Kitabı oku: «The Triumph of Hilary Blachland», sayfa 4

Chapter Seven.
A Limed Bird

“Was the trip a success this time, Hilary? And – where’s Mr Sybrandt? Didn’t he come back with you?”

“Three questions at once. That’s the feminine cross-examiner all over. Well, it was and it wasn’t. There was no doing any trade to speak of, and Lo Ben was in a very snuffy mood. I found out a good deal that was worth finding out though. Questions two and three. I left Sybrandt half a day’s trek the other side of the Inpembisi river.”

“And do you think there is really any danger of war?” asked Hermia.

“I think you will be far safer away from here. So you had better go. I’m sending the waggon on to Fort Salisbury to-morrow.” And again, without seeming to, his keen observant glance took in Justin’s face.

“But I don’t want to go, Hilary, and I won’t,” was the answer. “I’m not in the least afraid, and should hate the bother of moving just now.”

“Very well, please yourself. But don’t blame me if you do get a scare, that’s all.”

Heavens! what a cold-blooded devil this was, Justin Spence was thinking. If Hermia belonged to him, he would not treat a question of peril and alarm to her as a matter of no particular importance as this one was doing. He would insist upon her removing to a place of safety; and, unable to restrain himself, he said something to that effect. He did not, however, get much satisfaction. His host turned upon him a bland inscrutable face.

“Perhaps you’re right, Spence. I shouldn’t be surprised if you were,” was all the reply he obtained. For Hilary Blachland was not the man to allow other people to interfere in his private affairs.

“By the way, there are lions round here again,” said Hermia. “They were making a dreadful noise last night over in the kopjes. They seemed to have got in among a troop of baboons, and between the lions and the baboons the row was something appalling.”

“Quite sure they were lions?”

“Of course they were. Weren’t they, Justin?”

“No sort of mistake about that,” was the brisk reply.

“Well, I think they were lions too,” went on Blachland, “because the one I shot this morning might easily have been coming from this direction.”

“What?” cried Spence. “D’you mean to say you shot a lion this morning?”

“Yes. Just about daylight. And a fine big chap too.”

“And you never told us anything about it all this time!”

Blachland smiled. “Well, you see, Spence, it isn’t my first, not by several. Or possibly I might have ridden up at a hard gallop, flourishing my hat and hooraying,” he said good-naturedly.

But there was a grimness about the very good nature, decided Spence. Here was a man who had just shot a lion, and seem to think no more of the feat than if he had merely shot a partridge. He was conscious that he himself, under the same circumstances would have acted somewhat after the manner the other had described.

“But how did you come upon him?” asked Hermia, eagerly.

“Just after daylight. Started to ride on ahead of the waggon. Came to a dry drift; horse stuck short, refused to go down. Snake, I thought at first; but no. On the opposite side a big lion staring straight at us, not seventy yards away. Slipped from the gee, drew a careful bead, and let go. Laid him out without a kick, bang through the skull. Quite close to the waggon it was too. I left them taking off the skin. There! that’s the waggon” – as the distant crack of a whip came through the clear morning air. “We’ll go and look at it directly.”

“Oh, well done!” cried Hermia; and the wholly approving glance she turned upon the lion-slayer sent a pang of soreness and jealousy through Justin Spence. He began to hate Blachland. That infernal assumption of indifference was really affectation – in short, the most objectionable form of “side.”

Soon, the rumble of heavy wheels drew nearer, and, to the accompaniment of much whip-cracking, and unearthly and discordant yells, without which it seems impossible to drive a span of oxen, the waggon rolled up. It was drawn within the enclosure to be out-spanned.

“You have got a small load this time,” said Hermia, surveying the great, cumbrous, weather-worn vehicle, with its carefully packed cargo, and hung about with pots and kettles and game horns, and every sort of miscellaneous article which it was not convenient to stow within. “Ah, there’s the skin. Why, yes, Hilary, it is a fine one!”

The native servants gathered to admire the great mane and mighty paws there spread out, and many were the excited ejaculations and comments they fired off. The skin, being fresh, was unpleasantly gory – notably the hole made by the bullet where it had penetrated the skull.

