The White Hand and the Black

"The White Hand and the Black" (continued 5)

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Their arrival seemed to provoke no curiosity, or, at best a languid one; certainly there were not many about to evince it. Thornhill, though not seeming to do so, was keeping a bright look-out. Two or three faces he thought he knew, but the bulk were those of strangers. They were taken to a large hut in the centre of the kraal, and ordered to enter. But when Parry would have followed the other two in he was promptly and roughly stopped. It was in vain that both Thornhill and Elvesdon pleaded that he might not be separated from them. He was only a boy, they represented, and could not talk with their tongue. Let him remain with those who could. One stalwart scoundrel who appeared to be in a position of some authority, bent down and shook a bright, wicked looking blade within the low doorway.

“Keep quiet, Abelungu! You are not masters here. If you come forth without orders, that is death.”

“Abelungu!” “White men!” That was a pretty insolent sort of way to address a Government official, together with a man of Thornhill’s standing. It bore its full significance too. But they were helpless. Two men unarmed against a large armed force! Of course they were helpless.

“Poor boy,” said Elvesdon as they were left alone. “I’m afraid he won’t find it so exciting now.”

“In a way I’m glad we’re alone together for a time at any rate,” was the answer. “We can talk things over more freely. And we’ll not have to do that too loud either, for there’s a good sprinkling of these chaps who know English—though they won’t let go that they do—thanks to the mischievous idiots who have gone in for educating them.”

“If we come through this all right, I’ll put in all the good word I can to get that youngster on in the force,” said Elvesdon. “He showed pluck and readiness to-day, never lost his head for a single moment.”

“More he did. Now I wonder who wrote you that letter.”

“Oh don’t refer to the beastly thing, Thornhill. If only I had opened it at first—as I ought to have done. No—it won’t bear thinking about. Wait—I’ll burn it, in case it might compromise the writer, if the worst comes to the worst.”

He twisted the letter into a screw and set it alight, kindling his pipe with it. Anyone might come in at any moment, and such a proceeding would, in that event, look less suspicious.

Someone did come in, but it was rather a welcome entry, for it was that of a couple of women, bearing food; roasted mealies and some grilled beef, which latter, however, neither looked nor smelt very tempting.

“What’s this? Water?” said Elvesdon, investigating the contents of a bowl. “The stingy swabs might have sent us some tywala while they were about it.”

Putting it to the women, who were kindling a fire in the round hollow in the middle of the floor, one of them replied that beer was scarce. There were so many men in the kraal—she supposed they must have drunk it all. Elvesdon put his hand into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a shilling.

“See if you can find some,” he said. “Here. This is for you—for the two of you. You can halve it.”

But the recipient, carefully placing the coin in her bag, replied stolidly that she could not halve a gift. Elvesdon laughed and found a similar coin for the other. It proved, however, a bad investment, for no tywala was forthcoming.

“This looks more cheerful,” he went on, when they were alone again, and were discussing the food. “It was beastly cold, too, without a fire. Wonder where they’ve put the young ’un. It rather handicaps us being apart from him in case we saw a chance of doing a bunk, for of course we can’t leave him behind.”

“No, we can’t, but we shall get no such chance just yet. Hear that.”

All round them was the sound of voices, deep voices. Some were right against the hut which was their prison. A strong odour of roast told that their custodians were enjoying themselves in the most enjoyable way known to savages—feasting, to wit. Once Elvesdon opened the door to look forth. In a moment two savages, armed with assegais, sprang before the entrance and ordered them to keep it shut.

“I’ve a notion,” said Thornhill, “that this is Nteseni’s ‘great’ place, and if so we’ve fallen into bad hands.”

“That bears out what Teliso used to say. He always maintained that Ntesini was a bad egg.”

“M-yes. I wonder where the said Teliso is now. You know I hinted to you that he might require a little watching himself.”

“He’s been away a precious long time. By the way I wonder if he wrote that letter. He could talk some English but I don’t know about his ability to write any. He may have been murdered for all we know.”

“He may, or—he may not.”

Elvesdon was impressed. A qualm of misgiving came over him that he might have trusted Teliso too much. What, by the way, if he were at the bottom of their seizure? He might be. There was no trusting anyone. Decidedly there was something suspicious about the length of time Teliso had been away on his mission, and that without sending in any communication whatever.

Poor Teliso! His cracked and whitened bones lying in the lonely ravine beneath the krantz, picked clean by the tiger-wolves and jackals, could not now rise up under the stars to testify whether or not Nteseni was—as Elvesdon had put it—“a bad egg.”

The next morning to their intense relief they were allowed some measure of liberty. They could stroll about outside the kraal, for instance, but even then only in the open, and with groups of armed men constantly on their steps. If there was any considerable body gathered at the kraal those composing it must assuredly have kept within the huts; possibly sleeping off the heaviness of the feast the night before. Decidedly it was strange to these two, accustomed as they were when visiting or passing such places to meet with deference at every turn—now to find themselves actually obliged to obey orders from those over whom one of them at any rate had partially ruled. But the ruled now aspired to be the ruling, and, certainly, into far as they themselves were concerned, had succeeded.

They were threading their way among the huts when, from one of them there emerged suddenly a man—a black man—but not blacker than his coat, nor very much blacker than his dingy tie that had once been white. He had crawled through the low doorway, and stood upright before he was aware of their presence. The instant he became aware of it he brought his hand to his mouth with an ejaculation of amazement and dismay, and stood staring, surprised for the moment out of all self-possession. Both looked at him—Elvesdon especially—with an expression of aversion and contempt.

“So!” was all that Elvesdon said.

It seemed difficult to tell on which side the surprise felt was the greatest. In the fat, greasy features both the white men recognised the Rev. Job Magwegwe, the Ethiopian preacher.

“You not get my letter, sir?” said the latter, hurriedly, eagerly.

“Your letter? Oh, I see,” replied Elvesdon.

“I warned you sir; you not take my warning. It not my fault you here, sir.”

“It’s damned well your fault there’s a ‘here’ for us to be in, and the fault of those who sent you, you scoundrel,” returned Elvesdon bitterly, and perhaps a little unjustly. For again the self-reproach in not having taken the warning in time, came uppermost, and here was some one to vent it on.

“I help you sir—now if I can,”—said the Fingo, earnestly. “But—it not easy and—”

“Whau! Jobo!” cried a great voice as two hulking Zulus came up. “Here is much white men’s talk—too much. Get back to thy preaching—that is more in thy line. Whau!”

They were Zulus from beyond the river, and cared nothing for missionaries and their methods—let alone for a greasy humbug of an inferior black man. The Rev. Job Magwegwe slunk away before their great domineering voices and manner. And the two white men felt immeasurably more drawn to these.

“So that’s the chap who sent the letter!” remarked Elvesdon. “He’s an infernal rascal all the same. ‘Help’! Fat lot of help he’ll give us—even if he could.”

“Don’t you be too cock-sure about that, Elvesdon. I’ve known queerer things in my time than even that. It’s astonishing how things can work round—not when—but where you least expect them. It’s something to know we have a friend among the enemy let me tell you. He might be of use to us yet.”

“Well if he is I’ll forgive him—or try to. These swine, though, are responsible for nearly all the mischief. I’d hang the whole ‘Ethiopian Church’ if I had despotic power, or, at any rate, give its infernal mischievous emissaries a hundred apiece with the cat and then disband the whole rotten organisation. But, Thornhill. Do you think this schelm really would help us if he could?”

“I sort of do. You see when these chaps get partly civilised, although it deteriorates them as savages it has often the effect of making them all unconsciously cling to the white man. Now this one is a Fingo, and his traditions would make all that way. He no more wants to set up a universal black Power than you or I do; he knows where he, and all his like, would come in under it. At present he’s paid to preach it but I’m perfectly certain he no more believes it possible than you or I do either. So let’s make use of him if we can; though I doubt if we can, for they don’t seem to trust him overmuch here from what we’ve just seen.”

“‘Can the Ethopian change his skin?’” quoted Elvesdon, sourly.

