Kitabı oku: «The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley», sayfa 7

Chapter Ten.
A Piece of Zulu Jockeying

After leaving Doorn Draai they trekked on through the Umsinga district, and, turning off the main road at Helpmakaar on the Biggarsberg Heights, descended to Rorke’s Drift. And it was while making their way down to that now historical point that Gerard began to realise what a waggon could do; what an incredible amount of hard knocking about it could stand; for the track seemed a mere succession of ruts and boulders, and as the huge vehicles went creaking and grinding over this, they seemed literally to twist and writhe, until it looked as though each fresh bump must shatter the whole fabric into a thousand crashing fragments. Once, but for his promptitude, the waggon of which Gerard was in charge would infallibly have overturned. However, they reached the drift without accident, and crossed the next day into the Zulu country.

At first Gerard could hardly realise that he was no longer under the British flag. This side of the Buffalo river presented no appreciable difference to the side they had just left. A line of precipitous hills rose a few miles in front, and to the eastward a great lion-shaped crag, the now ill-famed Isandhlwana. But few Zulus had come to the waggons, and they struck him as wearing no different aspect to the natives on the Natal side, nor, by-the-by, did they seem in any way keen upon trading.

We fear it may hardly be denied that the rose-coloured spectacles through which Gerard had first looked upon the trip and its prospects had undergone some slight dimness, and for this May Kingsland’s blue eyes were wholly responsible. For be it remembered he was very young, and the consciousness that a long time – a whole year, perhaps – must elapse before he should see her again, cast something of a gloom upon his spirits. Good-natured John Dawes saw through the change in his young companion’s lightheartedness, and laughed dryly to himself. Gerard would soon find the right cure for that sort of complaint, he said, when the real business of the trip should begin.

One morning a party of half a dozen young Zulus, driving an ox, came up to them as they sat outspanned. The one who seemed to be the leader was a tall, straight, well-built fellow, with a pleasing intelligent countenance. He, like the rest, was unringed, but held his head high in the air, as though he were somebody. All carried assegais and shields. The young leader and two of the others strode up to where Gerard was sitting, and uttering the usual form of greeting, “Saku bona,” squatted down on the grass before him.

Now, it happened that Dawes was away, having ridden off to some kraals a few miles distant. Gerard, thus thrown upon his own resources, began to feel something of the burden of responsibility as he returned their greeting and waited for them to speak next. But the leader, stretching forth his hand, said —

“Give me that.”

Gerard was cleaning a gun at the time, the double-barrelled one, rifle and shot. The Zulu’s remark had come so quick, accompanied by a half-move forward, as though he might be going to seize the weapon, that Gerard instinctively tightened his grasp on it.

“Who are you?” he said, looking the other in the eyes.

“Nkumbi-ka-zulu, son of Sirayo, the king’s induna,” replied the youth, with a haughty toss of the head, denoting surprise that anybody should require to be informed of his identity. “Give me the gun; I want to look at it,” he continued, again stretching forth his hand.

Gerard realised the delicacy of the situation. There was a greedy sparkle in the young Zulu’s eye as it lighted upon the weapon, which caused him to feel anything but sure that it would be returned to him again. On the other hand, Dawes, he remembered, had a poor opinion of Sirayo and his clan, and he did not want to offend the chief’s son, if he could help it. His command of the language beginning to fail him, he summoned Sintoba to the rescue.

“Ask him if, he wants to trade, because, if so, the Baas (Master) will be back soon. Here is some snuff for him, meanwhile.”

Nkumbi-ka-zulu condescended to accept the snuff, then, through the driver, he explained that his father had sent the black ox as a present to “Jandosi” – for such was John Dawes’s name among the natives, being of course a corruption of his own – and he, the speaker, had come to do a little trade on his own account. First of all, he wanted that gun, and as many cartridges as he could have. What was the price?

Gerard replied that the gun was not for sale. It was wanted to shoot buck and birds during their trip further up-country.

“Au!” exclaimed Nkumbi-ka-zulu. “You are so near the border, you can easily send back for another gun. I will give five oxen for it. Ten, then,” he added, as Gerard shook his head in dissent. Still Gerard refused.

