"Forging the Blades" (continued 3)

“Ah, my sons,” said the old man, as he paused in his work to take snuff, while his assistants were arranging their primitive bellows. “Ah, my sons, I fear me that what I do is useless. What are these poor weapons beside the thunder and lightning wherewith the Amangisi and the Amabuna poured death upon each other from distances further than a man can see? How then will ye get near enough to use these?”

“But, my father,” answered one of the spectators, “what if the izanusi put múti upon us which render the white man’s bullets of no avail?”

The old man chuckled, and his face crinkled up.

“Will the izanusi doctor themselves and then stand up and let themselves be shot at?” he answered. “Will they do this? Ou!”

This was a puzzler. His hearers were pretty sure they would do no such thing, yet so ingrained is this stale and flimsy superstition, that notwithstanding the numbers of times its utter fallacy had been proved, there is no getting it out of the native system.

“I made blades for that Elephant who fell by ‘the stroke of Sopuza,’ when your fathers were children,” went on the old man, “Dingana, who scourged the Amabuna as a whip-lash scourges an ox, until he had to take flight when our nation was divided. But then the guns of the Amabuna shot but feebly and there was opportunity to run in and make an end. But now, when the white man’s bullets fall thick as the stones in the fiercest hail storm, what chance have ye with these?” pointing to a row of blades which awaited the binding. Whereby it will be seen that Malemba was progressive.

Even this argument did not impress the group. They were inclined to make very light of it.

“We will not allow them time to fire their bullets at all, my father,” laughed another of them. “We shall eat them up while they sleep.”

“But will they sleep?” said the old man, his head on one side.

“Will they not? They are asleep even now,” came the answer. “We need not even wait until night. They are scattered. We can take them at any time—when ‘the word’ is given.”

“When ‘the word’ is given! Ah! ah! When the word is given.” And the old man chuckled darkly.

“What means our father?”

“What I mean? What if ‘the word’ is given too late? Or worse still—too soon? Ou!”

“That will not be, my father. The chain is now forged, even as these blades. And the whites are scattered—scattered. They lie in our hands.”

“Let them not lie there too long, or perchance they may spring out,” returned Malemba quizzically. “Well, I have nought to do with it, I who am old. I can but make you the weapons, it is for yourselves to wield them. And most of you have never learned the art. You were born too late.”

A laugh went up at this. The old assegai-maker was looked upon with the greatest veneration. His wisdom was recognised and appreciated. But to these young bloods, fed up of late on conspiracy, and yearning to prove themselves worthy of their warrior ancestors, mere wisdom was at a slump just then.

“I can but make you assegais,” repeated the old man. “I am too old to wield them.”

And he resumed his work, crooning, to the strokes of the hammer, a snatch from an old war-song—

“Nantsi ’ndaba— Indaba yemkonto! Ji-jji! Ji-jji!”

(“That is the talk. The talk of the assegais.” “Ji-jji” is the stabbing hiss.)

“These whites, they are not so powerful as we are told,” said one of the group. “I have been among them—have worked for them, where they dig the gold, the gold that is turned into round money that makes them rich—and us. Whau! They will do anything for money! Ha!”

An evil laugh went round among his listeners.

“Their women,” echoed another. “When ‘the word’ goes forth we shall take their women, when the rest are dead. It will make a pleasant change.”

But the old assegai-maker went on crooning his old and appropriate war-song—

“Nantsi ’ndaba— Indaba yemkonto.”

“That is not much change, except for the worse,” said another. “Their women. A set of hut poles!” Whereat a great laugh went up from the gathering. “Sons of my father, I would not pay half a calf in lobola for one white woman I have ever seen.”

“Half a calf! Au! What of Izibu?” This, it will be remembered, was Verna Halse’s name.

“Izibu?” returned the first speaker. “She is for one greater than we.”

A gurgle of bass laughter ran through the group.

“There are others at Ezulwini,” went on the one who had worked at the Rand. “Also at Malimati and Nongoma. It will be great to obtain wives we have paid no lobola for. White wives! Ha! That will be a change indeed.”

“You have got to get them first, my sons,” said the old assegai-maker. “I remember in the days of Dingana, when I was young, wives were plentiful even without paying lobola. That king had an open hand, and after an impi had returned from raiding the Amaswazi, or the Basutu, he would distribute the captive women with a free hand. Whau! I not only made assegais in those days, I wielded them.”

“Baba!” (Father.)

“Ye-bo! Twice did Dingana send me a wife, for he said that a man who could make assegais like mine deserved a share of what those assegais could procure. But that is now all a thing of bygone years. It is dead, dead and buried. We are the white man’s dogs to-day, and always shall be.”

“And always shall be, Hau!” echoed his listeners. “And always shall be. My father, I think not.”

“I am old, my sons, and I shall end my life peacefully,” answered the assegai-maker—“shall end my life as the white man’s dog. There are those among you who will end your lives in blood.”

“Ha! And what then?” cried the man who had worked at the Rand. “We fight for our father and chief, and for—” and here he suddenly stopped. He would name no names, but all knew what was in his mind, and the same thought was in theirs. “I would I had lived in the time when we were a nation indeed, when our assegais bit deep and drank blood. My father lost his life in blood at Nodwengu, but he had washed his spear in the blood of the whites twice before that. And I, his son, I have to turn out and work at mending the white man’s roads. Hau!”

“You will get all your chances of a death in blood—a glorious death in blood—presently, my sons,” said the old assegai-maker, his face puckered up quizzically. “The whites will take care of that.”

“Au! I like not this talk,” growled one of the group, a much older man. “It is as if our father were putting bad múti upon the weapons he is making.”

“No múti, good or bad, put I on them, Sekun-ya,” returned the old man tranquilly. “The múti is for those who use them.”

There was a laugh at this, and then the group fell to talking, and their topic was the former one—the capture of the white women in the coming rising. It was not a pleasant conversation. The man who had worked at the Rand was giving voluble impressions and even experiences of the great gold town, and his hearers listened delightedly. Such experiences, however, were not calculated to deepen their respect for the white man, or for his womenkind. The while the old assegai-maker worked on. At last he deposited the last blade to cool.

“There, my sons. You will have as many as you can carry—when darkness falls,” he said. “Sapazani has an open hand, yet I would like to have what comes out of it before these are used, for thereafter nothing may there be to have. Say that unto the chief.”

This they promised to do, amid much merriment. But the old sceptic did not controvert them; he merely reiterated—

“Say it.”

Suddenly a change came over the attitude of the group. They were suddenly silent, and sat tense and listening.

“O’ Nongqai!” exclaimed more than one simultaneously.

For to their keen ears was borne the far-away sound of horse-hoofs, and it was that of several horses. The inference was clear. A police patrol.

The assegai-maker’s kraal was situated in a hollow on a densely bushed and rugged hillside. Even the smoke of his fire would hardly show above the tree-tops, yet it was just possible that the secret of its existence and of its whereabouts might have leaked out. But such a contingency had been provided against, and Malemba would have had ample time to conceal all traces of his craft by the time horses could make their way up that rugged hillside. Quickly the group had melted away and were speeding for a point whence they could overlook the country beneath.

Three horsemen were advancing along the rough track down on the level, over two miles distant. The ordinary civilised gaze would have required glasses to make out their identity, but to the telescopic eyes of these savages that was plain enough. So plain that they could even distinguish the sergeant from the two troopers.

One man was dispatched to warn Malemba, and the rest crouched there, and watched—watched with some anxiety. Were they coming up the hill? No, they held straight on, heading away in the direction of Ben Halse’s store. And the watchers laughed and chuckled among themselves.

“O’ Nongqai! Three out of five here. Four there; ten elsewhere. Whau! We shall eat them up easily.”

Nevertheless they continued to watch, even after the patrol was out of sight.

Chapter Fifteen.

The First Day.

They were inspecting the great koodoo head in Ben Halse’s yard. Denham was delighted.

“Why, it’s perfect,” he declared. “Perfect, simply perfect.”

“Yes, I believe it’s an absolute record. But we’ll have to be a bit careful how we get it away; however, there’s no hurry about that.”

“There’s an old saying, you know, Mr Halse,” said Denham: “‘short accounts make long friends.’ So you won’t mind taking over this now,” and he handed the other a folded cheque.

Ben Halse opened it, and started. Then he handed it back.

“It’s too much,” he said. “The head’s worth a good deal, but not as much as that. No.”

“It’s worth it all to me,” was the answer. “Well, then, name your own figure.”

Ben did so.

“Right,” said Denham, “you shall have your way. But I’d rather have had mine,” he laughed.

“A very common complaint,” answered his host. “What would you like to do this morning? In the afternoon Verna could take you down into the forest, or anywhere else you like. She’s busy this morning, and I have things to see to.”

Denham declared that that would be a delightful programme. He could get through the morning easily enough, he said. They must on no account make a stranger of him, or put themselves out in any way. The while he had been keeping one ear open for Verna’s voice, which came to them, raised in snatches of song, from the other side of the house.

It was the day after his arrival at the store. They had all travelled up together, having borrowed some extra harness and inspanned Denham’s horse as “unicorn,” so that the extra weight didn’t count so much, and he was conscious of having thoroughly enjoyed the journey. Nor would he try to disguise to himself the fact that this result was largely due to the presence of Ben Halse’s daughter.