The day wore on. Both men—Elvesdon, especially, being the younger—were wistfully trying to glean from the talk they could overhear, what was going on outside. They tried questioning those around them but without result. They asked too, about their fellow prisoner, the young Police trooper, who had been so arbitrarily separated from them; but beyond the fact that no harm had been done him, they could get no further. The while both were sizing up every chance for effecting an escape, but even had such offered it was out of the question they should have availed themselves of it at the price of abandoning a fellow-countryman—a fellow-countryman, too, who was doubly helpless, in that, being a new comer, he was entirely unversed in the language and ways of those who held him in durance.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

A Devil-Deed.

The third day of their captivity had dawned, and waned. It seemed that those around had grown rather more used to them, for they would chat at times, while dexterously evading any attempts to extract news. But it struck them that there was an atmosphere of tension, of expectation, as though events were expected on the outside. Moreover the number of armed men about the kraal seemed to have diminished by eight-tenths.

With the chief, Nteseni, they could get no speech, although they repeatedly asked to see him. Moreover, did either or both of them catch sight of a face they knew, that face was promptly turned away, and the owner of it never risked the chance of their seeing it again. So far this was a good augury they agreed, for had their deaths been already decided upon it would not matter whose faces they recognised or whose they did not. By this time they had almost got used to the strangeness of the feeling that they were captives in their own land; that where they were accustomed to lord it they were now obliged to obey. Many times, too, and oft, they speculated as to what course would have been adopted by those who had not been required to share their captivity.

“Edala has got her head screwed on the right way,” Thornhill had said, on one of these early occasions. “Depend upon it she will have warned everybody within hail. What d’you think, Elvesdon? Will Prior have had the sense to wire sharp to Police headquarters and laager up your place?”

“Of course he will. We’ve often discussed contingencies, though not such an unlooked-for one as this. Oh, he’ll have made that all right.”

That evening a surprise awaited. There was a sound of voices outside. The wicker-slab that constituted the door of their hut was pushed, and an English voice called out.

“It’s me. Can I come in?”

“Why Parry, of course you can,” cried Elvesdon, promptly undoing the fastenings. “How are you? Glad to have you back again. We’ve been trying all we knew to make them let you come back to us, but for some reason they wouldn’t. Have some skoff. We’re half through ours. Well, it’ll be an invaluable experience to you afterwards.”

“Thanks, Mr Elvesdon. You’re awfully good,” answered the young fellow. “I don’t know. I thought I was afraid of nothing—but somehow these black devils with their beastly spears, threatening to stick you for a couple of days and nights, rather saps your nerves, especially when you’re all alone, and can’t talk to them either. I’ve been in the roughest scrimmages at football and never knew what it was to funk, but somehow now—I don’t know—I’ve expected to be stuck ever since they lugged me away two nights ago.”

“Oh, they won’t do that or they’d have done it before,” answered Elvesdon cheerily, though his cheerfulness was more than half-affected. “Fact is you’ve been reading too much William Charles Scully, and Ernest Glanville, and these other Johnnies who write up the noble savage within an inch of his life. You’ve taken an overdose of them and of him. Here—have some of this tywala: I’ve managed to raise some at last: the stingy devils began with us on water. That’s right. Now fall to.”

The boy did so, nothing loath, and soon his spirits revived: he was not more than twenty-one, and accustomed to a gregarious life, wherefore the solitary confinement had told upon him.

“Light your pipe,” said Elvesdon, when they had done. “We needn’t stand on etiquette now. We’re all fellow-prisoners. By George, I’ve sent a good many into that condition in course of duty, but never thought to become a prisoner myself. Funny, isn’t it?”

The boy laughed. Elvesdon could see that his first estimate was correct, that he was a ‘gentleman ranker’ and was not long in drawing from him, with his usual tact and acumen, all his simple family history. He was the son of a country vicar, and had had a great ambition towards the army, but lack of means, as usual, stepped in, and he had turned to a colonial Mounted Police force as many and many another likewise circumstanced had done.

“Well Parry, I shall make it my business to see that you don’t lose anything by your behaviour the other day,” said Elvesdon, “if my word is good for anything. You carried out your orders to the letter, and that as sharp as sharp could be.”

The boy flushed up with pleasure.

“Thanks awfully, Mr Elvesdon,” he said. “I’d like to get on in the force. The dear old dad was always rather against my coming out to join: said it was like enlisting as a private in the Army, and so on—and that I’d much better try for a clerkship—a lot of good I’d have been at quill driving! No, I didn’t want that sort of life, but I was going to do for myself so here I am.”

“That’s quite right,” cut in Thornhill. “You’re the sort of chap we want out here, Parry. And even if you don’t stick to the force a few years’ training in it’ll do you all the good in the world.”

And then the boy, all ideas of the difference between a Police trooper and the Resident Magistrate forgotten for the time, opened his heart, and got back to his home in the pleasant English country, and his schooldays, only, comparatively speaking, a matter of yesterday. He had not been coddled either, but had had to take the rough with the smooth—and more rough than smooth—therein. And eagerly and enthusiastically did he let himself go to his older listeners, his fellow-captives, here, in the night-gloom of this savage hut, lighted only by the dimness of the dying fire: forgetting everything, forgetting that he might never see that English home again; might never see the setting of another sun; and causing them almost to forget it too. Poor boy! Poor boy!

He was eloquent on the big trout he had taken out of the mill-pool in the rippling moonlight in the sweet early summer, with a white moth; the big two-and-a-half pounder he had tried for so often; on the sparrow-hawk’s nest in the straight, slippery stemmed Scotch fir on the border of the most carefully watched covert of the countryside, also in the moonlight, and the hanging on by one hand—for an awful half minute to a greasy, slippery bough, with sixty feet of clear drop beneath him—on his brothers and sisters, and the first pipe which he and two of the former had smoked, with doubtful satisfaction, in the depths of a clay-sided ditch overhung with brambles, a little way below the vicarage garden—on the splendid old copper-beech beneath which they used to take tea on sultry summer afternoons. Elvesdon, listening sympathetically, encouraged him to talk on—Thornhill was already snoring. At last the boy himself grew drowsy.

“Well, Mr Elvesdon, I’m keeping you awake,” he said. “But I can’t tell you how kind you have been to me. I hope, if we get out of this, and you are ever in England you will go and see my people, and I hope still more that I shall, by some chance or other, be there too to welcome you. I’m so thankful we’re together again; it was awfully lonely stuck away there all by myself among these brutes.”

“Why Parry, that’s a first-rate after-dinner speech,” laughed Elvesdon, dropping a kindly hand on the lad’s shoulder. “I hope all that you say, too. And now—go to sleep.”

The other obeyed. Elvesdon however, sitting there, did not feel in the least inclined to follow suit. He felt uncomfortably wakeful, and unwontedly depressed. He groped around for some fresh twigs to throw on the fire, and found a scanty remnant. As the flame flared up, making a shimmer on the shining backs of innumerable cockroaches studding the domed roof, he got out his pouch, and as he filled his pipe he thought how there was about enough to stand him in for another day’s smoke, and that only. He also thought of Edala.

It was nothing new. He had been flunking of her all the time. Now, however, he thought of her with a vividity of concentration that almost seemed to bring her presence here within this squalid hut. Would she miss him, or would her anxiety be all on account of her father? He did not know what to think—he could only hope.

His companions were slumbering peacefully. Hour followed hour and still he sat. The fire burned low, then went out altogether. The keen breaths of the night air chilled him to the bone. Rolling his blanket around him—they had been allowed the use of a blanket apiece by their captors—he lay down and suddenly sleep came to him.

But not for long. Hardly five minutes seemed to have passed before he was awake again—in reality it was as many hours. Daylight was streaming into the hut through the wicker-door, but what had really awakened him, and the other two as well, was a hubbub of voices outside.

“What the devil is that infernal racket?” he growled—a man awakened in the soundness of a much needed sleep is apt to growl.

“Don’t know. I’m listening,” returned Thornhill. And the purport of the said listening made the listener grow rather grave. Then the door was violently banged against, and excited voices ordered those within to come forth.

“What is it?” exclaimed Parry, springing up eager and alert. “Are we rescued?”

But to his two elder companions an idea suggested itself. Had a white force suddenly appeared and was threatening the kraal? If so the more excuse they could find for delaying to come forth from the hut the better.

“What is it?” called back Thornhill. “Wait now. Gahle, gahle! we must dress ourselves.”

They had lain down in their clothes, of course, but anything for an excuse to gain time. But those without did not see things in the same light. The uproar redoubled.

