Kitabı oku: «The White Hand and the Black: A Story of the Natal Rising», sayfa 13
Chapter Twenty Four.
Unprotected
“What – will happen to – them?”
It was Evelyn who jerked this forth. For some time the two had ridden in silence, neither daring to trust herself to speak. Perhaps the same thought was in both their minds; they must not break down and display weakness before these savages. Certainly it was in that of Edala – who, raised among them, fully recognised the advisability of keeping-up a show of dignity towards an inferior race.
“They will not be harmed,” she answered, with a confidence she was far from feeling. There might be some among their escort who understood English, and it would never do to let an impression get abroad that such a thing as offering harm to such men as Thornhill and the magistrate, could even come within the bounds of possibility. “Who would dare to lift a hand against them? Why it would mean the hanging of every chief concerned, and a good many of the people as well.”
“Then you think they are safe – you who know these people so well?”
The question was put in a quick eager tone. Edala’s brows wrinkled.
“Don’t talk so loud, Evelyn,” she said, speaking quickly and, of design rather indistinctly. “There may be some here who understand. Better not talk about it at all, perhaps, until we’re alone. Oh, hang it – we must keep up,” she broke off roughly, as she felt her eyes brimming. “Can’t give away the show. D’you hear? We must keep up.”
The other murmured assent. The escort, stepping along at a quick walk so as to keep pace with the horses, was somewhat puzzled at the demeanour of the pair, and the warriors were talking among themselves in rapid undertones, as is the way of natives when they wish to disguise their conversation. Edala was adapting their method to English.
“I can’t make it out, Evelyn,” she said, purposely talking through closed teeth so as to be the more unintelligible to outside listeners. “None of these here are our people. In fact I hardly saw one, during the dancing, that was. I believe these are from – beyond the border.”
“What? Real Zulus?”
“Don’t mention names. That’s what I think they are,” purposely avoiding even the enunciation of the word ‘yes,’ for reasons given above. “For instance, look at those two ringed men. Their rings are differently sewn on to those on this side. You wouldn’t notice it but I do. That looks as if this was going to be a big affair, and had been carefully planned. Oh, you think I’m taking it all remarkably coolly, Evelyn – ” she broke off, in the gusty voice she used in moments of excitement. “But – we must keep up – we must keep up.”
“Yes – yes,” came the quick answer.
“There’s just this I go upon,” went on Edala. “If there are two men in the world who could be reckoned on to keep their wits about them and do the right thing at the right time, those two are father and Mr Elvesdon. See my meaning?”
The other nodded.
“So we must hope for the best.”
One thing that troubled Edala was that she could get no explanation whatever from their escort. The head-ringed men had kept carefully on the outskirts of the same, and when applied to to come over and talk had ignored the appeal. After this she would not question the common or unringed ‘boy,’ so was obliged to practise patience and await developments.
By the time they arrived at Sipazi it was nearly dark. Edala had more than half-expected to find the homestead a mass of smouldering ruins – but no. There it stood, yet there was a something that suggested the unusual. There was no sign of life about the place for instance – no smoke rising either from the kitchen chimney or from the huts of the native servants. Could it be that the latter – together with the Indian cook – had all been murdered? Edala drew rein, and addressed the escort.
“There is our home and now we are safe. If you would return you have fulfilled your mission. If you would rest, there is food and drink yonder.”
They looked at each other and laughed queerly.
“Ride on, Nkosazana,” said one of the ringed men.
Now there was sign of life with a vengeance, for the four great dogs came charging down upon the new arrivals, open-mouthed, barking and snarling savagely.
“Don’t kill them, amadoda,” said Edala, as assegais were detached, and held with suggestive readiness. “They will not hurt.”
But the savages were not going to be done out of their fun. A number of them rushed forward. Assegais showered through the air, and the unfortunate beasts lay transfixed by several of them, apiece, kicking feebly in their death throes.
“I – jji! I – jji!” went up the death hiss from their slayers, together with great hoarse shouts of laughter.