“Hau! Does he want all the Zulu country?” muttered the others, forgetting good manners in their impatience and eagerness to possess the weapon, and for this, Sintoba, who was of Zulu descent and a ringed man at that, rebuked them sternly.

“Since when has the son of a chief learnt to talk with the loud tongue and windbag swagger of the Amabuna?” (Boers) he said. “Have you come here to trade or to play the fool?”

“Hau, listen to the Kafula!” cried the young Zulus, springing to their feet and rattling their assegais threateningly. “Since when is the son of a chief to be reviled by a Kafula, who is doing dog at the heels of a travelling white man?”

Gerard, who by this time could understand a great deal more than he could speak, looked apprehensively at Sintoba, expecting an immediate outbreak. But to his surprise the man merely uttered a disdainful click, and deliberately turned his broad back upon the exasperated Zulus. He almost expected to see it transfixed with their assegais, and stood ready to brain with his clubbed gun, for he had no cartridges handy, the first who should make an aggressive move. But no such move was made.

“I return,” said Nkumbi-ka-zulu, darting forth his hand, with a malevolent look directed especially upon Gerard, “I return to my father to carry word that Jandosi rejects his present, and has left a Kafula with his waggons, and a white umfane (boy) to revile the son of a chief.” And turning, the whole party walked rapidly away, driving the ox before them.

When they had gone a little distance, they began staging an improvised strophe the burden of whose veiled insolence took in the white race in general, and the last specimen of it the singers had seen in particular, and thus bawling, they eventually receded from sight.

Gerard was terribly put about by this occurrence, and was disposed to blame himself bitterly. Surely he had been over cautions, and had brought about this hostile termination by his own awkwardness and stupidity. But to his inexpressible relief John Dawes, to whom on his return he narrated the whole affair, was not at all of this opinion.

“It couldn’t have been helped,” the latter declared. “If I had been here the result would likely have been the same, for they’re cheeky young dogs those sons of Sirayo, and the old man himself is a thorough-paced old sweep. If you made any mistake at all, it was a mistake on the right side – that of firmness – and I’m not sure you made any.”

Which dictum lifted a weight from Gerard’s mind.

“I’m only afraid they’ll play us some trick,” he said. “Hadn’t we better get away from here as soon as possible?”

“N-no. They might construe that into an act of running away. We’ll just trek on a few miles further, and see what turns up, but I don’t mind telling you I hardly like the look of things. The people are very unsettled, thanks to this disputed boundary question, and the badgering of the Natal Government. They are sulky and sullen, and flatly refuse to trade. I think we’ll get away north pretty soon.”

That evening an incident occurred which, taken in conjunction with the events of the day, looked ominous. The “boy” who was sent to bring in the two horses, which were turned loose to graze, returned with only one; the other he could not find. He had hunted for it high and low, but without result.

By this time the two horses had become so accustomed to the waggons that they would never stray far, and often return of their own accord; consequently, it was not thought worthwhile even to knee-halter them. Now, however, the one which the “boy” had brought back had been found much further afield than was usual, and of the other there was no trace. And the missing steed was Gerard’s mouse-coloured Basuto pony.

Saddling up the horse that remained and giving orders where the waggons were to outspan, Dawes cantered away into the veldt. He returned in two hours. He had lighted upon the spoor, which led in the contrary direction from that which might have been expected, for it led in the direction of the Blood River, and therefore right away from Sirayo’s and out of the Zulu country, instead of farther into the same; and then darkness had baffled further investigation. Nevertheless, he would wager longish odds, he declared, that the missing quadruped would spend that night not a mile distant from Sirayo’s kraal.

“It’s a most infernal place, Ridgeley,” he said gloomily. “It’s overhung by a big krantz, which is a pretty good look-out post, and surrounded by holes and caves you could stow anything away in. I don’t know how we are going to get Mouse back again short of paying through the nose for him. I must sleep on it and think out some plan. That young brute, Nkumbi! I feel quite murderous – as if I could shoot him on sight.”

In view of the late occurrence, Sintoba received instructions to keep watch a part of the night, while Dawes himself took the remainder, not that he thought it at all probable that any attempt at further depredations would be made, still it was best to be on the safe side. And in fact no further attempt was made, and the night in its calm and starry beauty, went by undisturbed.