It had taken all of three days; two nights being got through in such scanty accommodation as could be obtained at lonely wayside stores similar to that of Ben himself, though infinitely rougher, and the third night camping in the veldt; during which, by the bye, Denham had started out of his sleep declaring that a whacking big spider had just run over his face, which was more than likely the case. But through heat and dust and discomfort Verna’s spirits never flagged, and her cheerfulness remained unruffled. Now a three days’ journey under such circumstances is a pretty good test of character, and her attitude throughout was thoroughly appreciated by her fellow-traveller and guest. She was unique, he decided, unique and splendid.

He found her now engaged upon exactly the same homely occupation as that on which she was engaged on the occasion of our first making her acquaintance—bread-making, to wit.

“Useful as always, Miss Halse,” he remarked. “Why, I don’t know how we should have got on coming along but for you.”

She flashed a smile up at him.

“How did you get on without me when you came along through the Makanya bush?” she said mischievously.

If there was that in the allusion that brought a change into Denham’s face it was only momentary.

“I had to then, worse luck,” he laughed. “But I managed it somehow.” Then they both laughed—easily, happily.

Denham, looking down at her as she sat there, came to the conclusion that she was more charming than ever. The sheen of her abundant brown hair, carelessly but becomingly coiled, the dark semicircle of the eyelashes on the cheek, the strong, supple figure so splendidly outlined, the movement of the shapely arms as she kneaded the dough—why, this homely performance was a poem in itself. Then the staging—the fall of wooded slope to a deep down vista of plain below—dim in the noontide haze where on the right a darker line in contrast to the open green showed part of the great mysterious forest tract. Even the utterly unaesthetic dwelling-house hardly seemed to spoil the picture.

“Well, and what is the subject of all this profound thought?” she asked suddenly, with a quick, bright, upward glance.

He started, looked at her straight, and told her. Yet, somehow, he did it in such a way as to avoid banality, possibly because so naturally.

“What did I tell you once before?” she said, but she changed colour ever so slightly. “That you must not pay me compliments. They don’t come well from you—I mean they are too petty.”

It might have been his turn to answer with a “tu quoque.” But he did not. What he said was—

“I was answering your question. I was describing the picture I had seen in my own mind. How could I have left out the principal figure in it?”

Again she glanced up at him, was about to speak, then seemed to change her mind. If her personality had struck Denham as unique, the very same thing seemed to have struck her as regarded himself. The intellectual face, the tall, fine frame, the easy, cultured manner, half-a-score other things about him—all these rendered him a personality clean outside her own experience. Whereby it will be seen that the atmosphere around Ben Halse’s remote and primitive dwelling was, even at this early stage, charged with abundant potentialities.

“And ‘the principal figure’ in it is all floury and generally dishevelled,” she said at last, with a light laugh.

“That makes the charm of the study.”

“Do you paint, then, Mr Denham, in addition to your other scientific accomplishments?”

“No; I thought I could dabble in it at one time, but had too many serious irons in the fire. Still, I’m given to drawing mental pictures, and this is one of them, that’s all. By the way, your father was saying you were going to be kind enough to act as my guide this afternoon. Is that so?”

“Oh yes. We were talking about it before you came out. Where would you like to go?”

“That I leave entirely to you. By the way, yes. Will you show me the spot where you shot the record head?”

“It’s rather far, I’m afraid, for one afternoon. However, we’ll see. Well, I’m through with this job now. I’ll put it inside. Look! there are some people coming to the store, I expect. Yes, they are. Come and see me shop-keep, Mr Denham.”

She took the tin of dough into the kitchen, and returned in a second with some keys.

Two women and a youth were approaching. Verna unlocked the door, and, as he entered, Denham looked curiously around and above at the multifold variety of trade goods. The atmosphere was inclined to be musty, and, by virtue of the nature of some of the things, not over-fragrant.

The natives entered, rather shyly, giving the salute. They stared curiously at Denham. His fine physique and general bearing impressed them. There could only be one opinion as to what had brought him there. He had come to offer U’ Ben lobola for the Inkosazana. But they would make a fine pair! This they told each other afterwards.

“Well, what is wanted?” Verna asked.

“Tobacco. Smoking tobacco such as white people use,” answered one of the women.

“Sapazani’s ‘children’ indulging in white men’s customs? Ah, ah!” answered Verna, with a shake of the head. The woman looked somewhat subdued, and managed to convey that it was a thing they did not wish talked about.

The while Denham was taking in the whole scene, keenly interested. Never had the liquid Zulu sounded so melodious as when it flowed from Verna’s lips, he decided to himself. Then other things were requisitioned. Yards of calico were unfolded, and critically examined by the intending purchaser. He watched the deftness and patience with which Verna handled the things and bore with the intending purchasers, who would look at the articles and then go and squat in a corner of the room and talk over the transaction with each other in an undertone. The boy was looking at him sideways, with staring eyeballs.

“That’s their way,” said Verna, with a merry glance at him. “You can’t rush these people. If you did you’d lose all your trade.”

“By Jove! but I never thought there could be so much poetry in handing things out over a counter,” he burst forth.

“Thanks. But remember what I told you just now, also on a former occasion,” she answered, her eyes sparkling with fun. “You must not pay me compliments, especially ironical ones. I am only an up-country trader’s daughter, who helps her father, up to her little best.”

“Upon my conscience there was nothing ironical about it,” he replied somewhat vehemently, “It was dead, sober earnest.”

She smiled again and nodded; then turning to the native women suggested they had been a good while making up their minds. They took the hint, and the deal was concluded.

Denham, the while, was in something of a maze. Most girls situated as she was would have rather tried to keep him off witnessing this phase of their everyday home life—in other words, would have tried all they knew to “sink the shop.” This one, on the contrary, had actually invited him to witness it, just as she might have invited him to come and have a look at the garden.

“Well, Mr Denham,” said Verna, as the red-painted top-knots of the two women vanished round the doorpost, “and what do you think of me in my capacity of shop-girl?”

“If I were to tell you I should lay myself open to another rebuke,” he answered, with a laugh in his eyes.

“Have I been so hard on you as that? I didn’t mean to be. By the way, you are not smoking. Try some of this,” reaching down an open bag of Magaliesberg from a shelf.

“Thanks. I say, what’s this?” looking at the bullet hole in the wall.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” she answered rather shamefacedly. “At least, you heard all about it down at Ezulwini. Anyway, it’s nothing to brag about. Let’s go outside.”

“Certainly,” acquiesced Denham, grasping, with ready tact, that she did not wish to pursue the subject. And he was right. Even as in the matter of shooting the koodoo she shrank from dwelling upon anything that would tend to set her forth in his eyes as a strong, self-reliant Amazon type of woman; more so now than then.

“I wish I was more like other girls, Mr Denham,” she broke forth with that winning, breezy naturalness which had so struck him. “If I were musical, for instance, and all that, I could play to you of an evening. I’m afraid you must find the evenings so slow.”

“I’ve only had one evening here, and I didn’t find that a bit slow,” he answered. “Incidentally, the other evenings we have spent together have been anything but slow.”

“Together!” There was something in the word, and the way in which he said it, that struck curiously upon her ears.

“I’m glad of that,” she answered. “One always thinks that anybody out from England, accustomed to the livelier sides of life, must become hideously bored in an out-of-the-way wilderness such as this really is.”

“It’s a very beautiful wilderness, anyway,” he said, looking out over the great panorama of mountain and plain and forest, extending over fifty miles, and misty in the heat of the unclouded sunlight. “But that’s where you make the mistake. The very contrast is so infinitely restful. Not only restful, but invigorating. Slow! Think, for instance, of all the vividly interesting stories and reminiscences your father has been telling me since we first met, and especially during our journey here. Why, they make this wonderful country simply glow with life—and such life! The life which puts those ‘livelier sides of life’ you were just quoting into a dull, drab groove of monotony. No, don’t for a moment imagine there is the slightest possibility of a chance of my feeling bored.”

There was a vehemence, an intensity, about this deliverance that rather astonished Verna. This man had another side, then? She had read him wrong, or at least not quite right, when she had just sized him up as an even, prosperous man of the world, one whose self-possession nothing could ruffle, a charming companion, but one past anything in the shape of a great enthusiasm. Now she began to realise that she had not seen every side of him, and the discovery in no way diminished her interest in him.

“Well, that rather relieves me, from the responsibility point of view, at any rate,” she answered, flashing up at him one of those bright smiles of hers. “So now, on the strength of it, I’ll get you to excuse me. There’s a lot to do inside. But we’ll have such a jolly time of it this afternoon.” And with a bright nod she left him.

Denham lit a fresh pipe, and strolled out a little way from the house. It seemed to him that something had been withdrawn. He missed Verna’s presence and gracious companionship. To the full consciousness of this he awoke with a start. He was too old and experienced to do anything that might seem like “hanging around” her, wherefore he took a walk. But as he looked out upon the panorama spread out in front and around, revelled in the glow of the ambient air, even found something to interest his naturalist soul, in the bushes or grass, he was still thinking—well, he had better not think. Yet, why should he not? The question pressed itself practically home to him. He was his own master, and in every way in a position to please himself. Why should he not do so?

