John Ames, Native Commissioner Part 31

"This is not the first time 'my own countrymen' have felt my unseen hand," continued the narrator. "They felt it when three miles of plain were watered with British blood, and a line of whitened bones, as the line of a paper-chase, marked out a broad way from Isandhlwana to the Buffalo drift. They felt it when British blood poured into the swollen waters of the Intombi river, and when the 'neck' on Hlobane mountain was choked with struggling men and horses fleeing for dear life, and but few escaping. That was for me. They have felt it often since. That was for _her_. They felt it when the hardest blow of all was dealt to their illimitable self-righteousness a year later; and, in short, almost whenever there has been opportunity for decimating them this side of the equator, my hand has been there. They would have felt it three years ago, when they seized this country we are now in, but for a wholly unavoidable reason, and then even the strong laagers and parks of Maxims would have counted for nought. That was for _her_. The malice of the devilish laws of 'my country' drove me forth, and with me went that one.

In the malarial valleys of the foothills of the Lebombo she died. I still live; but I live for a lifelong revenge upon 'my countrymen'--and hers."

Listening with the most vivid interest, John Ames was awed. The narrative just then could not but appeal to him powerfully. What if his own wanderings had ended thus, subst.i.tuting Matopo for Lebombo? He shuddered to think that but for their signal good fortune in being blessed with fine dry weather, such might not inconceivably have been the case. The earlier and more tragic of the historical events referred to had taken place during the period of his English education, but now there recurred to his memory certain tales which he had heard on his return to his native colony of Natal, relating to the disappearance during the Zulu war of a border outlaw under circ.u.mstances of romantic interest. Could they have been authentic? Could this mysterious personage be indeed the chief actor in them? But, then, what must have been the strength and power of such a pa.s.sion as had been this man's, that he should cherish it full and strong after all these years; to the compa.s.sing of illimitable bloodshed, prosecuting the fierce and relentless hatred of his own countrymen to the extent of metamorphosing the memory of its object into a very Kali, sacrificing to that memory in blood! Of a truth it could be nothing less than a mania--a grim and terrible monomania.

"You are already beginning to lose your horror at what I have told you, John Ames," went on the other, his keen, darting eyes reading his listener's face like an open page. "Yet why should you ever have entertained it? Is not this blue-eyed girl you were taking care of for so many days all the world to you--more than life itself?"

"She is. She is indeed, G.o.d knows," was the reply, emphatically fervent.

"Then what revenge could you wreak that would be too full, too sweet, upon whosoever should be instrumental in bereaving you of her for ever?

You have not yet been tried, John Ames, and yours is a character outside the ordinary."

Was the speaker right, after all? thought John Ames. He looked at the dark face and silvery beard, and the glitter of the keen grey eyes, and wondered. Yet as he looked, he decided that the owner of that face must be considerably younger than his appearance. Was he himself capable of such a hardening--of so gigantic and ruthless and lifelong a feud? One thing was incontestable. He certainly had lost the first feeling of repulsion and horror; indeed, he could not swear it had not been replaced by one of profound sympathy. The other continued.

"This is what you will do. First of all, you will give me your word to make no attempt to seek out this place, though it would be futile even if made. For remember I have saved your life, and the life of one who is more to you than life, not once, but many times, though unknown to you. Others sought escape in the same way as yourselves. Ask, when you are safe again, how many found it? I did not spare them. I spared you, John Ames, because your wanderings reminded me of my own. I watched you both frequently, unknown to yourselves, and doing so the past came back so vividly as to render me more merciless still towards others in the same plight. But you two I spared."

"Then it was you I challenged that morning in the dark?"

"Even your vigilance was as nothing against me, John Ames, for did I not step right over you while you slept?"

The other whistled. There could be no doubt about that.

"Then you will take these two packets. The one marked on the outside 'A' you will open at once, and with every precaution will forward the enclosure it contains to the address that enclosure bears."

This John Ames promised to do. He would register it if the post lines were still open. If not, he would take every precaution for its safety until they were.

"But they will be still open," was the decided reply. "As for the next packet, marked 'B,' you will not open it--not yet. Keep it with you.

The time may come when you will see everything dark around you, and there is no outlook, and life hardly worth prolonging. Then, and then only, open it. Do you promise to observe my instructions implicitly?"

"I pledge you my word of honour to do so," replied John Ames, gravely.

"Then our time for parting is very near. Remember that you owe your life--both your lives--to me. Don't interrupt. It is not unnecessary to remind you again of this, for you will meet with every temptation to reveal that which I charge you to keep to yourself--viz. all relating to my personality and what you have seen and heard."

"One moment. Pardon my asking," said John Ames, tentatively. "But have you ever told anybody else what you have told me?"

"Not one living soul. Why have I told you? Perhaps I had my reasons: perhaps the sight of you two wandering as I have wandered. It is immaterial. My work here is nearly done. This rising which has been so disastrous to your countrymen and mine--how disastrous you have yet to learn--my hand has fostered and fed. I have foreseen the opportunity.

