In the Whirl of the Rising
- -
- 100%
- +
“Oh, I’ll give you my word for anything you like,” laughed Fullerton. “We’ll have another round, and then I must get back.”
It must be conceded that the racing was poor, but then, so for the most part were the horses, thanks to the protracted drought and the necessity of their training consisting of the process of earning their keep. But the day was lovely – cloudless and golden – and the heat rose in a shimmer from the mimosa-dotted veldt and the dark, bushy slope of Ehlatini lining up to the vivid depths of heaven’s blue. A sort of impromptu grand stand had been effected by placing chairs and benches along a couple of empty waggons, and at the corner of one of these Clare sat – still holding her court – while her fervid worshippers talked up to her from the ground. The luncheon hour was over – so, too, were the races, but the afternoon would be devoted to tent-pegging and other sports.
“Hallo!” said one of the favoured group. “Blest if that isn’t Lamont over there, and – he’s got his coat on.”
“Where else should he have it, Mr Wyndham?” said the girl mischievously.
“He shouldn’t have it at all. You know, Miss Vidal, it’s an unwritten rule up here that none of us wear coats.”
“But I notice that you are all mighty particular about your collars and ties,” laughed Clare.
“’M – yes. But wearing a coat stamps you as a new-comer. Even Ancram here has fallen into our way.”
Ancram had, and moreover mightily fancied himself accordingly; and had turned on an additional swagger which he flattered himself still further marked him out as the complete pioneer. He had been introduced to Clare, but inwardly raged at the marked coldness in her demeanour towards himself. It was no imagination, he was satisfied, her frank sunniness of manner towards everybody else placed that beyond a doubt. Others had remarked on it too.
“What have you been doing to Miss Vidal, old chap?” one of his newly-found friends inquired. “She seems to have a down on you.” And Ancram had replied that he was hanged if he knew.
“Why, he’s missed all the races,” went on the first speaker, referring to Lamont. “He’s looking a bit seedy too. And – no, he hasn’t. He hasn’t got on his revolver.”
“That’s rum, for he never moves without it,” said another. “We chaff him a bit about that, Miss Vidal, but he says he prefers being on the safe side.”
“Lamont would prefer that,” said Ancram significantly.
“Haven’t you just been stopping with him?” said Clare rather sharply, turning on the speaker. “He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”
“Um – ah – yes, yes. Of course,” was the somewhat confused reply.
“I’m not sure Mr Lamont isn’t right,” she went on for the benefit of the rest. “This is a country full of savages, and savages are often treacherous. Aren’t they, Mr Driffield?”
“Aren’t who, and what, Miss Vidal?” replied the Native Commissioner, who was in the act of joining the group. She repeated her remark.
“Oh yes. You’ll get Ancram to agree with you on that head,” he added significantly.
“There!” she cried triumphantly.
“I say, though, Miss Vidal,” objected another man, “you surely wouldn’t have us all roll up at a peaceable gymkhana hung round with six-shooters, like the conventional cowboy? Eh?”
“Well, where should we be if a Matabele impi were to rush in on us now?” she persisted. “Utterly at its mercy, of course. Imagine it charging out from there, for instance,” pointing towards the dark line of bush on the slope of Ehlatini.
Some of the other occupants of the ‘grand stand’ here raised quite a flutter of protest. It was too bad of Miss Vidal to indulge in such horrible imaginings, they declared. It made them quite uncomfortable. Many a true word was spoken in jest – and so forth. But the men laughed indulgently; utterly and sceptically scornful their mirth would have been but for the sex and popularity of the speaker.
Many a true word spoken in jest! Yes, indeed. Here a lively holiday scene – the clatter of the horses, laughter and jollity and flirtation – nearly a couple of hundred men, besides women and children, the former unarmed, – all save one. The wretched ryot returning at sunset to his jungle village is not more blissfully unconscious of the lurking presence of the dread man-eater, which in a moment more, will, with lightning-like pounce, sweep him out of existence, than are these, that yonder, upon the bushy slope almost overhanging their pleasure ground, a thousand armed savages are hungrily watching for the signal which shall change this sunny, light-hearted scene into a drama of carnage, and woe and horror unutterable. All – save one.
“You’ve got such a lively imagination, you ought to write a book about us, Miss Vidal,” suggested Wyndham. “You could make some funny characters out of some of us, I’ll bet.”