“The cruel wretches,” murmured Evelyn, in shuddering disgust. Edala’s lips tightened, but she restrained herself. Their own lives were none too secure, and this she knew.
Meanwhile the savages having tasted blood, even though only that of animals, began questing inside the deserted huts, but found no one. No cattle was in the kraals, either, or anything about the house, except a few fowls, which they promptly assegaied.
Edala said nothing now. To have offered them hospitality after this outrage would have been to have shown that she feared them. The two girls slid from their saddles, and entered the house. Both were sick with apprehension. It was growing dusk now, and here they were at the mercy of these barbarians. Edala went to her room, and seizing her revolver slipped it into her blouse. But no one followed. Through the window they could see that the side saddles had been flung from the horses, to be replaced by a couple of ordinary ones which had been found in in the stable. Then two of the ringed men having mounted, the whole crowd moved off without another word.
The two girls looked after them, then at each other.
“No – no,” said Edala, shaking a warning finger, as she saw the other on the verge of a breakdown – her own eyes were dimming suspiciously. “We haven’t got to do that, you know. We’ve got to prove to ourselves that the old libel – only it isn’t a libel – that the first thing women do in a difficulty is to howl, has its exceptions.”
“Yes – yes. You are wonderful, Edala. I could not have believed that any girl could show the coolness and pluck you have shown. What’s the next thing to do?”
“Do? Anything – everything rather than sit still and think. To-morrow early, we’ll start for Kwabulazi.”
“Yes. Let’s. But now – do you think any of those horrible brutes will come here again to-night?”
“No – I don’t. Those weren’t our own people, you know, Evelyn, as I told you. I’m not sure, quite, what to do. If we weren’t safe at Tongwana’s I don’t know where we shall be. So well start early so as to get there before it’s hot. But – I forgot. Can you walk? It’s thirteen miles every inch, and all our horses are gone.”
“Yes. I think I can. At any rate I shall have to.”
“Well we’ll shut the shutters so that no light will leak out if there are any wandering gangs about. Come along and help me, Evelyn. We can’t walk thirteen miles – we two feeble females – on nothing, you know.”
The other saw the drift. Both were to be kept busy. There must be no time for thinking. It may be that each saw into the other’s mind.
Soon a fire was started in the kitchen, and coffee brewed.
“I wonder what has become of Ramasam,” said Edala, when they sat down to their meal. “He’s an awful coward, and must have bolted with the others. Yet, I wonder how they first got the alarm. If it wasn’t that old Patolo is as reliable as death I should have thought that he had cleared out all the cattle and goats, for decidedly someone has.”
Evelyn had not noticed this little detail in the excitement and apprehension attendant on their strange home-coming. More and more she wondered at the other’s strength, her almost awful coolness.
But in spite of their efforts real cheerfulness would not prevail. Neither cared to open her heart to the other.
“I think we’d better get some sleep,” said Edala presently. “We shall have to start soon after midnight.”
“Hark! What’s that?” The speaker’s face had gone white, and under the circumstances, with her nerves all strung to high tension, even Edala had started.
A low, indescribably hideous, moaning noise had arisen. It came from the back of the house.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she answered. “Come and see.”
They went to the kitchen window, which looked out on the back. The moon had risen, and the ghostly light revealed the form of a large bull. He stood stamping and pawing the ground, uttering the while his hideous uncanny moanings.
“Oh, I’ll soon scoot him,” said Edala, returning to the passage to take down a raw-hide whip. “Only it’s not much use. The brute’ll be sure to come back.”
“Edala! You’re never going out to face that dreadful beast!” cried Evelyn, laying a detaining hand on her arm. Edala laughed shortly.
“You’ll see him run directly.”
But before she could reach the door the animal was seen suddenly to run forward, and disappear behind the cattle-kraal, where his moaning, in various keys, recommenced. Then he trotted back, tail in the air, emitting a shrill, half terrified bellow. To one, at any rate, of those who witnessed this performance the effect was indescribably weird.
“What does it mean?” she said.
“Nothing. The cattle often come round and make that row around the place where the goats are killed. It’s the blood, you know.”