I waited for it patiently, and when it came I seized it. But there will be more work in other parts, and, mark me, John Ames, my unseen hand will again be there to strike."

"Tell me one thing more. If it was through your influence the people spared us, how is it they tried to kill me that time I was leaving Madula, when they drove me over the _dwala_, and I woke up to find myself here? That was a narrow squeak, I can tell you."

"It was indeed, John Ames. But that was accidental, and was contrary to my orders."

"Contrary to your orders? But,"--sitting up, with a stare of blank amazement--"but--who are you?"

"I am Umlimo."

"What! _You_ Umlimo? It cannot be. I have always held Umlimo to be a sort of fraudulent abstraction, engineered by innyangas like s.h.i.+minya and others. _You_ the Umlimo?"

But to the startled eyes of the questioner the form of the questioned seemed to grow larger, taller, like a presence filling the whole place.

The old relentless look of implacable hate transformed the features, and the deep eyes glowed, while from the scarcely opened lips boomed forth as in deep thunder-tones--

"I am Umlimo."

A mist filled the place. The figure with its background of rock-wall seemed to lose form. A sudden stupor seized upon the brain of John Ames, as though the whole atmosphere were pervaded by a strong narcotic.

Then he knew no more.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

IN STATE OF SIEGE.

There can be no doubt but that, during the period of the rising, and especially during the earlier half of the same, the towns.h.i.+p of Bulawayo was a very uncomfortable place indeed.

The oft-recurring scares, necessitating the crowding of, at any rate, the bulk of its inhabitants into the laagers at night, contributed in the main to this. With instances of the fell unsparing ferocity which attended the rebel stroke--sudden, swift, and unexpected--fresh in the mind of everybody, citizens were chary of exposing themselves and their families to a like visitation. Private residences straggling over the surburban stands were abandoned for the greater security of the temporary forts which had been hastily but effectively formed out of some of the princ.i.p.al buildings in and around the towns.h.i.+p itself; and the comfort and privacy of home-life had perforce to be exchanged for an overcrowded, hotch-potch, barrack sort of existence; men, women, and children of all sorts and sizes herding together, hugger-mugged, under every conceivable form of racket and discomfort, and under the most inadequate conditions of area and convenience. Rumour, in its many-tongued and wildest form, filled the air, gathering in volume, and frequently in wildness, with the advent of every fresh batch of refugees. For from all sides these came flying in--prospectors, miners, outlying settlers with their families, some with a portion of their worldly goods, others with none at all, and fortunate in having escaped with their lives where others had not. For it soon became manifest that such events as the ma.s.sacre of the Hollingworths and the Inglefields, and the fight and resolute defence at Jekyll's Store, were but samples of what had taken place--or was still going on--all over the country.

Haggard fugitives, gaunt with starvation, stony-eyed with days and nights of deadly peril for close companions.h.i.+p, nerves shattered by the most horrible recollections, and apprehension worked up to the acutest phase thereby--continued to arrive, each and all bringing the same tale of treachery and ruthlessness and blood, deepening on every hand the gloom and anxiety of the situation--anxiety on behalf of those not yet accounted for, mingling with an apprehensive looking forward to how it was all going to end, and when. The necessaries of life went up to famine prices, and then the enemy began to invest the town.

Southward, crouching lion-like, among the Matyamhlope rocks; on the north, occupying the site of the old Bulawayo kraal, and in possession of the "Government" House which the presumptuous white man had erected upon the former seat of the departed king, overhanging, like a dark cloud, the towns.h.i.+p beneath, or again making fierce dashes upon traffic which should attempt the eastward way, he mustered in all his savage might--an ever-present menace. But the way to the west, for some unaccountable reason, was left open.

Those in charge of the safety of the towns.h.i.+p had their hands full.

They might sally forth in force, as they frequently did, with the object of rolling back the danger that threatened; an object sometimes accomplished, sometimes not, for the rolling back was not invariably all on one side. But whichever way the attempt would go, the wily foe was sure to be in position again almost immediately, whence, ma.s.sed around the very edifice that symbolised the domination of those threatened, the defiant thunder of his war-song would reach their ears.

Of all the narrow escapes from the widespread ma.s.sacre which at that time were in everybody's mouth, none perhaps commanded general attention so much as that of Nidia Commerell. It was so fraught with the dramatic element, being in fact not one escape, but a series of them. Her personality, too, imparted to it an additional interest; this refined and attractive girl, brought up amid every comfort, suddenly to be thrown by rude contrast from the luxurious appointments of her peaceful English home into the red surroundings of ma.s.sacre and of death. Again, the circ.u.mstances of her wanderings appealed strongly to the romantic side, and people looked knowingly at each other, and p.r.o.nounced John Ames to be a singularly fortunate individual--would be, at least, were it not for the fact that n.o.body knew whether he was alive or dead; indeed, the latter contingency seemed the more probable.