“I don’t doubt it for a moment. Shall I begin with yourself, Mr Wyndham?”
“Oh, I say though, I don’t know about that. Here’s Driffield, he’d make a much better character than I would. Or Lamont – here, Lamont,” he called out, as the latter was passing near. “Roll up, man, and hear your luck. Miss Vidal is going to write a book and make you the principal character.”
“Really, Mr Wyndham, I wouldn’t have believed it of you,” laughed Clare. “To tell such shocking taradiddles. It’s obviously a long time since you attended Sunday school. Now, go away. I won’t talk to you any more – for – let me see, well, not for half an hour. Go away. Half an hour, mind.”
He swept off his hat with comic ruefulness. Then over his shoulder —
“I resign —vice Lamont promoted – for half an hour.”
“That means a whole hour, now,” called out Clare after him, whereat a great laugh went up from her hearers.
From all but one, that is; and to this one all this chaff and light-hearted merriment was too awful, too ghastly – he, who knew what none of these even so much as suspected.
“And the flood came and destroyed them all,” he quoted to himself. And as he contemplated all these women occupying the ‘grand stand’ – cool and dainty and elegant in their light summer attire – and this beautiful girl queening it over her little court of admirers, it seemed to him that the responsibility resting upon his own shoulders was too great, too awful, too superhuman: and the thought flitted through his brain that perhaps he ought never to have assumed it. A warning to the authorities to postpone the race meeting and put the township into a state of defence – would not such have been his plain duty? But then they would only have laughed at him for a scare-monger and have done nothing. Moreover, even had he decided on such a plan, the Fates had already decided against it, for the lame horse on which he had started for Gandela had gone lamer still, with the result that he had been obliged to abandon the animal, and cover nearly half the distance on foot. He had further been forced to make a considerable détour, in order to avoid the mustering impi, portions of which he had seen, and all heading for the point arranged upon – consequently it was not until the early afternoon that he gained the township at all.
There was yet time. The prize-giving was the crucial moment, and that would not take place for at least three hours. He made a good meal at the hotel – an absolute necessity – and sent it down with a bottle of the best champagne the house had got. Even then, when he arrived on the course, he drew the remark that he was ‘looking rather seedy,’ as we have heard.
“Why, Mr Lamont, you are quiet,” said Clare brightly. “Shall I offer you the regulation penny?”
He smiled queerly.
“Am I? Oh, Driffield’s making such a row one couldn’t have heard oneself speak in any case.”
“I like that,” exclaimed the implicated one. “By Jove, old chap, you do look chippy! And – you’ve got a coat on.”
“Yes. Premonitory touch of fever. No good taking risks. That you, Ancram? I say, why the dickens didn’t you send back my gee again? I’ve been wanting him more than enough, I can tell you.”
Ancram explained that he thought a day or two more or less didn’t matter, and he was awfully sorry, and so on, the while he was thinking what a beastly disagreeable chap Lamont could be if he liked, and what rotten form it was kicking up a row in public about his old bag of bones, which he probably hadn’t really been in want of at all.
“I’m tired of sitting here,” pronounced Clare. “I want to walk about a bit. Help me down, someone!”
Half a dozen hands were extended, but it was on Lamont’s that hers rested as she tripped down the cranky, wobbly steps, knocked up out of old boxes.
“You coming, Lucy? No? Too hot? Oh well.”
Lamont was obviously the favoured one to-day, decided the others, observing how decidedly, though without appearing to do so, she took possession of him; wherefore they refrained from making an escort, except Ancram, whom she promptly cold-shouldered in such wise that even he was not proof against it, and finally dropped off, wondering what on earth any girl could see in a dull disagreeable dog like Lamont, who hadn’t three words to say for himself.
“Will you do something for me if I ask you, Mr Lamont?” said Clare, as they found themselves a little apart from the rest, who were watching some high jumping.
“Certainly I will, Miss Vidal – er, that is – if I can.”
Really he was in good sooth doing his best to deserve Ancram’s verdict. That sweet bright face, looking up at him in a way that most of those present would have given something to occupy his shoes, surely deserved an answer less frigid, less halting. Clare herself felt something of this, and she replied —
“Oh, it’s nothing very great. I only want you to enter for the tent-pegging.”
