Cinderella in the South Part 2

Granted the Love of Jesus (Who was certainly what South Africans would call a Jew Boy, Who was possibly so dark that any dorp school would have hummed over His admission, Who enrolled Himself in that House of David one of Whose ancestresses was the Hamitic Rahab apparently, Who took Ham's curse as well as j.a.pheth's); granted that that Love is the one and only supreme motive for Christian Reform, yet for all that, facts are facts, and it may be kind to tell people into what fires the fires of Racialism threaten to merge their selves. On the whole, I am glad that our lay reader preached on that bright morning that over-gloomed sermon, preaching from my own soothing pulpit to my startled congregation. They did not seem to know what to make of it. But the preacher himself seemed quite unrepentant about it. He was talking to me about it that morning when we drove home again, he to his farm and I with him, to walk on to my mission. We outspanned in a very green valley, I remember, and sat long over roast monkey-nuts that his driver benignantly provided.

'The Lord put a word into my mouth,' my friend said quite firmly and simply. 'Was there not the cause the cause of a child's career? Didn't our Savior speak plainly as to the ugly a.n.a.logy of the man drowned like a dog with a stone round his neck in the deep of the sea? Weren't His children in question when Jesus spoke; wasn't there a Christian child in question when I preached?'

I thought he made out something of a case for his position as a preacher of fiery doom. We were sitting on a beautiful green carpet. The Earth there had come through her bad time. Away on the hillside a black forbidding patch testified to the unpleasantness of the remedial stage. Away in the distance was a beautiful tree-shaded granite hill with much show of brown foliage and purplish unders.p.a.ces. Just beside that hill the flames came driving (through the old last year's feed, I suppose). His eyes followed mine the way of the flames. 'Hurray!'

he said heartily. 'Now we shan't be so very long surely after all. Don't you see the green gra.s.s on its way? It was a snug corner, verily, for the old dry stuff. Look, how the flames leap up in the thick of it! Not very juicy browse nor tasty feed, but fine fuel for the fire; good for that, anyway. It was a snug corner, but at last the time was ripe when the fire came driving straight for it the fire with the wind behind. 'Which things are a parable,' he said, his ugly sunburnt face twitching curiously, his eyes quite handsome, nay, even splendid with honest scorn. He was shaking his fist towards the prim little dorp that we had left behind over the ridges. 'No doubt but ye are the people,' he said, 'ye that have made the freedom of England and the franchise of Jesus of no effect by your tradition your sacrosanct tradition. What's the good of the frowsy old stuff? It must be some good; what is it? It isn't very good pasture for sheep or horses, not to speak of dairy cattle, but it's n.o.ble food for fire, don't you think?

There it lies-up so snug and sheltered and screened the old dead survival hidden in the prim little corrugated iron-roofed houses, and the narrow gumtree avenues, and the whitewashed Dutch tabernacle where they sing "Safe in the Arms of Jesus" (would you believe it?) But the time will come, it mayn't come in my day or in yours, but the time will come sure enough, when the Fire will trek dead straight for this old dead-ripe stuff, the Fire with the Wind behind. Then G.o.d have mercy on them whose work it was!

For their work shall be burnt, aren't we sure of that? But as to they themselves being the sort to be saved so as by fire can we be so very sanguine? Meanwhile. . . . . . .

The way he so humbly appealed to me for my opinion on that moot point, did much to conciliate me. He had not carried me with him all the while. He seemed to me a bit out of date, too like an ante-Christian prophet. Yet how my heart went out to him as he ended up so very abruptly with his 'meanwhile.' His voice broke queerly, and his eyes shone. 'Meanwhile they may manage to give a child or two a rough pa.s.sage. They've got pluck enough for that, the blighters, haven't they?' He turned away from me with a sort of a sob. 'The time'll come sure enough, but it's their time now, and they know it,' he said. 'G.o.d pity her!'

'LA BELLE DAME'

Inhabiting this country you inhabit the Middle Ages, you dwell in the wild Marchlands without the pale of Christendom. Here a man may take to the forest roads in the old spirit of errantry. How darkly the shadow of witchcraft falls upon the path; we might be in Lapland or Thessaly! What strange satyr voices the drums have of nights! I suppose it is the reading about such things long ago that gives me this sense of having been here before, of having come back to this country!'

His eyes glistened as he sat over his wine, and smoked Transvaal tobacco in a calabash pipe. He looked much more as he used to look twenty years back, I thought. I had deemed him aged almost out of recognition when first we sat down to dinner. He had come up to Mashonaland with some learned a.s.sociation on a holiday trip. His name was Gerald Browne; he had lectured on English literature these many years in an ancient northern university.

With him came his wife, a very plain and quiet lady, and also an undergraduate pupil named Drayton.

