enormous diamonds. Tall, sparse grasses leant over and whispered to each other outside the tent, and every ear and every seed was hung with a lovely brilliant dewdrop. Out beyond was that same vague, remote, fathomless horizon, painted now with wonderful rose tints, where the rising sun caught the lingering mists and merged the dark streaks of blackened veldt into the general scheme with a softness of shading beyond all description. Meryl lay still, gazing with her soul in her eyes, but after a time Diana sat up. "It makes me ache almost like the Victoria Falls did. I wonder why God painted such lovely scenes where no one ever came, or scarcely ever, to see them?" She was silent a moment, then ran on again, "We fight and sweat and struggle for diamonds, and God hangs them on the dry grass, in the wilderness. Meryl, I wonder if we shall ever see anything quite like this again? And they told us to avoid the Charter Flats!... I suppose God feels about it something as we do. He knows most people like Brighton parades and Durban sea-fronts, so He lets them arrange their own sights; and for Himself, in far wonderful places, He paints scene pictures, and plants lovely gardens, and fills them with birds and flowers and sunshine, and splashes down upon the world, in some remote corner, a glorious colour scheme, just for his own delight." Meryl raised herself on her elbow, with a little tender smile. "And I suppose He said to Himself, 'I will let Diana and Meryl Pym see one of my secret, treasured places'?" "Yes, exactly. And though I don't hold with saying grace before meals, because, since God made us, it seems the least He can do to enable us to obtain food to keep us alive, I will say a grace this morning to Him for letting me see His colour scheme on the Charter Flats at sunset and sunrise." A little later they had a fragrant breakfast of liver from a buck the engineer had shot about daybreak; and that is a delicacy known only to those who fare forth across the veldt, and have a bright wood fire burning in readiness for the spoils of the hunt directly they are brought in. Then they started away again across the flats, once more moving in a vague world of soft shadings, with only the long sandy road stretching away into space behind them and before. And sometimes, before the sun mounted too high, they found themselves moving across a space of gold and bronze, where grass that had not been burnt shone like amber in the morning glory; and again presently a space of loveliest emerald-green, where the grass had been burnt early and the new blades were already sending up joyous blades into the sunlight. And sometimes a Kaffir-boom tree added a splash of brilliant scarlet, painted upon a canvas of soft, hazy shadings; and sometimes the veldt showed them a little piece of her flower-carpet--the carpet that was to spread broadcast presently--of delicate-tinted lovely flowers in reckless profusion upon a ground of rich terra-cotta soil. Neither girl talked. It was not a scene to talk in. It did not call for raptures and exclamations; only for dreaming and absorbing. It seemed as if it might have been the spot where God rested upon the seventh day, so utter and absolute and complete was the sense of detachment from all the exigencies of being and doing. Two verses of a poem by Arthur Symons repeated themselves in pleasant rhythm in Meryl's mind:-- "I leave the lonely city street, The awful silence of the crowd; The rhythm of the roads I beat, My blood leaps up, I shout aloud, My heart keeps measure with my feet. "A bird sings something in my ear, The wind sings in my blood a song 'Tis good at times for a man to hear; The road winds onward white and long, And the best of earth is here!" XIX THE CONVENTIONALITIES ONCE MORE Later in the day they reached Enkeldorn and once more pitched their tent beside the police camp; but the place is not inviting, and they were glad to leave early the following morning; for Enkeldorn is the centre round which many Dutch people congregate to farm small farms, in what it must be confessed is often the most slovenly and lazy fashion conceivable. And some of them speak quite openly of how they hate the English, and look forward to a day when they will be strong enough to turn them out of the country. But before that day can come, before union with a South Africa in which there is Dutch predominance, it is to be hoped England will send out more and yet more strong, vigorous young settlers, to put brains and heart and energy into the virgin soil, waiting only for the craftsman's hand; and so ensure for ever, in union or out of it, an unswerving predominance of Cecil Rhodes's countrymen: holding his high aims and hopes and splendid Imperialism in Cecil Rhodes's land. Two days later the party arrived in Salisbury, and not a little to their regret, the fashionable garments that had travelled thither by train to await their arrival had to be duly unpacked and worn. Diana glanced at herself disconsolately the first afternoon, dressed in an elegant summer frock, awaiting tea in a drawing-room, and one or two lady callers known to Mr. Pym who were likely shortly to arrive. Meryl, seeming lovelier than ever, though perhaps a trifle frailer, as if some sadness in her mind weighed upon her waking and sleeping hours, stood at the window, looking over the pretty, well-kept town. "Why are we here? This is not the wilderness," Diana said grumblingly; "this is suburban mediocrity. It was not fair to bring me all this way from home, to have to dress up and look pleasant, and talk banalities to people I have never seen before and probably shall never see again." "You are so inconsistent, Di," Meryl said, with a little affectionate laugh. "When we arrived at Zimbabwe you said you did not want only old ruins, you wanted a man. Judging by the number of cyclists in flannels, carrying tennis racquets or golf clubs, who have passed this window in the last half-hour, you will find more men, ready no doubt to hang upon your lightest smile, than you will know what to do with." "I don't want them," with an impish pettiness. "I hate young men in flannels. I hate houses. I hate afternoon frocks. I hate clean hands. I hate having to be polite. I want The Kid, giggling insanely at his own silly jokes. I want The Bear's den and The Bear inside it. I want to have grubby hands and old shoes and a red face, and eat things in my fingers, and forget I have heaps and heaps of money for the simple reason that it is no earthly use if I have." Meryl smiled softly and wistfully. "I wonder what they are doing?... I think they will miss us. It is extraordinary how Zimbabwe gets into one's heart. I have never seen anything anywhere that appealed to me quite like those old walls, with their untold story and their patience of the ages. The Sphinx in Egypt may be older, but we know how it came to be there and who built it. One of Zimbabwe's fascinations seems to be the absence of all knowledge about it, of all why and wherefore." She broke off as a Cape cart drove up to the door. "Here is someone coming to call. I think it is Mrs. Cluer, by father's description." "Then bother Mrs. Cluer!" snapped the peevish one. "In this country I wonder if people say they are 'out' or 'asleep' when they do not want to be found 'at home'?" But Mrs. Cluer knew both Major Carew and Stanley, so the conversation was not quite so uninteresting as Diana had anticipated. She was, moreover, a woman of exceptional charm, and at any other time they would both have lost their hearts to her. "You probably did not see much of Major Carew," she said. "He is the most unsociable man in the country. One can get him to a man's bridge-party, but not much else; and most of us have given up trying. I expect it is partly his own doing that he is down there. He always manages to get work that takes him out on the veldt, if possible." "He appears to like it," Meryl commented; "and Mr. Stanley and his companion are very fond of him, in spite of his unsociable ways." "O, all the men are fond of him," she told them, evidently glad of an opportunity to sing his praises. "He never gives himself any airs with them for one thing, and he's just a man all through, living a clean, sportsman's life; and whether they do the same themselves or not, they all look up to him and admire him for it, without being afraid he will come down like a sledgehammer upon their failings. One knows the tone of the whole police force is better for having an officer like Major Carew, and it is a thousand pities there are not more like him. And Cecil Stanley is just the dearest boy in the world. Every one in Salisbury was fond of him. He is so good at games and dancing, and always so jolly and boyish and natural. We miss him badly, but I believe he likes being down there better than in the town." "I think he does; he seemed perfectly happy." They went on to speak of the gaiety of Salisbury; its golf and tennis and polo and dancing; and their visitor urged them to stay for a fancy-dress ball, when four hundred guests all in costume were expected. But neither of them were in the mood for balls, and the only attraction they cared about was an early-morning gallop with the hounds after jackal. Nothing could solace them for the careless, happy days they had left, and as soon as Mr. Pym had transacted his business, they persuaded him to take them out to Lomagundi with him, rather than be left behind in the town. "They seem to be rather touchy ladies here, and so superior," Diana urged, when he demurred; "and you know I am never safe for two minutes with that type. I should be driven into saying appalling things, and our reputation might be ruined for ever." In the end, as usual, they won him round, and departed one morning gleefully in the little toy train that runs out across the Gwebi Flats to the Eldorado Gold Mine. And to Diana's joy, they had a luggage-van fitted up as an impromptu saloon for them, and were able to spin along with both doors wide open, enjoying the air and the country. The Eldorado is the show mine of Rhodesia, having a native compound equal to any in South Africa, and charming bungalows for the staff, and an airy, comfortable hospital. But mines were not likely to hold much interest to lady travellers from Johannesburg, and all their eagerness was to go out to Sinoia to see the limestone caves, where, like an exquisite jewel in a massive setting, an underground lake, of wonderful colouring, lies in lonely loveliness. Or perhaps it were better likened to a butterfly, with its wings closed, and only the more or less drab outside showing. The veldt, somewhat uniform and colourless, with its surrounding hills, is the butterfly with its wings closed. Enter the wide hole in the ground, beside the hidden lake, and descend the rough natural staircase of rocky boulders, to where the sun through an opening in the ground above shines down on to the translucent water, and there lies the butterfly with its wings open, and all their exquisite design and colouring and blending unfolded to the eye. "You have some rare treasures in this far Rhodesia," Meryl said to their guide and host as they reluctantly left the hidden jewel behind; "treasures that your children and your children's children will be very proud of some day." "If they have time," he answered a trifle cynically. "Not many Rhodesians to-day have time to care for any but the treasures that they can work for and grasp and carry away. The time for natural beauties to be appreciated is not yet. Why, we do not even pay a native half-a-crown a week to keep the caves free from the baboons and bats that defile them. I am afraid, at present, Rhodesia lives almost entirely for to-day," he continued. "The spirit ready to sacrifice itself for the good of future generations has yet to be developed." He was a clever-looking man, with quiet, thoughtful eyes, and he and Meryl had talked much together during her short stay. "The nobility of the bee is not found much among humans. In all the annals of the race, is there anything to compare with their service to the coming swarm?" "Only that we do not know it is the result of calm reasoning," she answered. "The bee perhaps comes into existence, permeated through and through with this one idea, and lives solely to fulfil it. The service humanity asks of humanity is something even higher, surely--a willing, conscious sacrifice of present ease to future good. The spirit of heroes and fools"; and she smiled a little sadly, remembering Ailsa Grenville's verse and her enthusiasm for the dear Ship of Fools. "But you have some fine men out here," she added. "I think your future looks exceedingly hopeful." A few days later they started on their return to Bulawayo, and the tour was practically ended. There was nothing more now but dusty railway journeys and elegant garments and conventionalities. "No more grubby hands and red faces and 'anyhow' clothes that did not matter," was Diana's constant lament. Meryl said nothing. What was there to say? But the pain that dwelt in her eyes sometimes, when she thought no one was looking, sent deep stabs to her father's heart. With all his money, and all his power and influence, what could he do in this one thing that seemed to matter beyond all other things? Nothing except to look quietly on, and hope the wound was not too deep for healing. That, and to humour her in anything she asked. Which was partly why some of the long hours of the hot, dusty journey were spent in discussing plans for the settlement of young men upon his land, on exceptionally easy terms. He was not quite sure that the country was ripe for such a scheme yet; but Meryl's great wish for it, and obvious pleasure in the discussions, took him to lengths he might otherwise have avoided. So they came to Bulawayo, and as they stepped out on to the platform, Meryl saw suddenly among the other passengers a tall form in khaki that caused her to draw in her breath with a little catch, while her eyes grew strained and anxious. Diana was still in the saloon, only half dressed, and her father was talking aside to someone who had come to the station to meet him. She was quite alone, rooted momentarily to the spot, waiting for the tall man to turn in her direction, if he chanced to look that way at all before hurrying off. Then someone accosted him, and she saw the strong, self-contained face, as he turned to the speaker. A moment's suspense followed; then the man who had accosted him went towards the station entrance, and Carew came slowly in her direction, with his helmet low over his eyes. Thus he did not see her until they were face to face, and in the first moment of recognition she saw him start, as one taken in swift surprise. Then a slow colour crept up under the sunburn on his cheeks, and something came into his eyes that she had never seen there before. But he only came forward with a formal air and saluted her solemnly. "I joined the train in the night," he said. "I had no idea you would be coming to Bulawayo so soon." It was all very ordinary, very sedate, and a little wooden, but Meryl paid no heed to that, paid no heed to the obvious conclusion he had taken no chance journey hoping to see her again. For what his lips could not say, and his manner would not, his eyes had revealed to her in that first swift moment of surprise. She knew that whatever came between them in the future, whatever was between them now, Peter Carew was not indifferent to her. XX FAREWELL "Did I hear the growl of a bear?" sang out a voice from behind a drawn blind of the saloon coach beside which they were standing. "I'm afraid you did," said Carew, addressing the blind. "O, joy! joy! Growl again, growl again--like the Christmas bells. How would it go?... 'Growl out, wild bear'--I forget the rest, but it's a silly song I learnt to sing when I was young. Don't go away; I shall be dressed directly. If these God-forsaken railways had not such a mania for landing you at your destination when all respectable people are snug in bed!..." and sundry sounds suggested the impatient speaker was flinging things about. Then a face with bright eyes appeared over the blind, which was a wooden shutter, and could be lowered to a discreet distance. "Hullo!... I simply had to take a look at you. I've been pining for a glimpse of The Kid's smile and your scowl. It's been deadly since we left Zimbabwe. Ugh!... how I hate civilisation!" Carew looked at her with his rare, slow smile. "Is that why you keep the whole train waiting in the station, and the station-master, conductor, and guard in a state of ferment, because they cannot clear the line until you are dressed?" "Rude man!" came back the quick retort. "You haven't yet said, How do you do?" "How do you do, Miss Diana Pym?" gravely. "I hope I see you well! And how did you leave Salisbury?" "I do very nicely, thank you, Major Carew. You cannot see me very well through a wooden shutter, I imagine. And how is your old heap of stones?" ... with which she vanished again to the interior. "Tell the conductor I've come to the last curl and the last hook and eye," she called, and a few minutes later stepped out on to the platform, a vision of fresh daintiness. "I'm rather glad," she remarked to Carew, with a twinkle, "that you will have an opportunity of seeing us in our best clothes"; then running on, "I see you look as fierce and awe-inspiring as ever; but having learnt, in Rhodesia, to keep quite calm with cockchafers and beetles running about in my bed, I am not likely to be afraid of a bear." "Are you going to the Grand Hotel?" Mr. Pym asked him, having joined them while Diana was finishing her toilet, "because there is plenty of room in our motor." Carew thanked him, and they all moved away together. At the hotel, however, he vanished, and it was only after a little adroit persuasion later that Mr. Pym got him to accept an invitation to dine with them in their private room in the evening. And after accepting, Carew went about the work that had brought him to Bulawayo with an uneasy mind. The fortnight that had elapsed since the evening he found Meryl unexpectedly at the Grenvilles' had been a somewhat disturbed one for him. For many years now his life had flown so evenly in all big essentials. Little worries, little disturbances, disappointments, were inevitable for a man whose heart was so thoroughly in his work, and for whom the conditions of work were often so trying. But these had only ruffled the surface; underneath the smooth river flowed along strong and self-contained. After the upheaval that had been as a volcanic eruption upon smiling sunshine-flooded fields in his life, and the black desolation that followed, there had succeeded a long quiet period of calm action that, if it held nothing which could be termed joy, held nothing either that was sorrow except his buried memories. And he had been well content that it should be so; well content to contemplate just that and nothing else to the journey's end. And now, suddenly, had come this vague unrest. He sought for its source and its reason, and could not find a satisfactory answer. For though it dated from the coming of the millionaire and his party, he would not admit himself capable of the folly of falling in love with Meryl. To him it was such inexcusable foolishness, in view of many things. Rather he chose to believe it was a voice from the old life, reawakened in his heart, and calling to him across the years. When he smoked his pipe outside the huts, and pondered deeply some knotty point in his report and in the work of the Native Commission, he found himself suddenly remembering that it was September. And away in his beloved Devon they would be out after the partridges--striding through the heather and across the stubble-fields, ranging over the purple moors with purple horizons all round, and in the distance a strip of turquoise, which was the sea. He could almost hear the whir ... rr of wings and the shots on some far hill-side. And he knew that, though the shooting in a wild, vast country like Rhodesia is a far finer and more sportsmanlike affair than shooting driven birds in England, he yet felt, and would ever feel, that intense British love of the soil that had reared him, and the moors where he fired his first gun and shot his first bird. And, of course, upon the heels of the shooting came the hunting, which had once been the joy of his life, ever after he first put his pony at a stiff fence, entirely on his own, and sailed gloriously over, in spite of an anxious groom shouting caution to the winds. And then all the woodcraft and fieldcraft he had learnt from his uncle's keepers and his uncle's farmer tenants. He remembered how it had been part of his education as a youngster, and how in pursuit of knowledge he had been up early and late and in the middle of the night, picking up information about the woodland creatures from anyone who could teach him or finding things out for himself. There was the poacher who had shown him, for love of the sport, if sport it could be called, how he got the pheasants silently off the boughs in the night--taking them from their roosting-places and never a sound. He had given that poacher a bright half-crown, he remembered, and his firm lips twitched a little over the recollection. He had not seen the humour then of paying the man who was stealing his uncle's pheasants--the pheasants that would some day be his. He wondered if the boys in England now, the future landowners, were taught woodlore as he had been taught it, because it was good for an English gentleman to know all the scents and signs and sounds of his estate. And after all, he was no landowner at all. By his own act, instead, merely an officer in the British South Africa Police, with a few hundreds a year income, and nothing but a meagre pension ahead. Ah well! he had had a good deal besides for what he had lost, and it had been a good life enough, dependent solely on himself, and far removed from the caprices of a rich uncle. He regretted nothing at this stage of what had transpired after the upheaval came. Of course, his brother was now owner of the estates that might have been his, and was married, and had children; whereas he was a soldier-policeman looking forward to a meagre pension. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered. It was only that, seeing so much more of the Pyms socially than he had been wont to see of anyone, old memories had been awakened. He hoped they would soon go to sleep again, for, in passing, they had taken some of the restfulness out of Rhodesia's far horizons, and fretted the flow of the strong, silent river, with a vague discontent. Sometimes between him and those far horizons there was a face now--sometimes a voice--sometimes just a dim presence--the voice and the face and the presence of Meryl Pym. And it was a thing to be fought down and crushed and conquered--a weakness that was well-nigh a foolishness--a folly such as stern men trample underfoot. So when Mr. Pym asked him to dine with them privately, he made some excuse, and only yielded under pressure. And when he joined them he was in one of his gravest moods, as if he had barricaded himself round with impenetrable reserve. There were two other guests, so Diana did not twit him openly; she only murmured in an aside, for his ear alone, "I'm so sorry it's a party, and we shall feel obliged to be polite. This civilisation is becoming a positive burden." Meryl was a little late, and she wore a beautiful gown, of a classic cut, with exquisite classic embroideries and a filigree band on her lovely hair. It was the first time he had seen her in evening dress, and he took one keen, sweeping glance and then looked away. He had rather the attitude of a soldier on parade, to whom the colonel had said "eyes front." Only he was his own colonel, obeying his own laws and restrictions. And Meryl only dared to take a fleeting glance also, for fear her eyes might betray her. And though he looked as striking as a man may, in immaculate evening dress, with his strong, clear-cut features, and inches that dwarfed most men, with the inconsistency of a woman she decided she liked him best in khaki that had seen hard service, and that look of being all of a piece, because his hands and face were so brown. He sat on her left, while Lord Elmsleigh, who was passing through from the Victoria Falls, sat on her right; and though she chatted lightly to his lordship, she was conscious every second of the hour of the big, silent, rather grim soldier-policeman. He spoke very little. Just an opinion now and then when he was asked for it, or the corroboration or correction of a statement, when someone looked to him questioningly. The millionaire, chatting in his quiet, weighty way to his two other guests, noted everything. He knew that Carew and Meryl scarcely once looked at each other, or addressed each other direct, and with a deep sense of regret he had again that feeling of being brought up against some barrier where neither his money nor power nor influence could be of any avail. And at the same time he knew in his heart that he had never met any man to whom he would sooner entrust Meryl and the fortune that must be hers. For though their very silence together revealed to his astute brain that neither was indifferent to the other, he could not but see also that undercurrent of grim determination in Carew. True, he was almost always silent, but Henry Pym perceived that his silence to-day was not quite of that of yesterday. Something had gone out of it--some quiet, grave, unquestioning content. In the keen, direct, steel-blue eyes now there was a shadow lurking behind, that might have been of some old memory, or might have been of some new pain, but which vaguely hurt the millionaire host. Meryl's eyes were less smiling than her lips, turning a little unsteadily this way and that, with a restlessness that added a touch of vivacity to her quiet beauty. But that, he knew, was the thing we baldly name pluck. It was not to-night he need fear what he should see in her eyes, nor perhaps to-morrow. It was any day, any hour, any moment in the weeks to come, when she believed no one was observing her. So the evening passed, and the last rubber of bridge was played, and the first move made towards departure. "Shall we have your company for a day or two? I must stay here over to-morrow!" Mr. Pym said to Carew. "I leave early in the morning," was the quiet reply. "I only came here to see Mr. Ireson, and now I go to Salisbury." Meryl, with her face turned away, blanched a little in the shadow. This was the end then. This casual, conventional good-bye at a dinner-party. To-morrow he would go east before they were up; and the next day she would go back to Johannesburg, and later England. She turned quickly to make a gay remark. Something in her heart tightened. She felt suddenly appalled at the future, and was afraid she might show it. But the evening had still one little unexpected treat in store for her. Lord Elmsleigh had a big-game trophy in his room that he wanted to show Mr. Pym and their other guests--something that he had shot in the Kafue valley. And in consequence, while Diana and Carew and Meryl were standing together by the open window that led on to the wide balcony, he took them both off with him. And then Diana said to Carew, "As you are going to-morrow, I will give you those snapshots to-night. I have them in my room," and she went away, pulling the door to after her. So Carew and Meryl were left alone by the window, looking out into the pulsing southern night. Meryl, quite suddenly, felt a little dizzy, and she drew back into the corner, leaning against the woodwork, feeling glad of some support. Carew remained upright and rigid, with something in that very rigidity that suggested a special need to keep himself well in hand. If he had stopped to think about it, he might have felt that Fate was treating him a little unkindly. So far he had done the strong thing every time, and gone quietly away from danger; not because he was a coward, but because he knew it is sometimes far more cowardly to skate on thin ice, and hope it will be all right, than to remain in safety on the bank. For Meryl's sake as well as his own he had chosen to remain on the bank. And yet here, for the third time, was Fate deliberately bringing the danger zone to him, in spite of his efforts to avoid it. But he did not stop to cogitate either one way or the other. Sufficient for him that he knew himself in the danger zone, and therefore it behoved him to be very wary. Not by act or word, if he could help it, must he let Meryl see how she had disturbed his peace. And there, again, it would seem, Fate had played with him. A subtler man would have perceived that an added rigidity was not entirely the safeguard he needed now. Meryl already knew him too well for that. Had he talked and laughed a little, she might have been puzzled and baffled. But Carew was not subtle. He was simply sincere. And so he just stood very rigid and silent; not perceiving that in the circumstances that it was hardly the best way to baffle the eyes of love. Meryl knew instinctively he was putting some special restraint on himself, and the knowledge made her quietly glad, underneath the sudden pain of the knowledge that it was farewell. Back, in her vantage of shadow, she looked at him. And she saw, not for the first time, but perhaps more fully, that inner force in this man, which told any who had eyes to see and understanding to perceive, that nothing would turn him from a set purpose, if he were persuaded it was a right one; and whatever woman's arts she might possess, they would be as the waves against a granite rock. They might play round him, and sprinkle foam on him, and soften his aspect, but they would not _move_ him. So, with an inner strength not unlike his own, she accepted his decree. For some reason, or set of reasons, love might not come into being between them. He was determined that it should not. Very well, she would hide her hurt and face her future without it. And if she chose to cherish his image, hidden deep down in her heart, that was her affair. A laughing, mocking world need never know. She broke the silence first: "If you are going early to-morrow, we shall not meet again." "No." He looked at her a moment, about to say something else; then changed his mind, and looked out of the window in silence. Leaning up against the lintel, in the softened light, her outline and features and deep, true eyes made too fair a picture for him to trust himself to look upon. "Perhaps you will be coming to Johannesburg presently?" "I think not." "Nor England?..." with a little wistful smile. "Nor England." "You speak almost as if you never expected to go there again?" "I shall never go there again." There was a pause; then she continued: "Yet you are so absolutely an Englishman, and they say"--with another little smile--"an Englishman always wants to go home to be buried." "I am more a Rhodesian." "And you feel like Cecil Rhodes?... We went out to the Matopos this afternoon. It was a big thought, that of his, to be buried there. It gives you people in the north something that we of the south have not--your own special great man, lying in your midst. What a country you will be some day! I envy you your share of the building." "The south is a great country _now_. It is not a small thing to be building there." "Yes, but we have two races, and it spells division and weakens our enthusiasm." "Help to bridge over the gap. Help to make it spell union. That were a work that any man might be proud to give his life to." And at that slowly she became taut and rigid almost as he, with wide eyes gazing into the night. He had struck a hidden chord; struck it full and strong. "Do you mean," she said a little breathlessly, "that though my sympathies are so much with the north, my work, any usefulness I may attain to, ought to be given to the south?... that ... that ... perhaps it belongs to it?..." He was silent a moment, weighing his words. "I think," he said, "that you in the south are passing through a critical stage, and there must be much need for strong women as well as strong men. Dutch Predominance is the cry now, but the scales turn easily, and it may be English Predominance to-morrow. No country can make real headway, and consolidate its greatness, while there is this changing and interchanging of power. There must be no predominance but that of the country's good; and to that end Dutch and English _must_ be merged into South African. It is the duty of every true patriot to look this way and that, and see how it can best be achieved; and to be ready to sink all personal aims and triumphs for the furtherance of the great end." "Is it possible," she asked slowly, "when it seems one side only is honest in its protestations?" "You cannot be sure about that. Seek out the strongest and best men of both sides, and help them to gain the power and hold it. Your own side is not without blame. At the first big election after the country was settling down again, you could not even stand together. At the polls there were three parties, where there should have been only two. Englishmen opposed Englishmen, mostly over a question of small differences, and for personal pride of place. South Africa has never yet recovered from that mistake. You must not hold two hands out to the Boers--the hands of differing Englishmen--but _one hand_, that is absolutely reliable and sincere." "It is what I have heard my father say, and others also, but progress is very slow. There is much racial hatred rampant still." "It will yield gradually. The fittest must prevail in the end; but obviously that fittest will prove to be neither Dutch nor English, but South African." "How do you think it will prevail?" She was white now, and her eyes were gazing very straight out into the night. "By intermarriage chiefly. It is almost the only solution to the problem. Speaking one tongue, owning one country, will never help it, as Dutch and English interests united upon one hearth. That is why you must be patient, and just go steadily on, avoiding dissension as much as possible, while trying to raise the tone of both races on every side." There was a little tremor in her voice as she said, "And are we to take it just meekly when Englishmen are ousted for Dutchmen and loyal service ignored?" "I think you can only be patient at present. The strong part will lie with you, though the others seem to triumph. If the party in power find the country is at a standstill, and not progressing as they want it to, they will end by rearranging the public posts, and the Englishmen will come back because they are the fittest. As a race, you know, we are inclined to be domineering and somewhat overbearing. We certainly have ourselves to thank for some of the trouble. Probably while the Dutchman is 'top dog' he is having his fling, and we are learning a little wholesome wisdom. When the reaction comes the country will be the gainer." "And in the meantime intermarriage?" she questioned slowly. "In the meantime intermarriage," he said, with quiet emphasis. But he little dreamt that at the cross-roads he was pointing her to a path of tears. They heard Diana returning, and he moved restlessly. "If I do not see you again"--with a hesitating voice unlike himself--"I hope you will be very happy.... Meeting you has been a great and unexpected pleasure." "Thank you," was all she could trust herself to say. And then Diana came into the room. A moment later the other men returned, and they all said good-bye. And when Carew shook hands with Meryl, he noticed that her hand was as cold as ice and her cheeks as white as snow, and that she scarcely raised her eyes to his face. And wondering and fearing, he walked away into the darkness, with the sense of a new shadow walking beside him--a shadow that had come to stay, in spite of all his resolutions and strong endeavours, the shadow of his love for the woman he had just left in silence and never thought to see again. XXI A "HOARDING HUSTLING" There was probably no family in Johannesburg better known or better loved than that of Henry Pym, the millionaire. Even Aunt Emily was something of a favourite, in spite of her peculiarities, perhaps a little for the sake of the delightful entertaining that took place at Hill Court. Diana was adored for her spirits, and Meryl was regarded somewhat as a treasure Johannesburg had a right to be proud of. Certain it was that if eventually she followed the example of her American cousins and enriched an English peerage with her wealth, she would hold her own amidst the loveliest and most charming of England's peeresses. At the same time, though many perhaps hoped that she would lead the way for the young South African heiresses, not many had much belief that she would lead it in the particular fashion they hoped; for there was ever that uncertain elusive quality about Meryl, that suggestion of the visionary and dreamer, that betold a nature not very likely to follow in any beaten path, or give overmuch value to the advantages of a high alliance from a worldly point of view. It was probable she would see things in quite a different light to the majority and act for herself. Nevertheless Johannesburg hoped for the best, and would have been pleased to number a peeress among her daughters; if it were only to show the world, for one thing, that some of South Africa's heiresses were every whit as refined and clever and charming as America's, whatever may have been implied to the contrary by scathing comments on Johannesburg's millionaires which have appeared from time to time in varied guise. Mr. Pym himself, however, was not among those who nursed such high hopes. When he took the Piccadilly mansion the preceding spring, and transferred his household to London for the season, he meant to entertain lavishly, and give the girls every possible opportunity to see the world of the highest London society, knowing full well he could do this because his friends numbered many among England's high names. That he should take them into the wilds of Rhodesia instead had certainly been the very last thought in his mind. On the other hand, as we have said, it did not greatly perturb him. He was inclined to think they might gain as much from their pioneer pilgrimage as from a rush of continuous gaiety. What exactly they _had_ gained it would have been difficult to gauge; nothing perhaps that Aunt Emily would detect, fussing and exclaiming round them upon their first arrival. Diana, in a mood for merriment, and possibly to cover a certain invisible shadow that rested as a dim cloud upon the party, rouged her face to a brilliant red with an alarmingly fiery nose end. When she lifted her veil and confronted her aunt with a perfectly unconcerned smile, that lady raised her hands in horror and bemoaning. "O, my dear!... my dear!... your complexion is ruined. How could you be so careless? How could Meryl let you?... It will take weeks of care to undo the mischief." "O, don't make a fuss, aunty! Complexions don't matter tuppence-halfpenny in Rhodesia. You surely didn't imagine I was going to carry a sun-umbrella about, did you?" "But my dear child!..." still in great distress. "It is a dreadful thing to say, but you really look as if ... as if ..." but there her courage forsook her, and she could not name the dreadful possibility. "As if I had been drinking!" finished Diana cheerfully. "Yes, it's a little awkward, but perhaps if I don't lurch or look foolish ..." Then she encountered the astonished eyes of a young footman, who had come in with some small paraphernalia from the motor, and unable to keep her face, turned hurriedly away. "I'm rather afraid James is going to have a fit," she remarked to Meryl. "I hope it won't incapacitate him for the rest of the day," and she chuckled to herself. Meryl had not yet raised her veil, and the anxiety on Aunt Emily's face, which she vainly strove to hide, was delighting Diana more than ever. "Better not take your veil off downstairs, Meryl. Aunt Emily has had rather a shock from my face; I don't think she could bear any more." But the poor lady's concern was too pitiful to Meryl, and she threw her veil far back, saying, "She is a wicked creature, aunty. Her face only wants washing"; and then Aunt Emily, reassured and comforted, joined in the general laugh. "But soap and water won't remedy all the defects," Diana told her. "I've acquired a violent dislike to houses and rooms and tableclothes and clean hands, and all the absurd paraphernalia of civilised existence. Of course, I suppose I shall become rational again in time, but at present I thought of having a tent on the lawn and becoming a hermit." "How is everyone, Aunty?" Meryl asked, as the poor lady seemed again somewhat overcome. "Have you had hosts of visitors while you were all alone?" "Yes, people have been very kind, and I have not had much time to be dull; and everyone is delighted you are back again. Mr. van Hert has called twice this week to know which day you would arrive." Meryl's lips contracted a little, but Diana murmured, "Oho!... Dutch Willie! ready to be on the doorstep, of course, in spite of the hullabaloo you've been causing in the country, unrestrained by my caustic criticisms." "I expect he thought he would make hay while the sun shone," Meryl told her, "and air his pet theories while they were not in danger of being stamped on." Then they both went upstairs, and Meryl stood awhile at the wide window, looking over the lovely garden; and though she still answered kindly to her aunt's flow of chatter, the good lady having followed them to their room, her heart was far away among distant kopjes, where mysterious grey walls basked in the sunlight with the silence and the patience of the ages. For the next two or three days a continuous stream of visitors passed up and down the drive, and invitations poured in, and the girls found themselves quickly in a very vortex of social life. William van Hert did not come until the third day, and then he chose as late an hour as he well could, hoping to escape the throng. This he succeeded in doing, but Diana he could not escape. If it had been his hope to see Meryl alone he was entirely frustrated. Diana's small, practical head perceived the wisdom of avoiding all haste in what these two might have to say to each other, and van Hert had to bow to her decision. Still further, he had to undergo a small fire of chaff with an edge to it, concerning some of his political doings and sayings during their absence. But this from Diana he could always take. Whether she knew it or not, and whether she cared or not, at the time she probably wielded a more direct influence over van Hert than anyone else living. Certainly a more direct influence than Meryl and her father, for whereas his liking for them only tempered his rashness and indiscretions, Diana aimed shafts straight at any of his rabid policies in a manner that caused him secretly to reconsider. Yet all his devotion was drawn to Meryl in her fairness and quiet strength, and the hope of his heart was still to win her. As it happened, it was a very white-faced, silent Meryl who sat on the deep verandah that afternoon of his first call, and was content chiefly to listen to Diana waging her usual war. That astute young person had much to say, in her own slangy phraseology, concerning certain utterances of the Dutch extremists, openly derogatory to the English, and seemingly opposed to any spirit of racial conciliation. "Why don't you try and teach your people to play the game?" she asked him, with a fine scorn. "Do you hear any of our eminent men haranguing about 'keeping down the Dutch' and 'steam-rollering the Dutch,' and without any hesitation openly speaking of themselves as a separate and superior race? Whatever our men think, they are at least sportsmen enough just now to keep it to themselves, for the sake of the hopes and aims of the country. But you apparently allow your following to say anything, and either pretend not to hear or take no notice. Listen to this, said by a predicant of the Dutch Reformed Church...." She picked up a pamphlet, lying near, and read aloud: "'We are a nation with our own taal, traditions, and history. We must now stand shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand for the rights of _our_ people.... May God give _our_ people strength to be unanimous!' Unanimous in what?... Why, forcing the issue of the language question according to their own ends, and retrenching English teachers, and generally looking upon themselves as the superior, chosen people whom God meant to reign alone in South Africa." "My dear young lady," he remonstrated, "can you blame me for the unwise, indiscreet utterances of every Dutch predicant who opens his mouth?" "Why, of course I do. You are a leader, and you ought to protest openly against any such utterance; but naturally, if you only consider it unwise and indiscreet, you don't regret the purport of the words at all, merely their being uttered at perhaps the wrong time. Well, that sort of spirit isn't 'cricket,' as we understand it; and your attitude, in professing to hold out a hand to the English section, while the other is making secret signs to the Dutch, is what we call trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds; and that is an experiment being attempted by far too many of your colleagues just now." "I am doing nothing of the kind," he repudiated indignantly. "I am standing by my countrymen, that they may maintain the dignity of their nation and not be trampled under foot by the English." "O fiddlesticks! No one wants to trample you under foot. We mostly want to raise you. We want to broaden your outlook and widen your views. But you know perfectly well that that means a great united country, for the back-veldters might learn at last where strength lay; and then your precious taal, traditions, and history will have to take their proper place in the general scheme, and that will be on a plane of equality and not blatantly on top." Again he protested with outspread hands. "But we have a great country now through union. You overlook the most important fact." "We should have had," she corrected, "if the Bond in Cape Colony, and Het Volk in the Transvaal, and the Unie in the Orange River Colony had not chanced to be powerful enough to work almost entirely in the interests of a Dutch South Africa all the time they were waving a flag, and cheering the colours, and delivering orations on the beauty of Union and their love for the great Mother Country, meaning the Liberal Government, who mostly, it would seem, told them to do as they like and please themselves and not make a fuss, so long as they called it Union." He turned to Meryl with a deprecating air, as if asking for her support, and she smiled rather a tired smile and said, "It is only that she has had to bottle it all up for a long time, as you were not at hand. The next time you come she will be ready to smile on you." "But I hope in the meantime you do not endorse the slander?..." "I have plenty of hope to balance a certain amount of doubt; and if it is any pleasure to you to know it, Diana never troubles to cross swords with a man she has not considerable regard for." He flushed and looked gratified, and Diana remarked coolly, "O, I've lots of regard for you. I'm only sorry that a man who might be brilliant is content to be mediocre because of his prejudices. Now when we were in Rhodesia ..." and she paused, regarding him with the bright, piquant eyes of a small bird. "Well, what about Rhodesia? You didn't find much brilliance there, I imagine? Brilliance does not thrive on bully beef and existence in a mud hut." "Neither does 'back-veldt' obtuseness and narrow-minded bigotry and indiscreet loquacity, Meinheer van Hert." He could not help laughing at the droll way she made the statement. "Well, what does thrive?" "Silence," thoughtfully. "But that did not appeal to you?" with significance. "Not perhaps so much as the growl," was her enigmatic reply. "And did you like this wild, wilderness land of silence?" She regarded him with half-grave, half-mocking eyes. "Well, we understood why _you_ want to have a finger in Rhodesia's pie, you and your various active organisations working in the interests of a Dutch South Africa. Any child could see what such a country would be worth to you. But you won't succeed, my friend. They've got a few strong men up there who believe in 'to-morrow' more than 'to-day,' and are not afraid to forego present honours for future progress. You won't bribe them, and you won't hoodwink them, and you won't get them. They may not have much weight or power or money to back them, but there's something in the atmosphere up there, something in the very air, that would tell anyone with a grain of perspicacity they could be dangerous if they liked. I shouldn't rouse the sleeping lion in Rhodesia if I were you, Meinheer, you and your colleagues, with coercion or anything else--that way lie explosives." At that moment Mr. Pym joined them, and the conversation at once became general, though van Hert laughingly told his host he had been undergoing a regular hoarding hustling. Then he told them of a few happenings since they went away, and because he was as glad as he could be to see them back again, all his natural versatility came uppermost, and one could easily perceive why he was a leader of men, and likely to remain so. "If only one could make him see straight," said Diana, when they spoke of it afterwards, "instead of with the warped vision of a one-idea'd fanatic." Later she tried to draw Meryl a little concerning her attitude towards him, but Meryl would only maintain an unrevealing silence, and Diana was baffled and troubled. She felt vaguely that some new thought was forming in Meryl's mind, some thought that held danger, but she could not grasp in what direction it tended. And van Hert smoked his pipe with a very thoughtful air that evening, pondering deeply. Meryl had neither encouraged him nor repulsed him, and she seemed just the same and yet different; and once more that half-formed dread came back to his memory that through Rhodesia he might lose her. And then he thought he would put the uncertainty at an end quickly and learn his fate as soon as possible; for he was treading on rather thin ice in his public capacity just now, and a strong coalition against him, which was rumoured in the air, might place him in an unpleasant position. On the other hand, Mr. Pym's support and Meryl's charm might prove weapons which would see him safely through, and help him to mould his position anew on broader lines. But for another three weeks Diana successfully baffled his intention, influenced by that vague fear she could not fathom, and a futile, helpless desire to ward off some pending destiny. And in the meantime she puzzled her small head daily concerning the invulnerable silence and aloofness of Peter Carew, and the blue shadows deepening under Meryl's eyes, though she strove hourly to be ever her old self and show no sign. XXII MERYL'S DECISION Although van Hert had no opportunity to reopen the subject of his hopes to Meryl during those three weeks, she knew quite well that he had in no wise changed to her. His every look showed it, and an intangible something in his manner whenever he addressed her. And all the time, though her heart was given hopelessly elsewhere, she felt herself in the grip of circumstances that might determine her action against her inclination. It would be difficult to relate just what passed in her mind through those three weeks, while outwardly she moved in the whirl of social happenings dependent upon their return with all her usual charm and dignity. Certainly she was rather quieter than usual, but as Diana talked and laughed faster, possibly with intent, the change was not noticed. She was specially quieter when van Hert was there, and Diana was specially talkative; entertaining him, rallying him, teazing him, in a way that, at any rate, brought out his best side, and in a sense buffeted the bigot good-naturedly into the attractive companion. And it seemed to show Diana at her best too, for behind all her flippancy there was undoubtedly a purpose and a depth which she would not for a moment have admitted, but which nevertheless was sincere and true. "Of course, I don't really care either way," she would tell him mockingly. "You may have a Dutch South Africa and welcome, if you won't interfere with my personal schemes and general affairs. I've nothing modern about me, in the sense of wanting to reconstruct the world generally and be a Joan of Arc to my retrenched compatriots. But when some of you talkers get up and express high-flown sentiments of brotherhood and union for the benefit of the public Press one moment, and swerve right down and wink at such sentiments as steamroller the English or the finances or the language question the next, it is time you had a little wholesome plain speaking. Anyhow, who _did_ vote the money for the new Government buildings?..." But whether Diana cared or not, one thing was certain: the utterances of that well-known minister William van Hert were showing gradually a higher and broader tone, and an atmosphere of conciliation was beginning to spread over his hitherto rabid sectarianism. And van Hert himself found it went well with his feelings to exchange wordy battles with Diana and keep his dreams for Meryl. The younger girl invigorated and enthused him, while the elder, curiously enough, appealed more to his senses. He wanted her fairness, as a strong, dark man often feels himself drawn to a woman who is frail and fair. And yet even while he wanted her he was a little afraid of her, a little baffled, a little uncertain of himself. Thus the three weeks passed, and the moment of the inevitable decision came near. And all the time Meryl felt herself rather as one who stood upon a difficult, stony place, with the forbidden land behind her and the clear call of a great need before. She believed that she would never see Carew again; that definitely and forever he had cut the threads of deep sympathy both had known existed. It was his dictum and she could only abide by it. What then should she do with her life? To what end turn this existence, blessed by fortune with wealth and the power wealth brings, though suddenly swept bare of joy? And ever and again back to her mind came Carew's words that last evening at Bulawayo: "Help to bridge over the gap. Help to make division become union. That were a work that any man might be proud to give his life to." And every day, more and more fully, she recognised that whatever she had to give she owed to South Africa. She gradually thought herself into a state in which she existed for herself and her own inclinations no more, but only for that sacred claim upon her. For the spirit of noble deeds, the spirit that carried Joan of Arc to the rescue of her country and to martyrdom, is not dead in the world, though no modern historian may depict a woman in armour leading allied armies on the battlefield. In quieter guise, in hidden corners, in unsung self-forgetfulness, women still answer to the divine call that sounds in their hearts, more inspiringly perhaps than in a man's; and for the everlasting good of the human race let us hope it will never cease to sound. Lamartine has said: "Nature has given woman two painful but heavenly gifts which distinguish her from the condition of men, and often raise her above it: pity and enthusiasm. Through pity she sacrifices herself; enthusiasm ennobles her. Self-sacrifice and enthusiasm! What else is there in heroism? Women have more heart and imagination than men. Enthusiasm arises from the imagination, self-sacrifice springs from the heart. They are therefore by nature more heroic than heroes." Enthusiasm and a divine spirit of self-sacrifice held a very deep part in Meryl's heart, though never for a moment would the thought of heroism have occurred to her. Where Diana, out of her mocking, but staunch and loyal heart, amused herself dashing cold water and playful satire upon all heroics, Meryl said nothing at all, but at a critical moment both were equally capable of _acting_. And it did not require much thought on Meryl's part to see now where this spirit of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice seemed to call her. South Africa was at the cross-roads; she was at the period of her most urgent need for great women as well as great men. The only question that seemed to arise was, what did she specially want of the women ready to serve her? In her own case Meryl found an answer from the lips of Carew himself. "Intermarriage," he had said; "that is the real solution to this great barrier of racialism. The same hopes united upon the same hearth." And it did not need much thought to perceive that should she, the admired and beloved heiress, fondly expected to marry an English nobleman and blossom into a peeress, marry instead a Dutchman and devote herself absolutely to South Africa, she would give a tremendous impetus to this question of intermarriage which was to consolidate the great South African Union. She saw herself giving this impetus, because it seemed to be the service life asked of her, and following it up by a wise and steadying influence upon the man who was likely always to be in the forefront of South Africa's politics. And yet, sometimes in the silence of the night, how her spirit shuddered and shrank from it, lying bare and desolate and bleeding under the hopeless, unconquerable ache for that strong Englishman in the north--that soldier-policeman for whom she would willingly have foregone all pride of place, all luxury of wealth, all satisfaction of achievement! Yet this he would never know, seeing her, as he ever must, framed in a vast fortune from which she could not extricate herself. She thought if she might choose, she would remain quietly with her father for ever, doing good, as he, by stealth and without ostentation, feeding her heart on a memory that would never die; but here the spirit of self-sacrifice intervened, and gave her no hope of rest but in fulfilment of what she believed life asked of her. And so the day of decision came, and all unconsciously Diana struck the final note. In the morning, glancing through various papers, magazines, and pamphlets with an extraordinary skill to glean any little essential point without wading through column upon column of matter, she came upon a paragraph that aroused her instant indignation. "O listen to this!" she cried. "If they are not at it again! Somewhere or other General Grets has been making a speech, and here is part of his noble sentiment: 'I earnestly appeal to parents to prevent their children marrying any of the English race. They must not let this colony become a bastard race the same as the Cape Colony. If God had wanted us to be one race, He would not have made a distinction between English and Dutch.' Well, I wonder what Dutch Willie will have to say to that?" and she smiled grimly to herself in anticipation of some satisfaction to come. "This man Grets is certainly one of his supporters. If he comes this afternoon I shall have a nice little bomb ready for him!" But instead of waiting for his usual late hour, van Hert came early, and asked to see Miss Meryl Pym alone; and when Diana returned from a game of golf ready for the fray, she was presented to van Hert as her future cousin. For once even she was nonplussed and at a loss for words. "O well, it would be silly to pretend to be surprised, wouldn't it?" she said rather lamely, and crossed to the tea-table to pour out her own cup of tea. "And it is superfluous to hope you'll be happy and prosperous and all that; so I'll just say, my dear future-in-law, I think you're a devilish lucky man!..." And Diana snapped it out as if an unaccountable sensation demanded an explosive of some sort. "My dear!... my dear!..." cried Aunt Emily in outraged horror. "Do try to remember where you are and who you are! If you indulge in such vulgar, disgraceful language on the golf course, you certainly cannot expect to repeat it in the drawing-room." But Diana paid no heed. She had already observed that Meryl, though blushing faintly, avoided meeting her eyes. "And what about this brilliant speech of General Grets' reported this morning? Will your party allow you to consummate the match, do you think?..." with biting sarcasm. But van Hert only laughed good-temperedly. "Could it in any way better be given the lie?" he asked, and before that irrefutable logic Diana was silent. Neither could she see her way to raising any reasonable objections, when a little, later the engagement was announced broadcast with considerable beating of big drums, but she flung a few sarcasms about with some violence. She flung one or two at her uncle, being at a loss to understand his taking the engagement so quietly; but if she had been present at the interview between him and Meryl before the final sanction was given, she would have seen that he too could hardly act otherwise. In truth, Meryl perplexed them both in those first few days, for she was so calm and quiet and self-contained they both felt a little dumb before her. It was as if, having finally made up her mind, she was determined to avoid all paths that might weaken her and take her stand alone. She was far more quiet and composed than either her father or Diana. These did not say much, but they showed perhaps the more. Henry Pym's hair whitened perceptibly, as if from some stern mental trouble, and Diana was uncertain, peevish, and difficult to please. Only once the subject was alluded to between them. "I confess the news took me rather by surprise," her uncle admitted in reply to some sally of hers, "and I was a little at a loss to follow her actions." "Actions?..." sniffed Diana. "What actions?... None were needed; it is the result of meditation." "You mean?..." questioningly. "Heroics and martyrdom," she snapped, and flung out of the room, leaving him perplexed and grave. "If I thought so," he said in his heart, "if I were sure of it, I would forbid the banns myself." He moved to the window, and stood for a long time looking silently and sadly to the far blue hills. He was thinking that, though he had given his life almost to be all in all to Meryl since she was left motherless, there was one part now he could not play. "A mother would have seen through anything and known what to do," he finished, and sighed heavily. XXIII CAREW'S STORY The news reached Carew through a newspaper. He was back in Salisbury now, attending the renewed sitting of the Commission, giving invaluable assistance. Whatever he said was instantly listened to. The chief members of the Commission, men of note and weight, wondered a little over this distinguished-looking man, merely a soldier-policeman, who knew such an extraordinary amount about the black races in Rhodesia; but if they sought enlightenment they were disappointed. No one knew anything about Major Carew, except that he was once in the Blues and now in the British South Africa police, and that the natives were more or less his hobby. But there was one morning when he was more silent than usual; when he seemed a little _distrait_ and very difficult to approach. And the moment the sitting was over he declined, somewhat curtly, an invitation to dinner that evening, and rode out across the veldt alone. That was the morning the daily newspaper contained the news that the only child of Henry Pym, the well-known millionaire, was engaged to be married to Mr. William van Hert, the eminent politician. And Carew's comment was to ride out across the veldt alone. The news was undoubtedly a shock to him. Of course, he had known she would marry, but, more or less unconsciously, he had pictured her with an English home and a permanent place in English society. The reality,--what actually had happened,--had not entered his head at all. Of course he knew van Hert by name; everyone did. And because of his reputation for anti-English views Carew both marvelled and at the same time gleaned a probable motive. And the result of his cogitations was that added sternness which always came into his face when he was seriously troubled. Yet what use to fret and trouble now? She had gone out of his life for ever, and with her his last chance of glad renewing. Henceforth he must go back to his quiet life of service which asked and gave nothing else, and to the companionship of those old memories which sometimes awakened from their sleep. He rode far across the veldt, and for the first time for many a long year turned back the leaves of the closed book. And the reason he did this was the remembrance of Meryl's face, as she leaned up against the lintel of the window that last evening at Bulawayo, when they both felt it was a final parting. Something that had been in the depths of her eyes, and which she had been powerless to hide, although she made no other sign. It was a remembrance that called that added sternness to his face: the sternness of deep trouble suppressed. For he knew no woman of Meryl's nature would look as she had looked that evening and love another man in a month. Therefore it was probably for some altruistic motive and not love that she had consented to marry van Hert; no shallow, selfish motive he knew well enough, but perhaps some call she had found the courage to answer. But if it was also a sacrifice, an offering of herself and her happiness upon some altar of need, ought he to let her fulfil it? Between her and the husband he had pictured for her he could not allow himself to stand; between her and van Hert, whom he was convinced she did not love, was another matter. Yet he knew in his heart that he could not save her now; the die was cast, both of them must abide by it. And in any case, how could he tell her his story? How could he go to her with that story and empty-handed as well; she the heiress of great wealth, and he without even a name and position? Away out in the kopjes he rode his horse slowly up a steep hill-side, and on the top dismounted and sat upon a boulder, looking over a vast tract of lovely country to infinite blue distances. As ever in moments of stress, he had chosen the height, with wide horizons, fresh-blowing winds, far spaces of sunlight; and in the flickering shade of the thinly foliaged trees he took off his helmet, baring his head to the breeze. And it could be seen that the grey about the temples had been increasing, while the strong lines on the face had deepened already, as if it had gone hardly with him of late. He sat very still; so still that a little squirrel ran down almost to his feet to investigate the strange figure, and little birds chirped all kinds of personalities about him to each other close at hand. He was taking a journey into a far land--the far land of the buried past. He was thinking of that story he would have had to tell Meryl Pym. Of Joan's sad life, sad love, sad death. Of how long ago she had lain dead upon the heather, as far as anyone could tell, slain by his hand. He went back to it now, page by page; it seemed in some sort of penance that he must give. The first pages dealt with those two gay young brothers in the Blues; the elder, Peter, the recognised heir to the rich bachelor uncle, who now made life gay for them with an allowance of two thousand a year each; but he was an autocrat and something of a tyrant, the old uncle, and his will had to be law. He did not mind their sowing of wild oats if they were what he called gentlemanly wild oats, and merely got them talked about as gay young dogs, and he was always generous with an extra cheque if they got into difficulties; but he would not have foolhardy, quixotic affairs at all. There he put his foot down. When the younger brother, Geoffrey, a youth of small, mean aims and temperament, led the pretty daughter of one of the keepers into trouble, he told his uncle he was going to give her a fixed sum out of his own allowance yearly while she was unmarried, and something always for the child. "Nonsense," said the old gentleman tartly; "the girl shouldn't have been such a fool. I will pay one hundred pounds into the bank for her, and she shall not have another penny." Geoffrey thought himself well out of the scrape, but before the incident closed there were words between the brothers that neither ever forgot. Peter took a different view of the matter entirely; he knew the girl, and he knew that she was gentle and confiding, and that Geoffrey had won her round with promises. So he called his brother a cur, and a few other things with strong adjectives, and because he knew he was in the wrong Geoffrey never forgave him. He went further, and hated him from that time onward. But the incident was destined to bear fruit of a far more searching nature. Because he heard the girl was very ill and quietly fretting herself to death, Peter went one day to see her, prepared to make any amends in his power for his brother's sin. And beside the sofa where the girl lay he met Joan Whitby. And such are the vagaries of human nature, with its beginning on that day, the gay, light heart, the fickle fancies, light loves, wild escapades of the devil-may-care young sportsman, all vanished away into thin air before a love that filled his whole being. Lovelier, gayer, cleverer women, ready enough to meet the heir of Richard Fourtenay-Carew halfway, had left him only gay and careless. Joan Whitby, shy, distrustful, reserved, won the prize unsought. She had run away from him, avoided any spot where they might meet, hidden if she saw him in the distance, tried to hurry past if they met unawares; more than that she could not do, because she was the governess at the agent's house, and she and her charge must often cross the park. But Captain Peter Fourtenay-Carew was a hot-headed, determined young man, and having lost his heart to Joan's grey eyes and delicate, lovely face, he was not very likely to be abashed by the fact that she hid from him; rather it whetted his determination to win her. And in the end, because Joan perceived he was an honest gentleman and that he truly loved her, and because with all her pure, strong soul she truly loved him, she left off running away and came shyly through the wood to meet him. And of course Geoffrey, the jealous, spiteful brother, discovered their secret, and carried the tale to his uncle in violent, indignant guise, precipitating anger for his own ends, where a little discretion might have found a compromise. Mr. Carew's lips curled a little cruelly as he remarked he would easily nip that peccadillo in the bud. He would have no penniless, unknown governess reigning at Dartwood Hall, having already quite other views for his future successor. Then he informed his agent the young lady holding the post of governess in his house must be sent away at once, with a quarter's wages which he would be pleased to remit. To Peter he said nothing; he merely waited for an indignant scene, easily to be squashed with cold and cursory logic concerning allowances and future inheritance if his wishes were disregarded. But it was just there that he misjudged this gay, handsome nephew of his, possessed also of a fund of spirit and strong character which his uncle had not had the perspicacity to perceive. The interview duly transpired, but there was no indignation at all. If he had looked for melodrama he was disappointed; the melodramatic did not appeal to Peter Fourtenay-Carew. He merely told his uncle quite quietly and respectfully that he intended to marry Joan Whitby. Richard Carew condescended to reason a little before he resorted to that cold, cursory logic, but he might just as well have saved himself both. Peter stood in the library window, looking across the grand old park, and heard, apparently unmoved, that all those rich acres and woodlands and well-stocked waters and preserves would pass from him to his brother, if he chose to remain obdurate and marry the poor governess, instead of the lady of high lineage his uncle had already selected for him. What he said was, "Do you wish me also to lose my career and leave the Blues?" For the moment his uncle had been too angry to reply. "Get out," he had said roughly. "You can't be yourself this morning. I will not believe you seriously contemplate losing anything." Peter had turned back from the window, and stood a moment looking squarely into his uncle's face. "I am going to marry Joan," he said, "and as you have brought me up to be perfectly useless, except in a crack regiment, I only want to know if you will continue my allowance long enough to give me time to find out what I can be useful at," then he had walked quietly out of the room. And Richard Carew, distrusting his own ears and far more upset than he would ever for a moment admit, remembered that he had seen just that look on the face of Peter's mother when he had had to break to her that her husband had been killed in the hunting-field--a look of desperate finality and unswerving resolve. Within the year he had stood beside her grave also, and taken the two baby boys home to his own house. Then Geoffrey had come to him, and because he was clever and unscrupulous he fanned the flame easily to white-heat. Finally the uncle had decreed, "I will give him a week to think it over, and in the event of his remaining obdurate I will offer him one thousand a year for five years, and at the end of that time the allowance to be renewed or decreased, or stopped, according to my pleasure." At the end of the week Peter's reply was "I am going to marry Joan on the 25th by special licence, in London. If you will not receive us together, I should be glad if my man might pack my clothes and bring them to me, with a few other belongings." And Richard Carew's answer to that had been a lawyer's letter, politely enquiring of Captain Peter Fourtenay-Carew to what address he wished the allowance sent, which was to be his for five years. Peter, not yet too angry to be cautious, asked if the five thousand pounds might be invested for him in entirety, and made arrangements at once to exchange into a far cheaper regiment, aware that as a soldier he might still keep a home for his wife, whereas any experiment in the untried fields of labour might swallow up all he had. In due course the solicitor replied that the request would be granted. But ere the wedding was solemnised the unlooked-for hand of fate dealt him a pitiless blow. He had many friends in the neighbourhood of his uncle's estate, friends who were glad and willing to receive Joan for his sake and her own; and in an unhappy hour he received a pressing invitation to meet her at the house of one of them, and have a week with the pheasants before he had to rejoin his regiment. It was a bitter cold month that year, and every sportsman's temper was a little on edge at having to face December blasts in October. And one day when they were out in a preserve that adjoined Richard Carew's, he and his friend heard shots and voices over the dividing hedge; and it brought up the subject of young Geoffrey's cold-blooded delight in his good fortune at becoming his uncle's heir, and unthinkingly the friend commenced to repeat a report of something he had said in the local club when a little the worse for drink. Then he had stopped short abruptly, trying to turn away the subject, but with a sudden dangerous light in his eyes Peter had demanded to be told; and because the other man's heart was sore for his friend, and he wanted to give Peter an excuse to cross swords with his brother, he told how Geoffrey had implied his relations with Joan had been exactly the same as his own, Geoffrey's, with the keeper's daughter in the beginning, but that he had not been clever enough to get clear of the affair as he had done, and that now he was nicely sold for his high-flown superiority. And then the wrath in Peter's face had been a terrible thing to see. It was as if his very nature reeled. He ground his teeth together, and his eyes had a red look as he muttered savagely, "God damn him; he shall pay for this!" He was standing with his face towards his uncle's preserve, and even as he cursed there was a sound of shots, and a second later a hare dashed out and fled past them. Scarcely knowing what he did in the blind white-heat of his passion, but possessed suddenly with an awful desire to kill, he swung completely round and fired at it. And just at that moment Joan and their hostess were coming up behind, hidden by the brushwood and shrubs, to go with them to the luncheon-place,--and Joan fell, shot through the heart. In the first awful moment no one seemed able to grasp the appalling fact. Peter threw himself down on his knees beside her, and was like a man struck dazed and speechless. He had a feeling that it was some horrible dream or hallucination, and presently this bewildering dazed sense would pass away and he would find the horror had not been real. Then across his torment he heard a voice that stung him alive with dreadful venom. His uncle and his brother had climbed the fence and had come to see what had happened, hearing from a scared keeper that someone was shot. Peter looked up and saw them. It was a dreadful moment for the three to meet. His friend, Maitland, seeing the unnatural ferocity in his eyes, tried to draw him away. Even Richard Carew, the uncle, looked a little alarmed. But Peter in his madness took a step forward. "You cur, you libelled her," he hissed at his brother, and cursed him bitterly. And then Geoffrey lost his head too. An ugly sneer distorted his face as he answered, "Well, anyhow, you won't get your inheritance back now, just through a casual shot. Lady Lilton is going to marry me, and ..." But he had no time to finish, for Peter suddenly hurled himself upon him, and struggled fiercely to get his hands at his throat. The scene was terrible. Those who were present never forgot it, and by the time a keeper and Maitland managed to separate them Geoffrey was too much hurt to stand alone. They left him lying on the ground, while Richard Carew forced a little brandy between his clenched teeth, and Maitland dragged Peter away to where his wife and a keeper were watching with horror in their eyes beside Joan's lifeless form. For a moment they feared he had lost his reason, and then some dreadful tension in his brain seemed to snap suddenly and they saw he was himself again. Without a word to either of them he stooped down and lifted the still form in his arms, and carried her unaided back to the Maitlands' house. He did not lose hold of himself again, but for weeks suffered a mind agony that might well have permanently turned the brain of a weaker man. Night after night the Maitlands heard him leave the house, after all had gone to bed; and they knew that he went out to tramp the moors till morning, for it was only from utter physical exhaustion he ever slept. No word came from the Hall, but rumour said the younger brother was injured so that he would not walk for months. Richard Carew's only action was to lavish hush-money, and keep as much as possible out of the papers. One mistake he made. Through his solicitor he informed his nephew he was willing to give him his former income, that he might remain in his old regiment. In answer to that Peter wrote to the lawyer: "I am leaving England for ever, and I shall cease to remember from this moment that I have the misfortune to be related to Richard and Geoffrey Fourtenay-Carew. No letters will reach me. I leave no address," and then he signed himself "Peter Carew" without the Fourtenay, and used the second name no more. And immediately afterwards he joined one of the early pioneer bands setting out for Rhodesia, possessing nothing in the world but a little money gained by the sale of his personal possessions and a memory that would shadow his whole life. Sitting alone on the kopje-top, he leaned his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands, and it was as though the waters of bitterness overflowed him. No, of course he could never tell Meryl such a story as that. For sixteen