“What a neat shot!” exclaimed Hermia, an expression of mingled admiration and disgust upon her face as she bent down to examine the huge head. Was it a part of her scheme, or the genuine admiration of every woman for a feat of physical prowess, that caused her to turn to Blachland with almost a proud, certainly an approving look? If the former, it served its purpose; for Justin began to feel more jealous and sorer than ever.

“Nkose!”

Blachland turned. A native stood forth with uplifted hand, hailing him. He had seen this man among his servants, but did not choose to recognise him first.

“Oh, it is you, Hlangulu?” he said, speaking in Sindabele; which tongue is a groundwork of Zulu overlaid with much Sechuana and Sesutu. “That is strange, for since you disappeared from our camp on the Matya’mhlope, on the morning that we went to see the King, I have not set eyes on you.”

“Au!” replied the man, with a half-smile, bringing his hand to his mouth in deprecatory gesture, “that is true, Nkose. But the Great Great One required me to stand among the ranks of the warriors. Now I am free once more, I would fain serve Nkose again.”

Blachland looked musingly at him, but did not immediately reply.

“I would fain serve a white man who can so easily slay a great thing like that,” went on Hlangulu. “Take me, Nkose. You will not find me useless for hunting, and I know of that as to which Nkose would like to know.”

Blachland did not start at these last words, which were spoken with meaning, but he would have if his nerves had not long since been schooled to great self-control.

For, remembering the subject under discussion the last time he had seen this man, whom they had all suspected of eavesdropping, – being moreover, accustomed to native ways of talking “dark,” he had no doubt whatever as to the meaning intended to be conveyed.

“Sit still a while, Hlangulu,” he said. “I am not sure I have not servants enough. Yet it may be that I can do with another for hunting purposes. I will think about it. Here!” – and he handed him a stick of tobacco.

“You are my father, Nkose,” replied the Matabele, holding forth his joined hands to receive it. Then he stepped back.

“Who is he, and what does he want, Hilary?” said Hermia, who had hardly understood a word of this colloquy; and the same held good of Spence.

“Oh, he’s a chap we had at Bulawayo. Wants to be taken on here. I think I’ll take him.”

“I don’t much like the look of him,” pursued Hermia, doubtfully.

“I should hang him on sight, if I were the jury empanelled to try him,” declared Spence.

But for all the notice he took of them, Blachland might as well not have heard these remarks, for he busied himself giving directions to his “boys,” relating to the preparation of the lion’s skin, and a dozen other matters. Leaving him to this, the other two strolled back to the house.

“I’m going home directly, Hermia,” said Spence, with a bitter emphasis on the word “home.” “I rather think I’m the third who constitutes a crowd.”

“How can you talk like that, after – ” And she broke off suddenly.

“Still, I think I’ll go, darling. But – are you really going away – to Salisbury?”

“No. But you’ve got too speaking a face, Justin dear. Why on earth did you look so dismal and blank when he said that?”

“Because I couldn’t help it, I suppose.”

“But you’ve got to help it. See here now, Justin, I can’t keep you in leading-strings. You are such a great baby, you have no control over yourself. You’re quite big enough, and – ”

“Ugly enough? Yes, go on.”

“No, the other thing – only I’m spoiling you too much, and making you abominably conceited. Now come in, and give me just one little kiss before you start, and then I think you really had better go.”

“Promise me you won’t go away without letting me know,” he urged, when the above-named process – which, by the way, was not of such very diminutive proportions as she had suggested – had been completed. Outside, Blachland’s voice directing the native servants was plainly audible.

“Yes, I promise. Now, go and say good-bye, and get your horse. No, not ‘one more.’ Do be a little prudent.”

“Eh? Want to saddle up, Spence?” said Blachland, as Justin went over to where he was occupied. “All right. I say, though, excuse me; I really am rather busy. Come along, and we’ll get out your horse. Have a drink before you start.”

“Thanks awfully, Blachland, I’ve just had one. Good-bye, old chap, don’t bother to come to the stable. Good-bye.”

The other took a side glance at his retreating guest.

“He’s flurried,” he said to himself. “These callow cubs don’t know how to play the game. They do give it away so – give it away with both hands.”

Then he went on tranquilly with what he was doing. He did not even go to the gate to see Spence off. He simply took him at his word. In social matters, Hilary Blachland was given to taking people at their word. If they didn’t know their own minds, not being infants or imbeciles, that wasn’t his affair.