What a rare “find” this was! he told himself, his thoughts running on Verna. And if he missed her presence because she had been obliged to withdraw for an hour or so, what did it mean? A phrase ran uneasily through his mind, “Can’t bear her out of his sight.” And this was the first day of his arrival. No, assuredly it was time to pull himself together. And then, her brightly uttered words of parting, “We’ll have such a jolly time of it this afternoon.” Well, it should be no fault of his if they did not.

Chapter Sixteen.

Drawing in.

“Mr Denham, I think we’ll change the programme, shall we?” said Verna, as she came out, got up for the ride. “Instead of going down we’ll go up, if you don’t mind. Do you?”

“Why, of course not. I am in your hands entirely.”

The horses were waiting, saddled, the boy walking them up and down. Verna was in a sort of khaki-coloured riding habit, with a hat to match. In it was a subtle combination of the fashionable and civilised build with the congruous costume of the locality and surroundings that sat her altogether charmingly.

“All right, then. I’ll take you where you will get a beautiful view; and the road is delightful. If you feel like getting off to look for a specimen, do so at any time. Now, will you put me into that saddle?”

The smile she beamed at him recalled him to himself. The naked truth of it was that Denham had about shed himself, as a snake sheds its skin. He was a hard-headed man of the world—a keen, successful financier, yet by now he was dimly realising that he scarcely knew himself. Experiences came back to him—crowded up galore; yet it seemed to be reserved for him that he should meet, in the wilds of Zululand—and the wilds of Zululand can be very wild indeed, even up to date—an experience utterly outside of all that had gone before.

“Thanks,” she said, gathering up her reins. “Now we must go exactly where we like, and do exactly what we like. We are going to make an easy afternoon of it.”

“Certainly,” he answered. “I am very much in luck’s way. I never reckoned on being taken so much care of.”

“No? Well, you shall be. But I don’t think you require much taking care of after having picked your way all through the Makanya bush alone.”

That allusion again. Denham felt a droop all of a sudden. Yet it was only momentary. He had been alone with Verna practically the whole day. Ben Halse had not returned for the midday dinner, and they had got through it à deux. Thus together alone, the situation had set him thinking a great deal. In fancy he had pictured her sitting opposite him, as in that plain, rather primitive room, for any time, and the idea was pleasing.

Their way lay upward, the track so narrow in parts that they had to ride one behind the other, an arrangement fatal to conversation, for you cannot conveniently shout back over your shoulder. Now it led through some deep kloof, where the tall forest trees shut out the light of the sun, and the green depths were stirred by mysterious noises; now up a rocky steep, but ever at a foot’s pace. Verna was leading the way, and the other was admiring with all his might the poise of her splendid figure, sitting her horse so perfectly and gracefully; and though the surrounding bush was teeming with all sorts of strange life, dear to the naturalist, this one, for once, forgot to notice it, so engrossed was he in the contemplation of his guide.

“This is where I wanted to bring you,” said the latter at last. “We’ll hitch up the horses here and walk the rest of the path.”

They had emerged upon an open gully, high up on the range. A short climb, and they gained a great natural window in a tooth-shaped rock which overlooked a vast, tumbled mass of crag and valley and crater. Forest and open country lay spread out beneath, extending away in billowy roll for miles upon miles into dim, misty distance.

“By Jove! but it’s splendid!” cried Denham, as he gazed out over this. “I vote we sit here a bit and look at it.”

“I thought you’d like it,” she answered. “Yes, let’s have a rest.”

They sat down within the great rock-window, drinking in the splendid air, the world, as it were, at their feet. But somehow, and all of a sudden, a constraint, a silence, seemed to have fallen between them. It was perfectly unaccountable on any ground whatever, still it was there all the same. Could it be that by some mysterious phase of telepathy both were thinking the same thing? and that each knew that the other knew it? For there existed a tremendous mutual “draw” between these two, and yet they had only known each other a few days.

Then by some equally sudden and unaccountable phase of telepathy the constraint was mutually broken. The same idea had come into both their minds. It would never do to let this sort of thing take a hold on them thus early. Verna began to point out various landmarks, near and far.

“Look,” she said, turning from the open view, and pointing to a particularly tumbled and bushy range of hills about six miles off. “That’s where Sapazani’s kraal is. We’ll ride over some day and pay him a visit. How would you like that?”

“Very much indeed. I’d like to study these fellows a bit. They seem interesting. By the way, do you know what I’ve done, Miss Halse?”

“What?”

“Why, I’ve buried myself. I mean that I’ve put myself clean out of communication with the old country, except on the part of one confidential man in my business, and even he can’t communicate beyond Durban. How’s that for a prime way of taking a change?”

“Quite good. But what about the business side of it?”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’ve thoroughly fixed up all that. But it’s rather a joke, you know, effecting a complete disappearance.”

Then he went on to tell her a good deal about himself, yet without seeming to do so egotistically, of his early struggles, of his now assured position, of many an incident and more than one crisis in his life. To all of which she listened with vivid interest, with appreciation and sympathy.

“I am boring you, I’m afraid—” he broke off.

“No, indeed. I am very much interested. What a hole and corner sort of life mine must seem to you!”

“Do you know you are a very great puzzle to me?”—he had nearly said “Verna.”

“Yes. Why?”

“You might have been everywhere, seen everything, from the way in which you talk. How on earth did you pick it up?—and you say you have never been outside Natal, except to the Rand.”

“Well, it’s true,” she answered, looking pleased. “I accept your verdict—as another compliment—and feel only proud.”

The constraint was broken down between them now, and they talked on and freely. There was that in the fact of her companion having told her so much about his life that wonderfully fascinated Verna. What was there about her that this strong, capable man of the world should take her into his confidence, especially on such short acquaintance? More and more she felt drawn towards him. How strange it must have been, she was thinking, before this new companionship had come into her life! And yet it was barely more than a week old.

And Denham? As he sat there chatting easily, the rings of blue smoke floating off lazily upon the still air, he too was thinking—and thinking pretty much the same thing. Again this new experience had come to him just at the right time. There was nothing to mar his enjoyment of it. A very short while earlier—well—there might have been. But not now. Yet while they talked he was studying his companion keenly. There was no posing, no little coquettish touches. She was perfectly natural.

“What a splendid thing it is to feel quite easy in one’s mind!” he went on, in pursuance of the subject of having, as he said, “buried” himself. “I can afford to feel that way just now, and it’s real luxury. I haven’t always been able to, no, not by any means.”

He broke off suddenly, then, as though moved by some strange impulse, went on—

“I wonder what moved me to tell you so much about myself. It wasn’t for the mere love of talking.”

“Of course not. I was so interested—am, I ought to have said.” Verna’s eyes grew wonderfully soft as they met his. “It might, too, have been a certain sympathy.”

“That’s it,” he answered. “There was one thing I did not tell you, though. I wonder if I ever shall.”

“That rests with yourself,” she answered. “But why should you?”

“Upon my soul I don’t know.”

They were looking straight at each other. The atmosphere seemed highly charged. To Verna, in her then frame of mind, the enigmatical nature of the remark opened all sorts of possibilities. She was strongly taunted to reply, “Yes, tell me now, whatever it is.” But she remembered their short acquaintance, and the fact that this man was only a passing guest to make whose stay a pleasant one was only a part of her duty. The sympathetic vein cooled, then hardened.

Somehow her mood communicated itself to the other, perhaps another sign of the unconscious bond of sympathy between them. What had he so nearly done? he asked himself. Let out one of the most momentous secrets that could lie on any man, and to an acquaintance of a few days. But somehow the last expression rang hollow in his mind. Yet still, here was he, a hard-headed, experienced man of the world. He must not allow himself to be thrown off his balance under the influences of sunlight and air, and the drawing sympathy of a very rare and alluring personality. So they drifted off upon ordinary topics again, and at last Verna suggested it was time to be going home.

“Well, you have brought me to a lovely spot, for a first ride,” said Denham, as they took their way down the hill. “If you go on as you have begun I may be in danger of camping in these parts altogether. Hallo,” he broke off. “It’s as well we came down when we did. That fellow might have gone off with our horses.”

“He wouldn’t have,” answered Verna. “They are more like the old-time Zulus up here, when you could leave everything about and not a thing would disappear. Now, of course, civilisation has spoiled most of them.”

The man referred to, who had been squatting with his back towards them, now rose. He was a tall Zulu, and ringed; and he carried a small shield and a large assegai, the latter of which he had no business under the laws of the ruling race to be carrying at all. And Denham could not repress a start, for this was the same man he had run against twice at Ezulwini—and once before. He felt thoughtful. There seemed to be some design behind the fellow’s sporadic appearance.

“Who are you?” said Verna. “Not of Sapazani? I know all his ‘children.’”

“Inkosazana!”

“What is your name?”

“Mandevu.”

“Mandevu!” she echoed thoughtfully. “Ah, now I remember.”

“Inkosazana!”

“Where from?”

The man looked at her, and shook his head whimsically. He was rather a good-looking savage, decided Denham, especially now that he had discarded European clothing.

“From nowhere,” he answered, but with a curious glance at Denham, which the latter understood, and it set him thinking more deeply than ever. He remembered the bad character given him by Inspector James. He likewise remembered something else. Things were thickening up a bit. Verna talked a little longer, and then the Zulu resumed his way, when they followed his example.

“Is that your name among them?” asked Denham, as they rode along. “Inkosazana?”

