Kitabı oku: «The Triumph of Hilary Blachland», sayfa 7

Chapter Thirteen.
Gone!

When Hilary Blachland awoke to consciousness, the moon was shining full down on his face.

He was chilled and stiff – but the rest and sleep had done him all the good in the world, and now as he sat up in the hard damp rock-crevice, he began to collect his scattered thoughts.

He shivered. Thoughts of fever, that dread bugbear of the up-country man, took unpleasant hold upon his mind. A sleep in the open, blanketless, inadequately protected from the sudden change which nightfall brings, in the cool air of those high plateaux – the more pronounced because of the steamy tropical heat of the day – had laid many a good man low, sapping his strength with its insidious venom, injecting into his system that which should last him throughout the best part of his life.

He peered cautiously out of his hiding-place. Not a sign of life was astir. He shook himself. Already the stiffness began to leave him. He drained his flask, and little as there was, the liquor sent a warming glow through his veins. The next thing was to find his way back to where he had left Hlangulu.

Somehow it all looked different now, as he stepped forth. In the excitement of the projected search he had not much noticed landmarks. Now for a moment or so he felt lost. But only for a moment. The great monolith of the King’s grave rose up on his left front, the granite pile, white in the moonlight. Now he had got his bearings.

Cautiously he stepped forth. There was still a reek of smoke on the night air, ascending from the spot of sacrifice and wafted far and wide over the veldt. But of those who had occupied it there was no sign. They had gone. Cautiously now he stole through the shade of the bushes: the light of the moon enabling him to step warily and avoid stumbling. He was glad to put all the distance possible between himself and that accursed spot. His bruised ankle was painful to a degree, and he was walking lame. That there was no luck in meddling with Umzilikazi’s last resting-place assuredly he had found.

He travelled but slowly, peering cautiously over every rise prior to surmounting it, not needlessly either, for once he came upon a Matabele picket, the glow of whose watch-fire was concealed behind a great rock. The savages were stretched lazily on the ground, their assegais and shields beside them, some asleep, others chatting drowsily. Well for him that he was cautious and that they were drowsy. But – where was Hlangulu?

Then a thought stabbed his mind. He had brought back no spoil. The Matabele, foiled in his cupidity, would have no further motive for guiding him into safety. All his malevolence would be aroused. He would at once jump to the conclusion that he had been cheated – that Blachland had hidden the gold in some place of safety, intending to return and possess himself of the whole of it. He would never for a moment believe there was none there, or if there was that it was inaccessible. A white man could do everything, was the burden of native reasoning. If this white man had returned without the spoil it would not be that there was no spoil there, but that he had hidden it, intending to keep it all for himself. Acting on this idea Blachland filled the pockets of his hunting coat with small stones so as to give to the appearance of those useful receptacles a considerable bulge. That would deceive his guide until they two were in safety once more – and then – he didn’t care.

A sound struck upon his ear, causing him to stop short. It was that of one stone against another. Then it was repeated. It was the signal agreed upon between them. But it was far away on the left. He had taken a wrong bearing, and was shaping a course which would lead him deeper and deeper into the heart of the Matopo Hills. He waited a moment, then picking up a good-sized stone, struck it against a rock, right at hand, thus answering the signal.

Had Hlangulu heard it, he wondered? It was of no use to go in his direction. They might miss in the darkness, pass each other within a few yards. So he elected to sit still. The rest was more than welcome. His bruised ankle was stiff and sore and inflamed. Fortunately he would soon come to where he had left his horse. Much more walking was out of the question. Time wore on. He longed to smoke, but dared not. He was still within the dangerous limits. He was just about to give the signal once more, when – a voice raised in song hardly louder than a whisper! It was Hlangulu.

The eyes of the savage were sparkling with inquiry as he ran them over the white man. The latter rather ostentatiously displayed his bulged pockets, but said nothing – signing to the other to proceed. Not a word was spoken between the two as they held on through the night – and towards the small hours came upon the spot where the horse had been left concealed.

A European could hardly have dissembled his curiosity as to what had happened. The Matabele, however, asked no questions, and if a quick, fleeting look across his mask-like countenance, as they took their way onward through the starlight, betrayed his feelings it was all that did. Just before dawn they turned into a secure hiding-place formed by the angle of two great boulders, walled in in front by another accidental one – to rest throughout the hours of daylight.

