Cynthia Stockley (continued 4)

“Ah! Good—That is good.—very good. I will come and see what I can do for you presently when I have fixed up my dear little woman.”

But Mr Skeffington-Smythe uttered never a word. Only, when next her Monty addressed a fond remark to her she very briefly and violently replied:

“Oh, shut up!”

It was plain that I was to be left to my fate. Adriana had brought some rugs and thrown them on to my dressing-case, and I seated myself upon them to consider the matter of accommodation for the night. A slight drizzle of rain began to fall, making the fires hiss softly, and throwing a sad little veil over everything.

Perhaps I looked nearly as hopeless and forlorn as Mrs Marriott, but I was far from feeling so. I had the light heart of the woman who loves and is beloved again, with the whole of life stretching out beautifully before me, and it would have taken more than all the rain out of heaven to drench the joy out of me that night. All the same it behoved me to be up and doing. There was no sense in getting wet and it also seemed indicated that I should rescue Mrs Marriott from a watery fate.

Certainly, I had heard her refuse to have anything to do with that nice, kind little Mrs Burney, but Mrs Burney had not had a passionate flame of love and faith re-lit in her heart that very night as I had. I felt loving-kind to all the world, and as though I could simply feed on snubs if only they came from some one who was really unhappy—not merely cross or spiteful.

And surely this poor woman sitting on the rugs was unhappy, and had cause to be. I remembered Dr Marriott’s face as he turned to the west, and the new light that had been lit in his doomed eyes by the strong, kind action of Anthony Kinsella—my Anthony Kinsella.

We were alone in the big yard now—Mrs Marriott and I; and silence reigned, except for the murmur of Mr Skeffington-Smythe’s voice inside the closed tent. Perhaps he was explaining to his dear little woman why he was the only man in the town not out on patrol or helping with the barricades.

I moved stealthily in the direction of my premeditated attack.

“Mrs Marriott!” I said in a pathetic way I have. “I do wish you would take care of me and let me stay with you to-night. I’ve been left out in the cold by the other women.”

She turned a pair of utterly tragic eyes upon me. Her mouth was the mouth of a woman with whom things had always gone wrong.

“I would rather be alone,” she said in her cold, dull way. This was not encouraging but I persisted, and my voice became very wistful indeed.

“Oh, do be friendly. I am a stranger here and I feel utterly lost. What does one do in laager?”

She looked at me vaguely.

“I don’t know. It is a new kind of misery to me, too.”

“Well, let’s beat it out together, shall we? We ought to be able to find a corner somewhere. Will you come with me to search?”

She stared at me for a moment, then stood up hesitatingly. I made haste to lead the way. After making a tour of the verandah and looking into every window we came to, we went inside and tried all the doors. Most of them were locked, signifying that the room was full-up. At last there was no place left except to try the room where the sorting and storing of mails went on. The main part of this was a wide passage with a door at each end—an impossible place to camp out in. However, there was a counter with a wooden partition above it, and going behind this I discovered quite a cosey little retreat. It had rather a mail-baggy smell, but that was a trifle to be ignored in such times of stress as these.

“We can make ourselves quite comfy here,” I said. “When we have locked both doors in case the postmaster unexpectedly returns. Now let us get our mattresses and rugs, shall we?”

She had no mattress: only a few striped coloured blankets of the kind that the natives drape around themselves. However, I had plenty of rugs, and my mattress though narrow was wide enough for two at a pinch. But she jibbed at sharing it.

“Why should I make you uncomfortable?” she said.

I stared at her and laughed. “Dear Mrs Marriott, I shall be ever so much more uncomfortable if you don’t. Now be a brick and do as I ask you.”

For some unknown reason her eyes filled with tears and her mouth began to quiver in a queer way. I turned away hastily, and having bolted the outside door began to barricade it with a heap of empty mail-bags. Whilst I was rummaging I came quite by accident upon the postmaster’s little private supply of stores, and in the spirit of martial-law I immediately commandeered them for the public benefit. There were sugar, tea, candles, some tins of “bully beef” and a canister of delicious-smelling coffee.

“Banzai! We’ll be able to make some coffee to keep their spirits up—they must be jolly tired. Come along, Mrs Marriott, let’s go and commandeer some of that crockery and the kettle of water in the yard.”

She seemed quite keen, so we unbarred and unbolted again and went out to the yard-fire where the kettle was still lustily boiling, and in five minutes we had two large jugs full of excellent coffee ready. There is a saying that Boers come to coffee as the asvogels come to dead ox. Very disgusting, but evidently true, for the smell of our coffee woke up the Boer family in their prison cell and they came meandering forth, sat down in a ring round the fire, and looked so wistfully and eloquently at the big jug that we had to give them some all round, especially as we were using their crockery. Afterwards they lent us their beakers and enamel cups and we made a forced march to the barricades. When the barricaders also smelt the arôme de Java on the breeze and saw the big jugs we were carrying they raised a cheer, and the postmaster said:

“By the Lord, that’s my coffee, or I’m a Boer!”

We gave him a cup for forgiveness’ sake, and Colonel Blow too, and afterwards the rest of them came up in parties and we ministered to them, washing the cups after each lot in a pail of water. When all the white men had finished, we served the black constables and convicts a beakerful apiece, Colonel Blow having sent to their quarters for their own beakers. The convicts, melancholy-looking fellows, surveyed me with a shy curiosity, I suppose because I was a newcomer. But Colonel Blow for some reason seemed to resent their looking at me, for as soon as he noticed it he gave a rough order in the native tongue that made them all look hurriedly in another direction.

I told the postmaster that we had invaded his sanctum, but he was quite charming about it, and at once bestowed upon us the freedom of the post-office. He said we could even use the postage stamps if they were of any use to us.

Later Mrs Marriott and I returned to our lettery retreat. When we were at last tucked in under our rugs with the candle out I asked her to give me her advice about what I should do next day.

“But I don’t understand, quite,” she said. “Aren’t you staying with the Salisbury ladies?”

“I was,” said I. “Mrs Valetta is supposed to be chaperoning me in the absence of my sister-in-law, but she has thrown up the position.”

“But—what have—what could you have done to offend her?”

“She has offended me.”

“But—can’t it be patched up? Can’t you overlook her offences? I don’t see how a young girl like you can live alone here.”

“I’m quite willing to patch up,” said I. “She and Mrs Skeffington-Smythe and Miss Cleeve were all very rude to me, but—because of certain circumstances I can almost forgive them. However, I’m afraid they mean to declare war.”

“Well, but—forgive me for asking—what could you have done?”

“Weren’t you out seeing the patrol go off to-night?” I ventured.

“No!” she said in an abrupt kind of way, and I remembered then that I had not seen her in the crowd. She had of course said good-bye to her husband at home.

“I hardly know any of the men here,” she presently continued, “except Major Kinsella, and he came in during the afternoon to say good-bye. I thought it particularly nice of him to remember me—but then he is always kind.”

“It is about Major Kinsella that all the trouble is,” I said in a low voice. I thought I had better tell her the real story instead of letting her hear an embroidered version from some one else. She was silent.

“Anthony Kinsella and I love each other,” I said. “Before he rode away I kissed him good-bye before every one,”—I could not go on. The thought of that wonderful moment, and then, the sadness and bitterness of losing my lover overwhelmed me; my voice trembled and broke. A thin nervous hand grasped mine and held it tightly under the rugs. Yet her voice sounded doubtful when she spoke.

“He is a splendid fellow—any girl would be proud and happy to get him; but isn’t he—? I seem to have heard somewhere that he is—”

“Oh, don’t!” I cried. “Don’t! I’m sick of hearing it. That is what they all say. That is my offence against the manners and morals of this place—kissing a married man—” My hand was suddenly loosed and I could feel her draw away from me in the darkness. “But I don’t believe it for one moment!” I cried almost violently. “And I refuse to let these odious people poison my heart with their lies. I know he is a free man. He is incapable of lying.”

“Oh!” she said quickly and warmly, “if he told you he is free it is surely true. I do not believe either that he would lie.” She took my hand again and squeezed it.

“He did not tell me in words,” I said. “But his eyes could not lie to me. Oh, Mrs Marriott, he has such brave true eyes—”

“I know—” she began, and then fell silent again.

“Ah! you are like the rest,” I burst out bitterly, throwing her hand away from me, “ready to believe evil of a man whom you admit you have never known to be anything but kind and generous.”

“Don’t say that—it is not that I wish to believe evil, but I know men—a little, and my experience is that the best of them are terribly weak—and you are a very lovely girl. It is not impossible to think that he may have lost his head—”

“No, no, no!” I cried, “it is not so. I tell you I saw his eyes when he said good-bye to me. I will believe them against all the world.”

I felt that I had convinced her, too, even against her will—that was something. She never again chilled me with unbelief in my man.