He was relieved. He had contemplated the possibility of her requiring some service that would necessitate him leaving his post – hence the hesitation.
“Of course I will. But isn’t it too late to enter?”
“No. If it is they’ll have to waive the rule. I’m going to put money on you.”
“Oh, don’t do that. You’ll lose. That fellow Ancram has been riding my horse to death, the groom at Foster’s was quite surprised I should want to ride him up here now, all things considered. However, there he is. I’ll enter with pleasure, but don’t you plunge on me.”
“But I will, and you must win. Do you hear, you must win.”
“I’ll try my best, and can’t do more.”
“That’s right,” she said.
Lamont was very much of a misogynist, and was impatient of the sex and its foibles, but there was something in this girl that disarmed even him. Her very voice sounded caressing, and the quick lift of the deep blue eyes – well, it was dangerous, might soon become maddening. She had appealed to him from the very first, he admitted as much deep down in his heart of hearts, but there, and there only. Now, amid this sunny, light-hearted scene, as he looked at her he thought how, under other circumstances, he might have talked to her differently. But the horror invisibly brooding on yonder sunlit hill was still to be reckoned with, and now another anxiety was deepening within his mind. The witch-doctor had not yet arrived, and his presence was essential to the carrying out of the plot – and its frustration.
The tent-pegging, like the racing, proved, for the most part, poor; so much so indeed that it was hard to work up any great enthusiasm over it, though there was abundance of chaff. At the end, however, flagging interest revived, for now the win lay between Lamont and Orwell, the resident magistrate. Tie after tie they made, always neck and neck, and it became a question whether it would not end in a tie. There was plenty of excitement now, and shouting. Then there was dead silence as the two men awaited the word for the last time.
Lamont settled down to his saddle. He would win, he felt, to miss would be impossible. They were off. His lance was unerringly straight for the peg. But as they thundered along he looked up – only one lightning-quick glance, and then – his lance ploughed up the bare turf while that of his adversary whirled aloft, the wedge of wood impaled upon it hard and fast. And amid the roar of cheers that rent the air, Lamont recognised that that quick side-glance he had been betrayed into taking had lost him the day.
But that look – which had clouded his brain and unsteadied his wrist – not upon her for whom he was here in these modern lists was it directed, but upon a red object moving among the groups near the entrance gate of the enclosure.
Chapter Twelve.
The Red Signal – Or the White?
“Why – it is. It’s old Qubani,” said Driffield.
“And who might old ‘Click’-ubani be?” asked Clare.
“He’s a thundering big Matabele witch-doctor. Fancy the old boy rolling up to see the fun. Wonder they let him in.”
“It was thanks to you, Driffield,” said a man who was within earshot. “He was asking for you. Told them at the gate that you and Lamont had invited him to come.”
“Then he told a whacking big lie, at any rate as far as I am concerned. Well, I suppose I must go and talk to him, and incidentally stand him something. In my line it’s everything to be well in with influential natives.”
“Can’t you bring him here, Mr Driffield?” asked Clare. “I’d like to talk to a Matabele chief – didn’t you say he was a chief?”
“No; a witch-doctor, who, in his way, is often just as big a pot as a chief – sometimes a bigger. You’d better come over with me and talk to him, Miss Vidal; then, when you’ve had enough of him, you can go away, whereas if I bring him here he may stick on for ever.”
Old Qubani, who was squatting against the enclosure talking to a roughish-looking white man, rose to his feet as he saw Driffield, and with hand uplifted poured forth lavish sibongo. Then he turned to Clare.
“Nkosazana! Uhle! Amehlo kwezulu! Wou! Sipazi-pazi!”
“What does he say?” she asked.
“He hails you as a princess, says that you are beautiful, and have eyes like the heavens – and that you are dazzling. That’s why he put his hand over his eyes and looked down.”
“Silly old man; he’s quite poetical,” she said, looking pleased all the same.
“Indhlovukazi!”
“Now he’s calling you a female elephant.”
“Oh, the horrid old wretch. That is a come down, Mr Driffield.”
“Yes, it sounds so, but it’s a big word of sibongo, or praise, with them.”
“Oh well, then I must forgive him.”
“Intandokazi!”
“What’s that?” said Clare, but Driffield had cut short the old man’s rigmarole and was talking to him about something else. He did not care to tell her that she was being hailed as his – Driffield’s – principal – or rather best-loved – wife. Two white men, standing near, and who understood, turned away with a suppressed splutter.