years his path had lain alone and his bitterness been shared with none. It must go on so now to the end. When he could bear it the memory of Joan's dear face still came to him as in infinite love and compassion; but he seldom dared allow himself even that; it was better to have nothing in his life--no past, present, nor future except his work. He got up and stood for a moment leaning against his horse, resting his arms on the saddle and gazing far away. Then he rode slowly home under the stars, and by the time he reached the police camp his face was only rigid and mask-like. XXIV A RAIN-WASHED MORNING AND A DISCUSSION It was the first rain-washed morning of the wet season when Ailsa Grenville heard the news, through a letter from Diana. And the first rain-washed morning is an epoch in the Rhodesian year; therefore it cannot be dismissed with a curt announcement. All night long the vigorous, boisterous spring-cleaning had been in progress. Ailsa, snug in her little bed, with the rain slashing and banging and pounding on the corrugated-iron roof, and the trees swishing and swaying, and the wind rushing around like a mad thing, apparently from all four corners of the earth at once, had laughed softly to herself at the commotion Mother Nature was making upon the dusty, dishevelled, rubbish-strewn land. It was as if, having been very busy elsewhere for three months, she meant to stand no nonsense now, but get the whole country furbished up in one night. What a time they were having, those dusty, untidy-looking trees! Bucket after bucket, millions of buckets as big as a house, full of delicious rain-water, flung at their heads! And the dusty, disgraceful roads swept bare, with gallons upon gallons of water driving their refuse hither and thither, all of it, as if mightily ashamed of itself, scrambling along in masses; and, of course, in its haste choking up the drains, and becoming a serious hindrance until a veritable water-spout was necessary to clear the course. And then the dead branches and twigs that the trees had been too lazy to shed; short shrift for them on the first spring-cleaning night. Down they came, helter-skelter, and no notice taken of the tree's groaning, or its crackling cries of protest. And the little river-beds and stream-beds, carelessly left to get filled up with dead leaves and rank grass, such a turning out for them as the resistless water was driven in sweeping streams along their bosoms! And woe betide any carelessly thatched or unsightly roofs! Off they went, away with the general medley. The coming summer would have none of them. And the granite, which had allowed dust and dirt and dead grasses to accumulate upon it, how it got its face scrubbed and washed that first night, and the wind shrieking with glee all the time, dashing the sheets of rain against it with its whole might! But, of course, one could tell that everything liked it. The laughter in the trees and the wind was quite distinct, and the little rivers were fairly shouting with joy. It was not their fault that all that piece of the earth had grown so dusty and untidy; it was Mother Nature's own fault for being so long coming with those big buckets of hers. How could any land, however willing, look spruce and green and clean with no rain for four months? No wonder there was such a commotion, and it was such a noisy, vigorous business, when at last the rain did come! Every tree and every blade and every flower had a special little life-plan of its own to carry out, if only it could get enough moisture, to say nothing of all the myriad insects and birds and animals, who were too lackadaisical, after the long, dry heat, to thoroughly begin their summer preparations until the rain came. The activity among the humans, with their gold-mines and farms and fanciful erections, would be nothing, would not be worth mentioning, compared with the activity going on in the hidden world all around them on the morrow. Even the flowers had been chary of wearing their best dresses in such a dusty, untidy world. But wait till to-morrow, and then see them! Far, far outvying any assembly of Ascot frocks or Lords' cricket week or Henley Sunday. The boisterous rain was a little severe on the dainty blossoms, but one may be sure they bore it with the pluckiest patience, whispering to each other gleefully about the lovely frocks they were going to wear the next day. And there would be such eager, joyful cogitations in the bosoms of all the little males anxious to be off on their spring courting affairs. How could any self-respecting young cock bird or male insect go and pay his addresses in a dusty, dirty, faded coat? Of course, it wasn't to be thought of. The other chap, who waited, would get all the running. But to-morrow there would be no further need to wait at all. Plumage and coats would be spring-cleaned, and expectations for the coming summer of the highest. Well-filled storehouses, leaf-cosy nests, glorious hunting-grounds. Never mind these boisterous winds and the violent way they hurl the rain about; sit tight and make lovely plans for to-morrow. Ailsa, snug in her little bed, thought happily about the earth and its glad renewing, and woke up her precious Billy to say, "Are you awake, Billy? Can you hear it?... We shan't know our little world to-morrow." And Billy, who was sometimes of a very prosaic turn of mind, answered, with a grunt, "Just in time to save that top patch of mealies and the bed of onions, by Jove!..." and then rolled over and went to sleep again. "Bother your onions and mealies," said his adoring wife. "The world wasn't made for you to grow vegetables in!..." But the next morning they climbed a kopje together, just for the joy of it, and laughed softly, and exclaimed in hushed voices at all the wonder outspread. Such a glorious new heaven and new earth! In the heaven a rain-washed sky, resplendent with armaments of fairy cloud-vessels sailing across deepest, loveliest blue. On the earth every leaf and every blade flashing light, as if it had a little sun of its own; every flower in its loveliest court dress; the very stones gay with beautiful shades of lichen; the granite kopjes in the distance, with their faces so thoroughly scrubbed, gleaming with the dazzling brightness of new-fallen snow. Dark, rich soil where the plough had been, renewed with the richness of velvet. Sullen, colourless veldt, radiant in a few short hours with the first outposts of its coming spring glory. Far, blue hills, bluer and intenser than ever in the rain-washed atmosphere. Little cock birds and male insects away off soon after sunrise about those courting affairs that had been delayed. A whole world rejoicing; a whole world singing Te Deums of praise and thanksgiving in its own dear, happy, overflowing way. No wonder the big fellow in the well-worn khaki, with his vigorous enthusiasms and wide sympathies, thought a little regretfully of the hide-bound, clause-bound, doctrine-bound, sober-minded black cloth he had felt himself obliged to put off. Would humanity ever sing again as the sons of the morning? Ever burst into Te Deums of overflowing thanksgiving to the Giver of all good, such as echoed and re-echoed from a long-parched earth on its first rain-washed morning. Well, he could but try to keep the long face and depressing atmosphere and thin air of superiority safely out of his own little sphere, and while he taught the natives to be active, useful members of society, try to help all the settlers about him, hard cases or otherwise, to be honest, fearless, clean-living men, whether they achieved it to the accompaniment of good round oaths and a Sunday morning spent in bed, or on their knees between consecrated walls in the accepted way. Of course, he liked them to come to his little stone tabernacle with its thatched roof, and he made his service just as attractive as ever he could on their behalf; but if they were too lazy or too busy to come--well, it didn't follow they couldn't be honest, clean-living fellows without it; so then he went to them, and sat over their camp fire, and told them a good story or two, and in the end there wasn't a camp within twelve miles where the "bloomin' sky pilot" wasn't one of the most welcome guests. But to do them justice, they mostly liked going to his little tabernacle, for it was always a pleasant meeting-place, and men in exile, even "hard cases," like to sing a good old-fashioned hymn just once in a way; to say nothing of the big home-made cake, full of plums, which was usually ready to be handed round afterwards on the "sky pilot's" verandah, and which he teasingly informed Ailsa was her way of bribing his congregation to come to church, rather than suffer the ignominy of hearing him preach to empty benches. But that was as it might be; anyhow, if a settler within reach chanced to be ill, he might be sure he would get a jelly or soup or milk, even if he had never put a foot inside the little wilderness church. And if Billy could not take it The Kid or Moore had to, for Ailsa ruled her little sphere with a rod of iron, and the two troopers had long been her willing slaves. But though she had cut herself adrift from the pleasant world of her girlhood, and won a real satisfaction out of life that would be death to most women, she had never lost her sympathies with all that went on in that existence, where Life treads on life And heart on heart; We press too close in church and mart To keep a dream or grave apart. And when they came back from their ramble on that joyous morning, Diana's letter caused a shadow to come over all the sunlight, and a quick anxious ache to grow up in her heart. After baldly stating the news of Meryl's engagement her cousin wrote:-- "Was it you, or was it that bearish policeman, who suggested to such a dreamer as Meryl the desirability of a martyr's crown?... She is far better suited to love in a cottage and babies, but just because that is the case and it is easy to obtain, she chooses to break her heart on some vague altar of sacrifice. I have no patience with these high-falutin ideas myself, nor with the cottage and babies either, for the matter of that; but I suppose a few people had to be practical and selfish and commonplace, to keep the world going round without violent bumps and jerks. Don't send Meryl congratulations; send her an In Memoriam card. Believe me, it is better suited to the auspicious occasion." Ailsa showed the letter to her husband, feeling that it was the worst news she had had for many years. "What does it mean, Billy?... What can have influenced her?... My sweet Meryl! What is it?... What can it be?... that keeps Major Carew so aloof? It was easy to see how they attracted each other." "He is a proud man," her husband said, gravely. "It is not easy for a proud man with nothing to choose a wife with a large fortune." "Ah, but there is something more," she cried, "it cannot be only that. What has kept him so reserved in every particular all these years?" But Grenville could not help her, and all the afternoon she worried and fretted in silence. In the evening she said to him anxiously, after again discussing the news, "Mrs. Fleetwood has often asked me to visit her in Salisbury. Shall I go now? Perhaps if I could get Major Carew to talk?..." "You will never get him to talk," with quiet conviction. "Nevertheless, my husband, I feel I must try. We have so much, you and I. One can but make the effort." She got up from her chair and went round to him, and climbed on to his knee and hid her face, because she was troubled and unhappy. "Tell me something I can do to help them, Billy?" she pleaded. He fondled her hair in silence a moment, and then, because he thought it might comfort her afterwards to know she had tried, he said, "There is no harm in your going to Mrs. Fleetwood's. I think the change would do you good." And Ailsa went to bed a little comforted that at least he sanctioned her journey. XXV AILSA LEARNS CAREW'S SECRET Ailsa had to journey to Selukwe in the post-cart, and she found it very trying; all the more so because her tender heart, which loved all animals, suffered agonies of compassion for the poor underfed, overworked mules, some with sores, urged pitilessly along by their black driver. She wished vainly that she was the happy possessor of a fortune, and might at once finance in Rhodesia the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for which funds are so urgently needed. At Selukwe she had some little time to wait at the hotel before taking the train, and she went round to the posting-stables to interview any white man she could find who might be in a responsible position towards the post-cart mules on the subject of their condition. The man, of course, complained of the roads, which were in a hopeless condition, and beyond satisfying in a measure her own sense of compassion, she knew she had done little good. But while she talked to the white man at the stables, a thin, scholarly looking, grey-haired gentleman chanced to overhear their discourse, and raising his hat to her with grave courtesy, expressed his admiration of her action. "But can nothing be done, do you think?" she asked him dolefully. "I'm afraid not. You see, the Government do not particularly wish that route used, and so they have allowed the road to lapse. Let us hope there will very shortly be a railway, at any rate, to Edwardstown, and that then visitors will be encouraged to go and see your wonderful Zimbabwe ruins, instead of discouraged by the discomforts of the way." They moved towards the hotel together, and Ailsa asked, "Have you seen them?" "Only for a few short hours, which were all I could spare from some research work I was doing elsewhere in Rhodesia. I was tremendously impressed by the little I had time to see, and look forward to a long sojourn there presently." They talked on, their conversation drifting from one subject to another, and then he discovered her name was Grenville, and she that his was Delcombe, and they greeted each other anew as both hailing from lovely Devon. After that he proudly assumed the rôle of escort, and waited upon her hand and foot. As it chanced, he also was journeying to Salisbury, so they became travelling companions, and the chance acquaintanceship ripened rapidly. In the evening they dined together in the restaurant-car and sat long over their meal; and then it was that Ailsa chanced to mention the name of Major Carew. Henry Delcombe at once remarked, "There was a Major Carew at the Zimbabwe police camp, I think, when I visited the ruins, but I did not see him. I should like to have done. I understood from the young trooper there that he is some relation to the Fourtenay-Carews?" and he paused interrogatively. "It was the man I am speaking of. He _is_ a Fourtenay-Carew." "Ah!..." and Ailsa saw instantly the swift interest in her companion's eyes; a wave as of thought-telepathy that this man probably held the key to Peter Carew's past. Delcombe read in her sparkling eyes that her interest in the soldier-policeman was no casual one, but of the warmest friendship. "Did you know him before he came out here?" she ventured. "I knew his father well; I lived near to them in Devon. I was doing some research work, and I had a quiet little home in a lovely valley close to the little place that was then this man's home, and quite near also to Dartwood Hall, where the elder brother, Richard Fourtenay-Carew, lived. They are not a rich family at all, you know. Dartwood Hall and estates and money came to Richard Carew through a very eccentric godmother, who brought him up, and he could do as he liked with it all. His younger brother, Peter Fourtenay-Carew, and his wife had, I think, only a very small income between them besides his pay as a captain. They rented a pretty little place in Devonshire close to Dartwood Hall, and came there for the hunting whenever he was able. The brothers were good friends, and he always had the run of the Dartwood stables. They were an interesting pair, but it was the younger whom I regarded as a friend, and that was why I was anxious to find out if I had stumbled across his son. As you may have heard, Captain Fourtenay-Carew, the father, was killed in the hunting-field and his wife died within the year. The two boys, then quite babies, were adopted by Richard Carew and brought up as his own sons." He paused and studied Ailsa's face gravely. She was almost breathless with interest, and he seemed a little taken aback by it. She saw the question in his eyes, and hastened to add frankly, "I cannot tell you how interested I am to hear this. My husband and I think there is no one in the world like Major Carew; in fact, in some vague, distant way I believe we are related. But he never speaks of his past life at all. For some reason he seems to regard it as a closed book; he even persists in calling himself a Rhodesian, and resolutely ignores the fact that he is anything else as well." "Ah!..." and the thin, scholarly face of her companion looked as if he were obtaining a clue he wanted. There was a pause, and each seemed to be weighing something in his and her mind. Then Ailsa spoke: "I conclude he has some reason for his extreme reticence, and I hope I should be one of the last to pry into anyone's secrets; but for a reason I can hardly explain, I should be very glad to know something now that might possibly help me to do a special service for him. I shall see him in Salisbury." "What I know is no secret in a general sense," said Delcombe, speaking with grave deliberation; "but the facts of it were cleverly hushed up by his uncle, and you will easily understand that Major Carew would never speak of it now. My own interest in the matter is because of my regard for his father, and, I think I may say, admiration for himself. Anyone seeing the two brothers together as I did--that is, the younger men--must have felt deeply drawn to the elder and repulsed by the younger. A finer young fellow than Peter Fourtenay-Carew never stepped. The other brother was good-looking also, but he was cunning and crafty and little liked. Yet, such are the mysterious ways of Providence, the younger brother, by an unlooked-for turn of events, became the possessor of wealth and place and influence, and the elder went out from his country penniless, exiled, and alone. As far as I can judge, no one in England has ever heard of him since. I don't think it is even known where he is. A few of us knew that he came out to South Africa, and journeyed to Rhodesia with one of the pioneer columns, but that is quite sixteen years ago, and events at home move quickly, and his utter silence lost him the warm places he might have held in most hearts, or, at any rate, left them in abeyance. I only came out to Rhodesia a few months ago, and I have been much on the veldt, studying ancient relics; but I have kept my ears open. I heard of the man you are speaking of at the police camp at Zimbabwe, but the young trooper, Mr. Stanley, was not communicative. With a very praiseworthy _esprit de corps_, he declined to be drawn into any discussion whatever concerning his officer. I heard after I left that he, Major Carew, was a very reserved, taciturn man, but it was generally credited he had once held a captaincy in the Blues; that and a personal description persuaded me he was my old friend's son." "Yes," Ailsa said, "there can be no doubt about it. I suppose you knew that he was going to be married just before he came away, and something rather dreadful happened?" "Ah; he has revealed that much, has he?" in some surprise. "Not to me; to a great friend of mine." "I see." He seemed perplexed, uncertain evidently, how much to tell her. Ailsa understood, and was a little at a loss how to act herself. "I should not have mentioned the fact to anyone else," she said, "as he evidently wishes to keep all personal matters entirely to himself; but, of course, you were very likely to know it. I also learnt from my husband that he was the elder brother and originally his uncle's heir, but something happened to cause Mr. Carew to change his mind." Then Mr. Delcombe said thoughtfully, "I think there is no reason why I should not tell you a little more about him. I have always felt exceedingly sorry for his determined exile, and the isolation from all his old friends and old delights. I know that he dearly loved Devon, and one feels it is time now that he came back to try and pick up the threads. You and your husband appear to be his only friends, and as a distant connection you might be able to approach him upon a subject where a stranger, or shall we say a forgotten friend, would be diffident." He paused, then added, "I wonder if he has the remotest idea that, owing to several deaths, he is now the next heir to the Marquis of Toxeter?" A sudden joy seemed to sweep Ailsa through and through, and her eyes shone, and she clasped and unclasped her hands with excitement as she breathed, "O, is that _really_ true? It seems too good; too much like a story-book." "Yes, it is a fact. Major Carew's family was a younger branch, and sixteen years ago it would never have entered anyone's head that the marquisate might fall to them. Time makes many changes, and three heirs have died in succession. The present marquis is old and has no children, therefore the next heir was Richard Fourtenay-Carew, also childless, and after him Major Carew's father. Richard Carew died very shortly after this man left England, and young Geoffrey Carew then succeeded to all his possessions. I believe something was left to Major Carew, but he refused to touch it. It is since then that (his uncle being dead) he has become the heir of the present marquis, and I think it highly probable he has no notion of the fact whatever." "I am almost certain he has not," Ailsa intercepted, "for I think he would have mentioned it to my husband." "Unfortunately there is very little money with the title, but he is not a man to trouble much about that; and, of course, the present marquis may live some time. But I have thought sometimes if he _knew_ it might wipe out a little of the past bitterness. His brother robbed him of so much, but in the end it would seem Nature is making things even again. Geoffrey would give half his wealth to have the title, and I have reason to believe that it is a great bitterness to him to know that his brother, who cares nothing at all about it probably, must inevitably inherit it if he outlives the present owner." "And you will tell him?..." eagerly. "Perhaps. Or it may be that you!..." He hesitated, and looked at her thoughtfully. And then Ailsa said impulsively, "Let me give you trust for trust. I am taking this journey now chiefly on Major Carew's account. There is trouble in the air. I cannot tell you the facts; I scarcely know them. But he has lived his isolated, reserved life so long, I feel it has perhaps warped his view a little, and if he could be persuaded to open his heart to a friend he might see things in a clearer light, and save himself and a dear friend of mine great unhappiness." She paused, then added sadly, "But I am so much in the dark concerning him I hardly know how to win his confidence. There appears to have been this something before he left England, something rather terrible, that has shadowed all his life." "There was; I will tell you in confidence. Richard Carew hushed it all up, but there were a few of us who _knew_. His quarrel with his uncle was because he insisted upon marrying a poor governess, a most lovely and charming lady, instead of the bride his uncle had chosen. He was disinherited, and his allowance so curtailed that he would have to leave his regiment; but none of that troubled him in the least. He adored his fiancée, and was supremely happy, as anyone could see. Then the tragedy fell. I cannot tell you all the details, probably no one knows them except his friends the Maitlands and his brother, and uncle who is now dead. He was out shooting with Maitland, and the other two were near at hand; and Maitland had repeated something to him his brother had said, which was a deadly insult to Miss Whitby. He was in a blind fury, and scarcely knew what he was doing, when he swung round and fired at a hare behind him...." There was a moment's intense pause before he finished in a low voice--"and the shot killed the poor girl he was to have married in a week." "O, how terrible!..." Ailsa gasped, and went white to the lips. "How terrible! Poor man! O, poor man!" Tears came into her eyes, and she turned away to hide them, and for some moments both were silent. Then Delcombe continued, "It is no wonder that he has been always reserved and silent. I suppose in a way it killed the part of him that could be anything else. He just went right away to a strange country, dropped the double name they had always been proud of, and cut himself adrift altogether from everything connected with his old life. It is no doubt his intention to remain apart, and take up the old threads no more. But I loved his father, and I loved him in my old-fashioned way which he was not likely to perceive; and when the Royal Geographical Society offered me a chance of a trip to Rhodesia I took it gladly. One of my first thoughts, when the decision was finally made and I was appointed, was, 'Perhaps I shall come across Peter Carew's son.'" Ailsa rested her elbow on the table and leaned her head on her hand, still with the glisten of tears in her eyes. "It makes one feel there is surely a Providence," she told him softly, "for my chance meeting with you may save him, and that other, from everlasting regret." A little later, when they went to their separate compartments for the night, she thanked him again. "You have made me feel quite broken-hearted for our dear soldier-policeman. Think what his memories must have been all these years! But perhaps his dark day is finished. I am very hopeful now. God bless you for remaining so staunch a friend to him and giving me your confidence!" And in Johannesburg that night Meryl said simply and quietly to van Hert, "I will marry you as soon as you wish. As you say, there is nothing to wait for, and, afterwards, there is much that we can do together." "In a fortnight?" he urged, and she assented. But Diana insisted otherwise. "It is simply indecent haste," she exclaimed, "and nothing in this world will persuade me to decide upon my bridesmaid's frock and have it ready in less than three weeks, and it may be a month." And Meryl--a quiet, white-faced Meryl nowadays, with little enough enthusiasm for frocks and wedding-presents--let her have her way. XXVI "HOW CAN I GO TO HER!..." The first meeting between Ailsa and Carew was a very difficult one for the woman. Directly she saw him she realised that he had drawn back into his shell further than ever, and the increased greyness on his temples spoke for itself of anxious, troubled hours. At first he had been difficult to entrap. In reply to her note came just a vague regret that he was exceptionally busy, and often out on the veldt, with a hope that he would see her before she left. One or two other attempts failed entirely to procure the interview, and she was almost at her wits' end. Finally, she had to resort to strong measures, and gain her end by subterfuge. Carew went to the house of a man friend by invitation, and was shown into his friend's den to find Ailsa awaiting him alone. The expression on his face told her instantly that he felt himself trapped, and resented it. But she could be very disarming when she liked, and she had tact enough to follow the straight course most likely to appeal to him now that she had gained her interview. "You must not be angry with me," she said, with engaging frankness. "I simply had to see you." He stood very upright, with a cold, unresponsive face, and waited for her to proceed. "Won't you sit down? You make it difficult for me when you are ... so ... so ... distant and unbending." He moved away to the window, and stood looking out, with his back to the room. "Will you tell me what it is you have to say?" he asked very quietly. He knew perfectly well it had to do with Meryl, and he did not want her to see his secret in his face. In fact, he did not wish to speak of the subject at all. Ailsa stood silently a moment, looking at his back, and then she said very quietly, "I have heard the story of your past life. I ... I ... know it all." For a moment there was such a stillness in the room that one could almost hear heart beats. The figure in the window never moved. "Who told you?..." he asked at last. "Mr. Henry Delcombe, the scientist, who was a great friend of your father's." Another silence. At last-- "Is he in Rhodesia now?" "He is here, in Salisbury. He will not tell anyone else," she added. "He told me because ... because ... he perceived that Billy and I cared for you very much, and for your happiness." She moved a little nearer to him, and continued gently, "I felt almost as if I could break my heart with sympathy for you,--and that you should have borne such memories all these years, _alone_." "I have put them behind me," he said, speaking almost harshly. "The past is dead. What does it matter who and what I was before?... To-day I am a Rhodesian, and my work is _here_. I shall remain here now until I die." "You may not be able to do that," and her voice had suddenly a ring in it that seemed to arrest him. "Why may I not?" "Because presently--very soon perhaps--you will have to answer to a call that requires you in England." He half turned to her, waiting silently and unmoved, with grave eyes fixed on the distance. She came a step nearer. "Mr. Delcombe told me also, that because of many changes that have taken place in the sixteen years since you cut yourself adrift from home, you are now heir to the marquisate of Toxeter. When the present marquis dies you will succeed him." It seemed at first as if he heard without understanding. Once more there was a silence in which one might hear heart beats. "Will you let me congratulate you?" Ailsa asked a little timidly. "I think he must have been dreaming," he said in slow comment. "No; there is no doubt about it whatever. He will tell you himself if you will let him. He wants to see you very much." And still he was only silent, gazing, gazing to the far distance. If it was true, how was it he had never heard?... Could it possibly all have transpired during the times he had been away shooting in the far north, or out on the veldt, away from newspapers for months? "There is something else I want to speak about," and her voice trembled somewhat. "This news concerning your future will make it a little easier. You know, of course, that Meryl Pym has become engaged to Mr. van Hert, the well-known Dutch politician?" Instantly he stiffened. "I saw it in a newspaper." She came close up to him suddenly. "O, Major Carew"--and there was an infinite pleading in her voice--"Billy and I thought you cared for her, and we believed she cared for you. Don't let her wreck her whole life now.... Don't stand by and let her marry a man she does not love. Go to her before it is too late!" Under his iron control his face seemed to work strangely. She saw the swift compression of his lips, the swift pain in his eyes, the strong hunger he could not entirely hide. "It is impossible," and the usual steadiness of his voice was shaken. "You say you know my story!... How can I go to her and tell her that once I killed the woman I loved?... How can I speak to her of love--I, the policeman, she the heiress?... How can I tell her that story which was told to you?... The story of damnable hate and passion, when I tried to strangle my own brother. I tell you she would shrink away in horror. She must shrink. Why did you speak to me about it at all! Your thoughts are folly and madness. _I_ offer love to Meryl Pym?... My God! I have some decency--some pride left." And the pain and bitterness in his voice shocked and stabbed her. But in spite of her inward shrinking she answered him boldly, drawing on a courage lent her by love and sincerity. "And I say that if you love her truly, you ought to be able to trust her with your story. It is not noble and spirited of you to stand aside as you perhaps think. It is cowardly. Pride is generally cowardly. For the sake of your pride, of your own personal feelings, you will let her go on with this marriage and never say a word and never move a finger to save her from shipwrecking her whole life. First you will let your own sad past come between you; then you will let her hateful gold drive you away; then you will talk of yourself as just a policeman. And in any case--you must know it as well as I know it--none of these things would estrange Meryl Pym from the man she loved. There is nothing whatever between you except your pride, and you think that demands a renunciation from you, careless or no whether it brings heart-break for her." He had grown deathly white now, with dark hollows round his eyes, and she could almost see how his teeth were clenched behind the firm lips. She had taken him entirely by surprise in her outburst, and her news concerning himself; and he discovered she had swept his secret from him concerning his love for Meryl, almost before he knew what he was speaking of. "There might be something in what you say if Miss Pym cared for me in return. That she does is the merest supposition." "And how do you know that with such sureness?" she cried. "No, no, Major Carew; in your heart you know otherwise. But you just let her go away without a word, without a hope, and one or two of us know what this hasty engagement means. Diana calls it martyrdom. She wrote me to send Meryl an _in memoriam_ card instead of congratulations, for it was more in accord with the occasion." His face worked visibly, in spite of his stern suppression, but he still stood rigid and upright, looking away from her--out over the far shadowy veldt, seeing nothing. In the pulsing silence that followed he beheld again that terrible October scene, when his love lay dead upon the heather. Could he ask any other woman to share that with him?... let the burden of such a memory faintly touch her life?... He knew that at the inquest it had been decided no one could possibly say who fired the shot. His uncle and brother were both shooting at the time, in the same direction; but though his friend Maitland had insisted upon a verdict of accidentally shot by someone unknown, and Richard Carew had resolutely supported him, in his own heart he had stood condemned. Yet if penance were required, what had he not given?... Exile, loneliness, nonentity for all the best years of his life; and her image, the beloved face of his lost Joan, the only woman's presence in his life. And yet now, as he stood gazing, gazing to the far blue hills, it seemed that her face and Meryl's were strangely blended. From the very first their eyes had been as the eyes of one woman, infinitely comprehending, infinitely true. Was it possible that Ailsa's accusation was true? One woman had been sacrificed more or less to his mad, insensate fury against his brother. Was the other perhaps to be sacrificed to his rigid, indomitable pride? One picture seemed to stamp itself upon his brain with ever-increasing strength and clearness: the picture of Meryl, leaning up against the window lintel that last evening at Bulawayo, white as a frail, exquisite lily, with the anguish in her deep eyes that she could not entirely hide. That, and the iron control he had needed to put upon himself, making him seem grim and unfeeling for fear one instant's weakness should make his longing arms enfold her. Well, he had played his man's part as well as he could; ridden away from her, disappointed her, openly avoided her, only in the end to love her with the deep, wise, understanding, all-embracing love of a man past his first youth, and with a wide knowledge of human nature. And this engagement of hers to van Hert! What might it not result from?... What hopelessness, what despair, what heroic resolve to play her little part in the country's good, and win some satisfaction perhaps, since she might not have happiness! Standing silently at the window it all seemed to pass through his mind with piercing clearness, and Ailsa's spirited attack rang still in his ears: "First you will let your sad story come between you, then her hateful gold, then your lowly position, answering to the call of your own pride, careless whether it wreck her life's happiness or no." Yes, she was quite right, it _was_ his pride. Even now the thought of the gold was hateful to him. Still, if some day he would indeed be the Marquis of Toxeter!... if he could at least offer her a high position!... if it was no longer a question of going to her empty-handed.... The silence continued, and in the background Ailsa waited and watched. She could read nothing from the tall figure in the window, except that his thoughts were far away and he was probing deeply. She leaned back in a low chair, feeling suddenly very tired and overwrought. She had come all the way from far Zimbabwe for this interview, just to say to this man, before it was too late, the spirited things she had said. And now?... She looked round the den of the man who was her friend, and his, and had helped her to win the interview, noting each trivial detail, each attempt at decoration and hominess, each cunning substitute such as every Rhodesian contrives out of his ingenuity for some trifle not easily procured in that far land. And all the time she was tensely painfully aware of that strong man in the window, and of the issues that hung upon his decision. How, in the event of his deciding to approach Meryl, the recognised fiancé was to be treated, was beyond her. She was too tired to probe further. She only cared that Meryl's happiness should be saved. Her own had been so nearly lost, she had seen so much unspeakable bitterness arise out of one great mistake, made once by many women at the altar, and she only waited to know if she had lost or won. At last the silent figure moved. At the window Carew turned and came towards her. She watched him with all her soul in her eyes, unable to rise from her chair for very tension. "What are you going to do?..." she asked, hoarsely. "Can you tell me where I can find Henry Delcombe?" he said. XXVII DIANA BEGINS TO GROW PERPLEXED In the meantime the household at Hill Court was a restless, uneasy, depressed one. No person in it, except Meryl, seemed undisturbed by the unsatisfactory atmosphere. She by taking thought, had, contrary to the old dictum, added to her stature; but it was the stature of her mind. The spirit that takes a woman through the troubled waters at hand, with all her consciousness set upon the great goal ahead, upheld her now; and in the presence of onlookers gave her a grave serenity, not in any way akin to joy, but baffling to those who would fain have seen her show a stronger feeling either of gladness or regret. It baffled even van Hert himself. To him she seemed so strangely the same, yet different, from the woman he had loved before the Rhodesian tour. In all his work, his plans, his schemes, she was as earnest and interested as he could possibly wish; but that fairness his dark strength had coveted seemed to elude him at every turn. When he kissed her, he felt vaguely that she suffered his caress; on one or two occasions it almost seemed as if she went further and shuddered, and yet she never actually repulsed him. And then the dainty, light humour that had been hers as well as Diana's!... What had become of it?... It seemed now as if Diana had absorbed it all, for Meryl was nearly always quiet, while the younger girl was almost boisterous. And yet even in Diana there was a note that puzzled him. She was so jumpy and uncertain. Childishly gay one moment, and cuttingly brilliant the next. He was glad she was there. After the first week of the engagement he found himself quite willing to further Meryl's obvious wish for her company upon every occasion. So if she rose to leave them alone they deterred her with vague requests and excuses; and when they went in public together, Diana was always with them. And when she was snappy, they laughed at her and did not mind. Diana snappy was better than no Diana at all. Aunt Emily thought otherwise, and was deeply grateful to them in her heart whenever they took her refractory niece safely out of her way. Her escapades were apt to be so wild nowadays, and her language so horrifying; and whenever the poor lady remonstrated, she was always told that it was the result of the Rhodesian trip. "It will take me quite a year to get over it," Diana informed her. "You can't eat rats, and sleep with a frog in your bed, and go unwashed for weeks on end, without suffering from it in some way. God bless my soul!... is it likely?..." At the end of the second week, anyone watching with keen insight might have seen a still more significant change creeping over the three most noticeable inmates of the house; for Mr. Pym was only silent and grave and retiring, going early to his study and feigning to be much occupied. And Aunt Emily had acquired a habit of going to sleep after dinner during her solitariness, which Diana wickedly called a dispensation from Heaven to bless the household of Henry Pym. So the lovers and Diana were left to themselves, and usually sat upon the deep verandah. And it became apparent presently that all the talking was done by Diana and van Hert; Meryl was merely a silent listener. Perhaps she was not even a listener; one could not tell. She sat so still, with wistful eyes looking out beyond the stars. But Diana, on the other hand, exceeded herself; and in doing so she made van Hert exceed himself also. She was brilliant, mischievous, reckless, serious, satirical, nonsensical, all in a breath. She drove him hither and thither; led him on one moment, and withered him with her satire the next. It was obvious the man very soon left off treating her with any careless levity; if he did he was outwitted in no time; torn to shreds, and cast to the four winds on merry logic that had ever the sting of satire behind its laughing lightness. Very quickly he was on his guard, with thrust and parry; keen, watchful, alert--the politician to whom South Africa listened. And finally there came a day when, after unfolding a plan to Meryl, he added, "That is my idea, but I thought I would consult your cousin first." It seemed to strike him that it was a little odd, and he added, "She is extraordinarily observant. She may see some weak point we have overlooked." "Yes, consult Diana," Meryl had replied at once; "she knows a lot about statistics of that kind. She has often had arguments with father over them." So in the evening van Hert came in eager haste to have his talk with Diana. And Diana had taken herself off to a dinner-party and was not forthcoming. So the lovers sat on the verandah alone, and after a little they began to feel at a loss for anything to say, and wished devoutly that Diana would return. As she was likely to be late, van Hert got up and spoke of departing. He said he had a measure to study carefully, ready for the reopening of Parliament at Cape Town. And while he was still explaining, Diana returned. She had made an excuse and left the party early. "It was so dull," she said. "I have no patience with people who let me bite them, and do not try to bite back. I bit them all, more or less, in the end, and left them bathing each other's sores, so to speak, and exclaiming with bated breath at my cleverness. Fools and blockheads! just because I've got a banking account that would buy half of them up, and never miss it. As if I didn't know, when I'm in that mood, I'm a cattish little spitfire!..." "So you came home to worry us?..." and the pleasure in his face was suddenly illuminating. "Well, you have the pluck to hit back," and she looked at him with a flash of her eyes that made his senses reel a little. She threw her costly evening-cloak on to a chair, and pushed it a little aside with her foot, with a graceful action that displayed a dainty slipper and ankle, in no wise lost upon him. "I always hit back myself," she continued. "I've no sympathy with the 'other cheek' theory. I hit twice as hard as the attacker if possible. If Aunt Emily were here, I should say I give a dickens of a smack; but as she isn't, it is not worth while." She came forward with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. "Poor dear Aunt Emily! I sometimes have her conscience very much on my mind; but there ... I can bear it." And her comical enunciation in the poor lady's exact tones set both Meryl and van Hert off laughing. The laughter was coming back to her own eyes too. When she entered they had been clouded, and her lips pouting. If they only knew it, she had been bored to tears at the party; bored utterly and completely, longing to be back on the verandah fighting a wordy, keen, good-tempered battle with van Hert; and she felt sure he would have gone when she returned. She had noticed he never stayed late when she was absent. But she was just in time. He had not gone, was only just going, and she perceived the face of each was tired and depressed. "What have you been doing?" she rallied them. "You looked as if you had been intending to read the marriage service through together, and had read the funeral one by mistake; or possibly because it appealed to you more!... You both seemed doleful enough for anything." "We missed you," Meryl said, simply. "William wanted to ask you about a new measure he is planning." Van Hert said nothing, but he was looking at her unconsciously, with a light in his eyes that staggered her. Other men had looked at her with admiration, but this man had an expression that seemed to envelop her with himself. She felt throughout her pulses that he was all fire and eagerness and intensity, a strong, wilful, obstinate, fierce, virile personality that reached out mute, unconscious arms to her level-headed coolness. The fire in his eyes was only smouldering as yet, but it seemed to tell her that he was a fine-toned, brilliant instrument that she, and perhaps she only, could play upon as she liked, bringing forth both thundering chords and enveloping sweetness. And in the sudden silence that had fallen upon the verandah, Diana knew that she liked to play, would always like to play, that with this man at least boredom would never fret her restless soul. Then she plunged into words with him, and they sparred delightedly, and that work he had spoken of as awaiting him at home was left to take care of itself. Later, Diana went outside on the verandah of her room and Meryl's and looked at the stars. The tables had turned utterly, but it was doubtful if either of them perceived it. Meryl went quietly to bed with only a few words, and either slept, or feigned sleep. Diana loitered on the verandah, and looked at the stars. She hardly knew why, only some strange half-consciousness was springing up inside her that made her restless. Somehow van Hert seemed to be gaining a hold over her. She could not gauge how, nor why, nor wherefore; but as she thought of his fine dark eyes in the starlight, with that luminous, glad expression when he looked at her, she had a sense of violent antipathy one moment, and of a gladness that made her blush secretly the next. But within three days the date of the wedding was fixed, and all the papers paragraphed it far and wide. It appeared in Salisbury the day after Ailsa had had her talk with Carew, and it came as a shock to both of them. It left just three weeks for action, and no more. What was to be done? Ailsa tried to get another interview with Carew at once, and found he had had to ride to some place twenty miles distant, and might not be back until the morrow. So, in distress, she sought Henry Delcombe. What he had to tell her was faintly reassuring. Carew had gone to see him after he left Ailsa, and had asked for proofs of his heirship to the marquisate of Toxeter. Delcombe had been able to satisfy him, and he had been gravely friendly, but that was all. At last, in desperation, Ailsa decided to write to Diana. The mail left that morning, and would reach Johannesburg in three days. Diana was full of resource, and she might think of a plan. Ailsa decided to tell her as much as she could without betraying any confidence. She said no word of the tragedy. That only concerned Meryl, and if she were to hear it at all, she must hear it from him. Neither did she mention his changed position; that also he should tell himself. She contented herself with letting Diana know that he had admitted he loved Meryl. In the meantime she waited anxiously for Carew to return, but heard no word of him until the Sunday afternoon. In reply to an urgent little note he came to see her. She had wondered if he would be changed at all; if his new position would shed a ray of gladness in his steady eyes. But he seemed exactly the same, and she could read nothing. "Did you see the announcement yesterday?" she asked. "There is so little time. I had to see you." "I did." "And what are you going to do?" He looked down at the carpet, lost in thought. "I hardly know," he said. "O, won't you at least go to Johannesburg?..." she pleaded. "See Meryl once. If you fail her now, perhaps you will never forgive yourself." "On the other hand, I may only disturb her mind. How do you know she has not cared for this man for a long time? In any case, what right have I to cross _his_ path now?" "O, your logic!..." she cried. "The way you men think this and that and the other, when a woman just _knows_! Go and see her. Go and make sure of things for yourself." But he shook his head in doubt and perplexity. To him it seemed almost like stealing to go and attempt to take from this other man what he had won fairly and openly; and though Ailsa tried other arguments, she could not move him. Only one half-hope she extracted from him. "Perhaps," he said, "I will write to Mr. Pym and ask his advice." Then he went back to the hours of desperate mental stress, that were steadily increasing the grey about his temples. To Ailsa he might have seemed cold and self-contained as ever, but if she could have known it, all his being was torn with conflict. With the hourly growing ache and longing to throw everything to the winds and to try to carry Meryl off while there was yet time there was the fear lest a wrong step on his part should shatter for her some newly found content. XXVIII DIANA'S PERPLEXITIES INCREASE The two days after Diana came home early from her dinner-party were chiefly noticeable for the fact that for the first time since the engagement van Hert remained away from Hill Court. No one knew why, and the excuse he sent was of the vaguest. Diana asked her own heart and was troubled. When he came on the third day, he walked into the drawing-room to look for Meryl, and found Diana reading in the window alone. They discovered each other suddenly, and it was almost as if he gave a guilty start; and he looked unusually pale, with haggard eyes, as if he had slept badly of late. Diana saw it all, but gave no sign. "You are something of a stranger, Meinheer van Hert," she said lightly. "My sword had almost time to rust." "It would never do that. The best of swords is none the worse for an occasional rest; unless"--with a somewhat tired gleam of humour--"you have been keeping it bright at the expense of poor Aunt Emily." "No, it has had a real rest. I am saving it again for the best swordsman worthy of it." His eyes came suddenly to her face, and she realised at once that until that moment he had scarcely looked at her; and in that second's flash she saw something in them that hurt: a swift, deep trouble that he was struggling to hide. He looked away again quickly, noting the lovely shades of the room, the masses of violets, the general airiness and elegance. "Is Meryl at home?" "Yes. I will go and tell her you are here." Diana went upstairs very slowly, lost in thought. And when she had told Meryl, she stood a long time at the window, thinking still. Presently Meryl came back. "William came to ask me to definitely fix the date of the wedding. We decided on the fifth; that will give us just a week before he must go to Cape Town." Then, as if she did not expect Diana to make any comment, she added, "The invitations must go out to-night." That evening van Hert came as usual, but, simply because he was gayer than usual, Diana perceived that his gaiety was forced; and she saw also that he shunned meeting her eyes, looking anywhere, nowhere, rather than into her face. The next day she rode in a direction where she and Meryl often met and joined him for a gallop. Meryl had suggested coming as usual, but Diana had contrived to put her off. She wanted if possible, without quite knowing why, to see van Hert alone; and as it happened, Fortune favoured her, for he appeared up a side road suddenly, and had no time to escape her, even had he wished. So they rode together, and he tried to talk to her as usual. When they came to a spot where they often dismounted, and sat to enjoy the lovely view of distant hills, Diana prepared to get off her horse. She saw him hesitate, and then he muttered something about an important engagement. "O, nonsense!..." with a gay, airy smile. "If I'm not in a hurry, you can't be. I only want to sit for about fifteen minutes." So they gave their horses' reins to the smart black groom, who always rode with the girls, and sat on the rustic bench where the three had several times sat together. And suddenly, Diana, giving rein to her impulsive temperament, said, "What is your opinion of a man who marries one woman and loves another?" She saw him start and stiffen, but he tried to parry the thrust. "What a question to ask a fiancé of a few weeks, on the eve of becoming a bridegroom!..." "Well, that's why! I thought you would have formed many opinions on the subject of love and marriage." "And why do you want to know?" "O, just a fancy! I know men sometimes do that kind of thing. Personally I think it is rather cowardly." "Why cowardly?..." "Because it shows a man hasn't the pluck to own he has made a mistake. He would rather go on with it, and pretend everything is all right." She saw him bite his lip, and felt more thoroughly that he would not meet her eyes. "It is hard on the other woman, the one he _does_ love, too. It might make her very happy to be told. One joy is better than two miseries any day, even if his lordship did have to own to a mistake and look rather silly!..." with a little laugh. "Perhaps I shall know more about it when I am married," trying to speak carelessly. "You must ask me later." "Probably I shall not want to know then; my fancies are always varying. What should _you_ do, for instance, if you suddenly found you cared for someone else more than Meryl?" She was watching him closely, and she saw the swift, tell-tale blood rush to his face. "I'm sure I don't know," he answered, with a forced, unnatural laugh. "It is rather a remote probability now." "O, one never knows!..." Diana spoke with assumed lightness, and looked away to the hills, feeling a little unnerved by the sudden, swift palpitating in her blood. "Shall we go on now?" rising and turning her back to him. "I mustn't keep you any longer from that important engagement." She might have added that she had learnt what she came out to learn; but instead she put her horse to a smart gallop, and rode back without scarcely speaking, flinging him a gay good-bye over her shoulder when their roads separated. When she reached home she found Meryl surrounded by dressmakers, and trying hard to assume an interest in the proceedings; but Diana's clear eyes saw the effort as plainly as if it had been written across her forehead. She saw that she looked ill, too; ill and worn and joyless, as if something had damped for ever her natural fount of gaiety. And withal she was so sweet-tempered and considerate, studying everybody else's feelings in this wedding of hers; everyone's apparently except her own. Diana wanted to shake her one moment, and howl round her neck the next. Instead of doing either she was a little more snappy than usual. "Will you have your dress fitted now?" Meryl asked her. "Madame has it all ready." "No," shortly. "I haven't time this morning; and besides, one can't be fitted just after a ride. I'm going to have a hot bath and a cigarette," and she flung out of the room, leaving Meryl a little perplexed and Madame considerably perturbed. In her own apartment she tossed things about, and was very irritable with her maid. Later, she went out into the garden to a shady nook where she was not likely to be disturbed, because she wanted to think. But thinking was no easy matter. On every side were perplexities. "It's just the devil's own mess," she summed up at last, unable to think of any other sufficiently strong description. "Meryl doesn't want to marry van Hert, and van Hert doesn't want to marry Meryl; they both want to marry someone else; and yet they both mean to go on to the bitter end, because of some rotten-cotton notion about serving South Africa. O! I've no patience with these heroic attitudes! They are not suited to commonplace everyday life. If they'd a little more sound common sense, and a little less of the noble and lofty soul spirit, they would perceive they will only do more harm than good by going against nature and trying to force inclinations. But the absurd thing is, that neither has yet had the perspicacity to perceive the other's unwilling frame of mind. That exactly bears out my point. These heroic attitudes do not suit the exigencies of everyday life. If they weren't both so bent on doing the noble thing, they would perceive they are merely making fools of themselves, and incidentally straining my powers of resource beyond all reason. Of course it can't go on; but what in the name of all that's wonderful can I do to stop it?... Send for The Bear, and compel him to make the best of the awful fact that Meryl possesses a fortune, and console dear Dutch Willie myself, I suppose!..." And she smiled grimly. Then her face softened, and tears unexpectedly gleamed in her eyes. She brushed them away, apostrophising herself impatiently. Then she swallowed down a sob, murmuring, "I can't bear the thought of Meryl, standing with that smile on her lips and that expression in her eyes, to be fitted for her wedding-dress. It makes one want to tear the whole world to pieces, and sink South Africa in the nethermost ocean. No wonder uncle shuts himself in his study so much nowadays. He must be just as hard put to it as I am to know what to do." A step disturbed her cogitations at that moment, and Aunt Emily came into view. "Ah, my dear, I thought I saw you come down the garden. There is a letter for you with a Rhodesian stamp. I thought you might like to have it." And she handed it to her, at the same time sitting down on the garden-seat beside her. "Have you seen Meryl's dress," she enquired, with an expression that had suddenly grown sentimental. "The dear child. To think of her in her wedding-dress, so soon to be a bride!" "Well, that's a commonplace enough event! Girls like Meryl usually do become brides, and later on they wear shrouds, and have a nice little coffin all to themselves. There really isn't very much difference!..." "O, my dear!... What a dreadful remark to make! I am sure it is unlucky to speak like that." "Then I hope it will be unlucky enough to postpone the wedding indefinitely." Aunt Emily turned and looked at her niece as if she thought she had taken leave of her senses, but that was not by any means a new expression upon the face of Henry Pym's sister confronting Henry Pym's niece. "Really, Diana!..." she expostulated. "I think it is hardly a subject for jesting. Marriage is a very serious thing. I hope God will bless dear Meryl with great happiness. I confess, at first, I was disappointed that she chose a Dutch husband; but Mr. van Hert has very good Huguenot blood in his veins, and he is undoubtedly a very charming man; and then, of course, her children will only be half Dutch." "Her children ought to be bear cubs!" snapped Diana, wishing her aunt would go away and leave her to read her letter in peace. For a moment Aunt Emily was too horrified to reply, and then Diana added, "Don't trouble to expostulate any more. I'm not really mad, only eccentric. I never could see why people make such a silly fuss about weddings; anyhow, they are all the same and all commonplace. When I marry, I shall give all my friends the shock of their lives, something to talk about for a year, and then for once in my life I shall be a public benefactor. I see Helen looking about on the terrace as if she wanted you. Shall I ask her?..." "No, I will go in to her"; and she got up and walked towards the house, still wearing a shocked expression. "I wonder if Helen will have the sense to manufacture some request?" thought Diana, glancing after her. "As if I could see the terrace from here!..." Then she opened her letter. When she had read it through once, she turned back to the beginning and read it through again. And all the time she was so rigidly still, that a little bird hopped close up to her foot to investigate. Then she laid the letter down and looked out across the garden. Five minutes later she got to her feet. In a moment of crisis Diana was the type who courageously follows an inspiration, without overmuch weighing and sifting. She had faith in her own keen woman's instinct and she knew there were times when sharp, decisive action is better than lengthy, minute attention to all the laws of war, and far-reaching considerations of what might or might not result. A gate at the far end of the garden led out to the main road, and not very far down was a post office. Diana went straight to it, and sent a wire, with prepaid reply, directed to Major Carew, which ran:-- "Can you come at once? Urgently wanted. Go to Carlton and send message on arrival to me. "DIANA PYM." XXIX A USEFUL BLUNDER The railway journey from Salisbury to Johannesburg takes three and sometimes four days; so that whether Carew responded to her urgent message or not, Diana had rather a long time to possess her soul in patience and make up her mind what course to take next. She was in two minds whether to take her uncle into her confidence or not, but decided men were always apt to bungle, and she had better trust entirely to her own guidance. Beyond a doubt the situation required the most delicate and skilful handling. First of all, she felt she must convey to van Hert some suggestion that would prepare him for the shock of what might be expected to follow upon Carew's arrival, supposing he came. Meryl she did not worry greatly about. She might be expected to be swept off her feet and go with the tide, by the very suddenness of it all. The two men presented the obstacles. Carew would have to be inveigled with the greatest finesse into an interview with Meryl, without ever letting him perceive a woman was leading him. In her heart Diana was a little afraid of the steady, unbending face. He was not likely to prove pliable; he might even refuse to come. Nothing she could say could alter the fact that he was a policeman and Meryl was burdened with a fortune, and that was the only barrier Diana was aware of. She laughed a little to herself as she wondered whether it would help matters if Mr. Pym made a will disinheriting Meryl, and dividing his money between her and charities. She could easily give it back to Meryl later. Then she sighed. "More heroics!... and they tell us it is a base world. Here am I driven out of my senses nearly, positively suffocated with high-mindedness, because three delightful people can't come down from their unlivable altitude and exhibit a little practical common sense." Then, of course, there was van Hert's pride to consider. What in the world, at this time of all others, was to be made of an English girl jilting a prominent Dutch politician a week before the wedding day! "It's almost enough to cause another war!" sighed poor Diana. "I'm really beginning to wish I had let them all go their own foolish ways. If I don't mind I shall end in becoming a heroine myself, and that's really too alarming!..." However, the bull having been taken by the horns, it was wiser to keep a firm hold of them; though more than once Diana felt herself very entirely in sympathy with Mark Twain when he says, "It is better to take hold by the tail, because then you can let go when you like." Obviously van Hert must be tackled first, but she waited until the morning after sending her wire, hoping for a reply. It came early, and fortune favoured her in that she received her orange-coloured envelope unknown to anyone. She carried it upstairs and opened it with a beating, anxious heart. It contained only two words, and was not signed:-- "Arrive Saturday." For a moment she felt a little dazed. He was coming then, the stern soldier-policeman. What in the world was she to say to him?... Then a flood of gladness began to well up in her heart. After all, it meant before all things, that a day of great joy might be at hand for Meryl. Did anything else really matter?... If she personally came through the transaction a little battered--well, it wouldn't really matter, if Meryl and The Bear were safely off the rocks. Rather than let any shadowy good for South Africa come between them now she would marry van Hert herself, and at that she gave a little low laugh. In the meantime she had three days to think out a plan and convey to van Hert some sort of preparation. When he came that Wednesday evening it was easily seen that he was feverish. His eyes were unnaturally bright and his face flushed, and at dinner he only played with his food and ate nothing. He talked and laughed gaily, but with intermittent shivering which he tried hard to hide. Everyone saw it, and Meryl grew concerned. He tried to laugh it off, but was not successful. Finally Mr. Pym advised him to go home to bed. And then Aunt Emily made the crowning blunder of her life, and like some other big blunders now historical, it proved a blessing in disguise. She glanced at Diana with a scared face and exclaimed in perturbation, "Now if the wedding is put off it will be your fault, Diana. I told you it must bring ill-luck to speak about it as you did." There was an awkward pause, and in spite of herself Diana flushed scarlet. "What did Diana say?" van Hert asked of Aunt Emily, half grave and half casual. The poor lady, having quickly discovered she had made an unfortunate remark and become considerably flurried, made matters worse by stammering guiltily, "O, it was nothing much; she was only talking at random. She ... she ..."--distressfully discovering van Hert's eyes still fixed upon her--"said something about hoping the wedding would be postponed, and I said it was unlucky." For a moment the constraint was painful. Meryl had grown as white as the tablecloth, and Mr. Pym looked thoroughly worried. Diana, however, had quickly recovered herself, and was now the most composed of any. She gave a little sniff and glanced defiantly at van Hert. His eyes roved round the table and finally fixed themselves upon hers. She did not waver, but looked steadily back at him. He gave a self-conscious, constrained laugh. "I presume you had your reasons?" he said. She narrowed her eyes a little as she replied with a directness probably he alone understood, "Yes, I suppose I had. It was yesterday, Tuesday. Tuesday is often a queer day with me." And he knew she was referring to their conversation during the morning's ride. Then Meryl got up to relieve the tension, and because she began to feel a little uncertain of herself. "Di often has queer days, but they have nothing to do with your feverishness, William. Jackson had better go back with you, and we will telephone Dr. Smythe to look in and see how you are." She went away to order the motor, and van Hert seized an opportunity to speak to Diana unheard. "I know what you are alluding to," he said, gravely. "We cannot very well leave it like this. Will you ride the same way to-morrow?" "But if you have fever?" hesitatingly. "In the war I fought all day long with fever on me. Surely I can ride! You will be there?" "Yes." When van Hert arrived at the meeting-place next morning, he wore an overcoat and looked as if he ought to be in bed, and Diana's heart smote her. But she comforted herself with the thought that his fever was very much of the mind, and her medicine, if drastic, might still do him more good than any physician's. They rode side by side to the seat they had sat upon before, and without saying much he helped her to alight and gave the reins of both horses to the black groom. Once seated, however, he turned to her and said, gravely, "Of course, that remark of yours had to do with our conversation the last time we sat here?" "Of course," agreed Diana, calmly. The intricacies of the task she had set herself were beginning to interest more than scare her, and she was not afraid as to her skill in handling van Hert. "May I ask in what exact particular?" "Merely that you are the man about to marry a woman you do not love." He opened his lips to expostulate and deny, but she rested a little hand on his arm a moment and interrupted. "No, do not trouble to deny it. I should not have dared to say such a thing without being sure of my ground. Your face told me on Tuesday." He was silent, feeling himself unaccountably in the grip of something he could no longer thwart. "Now listen to me. When Meryl went to Rhodesia you _did_ love her. I think she was all the world to you. So she was when she came back, _at first_. You were in haste to win her, and she consented to be engaged to you. Afterwards...." She paused. "Well, afterwards?..." in a strained, unnatural voice. "Afterwards you found in some vague way she was changed. You had won her, but you did not possess her. Something had happened. You seemed to have seized the substance and found it shadow. I seem to be talking like a book, but we will let that pass! Instead of trying to find out whether this really was the case, you attempted to hurry forward the wedding. That, I think, was weak of you." "And something had happened?..." he asked, hoarsely. "What?..." Diana spread out her hands with a little French gesture. "It is sometimes just as poignant to say, '_Cherchez l'homme_' as, '_Cherchez la femme_.'" "You mean?..." "That what had happened was another man." "Ah!..." in quick surprise; and after a short, tense silence, "Then why in the world?..." But again she stayed him with a little arresting hand. "You wonder why she engaged herself to you?... When you have the clue it is quite simple. The other man loves her, but he has not told her so. I do not know that he ever will. He is a proud, obstinate Englishman, and has no position and no money. Apparently he is ready to let Meryl wreck her life, rather than bless his with herself and her fortune. Some men are like that. It is a mixture of pride and heroics very difficult for a well-meaning cousin like myself to cope with. I think it may even turn my hair grey yet." Again she spread out her hands. "Can you not see the rest?... You yourself led up to it. You urged your united service to South Africa (though why poor South Africa should be dragged in, I don't know), and she, having as she thought lost all hope of simple, personal happiness, decided to give herself to you and to her country. Now do you understand?" He was silent for a considerable time, thinking deeply; and then, with one of his quick versatile changes, he turned and pounced upon her with the question, "Granting all is as you say, what I want to know is, how have you discovered it?" He looked hard into her face with keen, searching eyes. "How did _you_ know that _I_ had changed?" He had taken her a little unawares, and suddenly she felt the hot, tell-tale blood mounting higher and higher up her face. She moved restlessly, impatiently, as if his gaze were intolerable, and then replied a trifle lamely, "You must have heard the English proverb, 'Lookers-on see most of the game.'" "Ah! I wonder at what particular point you saw first?..." "In any case it is beside the question," she declared, anxious to get the conversation away from herself. "As I asked you on Tuesday, I ask you again, 'What do you think of a man who marries a woman when he does not love her?'" "That is not the question you asked me." "Yes it is," a trifle shortly. Diana was beginning to feel rather like a swimmer out of his depth. "I beg your pardon, it is not; but we will let it pass for the moment. Granting that what you have told me is true, what do you expect me to do?" "Tell Meryl the truth." "And what is the truth?" He was gazing hard at her again, and Diana began to wish she could run away and hide. She knew that her changing colour and averted eyes were telling him something he badly wanted to know. "O, you're very dense!" she cried, seeking to cover her discomfort. "Tell her you have discovered it is all a mistake; that you do not think she loves you better than all the world; and that you feel yourself wedded to your work, and ... and ... that kind of thing. Of course it won't be nice, but surely you can see it is a far _braver_ thing to do, than just to go on because you are afraid of what the world will say?" "And suppose Meryl wishes to hold to her promise and give herself to her country?" "She can still do that, only in some other way." "And what do you think South Africa will say?" "O, that's quite beyond me!..." with a little comical grimace, "but, of course, at any cost, you must avert another war!..." They both smiled, and she added more seriously, "You can announce that you discovered in time you were not very well suited to each other, and mutually agreed to break off the engagement." Again he was silent for a long time, lost in thought. At last, "And when do you think I should say this to Meryl?" "It will not be any easier through waiting. Why not to-night?" Again he was silent, and something in the air, some secret, veiled magnetism, told Diana whither his thoughts were tending, and her cheeks grew hot in spite of herself. "If I speak to Meryl to-night, and she decrees that the engagement shall end, will you promise to ride this way to-morrow morning?" "What for?" trying to speak with nonchalance. "To answer the question I asked you just now." "Which question? I have forgotten it." "I will ask it again to-morrow." "But why all this mystery?... Ask me now. I will answer it if I can." "I would rather wait until to-morrow. Come, you have said all you wanted to say to me. Let me have my turn now." And she knew that his eyes, sharpened by love, were reading things she had scarcely yet admitted to herself. She got up suddenly, feeling a little breathless. She began to have again that alarming sensation of being mastered; as if he had some hold upon her, against which it was her instinct to fight, not because of any antipathy to him, but because, like all women of her independent character and fearlessness, she dreaded the mere thought of losing her liberty or yielding her independence. And at the same time she knew that the thought which held a dread held a charm also. Diana would never lose her grit and personality, she would never submit for a moment to any overshadowing, but deep in her heart she knew she was true woman enough to like to be conquered by the right man. Her instinct was to contradict van Hert in anything just then and deny any wish, but she was glad he quietly insisted upon her granting his request, and that when they finally rode away it was an understood thing she would come again the next morning. XXX DIANA IS RESTLESS It would be most difficult, indeed well-nigh impossible, for any chronicler to describe the state of Diana's feelings that afternoon; and very certain that under no circumstances would she have attempted to describe them herself. The swift coming into life of the love between her and van Hert was like the man who said he had not been born, he just happened. One could imagine Diana calmly stating their love had no explanation, it just happened. Perhaps it had been there longer than either of them knew; perhaps it took form suddenly when each realised the unsubstantial nature of the engagement to Meryl. Diana had always had a special liking for van Hert, and had said so openly; but as he had for some time been presented in her mind as her cousin's lover, there had been no reason why the liking should grow to anything warmer, and probably it never would have. But when she thoroughly realised how unsatisfactory a basis he was about to build his wedded happiness upon, a certain resentment on his behalf took shape in her mind, as well as troubled anxiety for Meryl. From this it was not a very far step to a warmer feeling still, and as we have seen, the old gaieties ceased to attract her if he was not a partaker. And then, knowing well that Meryl's heart was given elsewhere, she spent no anxious moments as to whether this warmer feeling of hers were unfair to her cousin. It was as though it was just held in abeyance waiting for something to happen; and when the something had happened, she swam out fearlessly into the deep water. With van Hert it had necessarily been different. He knew nothing of Carew, and only felt vaguely that Meryl had changed; nothing tangible that he could take hold of, and yet a something that was as an invisible barrier between their closer knowledge of each other. Puzzled and baffled, he turned with eagerness to Diana's frank camaraderie, to awake suddenly one evening to the fact that, unknown to him, his heart had slipped out of his and Meryl's keeping into hers. Yet even then he tried to deny the change even to himself; he would not believe he could so suddenly transfer his affection. It was not until later, seeing the whole from the vantage-ground of distance, that he realised his affections had not been transferred. His affection for Meryl still existed; he admired her profoundly as before. What had died was his desire, starved by the growing sense that she chiefly suffered his caress. But he had not the moral courage to go to her frankly and tell her this; and rather than face the consequences he attempted to stifle this strong longing for Diana and put himself beyond the reach of it. Fortunately for all three, that practical common sense of Diana's, which she was pleased to call selfish commonplaceness, dared swift, unconventional measures, careless of consequences, rather than to sit still and let the mistake pass beyond recall. But at the beginning she had not given much thought to her own personal feelings in the matter, and it was only after the ride with van Hert she found these suddenly confronting her in their full significance. And because the turn of events was becoming a little overwhelming, she spent the hours between parting with him and his coming interview with Meryl in a whirl of emotion wholly new to her. Once or twice Meryl asked her if anything was the matter, she was so extraordinarily restless, but she only laughed it off and tried to steady her feelings. In the evening, when they left the dinner-table after dessert, she mysteriously vanished; but later, swept with an inexplicable wave of longing and uncertain dread, she crept down to the dining-room to try and discover what had happened. It was growing in her consciousness with illuminating clearness that her own happiness depended upon what decision Meryl made. At last there was a movement in the drawing-room as of someone stepping in from the verandah, and she waited breathlessly for a glimpse of Meryl's face. She and van Hert came out into the hall together, and Diana saw that her cousin looked extraordinarily frail and white and rather exhausted. Van Hert was very gentle to her. "Shall I see your father to-night?" he asked, and she answered, "No, I will tell him myself. I expect he will see you to-morrow." "Good night," and Meryl held out her hand. Diana saw him hesitate; and then, with a movement that had in it the graceful courtesy of the Huguenot and the reverence