But as to getting any advice out of her about my immediate course of action—it was simply hopeless. The poor woman’s unhappiness seemed to have dimmed her perception of what was going on round her in a place where she had lived for eight months. She knew of no place where I could stay. Did not even know if there were any hotels, or how many! I had to give her up as a guide and preceptor; but I was glad of the nervous pressure of her thin hand again before we slept, and something she said left my heart thrilling with happiness even while it ached for her.

“The men up here are all kind—but Major Kinsella’s kindness to me has been so different—there has never been any pity in it—you don’t know what that has meant to me—and his way with Rupert! He treats him as though he is still—Oh! perhaps you can understand?”

“As though he is still a man!”—that is what she would have said but her lips would not say it.

Poor soul! hers was the fag-end of a romance indeed!

Chapter Ten.

Charity Calls.

“To know anything about one’s self one must know all about others.”

The big main doors of the post-office were thrown open at an early hour of morning but the inmates of laager did not rise with the lark. They trickled forth at intervals, according to their use in life and the duties to be performed by them. When I came out on the verandah facing the barricades I found it strewn with the sleeping forms of men.

I stood for a moment looking at the landscape glowing and scintillating under the sparkling morning sunlight. Across the veldt a small body of horsemen came cantering towards the town; the men who had been out all night on picket duty.

I had slipped away from Mrs Marriott, for having long ago heard how sensitive she was about her tiny, barely-furnished hut, I did not want to cause her the embarrassment of offering to share it with me. I was looking at the mounting of one of the big guns and pondering the question of which hotel I should try, when Mrs Valetta swept past, her face coldly averted, and just the faintest suspicion of an intention to hold her skirt away from me. I flushed, then smiled disdainfully at the uplifted nose of Anna Cleeve who followed in her wake. Neither of them spoke a word. I had a childish inclination to whistle a time just to show them I didn’t care a button, but I conquered it, and started instead to pick my way through the wet grassy paths towards the Imperial Hotel—I had suddenly remembered that Hendricks had said the Imperial was kept by a woman.

Half-way across the township I was caught up by the doctor, and when I told him where I was bound for he very agreeably offered to escort me. But he peered at me curiously as if to know the reason of this odd departure. Arrived at the long, galvanised-iron building which glared and blinked in the morning sun, he left me in the verandah with the assurance that he would send Mrs Baynes out to me. A few minutes later I made the discovery that Mrs Baynes was the dropsical duchess with whom I had shared a staring acquaintance the night before. She immediately resumed her observations, but she was professionally civil and obsequious until she found that I wished to engage a room; her manner then underwent a series of rapid changes—from curiosity to amazement, to hauteur, to familiarity. She began to “my dear” me! I swallowed my indignation as best I might and assumed not to notice her impertinence, for I was beginning to fear that she would not take me in and there would be nothing for me but Swears’s.

“Aoah!” she said at last. (She had a peculiarly irritating way of pronouncing “oh!”) “Aoah! I thought you were staying with Mrs Valetta and all that swagger lot.”

She examined me intently from my hat to my shoes as though she had not done the same thing thoroughly the night before.

“Have you no rooms to let?” I repeated politely.

“Well—I don’t know—it depends.” She paused, tapping some dark blue teeth reflectively with her finger-nail whilst apparently counting the number of tucks in my skirt. She then closely inspected the gathers round my waist, and my belt-buckle.

“What does it depend upon?” I asked with deadly calm.

“Aoah! a lot of things.” She threw her head sideways revealing a generous splendour of double chin, and shouted over her shoulder in a tremendous voice. “Fanny! Come yerea minit.”

Fanny arriving was revealed as the tall and Junoesque girl with the swishing petticoat and the Wellington nose.

“This lady wants a room. What do you think, Fan?”

Fanny gazed at me in a queenly way over her military nose; but when she proceeded to count the tucks in my skirt and examine my belt-buckle I felt fury rising in me like a tidal wave.

“Madam!” I said, freezing the landlady with my eyes. “Will you be good enough to answer my question definitely? Can I or can I not engage a room in this hotel—and have my meals served to me there?”

“Aoah! meals served in bedroom! I never heard of such a thing.”

I turned away hot with wrath and met the eyes of Colonel Blow and Maurice Stair who had just come round the corner of the hotel and entered the verandah. They looked amazed at finding me there, so I explained hastily and haughtily to the former whilst Mr Stair and the doctor listened frankly, and the eyes of Mrs Baynes and “Fanny” seared the back of my frock and hat. Afterwards Colonel Blow said quietly and emphatically:

“Of course you have a room for this lady, Mrs Baynes—the best in the house. You can put me anywhere you like.” He added deliberately, “It would be a good thing to take Miss Saurin to her room at once and give her some breakfast.” There was no mistaking the “I-am-the-Commandant-and-mean-to-be-obeyed” tone of his voice.

He was probably Mrs Baynes’s best boarder in any case. Without a word she led the way, while “Fanny” dwindled from the scene like a bad dream. We walked through the dining-room, bare of anything but a long table and some dissipated-looking chairs, down a passage, and into a back verandah which had a row of doors facing the sunrise. At the third door she stopped and flung it wide:

“There you are!” she snapped. “Four pounds a week with board—paid in advance. Take it or leave it—I don’t care.”

She flounced away and left me. I went in and gazed about me. I had never been in a more hopelessly impossible room in my life.

One night just as we were straggling into laager, the look-out reported a small party of persons on the horizon, riding very slowly towards the town. It was not time for a change of pickets, neither could it be a patrol returning for there was no patrol out. When these two facts were thoroughly digested every one pranced for their field glasses, and the laager verandah became crowded with very busy people full of curiosity and excitement at the thought of news from the front. Later, as the little group came nearer to us out of the glamour of evening shadows it was seen to consist of three persons, and presently there materialised under our watching eyes two battered-looking troopers, coatless and (of course) extremely dirty, riding one on each side of a dandified slim young man in a suit of khaki of sulphurous shade but of the most precise and fashionable cut. His putties were put on beautifully: not a false fold or a bad line anywhere. His rifle-fittings shone brightly in the sunset glow, and the bandolier slung with debonair carelessness across his breast had not a cartridge missing!

All these details were noted and beheld with breathless interest before we could even see the face of this mysterious Brummel in khaki, for his police hat—the only inartistic thing about him—was pulled well down over his eyes. I think I was the first to see the glint of an amazing shade of golden hair, and the line of a defiant mouth. Some notion of the truth dawned upon me then and a moment after every one knew. Colonel Blow stepped forward and spoke to the troopers, and one of them, who was a sergeant, answered him briefly and to the point:

“The C.O. ordered me to escort this lady back to Fort George, sir.”

At this the slouch hat was pushed back, and Mrs Rookwood’s murky eyes stared defiantly at us all. Then her pretty mirthless laugh rang out.

“It was all that brute Anthony Kinsella’s fault,” she said, addressing herself exclusively to the Commandant. “When he joined the others and found me in his troop with George he immediately told the Doctor and had me sent back. Wasn’t it horrid of him, Colonel? I’m sure I should have made as good a soldier as any one else of them. I’m a first-class shot. You have said so yourself now, haven’t you?”

She was trying to carry her defeat off bravely under the remorseless stare of a number of feminine eyes. Her own were so bright that it was plain she was on the verge of tears, and as she left off speaking her mouth began to quiver. She hadn’t an atom of make-up on and looked almost middle-aged, but nevertheless extremely handsome. It was a difficult moment but Colonel Blow was true blue, and knew the right thing to do. He laughed cheerily and went forward to help her from her saddle.

“Well, you’ve had quite an adventure, Mrs Rookwood! But George will probably be put in the cells when he comes back for aiding and abetting you.”

“He didn’t,” she said, speaking more naturally. “I did it all on my own, but he was awfully glad to see me when I turned up.”

“Where did you leave them, Sergeant?”

“About thirty miles from Sigala, sir. Major Kinsella knew the way back was safe as he had just come along it and found it perfectly clear. But we had to ride hard.”

“Yes; you must all be fagged out. Mrs Rookwood, the best thing you can do is to get to bed at once. But finding a bed for you is another matter.”

He turned round in a half-appealing way to the group of women who had been standing behind him, but at the very suspicion of being asked to do anything for such a person as Mrs Rookwood almost every skirt disappeared like magic. In the twinkling of an eye there was no one to be seen but the spiteful Dutch woman and me, the tabooed of all tabooees.

“Miss Saurin”—he began in a persuasive voice.

“Of course,” I said, smiling at his distress, “I shall be delighted to do anything I can for Mrs Rookwood if she will let me. I’m afraid all the cosiest corners are gone, though,” I said to her, “and nothing but desks and mail-bags left to sleep on. But you’re welcome to share all we’ve got—and I’m sure Mrs Marriott will say so too.”

At this casual information she for some occult reason burst into tears, and stood there sobbing with her hands over her face. Poor Colonel Blow stared at her in dismay.

“She’s tired,” I said, “and hungry, too, I expect. Come along, Mrs Rookwood. I’ll serve you up one of my famous French suppers before you go to bed. Colonel, will you have the kit from her horse sent in, please?”

