Blue Aloes Part 16

Druro said casually:

"How are we going to sit?"

"You are driving, of course," stated Marice, in an authoritative tone.

"No," said Tryon dryly; "I never let any one handle my car but myself."

Now, nothing would make Marice renounce the comfort of the front seat.

Even if she would have done it for the sake of sitting with Druro, she knew that the jarring and jolting so unavoidable on African roads would put her nerves on edge for the evening. So there was nothing further to be said, but she felt, as she flung herself into the seat beside Tryon, that this was verily the last straw. For a time she showed her displeasure with and disdain of Tryon by sitting half turned and conversing with Druro, who was obliged to lean forward uncomfortably to answer her remarks. But she soon tired of this, for the strong wind caused by the car cutting through the air tore her flatly arranged hair from its appointed place and blew it over her eyes in thin black strings. This enraged her, as the dishevelment of a carefully arranged coiffure always enrages a fas.h.i.+onable woman. She loathed wind at any time; it always aroused seven devils in her. She longed to box Tryon's ears. But the best she could do was to sit in haughty silence at his side, while the wind took the long ends of her scented tulle scarf and tore it to rags, fluttering them maliciously in the faces of the two silent ones behind. Every now and then Druro mechanically caught hold of these ends, crumpled them into a bunch, and stuffed them behind Mrs.

Hading's shoulders, but a few minutes later they would be loose again, whipping the wind. Once, when he was catching the flickering things from Gay's face, his hand touched her cheek, and once, when they both put out their hands together, they clasped each other's fingers instead of the fragile stuff. But they never spoke. And their silence at last began to weigh on the two in front. They found themselves straining their ears to hear if those two would ever murmur a word to each other.

And if they did not, _why didn't they_?

"Has he got his arm round her?" wondered Tryon savagely. (He too had counted on tonight and the long, lonely drive with Gay, and was in none too pleasant a mood with life.)

"Is he holding her hand?" thought Marice Hading, and ground her teeth.

"Has there ever been anything between them?"

But Druro and Gay were doing none of these things--only sitting very still, and thinking long, long thoughts. And whatever it was they thought of, it put no gladness into their eyes. Any one who could have peered into their faces in the pale moonlight must have been struck by the similarity in the expression of their eyes, the vague, staring misery of those who search the horizon vainly for something that will never be theirs, some lost city from which they are for ever exiled.

The African horizon was wonderfully beautiful that night. As they came out from the miles of bush which surround w.a.n.kelo into the hill-and-valley lands of Selukine, the moon burst in pearly splendour from her fleecy wrappings of cloud and showed long lines of silver-tipped hills and violet valleys, and, here and there, great open stretches of undulating s.p.a.ce with a clear view across leagues and leagues to the very edge, it seemed, of the world. As one such great stretch of country rolled into view from a rise in the road, Druro spoke for the first time, in a low voice, vaguely and half to himself.

"There is the land I love--_my_ country!"

With his hand he made a gesture that was like a salute. After all, he was a Rhodesian, and this was his confession of faith. The story of the lamp-posts was only a bluff put up to disguise the hook Africa had put in his heart, the hook by which she drags all those who love her back across the world, denying, reviling, forswearing her even unto seventy times seven, yet panting to be once more in her adored arms.

All Rhodesians have this heart-wound, which opens and bleeds when they are away from their country, and only heals over in the sweet veld air.

Gay did not answer. He had hardly seemed to address the remark to her; yet it went home to her heart because she, too, was a Rhodesian, and this was the land she loved.

Suddenly they swept down once more into a tract of country thick with bush and tall, feathery trees. Here the rotting timbers of some old mine-head buildings and great mounds of thrown-up earth inked against the sky-line showed that man had been in these wilds, torn up the earth for its treasure, and pa.s.sed on. Near the road an old iron house, that had once been a flouris.h.i.+ng mine-hotel, was now almost hidden by a tangle of wild creepers and bush, with branches of trees thrusting their way through gaping doorways and windows.

"This was the old Guinea-Pig Camp. It is 'gone in' now, but once it was a great place--this old wilderness," said Tryon to Mrs. Hading, and misquoted Kipling.

"They used to call it a towns.h.i.+p once, Gold-drives and main-reefs and rock-drills once, Ladies and bridge-drives and band-stands once, But now it is G. I."

He stopped, and the car having reached the foot of the hill that led out of the valley stopped, too, as if paralysed by its owner's efforts at parody. It had been jerking and bucking like a playful mustang for some time past, and behaving in an altogether curious manner, but now it was stiller than the dead. Tryon waggled the levers to no avail, then flung himself out of the car and got busy with the crank. Not a move. Druro then got out and had a go at the crank. No good.

Thereafter, the two made a thorough examination of the beast, but poking and prying into all its secret places booted them nothing. As far as the eye of man could see, nothing was wrong with the thing but sheer obstinacy. It was more from habit than a spirit of inquiry that Druro finally gave a casual squint into the reservoir. Then the mischief was out. It was empty; the boy had never filled it. It was doubtful whether he had put in any petrol at all. The two men stared at each other aghast.

"Well, of all the rotten n.i.g.g.e.rs in this rotten country!" breathed Tryon, at last, and, with the words, expressed all the weight of the white man's burden in Africa, mingled with rage at his present powerlessness to smite the evil-doer. Druro grinned. It was not his funeral, and, to the wise, no further words were necessary. But Mrs.