of a fine spirit, he bent very low before her and kissed her hand. Afterwards he went quietly away, and Meryl stood alone in the hall. For one moment she waited, as if listening to his departing footsteps, and then very slowly turned and walked to her father's study. Diana slipped out and went upstairs, but presently her restlessness again caused her to descend. She could not settle to anything until she knew the truth and how Meryl took it. Thus she was again in the dining-room when the study door opened and Meryl came out. Her father came with her to the threshold, and it was evident that she had been crying. Diana saw her raise a white, tear-stained face, and saw Henry Pym kiss his child with ineffable tenderness. Then Meryl went slowly upstairs, and Mr. Pym went back into his study and closed the door. But something in his face, at her last glimpse of it, went swiftly to Diana's loyal, devoted heart; and because she loved him as if he were her own father, an impulse carried her straight across the hall with noiseless feet to the study door. Without knocking, she opened it softly and crept in. Henry Pym was seated at his writing-table, with his face hidden in his hand; and she saw, perhaps more poignantly than ever before, how the last few weeks had whitened his hair. As she softly closed the door and crossed the room he looked up. Diana warm-hearted to a degree when she deeply loved, slipped on to her knees beside him, and taking the hand hanging limply at his side in both hers, raised it to her lips. Henry Pym looked down into her eyes, and for the first time guessed from whence the solution had come. "You saved her?..." he said a little huskily. Diana nestled up against him. "I saved _them_," she corrected. "Van Hert is a fine man; he deserves a wife who gives him her whole heart, just as truly as Meryl deserves a husband who has no thought for anyone else in the world." "Then you knew he cared for someone else?" "Did he tell her so?" She lowered her head that he might not see her face. "Yes." "Did he say whom?" "I do not know." "Perhaps Meryl knew?" "She did not say." She kissed his hand again, and asked in low tones, "Why was she crying when she came out of the study? She ... she ... is not sorry about things?..." "No; she is glad. She sees she made a mistake." "Then why was she crying?" She saw him flinch, and read in his face all the pain in his heart. Evidently he knew of that hidden sorrow shadowing his child's life; evidently her sorrow was his sorrow. The wedding he so dreaded was safely prevented, but would the happiness come back?... the happiness that had been in that household before they went to Rhodesia? Could all his love and hope and tenderness bring back joy to the eyes that were his heaven and his earth? "Dearie," murmured Diana again, "was she crying because of that big soldier-policeman up north?" He did not reply, and suddenly she knelt upright, and took his sad, careworn face in her hands and nestled her soft cheek against it. "Because he's coming on Saturday, dearie. Hush! don't breathe a word; it is my secret; only I had to tell you because of what I saw in your face just now. He is coming because he loves her." Then slowly a great tear gathered in Henry Pym's eyes and fell unheeded upon Diana's hand. He held her fast and made no attempt to speak. And Diana hid her face because there were great tears in her eyes also. After a moment she got up, and shook the hair back from her face, and rallied him tenderly. "You see, Meryl must 'mother' something in the way of a country: it is her tremendous Imperial instinct; so I thought she had better 'mother' Rhodesia." And with a last tender kiss she went softly away and left him. In their own room she found Meryl had sent the maid away, and was waiting for her in the dark, standing in the window with her form dimly outlined against a moonlit sky. She went up to her at once and slipped her arm through that of the silent figure. Meryl pressed it, but for a moment or two did not speak. Diana did not speak either; for once in her life she had nothing to say. At last Meryl said, as if answering some thought deep in her own mind, "William told me to-night that there was someone else he loved. Di darling, I think there is only one woman it could be." And still Diana was silent. "I gathered also that something had been said between you and him; something that resulted in ... what has happened to-night...." "But you are not angry?..." Diana whispered. "O no. Every moment now I see more clearly what I ought to have seen before. I am afraid I have only been foolish, and ... and ... I wanted so to do what seemed the best," with a little break in her voice. "Of course you did; we all know that," said Diana loyally. "But I saw the mistake quickest, and I couldn't just sit still and do nothing; I am not made that way." Meryl pressed her arm affectionately. "Di," she whispered, "I want it all to come right as quickly as possible. I won't ask you any questions. Of course, I know it is you William cares for, and it seems so perfectly natural now that it should be. If you care for him, don't delay anything on my account. It would make me glad to hear that you were engaged to him to-morrow." Diana pressed the hand in hers. She felt strangely bashful with Meryl to-night; unable to say anything at all. In her heart she was a little shy with herself too. When she started out with a more or less light spirit to change the course of two lives, she had hardly realised how great a mountain she would be moving. "Do you love him, Di?..." Meryl asked her softly. "Yes," and Diana felt a little breathless as she made the admission. "God bless you! I'm very glad." And Meryl took the girl's face in her two hands and kissed her. Then they went quietly to bed, and Diana knew she had said no word of Carew's coming because she was afraid to. XXXI THE SOLUTION IS SEALED It was a rather sobered Diana who rode out the next morning to meet William van Hert, and when she saw him she felt suddenly conscious of herself in a way she had never done before and hoped she never would again. The glow in his eyes made it difficult for her to meet them, and they dismounted and went almost in silence to their usual seat. "You know, of course, what happened last night," he said, with ill-suppressed eagerness. "It has seemed like weeks and months since; every hour a week. I have not slept all night with longing for the morning." He was looking at his very best: another man almost since they last sat there; not good-looking, no one would ever call van Hert good-looking, but muscular and lean, with an air of virility and force always alluring. A man destined to be a leader in some way; one who must carry others along with him, if only because of his enthusiasm and fervour. The main point was, that he should carry them in a useful, practical direction. And hitherto there had been no special reason to hope this would be the case; it seemed more probable that, for the sake of making a noise in the world and gaining a following, he would identify himself with policies which the older and wiser men left alone; not from any indifference to the influence he was likely to wield, but because he was so full of warmth and intensity it must find an outlet. Some men are like that, especially politicians. They seem to be obsessed with the idea that they must make a hit somehow at once and come to the front _now_. And so they are apt to seize upon the first available policy likely to prove a good solid tub to stand and shout on; whether it is a durable tub, or one certain to be to their credit, is something of a side issue. The main point is a tub big enough and strong enough to bear them while they make the commotion and gain the hearing they are bent upon. And this spirit, like most spirits, may have its uses; it is not entirely to be deprecated. It may bring home very forcibly to the electors a weak spot that had otherwise been overlooked. In listening to the shouter, they may perceive how very entirely he is wrong; and, none the less, make the useful discovery that he is a good shouter. This then becomes the critical point. Having gained his hearing, will he condescend to moderate his views and listen to a little wisdom from older and more experienced men; or will he be obtuse enough to continue to stamp and shout on his tub, for fear people will call him a turncoat, or a few, who really do not matter, will leave off listening to him if he grows less noisy? And it is then perhaps a great politician is marred or made. Perhaps it often depends very much upon the main influence that held sway when the moment came to leave off shouting. That moment had come for van Hert, and he had the perspicacity to perceive it; though whether he would have acted upon his wiser judgment, left entirely to himself, it is impossible to say. It is, on the whole, pleasanter to think that, just because he was a clever, capable, sincere man and South Africa had need of such, the God of nations placed the matter beyond all doubt by sending the right influence across his path. Diana's mocking spirit loved to make game of heroics and big matters, but it was an affectation and nothing more: as Meryl and Henry Pym had long ago perceived, not van Hert himself nor Meryl cared more at heart for the great questions of the day affecting South Africa, and through her the Empire itself, since every year shows more clearly how tremendously England's colonies must matter to the mother country. The older and wiser men were already beginning to shake their heads over the grave and difficult problem of the white races and the black; over the tremendous increase of the latter in comparison, which threatened to swamp the white man out of South Africa altogether. One thing was obvious to all thinkers, the white races _must_ combine. Union must indeed be Union and not an empty name. The Englishman and the Dutchman _must_ join hands and sink differences, not only for the common good, but the common safety. So when Diana's practical spirit perceived how great and real an attraction van Hert had for her, she did not try to put it from her and struggle against it because he was a Dutchman. The moment she was sure, and the course was clear, she let herself go fearlessly; not as an act of sacrifice at all, she was far too practical to have much faith in a sacrifice such as Meryl had conceived, but because she loved the man and believed in him, and had no shadow of doubt as to his courage and sincerity if he were but influenced to move in the right direction. Well, he had stood on his tub and done his shouting right well; and now he had a goodly following and was the object of not a little execration, which is a usual thing for tub-shouters, and does not matter very much. What mattered was whether he possessed the genius to keep his followers and carry them along with him, after moderating his views and coming into line with the older and wiser men. Diana believed that he did, and as to be believed in is a very strong aid to all men, there was very little doubt that eventually the God of nations would prove to have given South Africa a fine statesman, even if he were built up upon a rabid politician. And if the instrument used was a woman, has not a great nation itself been built up through such instrumentality? And here one pauses a moment to think the old question, how often is a woman at the back of a man's greatness or a country's or any greatness whatsoever? Only these women do not need to do any shouting, because, as a rule, they only want to be heard by _one_. And when the result is a fine edifice, they are still content to go unnamed and unsung if that _one_ be lauded generously. For God made women in the beginning, the best women of all, to want love and be content with love, and care very little about fame. And so they go quietly on their way, creating great results, moving mountains, and saying very little about it. It is that old heroic spirit Lamartine wrote about. And there is a spark of it in the soul of every woman waging her solitary fight on the outposts of the Empire, whether she put new life and hope and spirit into a miner's cabin, or a farmer's little wattle-and-daub home, or in the heart of any servant of the Empire. What the colonies owe to their women is so little talked about, partly perhaps because words are all too inadequate to express it, and also perhaps because if the _one_ is there to listen and the _one_ to love, many women want no recognition. But all this time it only remains to be said that Diana believed in van Hert and believed in his work for her country, and that was why she had been able to give her love so frankly and absolutely, and was not in the least deterred by those mutterings of execration which there is very little doubt she intended shortly to put an end to for good and all; for if she had entertained any doubts as to how much he loved her and was ready to do for her, they must have been swept away utterly out of sight after the first moment of their meeting this morning. What he had fought to keep out of his face before was now flooding through it. Never at any moment, even when he first loved Meryl, had he looked at her as he now looked at Diana. In every pulse of her being she felt he loved her, not perhaps with the calm, strong love of her own countrymen, but with a fierceness and intensity, inherited maybe from some French ancestor, that appealed to her love of vigour. She at least had level-headedness enough for the two. But it would hardly have been Diana to sit demurely and listen to his outpouring, now that he might speak and she might hear. It was far more natural that the very certainty of everything should make her feel contrary and want to tantalise him; particularly when, after his first question had been answered with a quiet affirmative, he plunged into the subject filling his heart without any preliminary, and with all that quick enthusiasm of his bursting its bounds. "Then we need not say any more about it. Why should we?... There is only you and I now. It seems for the moment as if there were no one else in the entire universe. But I want the answer to that other question of mine"; and he leaned near to her, with his whole attitude a sort of inspired interrogation. "What question?..." A shade of lightness had crept into Diana's voice; the shadow of a smile into her eyes. She felt on the verge of being a little unnerved, and a feigned or real inconsequence was ever her refuge. "The question you were not willing to answer yesterday, and which I told you I should ask again to-day. You said that you had asked me what I thought of a man who married a woman when he did not love her. And I said that was not what you had asked. Do you remember the original question, or must I tell you what it was?" "I don't remember anything about it. I'm afraid I'm rather given to asking questions." "That means I must tell you. Diana, what you asked me was, what did I think of a man who married one woman and loved another? Now, I want to know how and when you discovered that I loved another?..." "It was the obvious conclusion"--studying the toe of her smart riding-boot with exaggerated interest. "Otherwise you must have loved Meryl; you could not help it." "I see." The smile dawned in his eyes now. "And was it equally obvious who the other woman was?" She glanced away to hide her tell-tale mouth. "It might have been if it had interested me." "But, of course, it didn't?..." and he laughed a low, happy laugh. "Not in the least. Why should it?..." "Ah, why?..." and his hand suddenly closed over hers, and at the strong, possessive touch the magnetism of the man made her blood race through her veins. She tried to draw her hand away, but he only held it more tightly, and his face was very engaging as he said, "I've a good mind not to tell you who the other woman is as you are not interested." "Then I shall conclude she will not have anything to do with you," came the quick retort. And then her fascinating mouth twitched at the corners in a way that threatened to undo van Hert entirely. He looked away with a half-fierce expression. "If you don't want me to crush you in my arms out here in a public road, don't do that." "Don't do what?..." innocently; and then they both laughed. When they were serious again his voice sounded a deeper and more forceful note. "Dearest," he said, still imprisoning her hand, "it seems superfluous for me to tell you how much I love that other woman, as superfluous as to name her. I seem as if I had neither a thought nor an idea nor a feeling that does not love her." "Then let us hope she is not a stiff-necked Britisher," quoth Diana, still as if a little afraid to be serious. "Ah!..." and he raised her hand to his lips. "I believe you will make me love the whole race." "That would complicate matters exceedingly for you," with a mischievous taunt in her eyes. "You seem to have hated them so very satisfactorily up to now. What shall you say to your colleagues the next time they are expecting you at one of their fiery denunciation meetings?... I have married a wife, an English one, therefore I cannot come?..." "Shall I have married her?..." and he looked hard into her face, blissfully indifferent to her shafts. "Married whom?..." she asked, provokingly. He clenched his teeth together. "I feel as if I could shake you!..." and he glanced round to see if anyone were in sight. "O, if you're going to be that sort of a tyrant!..." Diana began. But she got no further. No one was in sight, not even the boy with the horses. And van Hert just gathered her into his arms and crushed her for the sheer joy of it until she cried for mercy. "Say you will be good and treat me with proper respect," he demanded before he released her, and Diana was compelled to promise. "But I won't marry you," she added, wickedly, the moment she was free. And then to save herself from a second undignified surrender she had to capitulate quickly, and add, "At least, not before next week." Then she raised her eyes, shining with happiness, to his. "Meinheer van Hert, if my memory serves me rightly, you have not yet asked me the most important question of all." He raised her hand again to his lips, with a movement of reverence, and said, very simply, "Diana, I love you with all my heart and soul and strength; will you do me the honour to become my wife?" And there was a little warm glisten in her eyes as she answered, "Yes, dear; I am ready to take the long trek with you." A little later she went home with an air of quiet radiance that told Meryl all she needed to know the moment she set eyes on her, and her embrace was full of warmest affection. Only Aunt Emily seemed thoroughly perplexed, and not able to entirely grasp the happy aspect of affairs when she heard it all for the first time. "How extraordinary!..." she exclaimed; and then, with an air full of mournful reproach, she looked at Diana and added, "I told you something dreadful would happen, my dear, if you spoke of the wedding so strangely." "Yes, aunty, so you did! and it was very clever of you," Diana replied. "But, of course, you ought to have warned me before I said it. Now, you see, I've got caught in the net myself. Ah well!..." she finished comically, "I can bear it." And Meryl's low laughter, as she hastened to soothe poor Aunt Emily's wounded feelings, had a happier note than it had known for many a day. "I don't think I quite understand," continued the perplexed lady. "It reminds me of a story I once heard about the aunt of a friend of my father's, that is to say, the aunt of a friend of your grandfather's...." "Yes, I remember," said the incorrigible; "but she didn't do it in the end, you know. And, anyhow, the great question just now is, having taken over the bridegroom, ought I to take over the wedding presents as well?..." "Of course, they must all be sent back," Aunt Emily replied, with great gravity. "Dear me, what a pity!... What a pity!... And he is really quite a nice man, although he is Dutch." "O, do you really think so?..." Diana asked, and went laughing out of the room. XXXII A CHAPTER OF SURPRISES In Diana's happy state of mind there was not the slightest doubt her interview with Carew, when it came off, would be the reverse of conventional. He arrived at the Carlton the day after it had been notified to the papers that the engagement between Miss Pym and William van Hert was broken off by mutual agreement. The new engagement was looked upon only as a secret understanding at present, and no announcement was to be made for some weeks. Carew saw the news in a paper he got at Kimberley, so that when he stepped out upon Johannesburg station, from a difficult, perplexing, somewhat equivocal situation he found himself suddenly and unexpectedly with a clear course. He had responded to Diana's urgent summons with alacrity, although it left him entirely in the dark as to what had transpired; his action had in fact something of the daring which had led to the sending of the telegram. Wearied out physically and mentally with the struggle, he seized swiftly the chance of a solution the message suggested, and trusting to Diana's resourcefulness let himself go with the tide. It was as though after sixteen years some spirit of the past suddenly re-entered him; some of that old reckless, dare-devil spirit that had distinguished him in his regiment long ago. Without doubt the news that he would some day inherit the Marquisate of Toxeter, if he outlived the present owner, had worked a wonderful change in him. He still hated Meryl's fortune, when he dared to let himself think of a future they might possibly share, but at least he could now offer her a position that might one day be among the highest in England. And all that it meant to him after his long exile and lonely life, apart from all the friends and delights of his youth, lit a new light in his eyes. And when he saw the paragraph in the paper, and realised Diana had indeed not sent for him for nothing, he seemed to let many years slip from his shoulders. Only a week earlier he had felt middle-aged, and looked every year of his forty-two. The man who strode down the platform on Johannesburg station, drawing all eyes after his upright, distinguished form, looked at the very prime of manhood, and the grey on his temples only enhanced whatever it was that caused those eyes to turn in his direction. Diana, waiting for his message in no small trepidation, went off at once to the hotel. Nothing was to be gained by hanging back, and she felt more sure of herself generally if she dashed headlong into a delicate situation. So she walked boldly up to the door of his private sitting-room, gave a little sharp knock, and entered. He was standing with his back to the door, looking idly from the window, but when he heard the door open he turned round and faced her. Diana closed the door and walked into the room, glancing about her. "What a nice den!..." she said. "I'm sure you could only growl prettily here." He came towards her with outstretched hand, and she was instantly struck with the change in his eyes. The steadiness was still there, the expression of unflinching purpose, but behind it all was that new light now: the light she had never seen in Carew's eyes before. "You look very well," she told him, warming swiftly to their old friendship and forgetting her moments of trepidation. "You ... really ... you almost look as if you might have come into a kingdom!..." "Perhaps I have," with a humorous gleam. "Umh!... I'd be very sorry for the subjects; they would be ruled with a rod of iron." He pulled a chair forward, a large cosy one, such as he knew her soul loved, and she sank down into it. He still stood upright, watching her with kindly eyes. "Well!..." he began. "You sent me a very curt summons." Diana coloured a little, not quite clear where to begin. "Won't you sit down? You seem so far away up there. I feel a little lost somehow, you are so ... so ... Perhaps if you were to growl I should feel more at home with you!..." she finished. He smiled and took the chair beside her. "I never did growl really. It was all your imagination." "O, was it?..." emphatically. "Why, thunder in the distance was dulcet music beside it!..." "Well," he said again, "about that summons?..." "It's just this way," began Diana. "I had a letter from Mrs. Grenville...." She watched him keenly, and saw that he grasped at once something of what the letter had contained. "And she told you?..." "Not very much, but enough, in my mind"--with a sudden flash--"to justify my summons." "I don't think I quite understand." He was grave again now, with a line between the straight brows. "Well, don't get too serious or you will frighten me. I suppose I'd better be quite direct. You and I don't either of us care for much beating about the bush and subterfuge, do we?" He signified his agreement, and she ran on. "I knew that Meryl cared for you; I have known it a long time. Yet she was going to marry van Hert. And van Hert cared ... well, he cared for someone else too, yet he was going to marry Meryl. It was just a silly muddle altogether, do you see?... Honestly, I was at my wits' end-to know how to prevent them making fools of themselves. Then came Mrs. Grenville's letter. Mrs. Grenville had seen you. She had discovered that you cared for Meryl, and she told me so. I didn't stop to think then. I saw in a moment it was your business to help me help them out of the tangle. So I just sent you a telegram and asked you to come at once." "And now I am here?" Diana began to look roguish. "I just wanted to suggest," she said, demurely, "whether it wouldn't simplify things all round if Mr. Pym disinherited Meryl, and divided all the silly money between me and charities!..." He could not help smiling, but there was something more than mere friendship in his eyes as he looked at her. He understood perfectly that she had strained every nerve to bring him and Meryl together. "And in the meantime," he commented, "I gather from the newspaper the knot disentangled itself, and everything is smoothed out." "Well, I shouldn't exactly say there were no wounded left on the battlefield!..." with a low laugh. "I see; and you think it is for me to attend to the wounded?" "To _one_ of them," with significance; and then suddenly her unmanageable mouth began to twitch. Carew divined something lay beyond the remark. "And what about the other one?" "Well," with a little air of coyness, "I rather thought of attending to his hurt myself." He watched her keenly for a moment, and at last she raised a pair of laughing eyes to his face. "The only thing that's worrying me is that I may unintentionally find myself a heroine." His low laugh was full of amusement, and his eyes grew kindlier still. "You are evidently a most resourceful young woman. Have you made up your mind how you propose to heal him?" "Yes," with feigned gravity. "I thought on the whole it would simplify matters if I took Meryl's place at the wedding." He stared at her with undisguised astonishment. "You mean?..." "Just exactly what I say. I've taken over the prospective bridegroom, and incidentally I thought of taking over the wedding presents as well...." And then she threw her head back and laughed whole-heartedly at his incredulous face. "You have given me a great surprise," he said. "I suppose you are in earnest?" "Your surprise is nothing to what is coming upon my friends. Just think of it!... I can hardly think of anything else. I do so love giving people shocks. Do you remember our first meeting in the ruins, when I sat quite still and watched you until you looked up?... That was your shock!... You were frightfully disgusted with me, but I didn't mind, I'd had my bit of amusement and no one was hurt; any other silly girl would have coughed or walked away. Goodness!... how black you looked!..." And again she laughed mirthfully. He began to tell her he hoped she would be very happy, but she stayed him and suddenly sobered. "Not now. We haven't much time left, and we must plan something. Meryl will come here and call for me soon in the motor. She knows I have come to see a friend, but she does not know whom. She will not come in herself, because she is shy about being seen just now. What shall we do? When will you see her?" He got up, and walked to the window with a grave face, and for some time he did not speak. "Are you still worrying about that absurd money? My dear good man, she isn't stuffed with it, and she doesn't care tuppence about it. Isn't it enough that you know she could love you as a Rhodesian soldier-policeman? Why torture yourself unnecessarily?" "If I were only a Rhodesian policeman I should not have come." She looked at him with quick curiosity. Then something had happened! There really was some great change in him. He smiled into her questioning eyes. "Then Mrs. Grenville did not tell you?" "Tell me what?..." with swift eagerness. "O, do be quick, I love surprises. Have you found a gold-mine up there?... or the corpses in the temple hung with gold ornaments?..." "Neither." She took his arm and gave it a little shake. "Then what? O, do tell me quickly!..." "It isn't very much, but it gives me courage to hope, where a policeman might consider himself called upon only to renounce. And," he added, quietly, "I owe the knowledge of it to Mrs. Grenville." "It must be a legacy?..." "Not exactly. It is only that when the present Marquis of Toxeter dies I shall succeed." "O, my goodness!..." comically. "Am I going to be own cousin to a marchioness?..." "That is as your cousin decrees." Then with a little smile he added, "So the shocks are not all given by you, you see." At that moment a knock sounded on the door, and in reply to Carew's "Come in," a hall-porter informed them that Miss Pym was waiting in the motor. "And we haven't decided what to do," said Diana, in dismay. He was thoughtful a moment, then told her he would endeavour to find Mr. Pym at his office and come to Hill Court later. So Diana went downstairs alone. But on the way, with that mixture of restlessness and level-headedness that was so characteristic of her, she decided Carew's plan was much too prosaic and dull, and speedily commenced to think out a better one. After which she accosted Meryl with the words, "I want to introduce you to my friend. It won't keep us long. She has a sitting-room upstairs, but she has a cold, and could not come down to you." Meryl looked unwilling, but finally yielded to persuasion and alighted. Outside the door of Carew's room, Diana was so afraid her face would betray her, she had to pretend to sneeze, in order to hide it with her handkerchief. Quite suddenly it had occurred to her humour-loving mind, that if shocks were the order of the hour, Carew and Meryl were going to have the biggest all to themselves for that day at least. Then she opened his door and half pushed Meryl in in front of her. They saw only a broad back at the window first, then he half turned. The next instant the door closed softly, and Meryl found herself alone in the room, face to face with Peter Carew. There were a few tense seconds in which they each seemed trying to realise the other; and then she understood. She went slowly towards him, seeing with unerring tuition all the love in his eyes, and without knowing it held out both hands. And across the long years, that self that he had thought for ever dead seemed to reawaken by leaps and bounds. He would always be somewhat quiet perhaps, a little grave, but the spirit of vigour and reckless daring was in him still, if sobered by sixteen years and all that the years had brought. He did not stop to explain. Quite suddenly it all seemed unnecessary. Between these two the hours of probing were ended. He took her outstretched hands in his and drew her into his arms. It was some time before he told her of his changed position; there was so much else to tell first. And when at last it was said she paid little heed. She only looked at him a trifle anxiously, saying, "But, of course, you could never give up Rhodesia? You wouldn't let any claim come before hers?" He kissed the finger-tips of the hand imprisoned in his, and murmured, "Bless you; it would have gone hard with me if you had wanted me to leave Rhodesia for good." "I shall never do that," softly. "It was the Rhodesian policeman I loved first. The other does not greatly matter, except that perhaps it brought us together." Then with one of her rare flashes of humour she added, "I'm not sure that we shall even have time for a honeymoon. We may have to go up there any time about this settlement scheme of father's and mine. As Diana is going to help William van Hert to run South Africa generally, we must get to work quickly with Rhodesia...." And her smile was a very happy one. FINIS. And so in the end Diana had her little jest, and gave Johannesburg its shock and its nine days' wonder, and was certainly the most surprising bride of the year; though, of course, afterwards most people said they were not surprised at all, and had expected it all along. Before the wedding a sufficiently characteristic letter found its way to a certain mission station in Rhodesia to delight the hearts of its contented occupants. After duly relating all that had transpired and how the problem had been solved, it added: "And now the only difficulty seems to be how to relieve Meryl of her superfluous fortune, in order that she and The Bear may live upon love and air, and how to save me from appearing in the guise of a heroine!..." To her old friend Stanley she wrote gaily of the perfectly splendid surprise she had succeeded in administering to about half the English-speaking population of South Africa. And Stanley wrote back, with many regretful qualms tugging at his heart: "The astonishment of South Africa is a mere detail. When the news reached Zimbabwe, bones that have lain buried for three thousand years rattled in their grave-clothes, and antiquities of the ages crumbled to dust. In the morning, over our coffee, Moore and I ask of the four winds and of the liquid butter and of the unyielding bread, 'Which did he actually marry in the end, and what became of whom?'" ... * * * * * PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY R. CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E. 1, AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. =Hutchinson's 1/- Net Novels= _Bound in +Cloth+, with pictorial wrappers._ =THE CAP OF YOUTH= Madame Albanesi =THE SUNLIT HILLS= Madame Albanesi =ODDSFISH= Robert Hugh Benson =INITIATION= Robert Hugh Benson =LONELINESS= Robert Hugh Benson =AN AVERAGE MAN= Robert Hugh Benson =COME RACK! COME ROPE!= Robert Hugh Benson =THE COWARD= Robert Hugh Benson =THE RETURN OF RICHARD CARR= Winifred Boggs =THE WOOD END= J. E. Buckrose =MEAVE= Dorothea Conyers =THE STRAYINGS OF SANDY= Dorothea Conyers =THE SCRATCH PACK= Dorothea Conyers =TWO IMPOSTORS AND TINKER= Dorothea Conyers =A RASH EXPERIMENT= Mrs. B. M. Croker =WHAT SHE OVERHEARD= Mrs. B. M. Croker =IN OLD MADRAS= Mrs. B. M. Croker =THE SERPENT'S TOOTH= Mrs. B. M. Croker =SANDY'S LOVE AFFAIR= S. R. Crockett =TWILIGHT= Frank Danby =LILAMANI= Maud Diver =A DOUBLE THREAD= Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler =WE OF THE NEVER NEVER= Æneas Gunn =BIRD'S FOUNTAIN= Baroness von Hutten =SHARROW= Baroness von Hutten =MARIA= Baroness von Hutten =THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE= Baroness von Hutten =THE GREEN PATCH= Baroness von Hutten =PAUL KELVER= Jerome K. Jerome ="GOOD OLD ANNA"= Mrs. Belloc Lowndes =THE DEVIL'S GARDEN= W. B. Maxwell =A BRIDE OF THE PLAINS= Baroness Orczy =PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT= Baroness Orczy =THE ELUSIVE PIMPERNEL= Baroness Orczy =A TRUE WOMAN= Baroness Orczy =MEADOWSWEET= Baroness Orczy =THE MONEY MASTER = Sir Gilbert Parker =MABEL BARNES-GRUNDY= has rapidly come to the front as one of our most successful novelists. Her stories excel in wit, humour, observation and characterisation. The complete and uniform edition of her novels, as under, will be published at short intervals, =at the popular price of 1/-= By =MABEL BARNES-GRUNDY= _Each bound in +cloth+, with most attractive picture wrapper in colours, =1/-= net._ =An Undressed Heroine= =Marguerite's Wonderful Year= =Hilary on Her Own= =Two in a Tent--and Jane= =The Third Miss Wenderby= =Patricia Plays a Part= =Candytuft--I mean Veronica= =The Vacillations of Hazel= Like Gertrude Page's Shilling Novels, +Mabel Barnes-Grundy's Shilling Novels for 1917 will be the outstanding success of the year+. * * * * * =London: HUTCHINSON & CO., Paternoster Row.= 
32926	----	John Ames, Native Commissioner, by Bertram Mitford. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ JOHN AMES, NATIVE COMMISSIONER, BY BERTRAM MITFORD. CHAPTER ONE. MADULA'S CATTLE. Madula's kraal, in the Sikumbutana, was in a state of quite unusual excitement. The kraal, a large one, surrounded by an oval ring-fence of thorn, contained some seventy or eighty huts. Three or four smaller kraals were dotted around within a mile of it, and the whole lay in a wide, open basin sparsely grown with mimosa and low scrub, shut in by round-topped acacia-grown hills bearing up against the sky-line at no great distance. The time was towards evening, usually the busy time of the day, for then it was that the cattle were driven in for milking. But now, although the sun was within an hour of the western horizon, no lowing herds could be descried, threading, in dappled streams, the surrounding bush, converging upon the kraal. The denizens of the calf-pens might low for their mothers, and might low in vain; and this was primarily at the root of the prevailing excitement. In the neighbourhood of the chief's hut squatted six or eight head-ringed men, sullen and resentful, conversing not much, and in low murmurs. At a respectful distance the young men of the kraal clustered in dark groups; less reserved, judging from the fierce hubbub of angry voices, which their elders made no effort to restrain. Few women were visible, and such as were, kept well within the shelter of the huts at the back of those of the chief, peering forth anxiously, or darting out to retrieve some fat runaway toddler, which seemed to be straying in the direction of all sorts of imaginary danger. And, in the centre of all this brewing commotion, quite unconcerned, although clearly the object of it, stood ten men, or to be more accurate, eleven. These were of the same colour and build, of the same cast of features, as those around them, but whereas the excited inhabitants of the kraal wore nothing but the _mutya_, these were clad in neat uniform, consisting of blue serge tunic, red-braided khaki knee-breeches, and fez caps; and while the others showed no weapons--as yet--save knobsticks, these were armed with Martini rifles and well-filled bandoliers. They consisted, in fact, of a sergeant and ten men of the Chartered Company's Matabele Police, and to their presence and errand there at that time was due the brooding, not to say dangerous, excitement prevailing. The nature of that errand stood revealed in the _indaba_ then being held between the two opposing parties. "Who talks of time?" said the police sergeant, swelling himself out in his uniform, with the swagger of a native of no class who finds himself in a position of authority, and by virtue of it qualified to domineer over and flout those of his own race to whom formerly he looked up with deference. "Who talks of time? You have had time, Madula--more than enough time--yet the cattle have not been sent in. Now we have come to take them. It is the `word' of the Government." A click, expressive of contemptuous disgust, broke from the groups of bystanders, and with it deep-toned murmurs of savage wrath. But its only effect was further to develop the arrogant swagger of the native sergeant. "Keep your dogs quiet, Madula," he said insolently, with a sneering glance at the murmurers. "_Hau_! A man cannot talk amid such a barking of curs." "A man! _Hau_! A man! A dog rather. A dog--who cringes to those who throw stones at him and his father's house," they shouted, undeterred by the presence of their elders and chief; for the familiar, and therefore impudent manner in which this uniformed "dog of the Government" had dared to address their chief by name, stung them beyond control. "Who is the `dog'? Nanzicele, the bastard. Not his father's son, for Izwe was a brave man and a true, and could never have been the father of such a whelp as Nanzicele. _Au_! Go home, Nanzicele. Go home!" they shouted, shaking their sticks with roars of jeering laughter, in which there was no note of real mirth. At these insults Nanzicele's broad countenance grew set with fury and his eyes glared, for beneath the uniform seeming to tell of discipline and self-restraint, the heart of a savage beat hard--the heart of a savage as fierce and ruthless as that which beat in the dusky breast of any of those around. A Matabele of pure blood, he had fought in the ranks of Lo Bengula during the war of occupation, and that he and others should have taken service under their conquerors was an offence the conquered were not likely to forgive. As to his courage though, there was no question, and for all his insolence and swagger, no qualm of misgiving was in his mind as he faced the jeering, infuriated crowd with a savage contempt not less than their own. They represented a couple of hundred at least, and he and his ten men, for all their rifles and cartridges, would be a mere mouthful to them in the event of a sudden rush. "Dogs? Nay, nay. It is ye who are the dogs--all dogs--dogs of the Government which has made me a chief," was his fierce retort, as he stood swelling out his chest in the pride of his newly acquired importance. "You have no chiefs now; all are dogs--dogs of the Government. I--_I_ am a chief." "_Hau_! A dog-chief. _Nkose_! We hail thee, Nanzicele, chief of the dogs!" roared some; while others, more infuriated than the rest, began to crowd in upon the little knot of police. Before the latter could even bring their rifles to the present, Madula rose, with both hands outspread. Like magic the tumult was stayed at the gesture, though deep-toned mutterings still rolled through the crowd like the threatening of distant thunder. The chief, Madula, was an elderly man, tall and powerfully built. Like the police sergeant he was of the "Abezantzi," the "people from below"-- i.e. those from lower down the country, who came up with Umzilikazi, and who constituted the aristocratic order of the Matabele nation, being of pure Zulu parentage; whereas many of his tribal followers were not; hence the haughty contempt with which the police sergeant treated the menacing attitude of the crowd. Standing there; his shaven head-- crowned with the shiny ring--thrown back in the easy unconscious dignity of command; his tall erect frame destitute of clothing save the _mutya_ round the loins--of adornment save for a string of symbolical wooden beads, the savage chieftain showed to immeasurable advantage as contrasted with the cheap swagger of the drilled and uniformed convert to the new civilisation who confronted him. Now he spoke. "Hearken, Nanzicele. Here we have none of the King's cattle. All we have is our own. When we sent in such of the King's cattle as were among us, we were told to send in more. We asked for time to search and see if there were a few more that had been overlooked, and we were granted time. Now we have searched and there are no more. If there are no more we can send no more. Can anything be clearer than that?" A full-throated shout of assent went up from the young men. Their chief had spoken, therefore there was an end of the matter. Nanzicele and his police could now go home, and go empty handed. But Nanzicele had no intention of doing anything of the sort. "Then that is your `word,' Madula," he said. "You will send no cattle?" "Have I not spoken?" returned the chief. "_Whau_! The Government must employ queer messengers if it sends men who cannot understand plain words. If there are no King's cattle for me to send, how can I send any? Is not that `word' plain enough, Nanzicele?" And again a shout of uproarious delight went up from the young men. "There is a plainer `word,'" retorted the police sergeant, "and that is the `word' of the Government. All the cattle in the country are King's cattle, therefore the cattle of Madula are King's cattle, and as Madula will not send them in I am here to take them. Fare ye well, children of Madula. You have resisted the arm of the Government, and you have insulted its mouth. Fare ye well;" and there was a volume of threatening significance in the tone. No movement was made to hinder them as the handful of police marched out between the serried ranks of dusky forms, the glare of savage animosity darting forth from hostile eyes. But as they gained the outside of the kraal a great roar of derision went up, coupled with allusions which caused Nanzicele to scowl darkly. For the incident to which they referred was the curt refusal of a follower of Madula to give him one of his daughters to wife, at less than the current market value; in which the obdurate parent received the full support of his chief, who was in nowise disposed to befriend the Government policeman. The man had since married his daughter to somebody else, but Nanzicele had neither forgotten nor forgiven. And now the young men of the kraal followed him jeering, and improvising songs asking whether Nanzicele had found a wife yet. But soon such good humour as underlay their mirth was turned to downright hate. They had followed the retreating police as far as the brow of an eminence some little distance from the kraal, and now a sight met their view which turned every heart black with pent up hostility. Away over the plain a dust cloud was moving, and behind it the multicoloured hides of a considerable herd of cattle. These were travelling at a swift pace, propelled by the shouts of a number of running figures. The bulk, if not the whole, of Madula's cattle were being swept away by the Government emissaries. No further time had Madula's people to devote to this handful of police, whom hitherto they had busied themselves with annoying. With long-drawn whoops of wrath and rally, they surged forward, intent only on retaking their cherished, and, in fact, their only possessions. Assegai blades flashed suddenly aloft, drawn forth from their places of concealment, and the plain was alive with the dark forms of bounding savages. There would be a collision and bloodshed, and the country was in no state for the heaping of fuel upon a smouldering fire. But Nanzicele's native astuteness had not been caught napping. He had been prepared for some such move, for his quick glance had not been slow to note that many of those who had followed him from the kraal were arrayed in skin karosses or other nondescript articles of attire, whereas, only just before, except for their _mutyas_, they had been naked. This could mean nothing but concealed weapons, and when such were produced he was ready for the contingency. With hurried, muttered commands to his men to hold their rifles in readiness, he pressed them forward at the double, and arrived on the scene of turmoil not much later than Madula's excited tribesmen. These, for their part, had rushed the situation on all sides, and things were already tolerably lively. The scared and maddened cattle, frenzied by the dark forms surging around them front and rear, halted, bunched, "milled" around for a moment in blind unreasoning fear, then broke up and streamed forth over the plain in a dozen different directions, bellowing wildly, and pursued by the whooping, bounding figures in their rear and on their flanks; and in a few moments, save for long lines of lingering dust-clouds, not one remained in sight. Nanzicele's plan had miscarried entirely. In a fury the latter turned upon his corporal. "Fool--dog--jackal!" he snarled. "Is this how my orders are obeyed? Instead of carrying them out promptly, were ye all asleep or drinking beer with the women? Yonder cattle should have been halfway to Jonemi's by this time, and lo now, Madula and his herd of Amaholi are laughing at us. Thou, Singisa--I will have thee flogged out of the ranks with raw-hide whips. Was I to keep Madula talking for a moon instead of a very small piece of a day, to give thee time to rest thy lazy carcase and go to sleep? Ye shall all suffer for this, and dearly." But the corporal was not much perturbed by this threat. He merely shrugged his shoulders. "I know not," he said. "But this I know, Nanzicele. Seven men cannot move quicker than two hundred, and as many were yonder"--pointing in the direction of the retreating dust-clouds. "And we were under no orders to fire upon Madula's people, nor indeed do I think we were under orders to take his cattle at all." "Thou art a fool, Singisa," retorted Nanzicele, with a savage scowl. But whether Singisa was a fool or not, the fact remained with them that Nanzicele's plan had miscarried. All he had effected by his attempted _coup de main_ was to render the name of the Matabele police a trifle more putrescent in the nostrils of the Matabele than it already was, and in the mean time Madula's cattle were still in Madula's possession. And, after all, that possession is nine points of the law--meaning presumably nine-tenths--still remains a good old English axiom. CHAPTER TWO. JOHN AMES. John Ames was Native Commissioner for the district of Sikumbutana. Now, the area of the said district contained about as many square miles as did one half of England. It likewise contained some thousands of its original inhabitants, a considerable percentage of which were Matabele, and the residue Makalaka, the bulk of whom had, prior to the war of occupation, been incorporated into the ranks of Lo Bengula's fighting-men. Indeed, they reckoned themselves as integral with the nation--as much so as the original Abezantzi, even then fast dwindling numerically--and by no means welcomed their so-called emancipation at the hands of the British with the acclaim our theoretically humane civilisation had striven to persuade itself they would. They were settled upon reservations there as in other districts under the charge of Native Commissioners appointed by the Government of the Chartered Company. Now the duties of these Native Commissioners were multifarious, if ill-defined. They involved the collection of hut tax; the keeping of a vigilant eye upon the people at large; the carrying out of the disarmament programme; the settlement of all local disputes that were potient of settlement; and of about half a hundred other questions that might arise from day to day. These officials were expected to act the part of benevolent uncle all round, to the natives under their charge; and in order to effect this thoroughly, they had to be continually on the move, keeping up a constant system of patrol in order to become acquainted with every nook and corner of their somewhat vast area, and see that things were going on all right in general; and bearing in mind the extent of that area, it will be seen that this alone constituted a very laborious and responsible side of their duties. For it was no case of progressing in a fairly comfortable conveyance: neither the natural formation of the country nor the not very munificent travelling allowance granted by their government would admit of that. It meant real downright roughing it. Day after day of long rides on horseback, over mountain and plain and low-lying fever belt in all weathers, and a camp under rock or tree at night; and when it is remembered that such peregrinations amounted in the aggregate to about half the year, it follows that the faculties both physical and mental, of these useful public servants were not likely to stagnate for lack of use. There was one other duty which devolved upon them at the time of our story; the collecting of the cattle which the Chartered Company exacted as a war indemnity from the not thoroughly conquered Matabele; and remembering that cattle constitutes the whole worldly wealth of a native, it may be imagined what a thankless and uningratiating task was thrown upon their hands. John Ames was an excellent specimen of this class of public official. Born on a Natal farm, he could speak the native languages fluently, and had all the idiosyncrasies of the native character at his fingers' ends, a phase of useful knowledge which a few years spent at an English public school had failed to obliterate, and which, on his return to the land of his birth, he was able to turn to practical account. He had come to Rhodesia with the early Pioneers, and having served through the Matabele war of 1893, had elected to remain in the country. He was of goodly height and proportion, standing six feet in his socks, handsome withal, having regular features, and steadfast and penetrating grey eyes; and at the time we make his acquaintance had just turned thirty, but looked more. "Here's a pretty kettle of fish," he was saying, as he sat in his compound on the day following the events recorded in the last chapter. "This thing will have to be gone into, Inglefield, and that pretty thoroughly." "Certainly, old chap, certainly. But what is the `thing' when all's said and done, and what sort of fish are in the kettle? You forget you've been pattering away to these chaps for the last half-hour, and except for a word or two, I haven't caught any of it. Even now I don't know what it's all about." "These police of yours seem to have been rather playing the fool," was the direct answer. He addressed as Inglefield was the sub-inspector in charge of the Matabele Police, whose camp lay about a mile away. Inglefield was an English importation, an ex-subaltern in a line regiment, who having lived at the rate of about double his means for a few years, had, in common with not a few of his kind, found it necessary to migrate with the object of "picking up something;" and he had duly "picked up" a commission in the Matabele Police. Now Inglefield twirled his moustache and looked annoyed. "Oh, the police again!" he retorted, somewhat snappishly. "I say, Ames. Can they by any chance ever do anything right according to you fellows?" The two men were seated together outside the hut which Ames used for an office. In front of them about a dozen Matabele squatted in a semicircle. One of these--a ringed man--had been speaking at some length, but the bulk of his conversation was utterly unintelligible to Inglefield. "Granting for the sake of argument they never can, it is hardly to be wondered at," replied Ames, tranquilly. "Their very existence as at present constituted is a mistake, and may prove a most serious one some of these days. First of all, the Matabele have never been more than half conquered, and having given them peace--on not such easy terms, mind--the first thing we do is to pick out a number of them, arm them, and teach them to shoot. And such fellows are turned loose to keep their own crowd in order. Well, it isn't in human nature that the plan won't lead to ructions, and this is only another of them. I know natives, Inglefield, and you don't, if you'll excuse my saying so. Now, every man Jack of your Matabele Police imagines himself a bigger man than the old indunas of the country before whom he used to shake in his shoes. And the Matabele won't stand that for ever." "Oh, come now, Ames, you're putting things rather strong. Besides, we seem to have heard all that before." "And so these fellows can swagger around in their uniforms and put on side, and crow over the old indunas, and bully the crowd at large, and-- what is worse, use their position to pay off old grudges. Which is just what seems to have been done in the present case." "The devil it does! Who says so?" "The man who has been talking the most is Samvu, the brother of Madula," went on Ames. "He is here to complain of your men. They appear to have acted in a pretty high-handed way at Madula's, and the wonder is they didn't come to blows. You remember what the orders were to Nanzicele? We gave them conjointly." "Yes. He was to remind Madula that more cattle were due from him, and that it is time they were sent in." "Precisely. Well, what do you think the fellow has been doing? He sent half his patrol to drive off all Madula's cattle, while he kept the people of the kraal busy with _indaba_. Even then he seems to have cheeked the chief and played Harry all round. The wonder is he didn't bring on a fight. As it was, the whole kraal turned out, and simply ran all the cattle back again." "If he did that, of course he exceeded his orders," allowed Inglefield, albeit somewhat grudgingly. "But how do we know these chaps are not lying?" "I don't think they are, but of course we must have a full investigation. We can begin it this afternoon. It's dinner-time now. Come in and have a bite, Inglefield." "No thanks, old chap. I've got something going at the camp, and my cook will get careless if I keep disappointing him. I'll look round in an hour or so. But--I say. Why the deuce should Nanzicele--oh, dash it, I can't get round these infernal clicks!--why should he have played the fool at that particular kraal?" "There comes in what I was saying before about paying off old grudges. He had a squabble about a girl at that very kraal a little while back, and now sees his chance. Well, so long. We'll go thoroughly into the thing." The police officer mounted his horse and rode away in the direction of the camp, and John Ames, having said a few words to the squatting Matabele, dismissed them for the present, and turned into the hut which he used as a dining and general sitting-room. This was a large, circular hut, rough and ready of aspect outside, with its plastered wall and high conical thatch, but the interior was not without comfort and even tastefulness. It was hung around with a dark blue fabric commonly called by the whites "limbo," being a corruption of the native name "ulembu," which signifieth "web." Strips of white calico constituted the ceiling, and thus both thatch and plastered walls being completely hidden, the interior, hung around with framed photographs and prints, wore a comfortable and homelike aspect. Two small glass windows let in light and air when the door was closed, which it seldom was. Four other huts similarly constructed stood within the compound, doing duty for office, bedroom, kitchen, and store-house respectively, and the whole were enclosed by a palisade of woven grass, standing about breast high. The life was a lonely one, and there were times when John Ames would feel very tired of it. The place being more than a long day's journey from anywhere, visitors were few and far between, and beyond Inglefield, the police sub-inspector, he rarely saw a social equal. Inglefield was a married man, but his wife, a soured and disappointed person, had made herself so disagreeable to John Ames on the few occasions they had met, that the latter had dropped all intercourse which involved associating with Inglefield at that worthy's own home. If Inglefield wanted to see him for social purposes, why, he knew his way up; and truth to tell, it was a way Inglefield not seldom found, for if there is one state more lonely than the man who lives alone in an out of the way locality, it is the man who lives in it with an entirely uncongenial partner. But even with Inglefield the position was occasionally strained, by reason of their official relations Inglefield thought the force under his command could do no wrong; Ames knew that it could, and not infrequently did. The latter sat down to his solitary meal, which on the whole was a good one; for the game laws were not at that time rigidly enforced, nor had a combination of rinderpest and prospector decimated the larger kinds; and steaks of the roan antelope, hot and frizzling, are by no means despicable. Add to this brown bread and tinned butter, the whole washed down with a couple of glasses of whisky and aerated water from a selzogene, and it will be seen that our lonely official did not fare so badly. The era of "bully" beef and other canned abominations had not yet set in. His dinner over, John Ames lit a pipe and adjourned to a cane chair before his office door to await the appearance of Inglefield. The day was hot and drowsy, and he wore the light attire customary in Rhodesia-- shirt and trousers to wit, and leather belt--and on his head a wide-brimmed hat of the "cowboy" order; but the heat notwithstanding, a shiver ran through his frame, bringing with it a not unwarranted misgiving. "This infernal fever again," he said to himself half aloud. "How the mischief am I going to get through the rainy season? No. I really must apply for three months' leave, and get to some cool place at the seaside. If they won't give it me I'll resign. I'm not going to turn into a premature wreck to please anybody." There was very little fear of this alternative. John Ames was far too valuable an official for his superiors to bring themselves to part with so readily. His thorough knowledge of the natives and their ways, his consummate tact in dealing with them, and his scrupulous and unquestionable probity, had already rendered him a man of mark in his department; but withal it never occurred to him for a moment to overestimate himself, or that his chances were one whit better than those of anybody else. In due course Inglefield arrived, and with him Nanzicele and the squad of police whose conduct was under investigation. John Ames was attended by his native messengers--a brace of stalwart Matabele--and, Madula's people having been convened, the investigation began. Even here the picturesque element was not wanting. The open space of the compound was nearly filled; the police ranged in a double file on the one side, the people of Madula under Samvu, the chief's brother, squatting in a semicircle on the other. Inglefield occupied a chair beside John Ames, his orderly behind him, and his interpreter--for his acquaintance with the language was but scanty--rendering the words of each witness. And these were legion; and as the hearing progressed, both sides became more and more excited, to such an extent that when Nanzicele was making his statement, audible murmurs of dissent and disgust, among which such epithets as "liar" were not undiscernible, arose from Samvu's followers. More than once John Ames would intervene, quiet but decisive; but even his influence seemed strained under the task of preserving order among these rival bands of savage and slightly civilised savage. But Nanzicele had no chance. When it came to cross-questioning him, Samvu and another ringed man of Madula's simply turned him inside out. There could be no question but that he had exceeded his orders, and had acted in a grossly provocative and arbitrary manner, calculated to bring about serious trouble. Yet not all at once was this decision arrived at. Inglefield, promptly sick of the whole thing, would have slurred the proceedings over-- anything to finish them that day--but Ames was built of different stuff. Calm and judicial, he gave both sides a thoroughly patient hearing, and the investigation indeed was not concluded until late on the following day. Then the above decision was arrived at and reported to the proper quarter, and in the result, it not being his first offence of the kind, Nanzicele was adjudged to lose his stripes. There were three parties to whom this decision was exceedingly unwelcome. The first was represented by the comrades of the degraded man, who looked up to him on account of the very derelictions which had brought him into trouble--his high-handed thoroughness, to wit. The second was Inglefield, who felt that he had lost a particularly smart non-com., and one that was useful to him in another capacity, for Nanzicele was a skilful hunter, and could always show his officer where sport was to be obtained; whereas now, Nanzicele, sulky and reduced to the ranks, would probably revenge himself by a falling off in this direction. The third was Nanzicele himself, and, his fierce and sullen spirit smouldering with bitter resentment, he inwardly vowed vengeance against Madula and his following. But greater vengeance still did he vow against the white race in general, and John Ames in particular. There was point in this, because he was in a position to suppose that the day might not be so very far distant when his vow should be repaid to the uttermost. CHAPTER THREE. SHIMINYA THE SORCERER. Shiminya the sorcerer was seated within his "muti" kraal on the banks of the Umgwane river. This kraal was situated in the heart of a vast thicket of "wait-a-bit" thorns. It was enclosed by a closely woven fence of the same redoubtable growth, whose height and bristling solidity laughed to scorn the efforts of man or beast. The main approach consisted of a narrow labyrinthine passage; other approaches there were, but known only to its weird occupant, who had mechanical but secret means of his own of being warned of any advance, even by the recognised way, some time before the visitor or visitors should arrive at the gate. This formidable stockade enclosed a space in which stood three huts, circular, with low conical roofs of thatch, and in front of these Shiminya was squatting. He had a large bowl in his hands, which he kept turning from side to side, narrowly scrutinising its contents, which smelt abominably, half muttering, half singing to himself the while. In front, its head couched between its paws, dog-like, blinking its yellow eyes, lay an animal. Yet it was not a dog, but represented the smaller species of hyaena--the South African "wolf." This brute looked grim and uncanny enough, but not more so than his master. The latter was a native of small stature and very black hue, with features of an aquiline, almost Semitic cast. But the glance of his eye was baleful, cruel as that of a serpent, keen, rapacious as that of a hawk; and while the muscular development of his frame was slight almost to puniness, his sinister features showed that which must ever dominate over mere brutal sinew and brawn, viz. Mind. Craft, guile, cunning, illimitable patience, and dauntless courage all fought for the mastery in the thin cruel features of the sorcerer. His whole aspect differed as widely as possible from the pure-blood Matabele, which is scarcely surprising, seeing that he could boast no strain of that warrior race. He was, in fact, of the Amaholi, or slave caste; but as among other and more powerful nations of both new and old civilisation, Mind is bound to tell Shiminya--at the time we make his acquaintance and for some years previously--was one of the highest in the ranks of the mysterious hierarchy known to the natives as "Children of the Umlimo." The origin of the cultus of this sinister abstraction has never been located with certainty. Its hierarchy was protected, if not encouraged, by Lo Bengula and his warrior sire, probably out of three parts political motive to a fourth superstitious; and now, at the period of our story, when the dynasty and despotism of the Matabele kings had gone down before the Maxims of the Chartered Company, the shadowy-sayings of the Umlimo began to be sought out eagerly by the conquered race, and a rosy time seemed likely to set in for the myrmidons of the abstraction. These, with the astuteness of their craft all the world over, saw their time. The conquered race, strange to say, was not satisfied. It had signally failed to appreciate the blessings of civilisation. If life was a trifle less secure under the rule of the King, why, that was all in accordance with national custom. In the good old days there was plenty of fun and fighting, of raids far and near; of the mustering of regiments at the King's kraal, and cattle-killing and feasting and dancing. Yes, life was life in those days, when looked at from the point, of view of a warrior nation. But now, all this had given place to a state of things which from that point of view was utterly nauseous. The great circle of Bulawayo proudly dominating the land was razed to the ground, its place occupied by a solitary house, whence the white man governed a nation of conquered slaves. Below, in the valley, which formerly shook to the hum and thunder of marching impis, the white man was dumping down his iron houses and calling it his town. Throughout the land even the oldest and most powerful indunas were under white officials, to whom they were obliged to give deferential greeting, and all the little phases of excitement incidental to former days were sternly forbidden. Moreover, the conquerors had seized all the cattle of the nation, and now the land was flooded with arrogant, masterful whites, to whom no spot was sacred if only it was thought to contain a little gold. Outwardly patient, but with black rage and inexhaustible hostility gnawing at their hearts, chiefs and people alike sullenly brooded; and on such dry tinder the sparks, artfully kindled by the "Abantwana 'Mlimo," fell as on well-prepared ground. Seated there upon the ground, Shiminya continued to shake his bowl of hell-broth. Save for a few birds' claws and a bladder or two fastened in his thick wool--for he was not ringed--he was destitute of the revolting gewgaws of his profession. Suddenly the wolf emitted a low snarl, simultaneously with an inarticulate wail which proceeded from the hut behind. "Ha--my Lupiswana! Ha--ha, my good little beast!" chuckled Shiminya, apostrophising the creature. "Tea--lick thy jaws, for I think it is time for more blood--only a little--only a taste. _Hau_!" As though understanding these words the brute rose, and sneaked over to the wicker door of the hut, sniffing at the fastenings, sullenly growling. Rising, the wizard followed, and, pushing back the animal, crept into the hut, and slapped the door to in its jaws. At his appearance the low moaning rose again, and in its note was the very extremity of pain and fear. It proceeded from a long dark form lying on the ground, which the eyes, becoming accustomed to the semi-light of the interior, would have no hesitation in pronouncing as human. Further investigation would reveal it a female form, securely bound and lashed to a pole; a female form too, dowered with no small share of symmetry and comeliness. The face, when undistorted by pain and terror, must have been a pleasing one in the extreme. "Ah--ah, Nompiza!" chuckled the wizard, rubbing his hands together. "The children of Umlimo have pretty houses, do they not--pretty houses?" And he glanced gleefully around his horrible den. For this is just what it was. Human skulls and bones decked the plastered wall, but the most dreadful object of all was the whole skin of the head and face of a man--of a white man too, with a long heavy beard. This awful object glowered down in the semi-gloom, a gruesome expression of pain in the pucker of the parchment-like hide. Great snake-skins depended from the roof--the heads artfully stuffed, and the attitudes arranged to simulate life; and many a horrid object, suggestive of torture and death, was disposed around. "A pretty house, Nompiza--ah--ah--a pretty house, is it not?" chuckled Shiminya, leering down into the young woman's face. "And thou hast only to speak one word to be taken out of it. Yet I wonder not at thy refusal." "I will not speak it, Shiminya," she replied, with some fire of spirit. "The rattle of these old bones has no terror for me. And if thou harmest me further, there are those who will avenge me, child of the Umlimo or not." For all answer the wizard laughed softly but disdainfully. Then reaching to the door, he opened it. The wolf leaped in, snarling. "See now, thou obstinate Nompiza," he went on, restraining the brute with a flourish of a large stick painted red, before which it cowered back. "This is Lupiswana--no ordinary wolf. Whoever this one bites becomes _tagati_, and will be hunted through the night by him after death, until they can escape only by riding on him as the white men ride their horses. Then, if they fall off, they are hunted again night after night--for ever and ever. Ha!" At the enunciation of this grim superstition the unfortunate prisoner tugged at her bonds, uttering a shriek of terror. She recognised here not the dog she had at first expected to see, but the horrid mongrel beast held in abhorrence by the superstitious. The growlings of the brute redoubled. "Now, tell quickly," went on the wizard. "The news of the meeting thou didst make known to two people only. Their names? Hesitate not, or--" "Shall I be allowed to depart from here if I tell, child of the Umlimo?" she gasped eagerly. "Thou shalt be taken hence. Oh yes, thou shalt be taken hence." "Swear it. Swear it," she cried. "Umzilikazi!" rejoined the wizard, thus ratifying his assertion by the sacred name of the great king, founder of the nation. But now, seeing its master's vigilance relaxed, the wolf sprang forward, and, with a horrid mumbling snarl, buried its fangs in the helpless prisoner's thigh. A wild, piteous, despairing shriek rent the interior of this fiend's den. "Take it off! Take it off! Oh, I am devoured! Quick! I will tell!" Seizing a pair of iron tongs, Shiminya compelled the now infuriated brute to loose its hold, and following it with a tremendous blow on the head, it retreated yelling to the further side of the hut. "The names--quick--ere it seizes thee again," urged the wizard. "Pukele," she howled, frantic with agony and terror. "The son of thy father, who is servant to Jonemi?" "The same. The other is Ntatu." The words seemed squeezed from the sufferer. Her thigh, horribly lacerated by the jaws of the savage beast, streaming with blood, was quivering in every nerve. "Thy sister, formerly wife of Makani?" "The same. Now, child of the Umlimo, suffer me to depart." "Thy thigh is not well enough, sister," replied the wizard, in a soft purring voice, putting his head on one side, and surveying her through half closed eyes. "Tarry till evening, then shalt thou be taken hence. _Au_! It is not good to be seen quitting the abode of Shiminya. There is _tagati_ in it." Having first kicked the wolf out of the hut, the sorcerer set to work to tend the wound of his helpless victim. She, for her part, lay and moaned feebly. She had purchased her life, but at what a cost. Still, even the magnificent physical organisation of a fine savage was not proof against all she had undergone, for this was not her first taste of the torture since being forcibly seized by the satellites of Shiminya and brought hither. Now, moaning in her pain, Nompiza lay and reflected. She had betrayed two of her father's children, had marked them out for the vengeance of not only the Abantwana 'Mlimo, but of the disaffected chiefs. This, however, might be remedied. Once out of this she would go straight to Jonemi--which was the name by which John Ames was known to the natives, being a corruption of his own--and claim protection for herself and them, perhaps even procure the arrest of Shiminya. This thought came as a ray of light to the savage girl as she lay there. The white men would protect and avenge her. Yet--poor simpleton! "Of what art thou thinking, Nompiza?" said the wizard, softly, as he refrained from his seeming work of mercy. "_Au_! Shall I tell thee? It is that thou wilt reveal to Jonemi all thou knowest of the gathering at the Home of the Umlimo when the moon was full. So shalt thou save thyself and Pukele and Ntatu, the children of thy father." A cry of terror escaped the sufferer. How should she have forgotten that this dreadful sorcerer could read the thoughts of men? "Not so, my father, not so," she prayed. "I ask for nothing but to be allowed to go home." "To go home? But how would that avail one who has been bitten by Lupiswana? There is no escape from that. Lupiswana will come for thee after death. Thou wilt be hunted round for ever, with Lupiswana biting--biting--at thee even as now, and thou wilt spring wildly forward to avoid his bites, and his teeth will close in thy flesh, even as now. Thou wilt run wailing round the kraals of thy people, hunted ever by Lupiswana, but they will not admit thee. They will cover their heads in terror lest the same doom overtake them. _Hau_! Even this night will that doom begin." "This night?" echoed the victim, feeling well-nigh dead with an awful fear. "This night? Now, my father, thou hast promised--hast sworn--I shall be allowed to depart." "I did but mean the night of death," replied the other, his head on one side, his eyes glittering with satanic mirth. "That may be when thou art old and tottering, Nompiza, or it may mean this night, for what is time but a flash, even as that of the summer lightning? The night of death will surely come." No relief came into the face of the sufferer. The awful fate predicted for her by Shiminya seemed to her just as certain as though it had already befallen her, and the recollection of the horrid animal tearing at her flesh was too recent. It was a form of superstition, too, not unknown among her people, and here everything seemed to bring it home-- time, place, surroundings, and the horror of this gruesome being's presence. But before she would utter further prayer or protest, a strange hollow, humming noise was heard, at sound of which Shiminya arose suddenly, with an eager look on his repulsive countenance, and crept out of the hut, taking care to secure the door behind him. CHAPTER FOUR. A HUMAN SPIDER. Shiminya resumed his seat upon the ground, with the _muti_ bowl in his hands. The wolf he had already secured in one of the huts. The grim beast was in truth his familiar spirit, and as such not to be gazed upon by profane eyes, and in broad daylight. And now footsteps were heard approaching the _scherm_, together with the rattle of assegai hafts. Three men entered by the narrow gateway. Shiminya looked up. "Greeting, _Izinduna_," he said. "Greeting to thee, Umtwana 'Mlimo," came the reply in a deep-voiced hum, as the newcomers deposited their assegais just within the gate, and advanced a few steps nearer in. With two of these we are already acquainted, they being, in fact, Madula and his brother Samvu. The third was another influential chief by name Zazwe. Shiminya seemed to take no further notice of their presence, continuing to sway the _muti_ bowl from side to side, muttering the while. The faces of the three indunas wore an expression of scarcely to be concealed disgust; that of Zazwe in addition showed unutterable contempt. He was an unprepossessing looking man, lean, and of middle height, with a cold, cruel countenance. At bottom he loathed and despised the whole Umlimo hierarchy as a pack of rank impostors, but it suited him now to cultivate them, for he was an arrant schemer, and would fain see every white man in the country cut to pieces. "There are three goats in thy kraal beyond the river, Shiminya," he began presently, tired of the silence. "That is good, my father," the sorcerer condescended to reply. "They are for Umlimo?" "Nay; for his child." "And--for Umlimo?" "There is a young heifer." "_Au_! Of such there will soon be no more," replied Shiminya. "No more?" echoed the trio. "No more. The whites are bewitching all the cattle in the land. Soon you will see great things. The land will stink with their rotting carcases." A murmur went up from the three listeners. They all bent eagerly forward. Shiminya, who knew his dupes, was in no hurry. He continued to shake his bowl of abomination and mutter; then he went on: "The last time you heard the Great Voice, what did it say? Were not the words thereof as mine are now--I, its child? _Whau_! I fear there were some who heard that voice and laughed, Izinduna--who heard that voice and did not believe." At this juncture there came a subdued wail, inexpressibly doleful, from one of the huts. It was answered by a snarl from another. Two of the three chiefs, listening, felt perturbed, the countenance of Zazwe alone preserving its hard, sceptical expression; though, to tell the truth, even he--so rooted is the innate superstition of savages--did not feel