I put my arm round the slim trim khaki waist, and half led, half dragged her to the den behind the post-office counter. Mrs Marriott was there already reading a book by candle-light, and she looked absolutely aghast at seeing me with my arm round a man’s waist, for with her usual knack of missing any excitement that was going on she knew nothing of the event that had just taken place. From her nervous, horrified expression she evidently concluded that this was a fresh escapade on my part and that I was hopelessly incorrigible. When I explained the situation she was so much relieved that she did not show as I feared any coolness to the luckless Mrs Rookwood; but instead began in her absent-minded fashion to move her things so that there would be more room for the latter who was forlornly drying her tears.

“We’ve only one small mattress and that is stuffed with nails,” I said apologetically.

“I’ve slept on the ground ever since I left here, you know—and been fearfully cold at night, too. I don’t mind anything now. It is awfully good of you to bother with me at all.”

She looked as if she was going to howl again.

“Nonsense!” I said briskly. “Do you like coffee à la turc?—because I’m just going to make some. It picks you up like a balloon. You’ll feel like a roaring lion afterwards.” She began to smile. “And a Welsh rarebit,” I beguiled her. “Oh, don’t say you are one of those cowards who daren’t eat Welsh rarebits for fear of what dreams may come.”

“No; I love them.” I had her laughing at last. “And I’m so hungry, Miss Saurin.”

“Well! there will be Welsh rarebit and some cold Mashona hen I stole from the hotel—and let me see. Where is the box of sharks you had, Mrs Marriott?”

She produced the sardines, also two boiled eggs and a lettuce. It had become our pleasant custom to ask either Colonel Blow or Mr Stair or Mr Bleksley to come in to supper before the night watches began. Hence these luxurious stores.

“Good,” I said. “That will provide for three courses; chicken mayonnaise, Welsh rarebit, and a sardine savoury. Lie down and rest, Mrs Rookwood, while we prepare supper.”

She did as I told her without a word, and Mrs Marriott and I busied ourselves with the postmaster’s oil-stove and a pan and pot I had secured from Hunloke and Dennison’s. Mrs Marriott actually rose to the point of going out to the yard-fire by herself to make three slices of toast for the savoury.

“She’s coming along,” I boasted to Mrs Rookwood. “The first few nights she was in laager she had no more initiative than a dead duck, but she’s getting quite bright now. I really believe it is doing her good to come into laager and see society.”

“Your society would do any one good,” remarked my companion so warmly that I really felt she was sincere and I coloured all over with pleasure, for I always think a compliment from a woman is worth half-a-dozen from a man. I still had it in my heart against her that she had called my Anthony a brute, but her next words dissolved all my resentment and gave her my gratitude for ever.

“I never met any one more kind and generous—except Anthony Kinsella. I called him a brute this evening but that was only to cover my embarrassment and anger with all those cats staring at me. As a matter of fact he was perfectly sweet to me and at no one else’s command in the whole of this country—Mr Rhodes or Dr Jim or an Archangel—would I have left George and come back here to be laughed at. Not that you laughed—and I’ll never forget how good you’ve been, and Mrs Marriott too. And oh, Miss Saurin, you should see her husband. You wouldn’t know him, he has brightened and changed so much. He looks like a man again.”

“Oh, you must tell her,” I said. “Tell her as soon as she comes in. Did he speak to you?”

“Yes, they were all crowding round my horse cheering me at the last. I must tell you that though the Doctor was very cross with me, both he and Major Kinsella said things that made every one think I was a very brave woman indeed, instead of a silly little fool who thought she was doing something rather clever and found out that she was simply making extra difficulties for the men. Of course I know it disorganised things awfully—and then to have to send off two good men with me—and how they hated coming, poor fellows! Oh, I was awfully ashamed of myself, but I can assure you Tony Kinsella had every one of them cheering and kissing my hands as though I were a Joan of Arc—and all the time my heart was a wretched little speck of misery in me.”

She paused, staring wretchedly at the ceiling with her lovely murky eyes, and considering God knows what sad pages of her unhappy history. I was sorry for her, but my heart was glowing with joy to have heard tidings of the man I loved, and I could not be unhappy.

“Tell me about Mrs Marriott’s husband,” I presently said, when I could drag my thoughts away from Anthony.

“He was one of the last to take my hand and wish me good-bye and good-luck, and he said, ‘When you see my wife, Mrs Rookwood, will you tell her that I am feeling like another man, and give her—’ That was all, but he said it with such intensity that I’m sure he meant her to understand that he is another man, and he must have overcome his dreadful habit to a great extent to look as he does—quite bright-eyed and holding himself alert. I am sure that he was going to say ‘Give her my love,’ but a sudden shyness came over him in front of all those men, knowing, too, that every one knew how sad it had been for her.”

“You must tell her,” I said swiftly, for I heard her coming along the verandah. “Tell her everything, just as you’ve told me, and put in the love too—of course he meant to send it. You’ll be doing a fine action, Mrs Rookwood. That woman is half dead with despair.”

At this point we nimbly turned the conversation to the subject of supper, and having examined the toast which Mrs Marriott held out for my approval, I a few minutes later made it my business to go in turn to the yard-fire.

As I went along the side verandah, kettle in hand, I passed the window of the office in which Mrs Valetta and her party had their quarters. The room was brightly lighted with the N.C.’s rose-red lamp, round which a dozen woolly moths were buzzing, seeking destruction. The whole party was seated at the table playing cards. And Mrs Skeffington-Smythe was staring at her husband with a look of positive hatred in her eyes.

“I don’t cheat,” she was furiously asserting.

“Yes, you do; you always do; you think it’s funny. And all the time everybody else is hating you for it,” responded the warlike Monty amiably. Mrs Valetta and Miss Cleeve exchanged glances of the utmost boredom and disgust. Indeed, if there is anything more desperate in the way of ennui than to listen to a husband and wife quarrelling over cards, I don’t know it.

When I got back to our peaceful little den I felt inclined to decorate Mrs Rookwood with a gold medal with “Hurrah” on it in diamonds. Mrs Marriott had turned into another woman. To look at her one could almost believe that it was she who was emancipating herself from the drug habit. All her droopiness had gone. She looked like a flower upon which dew had fallen after long drought. She was not middle-aged any more. The Frenchman who wrote that age never comes to a woman who is loved, knew something about women and life!

My bed was not very comfortable that night, but I wrapped myself to sleep in a new dream of joy in my Anthony, who by his action in taking Dr Marriott in the face of all opposition had brought back fresh hope to two souls that bad seemed doomed to defeat and despair.

Chapter Eleven.

The Children Call.

“Linger longer, laager, Linger longer loo. If we have no laager, What will Col. Blow do? “Stair will ne’er desert him, ‘Monty’ will be true. Then linger longer, laager, Linger longer, loo.” Laager Ballads.

There followed many blank days. Week after week went by without news of any kind coming in. We only knew that our men were all together now, and marching on to Matabeleland. The question with us was to kill time and fearsome thought, and to kill time was a nearly impossible thing to do. Amusements there were none, of course, and occupations had to be invented. An interest in life had to be borne within, for in the external life of the town nothing happened to excite interest. The men, it is true, were kept always on the qui vive by the indefatigable Commandant, and when they were not drilling on the square or practising with the Hotchkiss they were away on patrol and picket duty. Even if they had not been so busy they were not a very interesting crowd; I imagine the men left behind to look after the women seldom are. They may be the real heroes; but they don’t look like it; and I don’t fancy they feel like it. The cause of their being left behind in the first place is generally physical unfitness or some domestic or official reason that puts them out of conceit with themselves, and out of love with life in general. Even a man like Colonel Blow, left in charge of a town in a position of great responsibility and trust, grew morose and surly, thinking of the excitement he was missing at the front and the fighting he was hopelessly out of. It was said that on its being decided that he was to be left behind he spent a whole day wiring appeals to Dr Jim and Mr Rhodes, and in the intervals walking round and round his office shouting bad words about “a lot of women and children any one could look after!” Not very flattering to the women and children, of course, but one could quite understand the attitude of mind and believe that in the same case one would say the same thing. There must be something gloriously exciting in riding through starry nights and sunlit days to fight for your country and your rights. There is nothing at all glorious in sitting safe and snug at home killing time until good news comes in.

I was very sorry for pale, handsome Maurice Stair with his crippled arm. He could not even go out on patrol or picket duty, because it was impossible for him to carry a gun. He always sought me when he had a spare half-hour, and afterwards I used to feel quite exhausted from the prolonged effort of trying to cheer him up. It was like trying to pull a heavy bucket up a well and never quite succeeding in getting it to the top. He often said:

“Thank God for you, anyway; the only sound, sweet spot in the rottenest apple I’ve ever put my teeth into.”

I would laugh at this exaggeration of my usefulness in trying to jeer him out of the blues: but I felt I deserved some praise for such work.

