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

At first he had done so in a negative kind of way. It was pleasant to have nothing to do, and plenty of time to do it in, to rise in the morning and know that until bedtime at night he had only to please himself and take no thought for anything whatever. He had a few acquaintance in the neighbourhood, more or less busy people whose avocations kept them in Cape Town throughout the working day, and so was mostly thrown upon his own resources. This, however, was not without its advantages, for the change had hardly benefited him much as yet, and he was conscious of a sort of mental languor which rendered him rather disinclined than otherwise for the society of his fellows. He liked to mount his bicycle and spin for miles along the smooth level roads, beneath the oak and fir shade, the towering wall of mountain glimpsed ever and anon athwart the trees; or, gaining the nearest point of sea shore, lie on the beach for hours, watching the rollers come tumbling in, and the revels of bathers skipping amid the surf. Hitherto he had been content to do all this alone, now he was not; and the name of the agency which had effected this change was Nidia Commerell.

Nearly a fortnight has gone by since we introduced that entrancing personality to the reader’s notice; and whatever effects the same had had upon John Ames, one at any rate was certain, viz. a conviction that it was not good to be alone.

They had seen a good deal of each other within that time. Nidia had carried out to the full her expressed intention of using him as an escort, and he, for his part, had gladly welcomed the rôle, and efficiently discharged it; and whether it was along bicycle ride, or a more remote expedition by rail, or a scramble up the Devil’s Peak, that commended itself to the two ladies for the day’s programme, there was John Ames in sure and faithful attendance. It did him good, too. There was an ingredient in the tonic which was stimulating, life-giving indeed, and now in this daily companionship he felt that life was worth living. Decidedly he had begun to enjoy his leave.

“Well, Susie, wasn’t I justified in my prediction?” said Nidia to her friend, as they were dressing for dinner after one of these expeditions.

“Which prediction? You make so many.”

“Concerning John Ames,” – for so they had got into the way of designating him when alone together.

“I said he looked as if he were nice, and also that he would come in handy as an escort for two unprotected females. Well, he is both. Isn’t he?”

“Yes; he is a remarkably well-mannered, pleasant man.”

“With more than two ideas in his head?”

“Yes; he can talk intelligently on any subject, and if he knows nothing about it won’t pretend to.”

“As is the case with the average turned-out-of-a-bandbox, eyeward-twisting-moustache type of Apollo one usually encounters in one’s progress through this vale of woe,” supplied Nidia, with an airy laugh.

“That holds good, too. But, gracious Heavens, child, don’t pile up your adjectives in that mountainous fashion, or you’ll reflect no credit on my most careful training and tuition.”

“All rights Govvie,” cried Nidia, with a peal of merry laughter – the point of the allusion being that prior to her marriage Susie Bateman had been a combination of companion and governess to the girl she was now chaperoning; in fact, was a distant relation to boot. “But the said careful training was such a long time ago. I’m beginning to forget it.”

“Long time ago!”

“Yes, it was. In the days of my youth. I am in my twenty-fourth year, remember. Is that nothing?”

“Of course it’s nothing. But – what were we talking about?”

“Oh, John Ames, as usual.”

“As usual – yes. But, Nidia, isn’t it rather rough on the man? He’s sure to end by falling in love with you.”

Again the girl laughed, but this time she changed colour ever so slightly.

“To end by it! That’s not very complimentary to my transcendent fascinations, O Susie. He ought to begin by it. But – to be serious – perfectly serious – he isn’t that sort.”

“I’m not by any means sure. Why should you think so?”

“No signs. He’d have hung out signals long ago if he’d been trending that way. They all do. The monotony of the procedure is simply wearisome.”

“Nidia, you are really a very dreadful child. Your talk is absolutely shocking to the ears of a well brought up British female.”

“Can’t help it. If a series of idiots come to labour under the impression that life outside my presence – ten days after first becoming aware of my existence – is totally unendurable, where am I to blame? I can’t scowl at them, and nothing short of that will restrain them. Now, the reason why I rather like this man is that he has so far shown no signs of mental aberration.”

She meant it all. For one so plenteously, so dangerously, dowered as far as the other sex was concerned, Nidia Commerell was strangely unromantic. In her allusion to the rapidity with which the average male succumbed to her charms there was no exaggeration. She seemed to possess the art of conquest sudden and complete, yet, in reality, art it was not, for she had not a shadow of the flirt in her composition. The very artlessness of her frank unstudied demeanour constituted, in fact, her most formidable armament. But she refused to see why she should avoid the other sex simply because a large percentage of its members were weak enough to fall in love with her upon no sort of warranty or provocation. There was no affectation, either, in her declaration that the unanimity wherewith they did so candidly bored her.