Then his thoughts were diverted into another channel, and this was effected by the sight of Hlangulu. The Matabele was standing around, lending a hand here or there whenever he saw an opportunity. For some reason of his own he seemed anxious to be kept on there. That he would be of no use at all as a farm servant was obvious, equally so that he had no ambition to fill that rôle. The rather mysterious words he had uttered could refer to but one thing; namely, the exceedingly dangerous and apparently utterly profitless scheme talked over by the camp fire on the Matya’mhlope, and which there could be no doubt whatever but that he had overheard. That being so, was not Blachland indeed in this man’s power?

Turning it over in his mind, Blachland could see two sides to the situation. Either Hlangulu designed to render him a service, and, incidentally, one much greater to himself – or his intent was wholly sinister, to set a trap for him to wit. He looked at Hlangulu. The Matabele’s aspect was not prepossessing. It was that of a tall, gaunt native, with a sinister cast of countenance, never entirely free from something of a scowl, – in fact, an evil and untrustworthy rascal if appearances counted for anything at all. He tried to think whether he had ever given this man cause to harbour a grudge against him, and could recall nothing of the kind; but he did remember that Hlangulu was a clever and skilful hunter. Perhaps, after all, he had really gained the man’s respect, and, to a certain extent, his attachment. He would keep him, at any rate for a while, but – would watch him narrowly.

“Hlangulu,” he called. “Go now and hurry on the herd of trade cattle. It should have been done before this.”

“Nkose!”

And with this one word of salute the man started on his errand, not asking where the object thereof was to be found, where it had been last seen or anything. All of which was not lost upon Blachland. Decidedly he would keep Hlangulu, he told himself.

Chapter Eight.
“Merely Spence.”

“So that’s your latest, is it, Hermia?”

The remark was inconsequent, in that it came on top of nothing at all. The time was the cool of the evening, and Blachland, lying back in a deep cane chair, was lazily puffing out clouds of smoke. He had not been talking much, and what little he had said consisted of a few drowsy remarks about nothing in particular. Now, after an interval of silence, came the above inconsequent one.

“My latest! Who and what on earth are you talking about, Hilary?”

“Merely Spence.”

“Oh, is that all? He’s such a nice boy, though, isn’t he?”

“Candidly, he’s only like thirty-nine out of forty, colourless.”

“How can you say that, Hilary? Why, he’s awfully handsome.”

“Oh, I wasn’t referring to externals, I mean the more important side of him; and – there’s nothing in him.”

Hermia made no reply, she only smiled; but the smile was meant to convey that she knew better. Nothing in him! Wasn’t there? If Hilary only knew?

Truth to tell, however, she was a little relieved. This was the first reference he had made to the subject, and his silence all these hours had rendered her uneasy. What if he suspected? Now he seemed to drop it as though it were not worth pursuing. She, however, paradoxically enough, intended to let him know that it was. Could she not make him just one atom jealous?

“Poor fellow, he’s so lonely over at his camp,” she pursued. “It does him good to come over here now and then.”

“Who?” said Blachland. His mind was running on the subject of Umzilikazi’s grave, and the trustworthiness or the reverse of Hlangulu.

“Who? Why, Justin of course. Weren’t we talking about him?”

“Were – yes, that’s it. We were, but I had forgotten all about him, and was thinking of something totally different. What were you saying? That he was lonely in camp? Well, that’s very likely; but then, you see, it’s one of the conditions attendant upon prospecting. And he may as well chuck prospecting if he’s going to spend life galloping over here.”

Thought Hermia to herself, “He is a little jealous after all.”

The other went on: “He’s lonely in camp, and you’re lonely here. That’s about the British of it; eh, Hermia?”

“Well, can you wonder? Here I am, left all by myself to get through time as best I can. How long have you been away this time? Four weeks?”

“Just under. And this was a short trip. It is hard lines, rather; but then, you always knew what life up here was going to mean. You did it with your eyes open.”

“It is mean of you to throw it at me. I never thought you would have done it,” she flashed.

“Throw what? Oh, I see. I wasn’t referring to – that. You might as well give me the benefit of the doubt, Hermia. You ought to know that I was referring to our coming out here at all. We might have gone anywhere else, so it wasn’t England.”

