John Ames, Native Commissioner: A Romance of the Matabele Rising

The sun was off the valley now – off the world. In the brief twilight the stars began to rush forth. A terrible loneliness came over her. Oh, why was he so late? The two water-holes in the valley glared up at her with a lack-lustre stare, as of a pair of gigantic eyes, watching her loneliness. Still he came not.

Was he uncertain of the place? They had but just arrived there, and he might well be. Fool that she was not to have thought of it, and now her hands trembled with eagerness as she collected some dry grass and sticks together, and caring nothing what other eyes might see it if only his would, kindled them into a bright blaze.

How her hearing was strained to its uttermost tension! Every rustle of a leaf, every snapping of a twig, sent a thrill of anticipatory joy through her being, only to give way to sickening disappointment. An hour went by, then two. Faint and exhausted, she had not even the energy to prepare food. The one consciousness of her appalling loneliness here in this scarcely trodden waste seemed to sap and paralyse all her facilities. The weird voices of the night held a different meaning now that she was lying out alone on the hillside. Below, in the swamp, the trailing gleam of will-o’-the-wisps played fitfully, and the croaking of frogs was never stilled.

Had anything befallen him? It must be so. Nothing short of that could have kept him from returning to her. And she? She could do nothing to aid him. She was so absolutely helpless.

“Oh, darling! why did I ever allow you to leave me, my own, my true chivalrous love?” she murmured to herself amid a rain of tears, confiding to herself the secret of her heart in the agony of her distress and terror. And still the dark hours wore on, one upon another, and he – the companion, protector – lover – did not return.

The night she had spent hiding in the river-bank after the slaughter of the Hollingworths could hardly be surpassed for horror and apprehension, Nidia had thought at the time. Now she recognised that it had been as nothing to this one. Then she had hardly known the secret of her heart – now she had discovered it. But – too late.

Yet, was it too late? Harm might not have befallen him, after all. He might have missed his way in the darkness. In the very earliest dawn he would return, and then the joy of it! This hope acted like a sedative to poor Nidia’s overwrought brain. The night air was soft and balmy. At last she slept.

It was grey dawn when she awoke, but her awakening was startling, for it was brought about by a loud harsh shout – almost in her ear. Nidia sprang to her feet, trembling with terror. Several great dark shapes fled to the rocks just overhanging her resting-place, and, gaining them, faced round again, uttering their harsh, angry shout. Baboons? Could they be? Nidia had seen here and there a dejected looking baboon or two chained to a post; but such had nothing in common with these great fierce brutes up there, barely twenty yards distant, which skipped hither and thither, champing their great tusks and barking savagely. One old male of enormous size, outlined against the sky, on the apex of a cone, looked as large as a lion. Others came swarming down the rocks; evil-looking horrors, repulsive as so many gigantic spiders.

Wild-eyed with fear, Nidia snatched up a blanket, and ran towards them, waving it, and shouting. They retreated helter-skelter, but only to skip forward again, mowing and gibbering. Three of the foremost, indeed, great males, would hardly move at all. They squatted almost within springing distance, gnashing their tusks, hideously threatening.

Then, as by magic, the whole gnome-like troop wildly fled; but the cause of this change of front was hard and material. “Whizz – Bang – Whack!” came a succession of stones, forcibly hurled, splintering off a rock like a bullet, thudding hard upon simian ribs. Yelling and jabbering, the whole crew skipped and shoggled up the rocks, and Nidia, with a very wan and scared smile upon her pallid face, turned to welcome her companion and protector – turned, to behold – not John Ames at all, but a burly savage – a tall Matabele warrior, barbarously picturesque in the weird panoply of his martial adornments.

Chapter Twenty One.

Trapped

His mind aglow with the recollection of that farewell, his one thought how soon he should be able to return, John Ames strode forth upon his quest, and as he did so it is probable that the whole world could not have produced another human being filled with such a rapturous exaltation as this refugee from a fiendish massacre, hiding for his life in the grim fastnesses of the Matopo Hills.