“Just as I begin to like a man,” she would plaintively declare, “and find him of some use, he gets serious, gloomy, and spoils everything.” And for all her airiness on the subject, she was not entirely without a qualm lest John Ames should follow suit, and him she had more than begun to like very much indeed. The roar of a truly demoniacal gong cut short further discussion of the subject, by warning them that it was time to go down and join the object of it at table. Him they found in an amused state.

“Rather fun,” he said. “Some fellow has been going for that most cherished and firmly rooted institution, the great Cape fish-horn, in a letter to the evening Argus. He doesn’t see how a civilised community at the end of the nineteenth century can tolerate their day and night alike being made hideous by an unending procession of dirty Malays blaring weirdly, wildly, deafeningly through a ‘yard of tin;’ and, for the matter of that, no more do I. Look, here it is” – handing the paper across to Mrs Bateman.

The latter, like most high-featured people, was of censorious habit. “Yes; it’s amusing,” she said. “But there are some people who are never happy unless they are finding fault. I suppose even these poor Malays must earn their living.”

“No fear of their not doing that,” rejoined Ames. “Why, they are the most well-to-do crowd on this peninsula. I take it the writer’s point is they could earn it without making life intolerable to the world at large.”

At which remark, ever so faint a droop of the mouth-corners changed the visage of a silent, middle-aged individual seated at an adjacent table; but his back was towards them, and they couldn’t see it. “Oh, nonsense,” retorted Mrs Bateman, breezily. “People who can’t stand a little noise ought to go and live by themselves on a desert island.”

Here the droop on the lips of the silent one became a very pronounced sneer. “A fool of a woman, answering according to her folly,” he thought.

“Let me see it,” cried Nidia. “Yes; it is a good joke, and perfectly true, too. I know I’ve wished that same hideous noise anywhere times out of number. I quite agree – it is amazing how they tolerate it. I wonder who the writer is. Positively I’d like to send him an anonymous letter of cordial thanks.”

This time the silent one laughed to himself, heartily and undisguisedly.

“Write it to the Argus instead and agree with him; that’ll do just as well,” said John Ames. “The fact of the matter is that the Malay vote is a power just here, and it would be about as easy to uproot Table Mountain itself as the diabolical snoek trumpet under discussion.”

“No, I don’t agree with you in the least, Susie,” declared Nidia. “I think unnecessary racket ought to be put down with a stern hand. Don’t you remember all that abominable cannon nuisance when we were in the Bernese Oberland? You didn’t like that any more than I did. Just fancy, Mr Ames. Some of the most picturesque turnings of the road, almost wherever we went, were tenanted by a miscreant volunteering to let off a horrid cannon for half a franc – to raise an echo.”

“I should have felt like offering him a whole one not to raise it,” was the reply. “But the noble Switzer was shrewd enough to appraise his clients at their correct value. The English are never quite happy unless they are making a noise, unless it is when they are listening to one.”

“Yes; aren’t they?” cried Nidia. “You see it in their fondness for banging doors and talking at the top of their voices on every landing at all hours of the day and night, and throwing their boots about and pounding up and down for hours over somebody else’s head, in a house full of other people.”

The silent one hearkened approvingly. “That’s no fool of a girl,” he was saying to himself.

“I know,” replied John Ames. “And, talking about that stumping overhead trick, if you were wantonly to knock a cripple off his crutch you would be voted the greatest brute on earth. Yet that same cripple will go into the room above yours, and, as you say, pound up and down for hours, or perhaps let fall that same crutch with a mighty bang upon the floor, totally callous to the possibility of there being some unfortunate wight underneath with shattered nerves, and generally seedy, and who would give his soul for a square night’s rest. No; if you expect from other people any of the consideration they expect from you, you are simply laughed at for a fool, and a selfish one at that.”

“Oh, well, in life we have to give and take, I suppose,” remarked the censorious one, with striking originality.

John Ames smiled. He had an idea as to the sort of giving and taking this masterful person would be likely to practise, save in one quarter, that is; for he had not spent the time he had in the society of the two without detecting that she had at any rate one soft place, and that was Nidia Commerell. So he agreed easily, and the talk drifted on to other matters.

It was pleasant out in the moonlight. The elder of the two ladies had pronounced herself tired when Nidia, whose freshness nothing seemed to impair, suggested strolling. John Ames was rather inclined to be silent as they wandered on, the light of the southern moon flooding down through the overshadowing firs, the balmy stillness of the night broken by distant snatches of shrill laughter and the chatter of voices from squalid coloured loafers on the main road. He was realising with a sort of pang at the heart how all this time would soon be behind him, as in a flash, only as an episode to look back to. The girl, noting his silence, was wondering whether it was a prelude to what she had airily termed “hoisting the signals,” and, thus conjecturing, was surprised at herself and her lack of the usual eagerness to avoid them.