The place where the waggons were outspanned was open and grassy. Around stretched the wide and rolling veldt; here a conical hillock rising abruptly from the plain, there the precipitous line of a range of mountains. About half a mile from the site of the outspan ran a spruit or watercourse, the bed of which, deep and yawning, now held but a tiny thread of water, trickling over its sandy bottom. The banks of this spruit were thickly studded with bush, and out of them branched several deep dongas or rifts worn out of the soil by the action of the water.

It was a hot morning. The sun blazed fiercely from the cloudless sky, and from the ground there arose a shimmer of heat. Away on the plain the two spans of oxen were dotted about grazing, in charge of one of the leaders, whose dark form could be seen, a mere speck, squatting among the grass. In the shade of one of the waggons, Dawes and Gerard sat, finishing their breakfast, while at a fire some fifty yards off, the natives were busy preparing theirs, stirring the contents of the three-legged pot, and keeping up a continual hum of conversation the while.

“No, I don’t like the look of things at all,” repeated Dawes, beginning to fill his pipe. “It is some days now since we crossed into the Zulu country, and the people hardly come near us. It looks as if all this talk about a war was going to lead to something. I’m afraid they are turning ugly about that boundary question. I meant to have trekked north on the west side of the Blood River, and taken this part of the country on our way back, if we had anything left to trade that is, but with all these reported ructions between the Zulus and Boers in the disputed territory, I reckon we’d be quieter and safer in Zululand proper.”

“How ever will they settle the claim?” said Gerard.

“Heaven only knows. Here we have just annexed the Transvaal, and got nothing for our pains but a bankrupt State whose people hate us, and a lot of awkward liabilities, and not the least awkward is this disputed boundary. If we give it over to the Dutch, Cetywayo is sure to make war on them, and therein comes the fun of our new liability. We shall have to protect them, they being now British subjects, and when we have squashed the Zulus, the Boers will turn on us. If, on the other hand, we give it over to the Zulus, we are giving away half the district of Utrecht, and turning out a lot of people who have been living there for years under what they thought good and sound title from their own government, which doesn’t seem right either. And any middle course will please neither party, and be worse than useless.”

“I suppose, if the truth were known, the Transvaal claim is actually a fraud?”

“I believe it is. They claim that Mpande ceded them the land. Now I don’t believe for a moment the old king would have been such a fool as to do anything of the kind, and even if he had been inclined to for the sake of peace, Cetywayo, who practically held the reins then, would never have let him. Well, if that Commission don’t sit mighty soon, it’ll be no good for it to sit at all, for there’ll be wigs on the green long before.”

“I wonder if we shall ever see poor Mouse again,” said Gerard.

A sound of deep-toned voices and the rattle of assegai hafts caused both to turn. Three Zulus were approaching rapidly. Striding up to the waggons they halted, and gazing fixedly at the two white men, they gave the usual greeting, “Saku bona” – and dropped into a squatting posture. They were fine specimens of humanity, tall and straight. One was a kehla, but the other two were unringed. For clothing they wore nothing but the inevitable mútya. Each was fully armed with large war-shield, knobkerrie, and several murderous looking assegais.

The first greeting over, Gerard asked to look at some of these. With a dry smile one of the warriors handed over his weapons, but to a suggestion that he should trade one or two of them he returned a most emphatic refusal.

“What is the news?” asked Dawes, having distributed some snuff.

“News!” replied the ringed man. “Ou! there is none.”

“Do men travel in such haste to deliver no news?” pursued Dawes, with a meaning glance at the heaving chests and perspiring bodies of the messengers, for such he was sure they were. “But never mind. It is no affair of mine. Yet, do you seek the kraal of the chief, Sirayo? If you do, you might carry my ‘word’ to him.”

The man, after a shade of hesitation, answered that Sirayo’s kraal happened to be their destination. He would carry the “word” of the white trader.

“Tell him then I have lost a horse. If the chief has it found and returned to me, I will send him a bottle of tywala³, a new green blanket, and this much gwai (tobacco), measuring a length of about a yard. I will further send him a long sheath-knife.”

“We hear your words, Umlúngu. They shall be spoken into the ears of the chief. Now we must resume our road, Hlala-ni-gahle!”

With which sonorous farewell the Zulus turned and strode away across the veldt at the same quick and hurried pace as before.