“Come forth! Come forth! Au! Dress yourselves? You shall be dressed—in red.”

Thornhill and Elvesdon looked at each other, and the look was that of men who knew that their last hour had come. The third, of course, did not understand what was being said, or rather howled, outside.

“Well, you can wait,” called back Elvesdon. “I am an official of the Government—of the most powerful Government the world has ever seen. I am not accustomed to be hurried, and I will not be. When we are ready we will come forth.”

It was the boldness of desperation. If an attacking force was advancing it might be here at any moment. They were not going forth to hold out their throats to be cut.

There was silence at this answer, save that a few deep voices were vehemently debating in a wholly indistinct undertone. Elvesdon and Thornhill looked around for a weapon, even a stick. There was nothing of the sort within the hut. They even put up their hands and groped among the thatch in the hope of finding concealed assegais—anything for a weapon! Same result. There was nothing.

“The chief would see you, Abelungu,” now called out a voice in more conciliatory tones. “The chief—Au! he would speak with you.”

“Well, I suppose we must chance it,” said Thornhill. Elvesdon nodded. The other, of course, had no say in the matter. The trio passed through the low doorway, and stood upright. What was this? They were in the midst of hundreds of armed warriors. The latter looked dusty and travel soiled. Some, even, had wounds bound up, the blood which had filtered through the filthy rags, browned and hardened upon them.

“Where is the chief?” cried Elvesdon. “As a Government official I talk to no common man.”

A growl arose, and assegai hafts rattled ominously. But the policy of boldness answered here. No aggressive move was made.

“There he is, Abelungu,” said one or two.

They passed between the armed ranks, to where a tall man was standing. He was a sullen, heavy-faced savage, black-bearded, and holding his shining head-ring as proudly thrown back as though he were the Zulu king, at least.

“Greeting Nteseni,” said Thornhill. “It is not long since we met, and now we meet again. I am glad to look upon your face, and having done so, I think now we will go home.”

The chief returned no answer, save for a sullen grunt. The armed men however made up for his silence, for they crowded up, in a kind of war-dancing step, and their clamour was for blood, to make up for the blood that had been shed, to make the múti which should put into those who tasted it the strength that should enable them to avenge that blood. So they howled, and stamped, and clamoured, crying again and again that these should be given over to them. Here was a curious contrast. Little less than half of them had been quiet, civil, peaceable storeboys or rickshaw drawers in the towns until a few months ago—some, even, still wore the decorative horns affected by those pursuing the latter useful calling—ready to greet their present prisoners with smiles and civility; to exchange chaff with them, and to receive the reward of their labours with whole-hearted geniality. Now, as by the wave of a magic wand, they had reverted to their original barbarism. Every vestige of civilised clothing had been discarded, and they now stood forth, naked, bloodthirsty savages, rattling shields and assegais, and thirsting for all the cruelty of barbarian vengeance.

Nteseni made a hardly perceptible sign. There was a sudden, overwhelming rush forward. The young Police trooper was swept away from the other two. There was a confusion of leaping, howling forms. It was in vain that both Thornhill and Elvesdon strove to make themselves heard. The tumult was too deafening. They were borne back, assegais flashing zig-zag lightning before their eyes. They went through a hundred deaths. But of their comrade in adversity they saw no more.

He the while, was dragged to the feet of the chief and barbarously butchered. Then into his poor bleeding, mutilated body these fiends drove their assegais, again and again, anointing themselves with the blood, in some instances even licking it. And the roar of their devilish blood-song reached these other two, sitting within the hut into which they had been forced back, looking into each other’s faces with stony horror, with a glance that seemed to say: “What could we have done?” And the answer could only be: “Nothing.”

But their turn would come next. And there was no escape.

In gloomy horror thus they sat, listening to the dreadful clamour of many voices outside like ravening beasts all howling for their blood. For upwards of an hour this continued, and the strain became so great that it was all they could do not to go forth, and say, “Here, work your will.” Then, suddenly, the hubbub ceased and an authoritative voice was heard addressing the multitude. And then indeed did Thornhill, at any rate, know the very depths of all hope abandoned, for the voice was that of Manamandhla—of Manamandhla, for every reason under the sun, his own particular enemy.

Chapter Thirty.

Overheard.

“And I say it’s a judgment on him. He killed that poor wife of his and now the Kafirs have killed.”

“But it never was proved against him.”

“No, it weren’t, but everyone knows it. He couldn’t prove he never did it, now could he? Tell me that.”

This essentially feminine line of argument proceeded, needless to say, from one of that sex, which was also the sex of the other party to the conversation. The latter was taking place a few yards from Elvesdon’s house, a day or two after the successful defence of the laager. The speakers were stock-raisers’ wives, of the unrefined and little-educated class.

“Well if he couldn’t prove he never did it they couldn’t prove he did, so he ought to have—what do they call it—the benefit of the doubt,” came the rejoinder, though not in any tone of real conviction.

“Benefit of the fiddlestick. Why it was like looking for a needle in a haystack trying to find her poor body among all those krantzes and holes and caves. But it’s there, you may take your oath to that. The Bible says those that take the sword shall perish by the sword, don’t it? Well here’s a case of it. Oh he’s a deep old fox and a wrong bad ’un is old Thornhill, and now he’s—”

But what he was or where—was not destined to be supplied. From the open window Edala’s voice rang out clear.

“Ladies—if it amuses you to wickedly slander my father, who may not be alive at this moment, don’t you think it would show better feeling to go and do so out of my hearing.”

The tones were cutting like a whip-lash. The girl’s face was deathly white, with a burning red spot in either cheek, and her blue eyes fairly blazed. The two women started as if they had been shot: then gasped as if they were going to say something, but couldn’t—then moved quickly away without a word; which perhaps, under the circumstances was the best course they could have adopted.

Edala turned back into the room. Evelyn’s face was as ghastly as her own. For a moment the two stood looking at each other, then Edala flung herself into a chair, dropped her arms upon the table and buried her face in her hands. The great sobs that shook her frame seemed as if they would tear it in pieces.

“Darling, don’t give way like this,” adjured Evelyn with an arm round the bowed shoulders, and brushing away the fast dropping tears from her own eyes. “Those wicked slanderous brutes—they ought to have their tongues cut out! How could they utter such shameful lies!”

But the sobs seemed to intensify. Suddenly Edala flung up her head.

“I—believed—it—myself. God—help me!”

“No—no—no! You couldn’t have,” and the momentary instinct to shrink away from the utterer of this terrible self-denunciation, passed. “You have been so frightfully upset, Edala, and you hardly know what you are saying. Why I have known your father for weeks only, and you have known him all your life, and yet I would no more believe him guilty of—of what those horrible wretches were saying than I would yourself. It is impossible that you could have done so.”

“But I did. I don’t now—and it is too late. He predicted that that would happen, and so did you. Too late—too late!”

And again her face was buried in her hands.

No one living was farther removed from the hysterical tendency than Evelyn Carden, but now she required every effort of her will to command her own nerves—not to break down herself. The inconceivable despair with which those last words were uttered was awful. Quickly again Edala looked up.

“If he does not come back to me,” she said, slowly and solemnly, “that I may tell him what a horrible wicked wretch I’ve been to him, I shall go and tell him in the other world. I shall kill myself. As sure as there is a God above I shall kill myself.”

The words were not uttered passionately. There was a calm solemnity about them which caused the other to believe that she would keep her word. What comfort could be administered to such remorse as this?

Then, in a moment, the scales dropped from Evelyn’s eyes, and she stood there as one who beheld a new revelation. Everything stood clear now, the aloofness with which the neighbourhood had treated her relatives and for which Thornhill had, with good-humoured contempt, pronounced himself duly thankful; in that the said neighbourhood consisted of a rotten crowd, the bulk of whom were scarcely able to write their own names, and the residue perhaps too well able to write those of other people. Edala’s attitude, too, stood explained. If she believed that her father had done this thing why the estrangement was only natural. If she believed—but—how could she—how could she? Before Evelyn could reply, however, a step was heard outside, and the door opened.

Hyland half drew back, then entered.

“Now, now, you two. This won’t do you know. Didn’t you promise me to keep up?” he said but there was a suspicious quaver in his own voice which rendered his tone gruff. “The more so that I’ve got some news for you.”