“No,” answered Verna, laughing merrily. “It’s only a title. Inkosikazi is ‘chieftainess,’ and would be used for the principal wife of a chief. Inkosazana is a diminutive of it, and would be used for a chief’s daughters. In a word ‘Miss.’”

“I see. I shall really have to learn—under your tuition.”

“You really will,” she answered. And then they talked on as they rode home in the drooping day; and the evening lights shed full and varying upon the roll of landscape, the voices of wild Nature coming up from mysterious forest depths on either side, and the presence of this splendid girl beside him set Denham again thinking that this first day was nearly, if not quite, the most marvellous experience he had yet known.

Ben Halse had returned before they had. At table Verna was giving an account of their ride, mentioning, of course, their meeting with the Zulu. Denham could not help noticing that his host’s interest quickened at once.

“Mandevu!” he repeated. “What’s he doing in these parts, I wonder? Did he say, Verna?”

“Not he. He was as close as an oyster.”

“Why, he was at Ezulwini the other day.”

“Who is he, Mr Halse?” asked Denham. “A chief?”

“In a small way, yes. But—Well, this is a rum part of the world—far more so than you’d think, coming in upon it from the outside, and there are rum things done every other day that nobody knows anything about. I wouldn’t tell every one that, but, then, we seem to be standing in together, you and I, or rather the three of us. So I don’t mind letting on that the presence of Mandevu in these parts just now does set me thinking a bit.”

Denham didn’t care to push his inquiries, not then, at any rate. But the appearance of the mysterious Zulu had set him thinking too. Of which, however, he said nothing to his host.

Chapter Seventeen.

Retributive.

The rumble of unrest was rolling like the wave of an earthquake. It was hard to say where it began, but the tribes throughout the northern half of Natal were saturated with its spirit, and it was widespread in Zulu land. The authorities watched it with more anxiety than they cared to disclose, but even they had not fathomed the extent of its ramifications. They knew, for instance, that Sapazani was disaffected, but they did not know that Malemba the assegai-maker was kept busy day and night, and that a bevy of young men was ever present at his kraal, to bear off, under cover of darkness, the bundles of weapons barely cool from the forge. They did not know, either, of the weighty and mysterious loads delivered stealthily at another kraal of Sapazani’s, a small one, in the most inaccessible recesses of the Lumisana forest. These had been delivered independently of the agency of Ben Halse, who on this occasion had held out firmly against the tempting offer. In fact, Ben Halse did not know himself, he only suspected.

The said authorities were fully alive to the desirability of arresting Sapazani, but between desirability and advisability there is something of a gulf fixed. For such a course would be tantamount to firing the train. That chief and his powerful following up in arms—for it was certain that he would not submit to arrest tamely—would simply mean that other plotting tribes would throw off all disguise and join him without reserve. The position was growing acute.

In the small kraal just mentioned sat Sapazani at night, and others with him. Before him, on the ground, were several of the loads referred to, and as their wrappings were undone the chief’s eye glistened as they fell on the contents. The young men who had brought them in were squatting in the background, drinking large draughts of tywala. A fire burning in the centre of the open space illuminated the domed huts, and the broad face of the full moon threw an additional light upon the dark group. Not a soul could have surprised the place, for armed pickets were stationed all round at out lying distances.

“This is good, Mandevu,” Sapazani was saying. “Now when we get them among the trees and rocks will these do their work? For my part I like not such way of fighting, but did not Opondo tell us of that nation in the north—that which went forth under Umzilikazi? When they fought the whites in the old way they were shot down before they could get near enough to strike a blow, but when they waited for their enemy to come to them in the mountains, instead of going to him first, then they killed many with such as these. Ah, ah! and so it will be again.”

“And when we have fought enough, and each killed our white man, there are those across the seas who will give us peace,” said Mandevu. “Opondo has said it, and others.”

“The White King is angry with the people of this land,” went on Sapazani. “He has withdrawn his soldiers, and there are only Nongqai left. Those we shall easily eat up. They are scattered about in threes and fours.”

“I know not, brother. There are those who say that we shall not surprise the whites, that they know more than we think they do—that they can bring all the Nongqai together in a moment, and pour other forces upon us as well.”

“Not if we all strike together. The people beyond Tukela should be able to give them plenty to do while we eat up all the whites on this side.”

“Not if our plans are made known to them as fast as they are laid, brother,” said Mandevu, meaningly. “There is treachery in our midst.”

Sapazani’s face grew grim, and he and the other continued their conversation in a lower tone still. Then the chief gave some orders, and in accordance therewith the rifles and pistols and ammunition were carefully and cunningly hidden beneath the floors of two huts. And the band prepared to march. No cheap “trade” guns were these, but up-to-date magazine, .303’s for the most part, and the ammunition was mostly the deadly, expanding Dum-dum. The agency that caused all these to be supplied—crafty, cruel, vengeful—may readily be guessed at.

The party filed through the gloom, the latter lighted here and there by a silvery network of moonlight piercing through the tree-tops. All were armed, but presently they would deposit their weapons in a safe hiding-place just on the outskirts of the forest. There was not much talk, and presently the glow of a fire was seen in front. Instinctively the band came to a halt. The apparition was patent of two interpretations. Either it meant a police patrol, and if so, their own presence here at such an hour was somewhat suspicious. Or, well, it was a thing of tagati, for, as we have said, the forest was a place to be avoided at night, and no one but themselves would have been likely to come into it.

“Go forward, my children,” commanded Sapazani, who had been walking behind. “We will rest by yon fire.”

They were astonished, but made no remark. Just before they reached it the chief gave a rapid order in a low undertone to a couple of young men who were nearest to him. These again had to conceal their astonishment, which was great.

A few minutes more and they arrived at the fire, beside which two men were squatting. No sooner was the party well within the circle of light than these sprang up, and threw themselves upon one of the new arrivals. Two more came to their aid, and in a moment the assailed one, in spite of his powerful struggles, was borne to the earth and securely tied. Again astonishment was the part of most of the onlookers, but their father and chief was present. The matter rested with him. The bound man lay, his eyes starting from his head, a picture of amazement combined with fear. Sapazani stood gazing down upon him in silence.

“Why art thou afraid, Sebela?” he said in an even tone.

“Nkose! I am afraid because I seem to have come under the frown of my father and chief,” answered the man. “But I have done no wrong.”

“No wrong? Hau! And is treachery no wrong?” said the chief, his tone now stern and denunciatory.

“Treachery? Now has some evil person been poisoning the ears of my father,” replied the prisoner, who fully realised the desperate strait he was in. “I would like to see that person.”

“Evil person, indeed; but he did not live long after his treachery had been found out. But he was a Kafula, and thou, Sebela, art one of ourselves. Whau, Sebela!”

“Whau, Sebela!” roared the squatting group in abhorrent contempt.

“But if he is dead he cannot speak now, my father,” pleaded the other, grasping at a straw. “It is only the word of one man, and he is a liar.”

“We shall see. First of all, what is the name of the other man who was with thee at Ezulwini?”

“Now it is of some one else my father is talking. Not for a long time past have I been at Ezulwini, and then it was alone,” was the answer.

“That is the first lie,” said Sapazani. Then turning to the others, “A dog who betrays his father’s house, what should be his fate?”

A roar went up—savage, vengeful, simultaneous.

“The fire! Give this dog to us, father. There is the fire all ready.”

Sapazani nodded. Willing, ferocious hands were upon Sebela. He was dragged to the glowing wood and stretched right against it, yet not before with his only available weapons he had bitten two fingers of one of his torturers nearly off.

“Is it warm enough, Sebela?” said the chief. “If it is, name, then, the other man who helped thee to sell thy father’s house to the whites.”

The wretched victim writhed hideously in the grasp of those who held him, indeed, so powerful were his struggles that it was all they could do to hold him down at all. He uttered no cry, but his wet face and rolling eyeballs and bared teeth testified to the agony he was undergoing. The spectators, their most savage passions aroused, gazed gloatingly on.

“Name him, name him, Sebela, that thy torments may cease,” repeated Sapazani.

“Pandulu.”

The name burst forth in a tone that was half gasp, half shriek. The agony of the wretch had become too great for the endurance of even a barbarian. At a sign from the chief he was dragged away from the fire.

“That for the one,” said the latter. “Now for the other. Name the other, Sebela.”

“There was no other, Nkose.”

“No other? What? Was the fire not hot enough? Take him back.”

But before the order could be carried out the victim decided that he could not face further torment. Every nerve in his body was throbbing with the agony he was undergoing.

“If I name him,” he groaned, “shall I die immediately the death of the spear instead of by fire?”

Sapazani thought a moment.

“If thou liest not—yes,” he answered.

“I have the chief’s promise.” And he named a name. It was that wrested from Pandulu at the point of the assegai under those same dark forest shades.

“This time thou hast not lied, Sebela,” said the chief. “Well, go.”

He made a sign, and in a moment as many assegais were driven into the body of the tortured wretch as there were of those wielding them who could get near enough, while those who could not pressed hungrily forward to get in their stab even after life was extinct. And it was that, well-nigh instantaneously.

“Ou! The justice of our father and chief!” cried the whole band as they surveyed their bloodstained blades and gazed adoringly at the splendid frame and majestic bearing of Sapazani. “He is the lion who will lead us to our meat. Ough—Ough—Ough!” in imitation of the roaring of the king of beasts.