I was asked to meet them, and to stay in the same house with them by a certain minor potentate of Rosebery, who had had rooms near Browne's and mine in years gone by. It was Sat.u.r.day night, and I had just come in from the veld, while Browne's party had reached Rosebery by the morning train. Dinner had gone rather quietly, and our host had looked bored, I thought. Then, when the ladies had left us, Browne had kindled up, and we all three had a glorious hour, voicing the praises of Africa in a sort of three-man descant or glee. Meanwhile the fourth man, Drayton, a dark, plump and smiling youth, listened to us with a charming air of respectful attention. Transvaal tobacco was good, and the talk was good, though I say it who should not. Drayton's silence was also good, a very complimentary silence with a distinct character, as it seemed to me. On Sunday after lunch this youth came for a walk with me, while the Brownes and our host reclined.

'Mr. Browne's got a sort of call to the Simple Life,' he suddenly blurted out with a grin. 'It's even money on his selling up at Oxford and coming out here for good. What's going to happen to Mrs. Browne, I wonder?'

I laughed, as I thought he expected me to do.

'He seems rather smitten,' I admitted. 'He certainly raved a bit last night; but, then, so many people do that when they first come out.'

Drayton looked at me as if he might have said much more. But I changed the subject; it never occurred to me then that it might be a thrilling one. I went home later on and sat on the stoep and talked to my host. Browne had very little to say. He went off for a sunset walk, and never came to church at night. We sat up in the moonlight waiting for him afterwards. He came in at last and joined us on the stoep, but he was very silent. He would not have any supper. He smoked away furiously till bed-time.

I arranged a riding trip for all three visitors next morning.

They were to off-saddle under some high kopjes about ten miles from town; they were to have a picnic and an amazing view. I could not go myself, as I had an appointment to keep. But I sent two Mashona boys to be their retinue; one of them was Johannes, my own right hand at home. I solemnly entrusted the strangers and their steeds to his keeping.

When I came in about sunset that Monday evening they had not returned. But before the daylight failed, three of them were back Mrs. Browne, Drayton, and the under-boy. Where were Browne and Johannes? Mrs. Browne seemed to be a little uneasy, but she affected to make light of what had happened. She said that her husband had wanted to see the country beyond, so he had gone on with the boy. He was sure to be back to-morrow, as he had taken so little food with him. Drayton said nothing at the time, but after dinner, when we were smoking on the stoep, he began to quote to me:

'I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful a faery's child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.'

'What do you mean to insinuate?' I said.

'Oh, I don't mean anything libelous. Browne hasn't gone off with a comely Mashona. But, for all that, I believe he's taken Africa much too seriously. She has a grim fascination for me, but she doesn't stop at that with him. She grips him and orders him to come along.'

'Tell me about today,' I said.

'Browne acknowledged a little to me three days ago,' Drayton said. 'He told me that this huge Tamburlaine (or rather Zenocrate) of a country was giving him too heady a welcome. He said she was still in the Middle Ages, and not only there, but more than half outside the pale of Christendom, such as it was then. So she had strange forces at work in her, and used incantations to allure, in prodigal variety. He talked about Lapland, and some footling researches he had made into the magic of the north. He also told me a horrible tale or two of the South that he had found in the Bodleian. One was a real curdler, I can tell you. Jerry Browne's own moustache seemed to turn up like a German's as he imparted it to me. You know he's romantic enough in his way, though he does lead such a repressed life. You should see him at home.'

'But do tell me why he's gone off so suddenly,' said I, with some impatience.

'I can't tell you very much,' said Drayton. 'We rode out, and Jerry seemed tremendously cheerful quite sportive. Anyone who'd only known him in Park Crescent would have been much surprised to watch him and listen to the things he said. Mrs. Browne seemed a bit puzzled, I thought, at last. Then we came to the kopjes where there was a consummate view. You could see a long way to the north across a hugely wide plain. Browne climbed up on the highest rock with me a sort of flat slab, whereon you might immolate a hecatomb. He seemed more exhilarated than ever just then. Soon he slipped away down the rocks and left me smoking my pipe on high. About five minutes after I observed him making tracks across the northern plain. He was cantering his dappled mule for all it was worth; he was carrying nothing so far as I could see.

'I made haste down. I found that boy you said we could trust. I gave him two or three picnic rugs and what was left of our food to carry. I asked him to follow the rideaway, to stick to him, and to bring him back as soon as ever he could. Then I went to Mrs. Browne. She was sitting behind some bushes crying. She said Browne had said such a curious good-bye to her. He had spoken of riding on to see more of the country he had said he would be back in the morning. She had tried to dissuade him, but he seemed hardly to listen. She could scarcely believe that he had really gone without blankets or food. I rea.s.sured her, telling her that I had sent the boy and that you had said the boy was a good 'un. But if she thinks, or you think, that the old man will come back tomorrow, I don't.'