That last look he had discerned in Nidia’s eyes, that last pressure of her hands, could mean but one thing, and that the one thing to obtain which he would have laid down his life again and again. She was beginning to care for him. Other little spontaneous acts of cordiality during their enforced exile, had more than once stirred within him this wild hope, yet he had not encouraged himself to entertain it. Such he had of course deemed to be the outcome of their position. Now, however, the scales seemed to fall from his eyes, and he could read into them a very different meaning.

These last few days! Why, they seemed a lifetime. And when they should be over – what then? Was not his resolution a quixotic one; now, indeed, an impossible one? He almost made up his mind to abandon it, and on his return to ascertain once and for all how matters stood. As against that, what if he were mistaken, or partially so? There was such a thing as being too precipitate. Would it not be better to wait until he had brought Nidia safely and triumphantly through the multifold perils which still overhung their way?

How casual had been their meeting in the first instance, how marvellous and providential in the second. If anything seemed to point a significant augury, this did. But what of the more practical side? What would Nidia’s own people have to say in the matter? From things let drop he had gleaned incidentally that they were people of very considerable wealth, whereas he himself had little beyond the by no means princely salary wherewith the Chartered Company saw fit to remunerate his valuable services. Well, he would not think of that just then. Time enough to do so when they were safely back in prosaic civilisation once more. Let him revel in his happiness while it was his.

And it was happiness. Here he was – enjoying advantages such as rarely fall to the lot of the ardent lover. The daily intercourse, for all present purposes, each representing all the world to the other, beyond the reach of officious or intrusive outsider; she dependent upon him for everything – protection, companionship, even the very means of subsistence – what a labour of love was all this.

A slight rattle, as of stones, above his head, brought his mind back to the object of his quest; and lo! there stood the aforesaid means of subsistence personified, in the shape of a klip-springer, which from its boulder pedestal was regarding him with round-eyed amazement and distrust. Dare he use his rifle? There was no other way of securing the little buck. It was out of throwing-range, and in any case would be nimble enough to dodge a kerrie. He thought he would risk it. Game was alarmingly scarce.

But the question was decided for him. The animal suddenly sprang from the boulder, and in a couple of bounds had disappeared among the rocks. What – who – had scared it? The answer came – and a startling one it was. A score of Matabele warriors rose from among the long grass, and, uttering their fierce vibrating war-shout, flung themselves upon him. So intent had he been upon his thoughts, and on watching the klip-springer, that, crawling like snakes in the grass, they had been able to surround him unperceived. So sudden was the onslaught, that not a moment was given him for defence. His rifle was knocked from his grasp by a blow with a kerrie which he thought had shattered his wrist. Assegais flashed in front of his eyes, battle-axes were flourished in his face, his ears were deafened with the hubbub of voices. Then arose a great shout.

“Au! U’Jonémi!”

They had recognised him. Did that account for the fact that he was still alive? He had expected instant death, and even in that brief flash of time had crossed his mind a vision of Nidia left alone, of her agony of fear, of her utter helplessness. Oh, fool that he was, to have been lulled into this false security!

As though satisfied with having disarmed him, they had so far refrained from offering him further violence. No, he dared not hope. Others came swarming up, crowding around to look at him, many of them recognising him with jeers.

“Au! Jonémi! Thou art a long way from home!” they would cry. “Where are thy people – the other Amakiwa – and thy horses?”

“No people have I, nor horses, amadoda. I am alone. Have I not always wished well and acted well towards you? Return me, therefore, my rifle, and let me go my way in peace.”

It was putting a bold face on things; but, in his miserable extremity, as he thought of Nidia it seemed to John Ames that he was capable of any expedient, however insane. The proposal was greeted with shouts of derisive laughter by some. Others scowled.

“Wished well and acted well towards us?” echoed one of these. “Au! And our cattle – whose hand was it that destroyed them daily?”

This was applying the match with a vengeance.

“Yea – whose?” they shouted. “That of Jonémi.”

Their mood was rapidly growing more ugly, their demeanour threatening. Those who had been inclined to good humour before, now looked black. Several, darting out from the rest, began to go through the performance of “gwaza,” throwing themselves into every conceivable contortion of attack or defence, then, rushing at their prisoner, would make a lightning-like stab at him, just arresting the assegai blade within a foot of his body, or the same sort of performance would be gone through with a battle-axe. It was horribly trying to the nerves, dangerous, too, and John Ames was very sick of it.