“News. Quick! What is it?” Edala sprang to her feet, while Evelyn’s face lightened.

“He is alive.”

A gasp escaped both girls.

“Where? Where?”

“At Nteseni’s ‘Great Place.’ Don’t interrupt and I’ll tell you all about it. Well then, you remember the fellow I questioned during the fight, the prisoner I mean? He sent for me this morning, and said he could tell me something I would like to hear; and after a little beating around he told me that father and Elvesdon are still alive, and if I promised not to turn him over to the police along with the other prisoners he’d tell me where they were. Of course I promised, and he said at Nteseni’s. How did he know? Well he did know, and it didn’t matter how, but if we wanted to get them away we must lose no time.

“How did I know he was telling the truth, I asked. Easily, he answered. If we were going to make an attempt to get them out, we could take him with us. All he asked was that he should be allowed to escape when we had found them. I talked this over with Prior and he agreed, so I went around on the quiet beating up volunteers. I got about two dozen, and we’re going to slip off quietly as soon as it’s dark. By pushing the horses a bit we can do it, and be back here again to-morrow morning—with them.”

“Oh Hyland, for God’s sake do,” said Edala. “But what if this man is only trying to lead you into some trap?”

“We shall take precious good care that in such an eventuality he’ll be the first man to go under—and he jolly well knows it. We’re keeping the jump-off on the strict Q.T. though, so don’t you go giving it away.”

“Of course not. It’s a long time to wait, though, until dark.”

“It’s just as long to me—you may swear to that,” answered Hyland. “But it would simply wreck the whole biz if we moved a moment before.”

A troop of Mounted Police had arrived at Kwabulazi later on the same day as the repulse—perhaps an inkling of their approach on the part of the rebels had had something to do with the abandonment of the attack. Other refugees, too, had come in, and the place was now a large and important laager. The prisoners were set to work to bury the slain, and the wounded were attended to in the camp hospital under the direction of our former acquaintance, Dr Vine, and things were ship-shape again. Ndabakosi’s kraals had been burnt, but the old chief and some of his headmen had surrendered; he declaring that he had nothing to do with the attack upon the place, the impi being composed almost entirely of strangers; a statement which Hyland Thornhill for one, remembering his experience at Ndabakosi’s kraal, took with a considerable dash of salt.

Now Hyland’s praises were in everybody’s mouth. His coolness and daring during the fight had been witnessed by all, and his brusque and almost commandeering manner was quite forgiven him. Men will overlook—especially at such a time as this—a great deal in one who has given them ocular proof of the above-named qualities; moreover all there knew that this one was undergoing at heart an intense grief and apprehension. So when he went about quietly, asking the most likely men to back him up in his perilous venture he met with no single refusal. He could have doubled his force had he so wished, but he did not. This was to be a run-through venture, not a fighting one, and for such a purpose a small force was better than a larger one.

During the afternoon one of the detectives sent out by Prior slipped quietly into the camp. He confirmed the statement of the Zulu in every particular. The prisoners were at Nteseni’s kraal. One had been murdered, that morning, and that was the Police trooper. He had been killed by order of the chief, and the impi had been ‘doctored’ with his blood. The others would have shared the same fate had not another chief, one presumably of higher authority than Nteseni, prevented it, and he had only done this with some difficulty. These facts had the detective been able to gather owing to the wonderful and telegraphic swiftness with which news spreads among natives; for it must not be supposed that he himself had been at the scene of the tragedy—or anywhere near it.

Here was grand comfort for the two sorrowing women, but the lamentable side of the story, the murder of poor young Parry was kept from them, as indeed it was from the camp at large until the expedition should have returned. They could hardly find words for their thankfulness and hope. But would those leaden hours of sunlight never cease to drag on?

“Hyland, darling,” pleaded Edala, as she hung around her brother’s neck as the time came to start. “You will not be reckless will you? When you have got them you will come straight back—you won’t delay for the sake of a fight unless you are obliged—you are always tempted to do that, you know. Think what I—what we—shall be suffering all the time.”

“No—little one. You may take your oath I’ll do nothing of the kind. But I’ll bring him—them—back or I won’t come back myself. That, also, you may take your oath to,” he answered huskily, gruffly. “Now—good-bye—good-bye.”

He disappeared into the darkness. No lights were shown—no fuss was made about seeing them off. So the two women were left alone to weep—and perchance to pray.

Had it been light enough as the horsemen moved away it might have been seen that they led among them two spare mounts. It might also have been seen that there was another led horse, but it was not a riderless one. On its back, his feet tied beneath its belly with a raw-hide thong, sat the Zulu prisoner. Though firmly convinced of the good faith of the latter, Hyland had no idea of taking any risks. To a savage, even though riding in their very midst, to slip off into the darkness of the thick bush and disappear would be no impossible feat, but to do so, firmly bound to the horse itself, would be: and this had been explained to him. But he took it with characteristic imperturbability.

“What I have said I will do I will do. What Ugwala says he will do he will do. I am content,” was his unruffled comment upon this apparent indignity.

“Attend, Njalo,” whispered Hyland, ranging his horse alongside that of the captive. “If you are true to us now and we rescue those whom we seek, letting you escape is not all that will happen to you for good. Cattle shall be yours—cattle that will make you almost a rich man among your people, after the troubles are all over. That will be good, will it not, and such is my word to you?”

“Au! Nkose has an open hand,” answered the man in a gratified tone. “And I think that the two whom you seek will return with you.”

“The two whom you seek,” he had said. Not until afterwards did it occur to Hyland to wonder how it was the speaker knew that there were only two left to seek. Here again that wonderful, mysterious native telegraphy must have come in.

Chapter Thirty One.

Manamandhla’s Story.

To the said ‘two’ it seemed that life could contain no further horrors, and that they had better get it over and done with, and this held good especially of Elvesdon, as the younger and less hardened. Thornhill was speculating as to how it was that Manamandhla, so far from hastening their death, seemed to have averted it. The tumult had not been renewed, and nobody had come near them. Then later on they had been allowed to sit outside, and even to stroll about a little as usual. But there seemed to be very few people at the kraal, and, noting this, they looked at each other as though inspired by a new hope.

The day wore on. The unrolled panorama of bush and cliff and spur grew purple and dim in the declining sun. In the mind of both was the thought—Would they see the set of another sun?

“Look here, Thornhill,” said Elvesdon as though seized with a sudden impulse. “I don’t know whether either of us will get away from here alive, or both. But I want to say something. In case we do, have you any objection to my trying to win your daughter’s love?”

If the other was startled he did not show it. The two were seated upon a rock just outside the kraal, watching the changing lights over the far-away kloofs as the sun sank behind the highest ridge to the westward. Both were scraping together the last shreds of their remaining stock of tobacco, which might perhaps afford them a last half pipe apiece.

“Why no,” was the meditative answer. “But do you think you can do it, Elvesdon?”

“I had hopes. But why I mention it—here and now of all places—is because if you should get away and I should not, I should like Edala to know that my last thoughts were of her, as indeed all my thoughts have been ever since I’ve known her. She is unique, Thornhill. I don’t suppose there’s another girl in the world in the least like her.”

“First of all Elvesdon, don’t talk of me getting away, and you not. Is that likely now? We stand or fall together. And if they want a second blood feast—the damned butchering brutes—they can take it out of me. You’re the younger man of the two, and have a sight more life in front of you than I have. So you skip away if you see a chance while they are busy with me.”

Elvesdon laughed, rather mirthlessly.

“That would be such a noble way of returning to Edala, wouldn’t it? How she’d thank me for coming to tell her I’d left her father to be chopped to pieces in order to save my own precious skin on her account, wouldn’t she? No, I’m afraid you must ‘ask us another,’ Thornhill.”

The latter suddenly sprang to his feet.

“Come on Elvesdon. We must buck up, man. We’re both getting too much into the holy blues. But the sight of that poor young devil being butchered this morning got on to even my tough old time-hardened nerves, I allow. Well, to get back to what you were saying. If we’re lucky and get out of this, you are welcome to try your chances with Edala—from what I’ve seen of you I can say that wholeheartedly. Only I warn you that—to use your own words—she is unique. But I daresay you’ve more than half fixed it up between you before this.”

“I wish we had,” was the answer. And then at a signal from the armed group that watched them, they returned to the hut.