And now a sure and certain instinct had taken hold upon Blachland, and the burden of it was that under no circumstances whatever dare he go to sleep. Once or twice he had detected a look upon the sinister race of his confederate and guide which implanted it more and more firmly within his mind. Yet, in spite of the few hours of half-unconscious doze, he was worn out for lack of rest, and there were two more nights and three whole days before he could reach home. He was feeling thoroughly done up. The fiery, gnawing pain of his swelled ankle, the strain which all that he had gone through had placed upon his nerves – combined to render him almost light-headed, yet, with it all, a marvellous instinct of self-preservation moved him to watchfulness. This could not go on. He must put it to the test one way or the other.

“I think I will try to sleep a little, Hlangulu,” he said. “Afterwards we can talk about what has been.”

“Nkose!” replied the Matabele, effusively, striving to quell the dark look of fierce delight which shot across his sinister countenance.

Blachland lay down, drawing his blanket half over his head. The Matabele sat against a rock and smoked.

Blachland watched him through his closed lids, but still Hlangulu sat and smoked. He became really sleepy. The squatting form of the savage was visible now only as through a far-away misty cloud. He dropped off.

Suddenly he awoke. The same instinct, however, which had warned him against going to sleep warned him now against opening his eyes. Through the merest crack between their lids he looked forth, and behold, some one was bending over him, but not so much as to conceal the haft of a short, broad-bladed, stabbing assegai.

There was not much time to decide. Cool now, as ever, in the face of ordinary and material danger, Blachland realised that his hands were imprisoned in his blanket, and that before he could free them, the blade of the savage would transfix his heart. He heaved a sigh that was partly a snore – and made a movement as though in his sleep, which if continued would still more invitingly present his breast to the deadly stroke. The murderer saw this too and paused.

But not for long. He spun round wildly, his weapon flying from his outstretched hand, then fell, heavily, on his face – and this simultaneously with the muffled roar of an explosion beneath the blanket. The supposed sleeper had stealthily drawn his hip-pocket revolver, and, firing through the covering, had shot Hlangulu dead. Then the sleep which was overpowering him came upon him, and with a profound sense of security he dropped off, slumbering peacefully, where, but a few yards off lay the corpse of his victim and would-be murderer.

There is often a sort of an instinct which tells that a place is empty, whether house or room – empty, untenanted by its ordinary occupant. Just such a feeling was upon Blachland as he drew near his home. The gate of the stockade was shut and no smoke arose – nor was there any sign of life about the place. It had a deserted look.

The fact depressed him. He was feeling fatigued and ill; in short, thoroughly knocked up. He had even realised that there were times when it is pleasant to have a home to return to, and this was one of them, and now as he rode up to his own gate there was no sign of a welcoming presence.

He raised his voice in a stentorian hail. The two little Mashuna boys shot out of the back kitchen as scared as a couple of rabbits when the ferret is threading the winding passages to their burrow. Scared, anxious-looking, they opened the gate.

“Where is your mistress?” he asked in Sindabele.

“Gone, Nkose,” was the reply.

“Gone!” he echoed mentally.

So Hermia had taken him at his word, and had decided to retreat to Fort Salisbury. Perhaps though, some disquieting news had arrived since his departure, causing her to take that step. His feeling of depression deepened as he entered the empty house. Ah! What was this?

A letter stared at him from a conspicuous place, a sealed enclosure – and it was directed in Hermia’s handwriting. That would explain, he thought. And it did with a vengeance.

“You will not be astonished, Hilary,” it began, “because even you must have seen that this life was getting beyond endurance. You will not miss me, because for some time past you have been growing more and more tired of me. So it is best for us to part: and you can now go back to your Matabele wives, or bring them here if you prefer it; for I shall never return to this life we have been leading. I warned you that if you did not appreciate me, others did – and now I am leaving, not only this country but this continent. I am going into the world again, and now, you too, will be able to make a fresh start. We need never meet again and in all probability we never shall. Farewell.

“Hermia.”

Twice he read over this communication – slowly, carefully, as though weighing every word. So she had gone, had deserted him. There was truth in what she wrote. He had been growing tired of her – very: for he had long since got to the bottom of the utter shallowness of mind which underlay her winning and seductive exterior – winning and seductive, that is, when laying herself out to attract admiration, a thing she had long since ceased to do in his own case. The sting too, about his Matabele wives, he never having possessed any, was a not very adroit insinuation designed to place him in the wrong, and was all in keeping with a certain latent vulgarity of mind which would every now and then assert itself in her, with the result of setting his teeth on edge.