entirely at ease in his surroundings. "There is, further, a good milch cow for the Umlimo," spake Madula, "and for his child a heifer." "It is well. There will soon be no more," repeated the wizard. "And three fat-tailed sheep, and for Umlimo a young bull," said Samvu. "That, too, is good," was the cold acknowledgment of Shiminya, "for there will soon be no more." Now, cattle constitute the very life of all the South African tribes, wherefore the three chiefs felt their hearts sink as they realised the gist of this doleful prophecy. The rinderpest had not as yet made its appearance in their midst, but was very soon destined to do so, and the sorcerers of the nation, having gained secret information that the terrible scourge was, in the ordinary course of things, bound to be upon them soon from further north, used their knowledge as a most powerful lever towards promoting the uprising they were straining every nerve to bring about. In this they found willing aid from many of the chiefs, who saw their power and influence waning day by day; themselves forced to be the subservient vassals of a few--from their point of view-- upstart and arrogant whites. "Why, then, should Makiwa [Matabele term for the white man] wish to bewitch all the cattle?" said Madula, who at present was in the vacillating stage, though the high-handed action we have recorded, on the part of the native police, had gone far towards settling him in the wrong direction. "They will suffer equally with ourselves." "_Our_ cattle are our life. _Their_ life is in other things," pronounced Shiminya, who never looked at his interlocutors when he spoke, thus giving his answers an oracular air, as though inspired by the magic stuff into whose black depth he was gazing. "We die. They live." "_Hau_!" cried the listeners, fully comprehending the hint. "Not many times will the moon be at full before this death is upon us," went on the wizard, still without looking up. "If there are no whites left in the land, then will it be averted." Again that hollow groan proceeded from the hut. Their feelings worked up to an artificial pitch, the superstitious savages felt something like a shudder run through their frames. But the imperturbable Shiminya went on: "There are two who must die--Pukele, the son of Mambane." "He who is servant to Jonemi?" queried Madula. "The same." "Has he done wrong?" said Samvu, for the man named was one of Madula's people, and neither of the brothers liked this edict. "He knows too much," was the remorseless reply. "The other is Ntatu, formerly wife of Makani." A measure of relief came into the countenances of the two chiefs. A woman more or less mattered nothing, but they did not like to sacrifice one of their men. "It is the `word' of Umlimo," pursued Shiminya, decisively. "This must be." And for the first time he raised his eyes, and fixed them upon the two chiefs with cruel, snake-like stare. "What is the life of a man, more or less, when Umlimo has spoken?" said Zazwe, thus throwing in the weight of his influence with the dictum of the sorcerer. "A man, too, who is faithful to one of these whites set over us! _Au_! Umlimo is wise." This carried the day; and after some more talk, mostly "dark," and consisting of hints, the three chiefs, gathering up their assegais, withdrew. Left alone, Shiminya still sat there, satisfied that his sanguinary edict would be carried out. A dead silence reigned over the great thorn thicket, and as though the satanic influence which seemed to brood upon the place imparted itself to wild Nature, even the very birds forbore to flutter and chirp in its immediate vicinity. The sun sank to the western horizon, shedding its arrows of golden light upon the myriad sharp points of the sea of thorns, then dipped below the rim of the world, and still the grim wizard squatted, like a crafty, cruel, bloodthirsty spider, in the midst of his vast web, though indeed the comparison is a libel on the insect, who slays to appease hunger, whereas this human spider was wont to doom his victims out of a sheer diabolical lust of cruelty and the power which he could sway through that agency. This day, indeed, he might feel content, for it had not been wasted. But the day was not over yet--oh no--not quite yet. Still, would it be possible for this satanic being to commit further deeds of atrocity and of blood? Well, is there not the wretched sufferer lying bound and helpless within the hut? Again that low, vibrating hum sounded forth. It seemed to come from the thick of the thorn palisade. The deeply plotting brain of the wizard was again on the alert, but its owner evinced no eagerness, not even looking up from what he was doing. Some person or persons had unawares touched the hidden communication wire which, situated at the entrance of the narrow labyrinthine passage leading to the kraal, signalled such approach. Shiminya's discernment was consummate in every sense he possessed; indeed, this faculty had not a little to do with the ascendency he had gained. In the very footsteps of the new comer, shod with the _amanyatelo_--a kind of raw-hide sandal used as protection in thorny country--his keen ear could gather a whole volume of information. They were, in fact, to him an open index of the new comer's mind. While distant they indicated a mind made up, yet not altogether removed from, the verge of wavering; the possession of a purpose, yet not altogether a whole-heartedness in its carrying out. Nearer they revealed the vulgar trepidation attendant upon the mere fact of approaching a place so sinister and redoubtable as the _muti_ den of a renowned sorcerer, and that in the dim hours of night. For the brief twilight had long since passed, and now a golden moon, in its third quarter, hung lamplike in the sky, and, save in the shadows, its soft brilliance revealed every detail almost as clear as in the day. It fell on the form of a tall, powerfully built savage, standing there in the gateway, naked save for the _mutya_, unarmed save for a short, heavy knobstick. This he laid down as he drew near the wizard. "Greeting, my father," he uttered. "Greeting, Nanzicele," replied the sorcerer, without looking up. Divested of his civilised and official trappings, the ex-sergeant of police looked what he was--a barbarian pure and simple, no whit less of a one, in fact, than those over whom he was vested with a little brief authority. Whether this visit was made in the interests of loyalty to his superiors or not may hereinafter appear. "Hast thou brought what I desired of thee, Nanzicele?" said the wizard, coming direct to the point. Nanzicele, who had squatted himself on the ground opposite the other, now fumbled in a skin bag which was hung around him, and produced a packet. It was small, but solid and heavy. "What is this?" said Shiminya, counting out ten Martini-Henry cartridges. "Ten? Only ten! _Au_! When I promised thee vengeance it was not for such poor reward as this." "They are not easily obtained, my father. The men from whom I got these will be punished to-morrow for not having them; but I care not. Be content with a few, for few are better than none. And--this vengeance?" "Thou knowest Pukele--the servant of Jonemi?" "The son of Mambane?" "The son of Mambane, who helped hoot thee out of his kraal when thou wouldst not offer enough _lobola_ for Nompiza. He is to die." Nanzicele leaped with delight. "When? How?" he cried. "Now will my eyes have a feast indeed." "At thy hand. The manner and the time are of thine own choosing. To thee has Umlimo left it." Nanzicele's glee was dashed. His jaw fell. "_Au_! I have no wish to dance in the air at the end of a long rope," he growled; "and such would assuredly be my fate if I slew Pukele, even as it was that of Fondosa, the son of Mbai, who was an _innyanga_ even as thyself, my father. _Whau_! I saw it with these eyes. All Fondosa's _muti_ did not save him there, my father, and the whites hanged him dead the same as any rotten Maholi." "Didst thou glance over one shoulder on the way hither, Nanzicele? Didst thou see Lupiswana following thee, yea, even running at thy side? I traced thy course from here. I saw thee from the time of leaving Jonemi's. He was waiting for thee was Lupiswana. It is not good for a man when such is the case," said Shiminya, whose _esprit de corps_ resented the sneering, contemptuous tone which the other had used in speaking of a member of his "cloth." For the event referred to was the execution of a Mashuna witch-doctor for the murder of a whole family, whose death he had ordered. The snake-like stare of Shiminya, the appeal to his superstitions, the sinister associations of the place he was in, a stealthy, mysterious sound even then becoming audible--all told, Nanzicele looked somewhat cowed, remembering, too, how his return journey had to be effected alone and by night. Having, in vulgar and civilised parlance, taken down his man a peg or two, Shiminya could afford to let the matter of Pukele stand over. Now he said softly-- "And the other ten cartridges, those in thy bag, Nanzicele? Give them to me, for I have a better revenge, here, ready at thy hand, and a safer one." "_Au_! They were to have been thine, my father; I was but keeping them to the last," replied the ex-police sergeant, shamefacedly and utterly mendaciously, as he placed the packet in the wizard's outstretched hand. "And now, what is this vengeance?" Shiminya rose, and, beckoning the other to follow, opened and crept through the door of the hut behind him. A hollow groan rose from the inside. Nanzicele, halfway in, made an instinctive move to draw back. Then he recovered himself. "It is not a good omen to draw back when half through a doorway," said Shiminya, as they both stood upright in the darkness. "Yet--look." He had struck a match, and lighted a piece of candle. Nanzicele looked down, and a start of surprise leapt through his frame. "_Whau_!" he cried. "It is Nompiza!" "And--thy vengeance," murmured the wizard at his side. But the sufferer heard it, and began to wail aloud-- "Thy promise, Great _Innyanga_! Thy promise. Give me not over to this man, for I fear him. Thou didst swear I should be allowed to depart hence; on the head of Umzilikazi thou didst swear it. Thy promise, O Great _Innyanga_!" "It shall be kept, sister," said Shiminya, softly, his eyes fairly scintillating with devilish glee. "I swore to thee that thou shouldst be _taken_ hence, and thou shalt, for this man and I will take thee." The wretched creature broke into fresh outcries, which were partly drowned, for already they were dragging her, still lashed to the pole, outside. "Ha, Nompiza!" jeered Nanzicele, bending down and peering into her face as she lay in the moonlight. "Dost remember how I was driven from thy father's kraal with jeers? Ha! Whose jeers were the loudest? Whose mockeries the most biting? Thine. And now Kulula will have to buy another wife. Thou hadst better have been the wife of Nanzicele than of death. Of death, is it not, my father?" turning to Shiminya, who glared a mirthless smile. Wrought up to a pitch of frenzy by the recollection of the insults he had then received, the vindictive savage continued to taunt and terrify the wretched creature as she lay. Then he went over to pick up his great knobstick. "Not thus, blunderer; not thus," said Shiminya, arresting his arm. "See now. Take that end of the pole while I take the other. Go thou first." Lifting the pole with its helpless human burden, these bloodthirsty miscreants passed out of the kraal. Down the narrow way they hurried, for Shiminya though small was surprisingly wiry, and the powerful frame of the other felt it not, although their burden was no light one. Down through a steep winding path, and soon the thorns thinned out, giving way to forest trees. "Well, sister, I predicted that Lupiswana would come for thee to-night," said Shiminya, as they set their burden down to rest themselves. "And-- there he is already." A stealthy shape, which had been following close upon their steps, glided into view for a moment and disappeared. The wretched victim saw it too, and uttered such a wild ringing shriek of despair that Nanzicele fairly shuddered. "_Au_! I like not this," he growled. "It is a deed of _tagati_." "Yet thou must do it, brother, or worse will befall thyself," said Shiminya, quietly. Then they resumed their burden. Through the trees now came a glint of silver light, then a broad shimmer. It was the glint of the moon upon water. The Umgwane River, in the dry season, consists of a series of holes. One of these they had reached. "And now, sister," began the wizard, as they set down their burden upon its brink, "thou seest what is the result of an unquiet tongue. But for that thou wouldst not now be here, and thy brother Pukele and thy sister Ntatu would have yet longer to live. But you all know too much, the three of you. Look! Yonder is Lupiswana waiting for thee, even as I predicted," said this human devil, who could not refrain from adding acute mental torture to the dying moments of his victim. And as he spoke a low whine rose upon the night air, where a dark sinister shape lay silhouetted against the white stones of the broad river-bed some little distance away. The victim heard it and wailed, in a manner that resembled the whine of the gruesome beast. Shiminya laughed triumphantly. "Even the voice she has already," he exclaimed. "She will howl bravely when Lupiswana hunts her." "Have done," growled Nanzicele. Brutal barbarian as he was, even his savagery stopped short at this; besides, his superstitious nature was riven to the core. "Get it over; get it over!" They raised the pole once more, and, by a concerted movement, swung it and its human burden over the brink, where the pool was deepest. One wild, appalling shriek, then a splash, and a turmoil of eddies and bubbles rolling and scintillating on the surface, and the cold remorseless face of the brilliant moon looked down, impassive, upon a human creature thus horribly done to death. "_Hlala-gahle_!" cried Shiminya, with a fiend-like laugh, watching the uprising of the stream of bubbles. Then, turning to his fellow miscreant, "And now, Nanzicele, whom Makiwa made a chief, and then unmade, the people at Madula's can hardly speak for laughing at thee, remembering thy last appearance there, bragging that thou wert a chief. Makiwa has done this, but soon there may not be any Makiwa, for so I read the fates. Go now. When I want thee I will send for thee again." And the two murderers separated--Nanzicele, dejected and feeling as though his freedom had gone from him for ever; Shiminya, chuckling and elate, for the day had been a red letter one, and the human spider was gorged full of human prey. CHAPTER FIVE. THE MEETING OF THE WAYS. The mail-steamer from England had been docked early in Cape Town, and the tables at lunch-time, in the dining room of Cogill's Hotel at Wynberg, were quite full. There is something unmistakable about the newly landed passenger, male or female, especially when taken gregariously; and this comes out mainly in a wholly abnormal vivacity, begotten presumably of a sense of emancipation from the cooped monotony of shipboard, and a conversational tendency to hark back to the incidents of the voyage, and the idiosyncrasies of the populace of the recent floating prison. Add to this a display of brand new ribbons on the hats of certain of the ornamental sex, bearing the name of the floating prison aforesaid, and a sort of huddled up clannishness as of a hanging together for mutual protection in a strange land. With this phase of humanity were most of the tables filled. One, however, was an exception, containing a square party of four, not of the exuberantly lively order. To be perfectly accurate, though, only three of these constituted a "party;" the fourth, a silent stranger, wearing more the aspect of a man from up-country than one of the newly landed, was unknown to the residue. "What an abominable noise those people are making," remarked one of the trio, a tall, thin, high-nosed person of about thirty, with a glance at a table over the way, where several newly landed females were screaming over the witticisms of a brace of downy lipped youths, who were under the impression the whole room was hanging upon their words. "I only hope they don't represent the sort of people we shall have to put up with if we stay here." "Don't you be alarmed about that, Mrs Bateman," said the man on her right. "That stamp of Britisher doesn't stay here. It melts off into boarding-houses and situations in Cape Town or Johannesburg. Just rolls up here because it's the thing to run out to Cogill's and have tiffin first thing on landing; at least, so it thinks. It'll all have disappeared by to-night." "That's a comfort, anyway, if we do stay. What do you think of this place, Nidia?" "I think it'll do. Those views of the mountain we got coming along in the train were perfectly lovely. And then it seems so leafy and cool. You can get about from here, too, can't you, Mr Moseley?" "Oh yes, anywhere. Any amount of trains and trams. And I expect you'll wear out the roads with that bike of yours, Miss Commerell." "By the way, I wonder if they brought our bicycles from the station?" said the other of the two ladies. "You saw them last, Nidia." "Yes. They are all right. They were standing outside when we came in." Now, utterly workaday and commonplace as all this was, not a word of it escaped the silent stranger. This girl, seated at his right, had riveted his attention from the moment she came in, and indeed there was that about Nidia Commerell's face which was likely to exercise such an effect. It had a way of lighting up--a sudden lifting of the eyelashes, the breaking into a half smile, revealing a row of teeth beautifully even and white. She had blue eyes, and her hair, which was neither brown nor golden, but something between, curled in soft natural waves along the brow, dispensing with the necessity of any attempt at a fringe; and her colouring was of that warm richness which gave the idea that Nature had at first intended her for a brunette, then got puzzled, and finally had given her up in hopeless despair, which was perhaps the best thing that could have happened, for the result was about as dainty, refined, alluring a specimen of young womanhood as the jaded glance of the discriminating male could wish to rest upon. This, at any rate, was the mental verdict of the stranger, and for this reason he hailed with inward satisfaction the recently expressed decision of the two as to taking up their quarters there for a time. "You ought to remain here a few days, and show us about, Mr Moseley," said the elder of the two ladies, after some more desultory conversation. "Wish I could, Mrs Bateman. No such luck, though. I've got to start for Bulawayo to-night. They are hurrying the soul out of me as it is." "Isn't the journey a frightful one?" asked Nidia. "It isn't a delightful one," laughed the man, who was just a fair average specimen of the well-bred Englishman, of good height, well set up, and well groomed. "Railway to Mafeking, then eight days' coaching; and they tell me the coach is always crammed full. Pleasant, isn't it?" The stranger looked up quickly as though about to say something, but thought better of it. Nidia rejoined-- "What in the world will we do when our time comes?" "I am afraid you must make up your minds to some discomforts," replied Moseley. "One of the conditions of life in a new country, you know. But people are very decent in those parts, and I'm sure would do everything they could to assist you." A little more conversation, and, lunch being over, the trio withdrew. John Ames, left alone at the table, was lost in all sorts of wild imaginings. Something seemed to have altered within him, and that owing to the proximity of this girl, a perfect stranger, whom three quarters of an hour ago he had never set eyes on. It was really very absurd, he told himself. But when a man has had fever, he is bound to be liable to fall a victim to any kind of absurdity. Fever! that was it--so he told himself. Now, as he sat there, dreamily cracking almonds, he began to regret his reticence. The very turn of the conversation favoured him. He might have volunteered considerable information for the benefit of the man who was going up-country, he suspected, for the first time. The conversation would have become general, and might have paved the way to an acquaintanceship. There was no necessity for him to have been so reticent. He had lived too long stowed away, he decided. It was high time he came out of his shell. He had applied for and obtained his leave, and had come down there to spend it. The sea breezes blowing across the isthmus of the Cape Peninsula, the cool leafiness of the lovely suburbs, were as a very tonic after the hot, steamy, tropical glow of his remote home. But the effects of the fever, combined with a natural reserve, kept him from going much among people, and most of his time was spent alone. "I wonder who that man is who sat at our table," Nidia Commerell was saying; for the trio were seated outside trying to converse amid the cackle and din of one of the livelier parties before referred to. "He looked awfully gloomy," said Mrs Bateman. "Did you think so, Susie? Now, I thought he looked nice. Perhaps he wasn't feeling well." "He had a look that way, too," said Moseley. "Up-country man perhaps. Down here to throw off a touch of fever. I've seen them before." "Poor fellow! That may have accounted for it," said Nidia. "Yes; he's quite nice-looking." John Ames, meanwhile, was smoking a solitary pipe on the balcony in front of his room, and his thoughts continued to run on this new--and to him, supremely foolish subject. Then he pulled himself together. He would get on his bicycle and roll down to Muizenberg for a whiff of the briny. The afternoon was cloudless and still, and the spin along a smooth and, for the most part, level road exhilarating. A brisk stroll on the beach, the rollers tumbling lazily in, and he had brought his mind to other things--the affairs of his district, and whether the other man who was temporarily filling his place would be likely to make a mess of them or not, and how he would pull with Inglefield--whether Madula had recovered from the sulky mood into which the action of Nanzicele had thrown him--and half a hundred matters of the sort. And so, having re-mounted his wheel, and being about halfway homeward again, he could own himself clear of the foolish vein in which he had set out, when-- there whirled round the bend in the road two bicycles, the riders whereof were of the ornamental sex; in fact, the very two upon one of whom his thoughts had been chaotically running. One quick glance from Nidia Commerell's blue eyes as they shot by, and John Ames was thrown right back into all that futile vein of meditation which he had only just succeeded in putting behind him. The offender, meanwhile, was delivering herself on the subject of him to her companion in no uncertain terms. "Susie, that's the man who was sitting at our table. I think we'll get to know him. He looks nice, and, as he bikes, he'll come in handy as escort to a pair of unprotected females." "How do you know he'll appreciate the distinction you propose to confer upon him? He may not, you know. He looks reserved." "Oh, he's only shy. Say something civil to him to-night at dinner. We'll soon get him out of his shell. He only wants a little judicious drawing out." The other looked dubious. "I don't know," she said. "I'm not sure we hadn't better leave him alone. You see, I'm responsible for your good behaviour now, Nidia; and really it is a responsibility. I don't like being a party to adding this unfortunate man's to your string of scalps." We regret to record that at this juncture Nidia's exceedingly pretty mouth framed but one word of one syllable. This was it: "Bosh!" "No, it isn't bosh," went on her friend, emphatically. "And, the worst of it is, they all take it so badly; and this one looks as if he'd be no exception to the general rule, but very much the reverse. I don't know what there is about you, but you really ought to be cloistered, my child; you're too dangerous to be at large." "Susie, dry up! We'll exploit our interesting stranger this evening, that is, presently; and now I think we'd better turn, for after three weeks of the ship I can't ride any further with the slightest hope of getting back to-night." The upshot of all this was that when the two sat down to dinner they gave John Ames the "Good evening" with just as much geniality as the frigidity of English manners would allow to be manifested when outside England towards the only other occupant of the same table. It sufficed for its purposes, and soon the three were in converse. "We passed each other on the road this evening," said John Ames. "It was some way out, and I wonder you got back in time. Are you fond of bicycling?" "We simply live on our bikes when the weather is decent," replied Nidia. "This seems a good locality for it. The roads are splendid, aren't they?" "Yes. I generally wheel down to Muizenberg or Kalk Bay for a puff of sea air. It's refreshing after the up-country heat." "Sea air? But can you get to the sea so soon?" said Mrs Bateman, surprised. "Oh yes. In less than an hour." Both then began to enthuse about the sea, after the British method, which was the more inexplicable considering they had just had three weeks of it, and that viewed from its very worst standpoint--_upon_ it, to wit. They must go there to-morrow. Was it easy to find the way? And so forth. What could John Ames do but volunteer to show it them?-- which offer was duly accepted. Things were now upon a good understanding. "Do they ride bikes much up-country--I think you said you were from up-country, did you not?" said Nidia, artlessly, with that quick lift of the eyelids. "Oh yes, a good deal. But it's more for the hard practical purpose of getting from one place to another than just riding about for fun. It strikes one though, if one has any imagination, as a sample of the way in which this aggressive civilisation of ours wedges itself in everywhere. You are right away in the veldt, perhaps only just scared away a clump of sable or roan antelope, or struck the fresh spoor of a brace of business-like lions, when you look up, and there are two fellows whirring by on up-to-date bikes. You give each other a passing shout and they are gone." "Yes. It is a contrast, if one has an imagination," said Nidia. "But not everybody has. Don't you think so?" "Certainly. But when a man lives a good deal alone, and sees comparatively little of his kind, it is apt to stimulate that faculty." Nidia looked interested. The firm, quiet face before her, the straight glance of the grey eyes, represented a character entirely to her liking, she decided. "Is it long since you came out?" she asked. "Well, in the sense you mean I can't be said to have come out at all, for I was born and bred out here--in Natal, at least. But I have been in England." "Really? I thought you were perhaps one of the many who had come out during the last few years." "Am I not colonial enough?" said John Ames, with a quiet laugh. "N-no. At least, I don't mean that--in fact, I don't know what I do mean," broke off Nidia, with a perfectly disarming frankness. "Do you know Bulawayo at all?" The diversion came from the third of the trio. "Oh yes; I have just come from up that way." "Really. I wonder if you ever met my husband. He is a mining engineer. Bateman our name is." John Ames thought. "The name doesn't seem altogether unknown to me," he said. "The fact is I am very seldom in Bulawayo. My district lies away out in the wilds, and very wild indeed it is." "What sort of a place is Bulawayo?" "Oh, a creditable township enough, considering that barely three years ago it was a vast savage kraal, and, barring a few traders, there wasn't a white man in the country." "But isn't it full of savages now?" struck in Nidia. "Yes; there are a good few--not right around Bulawayo, though. Are you likely to be going up there?" "We are, a little later," replied Mrs Bateman. "This is fortunate. You will be able to tell us all about it." "With pleasure. I shall be too happy to give you any information I can." "Is it safe up there?" said Nidia. "Is there no fear of those dreadful savages rising some night and killing us all?" Unconsciously the official reserve came over John Ames. He had more than once predicted to himself and one or two confidential friends such a contingency as by no means outside the bounds of practical politics, almost invariably to be laughed at for his pains. Now he replied: "Everything that precaution can do is against it. They are carefully supervised; in fact, it is my own particular business to supervise a considerable section of them." "Really? But how do you talk, to them? Can they talk English?" John Ames smiled. "You forget I mentioned that I was raised in Natal." "Of course. How stupid I am!" declared Nidia. "And so you know their language and have to look after them? Isn't it very exciting?" "No; deplorably prosaic. There are points of interest about the work, though." "And you keep them in order, and know all that's going on?" "We try to; and I think on the whole we succeed fairly well." But at that very moment Shiminya the sorcerer was dooming to death two persons, and filling with seditious venom the minds of three chiefs of importance within the speaker's district. CHAPTER SIX. ABOUT SOME DALLYING. John Ames was beginning to enjoy his leave, and that actively. At first he had done so in a negative kind of way. It was pleasant to have nothing to do, and plenty of time to do it in, to rise in the morning and know that until bedtime at night he had only to please himself and take no thought for anything whatever. He had a few acquaintance in the neighbourhood, more or less busy people whose avocations kept them in Cape Town throughout the working day, and so was mostly thrown upon his own resources. This, however, was not without its advantages, for the change had hardly benefited him much as yet, and he was conscious of a sort of mental languor which rendered him rather disinclined than otherwise for the society of his fellows. He liked to mount his bicycle and spin for miles along the smooth level roads, beneath the oak and fir shade, the towering wall of mountain glimpsed ever and anon athwart the trees; or, gaining the nearest point of sea shore, lie on the beach for hours, watching the rollers come tumbling in, and the revels of bathers skipping amid the surf. Hitherto he had been content to do all this alone, now he was not; and the name of the agency which had effected this change was Nidia Commerell. Nearly a fortnight has gone by since we introduced that entrancing personality to the reader's notice; and whatever effects the same had had upon John Ames, one at any rate was certain, viz. a conviction that it was not good to be alone. They had seen a good deal of each other within that time. Nidia had carried out to the full her expressed intention of using him as an escort, and he, for his part, had gladly welcomed the _role_, and efficiently discharged it; and whether it was along bicycle ride, or a more remote expedition by rail, or a scramble up the Devil's Peak, that commended itself to the two ladies for the day's programme, there was John Ames in sure and faithful attendance. It did him good, too. There was an ingredient in the tonic which was stimulating, life-giving indeed, and now in this daily companionship he felt that life was worth living. Decidedly he had begun to enjoy his leave. "Well, Susie, wasn't I justified in my prediction?" said Nidia to her friend, as they were dressing for dinner after one of these expeditions. "Which prediction? You make so many." "Concerning John Ames,"--for so they had got into the way of designating him when alone together. "I said he looked as if he were nice, and also that he would come in handy as an escort for two unprotected females. Well, he is both. Isn't he?" "Yes; he is a remarkably well-mannered, pleasant man." "With more than two ideas in his head?" "Yes; he can talk intelligently on any subject, and if he knows nothing about it won't pretend to." "As is the case with the average turned-out-of-a-bandbox, eyeward-twisting-moustache type of Apollo one usually encounters in one's progress through this vale of woe," supplied Nidia, with an airy laugh. "That holds good, too. But, gracious Heavens, child, don't pile up your adjectives in that mountainous fashion, or you'll reflect no credit on my most careful training and tuition." "All rights Govvie," cried Nidia, with a peal of merry laughter--the point of the allusion being that prior to her marriage Susie Bateman had been a combination of companion and governess to the girl she was now chaperoning; in fact, was a distant relation to boot. "But the said careful training was such a long time ago. I'm beginning to forget it." "Long time ago!" "Yes, it was. In the days of my youth. I am in my twenty-fourth year, remember. Is that nothing?" "Of course it's nothing. But--what were we talking about?" "Oh, John Ames, as usual." "As usual--yes. But, Nidia, isn't it rather rough on the man? He's sure to end by falling in love with you." Again the girl laughed, but this time she changed colour ever so slightly. "To _end_ by it! That's not very complimentary to my transcendent fascinations, O Susie. He ought to begin by it. But--to be serious-- perfectly serious--he isn't that sort." "I'm not by any means sure. Why should you think so?" "No signs. He'd have hung out signals long ago if he'd been trending that way. They all do. The monotony of the procedure is simply wearisome." "Nidia, you are really a very dreadful child. Your talk is absolutely shocking to the ears of a well brought up British female." "Can't help it. If a series of idiots come to labour under the impression that life outside my presence--ten days after first becoming aware of my existence--is totally unendurable, where am I to blame? I can't scowl at them, and nothing short of that will restrain them. Now, the reason why I rather like this man is that he has so far shown no signs of mental aberration." She meant it all. For one so plenteously, so dangerously, dowered as far as the other sex was concerned, Nidia Commerell was strangely unromantic. In her allusion to the rapidity with which the average male succumbed to her charms there was no exaggeration. She seemed to possess the art of conquest sudden and complete, yet, in reality, art it was not, for she had not a shadow of the flirt in her composition. The very artlessness of her frank unstudied demeanour constituted, in fact, her most formidable armament. But she refused to see why she should avoid the other sex simply because a large percentage of its members were weak enough to fall in love with her upon no sort of warranty or provocation. There was no affectation, either, in her declaration that the unanimity wherewith they did so candidly bored her. "Just as I begin to like a man," she would plaintively declare, "and find him of some use, he gets serious, gloomy, and spoils everything." And for all her airiness on the subject, she was not entirely without a qualm lest John Ames should follow suit, and him she had more than begun to like very much indeed. The roar of a truly demoniacal gong cut short further discussion of the subject, by warning them that it was time to go down and join the object of it at table. Him they found in an amused state. "Rather fun," he said. "Some fellow has been going for that most cherished and firmly rooted institution, the great Cape fish-horn, in a letter to the evening _Argus_. He doesn't see how a civilised community at the end of the nineteenth century can tolerate their day and night alike being made hideous by an unending procession of dirty Malays blaring weirdly, wildly, deafeningly through a `yard of tin;' and, for the matter of that, no more do I. Look, here it is"--handing the paper across to Mrs Bateman. The latter, like most high-featured people, was of censorious habit. "Yes; it's amusing," she said. "But there are some people who are never happy unless they are finding fault. I suppose even these poor Malays must earn their living." "No fear of their not doing that," rejoined Ames. "Why, they are the most well-to-do crowd on this peninsula. I take it the writer's point is they could earn it without making life intolerable to the world at large." At which remark, ever so faint a droop of the mouth-corners changed the visage of a silent, middle-aged individual seated at an adjacent table; but his back was towards them, and they couldn't see it. "Oh, nonsense," retorted Mrs Bateman, breezily. "People who can't stand a little noise ought to go and live by themselves on a desert island." Here the droop on the lips of the silent one became a very pronounced sneer. "A fool of a woman, answering according to her folly," he thought. "Let me see it," cried Nidia. "Yes; it is a good joke, and perfectly true, too. I know I've wished that same hideous noise anywhere times out of number. I quite agree--it is amazing how they tolerate it. I wonder who the writer is. Positively I'd like to send him an anonymous letter of cordial thanks." This time the silent one laughed to himself, heartily and undisguisedly. "Write it to the _Argus_ instead and agree with him; that'll do just as well," said John Ames. "The fact of the matter is that the Malay vote is a power just here, and it would be about as easy to uproot Table Mountain itself as the diabolical snoek trumpet under discussion." "No, I don't agree with you in the least, Susie," declared Nidia. "I think unnecessary racket ought to be put down with a stern hand. Don't you remember all that abominable cannon nuisance when we were in the Bernese Oberland? You didn't like that any more than I did. Just fancy, Mr Ames. Some of the most picturesque turnings of the road, almost wherever we went, were tenanted by a miscreant volunteering to let off a horrid cannon for half a franc--to raise an echo." "I should have felt like offering him a whole one not to raise it," was the reply. "But the noble Switzer was shrewd enough to appraise his clients at their correct value. The English are never quite happy unless they are making a noise, unless it is when they are listening to one." "Yes; aren't they?" cried Nidia. "You see it in their fondness for banging doors and talking at the top of their voices on every landing at all hours of the day and night, and throwing their boots about and pounding up and down for hours over somebody else's head, in a house full of other people." The silent one hearkened approvingly. "That's no fool of a girl," he was saying to himself. "I know," replied John Ames. "And, talking about that stumping overhead trick, if you were wantonly to knock a cripple off his crutch you would be voted the greatest brute on earth. Yet that same cripple will go into the room above yours, and, as you say, pound up and down for hours, or perhaps let fall that same crutch with a mighty bang upon the floor, totally callous to the possibility of there being some unfortunate wight underneath with shattered nerves, and generally seedy, and who would give his soul for a square night's rest. No; if you expect from other people any of the consideration they expect from you, you are simply laughed at for a fool, and a selfish one at that." "Oh, well, in life we have to give and take, I suppose," remarked the censorious one, with striking originality. John Ames smiled. He had an idea as to the sort of giving and taking this masterful person would be likely to practise, save in one quarter, that is; for he had not spent the time he had in the society of the two without detecting that she had at any rate one soft place, and that was Nidia Commerell. So he agreed easily, and the talk drifted on to other matters. It was pleasant out in the moonlight. The elder of the two ladies had pronounced herself tired when Nidia, whose freshness nothing seemed to impair, suggested strolling. John Ames was rather inclined to be silent as they wandered on, the light of the southern moon flooding down through the overshadowing firs, the balmy stillness of the night broken by distant snatches of shrill laughter and the chatter of voices from squalid coloured loafers on the main road. He was realising with a sort of pang at the heart how all this time would soon be behind him, as in a flash, only as an episode to look back to. The girl, noting his silence, was wondering whether it was a prelude to what she had airily termed "hoisting the signals," and, thus conjecturing, was surprised at herself and her lack of the usual eagerness to avoid them. "You are feeling much better than when you came down, are you not, Mr Ames?" she said softly. "Ever so much. I shall go back quite set up." Her practised ear detected the slightest suspicion of melancholy in the tone, while admiring the strength which controlled it. "What a strange life you must have to lead up there!" she went on; for he had told her a good deal about himself during the time of their acquaintanceship. "Oh yes. It gets monotonous at times. But then, I take it, everything does." "But it is such a useful life. And you have helped to open up the country, too." "Not I. That is left to other people." "But you were with the first expedition, and so of course you helped. I don't wonder you pioneers are proud of the part you took in extending the Empire. Isn't that the correct newspaper phrase? At any rate, it sounds something big." John Ames smiled queerly. He was not especially proud of the extension of the Empire; he had seen a few things incidental to that process which had killed within him any such incipient inflation. "Oh yes; there's a good deal of sound about most of the doings of `the Empire,' but there--I must not get cynical on that head, because the said extension is finding me in bread and cheese just now, and I must endeavour to be `proud of' that." "You must have great responsibilities holding the position you do. Tell me, are you able to throw them off while you are away, or do you lie awake sometimes at night wondering if things are going right?" "Oh, I try not to bother my head about them. It's of no use taking a holiday and thinking about `shop' all the while. Besides, the man who is in my place is all there. He has been at it as long as I have; and if there is one thing I may say without conceit I do know--in fact, both of us know--it is the wily native and his little ways." Ah, John Ames, so you thought, and so thought many others in those boding days! But at this moment the man who is in your place is drinking whisky and water and smoking pipes with the Police sub-inspector in a circular hut on the Sikumbutana, and you are dallying beneath a radiant moon upon a fir-shaded road at Wynberg, with more than one lingering glance into the eyes of the sweet-faced, soft-voiced girl beside you. But one could almost read a leering derisive grin into the face of the cold moon, for that moon is now looking down upon that which would give both yourself and `the man in your place' something very serious to think about and to do. It is looking down upon--let us see what. CHAPTER SEVEN. THE VOICE OF UMLIMO. It is probable that the Matopo Hills, in Southern Matabeleland, are, as a freak of Nature, unique on the earth's surface. Only a vast upheaval--whether through the agency of fire or of water, let the geologists determine and quarrel over--can have produced such a bizarre result. A very sea of granite waves, not smooth and rolling, but piled in gigantic, rugged heaps; cones of immense boulders, rising to the height of many hundred feet; titanic masses of castellated rock; slab-like _mesas_ and smooth-headed domes all jumbled together arbitrarily side by side; it is as though at some remote age a stupendous explosion had torn the heart out of earth's surface, and heaving it on high with irresistible force, had allowed it to fall and settle as it would. Colossal boulders, all on end, anyhow, forming dark holes and caves, lead up to the summits of these marvellous cones; and in such clefts wild vegetation finds abundant anchorage--the acacia and wild fig and mahobo-hobo. Here a tall rock pinnacle, balancing upon its apex a great stone, which, to the unthinking eye, a mere touch would send crashing from its airy resting-place where it has reposed for ages and ages beyond all memory; there a solid square granite block the size of a castle, riven from summit to base as completely and smoothly as a bisected cheese. Grim baboons, of large size and abnormal boldness, bark threateningly from the ledges, and every crag is a perfect rookery of predatory birds--hawks and buzzards, and kites and carrion crows-- soaring and wheeling beneath the blue of the heavens. Valleys, narrow and winding, intersect this chaotic mass, swampy withal in parts, and harbouring reedy water-holes where, beneath the broad leaves and fair blossoms of radiant lilies, the demon crocodile lurks unsuspected. Great crater-like hollows, too--only to be entered by a single way, and that a very staircase of rocks--the whole a vast and forbidding series of natural fastnesses, which even now have been thoroughly penetrated by but few whites, and at that time by the conquerors of the country not at all. Evening is drawing down upon this rugged wilderness. The sun has gone off the world, but a rosy afterglow still tinges the piled boulders or smooth, balanced crags rearing up above the feathery foliage of acacia; and, save for an odd one here and there, the wheeling birds of prey have sought their inaccessible roosting-places. But such as have not--for these an unwonted sight lies beneath. The deathlike solitude of each winding valley is disturbed by an unwonted life--the life of men. On they come--dark forms in straggling lines--threescore here, two there; a dozen further back, even as many as a hundred together. And they are converging upon one point. This is a hollow, the centre of which forms an open space--once under cultivation--the sides a perfect ruin of shattered rocks. On they come--line upon line of dark savages--advancing mostly in silence, though now and then the hum of a marching song, as some fresh group arrives at the place, rises upon the stillness in clear cadence. None are armed, unless a stick apiece and a small shield can be defined as weapons; and there is a curiously subdued note pervading the assembly--an elated look on some of those dark faces, a thoughtful one on others--but one of expectancy upon all. Each party as it arrives squats upon the ground awaiting the next. And still the tread of advancing feet, the hum of approaching voices, and presently the open space is filled with dark humanity to the number of several hundreds. During the period of waiting, chiefs, leaving their own following, greet each other, and draw apart for converse among themselves. Suddenly, and with startling nearness, there echoes forth from a crag overhead a loud resonant bark. It is answered by another and another. A volley of deep-voiced ejaculation, first startled--for their feelings are wrought up--then mirthful, arises from scores of throats. A troop of baboons has discovered this human concourse, and, secure in a lofty vantage ground, is vocally resenting its presence. But such levity is promptly checked by a sense of the serious nature of the gathering. It is clear that all are assembled who mean to come. And now the gloom lightens with amazing rapidity, as the broad disc of a full moon sails majestically forth above the jumble of serrated crags; and to it turns that sea of wild dark faces stamped with an unwonted expectation and awe, for as yet the bulk of those present have but a dim idea of the end and object of this mysterious convention. In the lamplike glow of this new light faces are clearly discernible, and amid the group of chiefs are those of Madula, and Zazwe, and Sikombo, and Umlugula, and several others holding foremost rank among their tribesmen. On this occasion, however, they are not foremost, for it is upon another group that the main interest and expectation centres. The members of this are decked out in the weird array of sorcerers, are hung around with entrails and claws, mysterious bunches of "charms," white cowhair and feather adornments, and the grinning skulls of wild animals. One alone is destitute of all ornamentation, but the grim hawk-like countenance, the snaky ferocity of the cruel stare, the lithe stealthiness of movement, stamps this man with an individuality all his own, and he is none other than Shiminya. These are the "Abantwana 'Mlimo," the hierarchy of the venerated Abstraction, the "Children of Umlimo." Of them there are perhaps two score. They are seated in a circle, droning a song, or rather a refrain, and, in the midst, Shiminya walks up and down discanting. The chiefs occupy a subsidiary place to-night, for the seat of the oracle is very near, and these are the mouthpieces of the oracle. By degrees the assembly gathers around. Voices are hushed. All attention is bent upon these squatting, droning figures. Suddenly they rise, and, bursting through the surrounding ranks, which promptly open to give them way, start off at a run. The crowd follows as though magnet drawn. But the run soon slows down to a kind of dancing step; and, following, the dark assemblage sweeps up the valley bottom, the long dry grass crackling as the excited multitude crushes its way through. On the outskirts of the column a great venomous snake, disturbed, trodden on, rears its hideous head, and, quick as lightning, strikes its death-dealing fangs into the legs of two of the crowd, but in the exaltation of the hour no thought is given to these. They may drop out and die; none can afford to waste time over them. For nearly an hour the advance continues, the black mass pouring, like ants, over every obstacle--over stones, rocks, uprooted tree-trunks-- winding through a tortuous valley bottom, the granite crags, towering aloft in their immensity, looking down as though in cold scornful indifference upon this pigmy outburst of mere human excitement, and then the way opens, becoming comparatively clear. The "Abantwana 'Mlimo" slacken their pace, and then the whole body is brought to a halt. The spot is a comparatively open one save for the long dry grass. In front is a belt of acacias; but behind, and towering above this, there rises an immense mass of solid granite, its apex about two hundred feet above the bottom of the hollow--a remarkable pile, smoother and more compact than the surrounding crags, and right in the centre of its face is a black spot about twelve feet square. The blackness, however, is the effect of gloom. This spot is the mouth of a hole or cave. In dead silence now the multitude crouches, all eyes fixed expectantly upon the black yawning mouth. Yet, what can appear there within, for the rock face is inaccessible to any save winged creatures? A cleft, passing the hole, traverses obliquely the entire pile, but as unavailable for purposes of ascent as the granite face itself. No living being can climb up thence. Another vertical crack descends from above. That, too, is equally unavailable. Yet, with awe-stricken countenances, the whole assembly, crouching in semicircular formation, are straining their eyeballs upon the gaping aperture. In front are the hierarchs of the grim Abstraction. If here indeed is the home of the latter it is well chosen, for a scene of more utter wildness and desolation than this weird, granite-surrounded fastness is hardly imaginable. The great round moon, floating on high, seems to the impressionable multitude to lower and spread--almost to burn. And now the "Abantwana 'Mlimo" rise from their squatting posture, and, forming into a double line, their faces lifted towards the black, gaping hole, begin to sing. Their chant rolls forth in a regular rhythm, but the usual accompaniment of the stamping of feet is at first absent. But the song, the wild savage harmony of voices fitting well into their parts, is more tuneful, more melodious, than most barbaric outbursts of the kind. Its burden may be rendered somewhat in this wise-- "Voice from the air, Lighten our way! Word of the Wise, Say! shall we slay? Voice of the Great, Speaking from gloom; Say! shall we wait Darkness of doom?" The echoes ring out upon the still night air, rolling in eddies of sound among the granite crags. The company of sorcerers, every nerve and muscle at its highest tension, softly move their feet to the time, as again and again they repeat their awesome invocation, and with each repetition the sound gathers volume, until it reaches a mighty roar. The multitude, stricken motionless with the awe of a great expectation, gaze upward with protruding eyeballs, awaiting a reply. It comes. The singing of the Abantwana 'Mlimo has ceased. There is a silence that may be felt, only broken by a strained breathing from hundreds of throats. Then, from the black cave, high above, sounds forth a voice--a single voice, but of amazing volume and power, the voice of the Great Abstraction--of the Umlimo himself. And the answer is delivered in the same rhythm as the invocation-- "Dire is the scourge, Sweeping from far: Bed is the spear, Warming for war. Burned is the earth, Gloom in the skies; Nation's new birth-- Manhood arise!" Strong and firm the Voice rolls forth, booming from that black portal as with a thunder note--clear to a marvel in its articulation, cold, remorseless in the decision of its darkly prophesying utterance. Indescribably awe-inspiring as it pours forth its trumpet notes upon the dead silence, small wonder that to the subdued eager listeners it is the voice of a god. Thrice is the rhythm repeated, until every word has burned deep into their minds as melted lead into a beam of soft-grained wood. And now in the silence which ensues there steps forth from the ranks of the Abantwana 'Mlimo one man. Standing alone a little in front of the rest, he faces upward to the great cave overhead. In the absence of weird adornment, and with the moon upon his bird-like countenance, stands revealed Shiminya. "Great Great One! Voice of the Wise!" he cries. "Thy children hear thee. They are brought even unto death. The scourge which Makiwa has brought upon them strikes hard. It is striking their cattle down by scores already. There will be no more left." There is a pause. With outstretched arms in the moonlight, the mediator stands motionless, awaiting the answer. It comes:-- "There will first be no more Makiwa." A heave of marvel and suppressed excitement sways the crowd. There is no misunderstanding this oracular pronouncement, for it is in the main what all are there to hear. Shiminya goes on. "Oh, Great Great One, the land is burned dry for lack of rain, and thy children die of hunger. Will the land never again yield corn?" "Makiwa has laid his hand upon it;" and the dull, hollow, remorseless tone, issuing from the darkness, now seems swept by a very tempest of hate, then replies, "Remove the hand!" Sticks are clutched and shields shaken to the accompaniment of a deep growl of wrath forced from between clenched teeth. "Remove the hand!" runs in a humming murmur through the multitude. "Ah, ah! Remove the hand!" Again, with hollow boom, the Voice rolls forth. "Even the very skies are darkening. Behold!" Every head is quickly jerked back. "_Whou_!" Just the one ejaculation, volleyed from every throat, and in it there is but one consent, one expression, that of marvel and quaking dread. For in the tense excitement of awaiting the utterances of the oracle none have noticed that the flooding light of the moon has been gradually fading to darkness, albeit not a cloud is in the heavens. Now, as they look up, lo! the silvern orb is half covered with a black shadow. Onward it steals, creeping further and further, until the broad disc is entirely shrouded. A weird unnatural darkness lies upon the earth. In silent awe the superstitious savages gaze blankly upon the phenomenon. There are those among them who have beheld it before, and to such under ordinary circumstances it would be looked upon with little concern. Now, however, worked up as they are, it is different. There are even some among them who have heard of the darkening of the sun during the first struggle of the great parent race of Zulu against the white invasion. Then it presaged great slaughter of their white enemies. And, as though reading the thoughts of such, the awful voice of the Great Abstraction broke in upon the oppressive, unnatural gloom-- "Children of Matyobane, [Father of Umzilikazi, founder and first king of the Matabelo nation], hearken. When Makiwa thought to eat up the mighty stock from which ye are sprung the very sun withdrew his light, and the plains between Isandhlwana and Umzinyati were red with the blood of Makiwa. Such as were not slain fled from the land. For the children of Zulu the sun grew black. For the children of Matyobane the moon. Lo, the blackening of the moon is the hiding of the nation, crushed, blackened, beneath the might of Makiwa. But the blackness does not last; so is the foot of Makiwa removed from the neck of the people of Matyobane. Behold!" Every face, which has been turned towards the bark mouth of the oracle, again looks skyward. The black disc is moving back. The outer rim of the broad moon once more shines forth in a shaft of light. Broader and broader does this become, the strained eyeballs of the wrought-up savages bent upon it with concentrated stare. Then the Abantwana 'Mlimo, falling prone to the earth, once more raise the chant, and this time the whole multitude joins, in a great rolling volume of chorus:-- "Burned is the earth, Gloom in the skies; Nation's new birth--Manhood arise!" In wild uncontrollable excitement the multitude watches the now fast lightening orb; then, when the shadow has entirely left it, shining in bright, clear radiance as before, all faces are once more turned upward to the great granite pile, looming huge against the stars, its front a dull grey in the moonlight. Once more is the silence dead--expectant. "Oh, Great Great One!" cries Shiminya, standing with arms outstretched, "we behold a nation's new birth. But the time, O Word of the Wise? The time?" "The time!" And now the Voice rolled from the black cavern mouth in a very thunder roar that reverberated among the mighty granite walls in a shock of echo that struck the entranced auditors speechless. "The time, Children of Matyobane? The time? _Before next moon is dead_." CHAPTER EIGHT. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. John Ames was seated beneath the verandah at Cogill's Hotel with a blue official document in his hand and a very disgusted look upon his face. The former accounted for the latter inasmuch as it was the direct cause thereof. In cold official terminology it regretted the necessity of abridging the period of his leave, and in terse official terminology requested that he would be good enough to return to his post with all possible dispatch. He looked up from his third reading of this abominable document, and his brows were knitted in a frown. He looked at the thick plumbago hedge opposite, spangled with its pale blue blossoms, at the smooth red stems of the tall firs, up again at the deep blue of the cloudless sky overhead, then down once more upon the detestable missive, and said:-- "Damn!" John Ames was not addicted to the use of strong language. Now, however, he reckoned the occasion justified it. "With all possible dispatch." That would mean taking his departure that night--that very night. And here he was, ready and waiting to do the usual escort duty, this time for a long day out on the bicycle. If he were to start that night it would mean exactly halving that long day. With a savage closing of the hand he crushed the official letter into a blue ball, and once more ejaculated-- "Damn!" "Sssh!" Thereat he started. Nidia Commerell was standing in the doorway right beside him, drawing on a pair of suede gloves, her blue eyes dancing with mirth. She was clad in a bicycle skirt and light blouse, and wore a plain white sailor hat. "Sssh! _You_ using naughty swear words? I _am_ surprised at you!" The smile which rippled brightly from the mobile lips showed, however, that the surprise, if any, was not of a derogatory nature. John Ames laughed ruefully. "I'm sorry. But really it was under great provocation. I've received marching orders." "No? Not really? Oh, how disgusting!" The utterance was quick. His eyes were full upon her face. How would she receive the communication? Was that really a flash of consternation, of regret, that swept over it? "When must you go?" she continued, still, it seemed to him, speaking rather quickly. "I ought to start by to-night's train"--then, breaking off--"Where is Mrs Bateman? Is she ready?" "We shall have to go without her. She can't come--says she's getting headachy." "Oh, I'm so sorry!" Nidia had to turn away her head to avoid a splutter outright. Never had she heard words intended to be sympathetic uttered in tones of more jubilant relief. To herself she said: "You are a sad tarradiddler, John Ames." To him she said, "Yes; it's a pity, isn't it?" He, for his part, was thinking that this time the official order need not be interpreted too literally. It had plainly intimated that a state of things had transpired which necessitated the presence of every official at his post, but this time the state of things could dispense with his adjusting hand for twenty-four hours longer. "With all possible dispatch." Well, to start that night under the circumstances would not be possible, under others it would. Throughout the whole day Nidia would be alone with him, and he meant that day to be one that he should remember. They started. At first the exhilarating spin along the smooth fir-shaded road, together with the consciousness that the day was only beginning, caused him partly to forget that most unwelcome recall. They had arranged to use by-roads where the riding was good, and, taking the train at Mowbray, proceed to Cape Town, and ride out thence as far beyond Camp's Bay as they felt inclined. Now, as they spun along through the sunlit air, between leafy gardens radiant with bright flowers and the piping of gladsome birds, the noble mountain wall away on the left towering majestic though not stern and forbidding, its cliffs softened in the summer haze, its slopes silvered with the beautiful wattle, and great seas of verdure--the bright green of oak foliage throwing out in relief the darker pine and blue eucalyptus-- surging up against its mighty base, the very contrast afforded by this glorious scene of well-nigh Paradisical beauty, and the mental vision of a hot steamy wilderness, not unpicturesque, but depressing in the sense of remote loneliness conveyed, was borne forcibly home to the mind of one of them. It was a question of hours, and all would have fled. He grew silent. Depression had reasserted itself. Yet, was it merely a sense of the external contrast which was afflicting him? He had traversed this very scene before, and not once or even twice only. He had always admired it, but listlessly. But now? The magic wand had been waved over the whole. But why transform the ordinary and mundane into a paradise for one who was to be suffered but one glimpse therein, and now was to be cast forth? A paradise--ah yes; but a fool's paradise, he told himself bitterly. "Well?" He started. The query had come from Nidia, and was uttered artlessly, innocently, but with a spice of mischief. "Yes? I was wondering?" she went on. "What were you wondering?" "Oh, nothing! Only--er--as it is rather--er--slow for me, don't you think so--supposing you give me an inkling of the problem that is absorbing you so profoundly? You haven't said a word for at least ten minutes. And I like talking." "I am so sorry. Yes; I might have remembered that. How shall I earn forgiveness?" "By telling me exactly what you were thinking about, absolutely and without reservations. On no other conditions, mind." "Oh, only what a nuisance it is being called away just now." The tone was meant to be offhand, but the quick ear of Nidia was not so easy to deceive. When John Ames did look down into the bright laughing face it had taken an expression of sympathy, that with a quick bound of the heart he read for one that was almost tender. "Yes. It is horrid!" she agreed. "You had a long time to run yet, hadn't you?" "Nearly a month." "I call it perfectly abominable. Can't you tell them it is absolutely impossible to come back just now, that--er--in short, on no account can you?" He looked at her. "Do _you_ wish it?" was on his lips; but he left the words unsaid. He shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid it can't be done. You see, I am entirely at their beck and call. And then, from what they say, I believe they really do want me." "Yes; I was forgetting that. It is something, after all, to be of some use, as I was telling you the other night; do you remember?" Did he remember? Was there one word she had ever said to him--one look she had ever given him--that he did not remember, that he had not thought of, and weighed, and pondered over, in the dark silent hours of the night, and in the fresh, but far from silent, hours of early morning? No, indeed; not one. "I remember every single word you have ever said to me," he answered gravely, with his full straight glance meeting hers. And then it was Nidia Commerell's turn to subside into silence, for there struck across her mind, in all its force, the badinage she had exchanged with her friend in the privacy of their chamber. If he had never before, as she defined it, "hung out the signals," John Ames was beginning to do so now--of that she felt very sure; yet somehow the thought, unlike in other cases, inspired in her no derision, but a quickened beating of the heart, and even a little pain, though why the latter she could not have told. "Come," she said suddenly, consulting her watch, "we must put on some pace or we shall miss the train. We have some way to go yet." On over the breezy flat of the Rondebosch camp-ground and between long rows of cool firs meeting overhead; then a sharp turn and a spin of straight road; and in spite of the recurring impediments of a stupidly driven van drawn right across the way, and a long double file of khaki-clad mounted infantry crossing at right angles and a foot's pace, they reached the station in time, but only just. Then, as Nidia, laughing and panting with the hurry of exertion she had been subjected to, flung herself down upon the cushion of the compartment, and her escort, having seen the bicycles safely stowed, at considerable risk to life and limb, thanks to a now fast-moving train, clambered in after her, both felt that the spell which had been moving them to grave and serious talk was broken between them--for the present. But later--when the midday glow had somewhat lost its force, when the golden lights of afternoon were painting with an even more vivid green the vernal slopes piling up to the great crags overhanging Camp's Bay, the same seriousness would recur, would somehow intrude and force its way in. They had left their bicycles at the inn where they had lunched, and had half strolled, half scrambled down to the place they now were in--a snug resting-place indeed, if somewhat hard, being an immense rock, flat-topped and solid. Overhead, two other boulders meeting, formed a sort of cave, affording a welcome shelter from the yet oppressive sun. Beneath, the ocean swell was raving with hoarse sullen murmur among the iron rocks, dark with trailing masses of seaweed, which seemed as a setting designed to throw into more gorgeous relief the vivid, dazzling blue of each little inlet. Before, the vast sheeny ocean plain, billowing to the ruffle of the soft south wind. "Really, you are incorrigible," said Nidia at last, breaking the silence. "What shall I do to make you talk?" "Yes; I am very slow to-day--I sorrowfully admit it," he answered, with a laugh which somehow or other lacked the ring of merriment. "I know," went on Nidia. "I must start discussing the Raid. There! You will have to be interesting then." "That's ruled out," he replied, the point being that from the very first days of their acquaintance the Raid was a topic he had resolutely declined to argue or to express any opinion upon. "Besides, it's such a threadbare subject. You are right, though. I am treating you very badly. In fact, it is not fair, and I am haunted by a shrivelling conviction that you are sorry you came out to-day, and at this moment are heartily wishing yourself at home. Am I not right?" "No; quite wrong. I have, you know, a great respect for your convictions--at times, but for this last one I have nothing but contempt; yes, contempt--profound contempt. There! Will that satisfy you?" Her tone was decisive, without being vehement. In it--in the glance of her eyes--he detected a ring of sympathy, of feeling. Could she read his inner thoughts, he wondered, that each hour of this day as it wore away did but tighten the grip of the bitter desolating pain that had closed around his heart? He watched her as she reclined there, the very embodiment of dainty and graceful ease. He noted the stirring of each little wave of gold-brown hair as it caressed her forehead to the breath of the soft sea wind; the quick lifting of the lashes revealing the deep blue of the soulful eyes, so free and frank and fearless as they met his; the rich tint of the smooth skin, glowing with the kiss of the air and sun; every curve, too, of the mobile expressive lips; and the self-restraint he was forced to put upon himself became something superhuman. And it was their last day together! She, for her part, was thinking, "John Ames is a fool, but the most self-controlled fool I ever met. How I shall miss him! Yes, indeed, how I shall miss him!" Aloud she said-- "I wonder when _we_ shall be going up-country?" "Never, I predict," was the somewhat decisive rejoinder. Nidia raised herself on one elbow. "You seem pretty certain as to that," she said, "so certain that I begin to think the wish is father to the thought." "Thank you." "There, there, don't be cross. I am only teasing you. I can be an awful tease at times, can't I? Ask Susie if I can't--if you haven't found it out already, that is." The mischief had all left her voice, the laughing eyes were soft and sympathetic again. He laughed, too, but somewhat sadly. "Because things up there are not over bright, and are likely to be less so. The cattle is all dying off from this new disease--rinderpest. The natives have never been thoroughly conquered, and there are still plenty of them. The loss of their cattle will make them desperate, and therefore dangerous. The outlook is gloomy all round." "Oh, but you will be able to put things right when you get back." John Ames stared, as well he might. Either she meant what she said or she did not. In the first event, she had a higher opinion of him than ever he had dreamed; in the second, the remark was silly to the last degree; and silliness was a fault, any trace of which he had not as yet discovered in Nidia Commerell. "You cannot really mean that," he said. "If so, you must be under an entire misconception as to my position. I am only one of several. We each of us try to do our best, but none of us can do anything very great." Listening intently, Nidia was saying to herself, "How true he rings! Note. The swagger and egotism of the up-to-date Apollo is conspicuously absent here." Then, aloud-- "No; I was not chaffing. I believe you can do a great deal. Remember, we have been very much together of late, and I rather pride myself upon a faculty for character reading." The delicate insinuation of flattery in her tone constituted the last straw. John Ames felt his resolution growing very weak. Passionate words of adoration rose to his lips--when-- A screech and chatter of child voices and scurrying feet, right behind the rock under whose shadow the two were resting, then the sound of scrambling, and their resting-place was theirs no more. A round half-dozen uproarious infants were spreading themselves over the rock slabs around, their shrill shrieks of glee hardly arrested, as with a start they discovered the presence of others upon their new playground. And that they were there to stay they speedily made known by dint of yelling response to the calls of the parent-bird, whose own voice drew nearer around the rock. The spell was broken. At that moment John Ames would have given anything to have seen the rocks below swept by a sudden tidal wave. The spell was broken. The moment had come and gone, and he was aware, as by an intuitive flash, that it would not come again. Nidia rose. Did she welcome the fortuitous relief or not? he wondered, as he glanced at her keenly. "Let us stroll quietly back," she said. "We shall get no more peace with that nursery romping round us. Besides, it's time we thought of beginning the return ride. "What an ideal day it has been!" resumed Nidia, when the ground became even enough to carry on conversation with any degree of facility. "Hasn't it?" "M'yes. Very `ideal,' in that like other ideals it doesn't last. An ideal is like a wine-glass, sooner or later destined to be shattered." "That's quite true. I wonder are there any exceptions to the rule?" "Safely, no. People set one up for themselves and adore it; then crash--bang! some fine day they knock it down, and it shatters into smithereens. Then there is a pedestal empty--a pedestal to let." "And up goes another image, with like result," laughed the girl. "Precisely. But how cynical we are becoming. By the way, to go back to what I was saying a little while ago, you will probably not be coming up-country at all. Then we shall never see each other again." "Even then, why should we not?" "Why? Why, because the chance that--that made us meet now is not likely to recur. That sort of blessed luck is not apt to duplicate in this vale of woe. Not much." She smiled, softly, tenderly. The self-contained John Ames was waxing vehement. His words were tumbling over each other. He could hardly get them out quick enough. "And would you mind so very much if it did not?" "Yes." "So would I." Then silence for a few moments. They were walking along a high-road. At very short intervals the ubiquitous cyclist--singly or in pairs--shot noiselessly by, or here and there a coloured pedestrian, seated by the roadside, eyed them indifferently. "Why should we lose sight of each other?" said John Ames at length. "Do you know--this time we have had together has been--has been one that I could never have dreamed of as within the bounds of possibility." "We have had a good time, haven't we?" assented Nidia, demurely, though conscious of a quickening pulse. "And now, I don't mind telling you something--because I have failed to discover one atom of conceit in your composition--so I don't mind telling you--" "What?" The interruption was startling. The voice was dry, the face stony. Had he but known it the interrupter was going up many degrees in the speaker's estimation. "Only that I shall miss you dreadfully--when you are gone." Nidia's mischievous demureness simply bubbled with enjoyment at the look of relief which came over the other's features. She continued-- "As you say, why _should_ we lose sight of each other? You may write to me occasionally--when you can spare the time required for the saving of your country from all the ills that threaten it. But--let's see, I--oh, well, never mind--I was going to say something, but I won't. And now-- we must not be serious any more. We have had a lovely day, the loveliest day we could possibly have had, and we are going to have a lovely ride back. Here we are at the hotel again." The significance of the tone, the veiled emphasis which underlay the remark, was not lost upon the listener. John Ames was one who knew when to let well alone. Patience, tact, a judicious mind, were all among his qualifications for his responsible and difficult post. Should they fail him in a matter where private feeling, however deep, was concerned? So he acquiesced. Nidia, for her part, was conscious of mingled feelings. She did not know whether to be glad or not that they had been summarily interrupted; on the whole, she thought she was glad. On the other hand, she had not exaggerated in saying she would miss him dreadfully, and already she had some idea as to how she would miss him. Here was a man who was outside her experience, who represented an entirely new phase of character. With her, too, this time that they had spent so much together stood forth. But although no more was said during their homeward ride of a nature to trench on grave matters, the tone between both of them was one that seemed unconsciously to breathe of confidence and rest. The deep murmur of the ocean swell had sunk its hoarse raving as it lapped the rocks below the skirting road; the golden glory of the heaving waters had turned to a deeper sapphire blue suffused with pink as the sun sank behind the rampart crags, and already two or three stars, twinkling forth, seemed to rest upon, then hover over, the rock crest of the great Lion Mountain, heaving up, a majestic sentinel, over the liquid plain. Yes; both were content, for in the hearts of both still rang the gladness and the quietude of a very conscious refrain:--"We shall meet again, soon." Thus the parting of the ways. But before they should meet again--what? In that surrounding of peace and evening calm, small wonder that no suggestion should find place as to a very different surrounding, where, far to the north, from the drear mountain wilderness, even at that moment, thundered forth--as another Voice from Sinai of old--a dire and terrible voice telling of scourge and of war--a voice, indeed, of woe and of wrath, sounding its dread tocsin o'er an entire land. "Burned is the earth, Gloom in the skies Nation's new birth--Manhood arise!" CHAPTER NINE. THE SCOURGE--AND AFTER. Madula's kraal, in the Sikumbutana, was again in a state of profound malcontentment and unrest, and again for much the same reason as before. Then that reason had been the imminent loss of its cattle, now that loss had become a certainty. The dread scourge had swept over the land, in all its dire unsparingness, and now Madula and his people were convened to witness the destruction of their worldly wealth. For the edict of the ruling power had gone forth. The animals were to be destroyed, and that wholesale. Segregated into small herds, they were carefully watched. With the first case of sickness becoming apparent the whole herd containing it was doomed. And now nearly the whole of Madula's herds had been declared infected. The place appointed for this wholesale slaughter was an open plain some little distance from the kraal. About threescore dead oxen lay where they had fallen, the nostrils of a few still frothy with the fatal running which denoted the fell pestilence. John Ames, grounding his smoking rifle, turned to talk with Inglefield and another white man, the latter being one of the Government cattle inspectors. Both these carried rifles, too, and behind them was drawn up a troop of native police. In a great semicircle Madula's people squatted around, their countenances heavy with sullen rankling, their hearts bitter and vengeful. In the mind of the chief the dexterous venom of Shiminya was taking full effect. The fact of a few cattle being sick was seized upon by their rulers as a pretext for the destruction of all; and what would become of the people then? In the minds of the people the predictions of Umlimo were being fulfilled to the letter. Now, however, they could afford to wait. Soon there would be no more cattle; soon--very soon-- there would be no more whites. John Ames, laying down his weapon, addressed the muttering, brooding savages. It was a most revolting task that which had been put upon him, he explained; not one that he would