But they found it already tenanted. A man was seated there warming himself by a fire to which he had just applied a light, and the gleam of the darting flames was reflected from his head-ring. Then indeed was astonishment depicted on the faces of both—especially on that of Thornhill—as they recognised the features of Manamandhla.

The Zulu returned their greeting, and sat silent for a few minutes. So did they. Blank amazement was in the mind of one, but the other—hoped. And he had the least reason to hope anything from the man before him, but he remembered that this man’s voice had been raised powerfully for their protection that very day, wherefore he hoped—on his companion’s behalf if not on his own. Then Manamandhla spoke.

“My life is yet my own, Inqoto, which is well for some.”

Thornhill understood the allusion and—hoped still more. He made the usual murmur of assent.

“Listen Abelungu,” went on the Zulu, “and I will tell a story. There were two children—brothers. They fought in the ranks of the ibuto called Ngobamakosi what time the impi of the Great Great One was defeated kwa Nodvengu. (Historically known as the battle of Ulundi.) Both were wounded in the battle, and could not flee far, so when the white horsemen poured forth in pursuit they soon overtook these, who lay down, already dead. The horsemen thundered down upon them, and seeing that they still moved—for who at such a time sees anything but red?—pointed their pistols. But another white man rode there too and he pointed his pistol too—not at those who lay there but at those who threatened them. They were angry, and words rose high, but they rode on and left those two children, of whom one is alive to-day.”

The speaker paused, and began deliberately to take snuff. Elvesdon was interested; Thornhill was more, as he bent his glance keenly upon the dark face before him.

“Time—a long time—rolled on, and one of those ‘children,’ then a young man no longer, but ringed, sought out the white man who had saved him and his brother from death. He found him and—au! he himself became lame for life. For he fell—but he arose again. Then twice after that he escaped death.”

Thornhill’s face became rigid. He had entertained an angel unawares and had, all unconsciously, done his best to transform him into a devil. Elvesdon, too, began to see through the veil—though not entirely. He recalled the incident in the kloof when his friend had fired straight at this man, and but for his timely interruption and that of Edala would certainly have shot him dead. The Zulu for his part knew exactly how much to render clear to both and how much to keep dark from one.

“And now Inqoto,” he went on. “Thy daughter? What of her?”

“She is safe.” There was a rigid eagerness in the tone that by no means conveyed the assurance intended to be conveyed.

“She is safe,” was the answer, and Thornhill sank back with a sigh of relief. “Hers was one life saved by those of the two children kwa Nodwengu. She, and another, had taken hiding on the tree which grows out from Sipazi-pazi. Two eyes saw them, many others who sought for them on the mountain top—ah ah—on the mountain top—did not. She is safe at Kwabulazi—both are safe.”

A great sigh of relief went up from both listeners. They could fill in all the details. But Thornhill, to his companion’s amazement went through a strange performance. He leaped to his feet, and the next moment was swinging the narrator to and fro as he sat, with a vice-like hand upon each shoulder.

“Manamandhla, my brother!” he exclaimed in a deep, quivering tone. “You saved her life like this? You? See now. Before I am killed here I will write that on paper which shall give you after the trouble is over what will make you a rich man, and what will protect you if you are known as having taken part in the trouble. Now—now I see everything. I did not before.”

At first the Zulu looked astonished at this outburst, and then his magnificent white teeth showed in a gratified smile.

“Whau!” he exclaimed. “A life for a life—that is a safe rule. The life of a woman does not count. The oxen which Inqoto has given to my brother’s son pay for that. But the lives of the two ‘children’—warriors in the ibuto known as Ngobamakosi—such are the lives of men. And these I give ye two—so far as I can,” he added somewhat seriously. “Listen. I am not chief here, Nteseni is. But Nteseni is away with most of his people. This night you must leave. To-morrow may be too late. Here are the weapons you came with—”

From under his blanket he produced two revolvers, the same which had been taken from them at their capture.

”—For food, if you have none, that I cannot help, but you are both strong. Listen. Now I am going out hence, and I shall draw those who watch this hut away with me. When you no longer hear voices, then go forth, but be careful to leave the door of the hut in its place. Hambani gahle!”

He crawled through the low doorway and was gone, leaving the two staring at each other in speechless amazement. To Thornhill, especially, it seemed like a dream. He remembered the long-forgotten incident now recalled, and how in the rout after Ulundi he had saved two youths who had sunk down exhausted in their flight, from being ruthlessly pistolled by two of his own comrades in the troop of irregular Horse in which he was serving—and now this was one of them: this man of whom he had gone in dread as a witness against him, whose blood he had sought with deadly persistency and on two occasions had nearly shed It was wonderful—wonderful.

And this man—this savage—had been the means of saving Edala—his darling—his idolised child—from a bloody death or worse brutalities at the hands of the fiends who sought her! By the side of that the fact of the saving of their own lives counted as nothing—nothing.

“Well, Elvesdon. I think it’s time to skip,” he said as at last the sound of deep-toned voices died into silence.

Cautiously they took down the door and slipped out, taking care to place it in position again. There was no sign of life in the kraal, except the muffled murmur of a few drowsy voices coming from one or two of the huts. In a minute they had gained the welcome darkness of the bush.

“Now I think we can steer our way,” whispered Thornhill. “Our nearest is by old Zisiso’s kraal, but that’s a regular path, and we don’t want that. We’ll keep a bit up, and we shall have the double advantage of avoiding the enemy—every Kafir is an enemy now—and being able to get an occasional outlook over the country. If we don’t fetch Kwabulazi by sunrise we shall have to lie low all through to-morrow.”

Steadily they held on. Thornhill was a master of veldt-craft, and Elvesdon did not come very far behind him in that line for all that he was professionally an official. The night air blew keen and chill, very chill, but the walking exercise largely counteracted that. And the sense of freedom again was exhilarating in itself—still more so was the sense of the impending reunion.

They did not talk as they travelled—when they had occasion to do so it was in the barest whispers. In ordinary and peaceful times they would not have encountered a living soul, for the native is strongly averse to moving about at night. Now, however, it was different. They might run into an impi at any moment, travelling swiftly across country to take up its position for attack or observation.

The night was dark, but, fortunately there was no mist. The stars to a certain degree piloted their direction, as they do, or should do, to every dweller in the free, sparsely inhabited open. Only this was not so sparsely inhabited, in that twice they came upon a large kraal where the inhabitants were alert and on the move, a thing they would never have been at that time of night, in peaceful times.

Now as they got almost within the glow of the red fires of one of these there was a rush and an open-mouthed clamour of curs, and that in their direction. The inhabitants, too, seemed to pause, and gaze suspiciously upwards—fortunately they were above them, on the apex of a ridge.

“Gahle, Gahle! Elvesdon!” whispered Thornhill. “They’ve spotted us. This way. Don’t rattle more stones than you can help.”

They plunged down the other side of the rise. Ah but, they were many wearisome miles from safety—and they were unmounted.

Along the hillside they made their way, but how slow did that way seem to men unaccustomed to doing that sort of travelling on foot. The dawn began to show signs of breaking, and they were still a long way from Kwabulazi. A weary day of close hiding and starvation lay before them.

It was light enough now to distinguish the surroundings. Suddenly Thornhill stopped and was listening intently.

“All up,” he said. “Look.”

The other followed the direction of his gaze. The tops of the bushes were shaking in a long quivering line. Clearly their enemies had been tracking them like hounds, throughout the dark hours.

“We can make a stand here as well as anywhere,” growled Thornhill. “We hold five lives apiece, and the last bullet for ourselves—if we get time. Oh-h!”

A burning, blinding flash came before his eyes. Everything whirled round him, and he sank to the earth. Elvesdon set his teeth, with something like the snarl of a wild beast as his revolver bullet thudded hard into the naked form of the savage who had just hurled the deadly assegai, at the same time dropping another who was in the act of following it up by a second cast. For the moment none seemed anxious to take the risk of that quick, deadly aim.

Elvesdon glanced down at his unconscious friend, from whose head the blood was pouring. The assegai had struck him on the temple, and the blade, glancing along the skull had laid it bare in a frightful gash, with the effect of momentary stunning. The position was a low bush, the ground being open for more than a score of yards from it on the side of the attack, but this none of the assailants seemed eager to take the risk of crossing. He crouched down low so as to offer as small a mark as possible, and cool with the deadly calmness of desperation watched his chance.