“Absurd! You know very well you adore this country, like all the rest of the men, and would never be happy in a ‘boiled’ shirt again.”

“Oh, wouldn’t I? Try me! If it were not for one person I would leave Fort George to-day and show Africa the cleanest pair of heels she ever saw step on to a Cape liner.”

He looked at me so embarrassingly on this occasion that I did not care to ask him who the person was. I said:

“Yes, and you would be back within a year, trying to sneak in by the East Coast route, hoping no one would notice you’d been away.”

But he would deny the Witch unceasingly, saying that she had no lure for him—all because he was longing to be in the thick of things with the other men, and because of the tormenting thought that he was staying behind like a woman while history was being made within a few hundred miles.

Certainly it was hard on a high-spirited boy, ambitious, with fighting blood in his veins. All his people had been soldiers for generations, he told me, but for some reason his uncle had not wished him to enter the army, and so he had sought life in places where at least there were always chances of irregular fighting. And now that a chance had come along—here he was! It really was bad luck, and I comforted him as best I might. But I had my own troubles to bear.

The Salisbury women made things as difficult as they could for me. Mrs Valetta and Miss Cleeve began to cultivate the acquaintance of the Fort George women, and the result became directly apparent to my mental skin, always extremely susceptible to change of atmosphere. Where I had before met pleasant southerly breezes I now encountered chilly winds and frost.

At first I felt rather bitterly about it, and inclined to resent this injustice on the part of the domesticated little Fort George bevy. But I lived that mood down. Having plenty of leisure and solitude in which to think things out, those first few weeks I got round in time to their point of view, and saw the situation through their eyes. From what they had been told by my recent chaperon and had observed for themselves on the sight of Anthony’s departure, they were bound to suppose that I was, to put it in the mildest way, lax about things conventional; and of course a woman who is that must expect to be looked upon as a sort of pirate, and the direct enemy of gentle, simple-hearted women who are devoting their lives to the task of being good wives and mothers.

In the homes of such women, who by quiet, ceaseless, uncomplaining toil and task were forming the backbone of the country in which they lived, patriotism is born, and fine ideals, and the love of everything that is “strong and quiet like the hills.” What right had I to hate them if, hearing that I was a traitor to their cause, they looked sideways at me? Naturally, if they believed it true that I loved a married man and gloried in it, they saw in me a conspirator against their own peace and happiness. What was to save their own husbands from my lures and wiles when they came back? Perhaps that was how they looked at it.

It was only by the aid of these reflections and my sure conviction of being in the right that I freed myself from bitterness against them. Later I grew quite tolerant; but it was some time before I could begin to think of offering my good gold for such silver as they grudged me. However, as the blank days went by and Anthony’s words and wishes came to be more than ever the only things in my world, I began to glance about me with hungry eyes for a little of the silver they were so greedy about. I had not far to look, once my eyes were opened. Everywhere about me were children; restless, constrained, confined, and hopelessly bored children. Some one once said (I think it was Kipling, who knows all about children as well as about everything else under the sun) that grown-up people do not always realise that boredom to children means acute and active misery.

Well, the Fort George children were bored, and acutely, actively miserable. They had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Their favourite haunt, a line of little low kopjes just outside the town, was out of bounds and forbidden. The shallow river with its pools and flat rocks and silver-sanded bottom, the scene of many old delights, was likewise beyond safe precincts. Everything was forbidden but to prowl about in the small town with never a rock or a tree to play on: only locked and silent huts, and their own homes from which they were constantly chased by busy mothers, who in the general dearth of servants had all the washing acid cooking to do.

Oh! the little sulky, dissatisfied faces that I met, not only sulky but peaked and pale; for when children do not get exercise that interests and amuses them they soon begin to look unhealthy. My duty seemed to be plainly marked out for me.

I thanked Heaven they were mostly boys. I don’t think I could have organised sewing classes and spelling bees.

But I love children and therefore I know something about them, so I did not go headlong into the business, looking for snubs. Snubs are not pleasant fare at the best of times, and I think children’s snubs are the most unswallowable; they are so sincere and to the point. I began my campaign by loafing about idly every morning just after breakfast, meeting them in the bypaths, and dropping a word here and there just to shew that I too was bored to madness. Gradually they recognised in me a fellow-martyr, and after a day or two they began to gravitate naturally in my direction as a centre where they could come and record their complaints. I allowed myself to be treated as a sort of slot-machine, where any one could come and drop a serious grievance instead of a penny, and sometimes get something back. However, I did not give much back. Children distrust grown-ups who give too much, or talk too much—especially in the first critical stages of friendship. They prefer to do all the talking themselves.

In time they wanted to know what they should call me. I told them “Goldie,” a pet name of mine, and somehow that clinched the matter. Afterwards they gave me their full confidence, and I took firm hold and immediately began to impose upon it. The transition from favourite to tyrant can be swift and very simple, and I soon had an Empire which I ruled over like a Caesar.

Games were the order of the day. First of all we took the tennis-court in hand—the tennis-court where I had dreamed bits of my beautiful dream and which lay now like a desolate and accursed spot covered with dead leaves, old papers, and rubbish! In one day it was swept and garnished, and in two it was rolled and marked to a degree of perfection it had never known before. On the third day I divided the children up into quartettes and taught them tennis in batches. They had never been allowed to so much as glance in the direction of the court before, it being considered solely and sacredly the property of the grown-ups. Now they bounced upon it like balls, and yells of delight and victory woke the dull echoes and rang through the town. We had some glorious days. But to all fine things an end must be, and just as everything had been got into splendid working order, with two clubs formed for the purpose of competition, a popular arrangement made for the scouting of balls, and an entertainment committee selected, down swooped the grown-ups, headed by Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, and wrested the court away from us.

“Surely the only recreation in the place is not going to be taken away from us by these brats!” was their plaintive cry, and in my absence one morning, minding Mrs Marriott who was ill, my little crowd was intimidated and dismissed crestfallen. Like all Irish-Americans I have a “drop of the tiger” in me, and I fought for our rights. But when Mrs Skeffington-Smythe went round and got the mothers on their side I had to give in. It was no use encouraging insubordination to mothers; that I very well knew would end in my defeat as well as the children’s.

“Oh, let them have their old court,” I said. “Soldiering is ever so much greater fun. But we must make a parade ground first, or Colonel Blow will be mad if we use the square except for very special occasions.”

So we made a parade ground for ourselves with very great labour and the joy that comes with toil or the world would work no more. Then, Heavens! how I drilled them! Every exercise and manoeuvre known to the mind of man and gymnasium mistresses was brought into force, and every atom of information acquired or inherited from a family that had always produced soliders came to my aid and was brought into active use. Not the least of my accomplishments was that at this juncture I roped in Mrs Marriott and Mrs Rookwood to make uniforms for my regiment.

At various shops in the town I found plenty of red twill. It is called “limbo” in Mashonaland and used for “swapping” with the natives in return for hens and rice and eggs and things. This I commandeered in large quantities and carried off to Mrs Rookwood. Like all colonial women she was clever with her hands, and could cut out and make anything, from a ball-gown to a suit of clothes. Indeed, she told me that she had actually without any help made the ravishing suit of khaki in which she started for the front, having cut it out and set to work at the first rumour of trouble with the natives.

She now at my instigation designed a most fascinating uniform, in which the boys looked as gallant as French Zouaves, and the girls, with their skirts tucked into the baggy bloomers, like incipient, rather fat, Turks. The first full-dress parade, held in the market square, was an entrancing spectacle. In the first flush of admiration Colonel Blow was moved to permit the convicts to erect cross-bars and a trapeze, make us some rough dumb-bells and put up a great strong pole for a giant’s stride in the centre of our recreation ground. Mr Stair contributed a mile or two of stout rope, and lo! we had a stride that was the crowning delight of life, but that I am fain to say was not confined to the children; for between patrols and picket duties many grown-up khaki legs might have been seen flying round amongst the scarlet bloomers.

Cricket also became one of the serious affairs of life. And I taught them handball against the jail wall which appeared to have been built expressly for the purpose of the Irish national game. Of course I am half Irish and that must be taken into account when I say that next to baseball it is the greatest game in the world for exercising both body and brain. Played at its best it is a splendid swift panorama of rippling muscles, dancing feet, sparkling eyes, and racing thoughts. You can actually, by the player’s intent, eye, tell how he is going to smash that ball, which will come two strokes later, into the middle of next week.

I should have liked to get up a baseball team too; but there was a difficulty about “bats” and the mothers were afraid of eyes being put out and noses broken. Perhaps they were right. Anyway, we had games enough to keep us alive and busy and young. I was not very ancient myself, but felt myself growing younger every day amongst those fascinating Fort George children, and I began to swagger and brag about them as if they were my own.

Four weeks after our first going into laager no one would have recognised them for the gang of discontented reprobates they had been. Bright cheeks, serene eyes, and lumps of muscle like young cocoanuts on their legs and arms were now their most distinguishing features.

