A Frontier Mystery Part 30

"No, I don't. I doubt though, whether it's worth knowing. Well, Major, you've got bitten with a sort of inclination towards occultism, and Ukozi comes in handy as a means of showing you a thing or two. Isn't that it?"

"Well yes. But--Glanton, I seem to have heard you admit that these fellows can do a good deal. Yet, now you make light of this one?"

"To speak frankly, Major, I think the less you have to do with him, or any of his kidney, the better. By the way, how the d.i.c.kens do you manage to talk to him? Have you learnt?"

"Oh, I work that through Ivondwe. That's a treasure you've found for us, Glanton. Yes sir, a real treasure. He takes all the bother and anxiety of the place clean off my hands."

"That's good," I said. But at the same time I was not at all sure that it was. I recalled to mind what Aida had said in her letter with regard to "an influence" under which they seemed to be drawn, this old man especially. No, it was not good that he should be on such terms with natives, and one of them his own servant. For the first time I began to distrust Ivondwe, though as yet I was groping entirely in the dark. For one thing, I could see no adequate motive. Motive is everything, bearing in mind what an essentially practical animal your savage invariably is; and here there was none.

"Well?" said the Major expectantly, impatient under my silence. The truth was I found myself in something of a quandary. Old gentlemen-- notably those of the Anglo-Indian persuasion--were, I knew, p.r.o.ne to exceeding impatience under criticism of their latest fad, and for reasons which scarcely need guessing never was there a time when I felt less inclined to incur the resentment of this one.

"I can only repeat what I said before, Major?" I answered. "Candidly I think you'd better leave Ukozi, and his occultism, alone."

"But it interests me, man. I tell you it interests me. Why shouldn't I be allowed to make interesting investigations if I have a mind to?

Answer me that."

"Look here," I said. "I know these people, Major, and you don't. I have a good many 'eyes and ears'--as they would put it--scattered about among them, and I'll try and find out what Ukozi's game is. He hasn't started in to fleece you any, you say?"

"No. That he certainly hasn't."

"All the more reason why he needs looking after. Well now don't you have anything more to say to him, at any rate until you hear from me again."

"He won't give me the chance. I haven't seen him for quite a long time.

He's never been away for so long a time before."

In my own mind I could not but connect Ukozi's sudden absenteeism in some way with my return.

"Here come the others," went on the Major. "And Glanton," he added hurriedly, "don't let on to the women about what I've been telling you, there's a good fellow."

I was rather glad to be spared the necessity of making or avoiding any promise. It was near sundown, and as they joined us for a stroll in the cool of the evening I thought to catch a significant flash in Aida's eyes, as though she were fully aware of the burden of her father's conversation with me. Falkner was away at the kraals, for it was counting in time, and I for one did not regret his absence.

Yes, it was a ray of Paradise that sunset glow, as we walked among the flowers in the dew of the evening, for although we two were not alone together yet there was a sweet subtle understanding between us which was infinitely restful. Falkner's interruption, however unwelcome, had not been altogether inopportune, for it had occurred too late; too late, that is, to prevent a very real understanding, though precluding anything more definite. That would come with the next opportunity.

"The usual storm," remarked Mrs Sewin, looking up, as a low, heavy boom sounded from a black pile of cloud beyond the river valley. "We get one nearly every day now, and, oh dear, I never can get used to them, especially at night."

"Pooh!" said the Major. "There's no harm in them, and we've got two new conductors on the house. We're right as trivets, eh, Glanton?"

"Absolutely, I should say," I answered. We had completed our stroll and had just returned to the house. It would soon be dinner time and already was almost dark.

We were very merry that evening I remember. The Major, glad of someone else to talk to, was full of jokes and reminiscences, while I, happy in the consciousness of the presence beside me, joined heartily in the old man's mirth, and we were all talking and laughing round the table as we had never talked and laughed before. Only Falkner was sulky, and said nothing; which was rather an advantage, for his remarks would certainly have been objectionable had he made any. Then suddenly in the middle of some comic anecdote, came a crash which seemed to shake the house to its very foundations, setting all the gla.s.ses and crockery on the table rattling. Mrs Sewin uttered a little scream.