“You are feeling much better than when you came down, are you not, Mr Ames?” she said softly.

“Ever so much. I shall go back quite set up.”

Her practised ear detected the slightest suspicion of melancholy in the tone, while admiring the strength which controlled it.

“What a strange life you must have to lead up there!” she went on; for he had told her a good deal about himself during the time of their acquaintanceship.

“Oh yes. It gets monotonous at times. But then, I take it, everything does.”

“But it is such a useful life. And you have helped to open up the country, too.”

“Not I. That is left to other people.”

“But you were with the first expedition, and so of course you helped. I don’t wonder you pioneers are proud of the part you took in extending the Empire. Isn’t that the correct newspaper phrase? At any rate, it sounds something big.”

John Ames smiled queerly. He was not especially proud of the extension of the Empire; he had seen a few things incidental to that process which had killed within him any such incipient inflation.

“Oh yes; there’s a good deal of sound about most of the doings of ‘the Empire,’ but there – I must not get cynical on that head, because the said extension is finding me in bread and cheese just now, and I must endeavour to be ‘proud of’ that.”

“You must have great responsibilities holding the position you do. Tell me, are you able to throw them off while you are away, or do you lie awake sometimes at night wondering if things are going right?”

“Oh, I try not to bother my head about them. It’s of no use taking a holiday and thinking about ‘shop’ all the while. Besides, the man who is in my place is all there. He has been at it as long as I have; and if there is one thing I may say without conceit I do know – in fact, both of us know – it is the wily native and his little ways.”

Ah, John Ames, so you thought, and so thought many others in those boding days! But at this moment the man who is in your place is drinking whisky and water and smoking pipes with the Police sub-inspector in a circular hut on the Sikumbutana, and you are dallying beneath a radiant moon upon a fir-shaded road at Wynberg, with more than one lingering glance into the eyes of the sweet-faced, soft-voiced girl beside you. But one could almost read a leering derisive grin into the face of the cold moon, for that moon is now looking down upon that which would give both yourself and ‘the man in your place’ something very serious to think about and to do. It is looking down upon – let us see what.

Chapter Seven.

The Voice of Umlimo

It is probable that the Matopo Hills, in Southern Matabeleland, are, as a freak of Nature, unique on the earth’s surface.

Only a vast upheaval – whether through the agency of fire or of water, let the geologists determine and quarrel over – can have produced such a bizarre result. A very sea of granite waves, not smooth and rolling, but piled in gigantic, rugged heaps; cones of immense boulders, rising to the height of many hundred feet; titanic masses of castellated rock; slab-like mesas and smooth-headed domes all jumbled together arbitrarily side by side; it is as though at some remote age a stupendous explosion had torn the heart out of earth’s surface, and heaving it on high with irresistible force, had allowed it to fall and settle as it would. Colossal boulders, all on end, anyhow, forming dark holes and caves, lead up to the summits of these marvellous cones; and in such clefts wild vegetation finds abundant anchorage – the acacia and wild fig and mahobo-hobo. Here a tall rock pinnacle, balancing upon its apex a great stone, which, to the unthinking eye, a mere touch would send crashing from its airy resting-place where it has reposed for ages and ages beyond all memory; there a solid square granite block the size of a castle, riven from summit to base as completely and smoothly as a bisected cheese. Grim baboons, of large size and abnormal boldness, bark threateningly from the ledges, and every crag is a perfect rookery of predatory birds – hawks and buzzards, and kites and carrion crows – soaring and wheeling beneath the blue of the heavens. Valleys, narrow and winding, intersect this chaotic mass, swampy withal in parts, and harbouring reedy water-holes where, beneath the broad leaves and fair blossoms of radiant lilies, the demon crocodile lurks unsuspected. Great crater-like hollows, too – only to be entered by a single way, and that a very staircase of rocks – the whole a vast and forbidding series of natural fastnesses, which even now have been thoroughly penetrated by but few whites, and at that time by the conquerors of the country not at all.

Evening is drawing down upon this rugged wilderness. The sun has gone off the world, but a rosy afterglow still tinges the piled boulders or smooth, balanced crags rearing up above the feathery foliage of acacia; and, save for an odd one here and there, the wheeling birds of prey have sought their inaccessible roosting-places. But such as have not – for these an unwonted sight lies beneath. The deathlike solitude of each winding valley is disturbed by an unwonted life – the life of men.