There was one to whom Nidia's reappearance was as little short of restoration to life for herself, and that one was Mrs Bateman, for to her the girl was more than all the world put together--far more than her own husband, and she had no children. When the first tidings of the outbreak, and the ma.s.sacre of the Hollingworths, had come in, the poor woman had been simply frantic. The fact that Nidia had not been included in the tragedy, but had disappeared, brought with it small comfort. She pictured her darling in the power of brutal savages, or wandering alone in the wilderness to perish miserably of starvation and exhaustion; perhaps, even, to fall a prey to wild animals. Was it for this she had allowed her to leave her English home "for a peep into wild life," as they had put it when the much debated question had arisen?

Not even the dreadful task of breaking the news to Nidia's relatives occurred to her now, her grief was too whole-hearted, too unmixed. Her husband came in for a convenient safety-valve, though. Why had he induced either of them to come near such a hateful country? He was the real murderer, not these vile savages; and having with admirable and usual feminine logic clapped the saddle on the wrong horse to her heart's content, and caused that estimable engineer mildly to wish he had never been born, she hunted him off with one of the relief forces, together with every man she could succeed in pressing into her service.

Indeed, it used to be said that, could she have had her way, just about every available man in Bulawayo would have been started off on that particular search, leaving all the other women and children, herself included, to take their chance. And then, when her grief had reached the acutest pitch of desperation, the missing girl had been found.

Thenceforward nothing mattered. The place might be attacked nightly by all the Matabele in Rhodesia for all she cared. She had got her darling back again.

Back again--yes. But this was not the same Nidia. The bright sunny flow of spirits was gone, likewise the sweet equanimity and caressing, teasing, provocative little ways. This Nidia had come back so changed.

There was a tired, hunted look in her eyes, a listlessness of speech and manner such as might have suited her twenty years thence, after an indifferent experience of life _interim_, but now was simply startling as a contrast. She talked but little, and of her escape and the manner of it, seemed to care to talk least of all. The part John Ames had borne in that escape she took care to make widely known, but when alone with her friend reference to him had the effect of causing her to burst into tears in the most unexpected and therefore alarming fas.h.i.+on. This seemed not unnatural. The terrible experiences the poor girl had gone through were calculated to unhinge her; nor was it strange she should grieve over the tragic fate which had almost certainly overtaken the man who had been her sole guide and protector during those terrible days, whose sagacity and resource had brought her in safety through every peril that threatened. It was in the nature of things she should so grieve, even had they not been on very friendly terms before. There was nothing for it but time, thought Susie Bateman--time and change of scene; and with a view to the latter she hinted at the advisability of risking the journey down-country, for, strange to say, the enemy had refrained from intercepting the coach traffic on the Mafeking road.

This proposal, however, was met by Nidia with a very decided negative.

These two were fortunately exempt from the crowding and discomfort of the laagers, through the fact that the house owned by the absent Bateman was situated within about a stone's throw of one of the latter. Should occasion really arise, they would, of course, be obliged to take refuge therein; but in the mean time they could afford to ignore unsubstantiated scares, for there were not wanting those who made it-- literally in some instances--a labour of love to keep extra and special watch over this particular household. Moseley and Tarrant, for instance, who were among the defenders of the towns.h.i.+p; Carb.u.t.t, the tall, good-looking man who had figured prominently in the fight at Jekyll's Store; and several others. Leave it to them, had been their a.s.surance. If real necessity arose, they would see to it that the two ladies should be within the laager in ample time. Meanwhile they need take no notice of the ordinary regulation scare, but just sit still in peace and quietness.

They were thus sitting a few days after Nidia's return, when the latter startled her friend by an apparently insane proposal. "Let's go for a bike ride, Susie; a real good long one."

"Great Heavens! Is the child mad? Why, we'd run into those hateful black wretches before we'd gone a couple of miles. They're all round us thick as bees. Why, we could see them no further than Government House only this morning."

"That's just the way I wanted to go. It would be such fun to see how near we could get, and then skim away downhill again. They'd look so sold."

"Haven't you had enough of that sort of thing yet, Nidia? If I had been through one-tenth of what you have, I'd never want to go adventuring any more."

"Perhaps I've contracted a taste that way now," was the reply, with a weariful laugh. "But anything rather than sit still as we are doing. I want a little excitement--a stirring up."

The other stared in wild amazement. Was the child really going off her head? she thought again. But a knock on the open door announced the advent of visitors, and lo! two men bronzed and coatless, according to the fas.h.i.+on in Rhodesia, swept off their broad-brimmed hats and entered.

They were, in fact, Tarrant and Carb.u.t.t, and at sight of them Nidia brightened up somewhat.

"Well, and what's the latest in the way of scares?" she began, after the exchange of greetings.