A Frontier Mystery Part 34

"You will not get down at all," he said, in English.

"I'll have a try at any rate. Come along, Glanton."

I am at home in the water but not for any time under it. Half the time spent by Ivondwe down there would have been enough to drown me several times over. However I would make the attempt.

The result was even as I expected. With all the will in the world I had not the power, and so far from getting to the bottom, I was forced to return to the surface almost immediately. Falkner fared not much better.

"It must be an awful depth," he said. "I couldn't even touch bottom, and I'm no slouch in the diving line."

"Where ought we to search, Ivondwe?" I said in the vernacular, "for so far there is no more trace than that left by a bird in the air? It will mean large reward to any who should help to find her--yes, many cattle."

"Would that I might win such," he answered. Then pointing with his stick, "Lo, the _Amapolise_."

Our horses began to snort and neigh, as the police patrol rode up. I recognised my former acquaintance, Sergeant Simc.o.x, but the inspector in command of the troop was along.

"I've just come from your house, Major Sewin," he said after a few words of sympathy, "and I left a couple of men there, so you need be under no apprehension by reason of your ladies being alone. Now have you lighted upon any fresh clue?"

"Eh? What? Clue?" echoed the old man dazedly. "No."

So I took up the parable, telling how I had found spoor leading to the waterhole and that here it had stopped. I pointed out where the ground had been smoothed over as though to erase the traces of a struggle.

"Now," I concluded, "if you will come a little apart with me, I'll tell you something that seems to bolster up my theory with a vengeance."

He looked at me somewhat strangely, I thought. But he agreed, and I put him in possession of the facts about Ukozi in his relations with Major Sewin, and how Aida had consulted me about them during my absence in Zululand, bringing the story down to that last startling scene here on this very spot three nights ago.

"Well you ought to know something about native superst.i.tions, Mr Glanton," he said. "Yet this seems a strange one, and utterly without motive to boot."

"I know enough about native superst.i.tions to know that I know nothing,"

I answered. "I know this, that those exist which are not so much as suspected by white men, and produce actions which, as you say, seem utterly without motive."

"If we could only lay claw on this witch doctor," he said, thoughtfully.

"Yes indeed. But he'll take uncommonly good care that we can't."

"Meanwhile I propose to arrest this boy on suspicion, for I find that he couldn't have been very far from where Miss Sewin was last seen, at the time."

"Ivondwe?"

"That's his name. It may only be a coincidence mind--but you remember old Hensley's disappearance?"

"Rather."

"Well this Ivondwe was temporarily doing some cattle herding for Hensley at the time, filling another man's place. It certainly is a coincidence that another mysterious disappearance should take place, and he right at hand again."

"It certainly is," I agreed. "But Ivondwe has been here for months, and I've known him for years. There isn't a native I've a higher opinion of."

"For all that I'm going to arrest him. It can do no harm and may do a great deal of good. But first I'll ask him a few questions."

Inspector Manvers was colonial born and could speak the native language fluently. I warned him of Ivondwe's acquaintance with English in case he should say anything in an aside to me.

To every question, Ivondwe answered without hesitation. He had been looking after the cattle, yonder, over the rise, at the time, much too far off to have heard or seen anything. Had he been near, the dog would have kept him off. The dog was always unfriendly towards him.

"Where is Ukozi?" asked the inspector. The question was met by a deprecatory laugh.

"Where is the bird that flew over our heads a few hours ago?" asked Ivondwe. "I would remind the chief of the _Amapolise_ that the one question is as easy to answer as the other. A great _isa.n.u.si_ such as Ukozi does not send men before him crying aloud his movements."

"That we shall see," said the inspector. "Meanwhile Ivondwe, you are arrested and must go with us."

"Have I not searched the depths of yonder pool?" was Ivondwe's unconcerned remark. "Ask these."