“Gahle, my children,” said Sapazani warningly. “Yet forget not—when the time comes.”

Even as they moved away stealthy shapes were pattering up from afar. The blood scent carries an incredible distance to the nostrils of the wild creatures of the waste, and already there were many such, stealing amid the undergrowth, waiting until the fire should die, to quarrel and snarl over this unexpected feast. Even as in the case of the other victim which this grim forest had swallowed, there would be little left of this one to tell any tales. And the broad, cold moon shone relentlessly down.

Tekana, the son of Msiza, rose blithely in the blithe early morning before the sun had peeped over the rim of the world. He was a goodly youth, tall and supple, and as he left the kraal of his relative—a distant relative who was not over-attached to him, for his father was dead—his thoughts were the thoughts of love. He had been offering lobola for a girl whose father was the head of a kraal some five miles distant; but the said parent had fixed his price too high, and Tekana was in despair lest some richer suitor should step in and put him for ever out of the running. He had been dejected on this point for some time past, and had been wondering whether if he went away to work in the mines at Johannesburg for a year he could earn enough to make up the amount demanded, and to this end he had consulted one or two who had gone through that experience. In fact, he was for ever talking about it. His relative was surly and close-fisted, and, as we have said, had no great love for him; moreover, he had more than hinted of late that he preferred his room to his company. Yet a year was a long time, and once away, what might not happen? He was very much drawn to the girl, and she to him, but on that account her avaricious parent stuck firm to his price—eight good cows to wit, or their equivalent in hard English sovereigns, five of the cows payable, of course, in advance. Now Tekana could muster but three, and a doubtful one that a sympathising cousin had promised to lend him. He was in despair, and so was Ntombisa; in fact, she hinted to him that an elderly, unlovely suitor, with four wives already, and much cattle, had more than once cast his eyes upon her, and had been palavering with her father in rather an ominous way.

Then, suddenly, the whole situation had changed. Tekana owned another relative, who in turn was related to the induna of the court at Ezulwini, and this man had pointed out to him insidiously how money was to be made, and plenty of it. This would bring him Ntombisa at once. But he did not like the method of it—not at first. Not at first. But his relative proved that nothing would come of it. No harm would come to anybody, least of all to his chief. It would be a mere matter of Government officialism, and there the affair would end. Besides, he would actually be serving his chief if anything, in that the latter would be obliged to sit still, and thus be saved from joining in any trouble, which could only end in disaster and ruin. So Tekana swallowed the bait and accepted the price.

Thus Tekana was found to be wending his way in the blithe early morning, blithe at heart, to the kraal of his prospective father-in-law. He had got the balance of the lobola in good English sovereigns, and soon all the preliminary ceremonies of the marriage would be settled. Everything looked rosy.

“Au! Thou art hurried, brother. Whither bound?”

Four men were sitting on the grass by the side of the path. These had risen as he approached.

“For the kraal of Sondisi, but a short way hence,” he replied.

“First sit and take snuff,” one of them answered. “Thine errand will break no ox’s head.”

He could not refuse; yet it was with ill-concealed impatience that he sat down among them. Yet not quite among them. He knew them for Sapazani’s people, yet they were wearing European clothes. Tekana was no fool of a Zulu, wherefore this fact struck him as singular; moreover, his own conscience was not clear. So he squatted as much as he could on the edge of the group. Incidentally he squatted in such wise as to be able to spring to his feet in a fraction of a second.

The snuff-horn went round, and they chatted on about ordinary topics. The while Tekana was wondering why they were wearing clothes contrary to the chief’s deadly prejudice. They were wearing them awkwardly, too.

One of them, the nearest to Tekana, rose. But while in the act of passing behind him Tekana rose also, and not a moment too soon. From under the suspicious-looking coat was drawn a broad assegai, and he whipped round barely in time to avoid its full stroke. Each of the other three also had risen and held a broad, gleaming blade, and without a word came straight for him.

Tekana, as we have said, was no fool, also his conscience was not clear; moreover, he was quite unarmed except for a stick. With this he knocked the weapon from the first man’s grasp, and then, without a word, he started to run.

Now his chances were even. The assegais of his assailants were useless for throwing purposes, and could he but gain his goal first his prospective father-in-law would certainly afford him protection, if only to save all that lobola from slipping through his own fingers.

But his would-be murderers were as good at running as he, and he had no start. They, too, wasted no words as they sprinted in his wake, and there was scarcely a dozen yards between them. Yet the distance was evenly kept.

For about a hundred yards this went on. Then the hindermost of the pursuers stopped, and with lightning-like rapidity picked up a large stone. This he hurled with power and precision. It smote the hunted man hard and full on the base of the skull, bringing him to earth more than half stunned. In a moment four assegai blades were buried again and again in his body.

“The last of the three!” exclaimed one of the slayers, all of whom were panting after their run. “Here is a thick bush. We will hide him.”

This was done. Swinging it up by the wrists and heels they threw the body into the thickest part of a thick clump that grew just beside the track, not even troubling to see whether he had anything worth taking. Plunder was not their object. Thus disappeared Tekana, who had set forth so blithely in the early morning. When the next return should be made for purposes of poll-tax collecting it would be represented that Sebela and Tekana had gone away to work at the mines, as the latter had frequently expressed his intention of doing. Pandulu did not matter. He came from Natal, and had come secretly at that. He would not be missed.

Whereby two things are manifest—that Sapazani was a very dangerous man to betray, and that in a sparsely settled and savage country things are done that never come to the knowledge of the ruling race at all.

Chapter Eighteen.

The Mating.

“Yes, I have to be a bit careful,” Ben Halse was saying. “You see, I’ve got up a bit of a name—well, all we old-time traders were tarred with the same brush. I could name more than one who made his pile on the same terms; I could also name a big firm or two in Natal who has made a bigger pile on the same terms. However, we’re not running this load into the country, but out of it.”

The speaker and Alaric Denham were helping to load up a waggon, part of the contents of which were consigned for shipment at Durban. One important item of the load was a case containing the record koodoo head. There were other specimens, too, which Denham had collected.

The latter had been Ben Halse’s guest about three weeks now, and as he had only just got up his outfit, and luggage in general, from the coast port it looked as though he were destined to prolong his sojourn for some time. And, indeed, from his point of view, there was every inducement for doing so. He and the trader had taken greatly to each other, and once when he had mooted the idea of leaving the other would not hear of it.

“We seem all jolly together,” Ben Halse had said, in his bluff, straightforward way. “You take us as you find us, and you seem to me a man who would fit in anywhere. Further, you have got into a queer part of the world such as you may never get into again. You are collecting new things every day. So why hurry? You are welcome as long as you can stick it.”

To which Denham had replied that he had enjoyed every day of his stay as he had seldom if ever enjoyed anything; and he would give himself plenty of time to wear out his welcome. And he and his host had sealed the compact then and there over a glass of grog.

Now he said—

“I shall be relieved when this load is fairly on board. That head, you know, is a sort of a nightmare. All the rest put together isn’t in with it.”

“Oh, you can trust Charlie Newnes,” said the trader. “He’s a straight, reliable man as ever was—a darn sight more so than lots of men who are quite white—and stands well with those who baas this show now. I was shooting what I chose here in these parts when these new officials—damn them!—were being licked at school, before ever they dreamed of coming here to tell an old up-country man like me that he mustn’t shoot this and mustn’t shoot that. I don’t know what the devil we’re all coming to. Oh, here is Charlie.”

A tall, well-set-up young fellow appeared on the scene. He was the son of a well-known old-time trader by a Zulu wife, but in him the European had predominated to such an extent that outside Africa he might have passed for a white man. There was, however, a certain lithe suppleness about his walk and movements that would have given him away in a moment to any South African not of the town born and bred.

“Well, Charlie,” said Ben Halse; “it’s all loaded up now. Mr Denham says he won’t close his eyes until he knows his cargo’s shipped, so be sure and impress upon Garland that he must send word at once.”

“That’ll be all right, Mr Halse; Mr Denham can rest easy,” answered the young fellow. “If there’s a reliable agent in Durban for anything under the sun, from shipping an elephant to the Zoo to sending a youngster to sea properly equipped, Mr Garland’s the man.”

“Well, then, you can trek. Come in and have a drop of square face first.”

“Well, Mr Halse, I don’t often take anything,” said the young fellow deprecatorily. “But—once in a way.”

The refection was duly consumed, and the waggon rolled its way down the hill.

“Your stuff’ll be all right, Mr Denham, never fear,” said Charlie Newnes, as they shook hands. Then he started to overtake the waggon.

“That’s a fine young fellow,” said Denham, looking after the outfit. “I should think he and his like would count for something in this country, in the long run.”

“Oh, I don’t know. They are rather between the devil and the deep sea,” answered the trader. “There are quite a lot of them about—decent, respectable chaps for the most part. Neither one thing nor the other. I knew his father well in the old days. Bob Newnes ran the whole north-western part of this country before and after the war of ’79. He made his pile a good bit.”

“Father, you are giving yourself away,” laughed Verna.

“Oh, I’ve done that already before. Well, what does it matter? Any fool can see I’m no chicken.”

“You’re a jolly well-preserved one, Halse,” said Denham. “No one would have given you credit for such far-back experiences if you hadn’t told them yourself.”