She looked down at him as he sat there, for she was standing, or restlessly moving about. How cool and passionless he was now, she thought. He had not always been so. Decidedly he was tired of her. She could not help drawing a mental contrast between him and the other. The countenance of this one, with its well-cut features, but lined and weather-worn, dark and bronzed by sun and exposure, was indeed a contrast to that of the other, in its smooth, clear-skinned blue-eyed comeliness of youth. Yet, this one, sitting there, strong, reposeful-looking in his cool white raiment was, and would always be, the one when she came to pass in review her polyandrous experiences.

Now his very tranquillity, indifference she called it, nettled her. At any other time, indeed, it would have served as a powerful draw in keeping her to him; now however, the entirely fresh excitement she had struck formed an effective counterblast. If he was tired of her, she would let him see that she was even more tired of him, whether she was so or not.

“To revert to Spence,” he said. “What pleasure can it give you to make a bigger fool of the young idiot than his parents and Nature have already made him?”

“He isn’t at all a fool,” snapped Hermia, shortly.

“Not eh? Well, everything is relative, even in terminology. We’ll call him not so wise as some other people, if you prefer it. If he was as wise, he might be over head and ears in love with you without giving it away at every turn – in fact, thrusting it into the very face of the ordinary observer.”

“Why, Hilary, you really are jealous!” she cried with a ringing laugh. For a moment, however, she had looked perturbed.

“Ha, ha! That’s good – distinctly good. Jealous! There is, or ought to be, no such thing, once past the callowness of youth. The self-respect of any man should be above whining to any one woman because she prefers somebody else. The mere fact of her doing so renders her utterly valueless in his sight there and then.”

“You don’t really mean that, Hilary?” she said. “You’re only just talking, you know.”

“Try it and see.”

His eyes were full on hers. For the life of her, she could not as straightly meet that straight, firm glance. This was the only man she had never been able to deceive. Others she could hoodwink and fool at will, this one never. So, with a light laugh, with a shade of nervousness in it that would have been patent to an even less acute faculty of perception than his, she rejoined —

“Well, you’re out of it this time, Hilary. Justin isn’t in love with me at all. Why, it’s ridiculous!”

She turned away uneasily. For he knew that she was lying, and she knew that he did.

“One moment, Hermia,” he called out to her. She paused. “While we are on the subject: are you not getting a little tired of – our partnership?”

“Why?”

“I’ve seen symptoms of it lately, and I don’t think I’m mistaken. Because, if you are, say so squarely and openly. It’ll be much better in the long run.”

“I think you are tired of it,” she flashed. “I suppose you have a lot of black wives over yonder, like that disgusting old Pemberton and Young. That’s why you’re so fond of going into the Matabele country, and leaving me all alone for weeks.”

“Apparently you know more about Pemberton’s and Young’s conjugal arrangements than I do, but let me assure you you’re utterly wrong in your estimate of mine.”

“I don’t believe it. You are all of you alike, once you take to going among those beastly natives.”

“You don’t believe it? That I can’t help, so there it stays. And now I’ve lazed long enough, I must rustle about and see to things.”

Left there, Hermia watched his tall form, like a pillar of white, wending up the low kopje at the back of the stockade. He had become very reserved, very self-contained and inscrutable of late; so much so indeed, that it was almost impossible to gauge how much he knew or suspected. Now she felt uneasy, uncomfortable with a dim consciousness of having come off second best in the recent cut and thrust. Well, perhaps he was right. She was tired of the existing state of affairs – perhaps a trifle tired of him.

And he? The kopje up which he had taken his way, ascended by an easy acclivity to a point which commanded an immense view to the south and westward. Range upon range of rolling slope and wooded ridge lay there outspread – vast and scarcely inhabited country, a land given over to wild game and a few shrinking, starving remnants of tribes living in daily fear of the sweep of the terrible Matabele besom. The evening was still, and golden, and beautiful, and, seated under a mahobo-hobo tree, Blachland lit his pipe, and began to think out the position.

So Hermia was tired of their life together! He had seen it coming on, and at first the knowledge had caused him some concern. He contrasted the lives of other pioneers, living all alone, or in native fashion, with two or three dusky-hued daughters of the land, in rough, uncivilised manner, growing more and more into the happy-go-lucky, soulless simplicity of life of the barbarous aborigines themselves, – contrasted them with the life he himself led, its comfort, and refined companionship, and, until lately, love, – and, doing so, a qualm of regret tinged his mind. It was evanescent however. For he himself was growing tired of this mode of life. He had embarked on it when he and Hermia had reckoned the world well lost for each other’s sake. Now, neither of them so reckoned any more; nay, further, to be perfectly candid with themselves, they wondered how they ever could have. Why not leave it then, move to some more cheerful and civilised quarter of the globe? To do so would be tantamount to leaving each other.