He smiled to himself, rather bitterly, rather grimly. He was sorry for Spence. The boy was merely a fool, and little knew the burden he had loaded up on his asinine and youthful shoulders, and, as for Hermia, his smile became more saturnine still, as he pictured her roughing it in a prospector’s camp: for he looked upon her statement about leaving Africa as mere mendacious bounce, and of course was unaware of any change for the better in Spence’s fortunes. For her he was not sorry, nor for himself. As she had said, he would now be able to make a fresh start, and this he fully intended to do. Yet, as he stood there, ill and tired and shaken, looking around on his deserted home, it may be that some tinge of abandonment and desolation crept over him. Hermia had chosen her time well, at any rate, he thought, as he busied himself fomenting and bandaging his throbbing and swollen ankle.

The sun had gone down, and the shades of evening seemed to set in with a strange, unaccountable chill, as he limped about, looking after his stock and other possessions. Decidedly there was a lonely feeling, vague, indefinable, which hovered about him. And then those dreadful chills increased. Lying out in that rock-crevice, in fact lying out for several nights insufficiently covered, had sown the seeds. Assuredly no luck had come to him through meddling with the King’s grave. And then, before evening had merged for an hour into dark night, Hilary Blachland lay shivering beneath his piled-up blankets as though they had been ice – shivering in the terrible ague-throes of that deadly malaria – weak, helpless as a child, deserted, alone.

End of Book I

Chapter One.
Wiser Counsels

“That scamp! That out-and-out irreclaimable scamp! A hundred is just ninety-nine pound nineteen more than he deserves. A hundred. No – I’ll make it two.”

Sir Luke Canterby looked up from the document he had been perusing and annotating, and biting the end of his pen, sat gazing meditatively out of the window. It was a lovely day of early spring, and the thrushes were hopping about the lawn, and the rooks in the great elms were making a prodigious cawing and fuss over their nest-building. All Nature was springing into new life in the joyous gladsome rush of the youthful year, but the old man, sitting there, was out of harmony with rejuvenated Nature. His meditations and occupation were concerned, not with life, but with death. The document before him was nothing less momentous than the draft of his last will and testament.

In appearance, however, there was nothing about Sir Luke Canterby to suggest impending dissolution, either now or in the near future. Seated there surrounded by the dark oak of his library, he represented a pleasant and wholesome type of old age. He was tall and spare, and, for his years, wonderfully straight. He had refined features and wore a short beard, now silvery white, and there was a kindly twinkle in his eyes. He was a rich man, but had not always been, and, although of good parentage, had made his money in commerce. He had been knighted on the occasion of a Royal visit to the mercantile centre wherein at the time he was prominent, but in his heart of hearts, thought but little of the ‘honour’ in fact, would have declined it could he have done so with a good grace.

His gaze came back to the paper with a troubled look, which deepened as he made the correction. For although to the legatee in question two hundred pounds would be better than none, yet the said legatee had had reason to expect that the bulk of the whole would be left to him. Still the testator sat staring at what he had just effected, as if it were something he did not relish at all, and in fact, no more he did. Then an interruption occurred in the shape of a knock at the door and the entrance of a servant.

“Canon Lenthall is here, Sir Luke, and would be glad to know if you can see him?”

“Eh? Yes, certainly. Show him up here. The very thing,” he added to himself. “I’ll take Dick’s opinion about it. Ah, there he is. Come in, Canon. Real glad to see you, especially just now.”

“Nothing wrong, Canterby?” said the other, as the two men shook hands cordially.

“Don’t know about wrong, Dick. But I’m in a puzzle over something, and you always had a sound judgment. Sit down.”

The Very Reverend Richard Lenthall was one of the canons attached to the Roman Catholic Cathedral in the adjacent town of Passmore; and the difference in their creeds notwithstanding, for Sir Luke did not profess the ancient faith, the two men had been fast friends for nearly a lifetime. In aspect and manner they were totally dissimilar. The priest was a broad, thick-set man of medium height, with a strong but jovial face, square-jawed and surmounted by a fine forehead, and illuminated by a pair of fine dark eyes, wonderfully searching, as they gazed forth from beneath bushy brows. He had a brisk, hearty, genial manner, differing entirely from the somewhat reposeful and dignified one of his friend. But mentally, both had many points in common – notably a keen sense of humour – and a delight in studying the contrasts and ironies of the satirical side of life.