have undertaken of his own free will. To shoot down miserable unresisting animals in cold blood, one after another, could not be otherwise. It would seem to the people that to destroy the whole as well as the sick was an act of sheer wanton tyranny, but they must not look at it in that light. The Government was their father, and had their interests at heart; and although it was found necessary to reduce them to seeming poverty for the time being, yet they would not be losers in the long run. Then, again, they were in no worse case than the white men themselves, whose cattle was destroyed in the same way if disease broke out; but, above all, they must be patient, and bear in mind that by right of conquest all the cattle in the land belonged to the Government, and what they had was only allowed them by favour. This disease was a cloud they were all passing through, white and black alike. It would pass, and the sun would shine forth again. Let them be patient. John Ames, in the plenitude of his experience, noted the sullen apathy wherewith his words were received, yet he attached no greater importance to it than he reckoned it deserved; he could appreciate the outrage on their feelings which this wholesale destruction of their most cherished possessions must involve. Then Madula spoke. "What Jonemi had told them must be true, since Jonemi said it. But what the people could not understand was why Government should have restored them their cattle, if only to destroy it all before their eyes; should give it back with one hand to take it away with the other. That did not seem like the fatherly act of a fatherly Government. Nor could they understand why the beasts that were not sick should be shot just the same as those that were. Let them be spared until the signs of sickness showed, then shoot them. Those signs might never show themselves." And more to the same effect. With infinite patience John Ames laid himself out to explain, for the twentieth time, all he had said before. It was like reasoning with a wall. "Let the people only have patience," he concluded. "Let the people have patience." "M--m!" hummed his auditors, assenting. "Let the people have patience." But there was a significance in their tone which was lost on him then, though afterwards he was destined to grasp it. "It's a disgusting business all this butchery," he observed, as he and the other two white men were riding homeward together. "I don't wonder the people are exasperated. As Madula says, they'll never understand how the Government can give them back the cattle with one hand only to take it all away with the other." "It strikes me that Mr Madula says a great deal too much," said Inglefield, dropping the bridle on his horse's neck, while shielding a match with both hands so as to light his pipe. "A little experience of the inside of Bulawayo gaol would do him all the good in the world, in my opinion." "You can't work these people that way, Inglefield, as I'm always telling you," rejoined John Ames. "You've got to remember that a man like Madula wants some humouring. He was a bigwig here before either you or I held our commissions in this country, possibly before we had, practically, ever heard of it. Now, for my part, I always try and bear that in mind when dealing with the old-time indunas, and I'm confident it pays." "Oh, you go on the coddling plan," was the thoughtless retort. "For my part--well--a nigger's a nigger, whether he's an induna or whether he isn't, and he ought to be taught to respect white men. I wouldn't make any difference whatever he was. An induna! Faugh! A dirty snuffy nigger with a greasy black curtain ring stuck on top of his head. Pooh! Fancy treating such a brute as that with respect!" "All right, Inglefield. I don't in the least agree with you. Perhaps when you've had a little experience you may be in a position to form an opinion as to which of our lines is the most workable one." "Oh, draw it mild, Ames," retorted the police officer, ill-humouredly. "It doesn't follow that because a fellow can patter by the hour to a lot of niggers that he knows everything. I say, old chap, why don't you chip in for some of old Madula's daughters--marry 'em, don't you know? He has some spanking fine ones, anyway." The tone was ill-tempered and sneering to the last degree. Inglefield could be bumptious and quarrelsome at times, but he had a poor life of it, with a detestable wife, and an appointment of no great emolument, nor holding out any particular prospect of advancement. All of which bearing in mind, John Ames controlled his not unnatural resentment, and answered equably:-- "Because I hope to make a better thing of life, Inglefield. But that sort of thing is rather apt to stick to a man, and crop up just when least convenient. I'm no prig or puritan, so putting it on that ground alone, it's better not touched." "Oh, all right, old chap; only don't be so beastly satirical. I can't help grousing like the devil at times when I think how I'm stuck away here in this infernal God-forsaken hole. Wish I could fall into a bunk at Bulawayo or Salisbury or anywhere. Even Crosse here has a better time of it going around sniffing out rinderpest." "Don't know about that," said the cattle inspector. "I'll swap you bunks, anyway, Inglefield." "Wish we could, that's all," replied the police officer, who was in a decidedly "grousy" vein, as he owned himself, half petulantly, half laughingly, when presently the conical huts of Sikumbutana hove in sight over the brow of the rise. "Well, now, Ames, you'll roll up to `skoff' at seven, won't you, unless you'll change your mind and come in now?" "I'll roll up all right. But not now, I've got some work on hand, and it's early yet." "Very well. Seven, then. Don't go sending over some tinpot excuse, you unreliable beggar." "No; I'll be there. So long. So long, Crosse." And he turned his horse's head into the track that led to his own compound. "Rum chap that fellow Ames," said Inglefield, when he and the cattle inspector were alone together. "He's a rattling good chap at bottom, and we are really great pals, but we fight like the devil whenever we have to do with each other officially." "How's that?" said Crosse, a quiet, self-contained man, with a large sandy beard and steady, reliable eyes. "Oh, I don't know. He's so beastly officious--he calls it conscientious. Always prating about `conscientious discharge of his duties'--`can't conscientiously do it'--and so on. You know. Now, only the other day--or, rather, just before he went on leave--he must needs get my pet sergeant reduced--a fellow worth his weight in gold to me as a hunter. Now, of course, the chap has turned sulky, and swears he's no good--can't tell where game is or is likely to be, or anything." "So. How did he get him reduced?" "Oh, some rotten bother with that old nigger who was out to-day, Madula. Nanzicele--Oh, blazes! I can't manage these infernal clicks." "Never mind; you'll learn some day," said Crosse. "Well, what did Nanzicele do?" "Nothing. That's the point of the whole joke. He was sent to collar some cattle from Madula, and he--didn't collar it." "And is that why he was reduced?" "No fear. It was for _trying_ to collar it. The niggers came in and complained to Ames, and Ames insisted on an inquiry. He took two mortal days over it, too; a rotten trumpery affair that ought to have been let rip. Then a lot of darn red tape, and my sergeant was reduced. No; Ames always pampers the niggers, and some day he'll find out his mistake. If they come around--especially these indunas--he talks to them as if they were somebody. _I'd_ sjambok them out of the compound." Crosse, listening, was chuckling to himself, for he knew whose judgment was likely to be the soundest, that of the speaker or that of Ames. Then he said:-- "And this Nanzicele--is he that big tall Kafir who was nearest us, on the outside of the line, during the cattle-shooting?" "Yes; that's the chap. By George! he's a splendid chap, as plucky as the very devil. Many a time I've had him out with me, and he'd go through anything. He was with me once when I missed a charging lion out beyond Inyati. _He_ didn't miss him, though--not much. I'd trust my life to that fellow any day in the week." "Trust your life to him, would you?" "Yes. Rather." "M--m!" "Yes, I would. You don't know the chap, Crosse. I do. See?" "'M--yes." The while, John Ames, having turned his horse over to his boy, entered his office. There was not much to do that day, as it happened, so after spending half an hour looking over some papers, he locked up for the day, and adjourned to the hut which served him for sitting and dining room combined, in which we have already seen him. He threw himself into a chair and lighted a pipe. There was an absent, thoughtful look in his eyes, which had been there ever since he found himself alone; wherefore it is hardly surprising that in lieu of seeking solace in literature, he should have sat, to all outward appearances, doing nothing. In reality, he was thinking--thinking hard and deeply. A month had gone by since his unexpected and most unwelcome recall; but unwelcome as it had been, he could not quarrel with it on the ground of its superfluity. Times had been lively since his return--more than lively--but not in an exhilarating sense. The rinderpest had taken firm root in the land, and was in a fair way of clearing it of horned cattle from end to end. Not at domestic cattle did it stay its ravages either. The wild game went down before its fell breath; every variety of stately and beautiful antelope, formerly preserved with judicious care beneath the rule of the barbarian king, underwent decimation. But it was in the mowing down of the cattle that the serious side of the scourge came, because, apart from the actual loss to the white settlers, the enforced destruction of the native stock rendered the savages both desperate and dangerous. Already rumours of rising were in the air. The sullen, brooding demeanour exhibited by Madula's people was but a sample of the whole. To the perilous side of the position, as regarded himself individually, John Ames was not blind. He was far too experienced for that. And his position was full of peril. Apart from a rising, he was marked out as the actual agent in executing the most hateful law ever forced upon a conquered people. His was the hand by which actually perished its animal wealth. Every bullock or heifer shot down sent a pang of fierce vindictiveness through more than one savage heart. In blind, barbaric reasoning, what more plausible than that to destroy the instrument would be to render inoperative the cause which set that instrument in motion? A blow from behind, a sudden stab, in the desperate impulse of the moment--what more likely? Not of peril, present or potential, however, was he thinking, as he sat there alone, but of the change, absorbing and entire, which had come over his life since returning from his all too brief furlough. He had left, cool, well-balanced, even-minded; he had returned, so far as his inner moments were concerned, in a trance, a state of absorption. It was wonderful. He hardly recognised himself. But what a new glad sunshine was now irradiating his lonely life. The recollection! Why, he could sit for hours going over it all again. Not again only, but again and again. Everything, from the first accidental meeting to that last bright and golden day by an enchanted sea--to the last farewell. Every word, every tone was recalled and weighed. Ah, he had not known what it was to live before! He had grovelled like a blind grub in the dust and darkness--now he was soaring in arrowy gleams upon wings of light. But--no words had been uttered, no promises exchanged. What matter? If at times of physical depression he felt misgivings he put them from him. True to her promise, Nidia had written--once--and with that letter he had had no cause to find fault. She had even sent him a dainty little portrait of herself, the only one she had, she explained; but where that was habitually kept we decline to say, "We shall meet again," she had declared. Yet if that utterance were to be unfulfilled, if indeed this dream were to fade, to go the way of too many such dreams, and to end in a drear awakening, even then was it not something to have lived in the dream, to have looked upon life as so new and golden and altogether priceless? With such considerations would he comfort himself in moments of depression. "We shall meet again." Often he would picture to himself that meeting. There would be others present most probably, but she, in his sight, would be alone. She would be surrounded by adorers, of course, but as her eyes met his she would know there was in reality but one. In all the adjuncts to her serene loveliness which taste and daintiness could surround her with, she would stand before him. Such would be their meeting, and upon it he dwelt; and to it his imagination reached through space, as to the culminating ecstasy of the goal of a life attained. From such soarings, however, comes a descent, as abrupt as it is profound, in this hard work-a-day world. John Ames sat bolt upright with a start of dismay, for the clock opposite told its own tale. His musings had carried him over some hours. It was nearly dark, and he was due--almost overdue--at Inglefield's. CHAPTER TEN. THE IGNITING OF THE FLAME. "That man's late again. He always is. Tom, don't ever ask him again. He seems to treat me with studied rudeness." Thus Mrs Inglefield, consulting her watch. She was an acid looking person, who might once have been passable in aspect. Now the deepening of her habitual frown was far from prepossessing. "It's only on the stroke of seven," said Inglefield, shortly. "Give him a little law, Annie. He'll be here directly. Perhaps some nigger turned up at the last moment on particular business." The suggestion was like throwing paraffin upon flames. "That makes it worse," exploded the lady. "To keep me--to keep us-- waiting to suit the convenience of a few filthy blacks--" "Well, give the chap a show," snapped Inglefield, not in the best of humours himself. The while, Crosse, the cattle inspector, sat profoundly pitying Inglefield, thinking, too, that the defaulter, when he did come, was not going to enjoy his dinner overmuch. "Hope I'm not late," said a voice in the doorway. "Not a bit, Ames; at least, only two minutes, and that doesn't count," cried Inglefield, cordially, feeling very much "in opposition." "Roll up, man, and have an appetiser, Crosse, you'll cut in?" John Ames, ignoring the coldness of his hostess' greeting, noticed that fully a quarter of an hour went by before they sat down to table. When they did sit down the interior of the hut looked snug enough. The bright lamp shed a cheerful glow upon the white napery and silver forks; and pictures and knick-knacks upon the walls and about the room--or rather, the hut, for such it was--rendered the place pleasant and homelike, suggestive of anything but the wilds of savage Matabeleland. Any remark, however, which he addressed to his hostess was met by a curt monosyllable, she turning immediately to converse with Crosse, affably voluble. It mattered nothing. He had only consented to come upon Inglefield's urgent and repeated invitation, having experienced that sample of behaviour before. "What sort of a time did you have down in Cape Town, Ames?" said Crosse presently, when he could conversationally break away. "Rather a good one. It was a great nuisance having to come back." "Mr Coates was such a nice man," interpolated Mrs Inglefield, with meaning, referring to John Ames's _locum tenens_. "We used to see a great deal of him." "Find any nice girls down there, eh, Ames?" said Inglefield, slily, fully alive to the unveiled rudeness of his spouse. "Oh yes--several." "And one in particular, eh?" went on the other, waggishly, drawing a bow at a venture; for John Ames was not one to wear his heart upon his sleeve or to embark in chatter upon the subject nearest and dearest to that organ. "_Nice_ girls! I didn't know there were any nowadays," snapped Mrs Inglefield. "A pack of bicycling, cigarette-smoking, forward tomboys!" "Oh, come, Mrs Inglefield," laughed Crosse, "you mustn't be so down on them. They're only up to date, you know." "Up to date! Then, thank Heaven I'm not up to date; I'm only old-fashioned," she retorted. "I'd be sorry to wear the boots of the chip who told you so, Annie," pronounced Inglefield. "Besides, you're romping hard over Ames's feelings; at least, I surmise you are. He's too close a bird to give the show away. _But_--as poor old Corney Grain used to say." "Oh, I always say what I mean," she answered, with an air which plainly added: "if people don't like it so much the worse for the people." And John Ames was thinking that never again, under any circumstances whatever, would he sit at the table of this abominably ill-bred and offensive woman. He was right. He never would; but for a reason that it was as well he--and all of them seated there--did not so much as dream. Then, partly that subject-matter for conversation is, to isolated dwellers in a remote wilderness, necessarily limited, partly because he deemed it a safe topic, Inglefield led the talk round to the day's doings--the destruction of Madula's cattle. "It's an infernally wasteful way of getting rid of them," he said. "I dare say you've blazed away nearer a thousand cartridges than a hundred, eh, Ames?" "Quite that. As you say, it is an abominable waste, and if ever the time comes when we shall sorely need every one of those cartridges for our own defence--" "Oh, now you're croaking again, old chap," interrupted Inglefield; while his spouse remarked-- "Faugh! I'd as soon be a slaughter-house butcher at once. Sooner." "Somebody must do it, you know, Mrs Inglefield," replied John Ames, placidly. "If the job were turned over to natives they'd waste five times the number of cartridges, and the poor beasts would suffer all the more." "Suppose we change this very unpleasant subject," she remarked, looking pointedly at him, quite ignoring the fact that it had been started by her husband, and she it was who had done the most towards keeping it going. "Policeman he want to see Inkose." The interruption proceeded from one of the two small boys who acted as waiters, and who had just entered. "Tell him to wait until I've done dinner, Piccanin," replied Inglefield, placidly. "It may be something important," hazarded John Ames. "Oh, it'll keep till after dinner," was the airy rejoinder. "Er--which policeman is it, Piccanin?" "Big policeman, 'Nkose; him name Nanzicele. Him come up from barracks now." The men's quarters--which, by the way, were not barracks but native huts--lay about three hundred yards below those occupied by their officer. "Then tell `him' to go back to them again, and wait until I've done dinner," replied Inglefield, briskly; for he was of an obstinate turn, besides instinctively resenting anything like interference on the part of his brother official. The small boy retired, and for a moment voices were heard outside. Then there entered--Nanzicele. "Great Caesar!" cried Inglefield, reddening. "What the devil do you mean, sir, by disobeying orders? Go back to the barracks at once! Here, _Puma! Hambasuka_! Footsack!" But ignoring the pointing finger of his irate superior, Nanzicele took one step to the side--leaving the door clear--and, standing at attention, ejaculated in loud and sonorous tones-- "_Baba--'Nkose_!" Was it a signal? Crosse, who was seated opposite the door, lurched forward, falling with his face on the table, simultaneously with the crash of two shots fired from outside. John Ames, pinned to his chair by a grip as powerful as steel, was impotent to do more than ineffectually struggle. Half a dozen stalwart savages rushed into the hut, and, dividing their forces, four of them threw themselves upon Inglefield, the remaining two turning their attention to the latter's wife. It was all done in a moment. The suddenness of it, the total, utter unpreparedness of those who, but two seconds ago, had been unsuspectingly dining, left not the smallest chance of resistance. Inglefield, starting up, instinctively to seize the carving-knife, was stabbed again and again with sword-bayonets before he could raise a hand, and fell to the floor. The wretched woman, too petrified with the suddenness and terror of it all even to shriek, was promptly despatched; one savage drawing his weapon across her throat with a slash that nearly severed the head. It was all over in a moment. Yet one victim remained: John Ames, now bound fast to his chair with straps, felt himself grow dizzy and sick with the horror of this appalling butchery. Blood dripped to the floor, then splashed in bright red drops on the garments of the murderers. And those garments were the uniform of the Native Police. All seemed to heave in misty dimness before his eyes. In a moment he would faint. Then, with a vast effort of will, he recovered himself. Why had _he_ been spared? In a moment the whole situation flashed through his brain. This was the beginning of a general rising. The Native Police had no grudge against their officers, let alone against Inglefield, who was, if anything, too easy-going. If _they_ were in open revolt, then the rising was general, even as he and one or two others had feared might one day be the case. The fiercely sullen demeanour of Madula and his people at the destruction of their cattle now assumed an aspect of deadly significance. The destruction of their cattle! Ah, there was the last straw! But--why had he been spared? Then amid this scene of horror hope came uppermost. His administration had always been signalled by strict and impartial justice to the natives, even when white interests were concerned--a line, be it whispered, not invariably the rule in those days, when the policy known as "supporting the white man against the black" at any cost, was deemed wise and necessary. He was known to several of the chiefs, and by chiefs and people alike respected. It might well be that he was marked out for exemption from a general massacre. But now a voice, lifted up, seemed to shatter to fragments any such hopes--a great jeering voice, vengeful, triumphant, menacing. It was the voice of Nanzicele, addressing him in voluble Sindabele. "Ho, Jonemi! Where are you now? And these? `Let the people have patience. Let the people have patience,' Your words, Jonemi. Great words, Jonemi! Well, the people have had patience, and now their day is come. By this time to-morrow all the whites in the land will be dead." "Will be dead," echoed those around, with an emphatic hum. "Why have you--have you all done this thing, Nanzicele?" said John Ames, striving to repress the shudder of loathing and disgust which shook his voice. "Have you not been treated well--treated with every consideration and justice by your officer? And yet--" "Justice!" growled the savage. "Justice! Now nay, Jonemi; now nay. I was a chief in the Amapolise, now I am a common man again. Who made me so? Not this"--pushing with his foot the bleeding corpse of Inglefield. "But for thy counsels he would not have brought me down. It was thou, Jonemi--thou. Now shall thy blood pour over my hand." Nanzicele all this while had been working himself up to a state of fury, as he talked into the face of his helpless prisoner, or victim, the others standing around emphatically applauding. Now he seized a poultry knife from the table, and, jerking back John Ames' head, held the edge against his throat. It was a horrible moment, that expectation of an agonising death, and an ignominious one to boot--one of those moments which could concentrate a lifetime of horror. The helpless man could do nothing. Every second he thought to feel the keen blade slashing through vein and muscle, carotid and windpipe. But the barbarian seemed in no hurry. He threw down the knife again. "I have a better way with thee than that, Jonemi. When we have finished we will burn down this hut, leaving thee here. Ah--ah!" Then he turned his attention to the table, where the other murderers were promptly demolishing the remnants of the feast. But for the tragedy just perpetrated the sight would have been comic. Two had got hold of a roast fowl and were quarrelling over it like a couple of dogs over a bone. A third had cut a huge chunk out of a leg of sable antelope, and having plastered it thickly with mustard, was devouring it in great bites, the tears streaming down his face the while. Pepper, too, had discomfited another; and yet another, trying to use it, had driven a fork nearly through his cheek, all talking and spluttering the while. Yet all were foul with the blood which had just been shed; even the white cloth was splashed and smeared with it. Among them John Ames recognised his own body-servant, Pukele. The latter had taken no active part in the murders, having, with two other men, come in later. Still, there he was among them, the man whose faithfulness, to himself at any rate, he had always deemed beyond suspicion; the man with whom he would have entrusted his life, even as poor Inglefield had said but an hour or two ago with regard to Nanzicele. Yet that fiend had been the first to murder him in cold blood. In truth, one could trust nobody. Little, therefore, was he surprised now when Pukele, turning to him, joined the others in abusing and threatening him. A bottle of whisky, half emptied, stood on the table, and another, unopened, on the sideboard, together with two of "squareface." Most of those present understood the corkscrew of civilisation, and in a few moments were choking and gasping with the effects of their fiery libations. As this unwonted indulgence began to take effect, the uproar created by the murderous crew became simply indescribable. Plates and dishes were smashed, glasses thrown at each other, and one of the bottles with its precious contents was smashed. And foremost of all, amid the madness of the riot, was Pukele--the quiet Pukele, the faithful Pukele. Already two of the murderers had rolled under the table dead drunk, falling upon and clutching the gashed bodies of their victims. Others, snatching up knives from the table, with reeling step and blood-lust in their drunken faces, staggered towards their victim. But between the latter and them, somehow, was always interposed the form of the faithful Pukele, of the riotous Pukele, of the treacherous, murdering Pukele. To John Ames it seemed that death's bitterness should already be past, for whatever the method of it, death itself was sure. He knew he would never leave that hut alive, and could almost have prayed that all were over. Then his thoughts reverted to Nidia Commerell. How thankful he was that she was in safety twelve hundred miles away. Would she feel more than a transient sorrow or regret when she heard of his end? He would have died at his post anyhow. And then he recalled the words of flattering approval she had more than once uttered when expressing an interest in his career. And that last long golden day they had passed together. Well, even at this terrible moment he felt thankful he had lived to go through that experience. But--what was this? The strap which bound his right arm to that of the chair had snapped. Snapped? No; it had been cut. The large form of Pukele stood in front of him, was standing with his hands behind his back, and one of those hands held a sword-bayonet such as was used by the Native Police, its haft _towards_ John Ames. Now he saw who had cut the strap. He reached forth cautiously, and gently withdrew the weapon from Pukele's grasp; then, having cut the strap confining his other arm, bent down, and in a moment his legs were free. Pukele the while was discoursing volubly with the other Police rebels, fanning a heated discussion and egging them on to drink. But ever between them and the prisoner he stood. A horrible sight they presented, their once smart uniforms filthy with blood and grease, their faces lolling with intoxicated imbecility, their speech thick and their legs tottering. But the treacherous Pukele, the riotous, drunken, abusive Pukele, now seemed, strange to say, as sober as the proverbial judge. He stood firm, unless perhaps a gradual swaying of his body to the left were perceptible; and the door of the hut was behind him--a little to the left. John Ames, between him and the door aforesaid, watched every move. The savage roysterers were becoming alternately more and more riotous and maudlin. Then the faithful Pukele made a movement with his hand behind him. It was unmistakable. John Ames slid from the chair, and in a moment was through the door, and round behind the hut just in time to avoid running right into the arms of a new--and sober--body of the now revolted police, who had come up to join in the fun and to loot their murdered officer's quarters. He had escaped with his life. After all, there was some fidelity left among these barbarians, he thought, as he stepped briskly, yet cautiously, through the darkness. He had escaped with his life, yet here he was, in the heart of a rebel country--every one of whose white settlers had probably by this time fallen in savage massacre--without food or means of procuring any, and with no other weapon than a sword-bayonet. The outlook was far from reassuring. CHAPTER ELEVEN. HOLLINGWORTH'S FARM. "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." But Moseley lifted up his voice and hailed-- "Hollingworth!" "What is it?" sung out that worthy. "Sun over the yard-arm yet? All right. You know where to find it. No soda, though; you'll have to do with selzogene. If you want `squareface' you must get the missis to dig it out of the store. There's none out. Maitland and Harvey between them got outside what there was yesterday." "No, no; that's not what we want, though it'll come in directly," laughed Moseley. "Look here, Hollingworth"--the latter had drawn near by this time--"Miss Commerell has found an old friend up here--Ames at Sikumbutana--and she doesn't like to ask you to send a boy over to let him know she's here." "But, Mr Moseley, I didn't tell you to ask Mr Hollingworth," laughed Nidia. "Pooh! Why didn't you like to ask me, Miss Commerell? Of course I can send over. Though--if it will be all the same to you, I'd rather send to-morrow," Hollingworth added dubiously. "Certainly it will. Thanks awfully. Are you sure it won't inconvenience you?" said Nidia, in her most winning way. "Not to-morrow. To-day, you see, I have two boys away. But I'll start one off the first thing in the morning." She reiterated her thanks; and Tarrant, keenly observant, said to himself: "No; clearly I've no show. Damn Ames!" CHAPTER TWELVE. THE SPREADING OF THE FLAME. "Well, good-bye, Moseley. Pity you're in such a hurry; you might just as well have stayed the night. However, since you're determined, you'd better not ride too slow. It'll take you three mortal hours to fetch Jekyll's place." Thus Hollingworth, soon after the midday dinner. The horses stood ready saddled, the pack-donkeys having been sent on in the forenoon. "I'll see you in Bulawayo week after next, I suppose. I've got to go in about that disputed `pegging' case. Beastly nuisance! Besides, I've got to take Miss Commerell back." Tarrant pricked up his ears at this. He had not done much to improve the shining hour with Nidia during that long, cool, lazy morning. He had confined himself to observing her, now and then putting in a word or two, but not often. But he had plans. And now the farewells became general, all talking at once, as people will on such occasions; for the whole household had turned out to see them off. Suddenly Hollingworth said:-- "You've forgotten your rifle, Tarrant. Never mind; don't get down"--for the other was already mounted. "I'll get it for you. Which corner did you leave it in?" "Didn't leave it. Mafuta's gone on ahead with it." "Oh! No chance of him clearing with it, eh?" said Hollingworth. "No; he's a reliable boy. Had him a long time. He's quite safe." Thus in that lurid March of '96 did the settlers in Matabeleland rejoice in their security. "You put that on rather well, old man," said Tarrant, as the two rode along. "What did I put on?" "Oh, the surprise part of the business. Now I see why you were so desperately bent on fetching up at Hollingworth's." "Smart boy, Dibs. See through a brick wall, and all that sort of thing," replied Moseley, good-humouredly. "This time you've seen through too far, though. I had no more notion Miss Commerell was there than you had, or even that she was in the country at all. Nice girl, isn't she?" "Ye-es. I was studying her rather closely. She's either the most consummate actress or the most out of the ordinary sample of her sex I've encountered for a long, long time, if ever." "Well, she's the last, then. If there's one thing about Nidia Commerell that appeals to me it is that she's so perfectly natural, and therefore, of course, unconventional." "Oh, she does `appeal' to you, then? I rather thought she did," said Tarrant, serenely. "But you've no show, old man. It's the other Johnny--what's his name--" "--Ames." "--Yes. He seems to have got the floor just now." "As to the first--skittles; as to the last--why do you think so?" "Didn't I tell you I was studying her rather closely? When you first mentioned--er--Ames, she just, ever so little, overdid it. You may rely upon it that joker made his hay while the sun shone." Moseley burst into a great contemptuous laugh. "Oh, bosh, Dibs! You've got the keenest nose for a mare's nest I ever saw. I tell you that's Miss Commerell's way. If she likes any one she doesn't in the least mind saying so. That alone shows there's nothing deeper in it." "Her way, is it? Oh, well, then, so much the worse for--er--Ames." The while those they had just left were comparing opinions upon them. "That friend of Mr Moseley's seems a very quiet man," Mrs Hollingworth was saying. "Who is he, George?" "Never saw him before in my life. In the same line of business, I take it. His `quietness,' though, seemed to me to cover a suspicion of `side.' Sort of `know everything' manner." "Yes. Perhaps I am wrong, but there seemed a sort of conscious superiority about him. What did you think, Nidia?" "Just what you do. But we may be wrong. The other is all rights though, so jolly and good-natured always. We came out on the same ship." "Moseley. Yes; he's a good chap, but he's got a detestable wife," said Hollingworth. "It's astonishing what a number of `good chaps' have," laughed Nidia. "But where is she?" "In England now. Moseley drives his trade here, and she has a good time on the lion's share of the proceeds there. She won't stay in this country. Yes? What is it?" This to his son and heir, _aetat_ ten, who was trying to get in a chance of asking to be allowed to go out and shoot a buck. "Don't know. You're too much of a kiddie, Jim. Your mother fidgeted herself--and me--to death last time you went." "I got the buck, though," was the reply, half defiant, half triumphant. "So you did, sonny. Well, you can go. Be careful with the gun, and don't be late. It's a good thing for them to learn to shoot straight in a country like this," he added, as the boy skipped away without waiting for the possibility of any recall of this edict: and a moment later they saw him disappearing in the bush, away beyond the mealie-lands. "Fancy you and Ames being old pals, Miss Commerell," said Hollingworth. "Where did you know each other?" "Down at the Cape. We were in the same hotel at Wynberg. I saw a good deal of him, and liked him very much. Is he getting on well up here, Mr Hollingworth?" "Yes, I think so. He's thought a good deal of in his own line. Shouldn't wonder if he gets into something better before long. And now, if you'll excuse me, Miss Commerell, I'll go and take my usual forty winks, if those `kinders' will let me." This was a figure of speech on Hollingworth's part. Had his progeny been ten times more riotous and restive than it was he would have slept tranquilly through all the racket they could make. There are persons who can sleep through anything--from a fox-terrier in a backyard to a big gun practice--and Hollingworth was one of them. Nidia, left alone, did not feel in the least inclined to follow his example. A strange restlessness was upon her, a desire for solitude; and where could she obtain this better than amid the wild bush by which the homestead was surrounded? Going inside, she threw on a straw hat, then taking a light _umzimbiti_ walking-stick, she struck into one of the forest paths. She felt not the slightest fear or misgiving. The natives at that time were deferential and submissive, and seldom encountered outside their own locations. Wild beasts avoided the near proximity of human habitations, at any rate in the full blaze of the afternoon sun, and if she came upon a snake she could always run away; for she was not one of those who imagine that the average serpent can leap--say, fifty feet-- through the air, or spends its time lying in wait for human beings for the fun of biting them. So she wandered on beneath the feathery acacias and gnarled wild fig, now stopping to disengage her skirt from the sharp claws of a projecting spray of "haak-doorn," now bending down to examine some strange and brilliant-winged beetle. A pair of "go-away" birds, uttering their cat-like call, darted from tree to tree, keeping ever a short distance before her. When she drew near the spray on which they were perched on they would go again, and she could mark their conical crests as again they plunged forward in arrow-like flight, only to perch again as before. A small stony kopje rose above the level of the brake. To this she ascended, and, finding a shady spot, sat down upon a granite boulder to rest. Away and around the gaze could range over a great expanse of country, here smoothly undulating in a green sea of verdure, there broken-up into stony hillocks. She could not see the homestead--that was hidden by the gradual depression towards the river-bank, but the river-bed was discernible by the winding slit its course left in the expanse of foliage. And away in the golden haze of the blue horizon a line of hills which she instinctively guessed were those of the Sikumbutana. So John Ames was so near and she would see him again; a matter of twenty miles or so was no distance in up-country estimation! Yet, why should this consciousness bring with it a feeling of elation? She was not in the least in love with the man. She could mention his name, or hear it mentioned, without a tremor in her voice or a stirring of the pulse. She had not even gone to the pains of inquiring after him, or as to his whereabouts, since her arrival at Bulawayo; yet now, suddenly an impulse was upon her to see him again which amounted almost to a longing. She had missed him greatly after his departure, even as she had said she would, but only as she would have missed anybody in whose society she had found pleasure and entertainment; yet now she found herself looking forward to meeting him again with such a curious mingling of feelings as she had never known before. She had seen him amid conventional, and, to him strange, surroundings, now she wanted to see him at home as it were, and in his own everyday sphere. How would they meet? She supposed he would ride over directly he received her note. Would he look surprised and pleased? Would that grave, firm face relax as he greeted her, the straight glance of the grey eyes soften ever so little as it met hers? Thus she pondered. Yet she was not in the least in love with John Ames. For long she sat, pondering thus. Then, upon the distant stillness, rolled forth a shot, followed by another. It broke the current of her thoughts. "Jimmie is getting some sport," she said to herself, standing up to look in the direction of the double report. "But he must be finding it very near home. That shot sounded almost as if it were at the house." She glanced at the sun. Its distance above the horizon reminded her that she must be getting back herself. Rising, she descended the granite kopje, and took her way along the bush-path she had come by. This was a matter of no difficulty, even if she were now following it for the first time, for those among whom she had lately moved had taught her something of the mysteries of "spoor." How peaceful it looked in the golden light of the afternoon stillness! The homestead, truly, was of the roughest description, with its thatched roof and "dagga" walls, yet it, and the pointed conical huts behind it, were all in keeping. A settler's dwelling in a new land! A halo of romance overspread it in Nidia's mind as she emerged from the bush-path into the clearing. Stay. What was that? Blood! She had just time to switch her skirt aside. Blood? Yes; a great patch of it--then another and another, and a long trail in the dust as though something heavy had been dragged along the ground. Ah, Jimmie had been in luck again and had brought down another buck. That was the meaning of the double shot she had heard. The animal had been too heavy for the little chap to carry. He had been obliged to drag it, hence the trail along the ground. And in her rejoicing over the small boy's venatorial triumph, Nidia forgot her natural disgust at sight of the blood-gouts which lay thick and hideously red along the trail. How still it all was! Had their mother taken those earthquakes of children for a walk? she wondered. Even then it was strange to be out of earshot of their voices, if only in the distance. Well, the youthful hunter should be in, anyhow. "Jimmie!" she called. "Jim-mie!" No answer. The front door was closed. She noticed that the trail went round as though to the back of the house, yet in front of the closed door the blood-patches lay thicker than ever. Jimmy would catch it when his mother came back, she thought to herself, for bringing his quarry in at the front door and making that horrid mess. Lifting her skirt to avoid the latter, and making a little grimace of disgust, she turned the handle. There was a window opposite, but the blind was down. To Nidia, coming in from the full glow of the sunlight, the room was almost dark. Only for a moment though, and then she saw-- She saw that which might have turned many a stronger brain than hers-- she saw that which made her cover her eyes with her hands, and stagger back against the doorpost with a low wailing cry of such unutterable horror as can rarely have proceeded from human throat. Oh Heaven! must she look again and go mad? was the thought which flashed through her mind as with hands pressed to her eyes she leaned against the doorpost as rigid as though turned to stone. On the couch beneath the window aforesaid lay the form of Hollingworth-- the form, for little else about the wretched man was distinguishable but his clothing. His skull had been battered in, and his features smashed to a pulp. There he lay, and on the floor beside him a periodical which he had been reading before overtaken by the sleep from which he was destined never to awaken. In one corner lay the corpse of his wife-- and, in a row, four children, all with their skulls smashed, and nailed to the ground with assegais--the whole having undergone more or less nameless horrors of mutilation. This is what she saw--this girl--who had never looked upon a scene of violence or of bloodshed in her life. This is what she saw, returning in serene security to the peaceful home that sheltered her. No wonder she stood against the doorpost, her hands pressed tightly to her eyes, her brain on fire. Was it a dream--an awful nightmare? The very magnitude of the horror saved her. Out into the air again. Not another glance dare she venture into that scene of hideous butchery. Out into the air again. The same golden sun was shining, the same fair earth, the same feathery foliage peaceful in the afternoon light. But within? The world began to go round with her. She staggered as though to sink into a swoon, when-- What was that? A cry? A moan? From the back of the house it seemed to come, and it was distinctly that of a human being in pain. Thither Nidia flew. The sound had created a diversion, and had certainly saved her brain from giving way from shock and fright. A form was lying on the ground covered with blood and dust. Nidia recognised it in a moment for that of Hollingworth's eldest boy--the youthful hunter whose prowess she had been about to congratulate. "Jimmie!" she cried, bending over him. "Jimmie, my poor child, what has happened? What have they done to you--to--to everybody?" Her voice broke down, and she could only sob piteously. She tried to raise the boy's head, but he screamed. "Oh, don't--don't! Oh, it hurts!" To her horror, Nidia saw something of the extent of the terrible injuries the poor little fellow had received. Besides a huge bump on the side of the head he was covered with assegai-stabs. Yet he was still alive. Amid his moans, he looked up suddenly. "Oh, it's you, Miss Commerell!" he gasped. "Yes--yes. Oh, my dear little boy, what does it all mean?" she wailed, her voice thrilling with horrified pity. A gleam came into the boy's eyes, and for the moment he seemed to forget his agony. "I--plugged two of the devils," he said--"two of them. One was Qota, our boy. He got the charge of buckshot, the other the bullet. Then they hit me on the head with a kerrie. Oh-h!" He sank back groaning under a renewed spasm of pain. This, then, was the double shot Nidia had heard. She saw now the meaning of the bloody trail which she had imagined was that made by the youthful hunter dragging home his quarry. The miscreants had dragged away the bodies of their own dead. Two of them had been sent to their account, red-handed, and that by this mere child, either in defence of those who were all to him, or revengeful in his rage and grief. Bit by bit she got at the truth. He was returning from an unsuccessful stalk, and had gained the outside of the bush behind the house, when he heard a low prolonged scream proceeding from within. In this he recognised the voice of his mother. Cocking his gun, he ran hurriedly forward, but before he could gain the front door he was met by several savages armed with axes and knobkerries. Two of these he immediately shot--shot them dead, too, he declared--and then, before he could slip in fresh cartridges, they were upon him. The gun was wrenched from his hand, then something seemed to fall upon his head, for after that he knew no more. All this was told spasmodically between lengthened pauses, and the effort had quite exhausted the poor little fellow. And now some inkling of the situation seemed to rush through Nidia's reeling brain, though even then the idea that this wholesale murder was but one instance of several at that very moment throughout the land, did not occur to her. She supposed it to be a mere sporadic outbreak of savagery, or lust of plunder. It was clear, too, that this poor child was ignorant of all that had actually happened within, and she felt a sort of miserable consolation in realising that physical agony had so confused his mind that he showed no curiosity on the subject. Nor would he allow her to examine the extent of his hurts. If she so much as touched him he screamed aloud; but she knew, as confidently as though assured by the whole faculty, that his hours were numbered. "I feel sleepy. How dark it is!" he murmured at length. Dark! Why, the surroundings were in a very bath of lustre--of golden sunlight glow. "So sleepy. Don't leave me. Promise you won't leave me!" "Of course I won't leave you, Jimmie darling," sobbed Nidia, bending down and kissing his forehead; for well she knew what this deepening coma portended. Soon again he spoke, but in the feeblest of murmurs. "You must go. They'll come back and find you; then they'll kill you, the devils. You must go. Hide in the bush, down below the river-bank. They won't look there. Go--go quick. They'll come back. Hark! I hear them." "But I won't go, Jimmie; I won't leave you, whether they kill me or not," she sobbed, moved to the heart by the unselfishness of this child-hero, who had first slain with his own hand two of the murderers of his parents, and now was urging her to leave him to the solitude he dreaded, lest she should meet with the same fate. But this heroic injunction was his last utterance. A few minutes, and the head fell back, the eyes opening wide in a glassy stare. Little Jimmie had joined his murdered kindred. The sun sank beneath the rim of the world, and the purple shades of the brief twilight deepened over this once peaceful homestead, now a mausoleum for its butchered inmates lying in their blood. And still Nidia sat there holding the head of the dead boy in her lap. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. WHAT HAPPENED AT JEKYLL'S STORE. Jekyll's Store, near Malengwa, was an institution of considerable importance in its way, for there not only did prospectors and travellers and settlers replenish their supplies, but it served as a place of general "roll up," when the monotony of life in camp or on lonely farms began to weigh upon those destined to lead the same. Its situation was an open slope, fronting a rolling country, more or less thickly grown with wild fig and mahobo-hobo, mimosa and feathery acacia. Behind, some three or four hundred yards, rose a low ridge of rocks, whose dull greyness was relieved by the vivid green of sugar-bush. Strategically its position was bad, but this was a side to which those who planted it there had not given a thought. The Maxims of the Company's forces had done for the natives for ever and a day. There was not a kick left in them. The building was a fair-sized oblong one, constructed of the usual wattle and "dagga" as to the walls, and with a high-pitched roof of thatch. Internally it was divided into three compartments--a sleeping-room, a living-room, and the store itself, the latter as large as the two first put together. From end to end of this was a long counter, about a third of which was partitioned off as a public bar. Rows of shelves lined the walls, and every conceivable article seemed represented--blankets and rugs; tinned food and candles; soap and cheese; frying-pans and camp-kettles; cooking-pots and high boots; straps and halters; Boer tobacco and Manila cheroots; all jostling each other, down even to accordions and concertinas, seemed only to begin the list of general "notions" which, either stacked on shelves or hanging from the beam which ran along the building parallel with the spring of the roof, filled every available space. Bags of mealies, too, and flour stood against the further wall; and the shelves backing the bar department were lined with a plentiful and varied assortment of bottles. Not much less varied was the type of customer who was prone to sample their contents. Miners working for a wage, independent prospectors, transport riders, now and then a company promoter or a mining engineer or surveyor, settlers on farms, an occasional brace of troopers of the Matabeleland Mounted Police--would all roll up at Jekyll's in turn; but by reason of the wide distances over which the sparse population was scattered, there were seldom more than a dozen gathered together there at once--usually less. But even there the characteristics of the gathering were much akin to those pervading similar groups as seen in older civilisation--the bore simple and the bore reiterative, the local Ananias, usually triplicated; the assumptive bore; the literary critic-- the last especially in full bloom after a few rounds of "squareface" or John Dewar--and other varieties. Such characteristics, however, were well known to the sound residue of the assemblage, who would delight to "draw" the individual owners thereof--after the few rounds aforesaid. Within the store and canteen part of the building about a dozen men were gathered when Moseley and Tarrant rode up. All were attired in the usual light marching order of the country--shirt and trousers, high boots and wide-brimmed hat. Some were lounging against the counter, others squatting on sacks or packing-cases, and all were smoking. Jekyll, himself, a tall man with a grizzled beard, and who had been a good many years in the country before the entry of the first Pioneer force, was dispensing drinks, with the help of his assistant, a young Englishman who had been ploughed for his degree at Oxford. To several of these the new arrivals were known, and forthwith there was a fresh call on the resources of the bar department. "News?" said Jekyll, in reply to a question from Moseley. "Thought maybe you'd have brought some. There's talk of a rising among the niggers down beyond Sikumbutana. Heard anything of it?" "Not a word." "Gah on. There won't be no bloomin' rahsin'," cut in a prospector, a Cockney ex-ship-steward. "Nothink but a lot o' gas. The wy to treat niggers is my wy." "And what might that be?" said another prospector, a tall, bronzed, fine-looking man, who _had_ taken _his_ degree at Oxford. "Why, one o' my boys cheeked me yesterday, so I ups with a bloomin' pick-'andle and jes lets 'im 'ave it over the bloomin' boko. That's my wy with 'em." And the speaker cocked his head and looked around with the defiant bounce of a cad with a couple of drinks too many on board. "H'm!" rejoined the other man, drily. "By-the-by," said Tarrant, "I wonder what Mafuta did with my rifle and cartridges." Jekyll pricked up his ears. "Is that one of your boys?" he said. "Yes. He was carrying my gun and cartridges." "Well, there was no gun and cartridges with your donkeys when they turned up." "The devil there wasn't!" said Tarrant. "Let's go and look into it." They went outside, Jekyll and two or three others accompanying them. The three boys in charge of the donkeys were there. They had off-loaded the packs and taken them inside. Where was Mafuta? They did not know. They had last seen him about half way; after that no more. They thought perhaps he had been ordered to try and shoot some game on the way. Tarrant looked blue. "Oh, he'll turn up," he said, in a tone which conveyed the idea that such a contingency was remote. "Pity you trusted him with a gun in these times," said Jekyll. "I'm afraid he'll clear with it." "Wot'll yer tike for the chawnce?" said the Cockney, who was one of those who had accompanied them outside. "Oh, he'll roll up directly," said Tarrant, ignoring this specimen; "Mafuta's a reliable boy. I've had him a long while." Returning from the huts, they became aware of a certain amount of excitement in front of the store. A trooper of the Matabeleland Mounted Police had just ridden up. The rising was a fact, and he had been sent round to warn everybody to come in to Bulawayo if possible; if not, to collect together and form laagers. Several prospectors and miners had been murdered in the Sikumbutana district, but how far the outbreak had spread could not as yet be determined. He was on his way to warn Hollingworth; after that, if he could manage it, he must get through to John Ames'. The excitement produced by this news was mingled with consternation. Half of those there collected were unarmed. Those who had weapons had left them behind at their camps; while some, with the habitual British carelessness which passes for intrepidity, had not even got any there. The police trooper's horse was offsaddled and put into one of the huts which did duty for stable for a feed and a brief rest, and then the whole party re-entered the store to discuss the situation and a fresh round of drinks. While this was in progress some one reported a party of natives approaching from the open side in front of the house. Quickly Jekyll got out a powerful binocular. "There are about thirty of them," he said, "but they've got no guns-- only knobkerries and some axes. On the face of the latest news I believe they mean mischief. Now, chaps, we'll startle 'em some. They won't know there's a whole crowd of you here. They'll think there's only me and Selwyn to deal with. Who've got guns?" Seven answered in the affirmative. "All right. Now then. You, Carbutt and Harris, get to that front window in t'other room--don't let 'em see you, though. I'll go out in front and _indaba_ them. Selwyn 'll stand in the doorway lighting his pipe--and when I sing out, `Let go,' blaze away into the foremost of them. I shall want some men to go outside at the back of the house, though." All volunteered. "No. You three'll do"--indicating the policeman and two others. "Directly you hear the first shot fired, whip round to the front and blaze into them for all you're worth. See the plan?" "Rather, and an A1 plan it is," said Moseley, who was one of the rearguard, slipping a couple of heavy buckshot cartridges into his shot-gun. Those for behind scrambled through the back windows--the other two were already in position, one armed with a Winchester, the other with a Lee-Metford. Hardly had they done so than the natives emerged from the sparse bush in front. There was nothing warlike in their aspect; indeed, to all appearance, they might have been a gang of boys travelling round to look for work in the mines. They halted about fifty yards from the house, and Jekyll, in pursuance of his plan, strolled about a dozen to meet them. Then he called for a couple of them to come up. Who were they, he asked, and where going? They were looking for work, the spokesman answered. Could the _'Nkose_ take any of them on? Jekyll observed that perhaps he could do with two or three. Selwyn, the English assistant, was standing in the doorway, carelessly lighting his pipe. Others now began stealing up towards the two spokesmen. The savages little knew into what a trap their treachery was leading them. Then a shout arose from among them:-- "_Tyay' Amakiwa_!" [Strike down the whites.] But, simultaneously with the rush made upon Jekyll, and for which the words were the signal, the rifles of the two men at the window crashed forth in one report. The two foremost Matabele dropped dead, while the three men stationed behind the house were in position at once, and simply raked the whole crowd. Again and again the magazine rifles spoke, and between them and Moseley's buckshot the result was that a little more than half the treacherous assailants were running for dear life and for the nearest bush; while Jekyll, who had not stirred throughout, stood re-lighting his pipe as if nothing had happened. "Sharp work, chaps," he said, as they all came out to see the result. "We've taught them how to fight the devil with fire--eh?" The transformation was marvellous in its rapidity. The place which, five minutes before, had been the scene of a peaceful gathering, was now one of slaughter. More than one there present, who had never witnessed death by violence, gazing upon the stark, bleeding corpses, looked uncomfortable. "Here's one who isn't dead," said Jekyll. "Let's see if he'll give away anything." And, bending down, Jekyll began to talk fluently in Sindabele. But the wounded man, a big, evil-looking savage, answered never a word. He had a bullet through him, and a couple of grains of heavy buckshot, and was bleeding profusely. The wonder was he was still alive. To all of Jekyll's questions he answered nothing. "I sy. 'E's a bloomin' impident black beggar, I _don't_ think," said the Cockney, giving the prostrate native a push with his foot that was more than half a kick. "Wish I 'ad my bloomin' pick-'andle 'ere." "Oh, shut up, Higgins, and leave the nigger alone," said the man who had first taken exception to the swaggering cad's bounce. "We don't do things that way here." "'Ere, I sy, I'd like to know what I've done. Cawn't a chep mike a bloomin' blanked nigger awnswer a question when a gentleman arsts 'im one--hy?" But whether this feat was practicable or not was destined to remain unrecorded, for at that moment came the crash of a volley poured from the line of bush wherein the discomfited barbarians had disappeared, and the vicious hum of missiles overhead and around, knocking chips of plaster from the walls of the house. Two men staggered, only wounded though, among them the police trooper, who was shot in the leg. "Get inside, sharp," sang out Jekyll, himself hauling in one of the wounded. "Stand ready. They'll charge directly." Hurriedly, yet without panic, the men regained the shelter of the house. At the same time a cloud of savages, who had wormed their way up through the long grass, rose on the edge of the bush, and again poured in their fire. Again the bullets whizzed overhead, some penetrating the plaster wail, but no one was hit. Those within had already flown to the windows, and were returning the fire with a will. Several were seen to fall. The rest dropped down into cover again. Clearly they had no stomach for charging that determined few under cover. "That's all right," said Jekyll. "This is all part of the scheme. These jokers have got on their war-gear. The first lot were an advance guard. I say, Selwyn, where would you and I have been now but for our friend here giving us the office? We'd have been quietly knocked on the head--eh?" "We'd have had no show at all," replied the assistant, who was brimful of pluck and beginning to enjoy the fight. But Jekyll, and two or three others, who were alive to the gravity of the situation, failed to discover an enjoyable side thereto. The Matabele were evidently in sufficient force to render them over-confident, and, indeed, they were hardly careful to remain under shelter. Squads of twenty and thirty could be seen pouring in to swell the already formidable number, glancing through the bush and long grass, all in war-gear, with flowing tufts of red or white cowtail, and wearing the _isiqoba_, or ball of feathers, on the forehead. Warriors, defying fate, would spring up, and go through the performance known as "_gwaza_" making a series of quick leaps in the air, shouting the most bloodcurdling promises with regard to their enemies, and darting stabs, lightning-like, this way and that, as though in hand-to-hand conflict with an imaginary foe. At these the besieged whites, acting on the advice of the more experienced, forebore to fire. The mark was a very uncertain one, and there was not much to be gained by picking off two or three of these boasters. Ammunition was not plentiful. In fact, there was every chance of it giving out. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. THE LONG NIGHT THROUGH. "Stand by, now. Here they come," warned Jekyll. "Not too soon, and fire low." For the line of bush was alive with gleaming forms, as fully a hundred warriors darted out, making straight for the store; not in a compact body, but in a scattered line; not erect and in bounds and leaps, but bent low and crouching behind their shields. The while those in the background now opened a tremendous fire upon the building. Fortunately, however, most of the missiles flew high. Those within, crouching too, with their heads just above the sills of the windows, waited a moment, then, partly rising, fired upon the advancing shields at a hundred yards' distance. Several were seen to go down. Crash! a second volley, then a third. The magazine rifles were doing their duty right nobly. At the fourth volley the charging warriors, dividing into two sections, sheered off at a tangent, and, dropping down in the grass, crawled away with the silence and rapidity of snakes, offering no mark to draw the defenders' fire. "Quick! To the back!" cried Jekyll. "Not all, though." With instinctive unanimity the little garrison divided itself. Those told off to the back of the store arrived there in time to see their enemies swarming up among the low rocky ridge which overlooked their position from the rear. "By George! that was real strategy, covering the advance of the storming party," said one man, who was an ex-soldier. "Looks as if there were whites among them. Dutch perhaps." "No fear," returned Jekyll. "The most English-hating Dutchman this country ever produced wouldn't turn niggers on to white men. We'd be much more likely to do it ourselves. Hallo, Selwyn! Not hurt?" This anxiously, as the young fellow, who had been peering forth watching his chance of a shot, staggered back from the window holding his hands to his head. Then it was seen that his face was streaming with blood. "N-no; I don't think so," was the answer. "A splinter, I think it is." "Let's see," said Jekyll. "Ah yes. Here you are"--exhibiting an ugly splinter of wood, which he had simultaneously extracted from the other's forehead. "Only a skin-wound. You're in luck." "There's some fellow who can shoot, at any rate," remarked Tarrant, as another bullet pinged in through the window. "Oh, I say! Here, quick, some one! Lend me a rifle, for God's sake"--almost snatching one from the hand of his neighbour, who yielded, too astonished to demur--and blazed at the point from which the last shot had come, just missing. A shout of laughter was the reply, together with a puff of smoke, and a bullet so near as to make Tarrant duck--of course, after it had passed. He again returned this, again missing, but narrowly. "Here, try, one of you chaps; I'm no shot. For Heaven's sake drop the young beast! It's my infernal boy--Mafuta." A roar from his auditors greeted this intelligence, once its tenor was grasped. "Your boy! But you said he was a reliable boy?" cried Jekyll. "So he is, damn him. You may rely upon him doing for one of us yet," answered Tarrant. "He can shoot, can Mafuta. And the infernal young scoundrel's practising at me with my own gun and cartridges." And they all roared louder than ever, the besieging Matabele the while deciding that Makiwa was a madder beast than even they had reckoned him. "Now's your chance, Dibs!" cried Moseley. For Mafuta it was, sure enough; and now he had sprung up, and whirling and zigzagging to dodge his former master's aim, the young rascal, brandishing the stolen rifle over his head in derision, bounded away to better cover, and gained it too. "Drinks all round to `the reliable boy's' health!" shouted some one. "Right. Help yourselves," answered Jekyll. "Free drinks now, and everything else any one wants. This garrison's in a state of siege. Only, don't overdo it, for we'll need plenty of straight shooting before we get out of this." "Good owld Jekyll!" sung out the Cockney prospector, who, to do him justice, was not deficient in pluck. "I always said 'e was one of the raht sort. 'E's a reel owld corf-drop, 'e is--now mistike abart it." There had been a lull in the firing so far, but now the Matabele on the rock ridge began to open on the house from that side. The besieged were between two fires. Chary of throwing away even one shot, they forbore to reply, carefully watching their chance, however. Then it was amusing to see them stealing by twos and threes to the bar, avoiding the line of fire--laughing, as one would dodge to avoid an imaginary bullet. But as the sublime and the ridiculous invariably go hand in hand, so it was in this case. One man, incautiously exposing himself, fell. The heavy, log-like fall told its own tale even before they could spring to his aid. He was stone dead. An awed silence fell upon the witnesses, broken at length by fierce aspirations for vengeance upon the barbarous foe; not so easy of fulfilment, though, for the latter was not in the least eager to take any of the open chances of war. His game was a waiting one, and he knew it. By keeping up a continuous fire upon the exposed points of the defence, he forced the besieged to remain ever on the alert. The sun went down, and now the savages began to shout tauntingly. "Look at it, Amakiwa! You will never see another. Look at it well. Look your last on it. You will not see it rise. There are no whites left in the land." "There are enough left to make jackal meat of you all," shouted back Jekyll in Sindabele. "_Au_! We shall see many more suns rise, and many shadows against them--the shadows of hung Amandabele." But a great jeering laugh was all the answer vouchsafed. With the darkness the firing ceased, but those watching at the windows redoubled their vigilance, every sense on the alert lest the enemy should steal up under its cover and rush the position. Enraged and gloomy at so little opportunity being given them of avenging their comrade's death, those within almost wished they would. One of the wounded men--the police trooper, to wit--was groaning piteously. Both had been made as comfortable as was practicable, but it was painful to listen to the poor fellow's pleadings in the darkness, for, of course, they dared not strike a light. Would they not shoot him at once and put him out of his agony, he begged. "Poor old chap! We'll see you through all right. You'll live to talk over all this again and again," was the pitying reply of a comrade. "I don't want to; I want to be dead. Oh, it's awful--awful!" His kneebone had been shattered by a bullet, and he was enduring terrible agony. To listen to his pitiful writhings and groans was enough to take the heart out of the most daredevil glutton for fighting. "Here, have a drink, old man. It'll buck you up a bit," said another, groping towards him with a whisky bottle. "Yes. Give it here. Where is it?" And the sufferer's groans were silenced in a gasping gurgle. "Worst thing possible for him, I believe," whispered Moseley. "Shouldn't wonder," replied Tarrant also in a whisper. "Doesn't much matter, though, the poor devil! He's a `goner' anyhow. A knock like that means mortification, and there's no doctor here to take his leg off, nor could it be done under the circumstances if there was." "By the Lord, Moseley," he resumed, a moment later, "I wonder if there's anything in what Jekyll said the niggers were saying just now--that there are no whites left in the land. If this is a general outbreak, what of Hollingworth and his crowd?" An exclamation of dismay escaped the other. Their own position was so essentially one of action that they had had little or no time to take thought for any but themselves. Now it came home to them. But for the timely warning brought by the police trooper, they themselves would have been treacherously set upon and massacred; how, then, should those who had not been so warned escape? "Heavens! it won't bear thinking about," he replied. "Formerly, in the Cape wars; the Kafirs didn't kill women; at least, so I've often heard. Perhaps these don't either. Dibs, it's too awful. Let's put it to Jekyll." But the opinion of that worthy, and of two others with experience, was not cheering either. It was impossible to say what these might do. Most of the younger men of the Matabele nation were a mongrel lot, and a ruffianly withal One resolve, however, was arrived at--that if they succeeded in beating off their present assailants, they would hurry over to the aid of the Hollingworths. The night wore on, and still the enemy gave no sign of his presence. Had he cleared out, they speculated? No, that was not likely, either. The odds were too great in his favour. It was far more likely that he was waiting his chance, either that they might strive to break through his cordon and get away in the darkness--and there were some who but for the fact of having wounded men to look after would have favoured this course--or that he would make a determined rush on the position with the first glimmer of dawn. In the small hours of the morning the man with the shattered kneebone sank and died. He knew he was doomed, and declared that he welcomed a speedy release. Had he any message? asked the others, awed, now the time for action was in abeyance, at this pitiful passing away in their midst. If so, they pledged themselves solemnly to attend to his wishes. No, not he, was the answer. Anybody belonging to him would be only too glad to be rid of him, and to such the news of his death would be nothing but good news. He had never done any good for himself or anybody else, or he supposed he wouldn't be where he was. "Don't say that, old chap," said Jekyll. "Every man Jack of us who gets away from here without having his throat cut owes it to you. If that isn't doing any good for anybody else I'd like to know what is." "Hear, hear!" came in emphatic chorus. "Oh well, then perhaps a fellow has done something," was the feeble rejoinder. And so the poor fellow passed away. But they were not to be suffered to give way to the sad impressiveness of the moment, for a quick whisper from those at the back window warned that something was taking place. At the same time those watching the front of the house gave the alarm. Straining their sight in the dimness of the approaching dawn, the besiegers made out a number of dark forms crawling up from all sides. The Matabele were renewing the attack. Those within had already laid their plans. There were two windows in front and one behindhand at each of these two men were on guard. Carefully aiming so as to rake the dark mass, they let go simultaneously, then dived below the level of the sill, and not a fraction of a moment too soon. A roar of red flame poured from the darkness, both front and rear, and several bullets came humming in, burying themselves in the opposite plaster, and filling the interior with dust. The former tactics had been repeated--the storming party advancing under cover of the fire of their supports. And immediately upon the cessation of that fire, a mass of savages rose from the earth, and, quick as lightning, hurled themselves upon the store. Then those within had their hands full. The magazine rifles, playing upon the advancing crowd, wrought fearful havoc at point-blank quarters, and bodies, in the struggles of death or wounds, lay heaped up under the windows. But the assailants paused not, pressing on with greater intrepidity than ever, seeming to laugh at death. Now their hands were on the window-sills, but before they could effect an entrance there was the same crash, the same wild spring, the same fall backward without, and mingling with the din of firearms, the unearthly vibration of the Matabele battle-hum, uttered from the chest through the closed teeth outward, "Jji-jji!" rendered the scene as one of the strivings of fiends. Then the set, awful faces of those within--visible in the glare and smoke of the rifles--battling for their lives against tremendous odds! It could not last. Very few minutes would decide one way or the other. Carbutt, helping defend one of the front windows, found the magazine of his rifle exhausted. Dropping back to fill it, he found his ammunition in like state--exhausted too; and at the same time the man who stepped forward to take his place received a blow with a heavy knobkerrie that sent him down like a bullock. A big Matabele warrior was half in the room; another, quick as thought, drove his assegai clean through the Cockney prospector. The entrance was forced. The besiegers held possession of the interior. Not quite, though. The last man left alive, viz. Carbutt himself, stepped back through the compartment door and slammed it in their faces. But what avail? They would soon batter it in. It was only staving off the evil day. The firing without was now renewed--renewed with a fury not hitherto manifested. Yet none of the missiles seemed to take effect. But a perfect uproar was taking place, wild cries, and rushings to and fro. Then the warriors who had entered the further compartment seemed to be crowding out as fast as ever they could. The dawn now was fairly broken. The space around the house had cleared as if by magic, save for the dead and disabled. Those within the bush were retreating, turning to fire as they did so. But--_not at the store_. Then came a low rumbling sound, which the besieged ones, hearing, looked at each other for a moment, and then broke into a mighty hurrah, for in it they recognised the sound of hoofs, and of many hoofs. Some two score horsemen rode up to the door, their uniforms and trappings those of the Matabeleland Mounted Police. That this did not constitute the whole of the force which had so effectually and in the nick of time come to their relief, a sound of brisk firing from the rock ridge at the back of the store served to show. A squad, having taken possession of the said ridge, was hastening the departure of the retreating Matabele. As the besieged stepped forth they presented a not unimpressive spectacle. Haggard, unshorn; hands blackened and burnt from contact with the quick-firing magazine rifles; the anxious look telling of many hours of strained vigilance; the hard set of determined faces; and the light of battle not yet gone out of their eyes--they were in keeping with the background of bullet-battered wall and the foreground of dark corpses, grim and gory, lying stark and in every variety of contorted shape, at which the Police horses were snorting and shying. "Just in time, Overton!" said Jekyll, hailing the officer in command, who was a friend of his. "Only just in the nick of time. They had already got inside the further room. Five minutes more would have done for us." "You stood them off well," returned the other, dismounting. "I never thought we'd have been any good at all; thought you'd have been knocked on the head long ago." Then gravely, "Any--er--losses?" "Four. One of your men. The one who warned us." "Robinson, wasn't it?"