It came. A movement among the bushes told that their enemies were making a surrounding move. For less than a second one of them showed, and again the pistol spoke, but whether with effect or not he was unable to determine. And then, if there was room for any addition to the utter despair which was upon him, Elvesdon’s quick, searching glance became alive to something else. On the roll of the slope, approaching from the direction they had been taking, the bushes were agitating in the morning stillness, and there was no breeze. His assailants were being reinforced, and as though to prove that fact beyond a doubt, there was a report of firearms, then another, and something hummed unpleasantly near. They had got rifles then? Well they could not go on missing him all day.

“Lie flat, Mister, and give us a chance of letting ’em have hell.”

The loud, hearty English hail was as a voice from Heaven. With characteristic promptitude Elvesdon obeyed, and then came a dropping volley, as the rescuers advanced in a line through the bushes, getting in their fire whenever an enemy showed himself. They were on foot, having left their horses just beyond the rise, with the object of making a silent advance and thus surprising the savages the more effectively.

The latter did not wait. They were in sufficient strength to tackle two men, but not such an opponent as the relieving force, of whose very number they were ignorant. So they wriggled away as swiftly and noiselessly as so many snakes, not, however, entirely without loss.

“Hallo. Who’s down?” cried Hyland Thornhill, coming up to the group standing around the two. “Eh? Who the blazes is down?”

They made way for him in silence.

“Oh, good God!” he cried, staggering to the ground beside the wounded man. “He isn’t killed—no damn it—he isn’t killed,” gritting his teeth. “Oh, dear old dad—tell me you know me, for God’s sake.”

A wave of returning consciousness swept over the face of the wounded man. He opened his eyes, and there was a gleam of recognition in them. Then he closed them, knitting his brows as though in pain.

Thus Hyland Thornhill succeeded in rescuing his father—but—was it too late?

Chapter Thirty Two.

Thornhill’s Story.

“Will you go in and see him, Evelyn? No, it’s not you Edala. He wants to talk to Evelyn this time.”

Hyland had just come from his father’s sick room. Both girls, awaiting the summons, had started up. Some days had passed since the rescue party had returned to Kwabulazi, but the wounded man did not seem to improve. The doctor feared lest erysipelas might set in, it was even possible that the patient might lose his sight, for the wound had perforce been dressed in rough and ready fashion at the time—indeed but that they had put their best foot foremost in the retreat they would have been attacked by a force whose overwhelming strength would have rendered massacre almost a certainty. As it was they were pressed hard to within a mile of the entrenchments; but some at any rate among the savages had had experience in trying to rush that very entrenchment, and had no stomach for a repetition thereof. So the impi had drawn off.

To her dying day Edala will never forget the return of that rescue party—and the lifting down of her father’s half—unconscious form from the horse on which Hyland had supported him—the deathly pallor of the drawn face, the beard all clotted with dried blood, the hands limp and nerveless. So utterly did she give way, in the plenitude of her grief and gnawing remorse that several of the men had to turn away with a suspicious choke.

“Too late! Too late!” she moaned, throwing herself on the ground beside him. “You said it would be, and it is.”

“But it isn’t,” struck in Hyland. “He’s got a bad knock on the head, but old Vine’ll be able to put that right. Come, get up, Edala dear. We must put him to bed, you know.”

The tone was decisive, practical, but the speaker felt far from as confident as he would have his sister believe. And Dr Vine’s diagnosis was by no means reassuring. He feared complications. So the wounded man was carried into the airiest and most comfortable room in Elvesdon’s far from luxurious house, where all was done for him that could be done.

There was difficulty with Edala. She refused to leave the bedside day or night. It was only when her father recovered full consciousness that they were able to get her away, when she had poured out her soul to him in an agony of remorse and self-reproach. Then he had soothed her, and insisted upon her taking rest and food; and she had obeyed unquestioningly. His lightest word was law now—as it had been in the times long past. She was allowed to help her brother and Elvesdon in their unremitting care of the wounded man, and the same held good of Evelyn Carden. But it was once and for all decided that neither of the girls should be allowed to overdo it, and this was adhered to no matter how much they begged and pleaded.

Elvesdon had taken up the reins of office again, and found his hands very full indeed. The telegraph wire had been repaired, and messages kept flashing in, communicating matters which demanded his constant attention, some necessary and some not. But at night he never curtailed one single half hour of his vigil at the bedside of his friend in recently and narrowly escaped peril. They had gone through a furnace together.

Strong man as he was the strain was beginning to tell upon Elvesdon. He looked pale and fagged, and his spirits became depressed. His conversation with Thornhill in the hour of their mutual danger was fresh in his mind, but although he saw a great deal of Edala there was nothing in the girl’s look or manner to show that she regarded him in the light of any other than an ordinary friend, a jolly good chum with no nonsense about him, and whom she could treat with the same free, frank camaraderie as her own brother. This, of course, was no time to urge any further claim upon her: he recognised that. Still he felt depressed.

While feeling a little more so than usual there came a knock at his office door. It was late afternoon and he was wondering whether he could venture to shut up for a time before any more of those beastly wires came in.

“Miss Thornhill would like to see you, sir,” said Prior, entering. “Will you see her?”

“Why of course. And—er—Prior. I don’t want to be disturbed, no matter who by. See?”

Prior did see, and if the Governor himself had appeared on the scene until that door should open again, decidedly His Excellency would have had to wait.

“And now, to what is this unwonted honour due?” he began, closing the door behind his visitor. “First of all, sit. Why, Diane chasseresse, you have not been obeying orders I’m afraid. You are looking a little bit—well, overdone.”

“That’s better than feeling a good bit underdone,” she rejoined with something of her old, bright laugh.

“How’s the patient? Any further improvement?”

“Rather. Old Vine says we needn’t be anxious any more.”

“That’s right royal news. We ought to give three cheers. But it was sweet of you to come and tell me this, Edala.”

The name came out half-unconsciously. He had taken to using it of late: their new rapprochement in the circumstances of a mutual care and anxiety had seemed to render it natural. And she had never resented it or shown any sign of astonishment.

“I didn’t come to tell it you,” answered the girl, in her direct straightforward way. She had risen from her chair, and the clear blue eyes met his full, yet he thought to detect in them a shade of embarrassment. “What I came to tell you was—is—what an ungrateful, unappreciative little beast I must have seemed all this time never to have said a word about your bravery—your heroism. You saved father’s life. You stood over him and kept off those brutes when—when—”

She broke off, with a little stamp of the foot. Her eyes were beginning to fill. Elvesdon’s face flushed uneasily.

“No—no—no. ‘Bravery! Heroism!’ Bah!” he answered. “You don’t suppose I was going to run away and leave him, do you? Why even Ramasam would hardly have done that. Besides—if I had wanted to ever so much I couldn’t have got far. We were unmounted remember. And, if you only knew it, I’ve been cursing myself and my own idiocy right roundly in having been such a blithering idiot as to get us into that hobble at all. I daresay I shall get a kick down in the Service on the strength of it when my full report goes in, and I haven’t spared myself in it I can tell you.”

“Have you sent it in yet?” asked the girl, speaking quickly.

“No—but I shall to-morrow.”

“Then promise me you won’t—until you’ve rewritten it. If you don’t I shall make Hyland, and anyone else who’s likely to be of any use, blazon the whole thing out in every paper in the Colony, and in all South Africa too. Now promise me you won’t.”

The colour had come into her cheeks, emphasising the clearness of the dilated blue eyes. She looked lovely. As she stood there, drawn up erect, again came back to him that vision of her on that exciting occasion of their first meeting. He felt a trifle unsteadied, a trifle thrown off his balance.

“It’s of no use belittling the thing,” she went on, her words tripping over each other’s heels, as it were. “You men who do things are too fond of doing that—”

“Are—they?” rejoined Elvesdon, with a touch of humour. “I’ve sometimes noticed it’s rather the other way on.” And then a sudden whirlwind of feeling seemed to sweep him off his feet. “Edala, when your father and I were in that very tight fix together—I mean just before either of us knew that we were going to have the feeblest chance of escape—I put a question to him. Would you like to know what it was?”

“Yes.”