“What’s the puzzle?” he now said, dropping into a chair.

“I’ll tell you. Oh, by the way, let me ring for a glass of wine for you after your walk.”

“No, thanks. I’ll wait till lunch. I’m going to stop and lunch with you, but I’ll have to get away directly after.”

“As to that you know your own business best. Look here, old friend, advise me. Do you know what this confounded document is?” holding it up.

“Um. It might be a lease, or a deed of partnership – or of sale.”

“No. Try again.”

“Or your will.”

“You’ve struck it. That’s just what it is. The draft of my will. And – I want you to read it.”

“Why?”

“Because I want your opinion, man – doesn’t it stand to reason?”

“See here, Luke,” said the other, and there was a twinkle in his eye. “Aren’t you afraid of the much-abused priest who is supposed to be always poking his nose into other people’s business and interfering in family matters? You know.”

“I only know that you are talking bosh when you ought to be serious, Dick. Do run through that paper and make any remarks on it you like.”

“Well, if you really wish it,” said the Canon, serious enough now, as he got out his glasses, and began to peruse attentively the masses of legal jargon which covered up the testator’s designs. He had not got far, however, before he came upon that which perturbed him not a little, but of such his trained impassive countenance betrayed no sign. Sir Luke sat looking out of the window, watching the thrushes hopping about the lawn.

“Well?” he said at last, but not extending a hand to receive the document which the other was holding out to him.

“You have altered all your former dispositions,” said the Canon.

“Yes. I have been thinking things carefully over. I daren’t trust him, that scamp. He has simply gone from bad to worse, and would make ducks and drakes of the lot. Percival won’t.”

“That scamp!” The hardly perceptible quiver in his old friend’s voice as he uttered the word, did not escape the shrewd ecclesiastic. Indeed, to that skilled and experienced master of human nature in all its phases, the state of his friend’s mind at this moment was a very wide open book.

“Are you sure of yourself, Canterby?” he said. “Is it quite just to entail upon him so ruthlessly sweeping a penalty as this? Are you sure of yourself?”

“Of course I am.”

“No, you’re not. My dear old friend, you can’t throw dust in my eyes. You are not sure of yourself. Then why not give him another chance?”

“Why, that’s just what I have done. Anybody else would have cut him off with a shilling – with the traditional shilling. By George, sir, they would.”

Canon Lenthall smiled to himself, for he knew that when a man of his friend’s temperament begins to wax warm in an argument of this sort, it is a sure sign that he is arguing against himself. He considered the victory almost won. Turning over the sheets of the draft once more, he read out a clause – slowly and deliberately:

“To my nephew, Hilary Blachland, I bequeath the sum of two hundred pounds – in case he might find himself in such a position that its possession would afford him a last chance.”

“Well?” queried Sir Luke.

“Please note two things, Canterby,” said the Canon. “First you say I am to advise you, then that I am to read this document and make any remarks I like.”

“Of course.”

“Well then, I’ll take you at your word. I advise you to draw your pen right through that clause.”

“Why? Hilary is an irreclaimable scamp.”

“No, he is not.”

“Not, eh? ‘St. Clair, St. Clair and Blachland.’ Have you forgotten that, Canon?” snorted Sir Luke. “And Blachland! My nephew!”

“How long ago was that?”

“How long ago? Why, you know as well as I do. Six years. Rather over than under.”

“Yes. Six years is a long time. Time enough for a man to recognise that he has made worse than a fool of himself. How do you know that Hilary has not come to recognise that – is not doing all he can to wipe out that sin?”

“Exactly. How do I know? That’s just it. He has never had the grace or decency to let me know that he has – to let me know whether he’s dead or alive.” The other smiled to himself. “That’s not the solitary one of his carryings on, either. Yes. He’s an out-and-out scamp.”

“I don’t agree with you, Canterby. The very fact that he has refrained from communicating with you makes for the contrary. It is a sign of grace. Had he been the scamp you —don’t believe him to be, you’d have heard from him fast enough, with some pitiful appeal for assistance.”

“But he ought to have let me hear. I might be thinking him dead.”

“Well, the last thing you told him was that he ought to be. If I recollect rightly, you strongly recommended him to go and blow his brains out.”

“Well, he didn’t. He went off with the woman instead.”

“That isn’t to say he’s with her now.”

“I’m surprised at you, Canon,” snorted Sir Luke. “Hanged if I ever thought to find you defending – er – vice.”