“Keep the gun, then, if you will,” he said. “But now I must go on my way again. Hlalani-gahle ’madoda.” And he made as if he would depart. But they barred his way.

“Now, nay, Jonémi. Now, nay,” they cried, “Madúla, our father, would fain see his father again, and he is at hand. Come now with us, Jonemi, for it will be good for him to look upon thy face again.”

The words were spoken jeeringly, and he knew it. But he pretended not to. Boldness alone would serve his course. Yet his heart was like water within him at the thought of Nidia, how she would be waiting his coming, hour after hour – but no – he must not think of it, if he wanted to keep his mind. Madúla, too, owed him a bitter grudge as the actual instrument for carrying out the cattle destroying edict, and was sure to order him to be put to death. Such an opportunity of revenge was not likely to be foregone by a savage, who, moreover, was already responsible for more than one wholesale and treacherous murder.

“Yes,” he answered, “Madúla was my friend. I would fain see him again – also Samvu.”

“Hau! Samvu? There is no Samvu,” said one, with a constrained air. “The whites have shot him.”

“In battle?” said John Ames, quickly.

“Not so. They found him and another man sitting still at home. They declared that he had helped kill ‘Ingerfiel,’ and they shot them both.”

“I am sorry,” John Ames said. “Samvu was also my friend. I will never believe he did this.”

A hum, which might have been expressive of anything, rose from the listeners. But this news had filled John Ames with the gravest forebodings. If the chief’s brother had been slain in battle, it would have been bad enough; but the fact that he had been shot down in cold blood out of sheer revenge by a band of whites, with or without the figment of a trial, would probably exasperate Madúla and his clan to a most perilous extent, and seemed to aggravate the situation as regarded himself, well-nigh to the point of hopelessness.

They had been travelling all this while, and John Ames noticed they were taking very much the direction by which he had come. If only it would grow dark he might manage to give them the slip. But it was some way before sundown yet.

Turning into a lateral valley, numerous smokes were rising up above the rocks and trees. Fires? Yes, and men came crowding around the newcomers. Why, the place was swarming with rebels; and again bitterly did John Ames curse his fancied and foolish security.

He glanced at the eager, chattering faces which crowded up to stare at him, and recognised several. Might not there be among these some who would befriend him, even as Pukele had done before? He looked for Pukele, but looked in vain.

He strode up to Madúla’s camp to all outward appearance as unconcernedly as when he used to visit the chief’s kraal before the outbreak. His line was to seem to ignore the fact of there being an outbreak, or at any rate that these here present had anything to do with it.

He found Madúla seated against a rock smoking a pipe, and tricked out in war-gear. With him sat Zazwe, and another induna named Mayisela. And then, as if his position were not already critical enough, a new idea came to John Ames. These men had been seen by him under arms, in overt rebellion. Was it likely they would suffer him to depart, in order hereafter to bear testimony against them? Indeed, their method of returning his greeting augured the worst Madúla was gruff even to rudeness, Mayisela sneeringly polite, while Zazwe condescended not to reply at all. Of this behaviour, however, he took no notice, and sitting down opposite them, began to talk. Why were they all under arms in this way? He was glad to have found Madúla. He had wanted to find Madúla to induce him to return to his former location. The police officer and his wife had been murdered, but that had been done by policemen. It was impossible that Madúla could have countenanced that. Why then had he fled? Why not return?

A scornful murmur from the three chiefs greeted these remarks. Madúla with great deliberation knocked his pipe empty on a stone, and stretched out his hand for tobacco, which John Ames promptly gave him. Then he replied that they had not “fled.” He knew nothing of Inglefield, and did not care. If his Amapolise were tired of him they were quite right to get rid of him. They had not fled. The time had come for them to take their own land again. There were no whites left by this time, except a few who were shut up in Bulawayo, and even for these a road was left open out of the country. If they failed to take it they would soon be starved out.

This was news. Bulawayo, at any rate, had not been surprised. It was probably strongly laagered. But they would give no detail. All the whites in the country had been killed, save only these few, they declared. Yet he did not believe this statement in its entirety.