Then she suddenly stopped, for it flashed upon her that the spot at which the moaning of the bull was at its highest and most excited pitch was not that whereon the goats were killed.
“Anyhow, I’ll just go out and scoot him. You stop here.”
Evelyn watched her go outside. At sight of her the bull paused in his stamping and scrapings and threw up his head, snuffing the air. Edala swirled the whip-lash as she advanced towards him – she would not crack it, for fear the sound might reach other ears. Then the beast lowered his head as if to charge her – backed a few paces – then thought better of it, and, turning, galloped madly away, uttering that – as it sounded in the silent and ghostly moonlight – shrill unearthly bellow.
Edala looked after the retreating beast. Her weaker instincts were all to return inside and bolt and bar the door. But some stronger motive to investigate took hold upon her – leading her steps to the spot where the beast had been most moved to his weird and mysterious rumblings.
As she turned the corner of the cattle-kraal her heart beat quicker, and her hand stole by sheer mechanical instinct to the butt of the revolver inside her blouse, not that it would be of any use against that which she expected to see and – did see.
There, in the moonlight, just out from the fence, lay a form – a human form; and it did not require two glances to determine that it was a dead human form. Mastering her overpowering horror the girl advanced. The body was ripped right open, and in the dead face, its sightless eyeballs upturned to the moon, she recognised that of the faithful old cattle-herd Patolo.
What was this? Old Patolo! Dear old Patolo, who had known her from her childhood! Never a time that she could not remember old Patolo. And now here he lay, barbarously murdered! A rush of tears came to her eyes, and with a fierce longing for revenge upon his brutal slayers, she unconsciously gripped the butt of her revolver, and perhaps it was as well, or the shock of the awful sight might have had disastrous effects.
“Oh – hh!”
Edala turned quickly, at the shuddering exclamation, uttered as it was in accents of the most indescribable horror. Evelyn, dreading to be alone, even for a moment, had followed her out.
“Go back!” she cried. “You need not see this.”
But Evelyn had seen it. Her face wore a set, stony stare.
“Come in. Come in,” said Edala, in her most brusque commanding tone, taking the other by the arm. And then that hideous moaning sound arose just behind them, together with the stamp of feet. The great bull had returned, and stood, not ten yards from them, his massive head, grim and formidable looking to the last degree in the moonlight. Evelyn collapsed. She slid to the ground in a dead faint.
Chapter Twenty Five.
“The Perils and Dangers of this Night.”
What was to be done? The great, grisly brute stood there pawing and scraping, keeping up the while his gruesome moanings, his shrill bellow. But there was now a note of savagery in these: whether it was that the smell of blood, and a great deal of it, had worked him up, together with the fact of finding himself all alone, so far as his kind went – his voice took on that strange growling note which enraged cattle take on at times, and then – look out for mischief. And the girl stood, absolutely unprotected, the prostrate form of her friend lying there at her feet, helpless. Had any been there to see it her face wore the same look that it had worn as she stood holding the big stone ready to throw, what time Elvesdon came between her and the great snake.
She let go the whip-lash with a resounding crack in the direction of the menacing beast. He was of the large homed kind that would have been the delight of a Plaza de Toros, and looked horribly formidable, tossing his white sharp horns in the moonlight. Then he charged.
Edala did not yield an inch as she stood over the body of her friend. She calculated her distance to a nicety, and as coolly as if she had been fly-fishing, she sent out the whip-lash again. Fortunately the charge was a half-hearted one, and the cutting voerslag, catching the enemy full in the eyes, brought him up as sharp as though the cruel banderillas had suddenly been stuck in his withers in the plaza in old Spain. She gave him no law. Twice in rapid succession again she gave him the voerslag, and the blinded beast, mad with pain, backed, then trotted unsteadily away.
Edala’s breathing came in spasmodic gasps as she watched him out of sight, and the reaction made her knees tremble beneath her. Oh hang it! She must keep up, she told herself. She could not afford to follow Evelyn’s example, or what would become of them both? So this girl, with the glorious gold-crowned head, alone there under circumstances of peril and horror, started to work out the situation for the safety of both.