I had pride also in their changed demeanour. Of course they were still noisy and often naughty—what child worth its salt is not? But drill and discipline had done a great deal for them, and though they were gay and rowdy-dowdy they were no longer the melancholy, meaningless, and rather malicious monkeys to whom I had first made advances.

And at night in laager they really behaved well. It is true that they did not go to bed like lambs, and sometimes on a hot stuffy night there would be a row in the dormitories that called for my special intervention. A mother would come to our post-office den and say:

“Oh, Miss Saurin, would you come and speak to Jimmy?” or Cliffie or Sally—or some one or other. And I would be obliged to confront the criminal wearing the air of a Caesar reproaching his Brutus with a last “Et tu?”

Nearly always that would suffice, but sometimes I had to ring a change and in dramatic tones threaten the offender with the prospect of running the gauntlet or the extreme penalty of having his honours stripped from his breast before the eyes of the world. Jimmy Grant wore my Bisley medal: for highest cricket score. Cliffie Shannon had a miniature of President Grover Cleveland set in amethysts strung round his wiry neck: for measuring biggest round the calf. Claude Macdonald (an Aberdeen Presbyterian) proudly displayed a Pius IX bronze medal, and I believe secretly considered the “super nos spiritus de excelso” as being specially applicable to his prowess in running. Various members of the brigade wore twisted silver bangles of which I fortunately had a number. It would have been a serious matter to have been deprived of these decorations, and a threat of such a tragedy was usually quite enough to ensure good conduct.

But on the whole the nice things behaved with a reasonableness that would have become many of the older people in laager. Among the Dutch folk many disagreeable incidents occurred. Neither were some of our guardians and defenders above reproach. The men who were off duty often made merry in their own quarters, and in dull times it is supposed that they essayed to keep their spirits up by pouring spirits down. Colonel Blow and his staff kept good order, but there were some incorrigibles and one of the worst was Mr Skeffington-Smythe. Often on hot nights we were obliged to close our tiny porthole window which overlooked the main yard and do without air rather than be disturbed by the thrilling conversations which occurred between Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, safely and exclusively tied inside her tent, and Monty, returned late from a convivial gathering, clamouring piteously without:

“Porkie! Porkie! Let me in... Darling! Let me in! How am I to sleep out in this infernal yard?”

“Go away!”

“Porkie!” in a yearning, heart-searing tone.

“Go away! Wretch! Pig!”

“Nina, was it for this I came down through deadly danger to mind you, instead of going off with all the fellows to have a good time at the front?”

Exclamations of disgust, quite indescribable, from inside the tent.

“I bet they’re having a better time than I am now, Porkie!”

“Oh, you wretched little worm! Will you go away!”

Thus it was between Porkie Skeffington-Smythe and the gallant Monty, who was at one time thought to be on his way to the Victoria Cross!

Chapter Twelve.

Duty Calls.

“Take up the White Man’s burden And reap his old reward, The blame of those ye better The hate of those ye guard.”

“No news from the front yet!” That was always the answer to our daily inquiries, and there was nothing to do but feed our anxious, hungry hearts with the old supposition that no news is good news. After the forces had once left Sigala there was no way of getting into telegraphic communication with them and the last direct news we had from our men was when they made a junction with the Salisbury and Victoria Columns, becoming merged in them and thereafter proceeding on the march for Buluwayo.

Afterwards there was a long silence. A silence full of foreboding and fear for us, realising that our men were at last in the wild, unbroken, little known country of the Matabele, where a savage and bloodthirsty enemy lay in wait for them—an enemy that mustered twenty thousand fighting men strongly armed with rifles and assegai, while our troops all told mustered only six hundred and seventy (not including colonial boys and friendly natives).

There was reason enough in the little township for pale faces and haggard eyes, and they were plainly in evidence, but hardly ever without the accompaniment of the old gay nil desperandum smile which seems to be a peculiar attribute of British people when they find themselves in tight corners and unsmiling circumstances.

About the end of October two men with despatches brought in the first news. There had been a big fight with the Matabele on the 25th October near the Shangani River, when our people had been engaged by a number of the most important of Lobengula’s impis, including the Insukameni regiment, the third best of the King’s crack companies. This battle was afterwards officially described as the Battle of Shangani, and the Matabele losses were about five hundred whilst our forces had lost one man, with six wounded. Two horses had been killed—a very serious matter, for the columns were already short of mounts.

After the Battle of the Shangani our troops had resumed their march to Buluwayo, going slowly, as they were subject to constant small attacks burning kraals as they went, and collecting cattle left behind by the fleeing Matabele.

After this we had no more news until the second week in November, when suddenly one morning the wires were humming with the tidings that Dr Jameson had occupied Buluwayo. The Union Jack strung to a great mimosa tree floated out over the ruined and burning kraal of a dethroned tyrant!

The news came to us from Palapye, the capital of Khama’s country, away down south. It had been brought there by Burnham, that brave and intrepid American, whose name will live for ever in the annals of early Rhodesia and in the history of all scouts. He and his mate Ingram (also an American) had ridden with a Zulu boy who knew the road, one hundred and twenty miles to Tati, hoping to find there a telegraph office from which they could telegraph the news to Mr Rhodes. But at Tati they found no wire—it had not yet reached that place. There was only a heliograph station that because of the cloudy weather was of no use to them. Burnham then, though wearied out by the terrible ride they had already accomplished, decided to push on to Palapye, another ninety miles, and there, on the morning of November 9th, he gave to the world the news that civilisation had advanced another great stride, in the subjugating of a savage and cruel nation; while to the map had been added one more of those little pink stains that stand for Empire and Progress.

Oh! how we stood around the telegraph office that day, and many days after, and drank in details of the victory! In thrilling scraps it all came in.

We heard of the Battle of the Imbembesi, which had taken place on the first of November when the very flower of the Matabele army had come forth in all their glory of native war-dress and waving ostrich plumes, shaking the earth beneath their dancing feet, holding their red-and-white ox-skin shields before them and making jia at the white men with their gleaming assegais. They had fought there and died in hundreds at the very gates of the royal kraal; and the old King, desperate at last at the tidings of defeat brought in by his scouts, had fled, taking with him his wives and children and such of his warriors as remained faithful to him in his adversity. But before he went he gave orders for the burning and utter destruction of the kraal of Buluwayo, that scene of savage splendours and innumerable cruelties now for ever past.

A just fate had overtaken Lobengula, but even while we realised it there seemed to us at that time something terribly pathetic in the thought of the old monarch, swollen and tortured with gout and the madness of defeat, full of fierce spleen against those whose friendship he had himself estranged by treachery and false dealing, fleeing now before the winds of adversity and despair. It seemed that some prophetic thought must have lain in the mind of his mother when she named him Lobengula—“Driven by the wind.”

When our men at last arrived at the royal kraal, pitched high on the brow of a great plateau commanding a view of the whole country, they found that like Jericho of old its walls were down to the feet of the invader, but for a time they could see nothing clearly for the smoke that arose in black-and-grey spirals and suffused the landscape, blotting out the sunlight, while a disgusting and indescribable odour of burning refuse stung their throats and terribly assailed their nostrils. Besides firing the mean dwellings of his tribe, Lobengula had caused huts full of splendid ivory and furs and karosses to be given to the flames, and grain enough to feed a nation had been ruthlessly destroyed. While in the centre of a huge open space surrounded by rings a hundred feet wide of smouldering huts, were the ruins of what had lately been the King’s palace.

This great space had been the place of the King’s privacy and at the same time his Throne-room and the arena of justice and state. There had been times when its white dust lay shimmering in an almost terrible peace, while the King sat before his door in the morning sunlight watching his magnificent peacocks as they strutted and scratched, preening their jewelled feathers and crying their sinister unmusical cries. In those hours many eyes secretly watched the tyrant through holes bored in the walls of their huts, but none except the peacocks dared break the silence when the Lion of Matabeleland sat considering his savage politics and arranging the affairs of his nation.

There were other times when the court-yard witnessed scenes of barbaric glory and ferocity unparalleled since the time of Bloody Tchaka of Zululand. It was there that the King would come forth in state to receive the royal salute—“Bayete!”—from the brazen throats of his impis drawn up in countless splendid lines—lines of rippling muscular bodies, black as polished ebony and as bare, save for the moocha of leopard skin and the bands and bangles of brass. There when the spirit moved them to slay and they wished for permission to go forth and plunge their assegais into the bosoms of the hapless Mashonas, his warriors danced before Lobengula, making the ground tremble and thunder beneath their leaping feet. There the great indabas had taken place and the bloody “smelling out” ceremonies of the witch-doctors. Many a time had the wide level space been stained with hot gushing life-blood, and strewn with dead men, while the old King, great in stature as in cruelty, sat upon his three-legged stool of state, laughing in his thick throat, his small keen eyes like knife-points in his grossly featured face.