Hading had not been long enough in Africa to be wise. This final calamity seemed all part and parcel of the mismanagement of the evening, and she did not care to conceal her annoyance.

"I cannot imagine any one but a fool allowing himself to be placed in such a predicament," she said, looking at Tryon with the utmost scorn.

He shrugged his shoulders, dumb with mortification. Druro, smiling with his usual native philosophy, now got his portion.

"Is there anything to do besides standing there smirking?" she inquired acridly.

"I should think we had better foot it to the Guinea-Pig." To do him justice, he had been thinking as well as smirking, but Marice was in no mood to be just. "A fellow called Burral lives there and has a telephone. He may have some petrol. All may not yet be lost!" He continued to smile. Not that he felt cheerful--but the situation seemed to him to call for derision rather than despair.

"Foot it? Do you mean walk through this wild bush? Good Heavens! How far is it?"

"Only about a mile or so, and there is quite a good path. Still, if you think it better to stay here in the car with Tryon while I go----"

"No; I'll go," said Tryon hastily.

"No you don't," persisted Druro. "I know the way better than you do."

But Mrs. Hading put an end to the argument as to who should escape her recriminations.

"I refuse to be left in this wild spot with any one," she declared, and flung one last barb of hatred at Tryon. "How could you be such a fool?"

But Tryon's withers could be no further wrung. He merely felt sorry for Druro. The widow was showing herself to be no saint under affliction. Not here the bright companion on a weary road who is better than silken tents and horse-litters!

They started down the path to Burral's, Druro and Mrs. Hading ahead.

Gay and Tryon following at a distance too short not to hear the widow's voice still engaged in acrid comment.

"What a fuss to make about nothing!" said Gay, a trifle disdainfully.

"I'm afraid Africa won't suit her for long, if that's how she takes incidents of every-day life."

"I don't think she'll suit Africa," rejoined Tryon savagely. "Still, I'm not denying that I am a first-cla.s.s fool to have trusted that infernal n.i.g.g.e.r. I could kick myself."

"Kick the n.i.g.g.e.r instead, tomorrow," laughed Gay, adding in the Rhodesian spirit, "what does it matter, anyway?"

The path now became narrower and overhung with wandering branches and creepers. The brambles seemed to have a special penchant for Mrs.

Hading's flying ends of tulle and lace, and she spent most of her time disengaging herself while Druro went ahead, pus.h.i.+ng branches out of the way. Poor Marice! Her feet ached in their high-heeled shoes, and her French toilette was created for a salon and not out-of-door walking.

Truly, she was no veld-woman. What came as a matter of course to Gay was a tragedy to her.

"How stupid! How utterly imbecile!" she muttered bitterly. "A hateful country--and idiots of men!"

"Cheer up!" said Druro, with an equability he did not feel. Nothing bored him more than bad temper. "We'll soon be dead--I mean, we'll soon be at Burral's."

"I find your cheerfulness slightly brutal," she remarked cuttingly, "and the thought of Burral's does not fill me with any delight."

"I'm sorry," he began, but his apology and the stillness of the night were both destroyed by a sudden loud crack of a rifle.

"By Jove! Who's that, I wonder?" exclaimed Druro. "There's nothing much to shoot about here." Then, to Mrs. Hading, "Stand still a minute--will you?--while I reconnoitre." He went a few yards ahead and gave a halloo. They all stood still, listening, until the call was returned in a man's voice from somewhere not far off. At the same time, a soft cracking of bushes was heard near at hand.

"It must be Burral out after a buck!" called out Tryon. He and Gay were still some way behind. Marice half-way between them, and Druro was apparently trying to disentangle her flickering, fluttering chiffons from a fresh engagement with the bushes when the terrible thing happened. The lithe, speckled body of a leopard came sailing, with a grace and swiftness indescribable, through the air and, leaping upon the fluttering figure, bore her to the ground. A scream of terror and anguish rent the night, and Gay and Tryon, galvanized by horror, powerless though they were to contend with the savage brute, rushed forward to the rescue. But Druro was there before them. They saw him stoop down and catch the huge cat by its hind legs, and, with extraordinary power, swing it high in the air. Snarling and spitting, it twisted its flexible body to attack him in turn, and, even as it went hurtling over his head into the bush behind, it reached out a paw and clawed him across the face. At the same moment, a man with a gun came cras.h.i.+ng through the undergrowth, followed the flying body of the leopard into the bush, and with two rapid shots gave the beast its quietus. Reeking gun in hand, he returned to the party in the pathway.

"Got the brute at last," he panted. "Only wounded him the first shot; that's why he came for you people. My G.o.d! Who's hurt here?"

No one answered. Mrs. Hading lay moaning terribly on the ground, with Tryon and Gay bending over her. Druro was stumbling about like a drunken man. "Is it you, Lundi Druro? Did that devil get you, too?

Where are you hurt?"

"It's Burral, isn't it?" said Druro vaguely. "Yes; I got a flick across the eyes. Never mind me. Get that lady to your place, Burral, and telephone to Selukine. Tell them to send a car and a doctor and to drive like mad."

"My throat--oh, my throat!" keened Marice Hading. Tryon supported her.

Gay was tearing her white skirt into strips and using them for bandages. Druro came stumbling over to them.

"For G.o.d's sake, get her to Burral's place, d.i.c.k!" said he. "Burral's wife is a nurse and will know what to do. Can you two fellows carry her? I would help you--but I can't see very well. I'll come on behind."