“They used to call me a gun-runner, you know, Denham—do still, in fact. We were all gunrunners in those days, as I was telling you just now. But what the devil did it matter? No one was damaged by any gunshot during the war of ’79, except in a couple of stray instances, for the average Zulu is such a wretched shot he couldn’t hit a cathedral. Since then—well, when they fought each other, there was no harm in supplying them with as many as they wanted.”

Verna was beginning to feel uncomfortable, and some mysterious telepathy made Denham aware of the fact.

“Of course,” he answered cheerily. “Don’t we build war-ships on the Clyde and Tyne and at Belfast for foreign Powers to use against ourselves if they want to? It seems to me there’s precious little difference, if any at all.”

“Bless your soul, no. Well, I raft up some pretty good loads for the Usutu in the mid-eighties, when they were at each other’s throats here. The Usutu paid the best, you see. The other side had got their own white men—John Dunn and others. We weren’t over-ridden with officialdom in those days. Those were times, but they’ve all gone. Verna, if you’re still on to that picnic, suppose you give us breakfast.”

“That picnic” was a ride which she and Denham had planned down into the forest country in search of specimens. They had taken several of the kind already.

Yes, several. And Denham, thrown into the daily society of this girl, had come to the conclusion that such society was necessary to him, daily, and thenceforward. His life since he had been here had been an idyll, he told himself, a sheer idyll. Why should it not be a permanent one? Strangely enough, with all his advantages and experiences Denham was singularly modest. Why should he expect Verna to leave her father at the call of a mere stranger? Why should he expect her father to be ready to part with her? They were so happy together, so wrapt up in each other; and he, after all, what was he but a mere stranger? And then there was something darker at the back of that, but it he put away from his thoughts. Still, it would obtrude.

Sometimes the thought of his wealth and position would come to his aid. But immediately it would strike him that such counted for nothing here. If ever there was an independently-minded man on earth it was his host, and as for Verna, why, she was clean outside all his experience of the other sex. Then again would come in that strange and subtle sympathy, which would well up at times during their close and daily companionship.

The atmosphere of the Lumisana forest was not so stuffy and fever-breathing now. A touch of approaching winter was upon it, and from the blue, unclouded sky the sun no longer shot down rays of torrid heat. So as the pair threaded the narrow path, closely shut in overhead by towering tree-tops, the horses showed no sign of weariness or distress.

“I don’t much like bringing them in here,” Verna said. “There’s tsetse at times. But it has turned so much cooler that I think it’s safe.”

They were riding in single file, she leading. It was a wonderful road. Tall trees shutting out the light; ropes of monkey trailers dangling to the ground, thick undergrowth and long grass making that peculiar translucent hue such as you may see by taking a deep dive into a tropical sea. Not many bird voices, but here and there one, for birds prefer the outskirts of inhabited lands, and the remotest depths of forest are not to their taste.

“Shall we lunch here, Verna?” said Denham, as they came out upon a small open space where a runnel of water flowed into a pool. In the course of their close companionship he had got into the way of calling her by her name. It had come naturally to both of them somehow. She, for her part, had, of late, never called him anything at all.

“Yes; it’s as good a place as any, and, I’ll tell you now, it’s where the record head was shot. I never would bring you here before, you know, but—here we are.”

And she flashed a merry laugh at him.

“By Jove! that’s capital. Now we’ll ‘reconstitute’ the whole performance, as the French police do in a murder case. Now, show me. Where was the koodoo, and where were you?”

“First of all, about the horses,” she said; “we must keep them hitched up, we can’t knee-halter them because it’s swampy the other side of the vlei, and once they got into that, why—good-night. We should have to walk home and break the news as gently as we could to father.”

They loosened the girths only, having first allowed the animals to drink; and then Verna, in as few words as possible, showed him the positions of the whole affair.

“It’s nothing to brag about,” she ended up. “I’ll own to one bit of conceit about it, though. I told father that it seemed a thousand pities my name shouldn’t figure as having shot the record koodoo head of the world, even if it was only in a private collection. He said that it could—however, we’ve settled all that now.”

“Well, he was wrong, for, on second thoughts, it can’t.”

“What’s the joke?” she said, fairly mystified.

“None at all, it’s dead serious,” speaking quickly. “I shan’t label it as shot by Verna Halse, but by Verna Denham. Those are my conditions. How do they strike you—darling?”

Her face flushed, then grew pale, then flushed again. In the world of adoring love in her eyes he read his answer. She put forth both hands, which he seized.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Yes, but, I do know. Yet, listen, Alaric”—it was the first time she had ever used his name, and it came out sweetly—“are you sure you mean what you say? For instance, supposing you were to go away for six months, would you come back and say it all the same?”

“I’ve no intention of trying any such idiotic experiment, and, fortunately, such an utterly unnecessary one. Well?”

“How long have we known each other?” she answered. “Barely a month, certainly not more. We have been thrown together all day and every day. Are you sure that such propinquity has not something to do with it?”

He laughed good-humouredly, tolerantly.

“That’s all very well,” she went on, “but this is serious. What can you see in me, you who have seen so much and so many, the not even half educated daughter of an up-country trader, whose bringing up has given little opportunity for the ordinary refinements, let alone for acquiring accomplishments? And with all these deficiencies I should very soon pall upon you.”

“I shall have to laugh directly,” he answered. “Half educated? Why, you’ve been arguing against yourself with a grip of your points which would be worthy of the smartest K.C., and with a terseness which would not earn him his fee. What can I see in you?”—and his tone became very vehement and very serious. “I can see in you attributes which, taken together, should render any woman irresistible—a rare physical attractiveness, an unbounded power of sympathy, and a staunchness that would stand by a man through the worst that might befall him. Is that sufficient, or must I go on adding to it?”

Verna’s eyes had filled as he was speaking. The words, the tone, seemed to burn through her whole being; but there was a smile upon her lips—very soft, very sweet.

“And can you see—really see all that in me, Alaric?”

“All that, and a great deal more,” he answered vehemently, drawing her to him. “So now give me your first kiss.”

“Darling, I will.”

The sun streamed hotter and hotter into the open space, frogs croaked among the reeds surrounding the burnished surface of the pool; a lemur, swinging and bounding on high among the twisted tree-trunks, stared down, blinking his beady eyes and cocking his pointed snout; a large snake lay coiled in the grass hard by, wondering if safety rested in lying still or beating a retreat; half-a-hundred of the eyes and lives of the forest were witness to the beginning of the mating of these two, witnesses, as they may have been to the darker deeds of blood which these grim shades had so lately contained.

Chapter Nineteen.

The Forest.

“And all this time we have been forgetting our picnic,” reminded Verna merrily.

They undid the saddle bags and spread out the contents. Nothing had been forgotten, for had not she herself packed them?

“Why, this might be an up-the-river jaunt,” said Denham, as the appetising daintiness of each article of food revealed itself. And then these two healthy people, realising perfectly that there is a time for the material as well as for the romantic, fell-to with a will.

Not much was said as they took the homeward way; for one thing, it is difficult to converse when you are riding single file, and to keep a bright look out for projecting boughs or tangling trailers calculated to sweep you from your saddle in summary and unpleasant fashion at the same time. Yet there was a glow of happiness in the hearts of both, that could do without words. Again, as on their way forth, Denham was contemplating his guide with feelings of intense admiration and love; but now, superadded, the exultation of security. And yet—we have said that he was a singularly modest man, for one of his personal gifts and material advantages—he still found himself wondering what a woman like this could see in him.

“You’re not conversational, Alaric,” said Verna, over her shoulder. “What’s the subject of the meditation?”

“I ought to answer ‘you—and you only,’ but it wouldn’t be true. The fact is, I have been obliged to divide contemplation of you with an enduring and superhuman effort to save myself from dangling—an executed corpse—from any one of these confounded trailers.”

She laughed—merrily, happily.

“Well, I can’t spare you yet. Look! the stuff’s thinning here. You can come alongside again.”

Hardly had he done so than both horses cocked their ears, snuffing uneasily.

“Why, what is it?” exclaimed Denham, rising in his stirrups to peer forward. “By Jove! It’s a skeleton. Let’s investigate.”

He dismounted, and helped Verna from the saddle. They were careful to hitch up the horses, and then went forward.

As Denham had said, it was a skeleton, or rather what was left of one. The skull was separated from the trunk and the dry rib-bones were mostly scattered, while those of the limbs still held together. But just beside it was the unmistakable remnant of what had been a fire, and a large one at that.

“What does it mean?” said Denham. “Some poor devil got lost, and died of starvation beside his own fire?”

Verna shook her head. She was gazing down thoughtfully at the white bones and their surroundings.

“That’s not the reading of it,” she said. “That’s no white man’s skull. Look at the teeth. Further, its owner’s end was not starvation.”

“How knowest thou that, O Sherlock Holmes up to date?” Denham had picked up the skull and was examining it with interest. “At any rate, he didn’t die from a bang on the head.”

“No; but he was killed, all the same, by others.”

“Sherlock Holmes again. Go on.”

“Well, no self-respecting native with the fear of Inswelaboya and other horrors of the night before his eyes, that is to say, any native, would dream of coming in here alone for anything you could offer him.”