“Just as I told you, Ridgeley,” said Dawes, lighting his pipe with characteristic calmness. “We shall have to pay some sort of blackmail. Lucky if we get Mouse back at all.”

They remained outspanned all day on the same spot. About an hour before sundown two Zulus were seen approaching. They made their appearance suddenly and at no great distance, emerging from the line of scrub which bordered upon the water spruit.

“Hau!” exclaimed Sintoba. “It is Nkumbi-ka-zulu.”

The chief’s son, with his companion, drew near, and greeted those around the waggon in an easy, offhand fashion, as though he were quite willing to forgive and forget any little unpleasantness of the day before. His father, he said, had received Jandosi’s message, and had sent him at once and in all haste to talk about it. He thought the horse might be found, but what Jandosi offered was not quite enough. There were few people at his father’s kraal. Sirayo could not get them to turn out for so little as the promised reward would amount to when divided among the searchers. Now Sirayo’s “word” was this. If Jandosi would offer, say six bottles of tywala– the white tywala that is drunk out of square bottles – to be distributed among the people, together with the gwai and the other things, and a gun and some cartridges for the chief himself, something might be done; in fact, the horse was pretty sure to be found. But the gun was what the chief desired most; and in fact the gun he must have, hinted Nkumbi-ka-zulu, with a grin of hardly concealed triumph.

The barefaced impudence, the open rascality of the demand, would have made the blood boil in the veins of any less even-tempered man than John Dawes. The latter, however, took it quite coolly. But all the while he was thinking out some plan whereby he might recover possession of the horse, and at the same time turn the tables on the rascally old chief and his scamp of a son. To this end, and with a view to gaining time, he engaged the latter in a protracted haggle, and mixed some gin and water for his refreshment. To his surprise, however, Nkumbi-ka-zulu refused the proffered tywala– saying he did not like it. The other Zulu, however, less particular, drained the pannikin to the very last drop, and asked for more.

Would not some knives do instead of the gun? asked Dawes; or a coloured umbrella, anything in fact? The gun was almost a necessary of life, and he could not part with it. He could get another horse from the Boers on the Transvaal border, but not another gun. But Nkumbi-ka-zulu was firm. His father must have a gun, he said. There was nothing else that would be acceptable.

Now while this haggle was in progress one of the spans of oxen, which had been out grazing in charge of the leader of Gerard’s waggon, was being driven leisurely in. Wondering why half the oxen should thus be left behind, Gerard drew off from the talkers, whom he understood but imperfectly, and turned to meet the “boy” in order to learn the reason. But the latter, without seeming to notice his presence, waited until he was quite near, and going behind the animals, so as to be momentarily screened from the group at the waggons, said in a low tone —

“I hashe – La-pa.” (“The horse – over there.”)

The words – the quick side glance towards the line of bush – were sufficient. Gerard’s pulses tingled with excitement, but he refrained from any further questioning. With an effort preserving his self-possession, he strolled leisurely back to the waggon. He took in the situation, and his coolness and promptitude at once suggested a plan.

The remainder of the oxen were in almost the contrary direction to that indicated by the native as being the hiding-place of the stolen horse. Shading his eyes to look at them, he said to Dawes – speaking slowly, and with rather a tired drawl —

“I think I’ll ride out and bring in the oxen. When I’m halfway there, I shall turn and bring in something else. Don’t let these two chaps stir from here till I come back. Hold them here at any price.”

Even the quick observant senses of the two Zulus were baffled by the slow carelessness of the tone. They half started as they saw him fling the saddle on the remaining horse, and ride off; but, noting the direction he took, their suspicions were quite lulled. They dropped back into their easy, good-humoured, half-impudent tone and attitude.

“Well, Jandosi, what do you say?” said the chief’s son. “The sun is nearly down and I must return to my father. Is he to have the gun?”

“I suppose there is no help for it,” replied Dawes. “After all, I can get another gun. But that horse – he is a good horse. Wait, I will see which of the two guns I will give.” And he climbed into the waggon-tent.

“That is the one, Jandosi. The double-barrel. That is the one!” cried Nkumbi-ka-Zulu, half starting to his feet as Dawes reappeared. But he dropped again into his squatting position, with marvellous celerity and a dismayed ejaculation.

