The Outspan Part 6

It was then realised that the matter was serious, and a meeting of the Executive Council was called and the gravity of the situation explained by the President of the State. The result of the deliberations was the presentation by the Government of an ultimatum, which was in effect, "Choose between a compromise and a freeze-out."

They accepted the compromise.

It was that the Government should find them in lodging and they should find their board.

It was not a very grand compromise, but it was better than a freeze-out, and during the ensuing months in which "The State _versus_ H. Bankerpitt and Twenty-nine Others" sustained many adjournments and much publicity in the Pretoria press, only once was the _modus vivendi_ thus established in any way threatened.

The younger members of the party had begun to keep irregular hours. One or two remonstrances failing to effect an improvement, the worthy gaoler resolved upon the extremest measure. He posted the following notice on the door:

"Anyone failing to return by nine p.m. will be locked out."

There was no further trouble.

Some months had pa.s.sed since the trial. The State had vindicated its authority; the inherent right of man was thrown out of court; and "H.

Bankerpitt and Twenty-nine Others" had paid the penalty for their mistaken zeal. The man in the street had ceased to prophesy that the case would lead to war with the suzerain power, the weekly newspaper resumed its normal appearance, and the "constant reader" was no longer haunted by a headline more constant than himself.

"Moodie's" was controlled by its rightful owners, but its name was as wormwood in the prospector's mouth, and the quondam Promised Land became a spot accursed and despised.

Across the valley of the Kaap, over the rock-crested mountains of Maconchwa, out into the shattered hills and ranges of Swazieland, and over the hot bush-hidden flats the prospectors took their ways to find something somewhere which would be their own.

They went singly and in pairs, and they "humped swag and tucker" when they had no donkeys to pack. It was a rule with few exceptions that they only went in parties and without swag when there was a rush on.

This was one of the exceptions.

Seven men in irregular Indian file, and at irregular distances apart, were toiling up the green slopes of the Maconchwa.

They were following a path, and one after another would stop and turn panting to pay tribute to the steepness of the hill and the beauty of the view below.

Far below them, and farther still ahead, the smooth-worn path meandered over the hill's face like a red-brown thread woven in the green. The sun was fiercely strong, but the breath of the mountain was cool, and they drank it in gratefully at each rest.

They were all marked with the "out-of-luck" brand. It was stamped on their faces. They were all tired, and most of them looked hungry as well. When the leader reached the top, he looked expectantly around on all sides, then, stepping briskly towards an outcrop near by, from which a better view was obtainable, he looked again long and carefully. Then he came back to the path where the others had already a.s.sembled, and cursed the country and all in it from the bottom of his bitter soul.

"There's no house and there's no kraal, and there's no G.o.d-d.a.m.n-nothing.

It's eight hours since we started on the 'two-mile' tramp, and I knew from the start we were fooled. If Choky Wilson had _known_ anything he would have come himself, and not told _you_."

He scowled at a younger member of the party who was standing by chewing a stem of gra.s.s and looking down across the Crocodile and Hlambanyati valleys.

"What did the Swazie boy say?" asked another, turning readily on the youngster as the convenient scapegoat.

The younger one answered good-temperedly:

"He said that the White Induna was on the Maconchwa, near the first water that came out of the white rock."

"Maconchwa!" snarled the leader, "why, it's twenty miles long! The whole d.a.m.ned range is Maconchwa. Any idiot might be expected to know that."

"Yes, that's why I didn't offer to explain," said the younger one.

The thrust pa.s.sed unnoticed, and while a general _indaba_ was going on the last speaker moved to the same spot from which the leader had viewed the country.

He knew the Kaffir and his language and his habits, and he could read the face of the country as well as the n.i.g.g.e.rs themselves, so they heeded him when he spoke, although he was the youngest member of the party, and when a few minutes later, he cut into the conversation with the remark that "there was a cattle kraal near by and they had better go on there and ask the way," there was a general chorus of "Where?" and an incredulous "Darned if I can see it!" from the leader.

The youngster replied again:

"Nor can I, but it's there all the same."

"How do you know?"

"Look," he said, pointing to a slope about a mile distant.

"Well, look at what?"

"Can't you see that red patch on the rise there?"

"What, those water-worn dongas?"

"Not dongas--cattle tracks. They are from the drinking-place. That must be the White Rock up there, and I expect the house must be behind the clump of trees."

They walked on until the trees were reached and they could see the small rough stone house through a thinner portion of the Bush, and there they waited awhile to take counsel. It was finally decided that they should all go up together, but they looked to the one who seemed to be their leader to act as spokesman.

"If he's a white man at all," remarked he in front, "he won't refuse us grub, anyhow; but that's just it. They say he's no more white than old Bandine, that he hates the sight of white men, and keeps as far from them as he can. He's been so long among the darned n.i.g.g.e.rs that he's just one of them himself."

They pa.s.sed along the path to the house, and six of the party waited below while the leader mounted the steps of the mud stoep.

A tall man with a long brown beard stepped out of an open doorway and met him.

The whole party offered "good-evening" with more or less _empress.e.m.e.nt_, and certainly with a greater show of politeness than was customary with them; but the man only slid his hands easily into the pockets of a light duck-coat, and looked with critical and not too friendly glance at the leader, ignoring the others.

"We're out prospectin' about here," began the leader, "and we thought we'd just come along and look you up."

As there was no reply to this, not even a change in the look nor a twitch of a muscle to be construed into acknowledgment of the remark, the speaker resumed quickly and with less composure:

"The n.i.g.g.e.rs told us you hung out about here, and, bein' the only white man in these parts, we kind o' came along to see what was doin', and if there was any chance of reefin', and about the licences and water and that."

The owner of the house continued to look steadily and in silence at the speaker. The latter, when the invitation of a second pause pa.s.sed unaccepted, flushed up and, abandoning the previous method, asked curtly:

"Can you sell us any food? Fowls or crushed mealies, or anything.

We're half dead o' trampin' over your d.a.m.ned hills, and I want food for self and mates. We're far down enough, but we reckon to pay for what we get. We're not loafin'!"

The man did not appear to notice this hostile tone any more than he had the former conciliatory one; but, after another deadly pause, he asked, in a quiet, clear voice:

"Your name?"

"Bankerpitt," said the other. The faintest trace of a smile lit up the man's face as he remarked quietly:

"Ah, _H_. Bankerpitt"--and glancing for the first time at the rest of the party--"_and twenty-nine others_!"

He turned and walked slowly into the house, closing the door after him.