Now all lay in ruins. Everything was broken and devastated and wrecked by the tremendous explosion of eighty thousand rounds of ammunition which had been fired at the last moment as the King’s commands.

On top of the heaps of débris, forlorn and overturned, was found the silver elephant which had been given to Lobengula by the Tati Company to whom he had granted concessions. He had greatly prized this silver model, seeing in it a flattering reference to his own might and greatness. Now it lay amidst the ruins of his glory, a symbol of power broken and despotism thrown down.

Our men had done splendidly. There had been deaths and casualties, but they were deaths bravely met—facing fearful odds—and the casualties were few, considering the enormous difference in numbers between the conflicting forces.

Later in the month we got more news from men who had arrived in Salisbury with despatches, having left Buluwayo some little time after its occupation by our forces. They said that Dr Jameson was “sitting” there, waiting for an answer from the King whom he had sent after and told to come in. There had been some delay and difficulty in getting boys to go with this message, as unless they were Matabele they stood a very good chance of being killed before they could reach the presence of the King. However, eventually three colonial boys had volunteered to go, and the Doctor had given them a letter written in English, Dutch, and Zulu, telling the King that the nation was beaten and that to avoid further bloodshed he must come in. His personal safety was guaranteed, and he was further told that after the return of the messengers two days would be given him in which to return. The Doctor had also despatched some native spies—Zambesi boys—to find out all they could concerning the whereabouts and doings of the King. These returned a couple of days later and reported that the Matabele were massed in large numbers about thirty or forty miles to the north of Buluwayo. They were extended in camps across the country with the idea of protecting the King, who lay at a place called Intaba-gi-konga, a small hill surrounded by thick bush about fifty miles away from Buluwayo. The spies had been in the camps and talked to the enemy (pretending to be in search of some of their own people who had left their kraals) and they reported the Matabele very cowed and depressed by their recent reverses. The men of the Imbezu regiment who had bragged to the King that they would walk through the laagers of the white men, killing the elder men and bringing back the rest for slaves, had lost at the Imbembezi fight about five hundred out of seven hundred men, and were so much demoralised by their beating that the Zambesi boys had actually gone in amongst them and spoken to them like equals, whereas in days not long past it meant death to an inferior native who addressed himself to an Imbezu.

This news lifted a burden from our hearts, and we realised at last that our vigil with anxiety was at an end. The war was over! Our men would soon be home, all but those who meant to stay and occupy Matabeleland, of whom it was said there would be many, especially amongst the mining men. Rumours had already arrived that the country round Buluwayo showed signs of gold-bearing reef.

It was certain at any rate that Lobengula must come in and surrender himself before long. He might linger for a while and try to make favourable terms, of course; or he might be persuaded by some of his younger warriors who had not had enough fighting, to hold out a little longer. But it was now known that the King was a very sick man, and for that reason alone it seemed most unlikely he would wish to continue a struggle that would keep him out for some months longer in a wild and uncultivated part of the country without proper shelter for himself and his queens and children. It is supposed by many people that natives can live anywhere and in any state of wildness as long as they are in their own country; but this is a mistake. The Matabele, for instance, had left their kraals and their growing crops behind them to go into the bush where there was nothing for them to eat except the cattle they had brought with them, and the small amount of grain they had been able to carry away. In the meantime the wet season was advancing rapidly, and there would be no shelter for them from the heavy flooding rains that fall in November, December, and early January. It surprised me to hear that natives cannot stand exposure to the furious elements any more than white people can. They sicken and die just as we should do. Furthermore, they cannot live on a perpetual meat diet; they need meal, and grain, and green mealies, and rice; and if they cannot get these things they cannot live.

It was known too that small-pox was rife amongst the Matabele. This was one of the reasons that our native allies from Bechuanaland—the Bamangwatoos—had deserted us early in the campaign, and returned to their kraals. A thousand of them under their Chief Khama had started for Mashonaland to fight under Colonel Gould-Adams, who was bringing up a flying column of Bechuanaland Border Police to reinforce our men; but when they heard of small-pox, and further realised that the campaign was likely to last some months, they calmly gave notice to quit, and returning to their own country set about reaping their crops. Their attitude was the attitude of Dr Abingdon. They had not lost any Matabele, neither any small-pox; why should they seek for these things?

Fortunately, there proved to be no need for the services of such valorous allies. The Southern Column was quite able to account for itself without native assistance, and had already arrived within fifty miles of Buluwayo, having met and ignominiously dispersed about eight thousand Matebele under the command of Gambo, the son-in-law of the King.

The country south of Buluwayo was now quite clear of the enemy and the whole road to Tati and Tuli was reported to be crowded with transport-waggons bringing up loads of things to Mashonaland, and also hurrying with stores and provisions to the capital of the newly opened country.

Odds and ends of private letters began to reach us from the front: some were brought in by native carriers—Maholi and Mashona boys who, now that the danger was all past were glad to return to the service of the white men (full of soft words of explanation and apology for having left so abruptly)—and some by despatch riders with official news. Mrs Grant got a long letter from her husband and Mr Stair a few lines from Gerry Deshon, and several other people received belated documents, which were thumbed and passed under many more eyes than they were originally intended for, within a few hours of their arrival. Mrs Marriott had a letter from her husband which changed the face of life for her and turned her into a laughing, weeping child. No one asked to see her letter.

Every one was able to glean some scrap of information to apply like a healing ointment to an aching wound, and every one seemed to have something to weep or smile over, except me. Neither letter nor message came for me! It is true that I gathered from others that Anthony Kinsella was well and had done splendid work, and incidentally I heard that he had despatched private letters to Fort George by carrier. But that carrier never came. If there was a letter for me, then like many another it never reached its destination. Often in the months that came after, sodden native pouches containing white pulp which had once been letters were found lying on the veldt—in one or two instances with a skull near by to tell a little tragic, eloquent tale.

Every one wrote that they would be back very shortly—as soon as Lobengula came in and gave himself up. He had sent a specious letter to Dr Jameson to say that he was coming, and the Doctor was still waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. But the days went by and the King of the Matabele did not materialise. As a matter of fact, he was hastening to put as great a distance as possible between himself and Buluwayo. He was for the North. It seemed to him that the high fertile country beyond the Zambesi would be a good place to get out of the white man’s range and found a new dynasty, and thither he was hurrying with such speed as his fat and enormous body would permit. He was far too unwieldy to walk even if he had not been nicked with gout; so his warriors carried him, and at other times dragged him along in a Bath-chair. When that broke down at last, and his oxen died from lack of food and rest, he commanded his men to span themselves to the waggon and pull him along, and they did so; whilst close upon the spoor of the waggons came trooping crowds of women and children and boys driving cattle; all making for the new land of despotism that was to be founded beyond the waters of the Zambesi.

In the meantime a feeling of insecurity and impatience began once more to prevail in the rest of the country. It was realised that no progress of any consequence could be made, no real advancement furthered until the question of the Matabele powers was settled for ever. Lobengula, if he would not surrender, must be laid by the heels, and there were men “sitting” in Buluwayo who were eager enough and able enough to do the laying.

It was no use letting him settle and grow powerful on the other side of the Zambesi, ready to swoop down and give more trouble some day. There could be no security until every belligerent native had laid down his arms and returned to peaceable occupation.

It was a great relief to the whole country when the news came that a column had started out after the King. Then indeed we knew that the beginning of the end had come, and that we might thereafter possess our souls in peace and security.

Laager was broken in Fort George, and we slept in real beds once more. The coaches from “up” and “down” country began to pass through again, and we got regular mails and were no longer cut off from the civilised world. I was soon reminded of this fact by letters from Salisbury urging me to take coach and rejoin my sister-in-law there. My brother Dick was one of those who were remaining in Buluwayo to see things finally “fixed up.” However, it did not seem to me to be urgently indicated that I should join Judy just then. Instead, I left my hotel and at the invitation of Mrs Marriott took up my residence with her in her little series of huts.

It was round about Christmas time and a sprightly air began to prevail in the township. One day some waggons arrived with machinery for a neighbouring mine and when they had off-loaded at the Mining Company’s stores in the town some one said:

“Why should not we borrow one of these nice waggons and go for a picnic somewhere away from this old town in which we have lived too long and wearily?”

And some one else said:

“Good idea! Why not, indeed?”

And before any one knew how or where it was done it had been definitely decided that we should have a Christmas picnic in a lovely spot called Green Streams ten miles away.

Personally I was not very keen on this plan, and I knew that a great many others felt the same way about it. There seemed to be a certain heartlessness in celebrating Christmas so pleasantly while our men were still away at the front, even though we were assured that all was well with them—that they were not fighting, but merely making a triumphal march on the retreating enemy, in order to bring back the legal trophies of war. However, so many people seemed eager for the picnic, and really physically to need a change of air and scene from Fort George, and the children were so wistful about it, that it seemed selfish to protest against the plan. And I am sure that it was mainly for the children’s sake that many of us resisted the desire to remain at home, instead of picnicking on the veldt.