"Well, you are a prisoner, and if you make any attempt to escape you will be shot without challenge." Then turning to me. "Now I think we had better continue our search down to the river bank. I need hardly tell you, Mr Glanton, how I sympathise with you, but we must not lose hope yet. People do strange and unaccountable things at times-- generally the last people in the world who would be likely to do them.

We shall find Miss Sewin yet."

"Have you found Hensley yet?" I said bitterly.

He looked grave. The cases were too startlingly akin.

"The old gentleman had better be persuaded to go home," he said, with a pitying glance at the Major, who was sitting in a state of utter collapse. Kendrew volunteered to effect this. He could join us afterwards, he said.

For the remaining hours of daylight we searched, leaving not a square yard of ground uninvestigated for a radius of miles. But--we found nothing--not even the remotest trace or clue.

I suppose, if I lived to be a thousand I should never forget the agony of that day. Mile after mile of our patient and exhaustive search, and still--nothing. The sickening blank as we returned, obliged to give it up for that day, only to renew our efforts with the first glimmer of returning light!

The moon rose, flooding down over the dim veldt. I recalled that last time when we two had wandered so happily over this very same ground. No presentiment had we then, no warning of mysterious danger hanging over us. How happy we had been--how secure in each other's love--and now!

Oh G.o.d! it was too much.

"Look here," I burst forth roughly. "What's the good of you people?

Yes, what the devil's the good of you? What do you draw your pay for anyway? If you had unearthed the secret of Hensley's disappearance this one would never have come about. Your whole force isn't worth a tinker's twopenny d.a.m.n and the sooner it's disbanded and sent about its silly business the better."

The police inspector was a thoroughly good fellow, and a gentleman. He didn't take any offence at this, for he knew and respected the agony I was undergoing. We were riding a little ahead of the patrol, and therefore were alone together.

"Look here, Glanton," he said. "Abuse us as much as ever you like and welcome if only it'll relieve your feelings. I don't resent it. You may be, in a measure, right as to Hensley. We all thought--and you thought yourself if you remember--that the old chap had got off the rails somehow, in an ordinarily natural if mysterious way. But now I'm certain there's some devilish foul play going on, and the thing is to get to the bottom of it. Now let's keep our heads, above all things, and get to the bottom of it. This is my idea. While we go on with our search to-morrow, you go and find Tyingoza and enlist his aid. He's a very influential chief, and has a good reputation, moreover you're on first-rate terms with him. I believe he could help us if anybody could.

What do you think?"

"I have thought of that already," I answered gloomily. "But an _isa.n.u.si_ of Ukozi's repute is more powerful than the most powerful chief--at any rate on this side of the river. Still it's a stone not to be left unturned. I'll ride up the first thing in the morning. No, I'll go before. I'll start to-night."

But I was not destined to do so. On returning to the house I found that both the Major and his wife were in a state of complete prostration.

They seemed to cling to the idea of my presence. It was of no use for me to point out to them that the police patrol was camped, so to say, right under their very windows, not to mention Falkner and Kendrew in the house itself. They would not hear of my leaving that night. Edith, too, begged me to fall in with their wishes. A refusal might be dangerous to her father, she put it. Utterly exasperated and amazed at the selfishness, as I deemed it, of the old people, I seemed to have run my head against a blank wall.

"Look here, Edith," I said. "They are simply sacrificing Aida by throwing obstacles in my way like this. What am I to do?"

"This," she answered. "Fall in with their wishes, till they are asleep.

They will sleep, if only through sheer exhaustion, and if they don't I'll take care that they do, through another agency. Then, carry out your own plan and G.o.d bless you in it."

"G.o.d bless you, for the brave resourceful girl you are," I rejoined.

"Manvers and I have been knocking together a scheme, and nothing on G.o.d's earth is going to interfere with it. Well, we'll make believe-- but, at midnight I'm off, no matter what happens."

"That's right, Glanton," said Kendrew, who had entered with an opportuneness that under other and less interested circ.u.mstances I should have regarded as suspicious. "Edith and I will take care of the old birds, never fear."