This change was brought about by one quick, stern, peremptory word – that and the perception that both barrels were covering him full and point-blank. And behind those barrels shone a pair of steel grey eyes, which the chief’s son knew to go with the coolest brain and steadiest hand on the whole Zulu border.

“Stir a finger, Nkumbi, and you are a dead man!” continued Dawes. “The first of you who moves is dead that moment!”

“Whau!” cried both Zulus, their eyes starting from their heads. But they made no attempt to move, for they knew this white man to be absolutely a man of his word. For a few minutes this singular group remained thus immovable. The cool, resolute white man, and the two savages staring in petrified consternation into the month of the deadly weapon that threatened them. Then, not even the certainty of a swift death could avail to repress the sudden start and half-stifled cry of rage and mortification which escaped them. For Gerard, having covered about half the distance towards the outlying span of oxen had now suddenly turned and was riding back at full gallop towards the line of bush.

“Don’t move – don’t move!” repeated Dawes, and the ominous flash in his eyes was sufficient. Immovable as statues, the two Zulus squatted. Then a sound of distant neighing was heard, and in a few minutes Gerard was seen to emerge from the bushes, leading a second horse. It was the missing Mouse.

Still Dawes did not alter his position, nor did he suffer his prisoners to. He heard his young companion arrive and tie up the horses. He heard him climb into the waggon; then, when he saw him at his side armed with the other gun, he spoke.

“Since when have the Zulu people become thieves, and the son of a chief a common ishinga! (rascal) I have always boasted that in the Zulu country my property was safer than even among my own people, but I can do so no more, since my horse was stolen by the son of a chief, and his father connived at the theft.” The tone, the words, bitter and scathing, seemed to sting them like a lash.

“You have found your horse, not we, Jandosi, that is all,” retorted Nkumbi-ka-zulu with a scowl of sullen hate. “How did we know he was there any more than you did yourself? You have found your horse – be content.”

“I promised your father certain things, Nkumbi, if he found the horse. He has sent it back and I will keep my word. But he deserves to receive nothing at all; nor will I ever again trade in his district.”

Then he lowered his piece and instructed Gerard to fetch out the articles agreed upon. In silence the Zulus received them. Rage and shame was depicted on their countenances, and their efforts to laugh off the situation were a dead failure. Among the Bantu race nothing is more disconcerting than to be caught lying, and these two scions of it felt extremely foolish accordingly.

“Whau! Jandosi,” mocked Nkumbi-ka-zulu. “We are only two, armed with spears and kerries. You have fire-weapons, and four Amakafula. Yet we fear you not. Come forth from your waggons, you alone. Leave the fire-weapons behind and bring sticks, I will meet you hand to hand – man to man – and we will fight it out. I who am only a boy.”

But of this valiant offer John Dawes, who was giving orders to inspan, took no immediate notice. At length he said —

“You will get quite as much fighting as you can well take care of, Nkumbi-ka-zulu, if you go on a little longer on your present tack. And, mark me, anybody who tries to interfere with me will get more than enough. Farewell to you. Trek!”

This last to the drivers. The whips cracked, the drivers yelled, and the waggons rolled ponderously forward. The two Zulus were left standing there a picture of mortification and disgust.

“You’ve got to be firm with these chaps, Ridgeley, once you do have a difference with them,” said Dawes, in his ordinarily self-possessed and careless tone. “Well, it’s lucky we’ve got Mouse back again so cheap. That was really an uncommonly smart idea of yours, and a well-carried out one.”

They trekked on the best part of the night, Gerard and Dawes thoroughly armed. Each rode on horseback, keeping a careful watch lest the treachery of the now exasperated chief should prompt some aggression under cover of night; but none took place. In the morning they beheld two large bodies of Zulus in the distance, marching to the north-westward, and could distinguish the glint of spears, and the echo of their marching song. But on whatever errand these impis were bound, they evinced no desire to molest the trekkers, or even to investigate nearer; in fact, their object seemed to be rather to avoid these latter.

“There’s trouble brewing,” said Dawes, with a grave shake of the head as he watched the impis disappearing over a distant ridge. “Those chaps are bound for the disputed territory, and if they fall foul of the Boers it’ll start the war going in fine style. I don’t like the look of things at all. The sooner we get into Swaziland the better. The Zulu country’s just a trifle too disturbed.”