There was the usual request for tobacco, and then, Qubani glancing meaningly in the direction of the bar tent, remarked that he had travelled far, and that the white man made better tywala than the Amandabeli, as, indeed, what could not the white men do.
“A bottle of Bass won’t hurt him,” declared Driffield, sending across for it.
“Why does he wear that great thick cap?” said Clare. “He’d look much better without it.”
“This?” said the old man, putting his hand to the cap of red knitted worsted, surmounted by a tuft, which adorned his head – as the remark was translated to him. “Whau! I am old and the nights are not warm.”
“Why, he’s got on two,” said Clare, as the movement, slightly displacing the red cap, showed another underneath made of like material but white. “Goodness! I wonder his head doesn’t split.”
“Native heads don’t split in a hurry, Miss Vidal,” said Orwell, the Resident Magistrate, who had joined them in time to catch the remark.
“I don’t believe I ought to speak to you, Mr Orwell – at any rate not just yet. You had no business to win that tent-pegging. I had backed Mr Lamont.”
The Magistrate laughed.
“Let me tell you, Miss Vidal, that you had backed the right man then. In fact it’s inconceivable to me how he missed that last time, unless the sense of his awful responsibility made him nervous. It would have made me so.”
Again, many a true word uttered in jest. The speaker little knew that he had stated what was literally and exactly the case.
“Nonsense. I wonder where Mr Lamont has got to. He hasn’t been near me since.”
“That I can quite believe. He’s afraid. I know I should be.”
“Nonsense again, Mr Orwell.” And talking about other things they turned away, quite forgetting the old witch-doctor. There was one, however, who was not forgetting him – no, not by any means.
The while Jim Steele, the latest rejected of Clare, was very drunk in the bar tent. When we say very drunk we don’t mean to convey the idea that he was incapable, or even unsteady on his pins to any appreciable extent – but just nasty, quarrelsome, fighting drunk; and as he was a big, powerful fellow, most of those standing about were rather civil to him. Now Jim Steele was at bottom a good fellow rather than otherwise, but his rejection by Clare Vidal he had taken to heart. He had also taken to drink.
He had noticed Clare and Lamont together that day, and had more than once scowled savagely at the pair. Moreover, he had heard that Clare had backed Lamont – and had made others do so – in the tent-pegging, and now he was bursting with rage and jealousy. It follows therefore that this was an unfortunate moment for the object of his hatred to enter the tent, and call for a whisky-and-soda. Upon him he wheeled round.
“You can’t ride a damn!” he shouted.
“I never tried. I prefer to ride a horse,” said Lamont, setting down his glass.
“But you can’t,” jeered Steele. Then roused to the highest pitch of fury by the other’s coolness, he bellowed: “Look here. Can you fight, eh? Can you? Because if so, come on.”
Something akin to intense dismay came into Lamont’s mind at this development. That this drunken, aggressive idiot should have it in his power to dig not only his own grave – that would have been a good riddance – but all their graves, was a new and startling development in a situation that was already sufficiently complicated. For apart from his horror and repulsion at being perforce a party to a drunken brawl in the bar tent – how was he going to impress Qubani, at the crucial moment, with a bunged-up eye, perchance, or a bleeding nose. He would only look ridiculous, not in the least impressive, and it was of vital importance he should look impressive.
“Yes, I can,” he answered shortly, “but I’m not going to – now.”
A murmur of disgust arose from among some of the bystanders. Lamont had funked again.
“Then you’re a blanked coward,” yelled Steele, and the murmurs deepened. And yet – and yet – there was a look in Lamont’s dark face which made some of them pause, for it was not exactly the look of one who was afraid, rather was it that of a man who was trying to restrain himself.
“I’m not going to now,” he said shortly, “but I’ll accommodate you where and when you like, after the gymkhana’s over. We can’t start bruising now, with a lot of ladies on the scene. Now, can we?”
The bystanders, thus appealed to, saw the sense of this. Besides, they were not going to be done out of their fun this time. It was only fun adjourned.
“No, no. That’s quite right and reasonable. Jim, you can’t kick up a row here now. Take it out of him afterwards,” were some of the cries that arose.
“He won’t be there. He’ll scoot.”