“Come Evelyn. Pull yourself together, and get up!” she cried, half carrying, half dragging the other to the house door. “Lord! I shall have to shy a bucket of water over her yet!” she added almost savagely, panting from her exertion.
But this drastic remedy proved unnecessary, for Evelyn opened her eyes, then sat up, staring about her in a dazed kind of way.
“What is it? I’ve been dreaming – something horrible,” she said.
“Yes, you have. Never mind. Buck up now, and come inside. It’s beastly cold out here.”
“Why yes. I feel tottery though. Oh Edala, what a fool you must think me.”
“No. Only, don’t do it again,” was the reply, accompanied by a curious laugh. Edala was thinking – though not resentfully – of how a day or two ago the other was lecturing her: in a way talking down to her, while disclaiming any intent to do so. Now she was the one upon whom everything depended. The situation was in her hands.
They went inside, and Edala mixed a glass of brandy and water.
“You drink this,” she said. “Then go to sleep for an hour or two and we’ll start for Kwabulazi.”
“But I hate spirits – Ugh!” with a shudder.
“So do I; and I hate medicine too; but both are necessary sometimes. Down with it.”
Evelyn obeyed, with more than one additional shudder. But the end justified the means, for, sitting back in a low roomy armchair, she soon felt drowsy and dropped off to sleep.
Edala felt no inclination to follow her example, on the contrary she had never felt more wakeful in her life. She wandered from room to room. There was her father’s library, and his favourite chair and reading lamp. There were his cherished books, and all the surrounding was alive with his presence. She could hardly realise that he was no longer there, but instead was a prisoner – a hostage – in the hands of insurrectionary savages; whose wild mad scheme of rebellion could end in no other way than that utterly disastrous to themselves, and then – ?
She looked around the room, and a terrible wave of compunction, or remorse came over her. How hard, how selfish, how unloving she had been towards him. Who was she that she should judge him? Yet she had, and that at every moment of the day.
All the affection and care and consideration he had lavished upon her came back now. It would, when it was too late, he had more than once said in his bitterness – Evelyn too had all unconsciously echoed his words. And it had. Should she ever see him again – ever look upon that loving presence – to whom she had been all in all for the whole of her young life, and whom she had met with ingratitude and repulsion? In the lonely silence of the still midnight the girl who had faced physical danger with a calm front, and rare readiness of resource, broke down.
“Father darling – darling! come back to me,” she moaned. “Only come back to me, to your little one again, and all shall be so different, so different.”
She had dropped upon her knees, her head buried in the chair – his chair. Her heart seemed breaking in her sobs – her great sobs – which hardly relieved it. What if she should never see him again, to tell him how his words had been surely fulfilled – never – never? No, she could not realise it. This room, which more than any other in the house seemed sacred to his presence and – now empty of it. A large portrait of him hung on the wall. Rising she went over and pressed her lips to the cold, not too carefully dusted, glass again and again.
The sound of stirring in the other room now came to her ears. It brought her down to the hard, material side of the situation. She dashed the tears from her eyes, fiercely, determinedly, and went to join her relative. Evelyn was awake again, and was looking around in rather a frightened way.
“Oh, here you are, Edala! Shall we start? I feel ever so much refreshed now. But you, child – have you had some sleep?”
“Yes – no,” was the half-absent reply. “Start? Yes, as soon as you’re ready. Wait though. I’ll go and get some supplies for the way. Later on you’ll find it no joke walking thirteen miles across the veldt on nothing but air.”
She was all material and practical again now. In a marvellously short space of time she returned with a well packed wallet stored with provisions.
“You sling this on,” handing the other a vulcanite water bottle. “I’ll carry the skoff – and the gun. It’s a pity you couldn’t learn to shoot, Evelyn, or you might have carried another. As it is we’ll hide the other two – inside the piano. No Kafir would think of looking for them there.”
This was done, then having carefully extinguished the lights and being well wrapped up, for the nights were fresh; and in dark attire, for safety’s sake, they went forth.