"Mercy! We're struck!" she gasped.

"Not we," returned the Major. "But that was a blazer, by Jingo!"

"Pretty near," growled Falkner.

"Oh, it's horrid," said Mrs Sewin, "and there's no getting away from it."

"No, there isn't," I said. "If you were in London now you might get away from it by burrowing underground. I knew a man there whose wife was so mortally scared of thunder and lightning that whenever a storm became imminent she used to make him take her all round the Inner Circle. She could neither see nor hear anything of it in the Underground train."

"That was ingenious. Did you invent that story, Mr Glanton?" said Edith Sewin, mischievously.

Another crash drowned the laugh that followed, and upon the ensuing silence, a strange hollow roar was audible.

"The river's down, by Jove!" growled Falkner.

"No. It isn't the river. It's a tremendously heavy rain shower," I said, listening.

"Let's go outside and see what it looks like," he went on pus.h.i.+ng back his chair.

We had done dinner, and this proposal seemed to find favour, for a move was made accordingly. We went out we four, for Mrs Sewin was afraid to stir and the Major remained in with her. Nearer and nearer the roar of the rain cloud approached, though as yet not a drop had fallen over us.

Again the blue lightning leaped forth, simultaneously with another appalling crash, cutting short a wrangle which had got up between Falkner and Edith Sewin, and ending it in a little squeal on the part of the latter. But already I had seized my opportunity, under cover of the racket.

"That question I was asking you to-day when we were interrupted," I whispered to my companion. "It was not answered."

Then came the flash. In the blue gleam, bright as noon-day, I could see the beautiful, clear cut face turned upwards, as though watching the effect, with calm serenity. Through the thunder roar that followed I could still catch the words.

"The answer is--Yes. Will that satisfy you?"

And a hand found mine in a momentary pressure.

Thus amid black darkness and lightning and storm our troth was plighted.

An ill omen? I thought not. On the contrary, it seemed appropriate to my case; for in it much of a hard but healthy life had been pa.s.sed amid rude exposure to the elements, and that I should have secured the happiness--the great happiness--of my life amid the battling forces of the said elements seemed not unfitting.

The vast rain cloud went whooping along the river-bed, gleaming in starry sparkle as the lightning beams stabbed it, but not a drop fell upon us. The storm had pa.s.sed us by.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE WITCH DOCTOR AGAIN.

From the moment that Aida Sewin and I had become engaged life was, to me, almost too good to live. As I have said, I was no longer young, and now it seemed to me that my life up till now had been wasted, and yet not, for I could not but feel intensely thankful that I had kept it for her. I might have been "caught young," and have made the utter mess of life in consequence that I had seen in the case of many of my contemporaries, but I had not, and so was free to drink to the full of this new found cup of happiness. And full it was, and running over.

Of course I didn't intend to remain on at Isipanga. The trading and knockabout days were over now. I would buy a good farm and settle down, and this resolve met with Aida's entire approval. She had no more taste for a town life than I had myself. The only thing she hoped was that I should find such a place not too far from her people.

"The fact is I don't know how they'll ever get on without you," she said one day when we were talking things over. "They are getting old, you see, and Falkner isn't of much use, between ourselves. I doubt if he ever will be."

This made me laugh, remembering Falkner's aspirations and the c.o.c.ksure way in which he had "warned me off" that night in Majendwa's country.

But I was as willing to consider her wishes in this matter, as I was in every other.

Falkner had accepted the situation, well--much as I should have expected him to, in that he had sulked, and made himself intensely disagreeable for quite a long time. I was sorry for him, but not so much as I might have been, for I felt sure that it was his conceit which had received the wound rather than his feelings. Which sounds ill natured.

Tyingoza was not particularly elated when I broke the news of my intended departure.

"So you are going to build a new hut at last, Iqalaqala," he said, with a chuckle.