John Ames, as he sat there, talking, to all outward appearance as though no rebellion had taken place, knew that his life hung upon a hair. There was a shifty sullenness about the manner of the indunas that was not lost upon him. And groups of their followers would continually saunter up to observe him, some swaggering and talking loud, though in deference to the chiefs, not coming very near, others quiet, but all scowling and hostile. Nothing escaped him. He read the general demeanour of the savages like an open book. Short of a miracle he was destined not to leave this place alive.

The day was wearing on, and now the sun was already behind the crags which rose above the camp. It would soon be dusk. Every faculty on the alert, always bearing in view the precious life which depended upon his, he was calculating to a minute how soon he could carry into effect the last and desperate plan, the while he was conversing in the most even of tones, striving to impress upon his hearers the futility, in the long run, of thinking to drive the white man out. They had done nothing overt as yet. Let them return, and all would be well.

What of their cattle which had all been killed? they asked. It was evident Makiwa was anxious to destroy the people, since cattle were the life of the people. So John Ames was obliged to go all over the same ground again; but, after all, it was a safe topic. He knew, as well as they did, that the murder of the Hollingworths, of the Inglefields, and every other massacre which had surprised and startled the scattered white population, was instigated and approved by these very men, but this was not the time to say so. Wherefore he temporised.

The first shadow of dusk was deepening over the halting-place. Already fires were beginning to gleam out redly.

“Fare ye well, Izinduma” he said, rising. “I must now go on my way. May it be soon that we meet again as we met before. Fare ye well!”

They grunted out a gruff acknowledgment, and he walked away. Now was the critical moment. The warriors, standing in groups, or squatted around the fires, eyed him as he passed through. Some gave him greeting, others uttered a jeering half laugh, but a sudden stillness had fallen upon the hitherto buzzing and restless crowd. It was a moment to remain in a man’s mind for life – the dark forms and savage, hostile faces, the great tufted shields and shining assegai blades, and gun-barrels, and this one man pacing through their midst, unarmed now, and absolutely at the mercy of any one of them.

He had passed the last of them, uttering a pleasant farewell greeting. In a moment more the friendly gloom would shut him from their view. His heart swelled with an intense and earnest thankfulness, when – What was that long stealthy movement, away on his right? One glance was sufficient. A line of armed savages was stealing up to cut him off.

On that side the boulders rose, broken and tumbled, with many a network of gnarled bough or knotty root. On the other, brushwood, then a wide dwala, or flat, bare, rock surface sloping away well-nigh precipitously to another gorge below. One more glance and his plans were laid. He started to run.

With a wild yell the warriors dashed in pursuit, bounding, leaping, like demon figures in the dusk. Down the slope fled the fugitive, crashing through long grass and thorns. Now the dwala is gained, and he races across it. The pursuers pause to fire a volley at the fleeing figure in the open, but without effect, then on again; but they have lost ground.

They soon regain it, however. In this terrible race for life – for two lives – John Ames becomes conscious that he is no match for these human bloodhounds. Thorns stretch forth hooked claws, and lacerate and delay him, but they spring through unscathed, unchecked. They are almost upon him. The hissed forth “I – jjí! I – jjí!” is vibrating almost in his ears, and assegais hurtle by in the gathering gloom. His heart is bursting, and a starry mist is before his eyes. The cover ends. Here all is open again. They are upon him – in the open. Yet stay – what is this? Blank! Void! Space! In the flash of a moment he takes in the full horror of the plunge before him, for he cannot stop if he would, then a sickening whirr through empty air, and a starry crash. Blank – void – unconsciousness!

And a score of Matabele warriors, left upon the brink of the height, are firing off excited comments and ejaculations, while striving to peer into the dark and silent depths beneath.

“Au! He has again escaped us,” ejaculated Nanzicele. “He is tagati.”

Chapter Twenty Two.

“Accidents will happen.”

Nidia stared at the savage, her eyes dilated with the wildest dismay. The savage, for his part, stared at her, with a countenance which expressed but little less astonishment than her own. Bringing his hand to his mouth, he ejaculated —

“Whau! Umfanekiso!” (The picture.)