“Then you shall. I asked him whether, in the event of us ever getting away again, he would have any objection to my trying to win your love.”

“What did he answer?”

“He answered by another question. Did I think I could do it?”

“Well—and do you?”

She stood—the lovely flower-like face transformed with sweetness. He had already taken a couple of steps towards her, in his uncontrollable tension, and then—

“Yes, I think you can—darling,” she whispered, into his shoulder a few moments later. “In fact—you have.”

“This is a strange sort of surrounding for such a climax—my own,” he murmured—after an interval. “A fusty, dusty old office.”

“Well, and what could be more appropriate,”—she returned—“under the circumstances.”

The while Prior had sent at least two damning Government transport—riders away, using dreadful language because being after office hours they could not get their way-bills checked, and wondering what was the blanked use of blanked Resident Magistrates or blanked blanked Civil servants blanked anyhow.

Evelyn Carden got up in obedience to the summons, to go to her relative. “You don’t mind, do you, dear?” she said, with her usual tactful consideration.

“No—no. Of course not,” answered Edala, yet still conscious of that faint remaining twinge of jealousy. But the two had become drawn to each other like sisters now. They had been through strange experiences together, and each had come fully to rate the other at her own worth.

The room was cool and restful if not luxurious. Thornhill’s tall form lay there under the coverlet, a pathetic embodiment of strength laid low. Even the bandages round his head, unsightly as all bandages are, did not detract from the reposeful dignity of that calm strong face. Evelyn stooped and kissed him on the cheek, taking, in her cool grasp, the hand which was searching for hers.

“Well Inqoto, and you are much better now?” she said, and there was a sort of cooing softness about the tone.

“No—I am not particularly—by the way, you seem to have got your tongue round that dick at last.”

“Practice,” she answered smilingly.

“I’m not better, and I don’t want to be. I’ve run out my time. Who cares how soon I’m dead? I don’t, for one.” The pathos in the naturalness of the voice brought something of a lump into the listener’s throat.

“Who cares?” she echoed after a moment of suspicious pause. “What about Hyland for instance?”

“Hyland? Ah! Dear boy, he always believed in me.”

“So does Edala,” said the other boldly.

There was no answer. What was she to say? thought Evelyn.

“She does now,” she went on. The wounded man opened his eyes wide.

“Does now? Rather late in the day. But,” as if it had suddenly dawned upon him, “what do you—I’ve had a whack on the head you know, and it’s left me rather stupid—what do you—know about things?”

“Nothing. Because there’s nothing to know,” came the cheerful confident rejoinder. “Listen Inqoto—I believe it’s useless, and worse, any beating about the bush between you and me. Shall I speak plainly?”

Thornhill looked at her long and earnestly. As he did so a whole world of reassurance came into his eyes. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Talk as plainly as you like.”

“Well, I overheard a couple of silly cackling geese under the window the other day, but the subject of their cackle was too farcical for words—about you of course. Edala heard it too.”

“Edala heard it?”

“Yes. Then we talked it out, and she said she didn’t believe it either.”

There seemed no necessity on the part of Thornhill—perhaps from force of mental habit no such occurred to him—to ask what the said ‘it’ might be.

“She has believed it up till now, anyhow,” he said.

“And if you could have seen the awful agony of self-reproach she was in that day!” urged the other. “It seemed almost like someone blind restored to sight when I put the whole thing to her in a few words. Under any other circumstances it would have been laughable—the quick transformation, I mean.”

“Yet they had something to go upon—something to go upon,” repeated the wounded man slowly. “I may as well tell you all about it, though there’s not much to tell.”

Evelyn’s clasp of the hand she held, tightened.

“You know I was under arrest years ago on suspicion of doing away with my—legal partner in life?”

Evelyn nodded. Since she had overheard the two women’s gossip she had gone straight to Hyland and got the whole story out of him. Thornhill went on.

“The strange part of the whole thing is that I didn’t do it.”

“I never for one fraction of a second supposed you did.”

“You stand pretty well alone there,” answered Thornhill with a pressure of the hand. “To cut a long story—and a very unpleasant one, for even now the taste comes back—short, the party to whom I had given my name, when I was young and foolish, and who, incidentally, gained far more by the transaction than I did, led me a most shocking life. No—it wasn’t owing to drink, it was sheer innate devilishness. This went on for years—by the bye you can still see some of its results in the way Edala has turned against me ever since. That process, however, had begun before, and not only with this child but with all of them. Well let’s get to the end of the abominable rotten episode, for the bare telling of it makes me sick.”

“Then don’t tell it, Inqoto. Why should you?” adjured Evelyn earnestly, and very uneasily as she remembered the doctor’s injunctions that the wounded man was not to be allowed to excite himself in the least degree. Yet, now, his face was flushed and he was moving restlessly in the bed.

“I’d better get it over. Fact is I haven’t mentioned the matter to anybody—since—since it happened. You are the first. One night—after raising a particularly shameful and scandalous scene—good Lord! it’s lucky the walls at Sipazi can’t talk—she rushed out of the house swearing that she was going to put an end to herself. Candidly I didn’t in the least care if she did, to such a pass had things come; however I thought I should probably be suspected of murder if such a thing happened. So I started to follow her, and didn’t overtake her all of a sudden either. When I did she had got among the rocks and crevices—never mind what part of the farm or even if on it at all. I tell you then, she was just like one possessed. I thought the devil must be standing there before me, but I tried to warn her that she was ramping dangerously near an ugly crevice that might be any depth. She answered she didn’t care. She was going to jump into it if only to get me hanged for her murder. Well hardly were the words uttered than she tripped on something and hurtled bang into the crack. I could do nothing, you know. I was fully twenty yards off. Horrible, isn’t it?”

The listener bent her head gravely.

“You were not to blame,” she said. “The thing was sheer accident.”

“So it was. I have had a great many years wherein to look back, and I have never been able to blame myself in the affair in any single particular. Well at the time my first feeling was one of intense relief—shocking again, wasn’t it? Then a horrid thought struck me. Our relations with each other were well known, were matter of common scandal. I began to feel the tightening of a noose, for who the devil was likely to believe my version? Just then I saw someone watching me.

“I must have been mad. I don’t know how it happened, but instead of treating any witness as a friendly and invaluable one, I at once assumed this one’s hostility. I decided that one of us must not leave the spot alive. I flung myself upon him and—didn’t we have a tussle! Well, he did exactly the same thing—stepped back into a crevice, and—stayed there. That man was Manamandhla.”

“Then he got out?”

“Well, of course. But I didn’t know he was alive from that night until a few weeks before you came. And he saved all four of our lives—but that part of the story you know. Well that’s all—and, thank God it is.”

The narrator closed his eyes wearily and lay still. The listener sat there, still holding his hand. Her glance rested upon the firm, fine features, and a great yearning was round her heart. What a tragedy had this man’s life been. Her thoughts went round to Edala. Had she been in Edala’s place would she have taken everything on trust? She thought she would: she was sure she would.

“Why didn’t you tell Edala all this, Inqoto?” she asked. “When she was old enough I mean.”

“She wouldn’t have believed me. Do you?”

He had opened his eyes and was fixing them full on her face. But not the slightest sign of doubt or misgiving did he read there. On the contrary the expression was one of complete trust.

“Haven’t I already said so?” she answered.

“Do you know, Evelyn, since I have been lying here I have found myself wishing you had never found us out at all.”

She looked hurt. “Why, Inqoto?”

“Because child,” and he smiled a little at her still slight difficulty with the dick. “I am wondering how I am ever going to do without you again. You did threaten to take yourself off once you know.”

“Well I can’t inflict myself upon you for ever,” she answered, with a laugh. “But I have been very happy at Sipazi—very.”

“Happy? I should have thought you’d have been bored out of your immortal soul, shut up all this time with only another girl and a sober-sided, boring, old fogey.”

“Stop that now, Inqoto,” she said quickly, dropping her other hand on to his, and there was a ring in her voice that his ear might or might not have caught. The air seemed charged with some sort of unwonted force.

“Well, what I was trying to screw up courage to say was this,” he went on. “If you have been so happy here why not continue to be so on the same terms, for the rest of our natural lives—that is if you can put up with the old fogey aforesaid ‘for better or for worse,’ as the rigmarole has it, probably the latter? What do you say, dear?”