--turning to a trooper, who answered in the affirmative. "Poor chap! Hallo, Carbutt. _You_ in it, eh?" "Glad to be out of it, too. Have a drink, Overton. I think we all deserve one." Now the residue of the relieving force arrived. These were all dismounted men, prospectors mostly, who had either been warned in time or had fallen in with the Police during their flight. Nearly all were known to some one or other of the defenders of the store, and there was a great interchange of greeting, and more than one story of hairbreadth escapes, told by some, who, like these, had been succoured only in the nick of time. "There's going to be the devil to pay," the police captain was saying. "The rebellion's a general one, or precious nearly so; at any rate, in this part of the country. Zazwe's people and Umlugula's have risen, and Bulawayo was being laagered up for all it was worth when we left. We can't get any news from Sikumbutana, but Madula's a very shaky customer, and if he joins in, then I'm afraid Inglefield and Ames will be in a bad way." "Roll up, boys! Roll up!" sang out Jekyll, who had gone outside. "There's free drinks all round this morning. `Skoff,' too. Help get down some of these tins." There was no lack of response to this appeal, and the sun rose upon a busy scene. Glasses and beakers clinked, and men sat or stood around, devouring "bully" beef or canned tongues and other provisions, some of the rougher sort now and then shying the empty tins in scornful hate at the dead bodies of the fallen savages--for, after all, the corpses of four of their countrymen still lay unburied within. "You've done for thirty-one all told, Jekyll," presently remarked Overton, who had set some of his men to count the dead immediately around the place. "Not a bad bag for seven guns. What?" "No; but we've lost four," was the grave reply. Then, having taken in a great deal of much needed refreshment, and effected the burial of their slain comrades--the latter, by the exigencies of the circumstances, somewhat hurriedly performed--the force divided, the Police moving on to warn Hollingworth. With them went Moseley and Tarrant, while the remainder elected to stay at Jekyll's until they saw how things were likely to turn. "I don't know that you're altogether wise, all of you," were the Police captain's parting words. "You've held your own against tremendous odds so far; but when it's a case of the whole country being up against you, I'm afraid you'll have no show." But to this the reply was there were plenty of them now, and they could hold their own against every carmine-tinted nigger in Matabeleland. It was late in the afternoon when the mounted force arrived at Hollingworth's farm. There was a silence about the place, an absence of life that struck upon them at once. "I expect they've cleared," said Moseley. "In fact, they must have, or we'd have heard the kids' voices in some shape or form." "Let's hope so," replied the Police captain. Then a startled gasp escaped him. For exactly what had attracted Nidia's glance on her return attracted his--the broad trail in the dust and the blood-patches, now dry and black. With sinking hearts they dismounted at the door, and Overton knocked. No answer. Somehow several of the faces of those who stood looking at each other had gone white. A moment of silence, then, turning the handle, the Police captain entered. He was followed by Moseley and Tarrant. Almost instinctively they made a movement as though to back out again, then with set faces advanced into the room. Those horrible remains-- battered, mutilated--told their own tale. They were too late--too late by twenty-four hours. Then Tarrant's behaviour astonished the other two. Pushing past them he entered the other rooms, casting quick searching glances into every corner or recess. When he returned there was a look almost of relief upon his face. "Miss Commerell is not here," he said. "Miss who?" asked Overton, quickly. "Miss Commerell. A visitor. Moseley, can she have escaped?" "I hope to Heaven she has," was the reply. "Wait. We haven't examined the huts or the stable." Quickly they went round to the back, and with sinking hearts began their search. In one of the huts the body of poor little Jimmie came to light; then the lock of the store-hut was battered off--the stable-- everywhere. Still, no trace of the missing girl. "She may have escaped into the bush," suggested Tarrant, whose suppressed excitement, even at that moment, did not escape the others. "Quick, Overton! Send some of your men to scour it in every direction." "Not so fast," said the Police captain. "Things can't be done that way. We must go to work systematically." He called up two of his men who were born colonists and versed in the mysteries of spoor. They, however, did not look hopeful. The ground around the homestead was so tramped and withal so dry, it would be difficult to do anything in that line. But they immediately set to work. Meanwhile Overton, with the aid of his sergeant, was drawing up an official report, and making general examination. It was clear that the whole family had been set upon and treacherously massacred. And those who looked upon these pitiful remains--a black lust of vengeance was set up in their hearts which was destined to burn there for many a long day. Woe to the savage who should meet these men in battle, or who, vanquished, should expect mercy. Such mercy they might expect as they had shown; and what that mercy was let the mutilated remains of father, mother, and little children treacherously slaughtered beneath their own roof-tree speak for themselves. "Remember the Hollingworths," would henceforth be a sufficient rallying cry to those who had stood here, when the savage foe should stand before them. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. IN SAVAGE WILDS. In the morning, peace, tranquillity, security; in the evening, violence, bloodshed, death--such is the sort of contrast that life seems to enjoy affording, especially life in a barbarous land--and however it may appeal to those at a distance from its tragedy, to a refined English girl, brought up amid the comforts of an advanced civilisation, unused, alike, to scenes of violence or to the endurance of hardships, the matter is different. Which may be taken to mean that the position in which Nidia Commerell now found herself was simply appalling. She was alone--alone in a strange wild land--surrounded by beings who were devils in human shape; at their mercy, in fact; and, we repeat, what that "mercy" would be likely to mean, let those fearful remains within the ill-fated dwelling testify. Whither could she turn--whither fly? Night was falling fast. Where would she find shelter, let alone food? Not at the price of her life would she enter that awful room again. She dared not. She felt that her reason would go. That sight repeated would turn her into a maniac, and indeed that this had not already happened was due to the saving diversion effected by the finding of poor little Jimmie, and his partial revival. Action. This alone had saved her. She could not remain where she was. The murderers might return. Little Jimmie's last words came back to her--"Down below the river-bank. They won't look for you there." Yes; she would go. But the dead boy? She could not leave him thus, in the open. Two huts which did duty for outhouses stood at the back of the house. One of these was locked. It was the store-room. The other was open. The poor little fellow was not heavy for his age, and Nidia was endowed with an average share of strength. She managed to get the body inside; then, shutting the door upon it, stood pondering as to what she should do next. It was now quite dark, yet thanks to the myriad stars which had rushed forth in the heavens, not so blackly so but that outlines were discernible. Standing thus she thought she heard a sound--the sound of voices. Hope--relief--gave way to terror, as she recognised the clear, yet deep-toned, drawl of native voices. It is probable they were a great way off, for the sound of the human voice, especially the native voice, carries far in the stillness of night; but of this, wholly unnerved by the ghastly discoveries of the last hour, she did not pause to think. In wild panic she fled. By the light of the stars she could see her way dimly. She knew the path leading to the river-bed, and down it she dashed. Something rustled in the bushes at her right. Her brain throbbed like a steam-hammer, and she pressed her hands to her breast to keep down the piercing, panic-stricken scream which rose to her lips. The grasp of murderous hands put forth to seize her, the crash or stab of savage weapon, were what she expected. Her limbs gave way beneath her, and she sank to the earth. Only for a moment, though. The instinct of self-preservation rose strong within her. She must conquer her fears. The effort must be made. Rising, she continued her flight, and soon had gained the bed of the river, and the hiding-place for which she was making. There, like a hunted hare, she crouched, striving to still the beatings of her heart, which to her terrified imagination seemed audible enough to reach any ears within hearing of anything. The place she was in she knew well. It had been a favourite spot for the Hollingworth children to use for their impromptu pic-nics, and more than once she had helped them light their fire and grill the birds they had shot with their catapults--playing at camping out having been one of their favourite amusements. It was a hollow in the river-bank--which here was of stiff clay and perpendicular--and the front being entirely hidden by brushwood, it formed a sort of cave. Here, if anywhere, she would be safe from discovery. That a great and imminent peril has the effect of nullifying lesser or imaginary ones is a wise provision of Nature. Had it been suggested to Nidia Commerell, say that time the evening before, that she should pass the night all alone in a hole on the banks of the Umgwane River, her reply would have been as unhesitating as it was uncompromising. Not for a fortune--not for ten fortunes--would she have embarked on such an experience, and that with the house and its inhabitants within half a mile. Any one of the half-hundred ordinary terrors of the night, actual or shadowy, potential lions, snakes, leopards--even down to ghosts-- would simply turn her into a lunatic before the hours of darkness were half through, she would have declared. Now, the house was there just the same, but turned into a tomb for the awful remains of those with whom last evening at that time she was in happy and social converse, yet she welcomed the darkness of this hole as a very haven of refuge. But as the night wore on the terrors which came upon the unhappy girl grew more and more acute. Visions of the Hollingworth family, not as she remembered it in life, but as she had seen it in the mutilation and agony of savage butchery, rose before her in the darkness, seeming to point to and suggest her own fate, ghastly and revolting as that which had overtaken them. Each stealthy rustle in the brake--every weird cry of night bird or beast, near or for--carried with it a new terror. A tiger-wolf howled along the river-bank, and although she knew that this brute is the most skulking and cowardly of carnivora, yet it might be different where there was only a frightened and defenceless woman to deal with. Lions, too, were not unknown in that part of the country; but their movements were sporadic, and there had been no sign of them anywhere in the neighbourhood for some time. Still, the horrible bloodshed which had taken place might attract all manner of wild animals; and she shivered with renewed terror at every sound. Soft footfalls seemed to be stealing towards her under cover of the foliage, breathings as of some fierce carnivorum stalking its prey; and there she lay utterly helpless. And then, the appalling loneliness of those dark hours! But she was destined to meet with a very real fright before they were over. A clinking of stones struck upon her ear, as though something were coming along the dry river-bed. With despair in her heart she peered forth. Dawn was at hand, and in its gathering light she made out a shape--long, stealthy, sinuous--that of a beast. A leopard was crossing obliquely to the side opposite her hiding-place, where under the further bank lay a small water-hole. Not fifty yards distant, she could make out the markings of its beautiful skin as the great cat crouched there, lapping. At length it rose, and, facing round upon her hiding-place, stood for a moment, the water dripping from its jaws, its yellow eyes blinking. Then it walked back to the other side, uttering a throaty see-saw noise, taking a line which would bring it within twenty yards of where the terrified girl lay. Would it discover her presence? Surely. With fascinated gaze she stared at the beast. She could mark its great fangs as it bared them, emitting its horrid plank-sawing growl, even each smooth and velvety footfall hardly rattling the loose stones as it passed--but--wholly unsuspicious of her proximity. Then as the sun arose, and all the glad bird and insect life of the wilderness broke into voice, Nidia felt for the moment a gleam of hope. Whether it was that the strain of the last twelve hours had hardened her to peril, or that the shock had changed her, she seemed to herself hardly the same personality, and was surprised at the calmness with which she could now map out the situation. For the first time it began to strike her that the murder of the Hollingworths was part of a preconcerted rising. The latter eventuality she had heard now and again discussed during her brief stay in the country, but only to be dismissed with contempt, as something outside the bounds of possibility. The only one who had not so treated it was John Ames; but even he had not reckoned it as an imminent or even probable danger. And with the thought of John Ames came an inspiration. If she could strike across-country, surely at his place, if anywhere, she would find refuge. As a Government official he would be provided with police; in fact, she remembered hearing him say there was a strong police force stationed at his headquarters. She had an idea of the direction in which lay Sikumbutana, and she was a good walker. Yet--twenty miles, Moseley had said it was. This was a long distance. If she had only her bicycle to help her over the half of it! Their nearest neighbour on the other side, she remembered, was Jekyll, who kept a store, for the supplying of prospectors and others with necessaries and general "notions." She had passed it on her way out to the Hollingworths. This was quite eighteen miles off, practically as far as the Sikumbutana. Besides, a store was the first thing to be attacked and looted were the rising a general one. No; the first was the best plan. But, as she began to contemplate its immediate carrying out, her heart sank. The wild vastness of the country filled her with dread. She remembered how impressed she had been with it during their journey out from Bulawayo, how every mile covered, as they drove through the hot steamy atmosphere, seemed to be taking them further and further into remote and mysterious regions; and now here she found herself, alone and thrown upon her own resources to accomplish what a man under like circumstances might well recoil from. Then she called to mind all the stories she had heard or read of what had been done by persons--women especially--situated as she was, more particularly during the Indian Mutiny. They had escaped, and so far so had she. And, she was determined, so _would she_. But to travel a distance of twenty miles necessitates a food supply. The bare idea of returning to the homestead filled Nidia with a shuddering dread, and that quite apart from the possible peril of such a course. It seemed to bring back all the terrors of the previous night. Yet it must be done. The store-hut was outside; she need not enter the house at all. Yet--the knowledge of what lay within! It must be done, however. Already the pangs of hunger were taking hold of her, for she had eaten nothing since the middle of the previous day. Cautiously she stepped forth from her hiding-place, and climbing the steep path down which she had dashed so panic-stricken in the darkness, was soon at the homestead. How peaceful it looked in the morning sunlight--as though the whole pitiful tragedy had been but a dream--a nightmare. Her eyes filled as she thought of it all; but no, she would not think, except as to the methods of accomplishing her own escape. And the first of these was to obtain the food she had come to seek. Check Number 1.--The door of the store-hut was padlocked. She looked round for a stone of convenient shape and size for smashing out the staples that held the lock, and soon found one. Then an idea occurred to her. What if the sound of hammering should reach hostile ears? There was no help for it, however; and soon the pretty, tapering fingers were all sore and rubbed; but the abominable iron remained obdurate. In despair she desisted, and stood panting with the exertion. The key? To obtain it she would have to enter the house: No, that was not to be thought of--not for a moment. Then another idea struck her. The kitchen door was at the back of the house. No gruesome spectacle of slaughter would meet her eyes if she entered that department, and it was just possible she might find something there, enough, at any rate, to sustain life for a day or two. No sooner thought out than acted upon. With beating heart she stood within the room. It was as it had been left--crockery in a semi-washed state; utensils lying about; and--her pulses gave a throb of joy--there on a table stood a pie-dish, containing about half of a cold pie. Beside it, too, were three boiled mealie-cobs. The latter she placed in the empty half of the dish, and, laden with this most opportune spoil, she went outside, and having gently closed the door, took her way down the river-path again. But ere she was half way again the sound of voices was borne to her ears. Standing still for a moment she listened intently. They were native voices, and--they were drawing nearer. Swiftly she fled down the river-path, and having regained her place of refuge, lay within it like a hunted animal, all inclination for food now gone. No further sound arose to disturb her, and presently a drowsiness came upon her, and she fell fast asleep, slumbering peacefully and dreamlessly. Hour after hour went by, and the sun mounted high in the heavens. When at length she did awaken, lo! the day was half gone. But she felt greatly refreshed, and attacked the viands she had so opportunely discovered with good appetite. And now Nidia made her first and great mistake. She should have remained where she was until the following day, starting with the very first glimmer of dawn upon her long and weary pilgrimage. This would have given her the advantage of several cool hours in which to travel. Instead, she decided to start at once. She went over to one of the water-holes, of which there were several, and took a long deep drink. Then she made her way down the dry bed of the river. It was easier walking, for there was no bush or long grass to impede her way, and had the further advantage of screening her from observation. Two or three times, after peeping cautiously forth, she had stolen across a neck of ground so as to shorten the way where the river-bed made a long bend; but the coarse sawlike grass had cut her scantily protected ankles, and her skirt was ripped in several places by numerous thorns, and by the time she had travelled for three hours, she became sadly alive to the certainty that she had effected very little progress indeed. Worse still. She was beginning to feel utterly exhausted. Even a fair amount of bicycle training, and that in an equable climate, was inadequate training for a twenty mile across-country walk through the burning enervating heat of sub-tropical Matabeleland, and, moreover, she was tormented by a raging thirst; for no water had she found since first starting, and now she had walked for three hours. The river-bed here made a bend. Despairingly poor Nidia sent a glance at the sun, to discover that the amount of daylight left to her was diminishing to an alarming degree. Then she climbed up the bank to ascertain whether a short cut might not effect a considerable saving of time. She discovered it would. The country was dangerously open, though, and there were cultivated lands she would have to pass. Summoning up all her strength and courage, she stole rapidly along, keeping within the shelter of a line of thorn-bushes. These came abruptly to an end, and away, about a quarter of a mile off, stood three or four huts. Quickly she drew back. Too late. She had been seen. Two natives were crossing the patch of cultivated land--a big man and a small one--and both were armed with guns. She turned instinctively to flee, but in loud and threatening tones they called on her to stop. At the same time a rush of gaunt curs, from the neighbourhood of the huts, howling and yelping, decided the situation. Poor Nidia, panting with exhaustion and fear, turned again, and, trying to summon all her courage, stood awaiting the approach of the two barbarians, who were advancing towards her with rapid strides. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. MEPHISTO--IN BLACK. The aspect of the two natives into whose power she had fallen was not such as to inspire Nidia with any great degree of reassurance. They formed an evil-looking pair; the tall one, heavy, sullen, scowling; the short one, lithe, lean, very black, with hawk-like features and sunken cruel eyes. One circumstance, however, she did not fail to note, and it inspired her with a momentary gleam of hope. The big man was clad in the uniform of the Native Police, very much soiled and worn, and hardly looking identical with the smart get-up she had noticed in members of the same corps at Bulawayo, yet the uniform for all that. If he was a policeman she was safe. He would be bound to protect her, and guide her to some place of safety. To this end she addressed him. "You are a policeman, are you not?" "Where you go?" was the gruff reply. "To Sikumbutana. You must show me the way, and I will give you something you will like--money." "Sikumbutana? Kwa Jonemi?" repeated the man. "Jonemi?"--wonderingly. "John Ames! Yes; that is the name," she exclaimed, eagerly recognising it. "How much you give me?" "A pound. Twenty shillings." "Give me now"--stretching out his hand. Could she trust him? She would willingly have given twenty--fifty-- pounds to find herself in a place of safety, but the gruff offhand manner, so different to the smooth deferential way in which natives were wont to treat their white conquerors, inspired her with distrust and alarm. But she was in their power absolutely. She took out her purse--a dainty, silver-rimmed, snake-skin affair-- which contained some loose silver and a couple of sovereigns, and opened it. The big native snatched it roughly from her hand. She started back, flushing with anger, less at the robbery than at the ruffianly manner of its perpetration, but her anger was dashed with a chill, sinking feeling of terror. She was so entirely within the power of these two savages. Then she remembered how John Ames had laid down, in the course of one of their numerous conversations, that in dealing with natives it never did to let them think you were afraid of them. "Why did you do that?" she said, looking him straight in the face, her eyes showing more contempt than anger. "You--a policeman? I would have given you all that money if you had asked me, and more, too, when you had taken me where I wanted to go." Her utterance was purposely slow, clear and deliberate. The big native had sufficient knowledge of English to enable him to understand at any rate the gist of her rebuke. But he only scowled, and made no reply. Then the small man began to address her volubly in Sindabele, but to each of his remarks or questions Nidia could only shake her head. She understood not one word of them. Having satisfied himself to that extent, he left off talking to her, and, turning to the other, began a long and earnest discussion, of which it was just as well that Nidia could not understand a word. "See, Nanzicele," the short man was saying. "This woman has walked right into our hands. The whites are all killed. Now, kill her." But the other shook his head with a dissentient grunt. "One blow of that heavy stick in thy belt, and that head will fly to pieces like a pumpkin rolling down a hill. Or why not cut that white throat and see the red blood flow? _Au_! The red blood, flowing over a white skin--a skin as white as milk--and the red of the blood--ah--ah! It will be acceptable to Umlimo, that blood. See, Nanzicele, thou hast a knife that is sharp. The red blood will flow as it did from the throat of the wife of thy captain in the hut but two nights ago." Again the tall barbarian grunted dissent. "I like not this killing of women, Umtwana 'Mlimo," he answered. "This woman has never harmed me. I will not kill her." "What about Nompiza?" said the small demon, with his head on one side. "_Au_! thou didst laugh when she splashed into the water-hole in the moonlight." "She did harm me, in that she scorned and mocked me. Yet, I liked not that deed either, Shiminya." "Yonder dogs, shall we call them and set them on to devour this white witch?" went on the sorcerer. "They are hungry, and she is defenceless. We shall laugh at her face of terror when they attack her on all sides, and then, when they rend her limb from limb--they shall eat white meat for once. _Au_! It will be a sacrifice pleasing to Umlimo." "I never heard of a sacrifice pleasing to Umlimo, or any other Great Great One, that was offered through a dog's maw, Shiminya," cried the other, with a great jeer; for too much association had somewhat sapped Nanzicele's respect for the redoubted magician. The latter, conscious of having made a slip, went on. "Nompiza scorned thee when thou wouldst take her to wife, Nanzicele. Thou art large and strong, but thou hast no cattle, son of Fondosi, therefore thou hast no wives. Here is one who comes straight to thee. She is white, it is true, yet take her." Of all these atrocious suggestions Nidia, standing there, was of course blissfully ignorant. The sun was declining, and she was inwardly growing somewhat impatient. Would they never have finished their _indaba_? Was it, perhaps, her look of absolute unconsciousness, her very helplessness, that appealed to some spark of manliness within the heart of that rough savage, as he replied? "No, no. I want not such. They are _tagati_, these white women. The Amakiwa are the wisest people in the world, yet they treat such women as these as though they were gods. I have seen it--yes, I, myself. Look, too, at this woman. She is not afraid. There is a power behind her, and I will not offer her violence." Then the abominable wizard deemed it time to throw his trump card. "Where is she going? To Sikumbutana," he said, lapsing into a professional oracularism. "To whom is she going? To Jonemi. Nanzicele was a chief in the _Amapolise_, but he is not now. Why not? Ask Jonemi. This woman knows Jonemi--belongs to him, it may be; perhaps his sister--perhaps his wife. Jonemi was in our power, but he escaped from us. This woman is in our power; shall we let her go?" This recapitulation of his wrongs and appeal to his vengeful feelings was not entirely without effect upon Nanzicele. He hated John Ames, whom he regarded, and rightly, as the main instrument of his own degradation. He had only spared him, in the massacre of Inglefield's hut, for a worse fate, intending to convey him to Shiminya's _muti_ kraal, and put him to death in the most atrocious form that the fiendish brain of the wizard could devise. Then they had all become drunk, and John Ames had escaped, and for all the trace he had left behind him might just as well have disappeared into empty air. And now, here, ready to his hand, was a scheme of vengeance upon the man he hated. Turning his head, he looked intently at Nidia. But the aspect of her, standing there calm and fearless--fearless because entirely ignorant of what had happened at Sikumbutana, and still regarding this man, rough as he had shown himself, as her protector by reason of his Police uniform-- appealed to the superstitious nature of the savage. He felt that it was even as he had said. There was a power behind her. "I will not harm her, Shiminya," he growled. "_Au_! I am sick of all this killing of women. It will bring ill chance upon us. They ought to have been shown a broad road out of the country." "To show a broader road to more whites to come into it by? Thy words are not words of sense, Nanzicele. Have it as thou wilt, however," said the crafty wizard, who knew when to humour the savage and stubborn temperament of his confederate. "We will take care of her this night-- ah--ah! in the only safe and secure place"--with a sinister chuckle. "Be it so. I will not have her harmed, Shiminya," declared the other. "It may be we shall yet obtain large reward for delivering her back to her own people in safety." "Will the reward be of lead or of raw-hide?" said the sorcerer, pleasantly. "And who will give it when there are no more whites in the land?" "No more whites in the land? That will be never," returned Nanzicele, with a great laugh. "That is a good tale for the people, Umtwana 'Mlimo. But for thee and for me--_au_! we know. When Makiwa sets his foot in any land, that foot is never taken up. It never has been, and never will be." Yes, decidedly in this case familiarity had bred contempt. The ex-police sergeant had "got behind" the mysterious cult, through his close association with one of its most influential exponents. Shiminya, for his part, was aware of this, and viewed the situation with some concern. Now he only said-- "Talk not so loudly, my son, lest ears grow on yonder bushes as well as thorns. Now we will go home." A look of relief came into Nidia's face as she knew, by the rising of the two, that their conference was at an end. Then Nanzicele said-- "You go with we." "Can we get there to-night?" she asked eagerly. "We try. Where you from?" Then she told him, and about the murder of the Hollingworths; and her voice shook and her eyes filled. To her listener it was all a huge joke. He knew she was tinder the impression that she was talking to a loyal policeman. Then she began asking questions about John Ames. Was he at home? and so forth. But Nanzicele suddenly became afflicted by a strange density, an almost total ignorance of English. For upwards of an hour they journeyed on, leaving the cultivated lands, and striking into wilder country. Once a great snake rose in their path, and went gliding away, hissing in wrath, and bright-plumaged birds darted overhead. Vast thickets of "wacht-een-bietje" thorns lined the river-bank, and these they skirted. Nidia was becoming exhausted. So far excitement and nervous tension had kept her up. Now she felt she could hold out no longer. Just then they halted. In front was the vast thicket. Shiminya, bending down, crawled into what was nothing more nor less than a tunnel piercing the dense thorns and just wide enough to admit the body of a man. There was something sinister in its very aspect. Nidia drew back. "Go after him. Go after that man," ordered Nanzicele, roughly. "No. I don't like it. I can't get through there," she answered. "This can't be the way to Sikumbutana." Nanzicele snatched out the short-handled heavy knob kerrie stuck through his belt. "Go after that man," he roared, flourishing it over her head. The aspect of the great savage was so terrific, the sudden change so startling, that Nidia put her hands over her eyes and shrank back with a faint cry, expecting every moment to feel the hard wood crash down upon her head. Trembling now in every limb, she obeyed without hesitation the command so startlingly emphasised, and crawled as best she could in the wake of Shiminya, Nanzicele bringing up the rear. The tunnel did not last long, and soon they were able to proceed upright, but still between high walls of the same impenetrable thorn. Lateral passages branched out on either side in such labyrinthine tortuosity of confusion that Nidia's first thought was how it would be possible for any one to find his way through here a second time. Soon a low whining sound was heard in front; then the thorns seemed to meet in an arch overhead. Passing beneath this, the trio stood in a circular open space, at the upper end of which were three huts, "What place is this?" exclaimed Nidia, striving not to allow her alarm to show in her voice, for in her heart was a terrible sinking. There was that about this retreat which suggested the den of a wild beast rather than an abode of human beings, even though barbarians. How helpless, how completely at the mercy of these two she felt. "You stay here," replied Nanzicele. "Sikumbutana too far. Go there to-morrow. Plenty Matabele about make trouble. You stay here." There was plausibility about the explanation which went far to satisfy her. The situation was a nervous one for a solitary unprotected woman; but she had been through so much within the last twenty-four hours that her sensibilities were becoming blunted. They offered her some boiled corn, but she was too tired to eat. She asked for water, and they brought her some, greasy, uninviting, in a clay bowl, but her thirst was intense. "You go in there--go to sleep," said Nanzicele, opening one of the huts. "But I would rather sleep outside." "You go in there," he repeated, more threateningly. And Nidia, recollecting the knobstick argument, obeyed. The hut was stuffy and close; suggestive, too, of creeping things both small and great; but, fortunately, she was too completely exhausted to allow room for nervous fears, and sleep overwhelmed her. Sleep! The ghosts of former victims done to death amid every circumstance of horror within that den arose not to appal her. She slept on in blissful ignorance; slept--within the scarce-known retreat of one of the most atrocious monsters of cruelty that ever flourished amid even a barbarous race--slept--within the web of the crafty blood-sucking human spider. Nanzicele departed, and the sorcerer, having secured the entrances to his den with thick thorn branches, sat crouching over a small red fire, his plotting brain ever at work. He was in high good humour, for here was a new victim for him to practise some of his favourite barbarities upon. In this case they must be refined forms of barbarity, such as would torture the mind rather more acutely than the red-hot iron would the body, and a better subject for such he thought he had never seen. So he squatted there, and gleefully chuckled. Beside him crouched the wolf. "Ah, ah, Lupiswana!" he exclaimed, addressing his familiar spirit. "It may be that thou shalt sink thy fangs into white flesh-- dainty delicate flesh, Lupiswana. White blood, too--white red blood-- richer, more rare than that of Nompiza, and such. It is sleeping now. Come, Lupiswana; we will go forth and see." Taking one of the red faggots from the fire, he blew it into flame; then, rising, he went to the door of the hut wherein Nidia was asleep. Softly undoing the fastenings, he entered. The light flickered fitfully on the horrible trophies disposed around. The evil beast at his side was emitting a low, throaty growl; but neither that nor the proximity of this demon availed to awaken the sleeping girl. Calm, peaceful, she slumbered on amid her hideous surroundings. The wizard went forth again, "Ah, ah, Lupiswana! She knows not what is before her. To-morrow I think thou must have one taste of this white flesh--perhaps two." And the four-footed demon growled in response to the biped one. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. OF PERIL AND FEAR. Nidia's sleep had been dreamless and profound, wherefore when she awoke the next morning she felt rested and refreshed. A shudder of repulsion ran: through her as her gaze made out the hideous adornments of her grisly sleeping apartment--the skulls and bones and stuffed snake-skins--but she felt no real fear. Even the human mask, looking sufficiently horrible in the semi-darkness of the hut, failed to inspire her with the wild panic terror which the wizard had confidently reckoned upon. Waking up amid such gruesome surroundings would, he calculated, produce such a shock upon her nerves as to render her frantic with terror, and this was one of the little refinements of cruelty he had promised himself. But she had gone through too much real peril, had looked on horrors too material to be scared by such mere bogeydom as a few skulls and bones. She lay for a little while longer thinking out the position. Though naturally not a little anxious and a trifle uneasy, she was far from realising the desperate nature of her position, and that the very man she trusted in as protector and guide was an arch-rebel who had instigated and participated in more than one treacherous and wholesale murder. She supposed they had brought her here for the reason this man had given--for better security--and that to-day he would guide her safely to Sikumbutana. To this end she rose. A snuffling noise outside the door of the hut attracted her attention, then a low growl. Some kraal cur, was all the thought she gave it. She opened the door and went outside. The sun was well up, and the birds were twittering in the thorn thicket, but of those who had brought her there she saw no sign. The ashes of the fire over which Shiminya had squatted lay white and dead, but of himself and the other there was no sign. But the animal she had heard was lying across the entrance of the kraal. She surveyed it with some curiosity. If this was a dog she had never seen one like it before. It was more like the pictures she had seen of a hyaena. She went back into the hut to put on her straw hat, for the sun was hot. The fact of having the hat with her reminded her of the signal escape she herself had had from the massacre which had overwhelmed the Hollingworths. But that she had felt moved to take a stroll that afternoon she would have shared their fate. Then she upbraided herself. Was it not selfish to feel any sort of satisfaction under such circumstances? Ah, but--life was life, and death was ghastly and terrible--and she was alive. As she came forth again the brute lying across the entrance opened its yellow eyes and snarled. She called to it in a soothing tone, which caused it to snarl louder. The sun waxed hotter and hotter, yet somehow she preferred the shadeless glare to the dour interior of the hut. What had become of the two natives? She felt instinctively that they were not in the other huts, therefore they must be absent. But on what errand? She began to feel more and more uneasy. The sun mounted higher and higher, and still no sign of their return. Were they, after all, treacherous? Yet why had they not murdered her at first? They could so easily have done so. But perhaps they had gone to fetch some more of their countrymen to enjoy the spectacle of seeing her put to death. With such fears did poor Nidia torment herself. Then suddenly she became alive to the fact that a little more of this sort of speculation would utterly unnerve her. So she resolved by an effort of will to put such imaginings far from her, and as an initiative in that direction she would try to find something to eat, for she was growing hungry. Rising, she went to one of the huts. The recumbent beast snarled so threateningly that she half turned. Would it fly at her? She looked around for a stick or a stone. There was nothing of the sort in sight. Still looking over her shoulder she undid the fastenings of the door. The brute lay snarling, but made no move to attack her. The interior of the hut was close and frowsy, but looked as if it were used more as a store-room than for purposes of habitation, for it was piled up with all manner of odds and ends--blankets, rolls of "limbo," looking-glasses, boots, hats, shirts, and articles of native clothing and adornment, all jostled up together--even a camp wash-basin and jug. The latter looked inviting. If only she could find some water. Ah, here was some! A large calabash when shaken gave forth a gurgling sound, and in a moment Nidia was plunging her face into a most refreshing basinful. Further investigation revealed some cold boiled mealies. They were insipid and uninviting fare, and the bowl containing them was not over clean; still, they were something to eat, and poor Nidia was becoming very hungry. So she devoured them before pursuing her investigations further. Ha! what was this? Meat it seemed like, and it was wrapped in a damp rag. Well, a steak done over the coals would not come in badly just then, she thought, reflecting how fortunate it was she had once taken lessons in a cookery school. She even smiled to herself as she pictured her dusky entertainers returning to find her in the middle of the breakfast, which certainly _they_ had been at no pains to provide. She undid the damp cloth. Yes; it was meat, uncooked meat--and then-- She dashed the whole to the ground, and stood, with distended eyeballs, gazing at what lay there, the very personification of staring horror. For there lay upon the ground two human hands--arms, rather--for they were attached to the forearm, which had been disjointed at the elbow. They were clearly those of a native, albeit turned almost white, as though from the action of water. This was what the damp rag had contained, these two sodden maimed limbs of a human being. But with the discovery an idea suddenly struck root in Nidia's mind which seemed to turn her to stone, so appalling was it in its likelihood. Were these people cannibals--secret cannibals, perhaps? The smaller of the two men had, at any rate, a totally different look to any other native she had ever seen. This, then, was why she had been brought here, was being kept here. This, too, accounted for the absence of her custodians. They had gone to fetch others to share in their feast--that feast herself. Utterly beside herself now with the horror of this dreadful thought, she dashed from the hut--one idea in her mind--to get away from this awful place at whatever cost. But there was another who entertained different ideas concerning the disposal of her movements, and that was the wolf. For as she approached the gap in the circular fence which constituted the exit, the brute lay and snarled. She talked soothingly, then scoldingly, as to a dog. All to no purpose. It lifted its hideous head, and snarled louder and more threateningly. But it would not budge an inch, and she could only pass through that gap over its body. Perfectly frantic with desperation, Nidia tore a thorn bough from the fence; and, advanced upon the beast. It crouched, snarling shrilly; then, as she thrust the spiky end sharply against its face, it sprang at her open-mouthed, uttering a fiendish yell. But for the bough she would have had her throat torn out; as it was the sharp spines served as a shield between her and the infuriated brute, which, with ears thrown back and fangs bared, squirmed hither and thither to get round this thorny buckler--its eyes flashing flame, its jaws spitting foam. The struggle could not last for ever. Her strength was fast leaving her, and in her extremity a wild shriek of the most awful terror and despair pealed forth from the lips of the unhappy girl. Then another and another. What was this? Unheard by the combatants because drowned by the savage yells and snarls of the one and the terrified screams of the other, there was a tearing, crashing sound at the upper end of the enclosure. A man dashed through the thorny fence--a white man--hatless and with clothes well-nigh in tatters--pale as death, his right hand grasping a sword-bayonet. Without a moment's hesitation he made straight at the infuriated beast, darting such a stab with his weapon that had it gone home the wizard's "familiar spirit" would have needed a successor. The quick movements of the animal, however, turned the blade aside--result a deep ugly gash along the ribs. But seeing it had no longer to deal with a badly frightened woman, but a strong, determined man, the skulking nature of the beast came uppermost even in the midst of its fury. With a shrill yelp of pain and fear, it fell off, and, turning, fled through the entrance like a streak of lightning. The girl dropped the thorny bough and faced her rescuer, with a burst of half hysterical laughter. One exclamation escaped her-- "John Ames!" Wonder, delight, relief--all entered into the tone. In the extremity of her fear and exhaustion conventionality was lost sight of--formality forgotten. The name by which she had been accustomed to designate him alone with her friend, to think of him alone with herself would out. Not another, word, though, could she utter. She stood there breathless, panting, a mist before her eyes, after the violence of her exertions, the extremity of her fear. "Don't try and talk," he said--"simply rest." She looked at him--still panting violently--shook her head, and smiled. She was physically incapable of speaking after her exertion. But even then a contrast rose vividly before her--this man now, and when she had last seen him. They had bidden him good-bye, she and her relative, in the front door of the hotel at Wynberg, cordially--and conventionally-- mutually expressing the wish to meet again soon up-country. Now, here he stood, having dropped, as it were, from the clouds, to come to her aid in her moment of sore need. And his appearance--haggard, unshaven, hatless, his clothes in tatters; yet it seemed to her sufficient at this moment that he was here at all. For some little while they sat in silence. Then he said-- "If you are sufficiently rested, tell me how it is you are here--in this place." "Oh yes; I can talk now. But--oh, what would I have done with that horrible fiend of an animal but for you? I should have been torn to pieces." "Strange, too, how it got here. I know the sort of beast. It in a kind of mongrel hyaena--Lupiswana, the natives call it. Ah! Now I begin to see." This as if a sudden idea had struck him. But again he repeated his request that she should tell him her experiences. And this she did-- from the murder of the Hollingworths right on. "And so you were coming to me for refuge?" he said, for she had made no secret of that part of it either. "It was well indeed you did not, for I only escaped through the fidelity of my own servant. I will tell you all about it another time. I must take care of you until we fall in with a patrol. We shall have to keep closely in hiding, you know. I am only a fugitive like yourself. The whole country is up in arms, but it is only a question of time and--" A bullet hummed over the speaker's head, very near, simultaneously with the crash of a firearm, discharged from the entrance of the enclosure, where a small lean native stood already inserting another cartridge in the breach of his smoking rifle. But John Ames was upon him with a tiger spring, just in time to strike up the barrel and send the bullet humming into space. "No, no! You don't go like that," he said in Sindabele, gripping the other's wrists. The savage, small and thin, was no match for the tall muscular white man; yet even he was less puny than he appeared and was striving for an opportunity to slide, eel-like, from that grasp, and make good his escape. "_Gahle, gahle_! or I will break your wrists." Then the native gave in, whining that Jonemi was his father, and he shot at him in mistake, seeing him in his kraal. He had retired there in peace, in order to keep out of all the trouble that was being made. "Yes; thou knowest me, and I know thee, Shiminya," was the answer. "In the mean time I will take thy rifle--which belongs to the Government-- and cartridges. That's it. Now, go and sit over there, and if thou movest I will shoot thee dead, for I can shoot better than thou." The discomfited sorcerer, now the odds were against him, did as he was told, turning the while to Nidia and adjuring her to speak for him. His was the kraal that had taken her in. He had housed and fed her. This very day he had intended to take her to Sikumbutana. He had gone forth to see that the way was clear so that he might do so in safety, and, returning, had found Jonemi, whom, mistaking for some plunderer, he had fired at. Nidia, of course, understood not a word of this, but John Ames had let the rascal's tongue run on. He more than suspected Shiminya to be an instigator of the murder of the Inglefields, and was sure that he was aware of it. For the rest, it certainly seemed as he had said. Nidia's own tale was in keeping. They had been somewhat rough in their manner to her, but had given her food and shelter, and had done her no serious harm. As for her ghastly find within the hut, John Ames had speedily quieted her fears on that head. This Shiminya was a wizard of note, and portions of the human anatomy were occasionally used by such in their disgusting and superstitious rites. "We have need of many things which thou hast in thy huts, Shiminya," he said, "for we are going to leave thee, and return to Sikumbutana"--this with design. "I, for instance, have no hat, and my clothes are torn. I need further thy rifle, or rather the rifle of Government, and all the cartridges thou hast. Rise, therefore, and show us where such may be found. But first I will bind thy hands." The countenance of the sorcerer, which had brightened up, fell at this. Nidia, at a word from John Ames, having searched in the huts for the necessary thongs, the binding was effected in the most masterly manner. Then, forcing the prisoner into the hut where Nidia had made her startling discovery, John Ames set to work to ransack the place. Luckily, it was a very store-house of European goods, which Shiminya, being of an avaricious turn, had exacted from his clients and dupes and kept hoarded up here. Most of the articles of wear, though of coarse and shoddy make, were new; and, best of all, there were four packets of Martini-Henry cartridges stowed away in the thatch; for here was one who knew where to look for that kind of contraband goods. "I am now going to kill thee, Shiminya," said John Ames, when he had selected, not all he wanted, but all he would be able to carry. The wizard looked scared, for well he knew how richly he deserved death at the hand of every white man in the land, and this one he believed to be quite capable of carrying out his threat. But the cunning rogue shrewdly played upon his best stop, and kept reiterating all he had done for the _inkosikazi_ when she had appealed to him for protection, frightened and exhausted and alone. "Yet it is necessary that I should slay thee, Shiminya, for although thou hast done this for the _inkosikazi_, I know that thou lovest me not; and if I spare thee, how long will it be before thou art running in front of Madula's people, and crying, `This way hath Jonemi gone'?" And turning to Nidia, he asked her to go outside, saying that he would join her in a moment. Then, being alone with his captive, he took up a heavy knobkerrie. "Now, Shiminya. Thy death is near," he said, raising the club. But the wizard was another instance to the contrary of the cut-and-dried idea that cruelty and cowardice are bound to go hand in hand. No further appeal for mercy did he make. Not a word did he utter. With a last look of hate glowing in his snaky eyes, he put forth his skull, as though to meet the blow. But the other lowered his weapon. "I give thee thy life, Shiminya," he said. "Should the time ever come, remember that thy life lay within my hand and I gave it thee." The wizard murmured assent. Of a truth he felt that the jaws of Death had been opened very wide before him, and then closed. "But I trust thee not, so I will leave thee here bound," went on John Ames. "It will not be long ere thy people find thee out." He tied his prisoner fast by the feet to the pole of the hut, and was just leaving him, when Shiminya exclaimed-- "_'Nkose_, make, I pray thee, the door very fast. Do not only tie it. Thrust also a stout stick through the fastenings." "Why so?" said John Ames in amazement. "Animals might get in. And I am helpless." "Lupiswana, for one?" "_Au_! Jonemi knows everything," replied the sorcerer, with a half smile. "I see. Yes; I will see that the door is fast. _Hlala-gahle_, Shiminya." "Now we must leave," he said, rejoining Nidia, and then setting to work to bar up the wizard in his own den. Then, as they stepped forth, he told her how he had designedly caused the latter to feel himself within the very portal of death, in order that he might the more thoroughly realise how entirely his life had been given him. If there was any good in the man he would appreciate this act of clemency, explained John Ames. She looked at him in admiration. "What an ingenious idea!" she said. "But there must be some good in him or he would have killed me when I was in his power." "There is that in his favour. Yet I wish I could think that he had no worse object in view in not killing you. He is one of the Abantwana 'Mlimo, and I have had my eye on him for some time. The other man wore a police uniform, you say? You were not able to catch his name?" "No. You see, I don't understand a word of the language." "H'm. That's a pity, for your description of him almost tallies with that of the greatest rascal unhung, and whom I hope will not very long remain unhung." "This is not the way I came in by," said Nidia. "Look. I don't remember that water-hole." They had gained the river-bed, and before them lay a still deep pool. But the grisly remains which lay beneath its placid waters rose not up in judgment against the cruel murderer, who sat bound in his own den up above; and little did they who now passed it dream of the shrieking tragedy of which it had more than once been the scene in the dead of night. And the wizard? At that moment even he was beginning to taste of some of the terror which he had delighted in meting out to his helpless victims, for he himself was now helpless, and the evil beast having returned, and being by some mysterious instinct aware of the fact, was tearing and scratching and growling at the fastenings of the hut door in order to get at its more evil master, who, for his part, in spite of the extra precaution, was momentarily growing more and more anxious lest it should succeed. One taste of white flesh he had promised his "familiar"! The probability was that ere the day should close it would have gorged its fill of black. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. HAVEN BETWEEN STORM. "Do you know, this place reminds me a little of our resting ground that day down among the rocks at Camp's Bay," Nidia said, gazing up at the gigantic boulder, which, piled obliquely against two more, formed a natural penthouse on a very large scale. A blackened patch against the rock in the entrance of the cave, showed a fireplace surrounded by stones, and the very scanty baggage of the fugitives was disposed around. John Ames, who was engaged in his normal occupation, viz. mounting guard, turned. "Yes," he said; "it's the same sort of day, and grander scenery, because wilder. Peaceful, too. Yet here we are, you and I, obliged to hide among rocks and holes in peril of our lives." "Strange, isn't it, how adaptable one can become?" went on Nidia. "That day, do you remember, when you were so sceptical as to our ever meeting again, who could have thought how we would meet and what experiences should have been ours between then and now? "Do you know," she went on gravely, after a thoughtful pause, "at times I think I must be frightfully hard-hearted and unfeeling--I mean, to have looked upon what I did--" and she shuddered. "I liked the Hollingworths so much, too. And yet somehow it all seems to have happened so long ago. Why is it that I do not feel it more, think of it more? Tell me your opinion." "One word explains it," he answered. "That is, `Action'." "Action?" "Yes. You have been kept continually on the move ever since. First of all, you had your own safety to secure; consequently you had no time to think of anything but that--of anybody but yourself." "That sounds horribly selfish, somehow, but true." "Well, selfishness in its etymological sense is only another word for self-preservation, or, at any rate, an extension of that principle. Were you to sit down and weep over the loss of your friends until some obliging barbarian should come up and put an end to you? I think the pluck you showed throughout was wonderful, and not less so the soundness of judgment. When you found poor Hollingworth's youngster so badly hurt, didn't you sit there and look after him at momentary risk of your life until he died, poor little chap? Selfish? I call it by another name, and so will other people when we get safely out of this." Nidia smiled, rather sadly, and shook her head. "Leave _you_ alone for trying to flatter me," she said softly. "You have been doing nothing else ever since we have been together. But--you don't really think me unfeeling and hard-hearted, Mr Ames?" He turned quickly, for he had been looking out over the surrounding waste. "That isn't what you called me the first time in Shiminya's kraal," he said. "What? Unfeeling and hard-hearted. No. Why should I?" she rejoined demurely, but brimming with mischief. Then, as he looked hurt, "Don't be angry. I'm only teasing, as usual. Really, though, I ought to apologise for that slip. But the name came out without my knowing it. You see, Susie and I used always to call you by it between ourselves. We saw it in the book at Cogill's the day we arrived, written in a hand that seemed somehow to stand out differently from among all the others. At first, when we were trying to locate the people there, we used to wonder which was `John Ames,' and so we got into the habit of calling you that way by ourselves. And in my mingled scare and surprise the other day, out it came." "We have been through a good deal together during the last four days," he said, "including one of the narrowest shaves for our lives we can ever possibly again experience. Heaven knows how long we are destined to roam the wilds together, but why not keep the conventional until our return to conventionality?" "Very well," she answered. It was even as he had said. This was the afternoon of the fourth day after leaving Shiminya's den, and now they were well in among the Matopo range. Here, if anywhere, amid this vast sea of jumbled boulders and granite cones and wide rocky hollows, they would be comparatively safe, if only they kept a constant and careful look out, John Ames declared. The open country would be swarming with rebels, and it was not improbable that Bulawayo itself was in a state of siege. Here, where almost every stone represented a hiding-place, they could lie _perdu_ for any time; and such was far the safer course, at any rate until able to gain some inkling of what had really transpired, as to which they were so far in complete ignorance. If the Matabele had risen upon Bulawayo with the same secrecy and suddenness wherewith they had surprised outlying stations, why, the capital would be absolutely at their mercy, in which case the only whites left alive in the land would be stray fugitives like themselves. Indeed, to John Ames it seemed too much to hope that any other state of things could be the prevalent one, wherefore for the present these rugged and seldom trodden fastnesses afforded the securest of all refuges. This plan he had put to Nidia, and she had agreed at once. "Do not even go to the trouble of consulting me," she had said. "Always act exactly as you think best. What do I know about things here, and where would I have been now but for you?" "You showed yourself full of resource before I came on the scene, anyway. You might have pulled through just as well." "No; I should never have been able to keep it up. Heavens! where would I have been?"--looking round upon the wilderness and realising its sombre vastness. "But with you I feel almost as safe as I did--well, this day last week." As he had said, they had indeed been a great deal together during the past four days, really a great deal more so than during the three weeks and upwards that they had known each other down-country. Hiding away in sluit and river-bed and thorn thicket, every step of their flight had been attended with peril. Discovery meant death--certain death. Even were any trace of them lighted upon so as to arouse suspicion of their presence in the minds of their ruthless enemies, detection would not long follow. They could be tracked and hunted down with dogs, whatever start they might have gained; and as for hoping to distance their pursuers, why, a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and Nidia, for all the fine healthy training she was most fortunately in, was hardly a match, either in fleetness or staying power, for a pack of hardy muscular barbarians. No; in superlative caution alone lay their only chance of safety. And, throughout all this most trying experience--trying alike in the terrible strain upon the nerves, and the physical strain of forced marches in the enervating heat of a sub-tropical climate, over rough and fatiguing ground--how many times had Nidia noted with confidence and admiration the consummate judgment of her fellow-fugitive; the unflagging vigilance, the readiness of resource, and the tranquil hopefulness which he threw into the situation. Never a moment did he relax observation even in the most trivial matters, and his knowledge of the country, too, was wonderful. The part they had to traverse was the most dangerous part, indeed, through which their line of flight could possibly take them, bearing, as it did, a considerable population. More than once they would have to pass so near a kraal that the barking of dogs almost made them think they were discovered; but the narrow escape to which we heard him allude had occurred at about noon of the second day after leaving Shiminya's. The line of country they were traversing was rough and difficult-- undulating flats covered with long grass, and plentifully studded with trees, but there was no avoiding it, and, indeed, every step, even here, was fraught with the gravest peril, for they were in the neighbourhood of quite a cluster of kraals. Poor Nidia felt as though she must give up in despair and exhaustion. The flags of the coarse grass cut her ankles like saws, and she felt as though she could hardly drag one foot after another, and even the words of cheer whispered by her companion seemed to fall on deaf ears. Suddenly the latter halted, listened a moment, then Nidia felt herself seized, and, with a whisper of caution, dragged down as though into the very earth itself. As a matter of fact this was nearly the case. The place she found herself in was a shallow donga, almost concealed by long grass and brambles, and these her companion was quickly but noiselessly dragging over her and himself. Then had come the sound of footsteps, the hum of voices. She could see out through the grass that was over her, and that without moving a muscle. An _impi_ was approaching, and that in a line which should bring it right over their hiding-place; an _impi_ of considerable size, and which might have numbered some hundreds. The warriors were marching in no particular order, and she could make out every detail of their equipment--the great tufted shields and gleaming assegais; rifles, too, many of them carried, and knobkerries and battle-axes. Some were crested with great ostrich skin war-bonnets covering the head and shoulders, others wore the _isiqoba_, or ball of feathers, fixed to the forelock; a long wing feather of the kite or crane stuck through this, and rising horn-like above the head; and catskin _mutyas_ and anklets of flowing cowhair. At any other time she would have admired the spectacle exceedingly; now, however, in the grim dark faces and rolling eyeballs she could see nothing but the countenances of bloodthirsty and pitiless fiends. Oh, Heaven! would they never pass? The throb of her heart-beats seemed loud enough to attract their attention and cause them to stop. But no sooner had one squad glided by than another appeared; and with the advent of each, to those who lay there, it seemed that the bitterness of death had to be gone through again. Several passed so near to their hiding-place that the effluvium of their heated bodies reached the fugitives, musky and strong, but their attention was fixed upon the conversation of their fellows on the other side, and that peril was over. But not until nearly an hour had passed since the last of the savages had disappeared, and the lingering drawl of their deep-toned voices had died away, would John Ames suffer his companion even so much as to whisper, let alone move. Well, that peril had passed over their beads, and now, in the well-nigh uninhabited fastnesses of the Matopo, they felt comparatively safe. And Nidia, remembering, and observing her fellow-fugitive and protector, would find herself twenty times a day making comparisons between him and all the other men she had ever known in a sense which was sadly unflattering to the latter; and an unconscious softness would come into her voice in conversing with him which was not a little trying to John Ames. For if there was one point upon which the latter had made up his mind, it was that while Nidia was alone with him, and entirely under his care, he must never for a moment allow his feelings to get the better of him. To do so under the circumstances was, rightly or wrongly, to take an advantage of the position, against which his principles rose up in revolt. Yet there were times when his guard would insensibly slacken, and his tone, too, would take on an unconscious softening. They were fugitives, those two, hiding for their lives in the heart of a savage and hostile land, wherein well-nigh every one of their own colour had almost certainly been massacred, yet to one of them, at any rate, the days that followed, that saw them hiding in and wandering through this grim rock wilderness, were days of sheer unadulterated delight. Life in the open entailed upon him no privation--he was used to it; to rough it on coarse and scanty fare he never felt, and as a price to pay for the happiness that was now his, why, it did not come in at all. To awaken in the morning to the consciousness that the whole day should be spent in the society and presence of this girl; that she was as absolutely dependent upon him--upon his care and protection--as she was upon the very air she breathed; that throughout the livelong day he would have in his ears the music of her voice, under his gaze the sunny witchery of that bright face, the blue eyes lighting up in rallying mockery, or growing soft and dewy and serious according to the thoughts discussed between them--all this was to John Ames rapture unutterable. He looked back on his many communings in his solitary comings and goings, and how the thought of her alone had possessed his whole being, how he would sit for hours recalling every incident of their acquaintanceship, even--so vivid was memory--going over all that was said and done on each day of the same, and yet, running through all, the hope of meeting again, somehow, somewhere. And now they had met--not as he had all along pictured, under conventional circumstances and surrounded by others, but as the survivors of savage massacre, who had been wonderfully thrown together, having passed through an ordeal of tragedy and blood. Her very life was in his hands, and by a sure and certain instinct he knew that it was in his hands to save once more, even as he had done more than once already. And that his cup of joy might be full, the way in which his charge accepted the position was perfect. Under the circumstances other women might well have given way. The very precariousness of their situation, recollection of the horrors and perils so lately passed through, apprehensions as to the future, the necessary roughness of their life, the deprivation of a thousand and one of the many conveniences and comforts--great and small--of ordinary civilisation, the society of but one companion day after day--all might have conduced to low spirits and constraint and irritation, but nothing of the kind was manifest in Nidia Commerell. A day of complete rest in their snug hiding-place amid the rocks had completely set her up. The outdoor life and plain rough living, and sense of temporary security, had brought a healthy glow into her face, and the excitement and novelty of the position a brightness and sparkle into her eyes, that rendered her in the sight of her companion more entrancing to look upon than ever. Nor did she show the least tendency to become weary of him, any more than in that time, which now seemed so long back, when they were so much together amid surroundings of civilisation and peace. Her spirits were unflagging, her appreciation of his efforts and care for her comfort never wanting. She, too, seemed to have made up her mind to put the past, with its grievous and terrible recollections, the future, with its apprehensive uncertainty, far from her, and to live in the present. And at night, when the grim mountain solitudes would be awakened by strange eerie sounds--the weird bay of the jackal, the harsh truculent bark of the baboon, the howling of tiger wolves, and other mysterious and uncanny noises, exaggerated by echo, rolling and reverberating among the grim rocks--she would lie and listen, her eyes upon the patch of gushing stars framed in the black portal of their rocky retreat, alive to the ghostly gloom and vastness of the wilderness around; then, rejoicing in the sense of proximity, even the care, of one whose slumber was light unto wakefulness in the reliability of his guard over her, she would fall asleep once more in the restful security afforded by the contrast. CHAPTER NINETEEN. A FOOTPRINT IN THE SAND. Reduced to existence in its most primitive state, it followed that the means of sustaining such existence were perforce primitive, and, foreseeing this, John Ames had managed, during their progress through the inhabited districts, to levy upon the grain fields. But although the supply was not yet exhausted, it had to be supplemented. There was no grain in the mountains, wherefore it became necessary to go out and hunt. This primitive method of obtaining food was, however, handicapped by two important considerations. First, there was very little game indeed, most of that little consisted of birds--wild guinea-fowl, francolin, and a few partridges--and the hunter, though well set up in rifle ammunition, had no shot-gun. Much hard climbing sometimes produced a klip-springer; but this comes under the second of the two considerations, the inexpediency of discharging a firearm lest the report should reach undesirable ears. Fortunately John Ames, having been raised among natives, was an adept at throwing a kerrie, and with this primitive weapon was able to keep the larder supplied. It meant hard work, though. Just as he would be congratulating himself upon having successfully stalked a troop of guinea-fowl, yet wanting a little shorter throwing-range, the abominable birds would raise their grating cackle of alarm, and, running like spiders through the grass, eventually wing their way to a lofty pile of boulders. Then the stalk had to be begun over again, involving unwearied patience and a well-nigh superhuman display of activity; involving, too, a more or less prolonged absence from camp. Nidia, left alone during such absences, was obliged to summon all her courage, all her self-command. For she felt so thoroughly alone. The consciousness that no human being was within reach, that she stood solitary as she looked forth upon the tossing sea of granite crags and feathery foliage and frowning piles of rocks towering to the sky like giants' castles, would get upon her nerves to such an extent that when her companion was absent longer than usual she would become half frantic with uneasiness and fear. What if he should not come back? What if he should meet with an accident, a fall, perhaps, and perish miserably in those grim solitudes, alone, unaided, or, what was much more likely, allow himself to be surprised by the savage enemy? What would become of her? And then she would take herself to task. Was it only of herself she could think at such a time? Had she no thought for him and his safety? Ah! had she not? She could hardly disguise the truth from herself. It was of no use to reason that being thrown together she must perforce make the best of the companionship into which she was thrown. She was face to face with the fact that John Ames was becoming very dear to her indeed. More and more did each enforced absence emphasise this consciousness. It did not lessen her uneasiness; indeed, if any thing, very much the reverse. But it changed the quality thereof. She thought less and less of what a mishap involving him would entail upon her, more and more of what it would mean on his account. And yet this growing consciousness did not give rise to any alteration in their daily relations. Nidia Commerell's character was stamped with a very strong individuality. Prudery was utterly foreign to it, and she could not for the life of her see any necessity for affecting a reserve she did not feel, because she had for the first time in her life discovered a man possessed of every quality to which she could look up-- merely because she and that man happened to be alone together in a wilderness, in hiding for their lives. She smiled a little to herself as she thought of her people in England, and what they would say if they could see her now. Then she thought of their anxiety on hearing of the outbreak in Rhodesia, but they would not have time to be anxious before hearing of her safety. She wondered, too, whether Susie Bateman was becoming alarmed about her, and from that she got to thinking, not for the first time that afternoon, that John Ames was later than usual; and, thus thinking, she rose to look forth. The sun was dipping to the serrated sky-line, bathing the granite-piles in a lurid flush. The light had gone off the wide hollow beneath, leaving its broken-up stormy billows cold and grey, and the hush of evening was in the air. Then a sound fell upon her ear, the sound as of a stone dislodged by a light footfall. Her pulse beat quicker. It was her companion returning at last. But the glad smile, which she had prepared to welcome him faded from her lips, and her face grew pale. Down yonder, on the fringe of the acacia growth, a figure was standing; but it was not his. Had the savage enemy found them out at last? Nidia's heart-strings tightened and her blood froze. A further glance served to reassure her, but only partially. The figure was not that of a native, of a savage. But--was it human? It had vanished--silently, imperceptibly; had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, but in that brief moment she had taken in every detail. The figure was that of a European, clad in brown, weather-beaten garments, tall, and wearing a long white beard. But the face. She had seen it for that moment, turned towards the setting sun, the light full upon it--full in the eyes--and never before had she beheld so awful an expression of fiendish hate stamped upon the human countenance. Was it human? The face was that of a devil! Nidia felt her flesh creep, and her hair rise, as she called to mind its expression, and all sorts of weird ideas, begotten of solitude amid vastness, circled through her brain. Was this frowning wilderness truly a demon-haunted spot, or had she seen the spectre of one of her murdered countrymen, who could not rest in his blood-stained grave? But that it could be a human figure she felt it impossible to believe. Then another idea struck her. Was it indeed human--one who had escaped, like themselves, only to discover, or perhaps to witness the slaughter of those dear to him, whose brain had been turned thereby, and who, in a state of maniacal fury, was wandering at large? This solution, however, was hardly more palatable than the first. Had it seen her? She thought not; for she had remained perfectly still, true to an oft repeated injunction of her companion's, as to the fatal attraction exercised towards oneself by any sudden movement, however slight. The sun had sunk altogether now, and already the very brief twilight was descending upon the surrounding waste. Would he never return? Nidia's heart was well-nigh bursting with mingled terror and anxiety. Then it leapt for joy. A low whistle, a bar or two of a favourite song, a home-coming signal agreed upon between them, was borne to her ears. She could have laughed aloud in her delight. She composed both her face and manner to hide from him her terrors, for she had been careful never to let him suspect the half of what she went through during these protracted absences. Then his figure appeared striding out from the darkness. "I've been in luck to-day, Miss Commerell!" he exclaimed gaily, flinging down a brace of full grown guinea-fowl, "Got them both at one throw, too." Nidia did not for a moment reply. She was looking up at him with a very soft and entrancing flush upon her face, and a light in her wide-opened eyes which he never quite remembered ever having seen there before. Then she said slowly, and with the air of one repeating a lesson-- "We have been through a good deal together during the last four days, including one of the narrowest shaves for our lives we can ever possibly again experience, and Heaven knows how long we are destined to roam the wilds together; but why not keep the conventional until our return to conventionality? Have I got a good memory, John?" "Excellent," he answered. "I must try to imitate it." His tone was even; but Nidia was not deceived. She was as well aware as he of the thrill that went through his heart on hearing his own words so exactly repeated, and all that they involved, and being so, she admired his self-restraint, and appreciated it in proportion to its rarity. If he had begun "to hang out the signals" at one time, he was careful to avoid doing so now. Yet--she knew. "I'm afraid I'm late," he went on. "I hope you did not begin to get frightened. The fact is, I had a very long hard scramble after those wretched birds." "Yes. Oblige me by putting down that bundle of sticks, and going and sitting over there. _I_ am going to build this fire, not you. Don't you hear? Do as you're told," she went on, with a little stamp of her foot, as he made no movement towards obeying. "You do the outdoor work, I the in. That's fair division of labour." "I won't hear of any `division of labour,' falling to you," he objected. "Now, how often have we fought over this already? The only thing we ever do fight about, isn't it? Go and sit over there, you poor tired thing, and--and talk to me." The while she took the sticks from his hands, looking up into his face, with a merry, defiant expression of command mingled with softness upon hers, that again John Ames came near losing his head. However, he obeyed. It was sheer delight to him to sit there watching her, as she broke up the sticks and deftly kindled a blaze in the fireplace, securely sheltered by rocks from outside gaze, chatting away the while. The fire was wanted rather for light and cheerfulness than for cooking purposes, for it was late, and there was sufficient remaining from the last cooking to make a supper of. While they were discussing this he told her about his afternoon's doings, and the long and hard scramble he had been obliged to undertake over two high granite kopjes before obtaining his birds. There was smoke visible, far away to the south-west, but what it meant was impossible to say. Then she, for her part, told him what she had seen. He looked surprised, even startled, and the next moment strove to conceal it. "Are you dead sure your imagination wasn't playing tricks with you, Nidia? When one is alone in a place like this for hours at a time one's imagination will turn anything into shape. I have more than once blazed at a stump in the dusk, when my mind has been running upon bucks." "But my mind wasn't running upon bucks, nor yet upon tall old men with long white beards," returned Nidia, sweetly. "But the face! oh, it was too awful in its expression. I don't believe the thing was of this earth." "I expect it's some one in the same boat as ourselves." And John Ames lighted his pipe--for he had obtained a stock of tobacco from Shiminya's store-hut as well as matches--and sat silent. The prospect of falling in with another fugitive was anything but welcome. It would not even add to their safety, rather the reverse, for it was sure to mean two skippers in one ship. Such a fugitive too, as Nidia had described this one to look like, would prove anything but an acquisition. But--was that all? No, not quite. He was forced to own to himself that he had no desire to hurry the end of this idyllic and primitive state of existence, certainly not at any price less than Nidia's entire safety. He would have welcomed a strong patrol, though with mingled feelings. He certainly would not welcome at all the appearance of a fellow refugee, which would end the idyll, without the compensating element of rescue. "He had no gun, you say?" he went on. "No. At least, I don't think so, or I should have seen it. What can it have been?" "As I say, some one in the same boat as ourselves. He'll be walking up to our camp directly. And--I would rather he didn't." "Would you?" "Wouldn't you?" Nidia laughed. "I believe I would. But what if it is some poor wretch who is lost? Oughtn't we to try to help him?" "At our own risk? Your description of this individual does not make one precisely yearn for his society, Nidia. Indeed, I gather from it that we should not be at all likely to get on, and I never heard that two skippers in one ship tended to enhance the safety of that craft. On the whole, I think we will leave the interesting stranger to his own devices. If, as you surmise, he really is off his chump, why, for that very reason the Matabele won't hurt him, and for the same reason he will be the reverse of an acquisition to us." Then they talked on about other things--the times of their first meeting, and the Hollingworths, and Bulawayo, and presently Nidia grew sleepy. But, as she lay down, her last thought was a drowsy, half amused recollection that the apparition of the mysterious stranger seemed to have much the same effect upon her companion as the footprint in the sand had upon Robinson Crusoe. He, for his part, sat thinking hard, and gradually growing drowsy. Suddenly an idea struck him, an idea that