“And you haven’t found me doing so yet. But everything has to be determined on its own merits.”

“But there aren’t any merits in this case. It was a bad case, sir, a rotten bad case.”

“Well, we’ll say demerits then, if you prefer it. Now there are, or were, two extenuating circumstances in this particular one – the personality of the woman, and – heredity. For the first I have seen her, for the second, Hilary’s father. You knew him pretty well, Canterby, but I knew him even better than you did.”

“But what would you have me do? I daren’t put him into possession of large responsibilities. He has disgraced his family as it is. I can’t have him coming here one day, and disgracing it further.”

“You would rather put Percival into the position then?”

“Of course. He would fill it worthily. The other wouldn’t.”

“I don’t know about that. I am perfectly certain about one thing, and that is that Percival himself would never accept it at the expense of his cousin, if he knew he was to do so. That boy has a rarely chivalrous soul, and he used almost to worship Hilary.”

“Pooh! That wouldn’t go so far as to make him deliberately choose to be left nearly a pauper in order to benefit the other,” sneered Sir Luke. But he was a man who did not sneer well. It was not natural to him to sneer at all – therefore his sneer was not convincing.

“I don’t agree with you, Canterby. I believe he would. There are some few natures like that, thank Heaven, although it must be conceded they are marvellously scarce. But he need not ‘be left a pauper’ – though that of course rests with you – and that without doing the other any injustice – and yourself too. For you know as well as I do, Luke, that Hilary holds and always will hold the first place in your heart.”

“And the same holds good of Percy in regard to yours, eh, Canon? Yet you are arguing against him for all you know how.”

“I am arguing against you, not against him. You invited remark upon the contents of this document, Luke, and asked me to advise you, and I have done my best to comply with both desires. Don’t be in a hurry to commit an act of injustice which you yourself may bitterly repent when it is too late, and past remedying. You are at present sore and vindictive against Hilary, but you know perfectly well in your heart of hearts that he is to you as your own and only son. Stretch out a hand of blessing over him from beyond the grave, not one of wrath and retribution and judgment.”

“It isn’t that, you know,” urged Sir Luke, rather feebly. “My reasons are different. I don’t want him to come here and play ducks and drakes with what I have taken a lifetime to build up – and not easily either – and to bring scandal on my name and memory. That’s what it amounts to.”

“That’s what you are trying to persuade yourself into thinking it amounts to, but you can’t humbug me, old friend. My advice to you therefore is to lock that draft away, or better still, put it in the fire, and leave things as they are.”

“You mean with Hilary as my heir?”

“Just that. I have, however, a suggestion to append. Find out Hilary; not necessarily directly, but find out about him – where he is and what doing. The fact that he has never applied to you for help, is, as I said before, a point in his favour. He may have carved out a position for himself – may be of use in the world by his life and example. Anyway, give him a chance.”

“But if I find just the reverse? What if I find him a thoroughly hardened and disreputable scamp?”

“Then I have nothing further to urge. But somehow I have an instinct that you will find him nothing of the sort.”

A perceptible brightening came over the old man’s face. The priest had struck the right chord in saying that Hilary Blachland had been to his friend rather as an only son than as a nephew, and now the thought of having him at his side again was apparent in the lighting up of his face. Then his countenance fell again.

“It’s all very well to say ‘Find out Hilary,’” he said. “But how is it to be done? We last heard of him from South Africa. He was trading in the interior with the natives. Seemed to like the life and could make a little at it.”

“Well, there you are. You can soon find out about him. Although covering a vast area in the vague region geographically defined as South Africa, the European population is one of those wherein everybody knows everybody else, or something about them. Send Percival out. The trip would do him a world of good. You need not tell him its precise object in every particular, I mean of course that he is sent out there to report. But let him know that he is to find Hilary, and he will throw himself into it heart and soul. Then his indirect report will tell us all we want to know.”

“By Jove, Canon, that is sound judgment, and I’ll act upon it!” cried Sir Luke eagerly. “What on earth are your people about that they don’t make you a Cardinal Archbishop? Send Percival! Why, that’ll be the very thing. I shall miss the boy though, while he’s away, but oh, confound it, yes – I would like to see that other scamp again before I die. Here – this can go in the fire,” throwing the draft document into the grate and stirring it up with the poker to make it burn. “We’ll send Percival. Ha! That sounds like his step. Shall we say anything to him now about it? Yes. Here he is.”