A flush had come over her face, giving way to a momentary paleness, then it returned. The light in her eyes burned dear and soft. She looked wonderfully attractive.

“I say—‘Yes,’” she answered. “But oh, dearest, are you sure of yourself. You are weak and ill you know. Had we not better treat this as though it had not been until you are your own strong self again, and even then if you wish it?”

“No—we had not. Well? You said yes just now. Say it again.”

She did so. And she bent down and kissed him again, this time on the lips.

“I’ve never seen anyone like you before,” she whispered tenderly. “Never.”

“Gee-yupp! Strikes me I’ve looked in at the wrong time.”

Evelyn sprang back, flushing crimson. Hyland was standing in the doorway, with the most mischievously comical expression of countenance. The coolest of the three was the patient himself.

“No you haven’t,” said the latter. “Come in Hyland, and shut the door. Evelyn here has agreed to take me on for better or for worse—probably worse, I tell her. What d’you think of that?”

“Good old step-ma!” cried Hyland, seizing hold of Evelyn, and bestowing upon her cheeks a hearty kiss—Hyland was nothing if not boisterous. “I say dad, though, I’ve got a bit of news for you—and very much of the same sort. Edala’s gone and got engaged to that fellow Elvesdon. What d’you think of that?”

“Well, it doesn’t come upon me as a wild surprise. When did they put up that bargain?”

“Now. This afternoon; half an hour ago.”

“That’s odd, the coincidence I mean. So did we.”

Hyland whistled.

“My hat!” he exclaimed, “but it’s a rum world.”

”—And very much given to match-making,” supplied Thornhill complacently.

Chapter Thirty Three.

Envoi.

The table was laid out in the cool shade of the fig-trees, but the birds which loved to depredate in crowds in the garden at Sipazi had taken themselves off to the further end of the same with that object, for it was not quiet here; not by any means. A small, but very jovial party was assembled, a party of six. And it was Christmas day.

The afternoon heat of the midsummer day shimmered without, but there was no hot wind, wherefore here in the cool shade it was delightful. Nearly a year had gone by since we first made acquaintance with the spot, and the party here gathered; nearly half a year since we last saw the latter brought safely through the times of peril and anxiety which that year had brought forth. And upon the third finger of the left hand of two members of that party was a plain ring of somewhat suspicious brightness—which had not been there then.

“I say,” cried Hyland, getting up to pop off another of the gold-headed bottles which stood in a vaatje of water. “We’ve drank all our own healths and everybody else’s. Now we ought to drink the health of this jolly ghost party.”

“Contradiction in terms, boy,” said his father. “Who ever heard of a ‘jolly’ ghost?”

“Well, ain’t we? We’re all in white.”

“Lucky we’re not all in black,” said Edala, half seriously.

“Hear—hear!” cried Prior.

“Appropriate colour for Christmas,” put in Evelyn.

“And the heat,” supplied Elvesdon.

“Who ever saw a ghost with a very red and skinned nose either?” observed Edala, with a severe glance at her brother, whose face still bore traces of the exposure of a hard campaign.

“Look here, Mrs Elvesdon, don’t you make personal remarks,” retorted Hyland. “Two can play at that game, and I for one never saw you look so dashed fetching as you’re doing now—and that’s saying a great deal. Gee-yupp!” pretending to dodge the bottle which his sister pretended to throw at him. “Elvesdon, keep your wife in order, can’t you. It’s a bad example for us two old bachelors—eh. Prior? Two poor old bachelors!”

“The remedy for that pitiable state lies in your own hands, Hyland,” said Evelyn serenely. “Why don’t you apply it?”

“That’s what I might have been going to do, if the dad there hadn’t been so beastly slim in cutting me out,” retorted the incorrigible rascal. “I don’t know what to say about Prior. Pity you haven’t got any sisters, Evelyn.”

“Plenty of other people have, Hyland,” said Elvesdon. “A man crowned with your laurels, you know, isn’t likely to go begging.”

“Oh here, I say, shut up,” was the reply, made half seriously, the point being that the speaker had served all through the campaign and that with some distinction.

“No fear,” cried Edala. “You started the campaign of chaff, Hyland, and you can’t yell out if you get the worst of it.”

“Ah. I like to see—er—pals, shall we call it? stand by each other. Now then Elvesdon—back her up.”

Of course all this was precious poor repartee or wit, especially in cold print. But given the circumstances—a jovial reunion coming close upon vivid recollections of peril and storm—now a setting of peace and serenity and happiness—and Christmas Day—and it is obvious to anyone not possessed of a churlish soul that very little makes towards fun and jollity and mirth. And this held good here.

The rising, a far more formidable affair than the home public ever seems to have realised, and of which this narrative only deals with in its earlier stages, had been very effectually quelled, through the bravery and devotion of Colonial troops and the high efficiency and personnel of Colonial officers; and that without the aid of a single Imperial soldier. As such the campaign stands unique in the annals of South African warfare. The pluck displayed in several fierce battles, the splendid grit and endurance, never failing, under every difficulty, in hard and almost unnegotiable country, has been in evidence before in such warfare, but never more so than during this last campaign in Natal.

Well it was over now, but in it Hyland Thornhill as we have said, had borne his full share, and that with distinction. Elvesdon, as a Civil servant, had perforce taken no active part in the subsequent operations, but indirectly, ever at his post during that wearing anxious time he had borne his share in it by smoothing down many a difficulty—in the matter of facilitating supplies, and so forth, for those who had; so much so that his superiors were led to re-consider their first impressions to the effect that he had rather muddled the situation in the matter of Babatyana. Anyhow, here he was, still at Kwabulazi, and with him the faithful Prior.

“Please—one man want to see master. He say he Zulu nigger.”

The interruption came from Thornhill’s Indian cook. There was a laugh, and Hyland fairly roared.

“I’ll swear he never said that, Ramasam,” said the latter, “Who is he?”

But before the other could answer a tall figure strode up and halted in front of them, uttering a sonorous hail.

“Whau! Manamandhla!” cried Hyland. “This is good, good to meet again here, for I think the last time we looked on each other’s faces was among the rocks and bushes of the Mome. Here is tywala that I don’t suppose you ever drank before,” creaming up a large tumbler with champagne, and handing it to the new arrival.

“That have I never, Ugwala,” said the Zulu with a smile, after a good pull at the sparkling beverage. “How a man—an impi—could fight if doctored with such múti as this, say in the Nkandhla!”

There was a humorous twinkle in the speaker’s eyes, the point of the allusion being that he and Hyland had twice met in battle face to face, but the assegai of the one and the revolver of the other had simultaneously turned upon another enemy.

“We’ll have no end of yarns now from the other side,” went on Hyland. Then to the Zulu. “I was saying Manamandhla, this is a good day to have arrived on—Christmas Day—but then, you don’t know what that is.”

“I have heard U ’Jobo tell the people some story about it—” was the answer.

“U ’Jobo!” cried Hyland, “Whau! U ’Jobo! It will be a long time before he tells ‘the people’ any more of his stories—impela!”

“He’s a considerable swine and deserves all he’s got,” said Elvesdon. “Still I’m glad I was able to help the poor devil a little. After all he did try to warn us.”

For the Rev. Job Magwegwe had fallen upon evil days. He had been arrested at an early stage of the rebellion, and tried, on several charges of holding seditious and inflammatory gatherings under the guise of prayer meetings; and in the result was sentenced to two years’ hard labour and thirty-six lashes. But Elvesdon’s representations had procured the remission of the lashes and of six months of imprisonment.

They sat thus chatting for some time, and then Thornhill suggested that his visitor should go with Hyland and choose a fat beast to kill, for himself and the farm people, and any others the latter might like to send word to—by way of making a Christmas festivity for themselves in the evening.

“Good idea!” said Hyland, “I’m getting tired of sitting still. A ride over to the herd will do all right. Coming, Prior?”

“Rather.”

Now, by all rights, Manamandhla should have been arrested as an arch-rebel, and sent for trial: but—he was not.

So the remaining four sat on there, and the hours of the golden afternoon rolled on, and the birds piped and twittered down the valley in the lengthening sunbeams, and the great red krantz, frowning down majestically from the face of Sipazi, glowed like fire in the westering sun. But upon these lay the sunset of a perfect content and peace.

The End.