started him wide awake with a smothered whistle, expressive of mingled surprise and dismay. Rising, he took off the blanket which had been wrapped round him, and going over to the sleeping girl spread it softly over her, for there was a chill edge in the atmosphere. Then, taking his rifle and cartridges, he went to the entrance of the cave, and with his back against the rock, prepared to spend a wakeful and a watchful night. Now, a seated posture, with one's back against a hard and uneven surface of rock, in the open air, and that air with a particularly keen edge upon it, is not conducive to sleep unless the sitter is there with the object of being on the watch; which paradoxical deduction may for present purposes be sufficient to account for the fact that, as the night hours followed each other one by one, John Ames began to grow very drowsy indeed. Still, by reason of his enforced attitude, he could not yield; at least, so he would have said but for the fact that in that dead dark hour which just precedes dawn he was awakened--yes, awakened-- by the weird instinct which warns of a presence, although neither by sight nor sound is that presence suggested. Something brushed past him as he sat there, and with it his ear caught a sound as of a stealthy human footfall. He started to his feet. Yes, his gaze was true. It was a figure--a tall figure disappearing in the darkness. "Stand, or I fire!" he called. But there came no reply. He stood thus for a moment. There was nothing to be gained by discharging his piece at a venture in darkness like this. It might be heard anywhere, and furthermore would startle Nidia out of her wits. No, he would not fire. "Who is it?" he called again, clear but low, so as not to be heard by the sleeper within. For answer there came a far away, mocking laugh, harsh and long-drawn. Then silence. With every drop of blood tingling in his veins, John Ames sprang within the cave again, for an awful idea had seized him. This thing must have been, right inside their hiding-place. His hand shook so that he could hardly get out a match and strike it. He bent down over the sleeping girl. She still slumbered--breathing softly, peacefully, but with brow slightly ruffled as though by dreams. He gazed upon her unconscious face until the match burned out, then turned away, filled with unutterable relief. No harm had happened to her, at any rate. Then the first grey of dawn lightened upon the mountains. CHAPTER TWENTY. ALONE. "I think we'll move on a little further to-day, if you feel equal to it, Nidia." She looked up in surprise. "Certainly, if you think it advisable," she answered. "Well, to tell the truth, I do. It's not a good plan to remain too long in the same place. My notion is to work our way gradually to the northern edge of the range, where we can reconnoitre the open country between it and Bulawayo. It'll be that way we shall be most likely to strike a patrol." John Ames was occupied in plucking the guinea-fowls he had brought in yesterday. Nidia had just lighted the fire and was engaged in making it burn. The sun had just risen upon a glorious day of cloudlessness, of coolness too, judging from the keen edge which still ran through the atmosphere. "John," she said, looking up suddenly, "is it because of what I told you yesterday?" "The proposed move? N-no. Yet, perhaps a little of that too. You would never feel easy if left alone here again. But I have other reasons--that smoke, for instance, I saw yesterday. It may mean natives. There may have been fighting down Sikumbutana way or on the Umgwane, and they may be taking to the mountains. We had better get further on." "Do you know, I am glad you have come to that conclusion. What I told you yesterday has rather got upon my nerves, and, now we are going to move, I'll tell you something more. I dreamt of it--dreamt that awful face was bending over me looking into mine. You know--one of those dreams that is horribly real, one that remains with you after you wake, and, in fact, that you remember as though it had actually happened. Are those birds ready?" "Yes. Never mind. I'll fix them," he replied; and in a moment, fixed on a deft arrangement of sticks, they were hissing and sputtering over the fire. His mind was full of Nidia's dream. But was it a dream? That shape, brushing past him in the darkness--the hollow, demoniacal laugh? Had the being, whatever it was, actually entered the cave, passing him seated there on guard? Was it a dream, indeed, or was it the actual face which she had seen? The latter seemed far more like it. Then he remembered that even if such were the case, it was too dark for features to be distinguishable. He was fairly puzzled. And by way of finding some solution to the mystery he went down to the spot which Nidia pointed out to him as the scene of the first apparition, and examined the ground long and carefully. There was not a trace of a human footmark--not a stone displaced. He felt more puzzled than ever. But not to Nidia was he going to impart his misgivings. With a change of camping-place she would forget this rather unpleasant mystery, if only it did not take to following them, that is--and indeed they would be fortunate if they met with no more material cause for alarm. "On the whole it's rather lucky we struck old Shiminya's place," he remarked, as they were seated at their primitive breakfast. "Blankets, matches, everything we have--and that's not much--we owe to him, even the rifle and cartridges. When I cleared from Sikumbutana, with nothing on earth but a pipe, a sword-bayonet, and a bunch of keys, I felt pretty helpless, I can tell you. What must you have felt, when you first found yourself adrift?" "It was awful. That night--shall I ever forget it? And how strange we should have met like that. The very next day I was going to send over to let you know I was at the Hollingworths'. I only heard from Mr Moseley that you were so near. Would you have come to see me?" "Have you forgotten that last long day of ours, down by the sea, that you can ask such a question?" he said gravely, his full, straight glance meeting hers. Nidia was conscious of ever so slight a flush stealing over her face. "How ingenious you are," intently examining one of the wooden forks which he had roughly carved for her as they went along. "You must let me keep these as a memento of this wandering of ours." "How many are there?" he answered. "Three--may not I keep one of them? I want a memento, too." "Am I getting irremediably freckled and tanned?" she said. "And tattered? Yet one would be in absolute rags, but for that thorn-and-fibre needle and thread of yours." "I never saw you look better in my life. There are no freckles, and the brown will soon wear off, if you want it to. Though really it's becoming--makes the eyes larger. So make your mind easy on that score. As for tatters"--looking at his own attire--"I'm afraid we are rather a ragged pair. By the way, I wonder what your people in England would say if they could see you now." "I know what they'd say to you for the care you've taken of me," she answered seriously, "what they will say, I hope, one of these days." He turned away suddenly, and bending down, began busying himself over the rolling up of their scanty kit. "Oh, as to that," he rejoined, speaking in a tone of studied carelessness, "where should I have been all this time without you? Nice cheerful work it would have been romping about the mountains alone, wouldn't it?" "You would have been in safety long ago without myself as a drag upon you." "Possibly; possibly not. But, speaking selfishly, I prefer things as they are. But it's rough on you, that's what I'm thinking about. By the way, old Shiminya isn't quite such a rip as I thought. I was more than half afraid he'd have given us away when they cut him loose. But he doesn't seem to have done so, or we'd have heard about it before now." This apparently careless change of subject did not impose upon Nidia. She saw through and appreciated it--and a thrill of pride and admiration went through her. Whimsically enough, her own words, spoken to her friend on the day of that first meeting, came into her mind. "I think we'll get to know him, he looks nice." And now--he had impressed her as no man had ever before done. Full of resource, strong, tactful, and eminently companionable as he had shown himself, she was intensely proud of the chivalrous adoration with which she knew he regarded her, and all manifestation of which he was ever striving to repress. What would she do when they returned to safety, and their ways would lie apart? For somehow in Nidia's mind the certainty that they would return to safety had firmly taken root. "Perhaps they haven't cut him loose yet," she suggested. Her companion gave a whistle, and looked scared. Only for a moment, though. "Bad for him in that case. It would have been better for him and safer for us--to have given him a tap on the head. I couldn't prove anything against him, though I've had my eye on him for some time--besides, he seems to have taken some care of you. But he's sure to have been found. He's one of these Abantwana 'Mlimo, and too much in request just now." "Is there anything in that Umlimo superstition, do you think, John?" "There is, to this extent. From what I can get out of the natives it is of Makalaka origin, and manifests itself in a voice speaking from a cave. Now I believe that to be effected by ventriloquy. There is a close `ring' of hierarchs of the Abstraction, probably most of them ventriloquists, and they retain their power by the very simple but seldom practised expedient of keeping their eyes and ears open and their mouths shut. That is about the secret of all necromancy, I suspect, from its very beginning." "Then you don't believe in a particular prophet who talks out of a cave?" "No; if only for the reason that the cave the Umlimo is supposed to speak from is one that no man could get into or out of--at least, so the Matabele say. No; the thing is a mere abstraction; an idea cleverly fostered by Messrs. Shiminya and Co. They shout up questions to the cave, and ventriloquise the answers back." What was it? Did the speaker actually hear at that moment a shadowy echo of the mocking laugh which had been hurled at him from the darkness, or did he imagine it? The latter, of course. But here, in the very home of the superstition they had been discussing, could there, after all, be more in it--more than met the eye? He could not but feel vaguely uneasy. He glanced at his companion. She had altered neither attitude nor expression. He felt relieved. Over less forbidding looking ground their way now lay. The grey chaotic billowings and craters of granite blocks gave way to table-land covered with long grass and abundant foliage. Here they advanced ever with caution, conversing but little, and then only in whispers. Indeed, after the rest and comparative safety of their late refuge, it was like entering into all the anxiety and apprehensions of peril renewed. Not very fast, however, could they travel, for Nidia, though a good walker, felt the heat, and John Ames, although, as he declared, he had "humped" a heavier "swag" than that comprised by their load, yet it demoralised him too. A fireless camp amid the rocks, then on again in the cool of the morning. And as their way lay over high ground, the sun rose upon such a sea of vast and unrivalled wildness--castellated peaks and needle-like granite shafts, here a huge grey rock-dome, smooth, and banded round by a beautiful formation of delicate pink; there, and all around, cone-like kopjes of tumbled angular boulders, as though the fire whirlpool beneath earth's surface had swept round and round, throwing on high its rocky billows, leaving in the centre this great dome, smooth and unriven. Doves cooed among the greenness of the acacias, whose feathery sprays gleamed bright against the background of grim rock in sombre masses. "Yes, it is about as wild a bit of scene as you could find anywhere," said John Ames, in reply to his companion's cry of amazement and delight. "You will have something to talk about after this; for you can safely say you have been where very very few whites have ever set foot. Even now there are parts of the Matopos which have never been explored. The old-time hunters avoided them because there was no game--as we, by the way, know to our cost; the traders because there were no natives--as we know to our advantage; and the prospectors because granite and gold don't go together." The foliage grew more abundant as they advanced; the "marula" and wild fig, and omnipresent acacia. Winding around the spurs of the great hills every turn of their way would reveal some fresh view of exquisite wildness and beauty. "Look over there, Nidia. That might be the cave of the Umlimo himself," said John Ames, pointing to a great granite cone which rose up from the valley bottom some little distance off. It was apparently about two hundred feet in height, and in the centre of its face yawned a great square hole, black and darksome. "I wonder is it?" she said, gazing with interest at what was in fact a sufficiently remarkable object, "If it isn't, it ought to be." "Look," he went on. "Imagine it a bright moonlight night, and that valley bottom crowded with about half the Matabele fighting-men, all ranged in crescent formation, looking up at the cave there. Then imagine the oracle booming forth its answers from the blackness of yonder hole. Wouldn't that make a scene--eh?" "Yes, indeed it would. But--how could anybody get up there? It looks quite inaccessible." "So it probably is. But there would be no necessity for anybody to get up there. Messrs. Shiminya and Co. would take care of that part of the entertainment, as I was telling you the other day. Well, we won't camp near it on the off chance that it may be the real place." The spot they did select for a camp-ground was some little way further on, and a wild and secluded one it was, right in among rocks and trees, and well up on the hillside. This elevated position was of further advantage in that a reedy swamp wound through the valley bottom; two water-holes of oval formation, gleaming like a pair of great eyes from its midst. "I'm afraid `skoff' is running low, Nidia," remarked John Ames, surveying gravely a pair of turtle-doves and a _swempi_, the latter a small variety of partridge, which he had knocked over with stones during their journeying. "A brace of record pedestrians can't afford to let themselves run down in condition. The English of which is that I must go out and kill something--or try to." "Mayn't I go with you?" she asked, rather wistfully. He looked doubtful. "I wish you could," he answered slowly. "But--you have walked enough the last couple of days; and apart from the discomfort to you, it is essential you should not overtire yourself. In fact, it might become a matter of life or death. No. Be good now, and remain perfectly quiet here, and rest. I'll be back before dark. Good-bye." What impulse moved her to put out both her bands to him? He took them. "Good-bye," he said again. One second more of their eyes thus meeting and his resolution would be shattered. With a farewell pressure he dropped her hands and was gone. It was early in the afternoon, and warm withal. Left alone Nidia grew drowsy and fell into a doze. When she awoke the sun was just going off the valley beneath, and she was still alone. She sat up congratulating herself upon having got through those lonely hours in sleep. He would be back now at any moment. Rising, she went over to the runnel of water which trickled down the rocks just behind their resting-place, and bathed her face in one of its clear basins. Then she returned. Still no John Ames. The sun was off the valley now--off the world. In the brief twilight the stars began to rush forth. A terrible loneliness came over her. Oh, why was he so late? The two water-holes in the valley glared up at her with a lack-lustre stare, as of a pair of gigantic eyes, watching her loneliness. Still he came not. Was he uncertain of the place? They had but just arrived there, and he might well be. Fool that she was not to have thought of it, and now her hands trembled with eagerness as she collected some dry grass and sticks together, and caring nothing what other eyes might see it if only his would, kindled them into a bright blaze. How her hearing was strained to its uttermost tension! Every rustle of a leaf, every snapping of a twig, sent a thrill of anticipatory joy through her being, only to give way to sickening disappointment. An hour went by, then two. Faint and exhausted, she had not even the energy to prepare food. The one consciousness of her appalling loneliness here in this scarcely trodden waste seemed to sap and paralyse all her facilities. The weird voices of the night held a different meaning now that she was lying out alone on the hillside. Below, in the swamp, the trailing gleam of will-o'-the-wisps played fitfully, and the croaking of frogs was never stilled. Had anything befallen him? It must be so. Nothing short of that could have kept him from returning to her. And she? She could do nothing to aid him. She was so absolutely helpless. "Oh, darling! why did I ever allow you to leave me, my own, my true chivalrous love?" she murmured to herself amid a rain of tears, confiding to herself the secret of her heart in the agony of her distress and terror. And still the dark hours wore on, one upon another, and he--the companion, protector--lover--did not return. The night she had spent hiding in the river-bank after the slaughter of the Hollingworths could hardly be surpassed for horror and apprehension, Nidia had thought at the time. Now she recognised that it had been as nothing to this one. Then she had hardly known the secret of her heart--now she had discovered it. But--too late. Yet, was it too late? Harm might not have befallen him, after all. He might have missed his way in the darkness. In the very earliest dawn he would return, and then the joy of it! This hope acted like a sedative to poor Nidia's overwrought brain. The night air was soft and balmy. At last she slept. It was grey dawn when she awoke, but her awakening was startling, for it was brought about by a loud harsh shout--almost in her ear. Nidia sprang to her feet, trembling with terror. Several great dark shapes fled to the rocks just overhanging her resting-place, and, gaining them, faced round again, uttering their harsh, angry shout. Baboons? Could they be? Nidia had seen here and there a dejected looking baboon or two chained to a post; but such had nothing in common with these great fierce brutes up there, barely twenty yards distant, which skipped hither and thither, champing their great tusks and barking savagely. One old male of enormous size, outlined against the sky, on the apex of a cone, looked as large as a lion. Others came swarming down the rocks; evil-looking horrors, repulsive as so many gigantic spiders. Wild-eyed with fear, Nidia snatched up a blanket, and ran towards them, waving it, and shouting. They retreated helter-skelter, but only to skip forward again, mowing and gibbering. Three of the foremost, indeed, great males, would hardly move at all. They squatted almost within springing distance, gnashing their tusks, hideously threatening. Then, as by magic, the whole gnome-like troop wildly fled; but the cause of this change of front was hard and material. "Whizz--Bang--Whack!" came a succession of stones, forcibly hurled, splintering off a rock like a bullet, thudding hard upon simian ribs. Yelling and jabbering, the whole crew skipped and shoggled up the rocks, and Nidia, with a very wan and scared smile upon her pallid face, turned to welcome her companion and protector--turned, to behold--not John Ames at all, but a burly savage--a tall Matabele warrior, barbarously picturesque in the weird panoply of his martial adornments. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. TRAPPED. His mind aglow with the recollection of that farewell, his one thought how soon he should be able to return, John Ames strode forth upon his quest, and as he did so it is probable that the whole world could not have produced another human being filled with such a rapturous exaltation as this refugee from a fiendish massacre, hiding for his life in the grim fastnesses of the Matopo Hills. That last look he had discerned in Nidia's eyes, that last pressure of her hands, could mean but one thing, and that the one thing to obtain which he would have laid down his life again and again. She was beginning to care for him. Other little spontaneous acts of cordiality during their enforced exile, had more than once stirred within him this wild hope, yet he had not encouraged himself to entertain it. Such he had of course deemed to be the outcome of their position. Now, however, the scales seemed to fall from his eyes, and he could read into them a very different meaning. These last few days! Why, they seemed a lifetime. And when they should be over--what then? Was not his resolution a quixotic one; now, indeed, an impossible one? He almost made up his mind to abandon it, and on his return to ascertain once and for all how matters stood. As against that, what if he were mistaken, or partially so? There was such a thing as being too precipitate. Would it not be better to wait until he had brought Nidia safely and triumphantly through the multifold perils which still overhung their way? How casual had been their meeting in the first instance, how marvellous and providential in the second. If anything seemed to point a significant augury, this did. But what of the more practical side? What would Nidia's own people have to say in the matter? From things let drop he had gleaned incidentally that they were people of very considerable wealth, whereas he himself had little beyond the by no means princely salary wherewith the Chartered Company saw fit to remunerate his valuable services. Well, he would not think of that just then. Time enough to do so when they were safely back in prosaic civilisation once more. Let him revel in his happiness while it was his. And it was happiness. Here he was--enjoying advantages such as rarely fall to the lot of the ardent lover. The daily intercourse, for all present purposes, each representing all the world to the other, beyond the reach of officious or intrusive outsider; she dependent upon him for everything--protection, companionship, even the very means of subsistence--what a labour of love was all this. A slight rattle, as of stones, above his head, brought his mind back to the object of his quest; and lo! there stood the aforesaid means of subsistence personified, in the shape of a klip-springer, which from its boulder pedestal was regarding him with round-eyed amazement and distrust. Dare he use his rifle? There was no other way of securing the little buck. It was out of throwing-range, and in any case would be nimble enough to dodge a kerrie. He thought he would risk it. Game was alarmingly scarce. But the question was decided for him. The animal suddenly sprang from the boulder, and in a couple of bounds had disappeared among the rocks. What--who--had scared it? The answer came--and a startling one it was. A score of Matabele warriors rose from among the long grass, and, uttering their fierce vibrating war-shout, flung themselves upon him. So intent had he been upon his thoughts, and on watching the klip-springer, that, crawling like snakes in the grass, they had been able to surround him unperceived. So sudden was the onslaught, that not a moment was given him for defence. His rifle was knocked from his grasp by a blow with a kerrie which he thought had shattered his wrist. Assegais flashed in front of his eyes, battle-axes were flourished in his face, his ears were deafened with the hubbub of voices. Then arose a great shout. "_Au_! U'Jonemi!" They had recognised him. Did that account for the fact that he was still alive? He had expected instant death, and even in that brief flash of time had crossed his mind a vision of Nidia left alone, of her agony of fear, of her utter helplessness. Oh, fool that he was, to have been lulled into this false security! As though satisfied with having disarmed him, they had so far refrained from offering him further violence. No, he dared not hope. Others came swarming up, crowding around to look at him, many of them recognising him with jeers. "_Au_! Jonemi! Thou art a long way from home!" they would cry. "Where are thy people--the other Amakiwa--and thy horses?" "No people have I, nor horses, _amadoda_. I am alone. Have I not always wished well and acted well towards you? Return me, therefore, my rifle, and let me go my way in peace." It was putting a bold face on things; but, in his miserable extremity, as he thought of Nidia it seemed to John Ames that he was capable of any expedient, however insane. The proposal was greeted with shouts of derisive laughter by some. Others scowled. "Wished well and acted well towards us?" echoed one of these. "_Au_! And our cattle--whose hand was it that destroyed them daily?" This was applying the match with a vengeance. "Yea--whose?" they shouted. "That of Jonemi." Their mood was rapidly growing more ugly, their demeanour threatening. Those who had been inclined to good humour before, now looked black. Several, darting out from the rest, began to go through the performance of "gwaza," throwing themselves into every conceivable contortion of attack or defence, then, rushing at their prisoner, would make a lightning-like stab at him, just arresting the assegai blade within a foot of his body, or the same sort of performance would be gone through with a battle-axe. It was horribly trying to the nerves, dangerous, too, and John Ames was very sick of it. "Keep the gun, then, if you will," he said. "But now I must go on my way again. _Hlalani-gahle 'madoda_." And he made as if he would depart. But they barred his way. "Now, nay, Jonemi. Now, nay," they cried, "Madula, our father, would fain see _his_ father again, and he is at hand. Come now with us, Jonemi, for it will be good for him to look upon thy face again." The words were spoken jeeringly, and he knew it. But he pretended not to. Boldness alone would serve his course. Yet his heart was like water within him at the thought of Nidia, how she would be waiting his coming, hour after hour--but no--he must not think of it, if he wanted to keep his mind. Madula, too, owed him a bitter grudge as the actual instrument for carrying out the cattle destroying edict, and was sure to order him to be put to death. Such an opportunity of revenge was not likely to be foregone by a savage, who, moreover, was already responsible for more than one wholesale and treacherous murder. "Yes," he answered, "Madula was my friend. I would fain see him again-- also Samvu." "_Hau_! Samvu? There is no Samvu," said one, with a constrained air. "The whites have shot him." "In battle?" said John Ames, quickly. "Not so. They found him and another man sitting still at home. They declared that he had helped kill `Ingerfiel,' and they shot them both." "I am sorry," John Ames said. "Samvu was also my friend. I will never believe he did this." A hum, which might have been expressive of anything, rose from the listeners. But this news had filled John Ames with the gravest forebodings. If the chief's brother had been slain in battle, it would have been bad enough; but the fact that he had been shot down in cold blood out of sheer revenge by a band of whites, with or without the figment of a trial, would probably exasperate Madula and his clan to a most perilous extent, and seemed to aggravate the situation as regarded himself, well-nigh to the point of hopelessness. They had been travelling all this while, and John Ames noticed they were taking very much the direction by which he had come. If only it would grow dark he might manage to give them the slip. But it was some way before sundown yet. Turning into a lateral valley, numerous smokes were rising up above the rocks and trees. Fires? Yes, and men came crowding around the newcomers. Why, the place was swarming with rebels; and again bitterly did John Ames curse his fancied and foolish security. He glanced at the eager, chattering faces which crowded up to stare at him, and recognised several. Might not there be among these some who would befriend him, even as Pukele had done before? He looked for Pukele, but looked in vain. He strode up to Madula's camp to all outward appearance as unconcernedly as when he used to visit the chief's kraal before the outbreak. His line was to seem to ignore the fact of there being an outbreak, or at any rate that these here present had anything to do with it. He found Madula seated against a rock smoking a pipe, and tricked out in war-gear. With him sat Zazwe, and another induna named Mayisela. And then, as if his position were not already critical enough, a new idea came to John Ames. These men had been seen by him under arms, in overt rebellion. Was it likely they would suffer him to depart, in order hereafter to bear testimony against them? Indeed, their method of returning his greeting augured the worst Madula was gruff even to rudeness, Mayisela sneeringly polite, while Zazwe condescended not to reply at all. Of this behaviour, however, he took no notice, and sitting down opposite them, began to talk. Why were they all under arms in this way? He was glad to have found Madula. He had wanted to find Madula to induce him to return to his former location. The police officer and his wife had been murdered, but that had been done by policemen. It was impossible that Madula could have countenanced that. Why then had he fled? Why not return? A scornful murmur from the three chiefs greeted these remarks. Madula with great deliberation knocked his pipe empty on a stone, and stretched out his hand for tobacco, which John Ames promptly gave him. Then he replied that they had not "fled." He knew nothing of Inglefield, and did not care. If his _Amapolise_ were tired of him they were quite right to get rid of him. They had not fled. The time had come for them to take their own land again. There were no whites left by this time, except a few who were shut up in Bulawayo, and even for these a road was left open out of the country. If they failed to take it they would soon be starved out. This was news. Bulawayo, at any rate, had not been surprised. It was probably strongly laagered. But they would give no detail. All the whites in the country had been killed, save only these few, they declared. Yet he did not believe this statement in its entirety. John Ames, as he sat there, talking, to all outward appearance as though no rebellion had taken place, knew that his life hung upon a hair. There was a shifty sullenness about the manner of the indunas that was not lost upon him. And groups of their followers would continually saunter up to observe him, some swaggering and talking loud, though in deference to the chiefs, not coming very near, others quiet, but all scowling and hostile. Nothing escaped him. He read the general demeanour of the savages like an open book. Short of a miracle he was destined not to leave this place alive. The day was wearing on, and now the sun was already behind the crags which rose above the camp. It would soon be dusk. Every faculty on the alert, always bearing in view the precious life which depended upon his, he was calculating to a minute how soon he could carry into effect the last and desperate plan, the while he was conversing in the most even of tones, striving to impress upon his hearers the futility, in the long run, of thinking to drive the white man out. They had done nothing overt as yet. Let them return, and all would be well. What of their cattle which had all been killed? they asked. It was evident Makiwa was anxious to destroy the people, since cattle were the life of the people. So John Ames was obliged to go all over the same ground again; but, after all, it was a safe topic. He knew, as well as they did, that the murder of the Hollingworths, of the Inglefields, and every other massacre which had surprised and startled the scattered white population, was instigated and approved by these very men, but this was not the time to say so. Wherefore he temporised. The first shadow of dusk was deepening over the halting-place. Already fires were beginning to gleam out redly. "Fare ye well, _Izinduma_" he said, rising. "I must now go on my way. May it be soon that we meet again as we met before. Fare ye well!" They grunted out a gruff acknowledgment, and he walked away. Now was the critical moment. The warriors, standing in groups, or squatted around the fires, eyed him as he passed through. Some gave him greeting, others uttered a jeering half laugh, but a sudden stillness had fallen upon the hitherto buzzing and restless crowd. It was a moment to remain in a man's mind for life--the dark forms and savage, hostile faces, the great tufted shields and shining assegai blades, and gun-barrels, and this one man pacing through their midst, unarmed now, and absolutely at the mercy of any one of them. He had passed the last of them, uttering a pleasant farewell greeting. In a moment more the friendly gloom would shut him from their view. His heart swelled with an intense and earnest thankfulness, when--What was that long stealthy movement, away on his right? One glance was sufficient. A line of armed savages was stealing up to cut him off. On that side the boulders rose, broken and tumbled, with many a network of gnarled bough or knotty root. On the other, brushwood, then a wide _dwala_, or flat, bare, rock surface sloping away well-nigh precipitously to another gorge below. One more glance and his plans were laid. He started to run. With a wild yell the warriors dashed in pursuit, bounding, leaping, like demon figures in the dusk. Down the slope fled the fugitive, crashing through long grass and thorns. Now the _dwala_ is gained, and he races across it. The pursuers pause to fire a volley at the fleeing figure in the open, but without effect, then on again; but they have lost ground. They soon regain it, however. In this terrible race for life--for two lives--John Ames becomes conscious that he is no match for these human bloodhounds. Thorns stretch forth hooked claws, and lacerate and delay him, but _they_ spring through unscathed, unchecked. They are almost upon him. The hissed forth "I--jji! I--jji!" is vibrating almost in his ears, and assegais hurtle by in the gathering gloom. His heart is bursting, and a starry mist is before his eyes. The cover ends. Here all is open again. They are upon him--in the open. Yet stay--what is this? Blank! Void! Space! In the flash of a moment he takes in the full horror of the plunge before him, for he cannot stop if he would, then a sickening whirr through empty air, and a starry crash. Blank-- void--unconsciousness! And a score of Matabele warriors, left upon the brink of the height, are firing off excited comments and ejaculations, while striving to peer into the dark and silent depths beneath. "_Au_! He has again escaped us," ejaculated Nanzicele. "He is _tagati_." CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. "ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN." Nidia stared at the savage, her eyes dilated with the wildest dismay. The savage, for his part, stared at her, with a countenance which expressed but little less astonishment than her own. Bringing his hand to his mouth, he ejaculated-- "_Whau! Umfanekiso_!" [The picture.] Her glance fell upon the naked sword-bayonet which lay on the ground between them. She made a movement to seize it, with a desperate idea of defending herself. The savage, however, was too quick for her. He promptly set his foot on the weapon, saying in English-- "No take it." By now Nidia's first fear had begun to calm down. She had been in the power of some of these people before, and they had not harmed her; wherefore she tried to put on a bold front towards this one. "Who are you?" she said, speaking slowly to facilitate the man understanding her. "You frightened me at first; not now." "_Ikonde_, [baboon] he flighten much more," was the answer made with a half laugh. Then Nidia noticed that this Matabele had by no means an unpleasant face; indeed, she could hardly believe that he belonged to the same race as the fiends who had slaughtered the Hollingworths. "No be flighten," he went on. "I see you before--one, two, tlee--much many time." "Seen me before?" echoed Nidia in astonishment. "Where?" "Kwa Jonemi." "Jonemi?" she repeated, with a start. "You know him?" The warrior laughed. "Oh, yes, missis. I know him. I Pukele. Jonemi his boy." "Ah; now I see. You were his servant? You are the man who saved his life, when the others were all murdered?" For Nidia had, of course, heard the whole story of the tragedy in Inglefield's quarters. "I dat man, missie," said the other, with a grin that showed a magnificent set of teeth. "Umlimo he say kill all Amakiwa--white people. Pukele say, No kill Jonemi. _Amapolise_ dey kill Ingerfiel, and missis, and strange white man. I not help. I go wit _amapolise_. I save Jonemi. See," lifting his foot off the sword-bayonet, "_I_ give him dis." "And for that you will never be sorry, I promise you," said Nidia. "Listen, Pukele. For that, and that alone, you shall have what will buy twenty cows. _I_ will give it you when we are safe again. Only--you must never tell Jonemi." The man broke into extravagant expressions of delight, in his own tongue, once he had begun to grasp the burden of this promise, declaring that Jonemi had always been his "father," and he was not going to let his "father" be killed, even at the bidding of ten Umlimos--looking round rather furtively however, as he gave utterance to this sacrilegious sentiment. "You said you had seen me at Jonemi's," went on Nidia; "but I have never been there. It must have been somewhere else." "No somewhere else. I see missie on bit of paper, hang on de wall. Jonemi he have it in hut where he sleep. He often stand, look at it for long time." A soft flush came into Nidia's face, accompanied by a pleased smile. "And you knew me from that?" she said. Then all her anxiety coming back upon her--for she had momentarily lost sight of it in the feeling of safety engendered by this man's appearance and identity--she exclaimed-- "But where is Jonemi? He went out yesterday--not much after midday--and should have been back by sundown. You must find him, Pukele." The man uttered some words to himself in his own tongue, which from the tone were expressive of like anxiety. Then, to her-- "Which way he go?" She pointed out, as best she could, the way John Ames had proposed to take. Pukele shook his head. "No good dat way. Much Matabele dere. 'Spose he fire gun, den Matabele hear him for sure." Nidia's face blanched, and she clasped her hands together wildly. "You don't think they have--killed him?" she said slowly. In his heart of hearts Pukele thought that nothing was more likely; but he was not going to say so. "I tink not," he answered, "Jonemi _nkos'nkulu_. Great master. He aflaid o' nuffin. Matabele much like him." "Listen, Pukele," said Nidia, impressively. "You must go and find him." "But what you do, missis? You be flighten, all alone. Suppose _Uconde_--bobyaan--he come again, you much flighten? I be away till sun, him so," pointing to the western horizon. "I'll be frightened of nothing," she answered emphatically. "Leave me one of your long assegais, and go. Even if you have to be away all night, don't come back. I'll get through it somehow. But--find Jonemi." With many injunctions to her not to wander far from this spot, where to hide in the event of any Matabele chancing to pass that way, and promising to be back by sundown, Pukele took his departure. Once more Nidia was alone. This time, however, loneliness in itself no longer oppressed her. Intense anxiety on behalf of another precluded all thought of self. True to his promise Pukele returned at sundown, and he had learned something. Jonemi had fallen in with the Matabele, even as he had expected. He had talked with the indunas, and having bidden farewell had walked away. That was about the same time last evening. But Pukele said nothing of the subsequent and stealthy pursuit, and the plunge from the height, for the simple reason that these were among the things he had not learned. The agents concerned in that last tragedy had their own motives for not advertising it abroad. "Who were the indunas he was talking with?" asked Nidia, suddenly. "Dey izinduna from Sikumbutana," replied the warrior, as she thought, evasively; and in truth this was so, for although he would do anything to assist his former master, or one in whom his former master took an interest, Pukele's native instincts were against revealing too much. There was always in the background a possibility of the whites regaining the upper hand, in which case it was just as well that the prime movers in the rising should not be known to too many by name. "But if they were his own people they would not harm him?" "Not harm him, missie. He walk away." "Then why is he not here, long before now?" Then, excitedly, "Pukele, you don't think--they--followed him up in the dark--and--and killed him?" This again Pukele thought was far from unlikely. But he dissembled. It was more probable, he declared, that Jonemi had taken a longer way to come back in order to throw off his track any who might be following. Or he might have discovered another impi and be forced to travel in the opposite direction to avoid it. He might be back any time. This for her benefit. But in his heart of hearts the Matabele warrior thought that the chances of his former master being still in the land of the living were so small as to be not worth reckoning with. So he made up the fire, and cooked birds for Nidia and prepared to watch over her safety. That night weird sounds came floating up to their resting-place, a rhythmical distant roaring, now subsiding into silence, then bursting forth again, till it gathered volume like the rolling of thunder. Fires twinkled forth, too, like eyes in the darkness, among the far windings of the hills. "What is that, Pukele?" cried Nidia, starting up. "Matabele make dance, missie. Big dance. Umlimo dance Matabele call him," replied the savage, who was listening intently. "Umlimo dance. Ah! I remember. Is there an Umlimo cave down there, where they are?" For she was thinking of the place John Ames had pointed out to her the day before, and his remark that if it wasn't a real Umlimo cave, it ought to be. And these strange wild sounds seemed to proceed from about that very spot. "_An_! Umlimo cave, what dat, missie?" inquired Pukele. "A cave--a hole--where Umlimo speaks from," she tried to explain. But the other became suddenly and unaccountably dense. "Gave? Hole? Oh yes, missie. Plenty hole here. Plenty hole in Matopo. Oh yes. Big mountain, plenty hole." The great volume of savage sound came rolling up almost unintermittently till midnight. Then there was silence once more. The next day, John Ames did not appear, nor the next. Then, in utter despair, Nidia agreed to Pukele's repeated proposal to guide her out of the hills, and if possible to bring her into Bulawayo itself. And right well and faithfully did this barbarian fulfil his undertaking. The rebels were coming into the hills now, and every step of the way was fraught with danger. He made her lie hidden during the day, always choosing some apparently inaccessible and least suspicious looking retreat, while he himself would wander forth in search of the means of subsistence. At night they would do their travelling, and here the eyes of the savage were as the eyes of a cat, and actually the eyes of both of them. And throughout, he watched over her safety with the fidelity of a dog. One great argument which had availed to induce Nidia to yield to her guide's representations, was that once she was safe in Bulawayo, he would be left free to pursue his search for the missing man. As to which, let him but succeed, she assured him, and he would be a rich man--as his people counted riches--for life. Thus journeying they had reached the outskirts of the hills, and could now and then obtain glimpses of the open country. Twice had Pukele fallen in with his countrymen, from whom he had gleaned that it was so far open around Bulawayo, but would not be long, for the Umlimo had pronounced in favour of shutting it in, and the impis were massing with that object. Pukele was returning from a solitary hunt, bringing with him the carcase of a klip-springer. He was under no restriction as to who heard the report of his rifle, and being a fair shot, and as stealthy and active as the game itself, he seldom returned from such empty handed. Moreover, he knew where to find grain when it was wanted, wherefore his charge suffered no disadvantage by reason of short commons. He was returning along the base of a large granite kopje. The ground was open immediately in front, but on his left was a straggling line of trees and undergrowth. Singing softly to himself he was striding along when-- Just the faintest suspicion of a tinkling sound. His quick ears caught it. At any other time he would have swerved and with the rapidity of a snake would have glided and disappeared among the granite boulders. Now, however, he stood his ground. Three mounted men--white men--dashed from the cover, with revolvers drawn. Pukele dropped his weapons and held forth his arms. "Fire not, Amakiwa!" he said, in his own tongue. "I was seeking for such as ye." But the mounted volunteers, for such they were, understood next to nothing of that tongue. They only saw before them, a native, a savage, a rebel, fully armed, with rifle and assegais, and in war-gear. Pukele being a native, and having such an important communication to make as that a refugee white woman was under his charge whom he desired to place under theirs, it was not in him to make it in three words, nor would these have understood him if he had. He, however, stood waiting for their answer. A fourth trooper dashed from the bush. "What are you waiting for, you blanked idiots?" he yelled. "Here's a bloody nigger, ain't there? Well, then--Remember Hollingworth's!" With the words he discharged his revolver almost point-blank into Pukele's chest. Another echoing the vengeful shout, "Remember Hollingworth's!" fired his into the body of the faithful protector of the only survivor of Hollingworth's, which slowly sank to the earth, then toppled forward on its face. The troopers looked upon the slain man with hate and execration. They, be it remembered, had looked upon the bodies of their own countrymen and women and children, lying stark under all the circumstances of a hideous and bloody death. Then the first man who had fired, dismounted and seized the dead warrior's weapons, administering a savage kick to the now motionless corpse. So Pukele met with his reward. "Get into cover again. There may be more of 'em!" he enjoined. And scarcely had they done so than the rest of the troop--for which these had been acting as flying scouts--having heard the firing, came hurrying up. The affair was reported. Those in command jocosely remarking that it seemed a devil of a waste of ammunition to fire two shots into one nigger, who was neither fighting nor running away. Orders were given to keep a sharp look-out ahead, in case the slain man should be one of the scouts of an impi, and the troop moved on. It was, in fact, a relief troop which had been formed to search for and rescue such whites in the disturbed districts who had not already been massacred, and of such it had found and rescued some. Now it was returning. Soon it was reported that the scouts had descried something or somebody, moving among the granite boulders of an adjacent kopje. Field-glasses were got out. "By George, it's a woman. A white woman!" cried the officer in command, nearly dropping his glass from his hand. "She looks the worse for wear too, poor thing. Another of these awful experiences, I'll bet a dollar. She's seen us. She's coming down off the kopje. But we don't want to scare her with all our ugly faces, though. Looks like a lady too, in spite of her tatters, poor thing," he went on, with his glass still at his eyes. "Moseley, Tarrant--you might step forward and meet her, eh? We don't need all to mob her in a body." "We've met her before, I think, colonel," said the latter, who had also been looking through his field-glasses. "And that was at Hollingworth's." "No!" "Fact. When we got there she had disappeared, leaving no trace. Great Heaven, where can she have been all this while? Come along, Moseley." Great sensation spread through the troop, as it got abroad that this was the girl whose unknown fate had moved them all so profoundly. Several were there, too, who had been present at the discovery of the murdered family, and whose cherished thoughts of vengeance had been deepened tenfold by the thought of this helpless English girl in the power of the very fiends who had perpetrated that atrocity. Under the circumstances, it was little to be wondered at if the voices of Moseley and Tarrant were a little unsteady as they welcomed the fugitive, and if indeed--as those worthies afterwards admitted to each other--they felt like qualified idiots, when they remembered the bright, sweet, sunny-faced girl, with the stamp of daintiness and refinement from the sole of her little shoe to the uppermost wave of her golden-brown hair. And now they saw a sad-faced woman, wistful-eyed, sun-tanned, in attire bordering on tattered dishevelment. Truly a lump gathered in their throats, as they stood uncovered before her and thought of all she must have gone through. "Welcome, Miss Commerell. A hearty, happy welcome," was all that Moseley could jerk out, as he put out his hand. "Thanks. Oh yes. We have met before," with a tired smile, in answer to Tarrant's rather incoherent greeting. "But--where are the rest of you? Ah--I see--over there." Soon the officer in command was welcoming her, and the troopers gradually edged in nearer, for curiosity was great and discipline by no means rigid. "And I am among friends at last, and safe?" looking from one to the other, in a half vacant way, "But where is Pukele?" "Who is `Pukele,' Miss Commerell?" said Moseley. "A Matabele. He has guided and taken care of me for the last week. Where is he? Isn't he here? Didn't he bring you to me? He went out to find game. I thought I heard him fire two shots, just lately, and came out to see. Then I saw you all. Where can he be?" Where indeed? A strange, startled look was now on the faces of several of her listeners, including those in command. "Went out to find game." And the native just shot was in possession of a klip-springer. Dreamily Nidia continued-- "I feel so tired. Where am I, did you say?" Then passing her hands over her eyes, "How dark it seems" (it was mid forenoon). "I think-- I'll--rest." And she sank down in a deathly swoon. "Jee-hoshaphat, Jack!" a trooper in the background was saying. "That was _her_ nigger you chaps bowled over. And now she's asking for him." "What did the fool run up against our guns for, in that cast-iron hurry?" sullenly grumbled the other, who was really sorry for the mistake. "It wasn't our faults, was it?" "Of course not, old man," rejoined the other. "It was nobody's fault-- only the nigger's misfortune. Accidents will happen." Such the epitaph on the faithful, loyal savage, who having watched over the helpless refugee for days and nights that he might restore her to friends and safety, had found his reward. Shot on sight, by those very friends, when in the act of consummating his loyalty, such was his epitaph. "Accidents will happen!" CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. ENTOMBED. When John Ames at last returned to consciousness, the first thought to take definite shape was that he was dead. There was a rock ceiling overhead. He had been dragged into a cave, he decided, a favourite place of sepulture for natives of rank. His enemies had accorded him that distinction. He could not move his limbs. They had been bound round him. Then there returned in dim confused fashion the events of the day; the surprise; the visit to Madula's camp; the crafty pursuit; the sudden ending of the ground beneath his feet; the plunge through empty air; then--starry void; and remembering it all, the supposed funeral ligatures took the form of a blanket, which, wrapped tightly round him, impeded the use of his limbs. He was not dead, only dreaming, suffering from a bad nightmare. The blanket--the rock overhead! What a blessed relief! All the events, terrible and tragic, he had just gone through, were parts of a dream. Nidia was not left alone in that savage wilderness, but here, within a few yards of him. He was lying across the entrance of her retreat, as usual, that none might imperil her save by passing over him. Filled with an intense thankfulness, he lay and revelled in the realisation that it had all been a dream. Still it should act as a warning one. Never would he be so confiding in their security again. The light grew and spread. The grey rock above him became less shadowy, more distinct. Whence the languor that seemed to attend his waking hours, the drowsy disinclination to move? Yet there it was. Well, he must combat it; and with this idea he suddenly sat up, only to fall back with a cry of acute anguish. His head was splitting. For some time he lay, unable to move, thinking the while whether his cry had disturbed Nidia. No; she had not moved. At last an idea took hold of his confused brain. Their camping-ground this time was not a cave. It was in the open. Whence, then, this rock--this rock which somehow seemed to weigh upon him like a tombstone? And--Heavens! What was that over there? A table? A table! Why, a railway engine would have been no more phenomenal at that moment. A table! Was he dreaming? No. There it stood; a sturdy, if unpretentious four-legged table, right up against a tolerably perpendicular rock-wall. He stared at it--stared wildly. Surely no such homely and commonplace object had ever been the motive power for such consternation, such despairing, sickening disappointment before. For it conveyed to him that the events of the previous day had been no dream, but dire reality. Where he now was he had no idea, but wherever it might be, it was certainly not in the place where he had parted from Nidia and she would still be undergoing all the horrors of utter solitude. Again he tried to leap up; but this time an invisible hand seemed to press him down, an unseen force to calm and hypnotise him, and in the result everything faded into far-away dimness. Nothing seemed to matter. Once more he dropped off into a soothing, dreamless slumber. How long this lasted he could not have told. On awakening, the frightful brain agony had left him. He could now raise his head without falling back again sick with pain. The first thing he noticed was that the place was a rock-chamber of irregular shape; the further wall nearly perpendicular, the ceiling slanting to the side on which he lay. A strange roseate light filled the place, proceeding from whence he knew not. But now he became conscious of a second presence. Standing within this light was a human figure. What--who could it be? It was not that of a native. So much he could see, although the back was towards him. Then it turned. Heavens! though _he_ had not seen it before, the recognition was instantaneous. This was the apparition at their former camp. The tall figure, the weather-worn clothing, the long white beard, and--the face! Turned full upon him, in all its horror, John Ames felt his flesh creep. The blasting, mesmeric power of the eyes, surcharged with hate, seemed to freeze the very marrow of his bones. This, then, was petrifying him. This, with its baleful, basilisk stare, was turning his heart to water. What was it? Man or devil? There was a spell in the stare. That glance John Ames felt that his own could not leave. It held him enthralled. At all risks he must break the spell. "Where am I?" he exclaimed, astonished at the feebleness of his own voice. "In luck's way this time. Perhaps not," came the reply, in full, deep tones. "What do you think of that, John Ames?" "You appear to know me; but, I am sorry to say, the advantage is all on your side. Where have we met before?" The other's set face relaxed. A ghastly, mirthless laugh proceeded from a scarcely opened mouth. There was that in it which made the listener start, such an echo was it of the mocking laugh thrown back at him out of the darkness when challenging that shadowy figure at their former camp. "Where have we not met?" came the reply, after a pause. "That would be an easier question to answer." "Well, at any rate, it is awfully good of you to have taken care of me like this," said John Ames, thinking it advisable to waive the question of identity for the present. "Did I fall far?" "So far that, but for a timely tree breaking your fall, you would hardly have an unbroken bone within you now." "But how did I get here? Did you get me here alone?" "A moment ago you were deciding that curiosity might sometimes be out of place. You are quick at changing your mind, John Ames." The latter felt guilty. This was indeed "thought-reading" with a vengeance. "Yes; but pardon me if it seems to you inquisitive--it is not meant that way," he said. "The fact is, I am not alone. I have a friend who will be terribly anxious--in fact, terribly frightened at my absence. I suppose you are in hiding, like ourselves?" Again that mirthless laugh. "In hiding? Yes; in hiding. But not like yourselves." "But will you not join us? I know my way about this sort of country fairly well, and it is only a question of a little extra care, and we are bound to come through all right." "Such `little extra care' as you displayed only yesterday, John Ames? Yet an evening or so back you thought my presence hardly likely to prove an acquisition." The cold, sneering tone scarcely tended to allay the confusion felt by the other at this reminder. This, then, was the apparition seen by Nidia, and he had been able to draw near enough to overhear their conversation with reference to his appearance. The thought was sufficiently uncomfortable. Who could the man be? That he was an eccentricity was self-evident. He went on-- "You were right in saying that your `friend' would be terribly frightened. She has gone through such a night as she hopes never to spend again, and her fears are not over, but this time they are very material, and are for herself. There are shapes stealing upon her down the rocks--dark shapes. Natives? No. Human? No. What then? Beasts. She screams; tries to drive them off. They grow bolder and bolder-- and--" "Heavens alive, man, don't drive me mad!" roared John Ames, whirling up from his couch, forgetful alike of aching bones and bruised and shaken frame. "What, is it you see--or know? Are you the devil himself?" But the face of the seer remained perfectly impassible. Not so much as a finger of his moved. His eyes seemed to open wider, then to close; then to open again, as one awakening from a trance. Their expression was that of slight, unperturbed surprise. "Look here, now," said John Ames, quickly and decidedly. "You have taken care of me when I was in a bad fix, and most likely saved my life. I am deeply grateful, and hope we shall get to know each: other properly. But just now I must not lose a moment in going back to my friend, and if you won't go with me, I'll ask you to put me into my bearings." The stranger did not move in his attitude, or relax a muscle. "You can't go from here now," he said; "nor, in fact, until I allow you." "Can't? But I must!" shouted John Ames. "Heavens! I don't see how you can know all you have been saying; but the bare suggestion that she may be in danger--all alone and helpless--oh, good God, but it'll drive me mad!" "How I can know? Well, perhaps I can't--perhaps I can. Anyway, there's one thing you can't do, and that is leave this place without my aid. If you don't believe me, just take a look round and try." He waved his hand with a throw-everything-open sort of gesture. In feverish strides, like those of a newly caged tiger, John Ames quickly explored the apartment, likewise another which opened out of it. His mind fired with Nidia's helplessness and danger, he gave no thought to the curious nature of this subterranean dwelling; all he thought about was means of egress. At the further end of the apartment in which he had been lying yawned a deep shaft like that of a disused mine. Air floated up this; clearly, therefore, it gave egress. But the means of descent? He looked around and above. No apparatus rewarded his view--not even a single rope. He explored the further chamber, which, like the first, was lighted by a curious eye-shaped lamp fixed in a hole in the rock-partition wall. Here too were several smaller oubliette-like shafts. But no means of exit. The while, his host--or gaoler--had been standing immovable, as though these investigations and their results had not the faintest interest for him. John Ames, utterly baffled, gave up the search, and the terrible conviction forced itself upon him that he was shut up in the very heart of the earth with a malevolent lunatic. Yet there was that about the other's whole personality which was not compatible with the lunatic theory; a strong, mesmeric, compelling force, as far removed from insanity in any known phase as it could possibly be. Power was proclaimed large in every look, in every utterance. "Was I right?" he said. "But patience, John Ames; you must be pitifully wrapped up in this--`friend' of yours, to lose your head in that unwonted fashion. Unwonted--yes. I know you, you see, better than you do me. Well, I won't try your patience any longer. Had you not interrupted me it would have been better for you; I was going on to say that while I saw danger I saw, also, succour--rescue--safety." "Safety? Rescue?" echoed John Ames, in almost an awed tone, but one that was full of a great thankfulness and relief. "Ah, well, my awful anxiety was deserved. Forgive me the interruption." Even then it did not occur to him, the level-headed, the thinking, the judicious, that here was a man--a strange one certainly--who had just told him a cock-and-bull story about events he could not possibly know, with the result of driving him perfectly frantic with anxiety and a sense of his own helplessness. Why not? Because the narrative had been unfolded with a knowledge stamped upon the narrator's countenance that was as undeniable as the presence of the narrator himself. Strange to say, not for a moment did it occur to him to question it. He looked at the seer; a steadfast, penetrating, earnest glance. The face was a refined one; handsome, clear-cut, furrowing somewhat with age and hardness; but it was the face of one who had renounced all--hence its power; of one who, for some reason or other, was a bitter hater of his species, yet which as surely bore traces of a great overwhelming sorrow, capabilities of a vast and selfless love. Who was this strange being? What his tragic past? John Ames, thus striving to penetrate it, felt all his repulsion for the other melt away into a warm, indefinable sense of sympathy. Then he replied-- "In using the expression `wrapped up in,' you have used the right one. If harm were to befall her I should feel that life had no more value." "Then how will you face the--parting of the ways?" The question chilled upon its hearer. Was it a prophecy? "The parting of the ways?" he echoed slowly, comprehending the other's meaning. "Why should there be any parting?" "Because it is the way of life." And with the harsh, jeering, mirthless laugh which accompanied the cynicism, the stranger's countenance became once more transformed. The stare of hate and repulsion came into it again, and he turned away. But in the mind of his hearer there arose a vision of that last farewell, and he felt reassured--yet not. Coming from any other, he would have laughed at the utterance as a mere cynical commonplace, but from this one it impressed him as a dire prophecy. "There will come a time when you will look back upon these rough wanderings of yours--the two of you--as a dream of Paradise, John Ames. Hourly danger; scarce able to compass the means of existence; unknown country swarming with enemies; what a fearful experience it seems! Yet--how you will look back to it, will long for it! Ah, yes, I know; for your experience was once mine." "Once yours?" "Once mine." Then, with sudden change of tone and demeanour--"And now, be advised by me, and restore Nature a little. You will find the wherewithal in that chest, for you may need all your strength." Had it been anybody else, John Ames might have thought it somewhat unhostlike of the other to leave him to do all the foraging for himself, but somehow in this case it seemed all right. He could hardly have imagined this strange being bustling about over such commonplace work as rummaging out food. So he opened the chest indicated, and found it well stored with creature comforts. He set out, upon the table which had so startled him at first, enough for his present wants, and turned to speak to his host. But the latter was no longer there. He looked in the other apartment. That, too, was empty! Weird and uncanny as this disappearance was, it disconcerted John Ames less than it would have done at first. In was in keeping with the place and its strange occupant, for now, as he gazed around, he noted that the rock in places was covered with strange hieroglyphics. He had seen Bushman drawings in the caves of the Drakensberg, executed with wonderful clearness and a considerable amount of rude skill. These, however, seemed the production of a civilised race, and that in the dim ages of a remote past, probably the race which was responsible for the ancient gold workings whereof the land showed such plentiful remains. At any other time the investigation of these hieroglyphics would have afforded him a rare interest, at present he had enough to think about. But if his host--or gaoler--chose to disappear into the earth or air at will it was no concern of his, and he had not as yet found any great encouragement to curiosity in that quarter. Meanwhile, he set to work to make a hearty breakfast--or dinner--or whatever it might be, for he had no idea of time, his watch having been smashed in his fall. Strangely enough, a feeling of complete confidence had succeeded to his agony of self-reproach and anxiety as to Nidia's safety. Stranger, too, that such should be inspired by the bare word of this marvellous being who held him, so far, in his power. Yet there it was, this conviction. It surprised him. It was unaccountable. Yet there it was. Among other creature comforts he had found in the cupboard was a bottle of whisky. He mixed himself a modest "peg." But somehow the taste brought back the terrible tragedy in Inglefield's hut, that, perforce, being the last time he had drunk any, and a sort of disgust for the spirit came over him. So did something else--a sadden and unaccountable drowsiness, to wit. He strove to combat it, but fruitlessly. Returning to his couch, he lay down, and fell into a deep and heavy sleep. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. WHAT WAS DISCLOSED. When he awoke, John Ames found himself in the dark; not the ordinary darkness of night, wherein objects are faintly outlined, but black, pitchy, impenetrable gloom--an outer darkness which weighed upon mind and spirits with a sense of living entombment. Breathed there a mystic atmosphere in this weird place which affected the mind? This darkness seemed to unnerve him, to start him wide awake with a feeling of chill fear. Light! That was the first requisite. But a hurried search in every pocket revealed that he was without the means of procuring that requisite. He could find no matches. Had he by chance put them on the table, and left them there? He had no recollection of doing so, but in any case dared not get up and grope for them, bearing in mind the shaft-like pit at one end of the room. Nothing would be easier than to fall into this in the bewildering blackness. Equally nothing was there for it but to lie still and await the course of events. More and more did the walled-in blackness weigh him down. The air seemed full of whispering voices--indistinct, ghostly, rising and falling in far-away flute-like wailings; and there came upon him a vision. He saw again the great granite cone with the black hole, dark and forbidding, piercing its centre; but not as he had pointed it out to his fellow-fugitive in the sunlight gold. No; it was night now, and there, around its base, a mighty gathering occupied the open, and from this arose a roar of voices--voices in supplication, voices in questionings, voices singing fierce songs of war. Then there would be silence, and from the cavern mouth would issue one voice--denunciatory, reproachful, prophetic, yet prophesying no good thing. And the voice was as that of the strange being in whose power he lay. Louder and louder boomed the roar of the war-song. It shook the air; it vibrated as in waves upon the dense opacity of the darkness, echoing from the walls of this mysterious vault, for he was conscious of a dual personality--one side of it without, a witness of the scene conjured up by the vision; the other still within himself, still entombed and helpless within the heart of the earth. And then again the whole faded, into sleep or nirvana. Once more came awakening. He was no longer in darkness. The rose-light threw quivering shadows from the objects about the place, and he was no longer alone. His host--or gaoler stood contemplating him. "You have had a long sleep, John Ames." "And strange dreams, too," was the reply, made with a certain significance. "When I woke up in the dark--" "Are you sure you did wake up in the dark? Are you sure you did not dream you woke up?" "Upon my word, I can't tell. I sometimes think that in these days I can be sure of nothing." "Well, you shall hear what will give you something to rejoice over. The `friend' you were taking care of is safe." "Safe?" "Yes. I told you exactly what had happened. And now she will be in Bulawayo as soon as yourself." "As soon as myself?" "Yes, for you will soon be there. You see, I have a use to turn you to. I have a message for the outside world, and you shall be the means of transmitting it." "That will I do, with the greatest of pleasure. But what if I do not get through? The Matabele seem to be taking to the hills in force, and it's a long few days to get through from where we are--or were, rather, should I say, for I'm not at all sure where I am now." "Quite right, John Ames. You are not. Still you shall get through. And then, when you rejoin your `friend'--the girl with the very blue eyes, and the quick lift of the eyelids, and the animated countenance changing vividly with every expression, and the brown-gold hair--I suppose you will think life holds for you no greater good?" "I say, but you seem to have studied her rather closely," was the rejoinder, with a dry smile. "Anybody would think you knew her." "I have watched her from far more closely than you dream of, John Ames. For instance, every step of your way since leaving Shiminya tied up in his hut, has been known to me and to others too. Your life--both your lives--have been in my hand throughout, what time you have prided yourself upon your astuteness in evading pursuit and discovery. The lives of others have been in my hand in like manner, and--the hand has closed on them. You will soon learn how few have escaped." The grim relentlessness succeeding to the even, almost benevolent tone which had characterised the first part of this extraordinary statement impressed John Ames. At the same time he felt correspondingly reduced. He had prided himself, too--in advance--upon bringing Nidia safely in, alone and unaided; now he was done out of this satisfaction, and others would take to themselves the credit. Then he felt smaller still because thoroughly ashamed of himself. How could he harbour such a thought amid the great glad joy of hearing that her safety was assured? "Are you influencing these rebels, then?" he asked, all his old repulsion for the other returning, as he saw, as in a flash, the fell meaning of the words. "It seems strange that you should aid in the murder of your own countrymen." "My own countrymen!" and the expression of the speaker became absolutely fiendish. "`My own countrymen' would have doomed me to a living death-- a living hell--long years ago, for no crime; for that which injured nobody, but was a mere act of self-defence. Well, `my own countrymen' have yielded up hundreds of lives in satisfaction since then." "But--great Heavens! you say `would have.' They _would_ have done this? Why, even if it had happened, such a revenge as yours would have been too monstrous. Now I begin to see. Yet, in aiding these murderers of women and children, you are sacrificing those who never harmed you. But surely you can never have done this!" "Ha, ha! Really, John Ames, I am beginning to feel I have made a mistake--to feel disappointed in you, in thinking you were made of very different clay to the swaggering, bullet-headed fool, the first article of whose creed is that God made England and the devil the remainder of the world. Well, listen further. To escape from this doom I was forced to flee--to hide myself. And with me went one other. We wandered day after day as you have wandered--we two alone." In spite of his repulsion John Ames was interested, vividly interested. Verily here a fellow-feeling came in. A marvellous change had crept into the face of the other. The hard steely expression, the eyes glittering with hate, had given way to such a look of wondrous softness as seemed incredible that that countenance could take on. "There is a lonely grave in the recesses of the Lebombo Mountains, unmarked, unknown to any but myself. I once had a heart, John Ames, strange to say, and it lies buried there. But every time I return thence it is with the fire renewed within me; and the flames of that fire are the hate of hell for those you were just now describing as `my own countrymen.'" The hopeless pathos, the white-hot revenge running side by side, silenced the listener. There was a fury of passion and of pain here which admitted of no comment. To strive further to drive home his original protest struck him now as impertinent and commonplace. For a while neither spoke. "This is not the first time `my own countrymen' have felt my unseen hand," continued the narrator. "They felt it when three miles of plain were watered with British blood, and a line of whitened bones, as the line of a paper-chase, marked out a broad way from Isandhlwana to the Buffalo drift. They felt it when British blood poured into the swollen waters of the Intombi river, and when the `neck' on Hlobane mountain was choked with struggling men and horses fleeing for dear life, and but few escaping. That was for me. They have felt it often since. That was for _her_. They felt it when the hardest blow of all was dealt to their illimitable self-righteousness a year later; and, in short, almost whenever there has been opportunity for decimating them this side of the equator, my hand has been there. They would have felt it three years ago, when they seized this country we are now in, but for a wholly unavoidable reason, and then even the strong laagers and parks of Maxims would have counted for nought. That was for _her_. The malice of the devilish laws of `my country' drove me forth, and with me went that one. In the malarial valleys of the foothills of the Lebombo she died. I still live; but I live for a lifelong revenge upon `my countrymen'--and hers." Listening with the most vivid interest, John Ames was awed. The narrative just then could not but appeal to him powerfully. What if his own wanderings had ended thus, substituting Matopo for Lebombo? He shuddered to think that but for their signal good fortune in being blessed with fine dry weather, such might not inconceivably have been the case. The earlier and more tragic of the historical events referred to had taken place during the period of his English education, but now there recurred to his memory certain tales which he had heard on his return to his native colony of Natal, relating to the disappearance during the Zulu war of a border outlaw under circumstances of romantic interest. Could they have been authentic? Could this mysterious personage be indeed the chief actor in them? But, then, what must have been the strength and power of such a passion as had been this man's, that he should cherish it full and strong after all these years; to the compassing of illimitable bloodshed, prosecuting the fierce and relentless hatred of his own countrymen to the extent of metamorphosing the memory of its object into a very Kali, sacrificing to that memory in blood! Of a truth it could be nothing less than a mania--a grim and terrible monomania. "You are already beginning to lose your horror at what I have told you, John Ames," went on the other, his keen, darting eyes reading his listener's face like an open page. "Yet why should you ever have entertained it? Is not this blue-eyed girl you were taking care of for so many days all the world to you--more than life itself?" "She is. She is indeed, God knows," was the reply, emphatically fervent. "Then what revenge could you wreak that would be too full, too sweet, upon whosoever should be instrumental in bereaving you of her for ever? You have not yet been tried, John Ames, and yours is a character outside the ordinary." Was the speaker right, after all? thought John Ames. He looked at the dark face and silvery beard, and the glitter of the keen grey eyes, and wondered. Yet as he looked, he decided that the owner of that face must be considerably younger than his appearance. Was he himself capable of such a hardening--of so gigantic and ruthless and lifelong a feud? One thing was incontestable. He certainly had lost the first feeling of repulsion and horror; indeed, he could not swear it had not been replaced by one of profound sympathy. The other continued. "This is what you will do. First of all, you will give me your word to make no attempt to seek out this place, though it would be futile even if made. For remember I have saved your life, and the life of one who is more to you than life, not once, but many times, though unknown to you. Others sought escape in the same way as yourselves. Ask, when you are safe again, how many found it? I did not spare them. I spared you, John Ames, because your wanderings reminded me of my own. I watched you both frequently, unknown to yourselves, and doing so the past came back so vividly as to render me more merciless still towards others in the same plight. But you two I spared." "Then it was you I challenged that morning in the dark?" "Even your vigilance was as nothing against me, John Ames, for did I not step right over you while you slept?" The other whistled. There could be no doubt about that. "Then you will take these two packets. The one marked on the outside `A' you will open at once, and with every precaution will forward the enclosure it contains to the address that enclosure bears." This John Ames promised to do. He would register it if the post lines were still open. If not, he would take every precaution for its safety until they were. "But they will be still open," was the decided reply. "As for the next packet, marked `B,' you will not open it--not yet. Keep it with you. The time may come when you will see everything dark around you, and there is no outlook, and life hardly worth prolonging. Then, and then only, open it. Do you promise to observe my instructions implicitly?" "I pledge you my word of honour to do so," replied John Ames, gravely. "Then our time for parting is very near. Remember that you owe your life--both your lives--to me. Don't interrupt. It is not unnecessary to remind you again of this, for you will meet with every temptation to reveal that which I charge you to keep to yourself--viz. all relating to my personality and what you have seen and heard." "One moment. Pardon my asking," said John Ames, tentatively. "But have you ever told anybody else what you have told me?" "Not one living soul. Why have I told you? Perhaps I had my reasons: perhaps the sight of you two wandering as I have wandered. It is immaterial. My work here is nearly done. This rising which has been so disastrous to your countrymen and mine--how disastrous you have yet to learn--my hand has fostered and fed. I have foreseen the opportunity. I waited for it patiently, and when it came I seized it. But there will be more work in other parts, and, mark me, John Ames, my unseen hand will again be there to strike." "Tell me one thing more. If it was through your influence the people spared us, how is it they tried to kill me that time I was leaving Madula, when they drove me over the _dwala_, and I woke up to find myself here? That was a narrow squeak, I can tell you." "It was indeed, John Ames. But that was accidental, and was contrary to my orders." "Contrary to your orders? But,"--sitting up, with a stare of blank amazement--"but--who are you?" "I am Umlimo." "What! _You_ Umlimo? It cannot be. I have always held Umlimo to be a sort of fraudulent abstraction, engineered by innyangas like Shiminya and others. _You_ the Umlimo?" But to the startled eyes of the questioner the form of the questioned seemed to grow larger, taller, like a presence filling the whole place. The old relentless look of implacable hate transformed the features, and the deep eyes glowed, while from the scarcely opened lips boomed forth as in deep thunder-tones-- "I am Umlimo." A mist filled the place. The figure with its background of rock-wall seemed to lose form. A sudden stupor seized upon the brain of John Ames, as though the whole atmosphere were pervaded by a strong narcotic. Then he knew no more. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. IN STATE OF SIEGE. There can be no doubt but that, during the period of the rising, and especially during the earlier half of the same, the township of Bulawayo was a very uncomfortable place indeed. The oft-recurring scares, necessitating the crowding of, at any rate, the bulk of its inhabitants into the laagers at night, contributed in the main to this. With instances of the fell unsparing ferocity which attended the rebel stroke--sudden, swift, and unexpected--fresh in the mind of everybody, citizens were chary of exposing themselves and their families to a like visitation. Private residences straggling over the surburban stands were abandoned for the greater security of the temporary forts which had been hastily but effectively formed out of some of the principal buildings in and around the township itself; and the comfort and privacy of home-life had perforce to be exchanged for an overcrowded, hotch-potch, barrack sort of existence; men, women, and children of all sorts and sizes herding together, hugger-mugged, under every conceivable form of racket and discomfort, and under the most inadequate conditions of area and convenience. Rumour, in its many-tongued and wildest form, filled the air, gathering in volume, and frequently in wildness, with the advent of every fresh batch of refugees. For from all sides these came flying in--prospectors, miners, outlying settlers with their families, some with a portion of their worldly goods, others with none at all, and fortunate in having escaped with their lives where others had not. For it soon became manifest that such events as the massacre of the Hollingworths and the Inglefields, and the fight and resolute defence at Jekyll's Store, were but samples of what had taken place--or was still going on--all over the country. Haggard fugitives, gaunt with starvation, stony-eyed with days and nights of deadly peril for close companionship, nerves shattered by the most horrible recollections, and apprehension worked up to the acutest phase thereby--continued to arrive, each and all bringing the same tale of treachery and ruthlessness and blood, deepening on every hand the gloom and anxiety of the situation--anxiety on behalf of those not yet accounted for, mingling with an apprehensive looking forward to how it was all going to end, and when. The necessaries of life went up to famine prices, and then the enemy began to invest the town. Southward, crouching lion-like, among the Matyamhlope rocks; on the north, occupying the site of the old Bulawayo kraal, and in possession of the "Government" House which the presumptuous white man had erected upon the former seat of the departed king, overhanging, like a dark cloud, the township beneath, or again making fierce dashes upon traffic which should attempt the eastward way, he mustered in all his savage might--an ever-present menace. But the way to the west, for some unaccountable reason, was left open. Those in charge of the safety of the township had their hands full. They might sally forth in force, as they frequently did, with the object of rolling back the danger that threatened; an object sometimes accomplished, sometimes not, for the rolling back was not invariably all on one side. But whichever way the attempt would go, the wily foe was sure to be in position again almost immediately, whence, massed around the very edifice that symbolised the domination of those threatened, the defiant thunder of his war-song would reach their ears. Of all the narrow escapes from the widespread massacre which at that time were in everybody's mouth, none perhaps commanded general attention so much as that of Nidia Commerell. It was so fraught with the dramatic element, being in fact not one escape, but a series of them. Her personality, too, imparted to it an additional interest; this refined and attractive girl, brought up amid every comfort, suddenly to be thrown by rude contrast from the luxurious appointments of her peaceful English home into the red surroundings of massacre and of death. Again, the circumstances of her wanderings appealed strongly to the romantic side, and people looked knowingly at each other, and pronounced John Ames to be a singularly fortunate individual--would be, at least, were it not for the fact that nobody knew whether he was alive or dead; indeed, the latter contingency seemed the more probable. There was one to whom Nidia's reappearance was as little short of restoration to life for herself, and that one was Mrs Bateman, for to her the girl was more than all the world put together--far more than her own husband, and she had no children. When the first tidings of the outbreak, and the massacre of the Hollingworths, had come in, the poor woman had been simply frantic. The fact that Nidia had not been included in the tragedy, but had disappeared, brought with it small comfort. She pictured her darling in the power of brutal savages, or wandering alone in the wilderness to perish miserably of starvation and exhaustion; perhaps, even, to fall a prey to wild animals. Was it for this she had allowed her to leave her English home "for a peep into wild life," as they had put it when the much debated question had arisen? Not even the dreadful task of breaking the news to Nidia's relatives occurred to her now, her grief was too whole-hearted, too unmixed. Her husband came in for a convenient safety-valve, though. Why had he induced either of them to come near such a hateful country? He was the real murderer, not these vile savages; and having with admirable and usual feminine logic clapped the saddle on the wrong horse to her heart's content, and caused that estimable engineer mildly to wish he had never been born, she hunted him off with one of the relief forces, together with every man she could succeed in pressing into her service. Indeed, it used to be said that, could she have had her way, just about every available man in Bulawayo would have been started off on that particular search, leaving all the other women and children, herself included, to take their chance. And then, when her grief had reached the acutest pitch of desperation, the missing girl had been found. Thenceforward nothing mattered. The place might be attacked nightly by all the Matabele in Rhodesia for all she cared. She had got her darling back again. Back again--yes. But this was not the same Nidia. The bright sunny flow of spirits was gone, likewise the sweet equanimity and caressing, teasing, provocative little ways. This Nidia had come back so changed. There was a tired, hunted look in her eyes, a listlessness of speech and manner such as might have suited her twenty years thence, after an indifferent experience of life _interim_, but now was simply startling as a contrast. She talked but little, and of her escape and the manner of it, seemed to care to talk least of all. The part John Ames had borne in that escape she took care to make widely known, but when alone with her friend reference to him had the effect of causing her to burst into tears in the most unexpected and therefore alarming fashion. This seemed not unnatural. The terrible experiences the poor girl had gone through were calculated to unhinge her; nor was it strange she should grieve over the tragic fate which had almost certainly overtaken the man who had been her sole guide and protector during those terrible days, whose sagacity and resource had brought her in safety through every peril that threatened. It was in the nature of things she should so grieve, even had they not been on very friendly terms before. There was nothing for it but time, thought Susie Bateman--time and change of scene; and with a view to the latter she hinted at the advisability of risking the journey down-country, for, strange to say, the enemy had refrained from intercepting the coach traffic on the Mafeking road. This proposal, however, was met by Nidia with a very decided negative. These two were fortunately exempt from the crowding and discomfort of the laagers, through the fact that the house owned by the absent Bateman was situated within about a stone's throw of one of the latter. Should occasion really arise, they would, of course, be obliged to take refuge therein; but in the mean time they could afford to ignore unsubstantiated scares, for there were not wanting those who made it-- literally in some instances--a labour of love to keep extra and special watch over this particular household. Moseley and Tarrant, for instance, who were among the defenders of the township; Carbutt, the tall, good-looking man who had figured prominently in the fight at Jekyll's Store; and several others. Leave it to them, had been their assurance. If real necessity arose, they would see to it that the two ladies should be within the laager in ample time. Meanwhile they need take no notice of the ordinary regulation scare, but just sit still in peace and quietness. They were thus sitting a few days after Nidia's return, when the latter startled her friend by an apparently insane proposal. "Let's go for a bike ride, Susie; a real good long one." "Great Heavens! Is the child mad? Why, we'd run into those hateful black wretches before we'd gone a couple of miles. They're all round us thick as bees. Why, we could see them no further than Government House only this morning." "That's just the way I wanted to go. It would be such fun to see how near we could get, and then skim away downhill again. They'd look so sold." "Haven't you had enough of that sort of thing yet, Nidia? If I had been through one-tenth of what you have, I'd never want to go adventuring any more." "Perhaps I've contracted a taste that way now," was the reply, with a weariful laugh. "But anything rather than sit still as we are doing. I want a little excitement--a stirring up." The other stared in wild amazement. Was the child really going off her head? she thought again. But a knock on the open door announced the advent of visitors, and lo! two men bronzed and coatless, according to the fashion in Rhodesia, swept off their broad-brimmed hats and entered. They were, in fact, Tarrant and Carbutt, and at sight of them Nidia brightened up somewhat. "Well, and what's the latest in the way of scares?" she began, after the exchange of greetings. "None at present, Miss Commerell," replied Carbutt. "Things are slack. We shall have to go and have another slap at the niggers up yonder, to keep the rust off. They are getting altogether too cheeky, squatting around Government House its very self." "That'll make a little excitement," said Nidia. "We can watch your deeds of derring-do from here through the glasses." "Heavens, no!" said Mrs Bateman, with fervour. "I don't want to see or hear anything more of those dreadful wretches, except that they've all been shot." "By the way, there is a small item in the way of the latest," said Tarrant, carelessly. "Another man has rolled in who had been given up as a dead 'un." "Yes. Is it anybody we know?" asked Nidia, quickly. "I rather think it is," returned Tarrant, watching her face yet while not seeming to. "Ames of Sikumbutana." Nidia caught her breath with a sort of gasp, and her whole face lit up. "Not John Ames?" she cried, as though hanging on the answer. Then, as Tarrant nodded assent, "Oh, I am glad!" And then all of Nidia's old self seemed to return. She poured forth question upon question, hardly waiting to be answered. How had he escaped? Where was he, and when was he coming to see her? and so on-- and so on. "He's rather close on the subject, Miss Commerell," Tarrant replied. "He has a yarn about being chevvied by niggers and tumbling over a _dwala_, and lying unconscious--and then some niggers who knew him piloting him in. He asked after you the first thing, just as if you had never been away from here; and the odd part of it is, he didn't seem in the least surprised to hear you were safe and sound, and quite all right." But the oddness of John Ames' lack of astonishment did not strike Nidia just then. She talked on, quite in her old way--now freely, too--on the subject of her escape and wanderings, making much of the humorous side thereof, and more of the judgment and courage and resource of her guide. Her voice had a glad note about it; a very carol of joy and relief seemed to ring out in every tone. Ever unconventional, it never occurred to her to make the slightest attempt to disguise her feelings. If she was glad that the man who had done so much for her had returned safe and sound, it was not in her to conceal that fact. "Phew! she's giving away the show," Tarrant was thinking to himself. "That first shot of mine _re_ John Ames was a plumb centre. I'll have the crow over old Moseley now. Lucky John Ames!" But at heart he was conscious of a certain not altogether to be controlled sinking. He was not without a weakness for Nidia himself; now, however, in a flash he recognised its utter futility, and was far too much a man of the world not to realise that the sooner he cured himself of it the better. Upon one other the change in Nidia's manner was not lost, and the discovery struck Susie Bateman with such wild amazement that she at first refused to entertain it. Here, then, lay the secret of the girl's fits of depression and generally low spirits. Such were not due to her recent terrible experiences. She had been secretly grieving on account of the man who had shared them, or why this sudden and almost miraculous restoration which the news of his safety had effected? She recalled her half-playful, half-serious warning to Nidia during their earlier acquaintance with this man--a warning more than once repeated, too. That had been out of consideration for the man; but that it should ever have been needed on Nidia's own account--oh, Heavens! the idea was ghastly, if it were not so incredible Nidia, who had renounced airily the most alluring possibilities more than once, now to throw herself away upon a mere nobody! Nidia, who had never taken any of them seriously in her life, to succumb in this fashion! No, it could not be allowed. It could be nothing but the result of propinquity, and danger mutually shared. She must be saved from this at all costs. And then the good woman recognised uneasily that John Ames would be rather a difficult person to defeat, once he had made up his mind to opposition. Ah! but she had one card to play, one weapon wherewith to deal a blow to which one of his mould would be peculiarly vulnerable. The while she watched Nidia closely. But for the discovery she had made, she would have rejoiced to see her darling so completely her old self, all brightness and animation as she chatted away with the two visitors; now that very gladsomeness was as a poisoned and rankling dart to the dismayed observer, for it confirmed all her direst suspicions. Susie Bateman's Christianity was about on a par with that of the average British female, in that she would have looked sourly askance at anybody who should refuse to attend church, yet just then she would have given a great deal to learn that Tarrant's report was erroneous, and that John Ames was at that moment lying among the granite wilds of the Matopos, as lifeless as the granite itself, with half a dozen Matabele assegais through him. Such aspirations, however, were as futile as they usually are, and the best proof of the truth of Tarrant's story lay in the real objective presence of the subject thereof; for hardly had the two men departed when they were replaced by a third--even John Ames him-self. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. THE PACKET MARKED "B." With her usual frank naturalness and absence of conventionality, Nidia went to meet him in the doorway. Then, as he took her extended hands, it seemed as though he were going to hold them for ever. Yet no word had passed between them. How well he looked! she was thinking. The light, not unpicturesque attire there prevailing, and so becoming to a good-looking, well-made man, suited him, she decided. She had first seen him in the ordinary garments of urban civilisation. She had seen him last a tattered fugitive, haggard and unshaven. Now the up-country costume--silk shirt and leather belt, and riding-trousers with gaiters--endowed his lithe well set-up form with an air of freedom and ease, and looking into the clear-cut face and full grey eyes, framed by the wide, straight brim of the up-country hat, she thought she had never seen him looking so well. "How glad I am to see you again!" she said, "Ten thousand welcomes. Do you know, I have been feeling ever since as if _I_ were responsible for--for whatever had befallen you." "Yes? Imagine, then, what _I_ must have felt at the thought of you, alone in the mountains, not knowing what to do or where to turn. I wonder it didn't drive me stark staring mad. Imagine it, Nidia. Just try to imagine it! Words won't convey it." "I did have a dreadful time. But I knew nothing would have kept you from returning to me, had you been able. And then your boy, Pukele, arrived, and took such care of me. I sent him out to find you, and he said you had been among the Matabele, but had been able to leave them again--" "Who? My boy? Pukele?" repeated John Ames, wonderingly. "Yes. He brought me out of the mountains. One day he went out to hunt. I heard him, as I thought, fire a couple of shots, and came up to find myself among friends again." "Nidia," called a voice from within--a voice not untinged with acerbity--"won't Mr Ames come inside?" John Ames started, and the effect seemed to freeze him somewhat. The coldness of the greeting extended to him as he complied, completed the effect. Instinctively he set it down to its true cause. "We met last under very different circumstances, didn't we, Mrs Bateman?" he said easily. "None of us quite foresaw all that has happened since." "I should think not. The wonder is that one of us is alive to tell the tale," was the rejoinder, in a tone which seemed to imply that no thanks were due to John Ames that `one of us' was--in short, that he was responsible for the whole rising. "And do you remember my asking if there wasn't a chance of the natives rising and killing us all?" said Nidia. "I have often thought of that. What times we have been through!" with a little shudder. "Yet, in some ways it seems almost like a dream. Doesn't it, Susie?" "A dream we are not awakened from, unfortunately," was the reply. "We don't seem through our troubles yet. Well, as for as we are concerned, we soon shall be. I want to take Miss Commerell out of this wretched country, Mr Ames, as soon as ever it can be managed. Don't you think it the best plan?" "I think you are both far safer where you are, since you ask me," he answered. "Any amount of reinforcements are on their way, and meanwhile the laager here, though uncomfortable, is absolutely safe, because absolutely impregnable. Whereas the Mafeking road, if still open, is so simply on sufferance of the rebels. Any day we may hear of the Mangwe being blocked." "I disagree with you entirely," came the decisive reply. "I hear, on first-rate authority, that the coaches are running regularly, under escort, and that the risk is very slight. I think that will be our best plan. I suppose you will be joining one of the forces taking the field as soon as possible, won't you, Mr Ames?" If there was one thing that impressed itself upon John Ames when he first entered, it was that this woman intended to make herself supremely disagreeable; now he could not but own that she was thoroughly succeeding, and, as we said, he had instinctively seen her bent. She was, in fact, warning him off. The tone and manner, the obtrusive way in which she was mapping out his own movements for him, stirred within him a resentment he could hardly disguise, but her suggestion with regard to disposing of those of Nidia struck him with a pang of dismay, and that accentuated by considerations which will hereinafter appear. Now he replied-- "My plans are so absolutely in the clouds that I can hardly say what I may decide to do, Mrs Bateman. I might even decide to cut my connection with this country. Take a run home to England, perhaps. What if I were so fortunate as to come in as your escort?" This he said out of sheer devilment, and he was rewarded, for if ever a human countenance betrayed disgust, repressed wrath, baffled scheming, all at once, that countenance belonged to Susie Bateman at that moment Nidia came to the rescue. "You have not told us your adventures yet," she said. "I want to know all that happened since you left me. I only hope none of these tiresome men will come in and interrupt." _All_ that happened! He could not tell her all, for he had pledged his word to the Umlimo. The latter had predicted that he would meet with every temptation to violate that pledge, and here was one of them. No, not even to her could he reveal all. But he told her of his fall from the dwala, his unconsciousness, and, leaving out that strange and startling experience, he went on to tell her what the reader has yet to learn--how he awoke in the broad light of day to find himself surrounded by armed natives, friendly to himself, however, who, of course, acting under orders from the Umlimo, had escorted him to within safe distance of Bulawayo. Unconsciously their tones--he narrating, she commenting upon the narrative--became soft. Their glances, too, seemed to say something more than words. Both, in fact, were back again in imagination, roaming the wilds together, alone. They seemed to lose themselves in the recollection, oblivious of the presence of a third party. The said third party, however, was by no means oblivious of them. Her ear weighed every tone, her keen eye noted every glance, every expression, and she grew proportionately venomous. Yet, looking at the man, she could hardly wonder at Nidia's preference, and the uncomfortable consciousness was forced upon her that whoever might be the object of it, this man or any other, her own feeling would be just the same--one of acute powerless jealousy, to wit, that any should ever stand before herself in her darling's preferences. "Don't go," said Nidia, putting forth a hand to detain him, for his story had run on late, and he was rising with an apology. "Stay and have dinner with us. It's siege fare, but even then a little more varied than our precarious ration under the rocks--not that one did not positively enjoy that at the time," she added with a laugh. He joined in. "Did you? I'm sure I did. Considering we were without any adjuncts, your cooking was marvellous, Nidia." "Nidia" again! Heavens! It had come to that, then! Susie Bateman's hair nearly rose on end. "Well, you shall see if it is any better now," went on the girl, airily. "Oh, I do hope none of those stupid men will drop in. I want to have a nice long talk." "You haven't found them so stupid up till now, Nidia," struck in Susie Bateman. "Why, there isn't an evening some of them haven't been in to cheer us up." This for the benefit of John Ames, to whom the speaker divined it might in some way not be palatable. He for his part noted that she did not second the invitation, but he had reached that stage when he really didn't care to consider any Susie Bateman overmuch. Wherefore he accepted. But the latter, for her part, was resolved to pursue the campaign, and that vigorously, and to this end she never left them for one moment alone together. Likewise was she rather oftener than necessary very emphatic in referring to "Miss Commerell;" and when, later on, some of "those stupid men" did drop in, her joy was unbounded, equally so that they stayed late enough to leave John Ames no pretext for sitting them out. Resisting a pressing invite to finish up the evening at the Silver Grill, the latter went back to his quarters in by no means an elated frame of mind. Yet he had to some extent foreseen what had happened. Nidia had been kind and cordial to him, but there it was--as one of a crowd. There was no longer that sweet day-to-day companionship, they two isolated from the world. We repeat that he had foreseen this eventuality, yet now that it had arrived he liked it not one whit the more; nor was there consolation in the thought that here was another confirmation of the general accuracy of his forecasting faculty. Already he began to realise the Umlimo's forecast: "There will come a time when you will look back upon these rough wanderings of yours--the two of you--as a dream of paradise." Of a truth that strange being possessed the gift of prophecy to an extraordinary degree. Now, too, and in the days that followed, he found subject-matter for some very serious thinking, and one of the main subjects of his thoughts was that of the Umlimo. No abstraction, then, was this cult, such as he and others had supposed. Probably it had been originally, but he who now used the title had seized the opportunity of turning it into a most formidable weapon against his enemies, in furtherance of one of the most ruthless, daring, and far-reaching schemes of vengeance which the mind of man could ever conceive and foster; and the object of this terrible monomania, the man's own nationality. John Ames was in a quandary. Here he stood, possessed of most important knowledge, yet powerless to divulge it; cognisant of a fact of most vital moment to those who employed him, and whose pay he was receiving, yet tied and bound by his pledged word. There was one way out of this difficulty, and that way, not being an unscrupulous man, he decided to take. He resigned his position in the service of the Chartered Company. Even then his mind was by no means at ease. There seemed still to be a duty to perform to humanity in general. Were he to keep this knowledge to himself, how many lives would be sacrificed which otherwise might have been saved? The capture or death of the Umlimo--would it not be effectual to stop the rising? and was he not in duty bound to further this end in the interests of his fellow-countrymen? Conscience told him he might do this; for with all the care and secrecy that had attended both his entrance to and exit from the cave of mystery, he could not disguise from himself that, by careful calculations as to time and locality, he might be able to find the spot again. But then would rise before him his pledged word. He had given it when in the power of this extraordinary being, when both his own life and that of Nidia had lain in his hand, and he could not now go back on it--no, not on any consideration. His countrymen must take their chance. He had done all that could reasonably be expected of him in resigning his position and its emoluments. In doing this, however, it was pre-eminently a case of looking to virtue as its own reward. Certainly it brought him no nearer the realisation of his hopes; for so slender were his private means of existence, that only by the exercise of the most rigid economy could he get along at all, and the necessaries of life, be it remembered, were at famine prices. Decidedly, indeed, his prospects were looking blacker and yet more black. And what of Nidia herself? As the days went by she seemed to draw no nearer. Seldom now was he suffered to be alone with her, and then only for a minute or so, when an ever-present feeling of _gene_ and flurry would be there to mar the effect of any opportunity he might have had to improve the occasion, and, indeed, he was beginning to regard matters as hopeless. The persistent hostility of Mrs Bateman was ever on the watch to defeat his every move; and as to this, even, there were times when it seemed to him that Nidia was a trifle too acquiescent in the latter's objectionable and scarcely concealed efforts at railing him off. Then, too, Nidia was constantly surrounded by a knot of men, many of them fine gallant-looking fellows, already distinguished for some feat of intrepidity. There was the commander of the relief troop which had brought her in, for instance, and Carbutt and Tarrant and several others. He, John Ames, so far from being the one to bring her in, as he used to pride himself would be the case, had merely imperilled her the more by his own sheer incautious blundering. Sick at heart, he would fain be lying where he had fallen--a battered, lifeless heap at the base of the great _dwala_. From this his thoughts would wander to the mysterious rock-dwelling, and to him who inhabited it. Why, and with what object to serve, had the Umlimo spared and tended him? That he might deliver his message to the outside world? Well, he had done that. And then--and the very thought sent a thrill as of needles and pins throughout his whole system. He had delivered the one message, but what of the other enclosure, the one which in some mysterious way concerned himself, the packet marked "B"? He got it out and eyed it. The Umlimo's words were vividly imprinted in his memory. "The time may come when you will see everything dark around you, and there is no outlook, and life hardly worth prolonging. Then, and then only, open it." Solemn and weighty now did those words seem. Great Heaven! had not just such a time come? Was not everything dark enough in all conscience, and what outlook did life afford? Yes, he would do it. His heart beat fast as he undid the sealed oilskin wrappings of the packet. What would it contain, and how could such contents in any way conduce to his own welfare? The last wrapping was off, revealing an enclosure. Only a sealed letter, directed to the same names and address as that in the packet marked "A"--a firm in Cape Town--of solicitors or agents, he conjectured. One word of instructions accompanied this, one single word-- "Forward." "And that is all?" he said to himself, perhaps a trifle disappointedly, turning the enclosure round and round. "Well, that's no trouble. I'll go and do it." CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. THE FIGHT OUTSIDE. MacFurdon's troop, about two hundred strong, was sweeping up the long slope which ran northward from the township of Bulawayo, and the line it was taking would bring it out a little to the right of Government House and the site of the old kraal. It was bitterly cold, for the dawn had not yet risen. The insurgents had waxed bolder and yet more bold. They were holding the ridge, and were in calm possession of Government House itself, and now the idea was to teach them that the time had come when they could no longer have everything their own way. To this end it had been decided to get well within striking distance of them at break of day. MacFurdon's troop was rather a scratch concern, got together in a hurry, but consisting of good material. With it went many volunteers. It was, however, in this instance, as much a reconnoitring party as one for fighting purposes. On its right flank moved a contingent of the Cape Boy corps, feeling the ground towards the Umguza. This, too, was rather a scratch force, composed of every conceivable kind of South African native, but, like the other, of excellent fighting material. "Say, Ames--what sort of show you think we got?" whispered one of the volunteers aforesaid, as they drew near the crest of the rise. "Now, if they was Indians, I guess we'd boost them out of yon White House of yours in no time, striking them in the dark so." The speaker was an American, by name Shackleton, commonly called "The Major," by virtue of his having claimed to hold that rank in Uncle Sam's regular army. He likewise claimed to have seen service in the Indian wars on the Plains. In more peaceful times he was a prospector by occupation. "Show? Oh, the usual thing," answered John Ames. "We shall get in touch with each other, and there'll be a big swap in bullets, and a general hooroosh. They'll all sneak away in the grass, and we shall get back into camp feeling as if our clothes all wanted letting out. If there are more of them than we can take care of all at once, why, we shan't be feeling so vast." "That so? You ever fight Matabele before?" "Yes. I was up here with the column in '93. That used to be the programme then." The wind was singing in frosty puffs through the grass, bitterly cold. Riding along in the darkness, the numbed feet of most there advancing could hardly feel the stirrups. Then upon the raw air arose a sound--a strange, long-drawn wailing sound, not devoid of rhythm, and interspersed every now and then with a kind of humming hiss. "They are holding a war-dance, so there must be plenty of them there," whispered John Ames. "Listen! I can hear the words now." It was even as he said. They were near enough for that. Louder and louder the war-song of Lobengula swelled forth upon the darkness, coming from just beyond the rise-- "Woz 'ubone! Woz 'ubone, kiti kwazula! Woz 'ubone! Nants 'indaba. Indaba yemkonto--Jji-jji! Jji-jji! "Nants 'indaba. Indaba yezizwe. Akwazimuntu. Jji-jji! Jji-jji! Woz 'ubone! Nants 'indaba. Indaba kwa Matyobane. Jji-jji! Jji-jji!" ["Jji-jji" is the cry on striking a foe.] A translation of the war-song: "Come behold, come behold, at the High Place! Come behold. That is the tale--the tale of the spear. That is the tale--the tale of the nation. Nobody knows. Come behold. That is the tale--the tale of Matyobane." The barbaric strophes rolled in a wave of sound, rising higher with each repetition, and to the measured accompaniment of the dull thunder of stamping feet, the effect was weirdly grand in the darkness. "It makes something very like nonsense if turned into English," whispered John Ames, in reply to his comrade's query, "but it contains allusions well understood by themselves. There isn't anything particularly bloodthirsty about it, either. That sort of hiss, every now and then, is what we shall hear if we get to close quarters." "Their kind of war-whoop, maybe. I recollect at Wounded Knee Creek, when Big Foot's band made believe to come in--" But what the speaker recollected at Wounded Knee Creek was destined never to be imparted to John Ames, for at that juncture a peremptory word was passed for silence in the ranks. Now the dawn was beginning to show, revealing eager faces, set and grim, and rifles were grasped anew. Then what happened nobody seemed to know individually. A straggling volley was poured into the advancing troop from the crest of the rise, and the bugle rang out the order to charge. As John Ames had described it, there followed a sort of "hooroosh" in which each man was acting very much to his own hand, as, the troop having whirled over the ridge, the order was given to dismount, and the men stood pouring volley upon volley after the loose masses of flying savages. This, however, was not destined to last. The first shock over of surprise and dismay, the Matabele dropped down into cover and began to return the fire with considerable spirit. They were in some force, too, and it behoved the attacking whites to seize what shelter they could, each man taking advantage of whatever lay to his hand, whether stone or bush or ant heap, or even a depression in the ground. Then, for a space, things grew very lively. The sharp spit of rifles was never silent, with the singing of missiles overhead. The enemy had the advantage in the matter of cover, and now and then a dark form, gliding like a snake among the grass and thorns, would be seen to make a convulsive spring and fall over kicking. One trooper was shot dead, and more than one wounded, and meanwhile masses of the enemy could be descried working up to the south-west. Reinforcements? It looked like it, remembering that the force at first engaged was not inconsiderable. The word went forth to retreat. This was done in good order--at first. But now appeared a great outflanking mass, pouring up from the northern side, and its object was clear. A long wire fence ran down from the apex of the rise. It was necessary to retreat round the upper end of this. Did this outflanking mass reach it first, the white force would probably be destroyed, for they could not get their horses through the wire, and would have crushing odds to overwhelm them. It became a race for the end of the fence, which, however, the cool intrepidity and sound judgment of the leaders prevented from being a helter-skelter one. John Ames and "The Major" and a trooper were on the extreme left flank, now become the right one, all intent on a knot of savages, who were keeping them busily employed from a thick bit of thorn bush, and did not at once become alive to the retreat. When they did, they became alive to something else, and that was that by nothing short of a miracle could they gain the upper end of that fence in time. "Your horse jump, Ames?" said the American. "Don't know. Never tried." "You got to try now, then, by God! Our only chance. Look!" John Ames did look, and so did the other man. At the upper end of the fence a mass of savages were in possession, pouring a volley after the retreating troop. Below on their right the three men saw the other outflanking "horn" now closing in upon them, and a line of warriors coming through the grass and thorns in front at a trot. It was a strong impi, and a large one. In that brief flash of time, John Ames was curiously alive to detail. He could see the ostrich-feather mutyas worn by the warriors, the parti-coloured shields and the gleam of spears, and decided this was a crack regiment. He could see, too, the township of Bulawayo lying in its basin below, and the retreating horsemen now already far away. He noted the look of fear on the face of the trooper, and that of desperate resolve in the keen eyes of the American. "Now for it!" he cried. "Put your horses at it here. I'll give you a lead." A wire fence is a trying thing to jump, with an uncertain steed. To his surprise, John Ames lighted in safety on the other side. Not so Shackleton. His horse's hoofs caught the top wire, and turning a complete somersault, threw its rider heavily, but on the right side of the fence, while that of the trooper refused point-blank and trotted off, snorting idiotically, right down the fence into the very teeth of the advancing enemy. John Ames turned, then rode back. "Get up, Major, for Heaven's sake!" Shackleton had already been on his feet, but subsided again with a groan. "Can't. Ankle gone. Guess my time's here--right here," he panted. "You go on." "We don't do things that way, damn it!" John Ames answered, in his strong excitement. "Here, get up on my horse." He had dismounted. Shackleton's fool of an animal had already recovered itself and made itself scarce. The advancing impi was barely three hundred yards distant, pouring onward, shivering the air with its deep vibrating "Jji-jji!" "You go on!" repeated the American. "I won't be taken alive." John Ames _said_ no more. He _did_. Shackleton, fortunately, was rather a small man, and light. The other seized him under the shoulders, and by dint of half lifting, half pushing, got him bodily into the saddle. "Now go!" he shouted. "I'll hold on the stirrup." All this had taken something under a minute. They went. The impi was now pouring through the fence, whose momentary obstruction almost made a difference of life or death to the fugitives. How they escaped John Ames never knew. Sky, earth, the distant township beneath, all whirled round and round before him. Twice he nearly lost hold of the stirrup-leather and would have fallen; then at last became aware of slackening pace. Turning, dizzy and exhausted, he saw that the enemy had abandoned pursuit. And what of the unfortunate trooper? Not much, and that soon over, luckily. Abandoning his mount, he made a rush for the fence, but too late. A very hail of assegais was showered upon him, and he fell, half in, half out, across the wire. With a roar of exultation the savages were around him. Assegais gleamed in the air, first bright, then red, and in a second nothing was left but a shapeless and mangled mass. Such tragedies, however, come but under the simple word "losses," and these, all things considered, had not been great. On the other hand, the enemy had suffered severely, and if, by sheer force of overwhelming numbers, he had succeeded in driving them back, those forming the reconnaissance were not disposed to feel it acutely. They were quite ready to go in at him another day, and thus make things even. But Shackleton, otherwise "The Major," was not going to let the thing down so easily. His sprained ankle kept him tied by the leg for some days, but on the subject of the fight and the retreat he became somewhat of a bore. On the subject of John Ames he became even more of one. He was never tired of extolling that worthy's readiness and nerve, and his self-devotion in risking his life to save a comrade. "You British have got a little iron notion," he would say, "a thing you call a Victoria Cross, I reckon. Well, when you going to get it for John Ames? He boosted me on to his broncho like a sack right away, and run afoot himself. But for him where'd I be now? Cut into bully beef by those treacherous savages. Yes, sir." But as these incisive utterances were invariably accompanied by an invitation to liquor, there were some who were not above drawing. The Major upon his favourite topic. To most, however, he became a bore, but to none so much as the subject thereof. Said the latter one day-- "Do you know, Major, I begin to wish I had left you where you were. It's a fact that you're making a perfect fool of me, and I wish you'd drop it." "Shucks! Now you quit that fool-talk, John Ames, and reach down that whisky over there--if you can call such drug-store mixture as your Scotch stuff by the same name as real old Kentucky. I'm going on at it until they give you that little nickel thing you British think such a heap of." "But I don't want it, can't you understand?" he retorted angrily; "nor anything else either. I believe I'll get out of this country mighty soon. I'm sick of the whole show." Shackleton looked at his friend, and shook his head gravely. John Ames petulant, meant something very wrong indeed with John Ames. Then an idea struck "The Major"--a bright idea, he reckoned--and in the result he seized an early opportunity of making a call, and during that call he retold his favourite tale to just two persons--to one of whom it was pleasant and to one of whom it was not. You see, he was a shrewd observer, was Shackleton, otherwise "The Major." CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. THE KING AND THE AGE. "Do try and be serious a little while if you can, Nidia, if only that I have something very serious to say to you." "Drive ahead, then, Govvie. I promise not even to laugh." Susie Bateman looked at the girl as she sat there, with hands clasped together and downcast eyes, striving to look the very picture of be-lectured demureness, and tried to feel angry with her. Yet, somehow, she could not--no, not even when she thought to detect a suspicious heave of the shoulders which denoted a powerful fund of compressed laughter. With the absent object of her intended "straight talk" she felt venomously savage. With this one--no, she could not. "Well, what I want to say is this," she went on. "Nidia, is it fair to encourage that man as you do?" "Which man? There are so many men. Do I encourage them?" "Oh, child, don't be so wildly exasperating. You know perfectly well who I mean." Then Nidia lifted her eyes with a gleam of delightful mischief in them. "I have a notion you are ungrammatical, Govvie. I am almost sure you ought to have said `_whom_ I mean.' Well, we won't be particular about that. But, as my American adorer, `Major' Shackleton, would say, `Oh, do drive on,' By the way, is he the man I am encouraging?" What was to be done with such a girl as this? But Susie Bateman was not to be put off. "You know perfectly well that I mean John Ames." "Oh! Now you're talking, as my `Major' aforesaid would rejoin. And so I encourage John Ames, do I? Poor fellow! he seems to need it." There was an unconscious softness wherewith these words were uttered. It drove the other frantic, "Need it indeed! On the contrary, what he needs is discouragement, and plenty of it. Well, he gets it from me, at any rate." "Oh yes, he does," came the softly spoken interpolation. "Well, but, Nidia, how much further is this thing to go? Why, the man comes here and talks to you as if you belonged to him; has a sort of taken-possession-of-you way about him that it's high time to put an end to." "And if he had not `taken possession' of me in that ghastly place on the Umgwane, and kept it ever since, where would I be now?" came the placid rejoinder. "Yes, I know. That is where the mischief came in. It was partly my fault for ever encouraging the man's acquaintance. I might have known he would be dangerous. There is that about him so different to the general run of them that would make him that way to one like yourself, Nidia. Yes; I blame myself." "Yes; he is different to the general ruck, isn't he?" rejoined Nidia, with a softness in her wide-opened eyes that rather intensified than diminished the bitterness of her friend and mentor. "Well, at any rate he is nobody in particular," flashed out the latter, "and probably hasn't got a shilling to his name; and now I hear he has resigned his appointment"--again that provoking smile, "Once for all, Nidia; do you intend to marry him?" "Marry who? John Ames?" "Yes," with a snap. "He hasn't asked me." The innocent artlessness of the tone, the look of absolute and childlike simplicity in the blue eyes as the answer came tranquilly forth, would have sent a bystander into convulsions. It sent Mrs Bateman out of the room in a whirlwind of wrath. After her went the offender. "Don't get mad, Susie. I can't help being a tease, can I? I was built that way. Come along out, and we'll drop in on some other frightened and beleaguered female, and swap camp and laager gossip." But the other refused. She was seriously put out, she said, and never felt less like going anywhere. So Nidia, who understood her--at times, somewhat crusty--friend thoroughly, and managed her accordingly, put on her hat and went alone. To do her justice, Mrs Bateman, from her point of view, was not without cause for concern. Nidia's father--she had lost her mother--was the senior partner of an exceedingly wealthy firm of shipowners, and had certainly a more brilliant future planned for his only and idolised daughter than an alliance with a penniless nobody; for so, with a certain spiteful emphasis, Mrs Bateman delighted to designate the object of her abhorrence. The girl had been allowed to accompany her only after long and much-expressed opposition on the paternal side, and now she felt simply weighted down with responsibility. And this was the way in which she had fulfilled her trust! But fortune seemed inclined to favour her to-day. Scarcely had Nidia been gone ten minutes, than there came a knock at the door of their diminutive abode. John Ames himself! Susie Bateman snorted like the metaphoric warhorse, for she scented battle. She was about to indulge this obnoxious person with a very considerable fragment of her mind. Nevertheless she welcomed him pleasantly--almost too pleasantly, thus overdoing the part. But she had no intention of sending him off at a tangent, as she knew full well would be the result of letting him know that Nidia was not in. Observing him keenly, she noted the quick shade of disappointment as he became alive to the fact that the room was empty save for herself. She knew exactly what was passing in his mind, and found a cruel enjoyment in observing every sign of expectation evoked by this or that sound outside, for she had not told him that Nidia was out, and knew that he was still hoping she might only be in another room. At length he enquired. "Miss Commerell has gone out," she replied. "She went round to see some people; I didn't even hear who they were. She won't be back till lunch-time, if then; and perhaps it is just as well, Mr Ames, for I have been wanting to have a little quiet conversation with you. Now we can have it." "Yes?" he said enquiringly. But tranquil as the tone was, she had not failed to note the scarcely perceptible start of conscious dismay evoked by the announcement. Yet now it had come to the point, she for her part hardly knew how to begin, and he was not going to help her. Besides, his tranquil self-possession was somewhat disconcerting. However, she started in at it, characteristically, headlong. "Now, you must not be angry with me, Mr Ames; but I want to talk to you as a woman of the world to a man of the world. In short, about Miss Commerell." "Such a subject cannot but be interesting, Mrs Bateman." "She is under my charge, you know." "Yes. You are to be congratulated on the delightful nature of such a charge." "But you admit that it is one which entails a grave responsibility?" "The gravest responsibility," he replied. "Well, then, the gravity of that responsibility must be my excuse for what I am about to say. Don't you think you come here rather often?" She was exasperated by his imperturbability. She could see he meant fencing, wherefore she clubbed him without further preliminary. "Do I?" he answered, in the same even tone. She could hardly restrain her wrath, and her voice took a higher pitch. "Do you?" she echoed somewhat stupidly, because fast losing her temper. "Well, when I tell you people are beginning to talk about it?" "Yes; they would be sure to do that. You see, they have so little to talk about, all crowded up together here." She was taken wildly aback. The unparalleled impudence of the man, taking everything for granted in this way! "Well, I can't have Miss Commerell talked about, and I won't. And that's all about it." "Oh, it's about Miss Commerell they are talking? I understood you to mean it was about my coming here." Then Mrs Bateman lost her temper, and, as women of her stamp usually do under such circumstances, she became rude. "Bless the man, is he quite a fool?" she broke forth, fairly quivering with rage. "Don't you, or won't you, understand that you are the cause of getting Nidia talked about? You! And I won't have it. Indeed, under the circumstances, your acquaintance with Miss Commerell had better cease. She is in my charge, remember." "Yes. But she is not a child. I should first like to hear Miss Commerell's own views in the matter; indeed, shall do so before deciding on whether to fall in with yours or not, and so I tell you frankly, Mrs Bateman. Of course this is your house, and I need hardly say I shall visit it no more." "One moment. I have not quite done," she went on, for he had risen to go. "Again you must forgive me for plain-speaking; but let me advise you, as a friend, to entertain no hopes that can only end in disappointment. You are probably aware that Miss Commerell's father is a very wealthy man, and therefore you will not be surprised to learn that he has mapped out a brilliant future for his only daughter." The speaker was alive to the slight stirring of dismay that passed like a ripple over the countenance of her hearer. She knew him well enough to be sure that the bolt had gone home, and at heart secretly respected him. In making this statement she had thrown her king of trumps. "It is very painful for me to be obliged to speak like this, Mr Ames," she went on, deftly infusing a little less acerbity into her tone, "especially when _I_ think of all you have done for Miss Commerell throughout a time of terrible danger. But as to this, you will certainly not find her people ungrateful; you may take my assurance as to that. Let me see. You have resigned your appointment, have you not? At least, so I have been told." She paused. She had thrown her ace. John Ames, his face white to the lips with this culminating outrage, replied-- "Pardon me if I decline to discuss my own private affairs with anybody, Mrs Bateman. For the rest, there is a pitch of perfection in everything, even in the art of plain-speaking, and perfection in that art I must congratulate you on having attained. Good morning!" He bowed and left the house, with, at any rate, all the honours of war on his side; and this she could not but recognise, feeling rather small and uncomfortable as she looked after his retreating figure. But she had thrown her ace of trumps, anyway. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "How will you face the parting of the ways?" The Umlimo's question came back to his mind as he walked away from the house in a very fury of turmoil. The Umlimo's predictions seemed to fulfil themselves to the letter in every particular. In his then frame of mind John Ames found his thoughts reverting to that strange personality with a kind of fascination, of deepened sympathy. He himself began to feel the same hatred of his kind, the same intuition that even as the hand of everybody was against him, so should his hand be against everybody. It was significant that Nidia should have been out of the way. Could it be that she had deputed this cursed, parrot-faced, interfering woman to take up her part and so clear the ground for her? His part was played. He had been Nidia's Providence during that perilous flight, but now his part was played. She had no longer any use for him. The "brilliant future mapped out for her"--the words seemed burnt into his brain--what part or lot had he in such, he a mere penniless nobody? And then all the outrageous insult conveyed by the woman's words--a sort of patronising assurance that he would be compensated, yes, compensated--paid--why did she not call it? Faugh! It was sickening. Well, again, as the Umlimo had pronounced, it was the way of life. Black and bitter were his thoughts. All was dark--blankly dark. He knew not which way to turn. And at this juncture "The Major," otherwise Shackleton, his ankle now restored sufficiently to enable its owner to hobble about, barred his material way with a pressing invitation to come round and lunch. Lunch, indeed! Mentally he consigned that estimable American to the devil, and, leaving him astonished, went on to his own quarters, like a wounded animal, to hide his pain and heartbreak alone. Besides, he was sick of the story of his own "heroism." Damn such "heroism"! He thought of the luckless trooper who had been with them in their peril, probably conjured up by the sight of Shackleton, and envied him. Why had he not been the one to end his hopes and fears then in that swift and easy manner? That poor devil probably had plenty of life's sweets in front of him. He had none. That was all over and done with. He gained his quarters. The post had come in, and on his table lay a pile of official-looking letters, most of them addressed to him by his late official style. He glanced through them listlessly, one after another, and then--What was it that caused his hand to shake and the colour to leave his face, and started him bolt upright? He stared at the sheet again and again. Yes, there it was. He was not dreaming. The sheet of paper was material, substantial; the words on it, written in a somewhat flourishing, clerkly hand, were plain enough, and they were to the effect that there had been placed to his credit, and lay at his disposal, in the Standard Bank in Cape Town, the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds. Twenty-five thousand pounds! At his disposal! Heavens, what did it mean? Some hoax? Some practical joke? Of course. But with the bank communication was an enclosure. This he opened with trembling fingers, and thus it ran-- "In carrying out my instructions, John Ames, as you have done to the very letter, you have rendered me a service beyond any money value. Go now and be happy with her whom you love, and this end the accompanying communication will materially further. Do not spoil your happiness by any cursed foolish pride, or insane ideas of being under an obligation, for this sum is less to me than a five-pound note would be to you probably at this moment"--again that well-nigh superhuman gift of forecast--"and take no more risks, but go in peace while you, or rather while _ye_, may--_the road is still open_--and by your lifelong happiness continue to justify the forecasts of:-- "Umlimo." This, then, was what meant the opening of the packet marked "B." CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. ...AND THE ODD TRICK. John Ames stared at this communication till his eyes were dizzy, and a wild rush of joy surged through his being. Its genuineness he could not doubt. The bank paper, the bank seal--even the signature of the letter he knew by name. Now he was no longer a penniless nobody, but the possessor of what was really a small fortune. Why, indeed, should any false pride stand in the way of his acceptance of it? People received bequests, even from unknown testators--received them thankfully; why should not he? The testator was living, yet practically dead to his kind. Again, there was a sort of appeal in the very wording of this strange communication. Why should he wreck his life's happiness upon any rock of false pride? He could now press his suit upon, at any rate, independent terms. Then, to dash his exultation, in came that ugly thought again. Could it really be that that odious woman was deputed by Nidia? Horrible! What was this sudden access to competence in such a case? "A brilliant future mapped out for her." Even now, under his changed fortunes, such was not within his reach to offer her. John Ames was a proud man and a sensitive one. Could it be that his ideal had stopped down from her pedestal? Then, by a comic twist of thought, came back that conversation down by the blue sea at Camp's Bay. This pedestal to let! Yes, it was comical. But again, by another twist of thought, came back that day in all its idyllic aspects; in all the golden glow of love and faith, and vague, indefinable hope. Came back also that parting in the solitudes of a grim wilderness, that pressure of the hands, that last long look into the eyes. Surely there was truth; there, far from artificial restraints, was the soul laid bare. John Ames became sane again. Yet it was in no great exaltation of mind that he wended his way, a couple of days later, to the dwelling occupied by Mrs Bateman. He had declared he would enter it no more, but now, under the circumstances, he would do so once. He would be firm and decided, too, in the attainment of his object, and that was to see Nidia alone. He would take no denial. This time, however, he was spared the necessity of further conflict. Nidia was there to welcome him, and she was alone. She looked at him searchingly, and her eyes were grave. "What is the matter?" she said. "You are looking careworn and anxious. Why?" "Am I? Oh, it's nothing. Some active service will soon send that away." "Active service?" "Yes. I'm going to volunteer." "Haven't you had enough of that yet?" "I haven't had any. My active service up till now has been strictly confined to running away, and uncommonly `active' service it has been, let me assure you." "Running away?" she repeated. "Yes; it is the sort of running away that one has a particular admiration for. Running away on foot, for instance, with about a thousand savages a hundred yards behind, so that a wounded comrade may ride away on one's horse." He flushed. That wretched Shackleton had been firing off that stale yarn here too. Of course, it would look as though he himself had inspired it. "Don't look annoyed," said Nidia, softly; "because I haven't half done. `Running away,' too, in order to take care of a certain helpless fugitive belonging to the helpless sex, who would otherwise certainly have been murdered, or certainly have come to some miserable end a dozen times over, is another kind of flight which appeals." "Oh, for Heaven's sake leave that part of it! It was no thanks to me and my blundering asinine stupidity that you came in safe at all." "No. But, you see, I happen to hold a different opinion. And now, John, I have a little sore grievance against you, and I want to work it off. We don't see much of you now. Why not?" "Well, `_we_' don't want to. Do you happen to know that only a couple of days ago I was requested not to come here any more?" "Do I happen to know? Why, of course I don't. This is the first I've heard of it," answered Nidia, speaking quickly and with some indignation. "I did not even know you had been here a couple of days ago. I only know how I have missed you since." "It is hardly fair, though, to give that as a reason. There may be others. One is, perhaps, that I thought you might have too much of a not very good thing; that you might have had enough of me during all the time we were together, and change is congenial sometimes. Again, perhaps, it is that I have not been feeling particularly cheerful of late, and feared to inflict it upon you." Nidia's face, which at first had taken on a hurt look, now grew very soft. "What have you been troubled about? Can you not tell me? _Me_, remember?" The very tone was a caress. But somehow it recalled the abominable hint thrown out by Mrs Bateman that very morning--the imputation that had stung and insulted him to the very core of his finest feelings--and the recollection hardened him. "Whatever I have been troubled about will trouble me as long as life itself," he answered, looking her in the eyes full and straight. "But I did not come here to whine to you, trouble or not. I came to say good-bye." "Good-bye?" "Yes. I have volunteered for active service, and am under orders to be in readiness to take the field at a moment's notice." "Then you may consider those orders cancelled. You are under orders to remain where you are until further notice." "What?" he said, looking down at her where she stood, for he had risen preparatory to taking his leave. "To remain where I am? What do you mean, Nidia?" "I mean that you can't go, and I don't intend that you shall. Heavens, what do you want to go getting yourself killed for? Wasn't it bad enough when you nearly did--when I--when we--all thought you were? You have got to stay here and take care of me." What was this? Nidia's self-possession breaking down so signally? Were his eyes and ears utterly deceiving him? There was what sounded suspiciously like the catch of a sob in her voice, and in her eyes that same look of appeal, of wistfulness, he had seen there when they bade each other that last farewell in the wilds of the Matopos. His face flushed beneath its bronze, then went white; but his voice was firm as ever as he imprisoned her with his arms. "To take care of you? Then I must do so for life, Nidia." "Yes; I think you had better, as you know how to do it so well," she replied, raising her lips. It was their first kiss; but it was even as the welding of two souls. It was their first kiss, but for a very brief space the only one. With no further necessity for self-containment, John Ames seemed to pour forth his whole soul, his whole nature, in adoration of this girl, the first sight of whom had turned the whole current of his thoughts and inner life. All of this Nidia learned, and was infinitely, radiantly happy. "Shall I tell you something--darling?" she said. "Strange as it may sound, I have never loved anybody before--have never felt the slightest inclination to. But when I saw you, I knew the possibility was there. You were--are--so different to everybody else. I missed you so frightfully when you left to come up here. There, I never told you that before. And all the time we were out together in the mountains I loved being with you--felt so safe with you, somehow, and--Oh!" The last ejaculation was evoked by the appearance of a third party on the scene. In the doorway stood Mrs Bateman, speechless, her high-featured countenance livid with amazement, rage, and baffled spite. "Come here, Susie, and say, `Bless you, my children,'" called out Nidia, a lovely blush coming over her face, as she realised the very near propinquity in which she stood to the other occupant of the room, who, for his part, said nothing. But there came no answer. The other turned and walked away in silence. She had thrown her king and her ace, but the odd trick remained, and this John Ames held. Shiminya, the sorcerer, was seated in his _muti_ kraal on the Umgwane river, but he was not alone. With him sat Nanzicele, ex-sergeant of the native police. From the tone of their voices they seemed not on very good terms. Not to put too fine a point upon it, they were quarrelling. Now, the cause of the difference lay in the fact that Nanzicele aspired to join the ranks of the Abantwana 'Mlimo. Shiminya, on the other hand, was resolved that the hierarchy of the Great Abstraction would be better without him, and was breaking this resolve as gently as might be. But Nanzicele had been drinking. He had obtained some gin among certain overlooked loot of a sacked store, and Nanzicele, foiled in his objects, and half drunk, was a very unpleasant customer indeed, not to say a sufficiently formidable one. Now he was raising his voice threateningly, jeering Shiminya, and more than hinting that he was a rank impostor--he and all his cloth. The seer's snake-like eyes sparkled with vindictive hate, for he was no more fond of being reviled and insulted than other and commoner mortals. Another consideration actuating this precious pair was that each was in a position to give the other away. Both knew that the result of the rising was but a question of time, and each had an idea that he might purchase safety at the expense of the other. A large bowl of _tywala_ was on the ground between them. Suddenly, as Shiminya stooped to raise this, his confederate whirled up his stick, intending to bring it down upon the sorcerer's head in such wise that the Umlimo would be without one of his most valuable myrmidons. But the move was not quick enough. The blow, instead of shattering skull, came down on shoulder, with numbing, crushing effect. Lithe as an eel, Shiminya twisted, and sprang to his feet. At him sprang Nanzicele. The sorcerer had no weapon to hand. The big Matabele, pressing him hard against the thorn fence, had him at his mercy. Not quite. As the second blow descended, something entered Nanzicele's side, sharp, fiery, scathing. Then Shiminya fell, his limbs squirming in spasmodic quiver, and from his relaxed grasp there fell a small knife. This Nanzicele pushed aside with his foot, uttering a contemptuous grunt. "_Au_! That does not kill," he growled, surveying his ribs, whence the blood flowed freely, but from a mere flesh-wound. Then shifting his knobstick into his left hand, the vengeful savage seized a broad-bladed assegai, and plunged it into the vitals of his prostrate confederate. "Yeh-bo!" he cried. "Fare thee well, Shiminya. The Umtwana 'Mlimo can bleed as well as an ordinary man--can die! _Hlala-gahle Umtwana 'Mlimo_!" The body of the sorcerer lay motionless. Gazing upon it for a moment, Nanzicele turned away to the huts. There was plunder there, plenty of it, and for some little while he turned his attention thitherward, finding and appropriating to his own use a good many things of vast value in his eyes, arms and ammunition, wearing apparel, tobacco, and what not. But as he opened one of the huts there darted out against his legs something grey and hairy and snarling, nearly upsetting him with the shock and the scare. Before he had recovered from his startled surprise the thing had vanished and now Nanzicele deemed it time to do likewise. The sun's rays grew longer and longer, throwing shadows over the ill-omened abode of dark dealings, and the motionless body that lay there. Then the body was motionless no longer. The limbs moved; next the head was raised, but feebly. Shiminya sat up. "Ah, ah! The Umtwana 'Mlimo is not so easy to kill, Nanzicele; and thou--for this thou shalt die a thousand deaths," he murmured. He reached over for the _tywala_ bowl, but it had been upset in the scuffle and was empty. Parched with a feverish and burning thirst, the sorcerer dragged himself on hands and knees to the hut wherein he knew there was more of the liquor. He reached it at length, trailing broad splashes of blood behind him. Creeping within, he found the great calabash. It was empty. Nanzicele had drained it. In a tremble of exhaustion Shiminya sank to the ground. The cold dews of death were upon his face. The awful coldness throughout his frame, the result of a prodigious loss of blood, became an agony. Air! A great craving for air was upon him. His brain reeled, and his lungs gasped. He felt as though he could no longer move. Then the door was darkened, and something brushed in. With a superhuman effort he collected his energies. "Hamba, Lupiswana!" he gurgled. "Hamba-ke!" But the brute took no notice of the voice before which it was wont to cower and tremble. It crouched, snarling. Then it put its head down and licked the blood-gouts which had fallen upon the ground from the veins of its evil master. The latter began to experience some of the agonies he had delighted to witness in his victims. The savage beast had tasted blood--his blood. And he himself was too weak to have resisted the onslaught of a rat. Again he called, trying to infuse strength into his voice. But the crafty beast knew his state exactly, it had learnt to gauge helplessness in the case of too many other victims, perhaps. It only crawled a little nearer, still growling. For a while they lay thus, man and beast, mutually eyeing each other. The eyes of the former were becoming glazed with the agony of utter weakness but active apprehension. Those of the latter glared yellow and baleful in the semi-gloom of the hut. It was a horrid sight. "Hamba, Lupiswana!" repeated the sorcerer, instinctively groping for a weapon. But with a shrill snarl the brute was at his throat, tearing and worrying, and, although a small animal, so furious was its frenzy over this new and copious feast of blood, that it shook the light form of the wizard, almost as it would have done that of a newly dropped fawn. And then in the semi-gloom was the horrible spectacle of a man with his throat half torn out, feebly battling with the enraged furious beast covered with blood and uttering its guttural snarls, as it tore and clawed at his already lacerated vitals. But the struggle did not last. The grim "familiar spirit" had triumphed over its evil master. Shiminya the sorcerer lay dead in his _muti_ kraal, and the horrible brute lay growling and snarling as it gorged itself to repletion upon his mangled body. And Nanzicele? Exultant, yet somewhat fearing, he decamped with his booty; but he did not get far. A dizziness and griping pain was upon him, and he sank down in the river-bed, by a water-hole. What was it? His wound was slight. Ha! The knife! Yes. A greenish froth was on the surface of his wound. The knife was poisoned. His agonies now were hardly less than those of his slayer, and his thirst became intense. Crawling to a water-hole, he staggered over it to drink, then drew back appalled. He could not drink there, at any rate. It was the very hole into which he had helped throw the unfortunate girl Nompiza. Her decomposing lineaments seemed to glower at him from the surface of the water as he bent over to drink. With a raucous yell he flung himself back, and then, in a paroxysm of agonised convulsions, the rebel and treacherous murderer yielded up the ghost. He too, you see, had thought to hold the trump card over his confederate, but it was the latter who held the odd trick. Yet better for both, swifter and more merciful, would have been the noosed rope of the white man's justice than the end which had overtaken them. CHAPTER THIRTY. CONCLUSION. Golden August--a sky of cloudless blue softening into the autumn haze which dims the horizon; golden August, with the whirr of the reaping-machine, as the yellow wheat falls to the harvest, blending with the cooing of wood-pigeons among the leafy shades of the park; golden August, with its still, rich atmosphere, and roll of green champaign and velvety coppice, and honeysuckle-twined hedgerow, and dappled kine standing knee-deep in shaded pond; in short, golden August in one of the fairest scenes of fair England. Here and there red roofs clustering around a grey church tower, whose sparkling vane flashes in the sun; here and there a solitary thatch. In front a lovely sward stretching down to a sunken fence, and a gap, revealing the charming vista of landscape beyond--such is the outlook from the library window of the beautiful and sumptuous home into which we will take a brief and only peep, for it has been for some years past Nidia's home, and is the property of her father. _Has_ been? we said. That it should continue to be so, forms, as it happens, the subject-matter of the very conversation going on at that moment between them. Nidia herself seems in no wise to have altered; indeed, why should she, unless to grow more charming, more alluring than before, that being the only alteration happiness is potent to effect? For on the third finger of her left hand a plain gold ring of suspicious newness proclaims that she is Nidia Commerell no longer. The other party to the conversation is her father. "It is really good of you, child," the latter is saying, "to come back so soon to your old father, left all alone. Not many would have done it--at any rate, at such a time as this. But I don't want to be selfish. You had been away from me so long, and had been so near--well, being away altogether it would have been, I suppose, but for that fine fellow, John Ames--that--well, I did want to see my little girl again for a few days before she started on her travels, not in an infernal savage-ridden country this time, thank God!" "Of course I wanted to see you again, dear--and just as much as you did me," returned Nidia, meaning it, too. "But even the `infernal savage-ridden country' has its bright side." "Meaning John Ames," said the old gentleman, with a laugh. In aspect Mr Commerell was of about medium height, scrupulously neat in his attire. He wore a short white beard, and had very refined features; and looking into his eyes, it was easy to see whence Nidia had got hers. In manner he was very straight to the point and downright, but it was not the downrightness which in nineteen cases out of twenty degenerates into mere brusquerie. He and John Ames had taken to each other wonderfully, and the old gentleman had already begun to look upon his son-in-law as his own son. "What I have got to say, child, is this," he went on; "and mind you, I don't much like saying it. However, here it is. When you have done your round on the Continent, why not come back here and make this your home? I know the old argument against relations-in-law in the same house and all that, but here it's different. You should both be as free as air as far as I am concerned. You know I am not of the interfering sort--indeed, you could have your own set of apartments, for the matter of that. But when I bought this property to retire to in my old age, it was with an eye to some such contingency, and--um--well, it could not have befallen better. Well, what I was coming to is that it is a large property and wants some looking after, and John will find plenty to do in looking after it. He will have to look after it for himself and you when my time is up, so may as well begin now." But Nidia took the old man's face between her hands as he sat, and stopped his utterance with a very loving kiss. "Father, darling, don't say any more about relations-in-law and interfering, and all that--bosh. Yes, bosh. _You_ interfering, indeed! And for the matter of that, I know that John is awfully fond of you; you get on splendidly together. Of course we will come back and take care of you, and we'll all be as happy together as the day is long." "God bless you, Nidia, child! Hallo! here he comes." "Who?" asked Nidia, with a ripple of mirth over the inconsequence of the remark--which certainly was funny. "John, of course. He is a fine fellow, Nidia. Didn't know they grow men like that in those parts"--with a very approving gaze at the advancing figure of his son-in-law, who, strolling along the terrace, was drinking in the lovely panorama of fair English landscape, contrasting it, perchance, with certain weird regions of granite boulder and tumbled rock and impenetrable thorn thicket. And here it may be noted that, her present happiness notwithstanding, Nidia had by no means forgotten her sad and terrible experiences, and there were times when she would start up in her sleep wild-eyed and with a scream of horror, as she saw once more the mutilated corpses of the murdered settler's family, or found herself alone in the shaggy wilds of the Matopos. But the awakening more than made up for the reminiscence. She was young, and of sound and buoyant Constitution, and the grim and ghastly recollection of appalling sights and peril passed through would eventually fade. "Am I interrupting you?" said John Ames, as at his entrance the two looked up. "Nidia was going to stroll down to the bridge with me, Mr Commerell; but if you want her, why, I shall have to keep myself company." "Considerate, as few of them are or would be under the circumstances," thought the old gentleman to himself. But aloud he said, "No--no. It's all right. We've done our talk, John. You'd better take her with you, and she can tell you what it has all been about. Besides, I have some business to attend to." He watched them strolling along the terrace together, and a strange joyful peace was around the old man's heart. "God bless them!" he murmured to himself--his spectacles, perhaps, a trifle dim. "They are a well matched pair, and surely this is a Heaven-made union if such a thing exists. God bless them, and send them every happiness!" And here we take leave to join in the above aspiration; for although ourselves no believers in the old-fashioned "lived-happy-ever-after" theory, holding that about nineteen such cases out of twenty, putting it at a modest proportion, are, in actual fact, but sparsely hedged around with the a "happy" qualification, yet here we think it possible that the twentieth case may be found, if only that all the circumstances attendant upon it go to make for that desirable end. The End.