Hermia had taxed him with being jealous, and he had replied, and rightly, that he was past the capacity for any such foolishness. But he had no intention of remaining her dupe. That he had ample cause for jealousy in the matter just under discussion, he was well aware; but that was nothing to what he would meet with should they return to civilisation together. She could no more cleave to one, and one only, than she could fly over the moon. They had better part.

Over the vast roll of country beneath, stretching away into misty dimness, his glance swept. How would he take to civilisation again? The old restlessness would come upon him. The wandering up-country life had got into his system. The other kind, too, was not so very great as to lure him back to it either. He supposed he had made a mess of things. Well, most people did one way and another, and it couldn’t be helped.

Up the slope, through the sparse bushes, a herd of cattle was threading – his cattle; and in the tall dark form of their driver he recognised Hlangulu, the Matabele. Mechanically, however, he took in this while his thoughts reverted to their former train. Would they miss each other? he wondered; or, rather, would he miss Hermia? That she would hardly waste a regret on him he knew, for he had long since discovered the shallow emptiness of her nature, and that what he had at one time taken for depth was the mere frenzied abandonment of a passing passion, wholly unrestrained and absorbing for the time being; but now, and indeed long since, burnt out. Turning, he looked back on the group of primitive buildings within the protecting stockade, his home. A stillness and peace seemed to brood over it in the evening light. He could make out Hermia’s form crossing a section of the enclosure. He thought of the years they had been together. Had those years been happy? Well, hardly. Disillusionment had not been long in coming, and with its growth their brief and spurious happiness had faded. They did not quarrel, but it was a case of mutual toleration. And now, at last, he had returned one fine day to recognise that his place was filled by another. Decidedly the time had come for them to part.

“Nkose!”

Blachland looked up. His meditations must have run on, for the utterer of this sonorous salutation was he who, but a moment ago it seemed, was right away down there driving the cattle, yet he had had time to take them borne and return here himself.

“What is it, Hlangulu?”

The man dropped down into a squatting attitude, and began to talk. Blachland, who understood natives, let him run on about nothing in particular – the state of the country, the new settlements of the pioneers, the King, the decreasing of the game, and so forth, – for he knew something was coming. Presently it came.

“Nkose is even as Umlimo. The dark mysteries of the Great bold no terrors for him?”

“Not any,” was the laconic reply.

“Yet it is certain death to look into such.”

“Death is certain, but the time of death, never. I have looked at ‘certain death’ before, yet here I am.”

“Au, Nkose! What you desire is not possible, save by one way.”

“And that way?”

“Is known to me alone.”

“And you are going to make it known to me. Now, Hlangulu, men are men, and men have motives. Why are you going to do this?”

“What is that which is most desired by all white men, Nkose?”

“Gold.”

“Yeh-bo, Nkose, and by black ones, too, if with it they can buy cattle and wives. Hau! In the abode of the mighty dead there is much of it.”

Blachland didn’t start, but his nerves were all a thrill. The man’s words were plain enough. A quantity of treasure had been buried with the dead King. That was the interpretation.

“Is the gold like this, Hlangulu?” he said, producing a sovereign.

“Eh-hé, Nkose!” assented the Matabele. “It is in a bag, so high,” – holding his hand about a couple of feet from the ground.

Then they talked, the white man and the savage, – talked long and earnestly. The superstitions of the latter precluded him from going near the dreaded sepulchre, let alone entering it. But for the former no such barrier existed. Hlangulu knew a way of getting him through the pickets: then he could accomplish a double purpose, explore the interior of the King’s grave, and bring away the concealed wealth which lay there; and this they would share equally.

It was quite dark when they separated: Blachland all braced up by the prospect of a new and interesting adventure, which, coming when it did, was peculiarly welcome; Hlangulu to dream of an idyllic existence, in some far-away land where Lo Bengula’s arm could not reach, where he could sit in his kraal and count his vast herds of cattle, and buy wives, young and new, whenever inclined.