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“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
Madúla’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 Madúla 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 Madúla’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 Madúla’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 Madúla 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 Madúla 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 Madúla 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 Madúla 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 Madúla’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, Madúla. 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 Madúla, 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 Madúla’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.
