The Witch Doctor and other Rhodesian Studies Part 30

The pair got up to go.

I disliked them both, especially the fat one, who looked to me like a city-bred parasite--a barman, bookmaker, tobacconist's a.s.sistant, or something of that sort. They glanced round them and hesitated, evidently expecting to be asked to drink with me. I would sooner have gone "three out" of a bottle of beer with a couple of hogs.

Presently they went off, evidently much relieved to find I knew nothing.

I was now determined to know all, and quickly; but how to get hold of the old man alone again was the difficulty.

As I sat in my chair thinking, I recollected a remark let fall by the boy I sent to spy upon them: "The fat one drank much Kaffir beer, which he bought from the natives who lived on the north bank of the river."

I sent a messenger to the headman of the village with an order to make much beer, pots and pots of it, and take it new and half-fermented to the white men on the other side. I instructed the headman to sell it cheaply, and said that I would make up the difference.

In due course I had my reward. The old Scotsman came over and told me one of his companions was in great pain and the other was trying to ease the pain by rubbing fat on his belly, that he himself had got away unnoticed, and now wanted to tell me all about "it."

I was naturally all anxiety to hear what "it" was all about, and made the old man sit down.

Now why is it, I wonder, that old men can't come quickly to the point?

Much to my annoyance, he wasted a good half an hour telling me what scamps the other two were; how he felt sure that, given half a chance, they would "do him in" but not until they had got from him his secret.

Tell them? Not on your life!

But he would tell me; oh yes, he would tell me. Ever seen a ruby? No, not out of a ring? Well, I should see one now and hold it in my hand. A large one, fit for a king. And he would tell me where to find more.

Hundreds of them. The other two had brought him up to the Zambesi just to find out where the rubies were. But he wasn't going to tell them, not he. They were too darned stingy with the whisky bottle; besides, they wouldn't sign a paper on it. A man who wouldn't sign a paper on a deal was up to no good--didn't intend to play fair. Now what did I think they should pay him for showing them where the ruby mine was? Would a couple of hundred be a fair thing?

And so on, and on, and on.

I gave him the best advice I could, which amounted to a warning not to trust his companions.

Then he showed me the ruby, which he carried in a small blue medicine bottle marked "fever mixture."

I knew precious little about rubies, and told him so. It was then that I tried it between the two half-crowns.

Having satisfied myself that it was a very hard stone, even if it weren't a ruby, I gave it back to him, and he returned it to its bottle.

He then told me that, many years before, he had been travelling in company with a Jesuit Father along the banks of the Zambesi. That just below the village of a native, whose name for the moment he could not remember, he had found the rubies. One he had kept and the other he had given to the priest, who told him he was going home to France shortly and would find out whether the stone was worth anything or not. If it had value, he would sell it and go halves.

They went down south together, and parted company at Grahamstown. A year later he was sent for by the manager of the Bank and told that 480 had been remitted to him by the Reverend Father.

The money came in handy, and for one reason or another he didn't bother about going all the way up to the Zambesi to get more rubies. He also got married and settled down in Bechua.n.a.land on a farm.

But his wife had lately died. His two daughters were married, and his son was killed in the Matabeleland rebellion. Then he lost all his cattle by rinderpest.

So he left the farm and went to Bulawayo. He didn't know anyone there, but took up with his two companions, met them in a bar, told them about the ruby and showed it to them. A Jew had a.s.sured them that the stone was a ruby right enough, and had, he believed, put up some cash for their outfit and journey.

But they wouldn't sign a paper, and were up to no good. He had come up to the Zambesi--felt he had to. It was hard to make money nowadays.

"But I'll tell you all about it," he said, "and where the mine is, so that, if these fellows do me in, you can get the stones. They shan't have them. You know where the Gwai River runs into the Zambesi?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's not quite so far down--Listen! Did you hear that?"

"No, what?"

"That calling for help. There it is again."

We went to the tent door and looked towards the river. In midstream we could see a canoe bottom up. One white man was sitting astride at one end, and there was a native at the other. A second white man was swimming for the bank.

I ran down to the landing stage, calling my canoe boys as I went. For the moment I forgot all about my visitor. There was a white man in the water and, scamp though he undoubtedly was, I couldn't let him drown.

My boys and I got him ash.o.r.e. It was the thickset one. His fat, unhealthy-looking companion was floating down the river astride the upturned canoe.

After landing the one, I sent my boys back for the other. They had had a thorough wetting and the city-bred fellow was very much scared.

I had their clothes dried and then sent them back to their camp in my own canoe. It appears that an angry hippopotamus attacked them.

All this time I had little time to think about old Macdonald. I asked my people about him and they told me that he had slipped away and crossed in a canoe to the white man's camp whilst the other men's clothes were being dried.

Not a word was said about the Kaffir beer. If the pair of villains were coming across the river to me for a.s.sistance or medicine when the accident happened, they forgot to mention the fact in the excitement of the moment and after.

Next day they were gone--all three of them, ruby and all. And I never saw any of them again. But I did see in a Bulawayo paper, which reached me later, the following announcement:

"At the Memorial Hospital, Bulawayo, John Macdonald, died of blackwater fever. Funeral (Hendrix and Sons) starting from the Hospital at 3.30 this afternoon."

So I repeat there are rubies in Africa, somewhere on the banks of the Zambesi, below the Falls, but north of where the Gwai river makes its junction. If you decide to go and look for them, good luck to you!

THE CATTLE KING.

Schiller was a cattle trader by profession, and he made a lot of money.

He was incidentally a Jew by birth, an Austrian by accident, a hairdresser by training, and a soldier of fortune when occasion offered.

He was quite illiterate.

Although he could neither read nor write he yet kept accurate enough accounts of all his many transactions with the natives. He once showed me his accounts. They consisted of notches on tally sticks. I couldn't make head or tail of them, but Schiller knew to a s.h.i.+lling how much each ox had cost him and how many cattle he had.

One Sunday morning he came over to my bungalow and told me all the gossip of the country-side. Incidentally he remarked that my hair wanted cutting, and asked if he might have the pleasure of operating.

I thanked him and sat down.

To my amazement he produced from a little black bag all the implements of the trade, including a pink print sheet which he proceeded to tuck in round my neck.

His touch was unmistakable.

"Aren't you a professional?"

"Yes, sir, from ---- of Bond Street."