“Oh no, I won’t,” answered Lamont. “I’ll be there,” – “if any of us are,” he added to himself grimly.
He finished his liquor and went outside. There was a lull in the proceedings, and people were moving about and talking, pending the distribution of the prizes.
“Greeting, Qubani. That is good. Last time we talked was ‘kwa Zwabeka.’”
“Ou! Lamonti is my father,” answered the old witch-doctor. Then, having fired off a long string of sibongo, he concluded that the sun was very hot, and it was long since he had drunk anything.
“That shall be presently when these are gone,” said Lamont. “But first – walk round with me, and I will show you where the horses race. It is good to see the chief of all izanusi again.”
The old ruffian complied, nothing loth. He was thinking that the more exuberant his friendliness the more completely would he lull all suspicion among these fools of whites. He professed himself profoundly interested in everything explained to him.
“I saw you ride, Lamonti,” he said. “Whau! but you did pick up the little bits of wood with the long spear. That was great – great. But the other Inkosi was greater.”
“Yes, the other was greater, Qubani, but what made me miss that stroke was joy at seeing my father, the greatest of all izanusi in our midst.”
“Whau!”
“Mr Lamont, do come and help us with the prizes. They balloted for who should distribute them, and Lucy was chosen. Do come and stand by us and help. They are going to begin now.”
“I’m most awfully sorry, Miss Vidal, but I can’t just now.”
“You won’t?” said Clare curtly, for she was not accustomed to be refused.
“I can’t,” he repeated. “Do believe I have a good reason – and don’t direct any attention to me just now. Believe me, a great deal hangs upon it.”
“Very well,” she said, and left him, marvelling. It must be as he had said – still that he should refuse to do something for her and prefer to talk to this squalid old savage instead – why, it was incomprehensible.
“What is covered up on that waggon, Nkose!” said the witch-doctor, pointing to a waggon which stood just inside the fence. Its position, perhaps, directly facing the Ehlatini ridge, suggested an inspiration to Lamont. He answered —
“Izikwa-kwa.” (Maxim guns.)
“’M – ’m! Izikwa-kwa?” hummed the other, wholly unable to suppress a considerable start of surprise. Then, recovering himself, he grinned, in bland incredulity.
“Inkosi is joking,” he said. “There is no war.”
“Nevertheless those are izikwa-kwa, loaded and ready to pour forth a storm of bullets for the rest of the day;” and the speaker devoutly prayed that the bar-keeper might not send his boy to get out another supply of soda-water bottles from beneath the sail and thus expose the fraud.
“Come. We will go and see them receive the rewards, those who have won them. But first I would have something to remember the chief of izanusi by. So sell me that red cap which is on thy head, Qubani,” producing some silver.
“Now nay, my father, now nay, for the nights are cold and this red cap is warm – ah! ah! warm. See, here is a fine horn snuff-box, be content with that instead, as a gift.”
“Here I hold the lives of twelve men – six on each side,” answered Lamont, showing him the butt of a revolver, in one of his side pockets. “If I receive not that red cap this instant, the first life it shall spill will be that of the chief of all izanusi.”
Qubani grunted, then his hand went slowly to his head. It was a tense, a nerve-racking moment. Would this savage, defying death, hurl the blood-red symbol high in the air, or —
The two were alone together now, the whole assembly having gathered round the prize tent. Lamont had drawn a revolver.
“Move not, save to hand me that cap,” he said.
For a moment the savage hesitated. But the ring of steel pointing straight at his chest, perhaps the awful and fell look on this man’s face, from which every drop of blood had vanished, and whose eyes were glittering like those of a wild beast, decided him. His hand came slowly down from his head, and the red cap was in Lamont’s left hand.
Yes, it was a tense moment, and in the excitement of it Lamont had all he could do to keep his nerves steady. With a mind characteristically attuned to trifles at such a moment he found his attention partly shared by such. Apart from the crowd a very pretty girl was rating a man, in voluble English with a foreign accent, apparently for having paid too much attention elsewhere during the day. He heard Jim Steele snarling and cursing in the bar tent, and idly wondered if his language would reach ears for which it was not fit. He felt an interest in Orwell’s dog, running about in search of its master – in short, a dozen other trivialities raced through his brain. Then a loud cheer broke the spell. The first prize had been distributed.