Tuesday pa.s.sed anxiously both for Mrs. Browne and for me. Drayton was anxious in the wrong way, unless I misjudged him. I seemed to read triumph in his face as the hours went by and brought no Browne.

I grew haggard when evening drew on. What was I to do? But about sunset tidings came. A native, who had traveled into town from the north, brought me a penciled note from Johannes: 'My father, I ask you to come to us. Let your horse make haste. The white man will not turn. He has finished his food. He goes to the hills, he says. I think that he is mad. Pray for us! Johannes.'

I went to Mrs. Browne at once. I remember I found her sitting under a flaming hibiscus bush. She looked very pale and washed-out against it. I told her that her husband wanted to extend his tour. She burst into tears, and said she could not understand it.

Then I told her that I meant going after him in the morning to try to hasten his return. She brightened up at that, and fell to planning what I should take with me. What comforts could she send Gerald in the comfortless desert without overloading me? I showed Johannes' note to Drayton after dinner. He whistled, and, to his credit, looked grave.

'I'm to go after him to-morrow,' I said. 'I've thought over it, and I think you may as well come too. You may be useful, as knowing his ways.'

He nodded. 'Rather bad about his running out of skoff, isn't it?'

he asked. 'I wonder if he's out of baccy and just breaking his heart.' His plump face was pitiful.

'Don't you fret,' I answered. 'It only means he's run out of our food. They'll surely buy monkey-nuts or sweet-potatoes or rice in the kraals. He's probably developed a pa.s.sion for native food by now, also for native snuff. He'll be able to buy some of that, surely.'

'Just so,' said Drayton. He began to quote again in a sort of droning chant as if he were a chorus recording the onsweep of a tragedy:

'I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she lean, and sing A faery's song.

'She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said I love thee true.'

In the morning we got a flying start after all, though Drayton was in bed when I came back from church. We went away at eight, and soon found, to our joy, that we were really well mounted. It was joy, too, to remember what a stubborn mule Browne had for pacing steed. He had not got away far, we a.s.sured ourselves. But we did not catch him that night.

We asked at kraals as we went along, and struck a hot scent about three in the afternoon. A white man had pa.s.sed that morning a white man riding a dappled mule, with a boy carrying blankets behind him. Straightway we gave our ponies an off-saddle.

Afterwards we rode on hard in what we deemed to be the right direction till darkness fell: We sought shelter at a village then. There was no village gossip, alas! about the pa.s.sing of a white man that day! They were good to us, though, those villagers, and gave us beans and monkey-nuts for supper and mealies for our ponies. After we had finished eating we spread out the rush-mat they had lent us and lay down to smoke and meditate and surmise as to our pa.s.sionate pilgrim. They had given us a hut that was old and grimy with fires. Its floor teemed with life.

Therefore we changed our resting-place and went out to camp under a rocky eminence. There with a bedrock of austere granite we slept in peace. At glimmer of dawn we were saddling up. We rode to another kraal, but the folk there had no news for us.

We were close on the hills now at last. We came to a low river at the foot of them. We chose a landlocked pool that seemed to be immune from crocodiles, for a plunge. Next I girded myself for Sacrifice, and he served me. Then we made a fire and cooked a huge breakfast in the hungry morning air. Drayton grew quite lyrical as to the charm of the country before the meal was over.

'Browne's not far wrong about her,' he said; 'but there's reason in all things.'

That whole day we heard no news and found no spoor or sign. The hill-country gave us stiff climbing and rocky paths to ride.

Kraals and cl.u.s.ters of gardens places where we might hope to hear tidings how few they were in that hill-country! We camped disconsolately at last in a forlorn garden among grey boulders where stumps of trees were burning. We found no trouble in building up a good night fire of half-burnt logs. We gave our ponies their nosebags and ate our own bread and bully rather silently. Then we surmised with some weariness and gloom over our pipes. At last we slept under the many eyes of the heavens.

About first c.o.c.k-crow, when a chill struck through my blanket, I opened my eyes and looked towards the fire. Someone was sitting beside it watching me. Now that he saw me stirring he greeted me.

It was Johannes. 'I saw your fire but just now,' he said. 'Our fire is up there beyond great rocks. The white man has been very sick. I think he will come home now.'

I sprang to my feet and roused Drayton. He would not get up for a long time. I suspect he combined breakfast and lunch fairly often at Oxford. But I roused him mercilessly. I told him the news.

He argued in desperate fas.h.i.+on at first. 'How far's the sick bed,' he asked.

'Not more than a mile or so,' said I.