“Wait a bit, Sherlock,” laughed the other. “I think I’ve got you on one point. You said ‘horrors of the night.’ How do you know it was night?”

“I deduce it from the size of the fire. Such a big one as it was would never have been built in the daytime. There must have been several in it; the ground is too dry for tracks to show, but for some reason or other this one has been killed by the rest.”

“Verna, you are simply wonderful. Talk about woodcraft!”

She looked pleased.

“Well,” she said, “I know the people and their ways. Not only that”—looking rather serious—“I hear and overhear things that you wouldn’t understand, or rather wouldn’t be able to get behind even if you had a fair amount of the language at your disposal, and you’re not making a bad progress under my poor tuition, Alaric.”

“Delighted. Only it isn’t ‘poor.’”

She made laughing rejoinder, and these two happy people talked on lightly, or half seriously by turns, rejoicing ill their newly-welded happiness. And the skull stared drearily up from the ground, sad relic of a fellow-creature done to death here in the forest gloom amid every circumstance of torment and blood.

“Hallo! what’s the matter with the gees?” said Denham suddenly. “They seem unhappy about something, and it can’t be only about this old skull.”

For the horses were showing great uneasiness, snorting and snuffing and striving to free themselves.

“They’ve seen or scented something,” pronounced Verna.

“Well, we’d better investigate,” said Denham, holding ready the small bore, yet hard-hitting, rifle he had brought with him in view of “specimens,” and advancing in the direction to which the horses’ fears pointed. “Keep back, Verna. It may be a snake or a leopard.”

Hardly were the words uttered than a serpentine head and neck of a dull yellow colour rose up out of the herbage, then subsided, with a half-startled hiss. Denham felt his sleeve plucked, as though to arrest his advance.

“Leave it, and come away,” Verna whispered. “It’s the indhlondhlo. They’re frightfully dangerous.”

“Leave it?” he whispered back. “Why, it’s the very thing I’ve been hoping to come upon all these weeks! Leave it? Not for anything.”

“Not for me?”

“For you? Wait a bit, Verna, and follow my plan. You’ll see something directly. Take the rifle”—handing it to her—“go a few yards back, and when I clench my open hand behind me, like this, shoot. Aim at the lowest part of the neck so as not to spoil the skin. But don’t make any sudden movement whatever you do.”

His nerves were thrilling now with excitement suppressed but intense. All the “collector” was predominant; he only saw before him the “specimen,” the rare “specimen,” which he had coveted so long in vain. Dangerous! Well, many wild animals were that, but they were “collected” all the same.

“But I warn you it’s deadly dangerous,” she repeated; yet she carried out his orders implicitly.

Denham began to whistle in a low, but exquisitely clear tone. This he raised gradually, but always continuous, and never sounding a false note. The effect was magical. The yellow head and neck shot up again above the herbage, waved a moment, then remained perfectly still. No hissing or hostile sign proceeded from the entranced reptile, for entranced it certainly was. Verna waiting, the rifle held ready, was entranced too, and as those sweet, clear notes swelled by degrees higher and higher to sink in faultlessly harmonised modulation, then to rise again, something of an eerie magnetism thrilled through her being as though she shared the influence with the formidable and deadly reptile thus held in thrall. Moments seemed hours. Would he never give the signal? A little more of this and even her nerves would be too much strung to reply to it.

The melody rose higher and higher, but always correspondingly clear. More of the reptile’s length towered up now. Without taking her eyes off it, Verna saw the hand behind Denham close. Her finger pressed the trigger. The yellow neck flung back with a quick, whip-like movement, and there was a rustling among the herbage which told its own tale.

“Did you hit?” whispered Denham, without turning his head.

“Oh yes; you can never make any mistake about that when you’re behind a rifle. But—”

She broke off in amazement. The other had gone quite white, or at any rate as white as his bronze sunburn would allow. He seemed aware of it himself.

“You did it magnificently,” he said, passing a hand over his eyes as though to clear them. “You know,” he went on, half in apology, half in explanation, “that sort of thing takes it out of one. It isn’t only the musical part of it. A certain amount of magnetism, of expenditure of force, comes in. But let’s inspect the quarry.”

“Careful, dearest. We’d better make sure it’s quite dead. They are frightfully venomous.”

“Wherefore you want to take the lead,” flinging a restraining arm around her. “That won’t do at all.”

But all danger was over. Verna’s bullet had severed the spinal cord. The reptile was dead, but the muscular vitality kept its coils writhing in a manner suggestive of lingering life. All the collector again was uppermost in Denham as he contemplated the writhing booty. He saw it already carefully and naturally set up in his museum.

“Can’t be less than seven feet,” he said, turning it about gingerly with a stick. “But, darling, what a dead shot you are! All my best specimens you obtain for me.”

“But I shouldn’t have obtained this one if you hadn’t kept it still in the first instance. Alaric, you never told me you added snake-charming to your other accomplishments. Do you know, though, if it had been anybody else I should have thought it decidedly uncanny. Have you done much of it?”

“Only tried it once before in my life. Then it came to me as a sudden idea. I thought I’d experimentalise again in this instance. I happen to be able to whistle rather above the average, so I was always careful to keep the note clear. I had a sort of feeling that the least break would destroy the spell at once. By the way, think there’s another anywhere about?—they say snakes go in couples.”

“No, no, no!” she answered, instinctively slipping a restraining hand beneath his arm. “Be content with this one. Besides, we have got to get it home.”

“So we have, by Jove!” with a glance up at the sun. “Now let me think of the best way to work. The horses won’t stick it near them, I’m afraid. But this is worth having, and no mistake. They grow larger than this, though, don’t they, Verna?”

“Yes,” she answered, with a touch of anxiety. “But they are very rare and very dangerous. A snake isn’t like a lion or anything of that sort. He’s about ten times as quick, and offers no mark for a bullet, and if you use shot you spoil the skin. No; be content with this one.”

“Why, you sworn big-game huntress, you talk with weighty wisdom. Now I am still debating the difficult problem of how to get this specimen home.”

“Nkose! Nkosazana!”

Both started. In their preoccupation they had been totally unaware of the presence of any third person. They looked up to become aware of the presence of such, in the person of a tall Zulu, and he Mandevu. The appearance of the latter caused Denham some vague uneasiness. It seemed as though this man were dogging him. The next words were not calculated to allay the feeling.

“That was a great snake,” he said, “and well killed. Whau! when last I saw a snake bewitched like that it was not so well killed, it was cut nearly in half. Nkose must be isanusi to have the power of keeping a snake—two snakes—still in such wise.”

Verna translated this for Denham’s benefit, and translated it well, word for word. Inwardly it puzzled her a little, for it seemed to convey some hidden meaning. But to her companion the words were disquieting, to say the least of it, and more than ever confirmed the idea that the Zulu was following him from place to place with a purpose.

“Tell him, Verna,” he said, “that I want this taken home. If he has any boys he can fetch them along, and they shall be well paid, nor will I forget himself.”

This was put. Mandevu thought he could find the boys—there was a kraal a little way off. He would see. This Verna knew to be absolutely untrue, but Denham was delighted. He presented Mandevu with a half-sovereign, intimating that there was more where that came from when the service required should be accomplished. That worthy strode off into the forest on the spot.

Verna was rather silent as they sat and waited. That curious instinctive consciousness of being watched or followed was upon her. She did not believe that Mandevu had come upon them by mere chance or that he was alone. She remembered their meeting with him near Sapazani’s kraal, and also that Denham had run against him twice at Ezulwini. Now if they, or either of them, were being watched, to what end? And here she owned herself puzzled.

Presently Mandevu reappeared with two boys. Meanwhile Denham had been doctoring his prize with some subtle chemical substance by way of preservative. He did not notice that none of them looked in the direction of the skeleton, plainly visible from there. He was too intent upon his new find. But Verna did. However, as she had said, she knew the people, so forbore to remark upon it. Yet a muttered exclamation on the part of one of the two did not escape her.

“Whau! The snake of Sebela! It, too, is dead.”

And hearing it, a good deal of the mystery of the skeleton was solved. For she had known Sebela—alive. The forest had its secrets. Its shades witnessed scenes intensely human—dark as well as golden.

Chapter Twenty.

Sergeant Dickinson’s Find.

Meanwhile some curious and somewhat startling circumstances were developing. Sergeant Dickinson, N.P., stationed at Makanya, was—as we heard Harry Stride say in substance—an astute officer. So astute was he as to render him unpopular with a section of the natives, and notably with those who were disaffected. Twice, indeed, had his life been attempted by these, but with firm faith in the proverb, “Threatened men live long,” such attempts had not seriously affected him. They were “all in the day’s work,” and only served to create a little excitement in an otherwise rather monotonous round.

Harry Stride’s find of the saddle below the Bobi drift had come to him as a godsend. Could he work up a case out of it? He thought about it a good deal, and round and round; but this was after he had started with one of the four troopers under his command on a patrol immediately, and the two were threading the several hours of difficult and rugged forest path in the direction of the find.

He had no difficulty in locating the exact spot. Stride’s description had been lucid and accurate—the drift itself, of course, was well-known to him.

“The thing to do, Symes,” he said, “is to examine both banks right the way down. If the saddle was here there may be other things further on. We’ll take this side first.”

Carefully Dickinson quartered the river bank, the trooper leading both horses. It was rough going, but both were young and hard. Suddenly the trooper exclaimed—

“Look there, Dickinson!”