“I wonder if we shall ever see the old house again,” said Edala bitterly. “It’ll probably be burned to the ground, and all father’s treasured books,” – she added, with the catch of a sob. “These brutes – who have known you all your life, and then even they fall away from you! They’ll stick at nothing.”
There was silence then as they started upon their long tramp. The bodies of the poor dogs lay where they had been slain, plainly outlined under the cold moon, whose light glared down too upon that other mangled human relic, which, fortunately they could not see. High in the air invisible plover wheeled and whistled, and down in the blackness of the kloofs, right across their way, the answering bay of hunting jackals, and the deeper voice of the striped hyena, echoed eerily upon the night. Evelyn shuddered.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Edala. “Nothing to be afraid of there – quite the contrary. It means that our way is clear, or no animal would be kicking up all that row. That’s just what we want. Hallo – here’s our friend back again,” she broke off, as a trample of hoofs, and a quick shrill bellow, told that the bull had returned. Again Evelyn shuddered.
“Will he attack us?” she said.
“I hope not, because this time I shall have to shoot. A charge of Treble A. at ten yards’ll split even his tough skull. But the last thing I want to do is to loose off a shot at all. By the way, that’s old Blue Hump. He must have got cut off from the herd when they drove it off – or cleared on his own. He’s a vicious old brute, anyway.”
The animal was trotting parallel with their course and every now and then they could make out the great branching horns above the bush sprays. But he must have grown tired of it, or feared to come to closer quarters, for presently they Saw no more of him.
“There’s a pathway here that cuts a considerable corner,” said Edala. “Whew! how cold it is.”
It was, and in spite of the exercise and plentiful wrapping up, both girls shivered. There were stealthy rustlings in the darkness of the brake, and once a great ant-bear rushing across the road, looking pale and uncanny in the moonlight, drew a stifled shriek from Evelyn. The other laughed.
“They’re the most harmless things on earth. Hyland and I and poor Jim used to hunt them often at night with assegais.”
Thus they travelled on, and soon Evelyn became accustomed to the unwonted experience of walking all night across wild country in potential peril at every step: fortunately she was in hard physical training by now. Once Edala’s quick vision had detected a puff adder lying in the path, but a few stones hurled from a little distance, soon drove the bloated, hissing reptile to seek safety somewhere else. Now and again a great owl would drop down right in front of their faces, and they could see his head turning from side to side as he sailed along on noiseless pinions, uttering his ghostly hoot: or the ‘churn’ of the nightjar would echo weirdly from beneath some overhanging rock; or again, a tiger-wolf howled, and big beetles in blundering flight, boomed through the air. So the voices of the night were never still.
They had sat down for a brief rest, and some refreshment, then on again. Suddenly Edala grew uneasy. A white mist was settling down upon the land. This was serious; for not only might they run plump into those it was all important to avoid, but there was grave danger of getting ‘turned round’ and finding themselves back at Sipazi again. The mist deepened, and so did Edala’s growing anxiety. It was one of those thick white mists which settle down upon the land in the small hours of the morning, fearfully disconcerting from a wayfarer’s point of view, but which melt away as by magic before the sun is an hour high. But that was small comfort to these two. They wanted to be at Kwabulazi before the sun was above the horizon at all. Suddenly Edala started.
“Hark!” she whispered, stopping short.
In front – directly in front – was audible a deep, confused murmur of sound, rolling, as it seemed, from one point to another, and drawing nearer and nearer. And with it came another sound. Those who have heard it can never mistake it, and these two had heard it all too significantly of late. It was the quivering rattle of assegai hafts.
From the sounds, spread out as they were right across their front, it was manifest that a large body of natives was moving towards them in open order. The fact that they were all armed told its own tale. This was a rebel impi, and but for the friendly mist these two would have run right into it.
“Quick, Evelyn! This way!” breathed, rather than whispered, Edala.