Once the thing was settled, though, every one threw themselves with a zest into preparations. Cooking went on at a great rate, and the whole town smelt of belated plum-puddings, and hams bubbling in three-legged pots. And outside every house were to be seen half-a-dozen Mashona hens with their necks wrung. I may mention that there is about three mouthfuls of flesh on each of these birds.

Every one was frightfully busy filling empty packing-cases with crockery and pots and pans, and late into the night people were still carrying things to be piled into the waggon. It was like the preparations of the Israelites for their departure to the promised land.

The next day, at six o’clock of a blue-and-gold morning, we set out. Some of the women-folk, and the smaller children, rode in the waggon, but most of us cheerfully padded the hoof, glad of the opportunity to stretch our limbs over the short, burnt grass, regardless of such trifles as stick-grass and ticks.

The children begged to wear their scarlet uniforms, and they danced along yelling and prancing, like a band of red Indians let loose.

We reached Green Streams at about nine o’clock and found it a lovely open glade with clumps of trees scattered everywhere, and huge cliffy rocks standing alone, and a slender little fringed river curling like a silver caterpillar through the middle of the scene. Soon the lovely smell of wood fires was on the air, and every climbable rock had a scarlet spot decorating its summit.

“I think it was an excellent idea of yours, Miss Saurin, to let the children wear their uniforms,” said Mrs Burney. “We can’t possibly lose sight of them now, can we?”

“It was their own idea,” I said. “They adore that get-up of theirs.”

“Yes, and they adore you, too. I’d like to know who doesn’t,” she said so unexpectedly that I was quite overwhelmed. Of course I was frightfully pleased at such a remark coming from her so warmly and spontaneously, and I really could not help believing that they did like me a little better than in the beginning of laager; but of course it was absurd to talk of any one adoring me. It was only necessary to watch the faces of the Salisbury women when I was in their vicinity to see how cordially I was detested by them at least. As soon as we arrived they had ensconced themselves under the shadiest bunch of trees (not too far from the commissariat department) and were ordering Monty Skeffington-Smythe and another man about like dogs, to look for cushions and rugs and make them comfortable in the shade. They still clung together, but not from love, I think. I never saw three women more ennuié with each other. They were absolutely drooping with boredom, and I believe the only active feeling any of them possessed was dislike of me. It was really a wonder that they had found the energy to come to the picnic, but the Fort George women laughingly and perhaps a little maliciously suggested that their probable reason for coming was that they thought it the easiest and simplest way of securing an excellent Christmas dinner without any personal exertion. Adriana had for sometime past been professing herself to be precariously ill. The mysterious malady she was suffering from did not affect her appetite or prevent her from looking extremely robust; and rumour unkindly put it that she was in reality jibbing at last at having to do simply everything for three well-grown, able-bodied women who were perfectly capable of looking after themselves. However, she had recovered her health and strength for that day at least, and was at the moment assisting Monty Skeffington-Smythe and the Doctor to carry coffee and roaster-cookies to the languid party under the trees.

“What are you going to do, Miss Saurin?” Mrs Rookwood asked me in her wistful way. Now that laager was over she had grown very tragic about the eyes again, and her mirthless laugh with its defiant note began to be frequently heard. She always stayed as near me as possible, perhaps because I made it my business to repay in kind everything in the shape of a snub that came her way.

The Fort George women it is true were always kind to her, and forgot her sins in the remembrance of all her kindness and humble helpfulness to them and the children. The intimacy of laager life had broken down barriers that would otherwise never have been overcome. Moreover, the objectionable Mr Geach had been so extremely obliging as to break his neck somewhere in the Cape Colony, so that as soon as George came back from the front all would be well with the Rookwoods. But the Salisburyites showed by the expression of their noses that they considered the air more than ever polluted when “the Geach person” was anywhere near.

“I’m going to fix up Mrs Marriott under that tree with books and cushions, and then I suppose we’d better help get the dinner ready.”

“Well, let me help, won’t you?” she begged.

“Of course.”

Mrs Marriott had really become most alarmingly fragile of late. She had grown amazingly young and pretty, it is true, but her clear skin looked almost too transparent, and there were big dark shadows under her eyes that threw them up and made them look perfectly lovely—but shadows are shadows, and the fact remains that however becoming, they are not at all necessary to health. Secretly I was anxious about her; but no one else seemed to have noticed any change except the wonderful one in her spirits and looks. To-day, it might have been the consciousness that she was looking extremely pretty in a white dress Mrs Rookwood had made for her, but she was actually humming a little tune, and she remonstrated laughingly when I insisted that she should rest out of the heat and not think of coming to help get the dinner.

“You’re just trying to make a molly-coddle of me,” she said, “and yourself so indispensable that I shan’t be able to do without you ever again. I know your little arts.”

However, she was finally beguiled to do as I told her, and when she was comfortably fixed up Mrs Rookwood and I waited on her with breakfast—a cup of delicious coffee, and a hot buttered rusk.

Afterwards enormous preparations for dinner began to go forward. The hour of three thirty in the afternoon having been fixed upon, such boys as were available were inspanned to the task of collecting fuel and making big fires at a certain distance from the camp on account of the smoke. Others were set to work to scoop out ant-heaps and turn them into red-hot ovens for the reception of pastry and roast meats. These impromptu Dutch ovens turn out wonderfully light bread and are splendid for pastry.

Plenty of cold delicacies had been provided for the picnic, but the Port George women had vowed that after so long a fast from nice meals every one should have a real hot Christmas dinner. So the ovens were prepared for rounds of beef, many chickens, mince pies, custards, and cakes. We found that they had arranged and allotted all the tasks among themselves, but they had included Mrs Rookwood amongst them, at which she could not conceal her pride and gratitude. But me they told to go away and play and incidentally to mind Mrs Marriott and keep an eye on the children. So we romped with the children first, then roamed about exploring the rocky kopjes, digging out fern roots for home planting, gathering flowers and looking at the Bushmen drawings of which there were several under the overhanging ledges of the biggest rock. Queer looking things they were—the men drawn like skeletons with all their ribs and bones showing, driving long, lean cattle that had the bodies of cows and the heads of horses, or shooting wild buck with bows and arrows. They say these drawings which are often seen in Mashonaland have been there for centuries, preserved and kept fresh because they are sheltered under the eaves of the rocks from sun and rain.

Chapter Thirteen.

Defeat Calls.

“Do we think Victory great? And so it is. But now it seems to me, when it cannot be helped, That Defeat is great, and Death and Dismay are great!”

At twelve o’clock Colonel Blow and Maurice Stair and a number of men who had not been able to get away any earlier arrived, and the children went off to hail them and help get them some refreshment.

Mrs Marriott and I sat down under one of the great rocks on a lounge of cool moss, glad to get out of the grilling sunshine for a while. It was not long before we began to speak of what was uppermost in our minds—our men at the front. I said:

“I don’t know what your husband will say to you looking so fragile. I shall have to feed you up and make you plump before he arrives.”

Impulsively she leaned towards me and took hold of my hands. Her face was suffused with colour.

“Deirdre, you have been so good to me, and I must tell you, though I meant to keep it a secret. This looking fragile doesn’t really matter—it is natural.” She paused, then added softly, “It is part of the state of my coming motherhood.”

“Oh!” I cried at last. “How beautiful and wonderful for you, dear! And how glad I am!”

She looked at me shyly and gravely.

“Yes: it is beautiful, Deirdre. But I did not always think so. I knew it long ago, before Rupert went, and it seemed to me then like the last bitter drop in a most bitter cup. Now everything is altered. You and Anthony Kinsella have changed the face of life for him and for me.”

“No, no! You have done it yourselves, dear. Your husband’s fine effort had to be made by himself; no one but one’s self can do these things. One must fight for one’s own soul. You know:

“‘Ye have no friend but Resolution!’”

“Yes, but if Anthony Kinsella had not given him his chance he would never have broken away from—Don’t I know? Oh, God! Did not I pray and watch and fight for him?—and afterwards watch him drop back? Oh, Deirdre, no one can ever know the awful things that passed before hope died in me—that frightful drug rearing its hideous head between us like a great beast! You cannot imagine what it means to a woman to see not only the body but the soul of the man she loves being devoured before her eyes, while she stands looking on—helpless! And then after a time—it is all part of the hideous enslavement—he began to hate me for looking on at his degradation!”

Her face became anguished even at the recollection. I held her hands tightly, but I looked away from her eyes, and we were silent for a while, but presently she went on:

“And your share in it has been great, Deirdre. Without your help I could never have pulled myself out of the pit of despair and desolation into which I had fallen. My spirit was in fetters: but you have helped me to break them—and now I feel strong enough and brave enough for whatever comes. I have a heart for any fate. We have a big fight before us still, I know. Rupert has gone back in his profession all this time that he has done nothing, thought nothing. It will be uphill work getting back to where he was before—and we’ve only a tiny income—and he may be tempted again. But, oh! how I mean to fight for my happiness, Deirdre. And I know that I shall win.”