He was pointing to the other side. Something like a strip of clothing was fluttering from a bush hardly above water level. When the river was higher it would have been beneath it.

Now a strip of clothing in that position, amid the wildest part of the very wild Makanya forest, was a thing to attract attention. The natives frequently wore clothes, it was true; still, under the circumstances Sergeant Dickinson thought it worthy of note. And just as he had so decided, something else caught his attention.

“Symes,” he said quickly, “I’m going to swim across. I fancy there’s something worth finding on the other side.”

“Swim across?” said Symes, with an expletive. “I wouldn’t. The river’s full of blooming crocs.”

“I know. But we’ll give ’em a holy scare first.”

“Why not ride round by the blanked drift and come down the bank?” said Trooper Symes. “This is a plaguy rotten deep hole.”

“Because of that krantz. It comes right down to the water, and to dodge it means the devil’s own delay getting here. And if what I see is what I think, why, every minute is important.”

He had thrown off his tunic—he knew better than to throw off all his clothes to swim a crocodile-infested river, for with this obnoxious saurian, as with the wily shark, experience goes to show that a clothed man is safer than an unclothed one; possibly there is something alarming in the artificiality of his clothes—or is it the bad fit of his tailor? Now he drew his revolver and so did the trooper. Both fired several shots into the water at various points.

“But what in blazes d’you think you do see?” said Symes.

“I’ll tell you when I get to the other side,” and Sergeant Dickinson took the water with a mighty splash.

It was not very wide there, though smooth and deep. A few long, strong strokes and the swimmer was on the other side, holding his revolver holster high above water in one hand, for he of all people did not care to be unarmed in that locality.

Eagerly, excitedly, he climbed up the bank. An exclamation of satisfaction mingled with utter disgust escaped him.

“Symes,” he called out. “You’ve got to go back to camp as hard as you can push your horse; hitch mine up to the bush yonder, but firmly. Get my kodak—see it’s not been used since I filled it yesterday—and then get back here as hard as ever you can.”

“Kodak! I’m blanked! You might let on what you’ve found,” grumbled Symes.

“It’s a head, man, a white man’s head. I can’t bring it across the river, it’s in such a disgusting condition that the damn thing’d tumble to pieces. Ugh! Must take its likeness to establish identity. So put your best leg forward.”

Trooper Symes at once laid himself out to sustain the traditional reputation of his rank. He swore.

“Don’t blab the affair in camp,” called out his superior, as he started.

The latter, left alone, began eagerly, with his investigations. Anything more revolting than the aspect of his find can hardly be imagined. Yet considering that it must have been in the water several days, and several more since it had been stranded through the subsidence of the river, it was surprising in what a recognisable state the swollen features were. Yet, the horror and repulsion of this revolting sight was merged in Dickinson’s professional exultation as he examined it long and attentively. It had not been severed by any sharp instrument, but presented the appearance of having been torn off. This pointed to the agency of crocodiles. Yet why had they left it? Here was a mystery to be unearthed, a clue to go upon. Here was the corpus delicti. The bullet hole in the broken saddle which Stride had brought him was another link in the chain. Were there no others?

First there was the strip of clothing which he had seen from the other side. It he examined. It was of khaki-like material, something akin to that employed for the uniform of the Force, and yet different. Ah, what was this? Trailing in the river was the fragment of a coat, hitched to a thorn. In his eagerness to get at it he nearly fell into the water.

There was a pocket. Eagerly the sergeant’s hand investigated this, only to come in contact with what seemed a mass of pulp. He drew it forth. It slipped through his fingers and fell into the river—once it had been papers, but the immersion had reduced it to pulp, yet not quite all of it so escaped. One fragment remained, and it seemed to have been part of an extra strong envelope. This he examined eagerly. It bore a blurred and faded scrawl, most of which had entirely disappeared. By dint of the most patient and careful scrutiny Dickinson succeeded in making out—

H. Gold Box Jo

The rest had gone with the other fragment of the envelope—had run off to pulp.

“H. Gold—something. Box—something. Jo—hannesburg,” was how he pieced this scanty clue together. “Well, Johannesburg is all ‘gold,’ or it’s supposed to be,” and he grinned to himself at this lame joke. “But I wonder what’s the other half of the name—Goldstein or Goldschmidt, or Goldberg or Gold—what? Then, again, there must be tens of thousands of P.O. boxes there too, and it’s clearly one of these. But how the deuce one is to trace any of the thousands of children of Israel whose names begin with ‘Gold’ is another side of the joke.”

He carefully copied the fragment into his notebook, imitating as nearly as possible, and that was very nearly indeed, the character of the writing. Then he looked around in search of further fragments. There were none.

Dickinson got a couple of sticks, for he could not touch the loathly thing, and having first lighted his pipe, managed to get the head into a possible position for photographic purposes. Then he sat down—at a respectable distance—and began to study the features.

“One of the children of Israel, if ever there was one, and no mistake about it,” he decided. “Ugh, I’ve looked at the ugly thing long enough.”

Another pipe was filled and lighted. He felt hungry, and the stuff he had brought with him for lunch was in his holster on the other side. He did not care to swim the river alone, with no one to help scare potential crocodiles. He felt thirsty too, but he would have to feel a great deal more so before letting himself drink from the water that had held that dreadful thing facing him. He cut some boughs and placed them over it to keep off the flies, then returned to his seat in the demi-shade of a thorn-tree, and proceeded to elaborate theories with all his might—not that there was much to go upon as yet.

He stood a good chance for the next Sub-Inspectorship which should fall vacant; could he but work up this case successfully it would be the making of him. There was a girl over in Natal whom he wanted to marry, and to whom he was more than half engaged; but they had agreed to wait for the Sub-Inspectorship. It was hot, very hot. Would his comrade never come back? The hours wore on. The ripple and murmur of the river was soothing. Dickinson felt drowsy. Presently he slid more and more from his sitting posture and slept, and dreamed of the girl over in Natal.

He slept on and on, now hard and dreamlessly. But by that time Sergeant Dickinson, N.P., was in greater peril than he had ever been in his life.

“Yonder now, Shumilana,” whispered Mandevu. “The distance is near enough. It is not safe to go nearer, but at such short distance, for one who was taught to shoot when in the Nongqai, (in this instance the Zululand Native Police), and turned out of it through him who lies yonder, it is not possible to miss.”

And the two dark figures crouched down upon the rock which overlooked the sleeping Dickinson at about two hundred yards, while the discharged policeman stealthily drew forward his Martini rifle and carefully sighted it.

Wake up, Dickinson, for this man is one of the few natives who can use a rifle with accuracy of aim, and he has been taught by the ruling race. And he is drawing a fine “bead” on the two hundred yards sight. He held the same rank in his corps that you hold in yours, and it was through your agency that he was—rightly—degraded and dismissed the Force. He is as cool-nerved as you are yourself, and is not likely to miss. Wake up, if you would ever see the girl over in Natal again. Wake up, Dickinson!

Just then a lizard runs over the face of the sleeper, causing him to half jump up, half roll over. Bang, crash! and the bullet embeds itself in the trunk of the thorn-tree, which a second before had been supporting the weight of his body. It takes only another second for him to throw himself flat behind a mound of loose stones surmounted by a growth of short bush.

Sergeant Dickinson is as brave a man as there is in the Force, and that is saying a great deal. He realises now that he is in a tight corner. The rascal, whoever he may be, can shoot; moreover, he has a rifle, whereas he himself has only his regulation revolver. The enemy can keep beyond range and stalk him, from a distance, at leisure. And to enforce this side of the situation bang comes another bullet, right through the growth of bush which surmounts the loose stones. But a Martini is a slow-firing rifle, and the target, with lightning-like resource, has flattened down behind the stones.

“Good line that, damn him,” he growls, as the air caused by the humming missile is distinctly perceptible above his head. “Well, I’m done at last. He can’t go on missing all day.”

“I thought thou couldst shoot true, Shumilana,” whispers Mandevu. “Whau!”

The last, staccato. For a bullet has splattered hard against the rock upon which the two are lying. It has not come from the man in yonder flimsy cover, but from across the river. Another follows sharp, and it splinters the stock of Shumilana’s piece, causing him to drop it with a growl of pain, for the shock has strained the muscles of his wrist and numbed his whole arm. The two savages drop from their lurking-place and glide away like snakes into the thicker bush, only barely in time to avoid another bullet which rips viciously over them. And Trooper Symes chuckles as he rides down to the river bank, where the other horse whinnies excitedly at the reunion.

Dickinson’s first remark was characteristic.

“Got the kodak, Symes?”

“Of course. Here it is.”

“Well, I’ll bring it through.”

“No fear. It’ll save time if I do.”

Holding the case high above his head, Symes was through in a minute.

“It’s a case of sharp’s the word if we’re to catch the light,” said Dickinson, and forthwith he proceeded to uncover the ghastly relic. “There,” he went on, having taken half-a-dozen snapshots at every angle, “we’ve got the workings of something of a case.”

“Faugh! Ugly-looking devil, any way you look at him,” pronounced Symes. “A blanked ‘Sheeny’ if ever there was one.”

Characteristically again, then and only then did Dickinson refer to the very narrow escape he had had.

“What made you bring the rifle, Symes?”