Holding her companion’s hand she drew her after her. The way she was taking now ascended sharply, but it was the only way. The rime rolled along, now in gusty puffs. This seemed to tell that they were gaining some height. Both were panting from their exertion, but there was no such thing as pausing, for now from the sounds beneath it was evident that the savages had suddenly altered their line of march, and were coming on in the same direction as themselves. Had they heard the sound of their steps, the clinking of a stone – what not? Anyway they could not go down, these two. That was out of the question.
On and upward. A puff of damp air, now nearly in their teeth, showed that they had attained the summit of some height. Suddenly Edala seized her companion’s hand in a strong grip and held it – and its owner.
“What is it?” whispered the latter.
“We are on the edge of a big krantz, that’s all. Three or four more steps and we should have been over.”
It was even as she had said. The ground ended just in front of them, and the blast of air coming up denoted a cliff, and one of considerable height.
But now it was lightening, and they could make out the long smooth edge of the height stretching away on their left front. And – good Heavens! Now the voices sounded from that direction —advancing from that direction as though to meet the owners of those coming up behind. These two were in a trap, caught between two fires. It was evident that the savages suspected their presence – the presence of somebody – and were quartering the ground in order to clear up the mystery. And there was nowhere to hide. The mountain top was flat and grassy. Suddenly Edala gave a violent start.
“I know our bearings now,” she whispered. “We’re on the top of Sipazi. Now Evelyn, there’s one chance for us, and one only – if you’ve the nerve to take it.”
“And that?”
“My ‘aerial throne.’”
The other gasped. She remembered how her flesh had crept before, when Edala had taken her to see the famous tree, how she had turned away almost faint, as she watched the girl spring out fearlessly on to this dreadful seat – with a careless laugh as though she had just dropped into an armchair. And now she too must sit dangling over the awful height. At that moment she almost preferred to take her chance of the assegais of the savages. But that chance might possibly mean even a worse one, and the thought decided her, as Edala whispered impatiently: —
“It’s got to be done. It’s our only chance. But you can’t fall. I’ll take care of that. Come.”
The deep voices sounded alarmingly near now. We have said that the brow of the mountain went down by a grass steep that was almost precipitous, to the stump of the tree. Edala let herself down this with cat-like security of footing, keeping ever a firm hold upon her companion – her gun she wedged into the root of a stunted bush growing out from the grass.
“Now we’re all right,” she whispered, as they sat wedged upon the projecting tree trunk, their feet dangling over space. “You can’t possibly fall, you know, as long as you hang on to that root, and I’m holding you. It’s a triumph of matter over mind instead of t’other way on, and as long as you forget there’s more than six foot of drop between this and the ground why you’re as jolly here as in an armchair on the stoep.”
And the other was somewhat reassured, although the situation to her was ghastly and horrible in the extreme. But now the voices drew very near indeed, were right overhead. Fortunately the mist had suddenly thickened, and the tree, which was some little way down, was quite blotted out to the vision of those above. To Edala, who understood what was said, the moment was one of awful tensity. Someone had been upon the mountain, of that they were convinced. But where could they be? There was no hiding place. Unless they had fallen over the cliff they would be here now.
Thus the discussion flowed on. Even the vibration of the tread of feet above caused the tree trunk to quiver slightly. At any moment the mist might lift. And it seemed to these two, suspended over awful space, an eternity. Then with unspeakable relief and thankfulness they heard the footsteps and voices retreating.
“Not yet,” breathed Edala. “Not yet. We must let them get clear away first. See. It’s getting lighter.”
It was. The dawn was at hand; in fact had already begun to break. The outline of the cliff above was visible now, plainly visible, and devoutly thankful did Edala feel that this lightening had been deferred as long as it had.
“My ‘aerial throne’ has its uses, Evelyn – eh?” she whispered.
Then something moved her to look up again. Her exaltation was dashed, shattered to the ground. On the brink, calmly gazing down upon them, stood the tall figure of a man – a dark man – and the outline of his figure and head-ring stood out against the sickly murk. She recognised Manamandhla. The bitterness of death had come.
For a few moments the Zulu thus stood, his eyes meeting hers. Then, without a word, he turned away and disappeared.