Her glance fell upon the naked sword-bayonet which lay on the ground between them. She made a movement to seize it, with a desperate idea of defending herself. The savage, however, was too quick for her. He promptly set his foot on the weapon, saying in English —

“No take it.”

By now Nidia’s first fear had begun to calm down. She had been in the power of some of these people before, and they had not harmed her; wherefore she tried to put on a bold front towards this one.

“Who are you?” she said, speaking slowly to facilitate the man understanding her. “You frightened me at first; not now.”

“Ikonde, (baboon) he flighten much more,” was the answer made with a half laugh. Then Nidia noticed that this Matabele had by no means an unpleasant face; indeed, she could hardly believe that he belonged to the same race as the fiends who had slaughtered the Hollingworths.

“No be flighten,” he went on. “I see you before – one, two, tlee – much many time.”

“Seen me before?” echoed Nidia in astonishment. “Where?”

“Kwa Jonémi.”

“Jonémi?” she repeated, with a start. “You know him?”

The warrior laughed.

“Oh, yes, missis. I know him. I Pukele. Jonémi his boy.”

“Ah; now I see. You were his servant? You are the man who saved his life, when the others were all murdered?” For Nidia had, of course, heard the whole story of the tragedy in Inglefield’s quarters.

“I dat man, missie,” said the other, with a grin that showed a magnificent set of teeth. “Umlimo he say kill all Amakiwa – white people. Pukele say, No kill Jonémi. Amapolise dey kill Ingerfiel, and missis, and strange white man. I not help. I go wit amapolise. I save Jonémi. See,” lifting his foot off the sword-bayonet, “I give him dis.”

“And for that you will never be sorry, I promise you,” said Nidia. “Listen, Pukele. For that, and that alone, you shall have what will buy twenty cows. I will give it you when we are safe again. Only – you must never tell Jonémi.”

The man broke into extravagant expressions of delight, in his own tongue, once he had begun to grasp the burden of this promise, declaring that Jonémi had always been his “father,” and he was not going to let his “father” be killed, even at the bidding of ten Umlimos – looking round rather furtively however, as he gave utterance to this sacrilegious sentiment.

“You said you had seen me at Jonémi’s,” went on Nidia; “but I have never been there. It must have been somewhere else.”

“No somewhere else. I see missie on bit of paper, hang on de wall. Jonémi he have it in hut where he sleep. He often stand, look at it for long time.”

A soft flush came into Nidia’s face, accompanied by a pleased smile.

“And you knew me from that?” she said. Then all her anxiety coming back upon her – for she had momentarily lost sight of it in the feeling of safety engendered by this man’s appearance and identity – she exclaimed —

“But where is Jonémi? He went out yesterday – not much after midday – and should have been back by sundown. You must find him, Pukele.”

The man uttered some words to himself in his own tongue, which from the tone were expressive of like anxiety. Then, to her —

“Which way he go?”

She pointed out, as best she could, the way John Ames had proposed to take. Pukele shook his head.

“No good dat way. Much Matabele dere. ’Spose he fire gun, den Matabele hear him for sure.”

Nidia’s face blanched, and she clasped her hands together wildly.

“You don’t think they have – killed him?” she said slowly.

In his heart of hearts Pukele thought that nothing was more likely; but he was not going to say so.

“I tink not,” he answered, “Jonémi nkos’nkulu. Great master. He aflaid o’ nuffin. Matabele much like him.”

“Listen, Pukele,” said Nidia, impressively. “You must go and find him.”

“But what you do, missis? You be flighten, all alone. Suppose Uconde– bobyaan – he come again, you much flighten? I be away till sun, him so,” pointing to the western horizon.

“I’ll be frightened of nothing,” she answered emphatically. “Leave me one of your long assegais, and go. Even if you have to be away all night, don’t come back. I’ll get through it somehow. But – find Jonémi.”

With many injunctions to her not to wander far from this spot, where to hide in the event of any Matabele chancing to pass that way, and promising to be back by sundown, Pukele took his departure. Once more Nidia was alone. This time, however, loneliness in itself no longer oppressed her. Intense anxiety on behalf of another precluded all thought of self.