I could only press her hand tightly, and keep back my own tears. She looked such a delicate little thing to put up such a big fight. It seemed to me at that moment that the battle-field of life was a cruel and hard place for women, and their reward for battles won, all too pitiful. We sat a long time in silence.

At last we were aroused by a great hooting and tooting and banging of pans and tin plates from the direction of the camp. The significance of these sounds and also the odours of baked meats that were beginning to suffuse the veldt, could not be misunderstood. We returned to camp and dinner.

Mrs Burney had her best damask table-cloths spread in line on the level grass, and Mrs Rookwood had decorated the snowy expanse with trails of wild smilax and jasmine, and jam-jars full of scarlet lilies and maidenhair fern. We sat down to a banquet of unparalleled splendour, of which I cannot now remember all the details, but only that they were opulent and luxurious and kingly. Afterwards every one had a glass of some delightful champagne that had been unearthed from the cellars of Hunloke and Dennison, and Colonel Blow ceremoniously arose and asked us to drink the health of the Queen, and we drank, standing.

Then Captain Clinton jumped up again with his glass in the air and called for toasts to Mr Rhodes and Dr Jim, and those we drank uproariously. Afterwards we sat very quiet for a moment, and only the children’s voices were heard. Colonel Blow got up again and a hush fell upon us all. Some of the women began to bite their lips, to keep themselves from crying, and Mrs Shand, who had been one of the brightest and gayest of the party all day, suddenly leaned against Saba Rookwood’s shoulder and began to sob.

“I ask you to drink to those who cannot be with us here to-day—because they are attending to our business elsewhere—our fellows at the front!”

Across the table-cloth Annabel Cleeve and I stared at each other dry-eyed.

“Here’s to their speedy and safe return!” cried Captain Clinton, holding his glass aloft so that the wine shone and sparkled in the sunshine like liquid topaz. “Now you kids give three tremendous cheers for them, and maybe they’ll hear the echoes in Buluwayo.”

That saved the situation. The men’s strong “Hurrahs!” mingling with the children’s cheery voices, rang and echoed among the rocks and hills. Emotion was pushed out of sight once more, and faces became calm. It appeared too that Colonel Blow had not finished the giving of toasts. He got up once again, his face wreathed in smiles.

“And I want you all to drink the health,” he began, “of some one here who has been the sunshine of our darkest days, and the brightest star of many a weary night; who has minded the babies and made coffee for the patrol boys, and generally kept us all from dying of sheer boredom and hatred of life just by her lovely presence amongst us. I am sure you all know who I mean.”

I’m sure I didn’t. I stared round the table in astonishment, and to see what the others were thinking of this unlooked-for enthusiasm on the part of the usually sedate and sensible Commandant. Was he dreaming, or was he infatuated with one of the women, and simply drivelling about her? I had never noticed him paying any special attention to any one—he always seemed to be so busy. Anyway, I felt quite annoyed about it, and especially cross about the babies, whom I had looked upon as my own particular loves. He raised his glass on high.

“I drink to Miss Deirdre Saurin!”

“And drink it on the table!” someone shouted, and every one got up once more and put a dirty boot on Mrs Burney’s nice table-cloth and made a tremendous noise, while I stared at them. When I realised what they were saying I went hot with vexation and embarrassment, for I felt sure they were making fun of me.

“Respond! Respond!” they cried all round me.

“I never heard of anything so ridiculous in my life,” I said crossly. “And utterly uncalled for.” I threw Colonel Blow a glance of the utmost indignation. “I think you want to make every one hate me!” I said.

He merely shouted with laughter.

“Oh, I know I’m a wonder, but I couldn’t do that,” he said, and to my amazement the women all rushed at me and hugged me and made me feel as hot and stuffy and cross as possible.

When I say all, I don’t of course mean that the Salisbury women did anything of the kind. Miracles do not happen in modern times. But I was not surprised that they got up in a group and strolled off sniffing disdainfully. The whole thing was ridiculous and absurd.

“You’ve quite spoiled my day,” I said to Colonel Blow afterwards. He insisted upon taking me to see some wonderful drawings on a rode which he said only he and one other man knew about; and when we got there they were the same old drawings Mrs Marriott and I had been looking at in the morning. So we sat on top of the rock and I continued my upbraidings.

“Of course it was very kind of you and all that, and I dare say you meant well—but I never felt more uncomfortable in my life, and I cannot say I feel the least bit grateful to you. I made sure you were talking about some woman you had fallen in love with and expected every one else to do the same,” I continued in my most unpleasant voice.

“Well, so I was,” he had the effrontery to say. “But of course I know there is no hope for me.”

I stared at him coldly. I really did not feel disposed for any more jesting. But his face had not the ghost of a smile on it, and he continued quite gravely:

“I saw you kiss Kinsella the night he went, and of course I understood that a girl like you would not have done that except for one reason. So it can be of no use my telling you that I love you. Yet I want to tell you if you don’t mind, and to call you Deirdre once. May I, Deirdre?”

I really don’t remember what I said, but I was frightfully surprised and sorry. I don’t believe I said anything. Perhaps I sat and stared at him with my mouth open. I only know that we came out of it sworn friends.

Afterwards we climbed to the top of the highest of the rocks to get a view of the whole wide veldt lying shimmering in the sunshine with far-off hazes and veils of purple and amethyst, draped about the horizon like the robes of a god.

As we stood looking a cloud of dust appeared upon the road, and presently we made out the figure of a man on a light horse approaching the camp. He was coming from the west and, therefore, towards Fort George, and when we realised this we knew that he was not from the town, but from the front—some one with news.

Colonel Blow jumped up, and forgetting good manners and me ran for the edge of the rock and began to climb down as fast as he could. But I as swiftly followed him, and when he reached level ground I was there too. Then we took hands and frankly ran for the camp, stumbling over ruts and stones, and tripping in ant-bear holes, but covering the ground at a speed I had never achieved before except in an express train. But in spite of our haste the newcomer had arrived first, and we found him dismounted, standing at the head of a pale-coloured drooping horse, with every one in the camp clustered round him. I remember thinking that it was the first time I had ever seen a horse that looked so exactly like the pale-coloured horse Death is supposed to ride when he goes abroad. I wondered what made me think of it at that moment.

I did not recognise the man’s face as one I had ever seen; but when Mrs Burney rushed forward and flung her arms round his neck I realised that this was her husband, whom I had often seen before. Yes: it was Robert Burney the scout! Yet why should dust and fatigue and a stubbly beard so terribly alter a man as he was altered? It is true that his coat hung in tatters, we could see his bare feet through his ragged boots, and his cheek-bones seemed almost piercing through his cheeks. But as he stood there looking at us I realised that it was in his eyes that the change lay. I never saw a man with such hard, calm eyes. If it had been a woman who stood there with those eyes I should have believed that she had wept until she had no more tears, and could never weep again. But this man’s iron face, haggard and weary though it seemed, was not one that could be associated with tears. Yet it is true that when I looked into the fearless, still eyes of Robert Burney I thought of tears—tears that were frozen in the heart and would never be shed. Neither were they dumb, those eyes of his that were so calm. When we had looked at him in silence for a moment, some knowledge leaped out to us from them and entered into our very hearts, paling our faces and chilling our blood so that we stood there shivering in the warm sunshine while we waited for him to speak. Fear had us by the throat, and in the heart of every one “terror was lying still!”

Some name trembled on every lip, and each one of us longed to shout a question: but tongue clave to palate, lips were too dry to open. It was revealed to us in some strange way that Robert Burney had more to tell than the mere fate of one man.

At last he moistened with his tongue his cracked and dust-thickened lips, and spoke quietly:

“A lot of our fellows have been surrounded and cut up.”

No one cried out. No one fainted. We just stood there quietly round him, staring into his eyes and listening. No one wept, except Mrs Burney, who had her man safe back in her arms.

“Wilson from Victoria—Alan Wilson, with eighteen men, went across the Shangani River on the King’s spoor. We understood that the King was deserted all but a few hundred men, and Major Wilson was to see how the land lay. His idea was to get the King that night if possible and bring him in; but when he reached the scherms it was too late and too dark to do anything; only, he saw that the numbers round Lobengula had been underrated, and that the natives were threatening and hostile. He sent Napier back with information to Major Forbes for reinforcements, but Major Forbes did not think it safe to move that night and sent Captain Borrow instead with twenty men. Ingram and I had already gone on ahead and joined Wilson, and when Borrow reached us we were camped out in the bush about half a mile away from the King’s scherms. We lay there all night under arms, in pitch darkness and drenching rain; we could hear the voices of the natives in the bush round us. Several hours of the night Major Wilson and I spent in trying to find three men who were lost. They had got separated from the rest of us, and Wilson wouldn’t rest till he knew they were all right. It was so dark that I had to feel for the spoor with my hands, and eventually we found them by calling out their names continually but very softly, and we got back to camp together.