On they come – dark forms in straggling lines – threescore here, two there; a dozen further back, even as many as a hundred together. And they are converging upon one point. This is a hollow, the centre of which forms an open space – once under cultivation – the sides a perfect ruin of shattered rocks.

On they come – line upon line of dark savages – advancing mostly in silence, though now and then the hum of a marching song, as some fresh group arrives at the place, rises upon the stillness in clear cadence. None are armed, unless a stick apiece and a small shield can be defined as weapons; and there is a curiously subdued note pervading the assembly – an elated look on some of those dark faces, a thoughtful one on others – but one of expectancy upon all.

Each party as it arrives squats upon the ground awaiting the next. And still the tread of advancing feet, the hum of approaching voices, and presently the open space is filled with dark humanity to the number of several hundreds. During the period of waiting, chiefs, leaving their own following, greet each other, and draw apart for converse among themselves. Suddenly, and with startling nearness, there echoes forth from a crag overhead a loud resonant bark. It is answered by another and another. A volley of deep-voiced ejaculation, first startled – for their feelings are wrought up – then mirthful, arises from scores of throats. A troop of baboons has discovered this human concourse, and, secure in a lofty vantage ground, is vocally resenting its presence.

But such levity is promptly checked by a sense of the serious nature of the gathering. It is clear that all are assembled who mean to come. And now the gloom lightens with amazing rapidity, as the broad disc of a full moon sails majestically forth above the jumble of serrated crags; and to it turns that sea of wild dark faces stamped with an unwonted expectation and awe, for as yet the bulk of those present have but a dim idea of the end and object of this mysterious convention.

In the lamplike glow of this new light faces are clearly discernible, and amid the group of chiefs are those of Madúla, and Zazwe, and Sikombo, and Umlugula, and several others holding foremost rank among their tribesmen. On this occasion, however, they are not foremost, for it is upon another group that the main interest and expectation centres.

The members of this are decked out in the weird array of sorcerers, are hung around with entrails and claws, mysterious bunches of “charms,” white cowhair and feather adornments, and the grinning skulls of wild animals. One alone is destitute of all ornamentation, but the grim hawk-like countenance, the snaky ferocity of the cruel stare, the lithe stealthiness of movement, stamps this man with an individuality all his own, and he is none other than Shiminya. These are the “Abantwana ’Mlimo,” the hierarchy of the venerated Abstraction, the “Children of Umlimo.” Of them there are perhaps two score. They are seated in a circle, droning a song, or rather a refrain, and, in the midst, Shiminya walks up and down discanting. The chiefs occupy a subsidiary place to-night, for the seat of the oracle is very near, and these are the mouthpieces of the oracle.

By degrees the assembly gathers around. Voices are hushed. All attention is bent upon these squatting, droning figures. Suddenly they rise, and, bursting through the surrounding ranks, which promptly open to give them way, start off at a run. The crowd follows as though magnet drawn. But the run soon slows down to a kind of dancing step; and, following, the dark assemblage sweeps up the valley bottom, the long dry grass crackling as the excited multitude crushes its way through. On the outskirts of the column a great venomous snake, disturbed, trodden on, rears its hideous head, and, quick as lightning, strikes its death-dealing fangs into the legs of two of the crowd, but in the exaltation of the hour no thought is given to these. They may drop out and die; none can afford to waste time over them.

For nearly an hour the advance continues, the black mass pouring, like ants, over every obstacle – over stones, rocks, uprooted tree-trunks – winding through a tortuous valley bottom, the granite crags, towering aloft in their immensity, looking down as though in cold scornful indifference upon this pigmy outburst of mere human excitement, and then the way opens, becoming comparatively clear. The “Abantwana ’Mlimo” slacken their pace, and then the whole body is brought to a halt.

The spot is a comparatively open one save for the long dry grass. In front is a belt of acacias; but behind, and towering above this, there rises an immense mass of solid granite, its apex about two hundred feet above the bottom of the hollow – a remarkable pile, smoother and more compact than the surrounding crags, and right in the centre of its face is a black spot about twelve feet square.

The blackness, however, is the effect of gloom. This spot is the mouth of a hole or cave.

In dead silence now the multitude crouches, all eyes fixed expectantly upon the black yawning mouth. Yet, what can appear there within, for the rock face is inaccessible to any save winged creatures? A cleft, passing the hole, traverses obliquely the entire pile, but as unavailable for purposes of ascent as the granite face itself. No living being can climb up thence. Another vertical crack descends from above. That, too, is equally unavailable. Yet, with awe-stricken countenances, the whole assembly, crouching in semicircular formation, are straining their eyeballs upon the gaping aperture.

In front are the hierarchs of the grim Abstraction. If here indeed is the home of the latter it is well chosen, for a scene of more utter wildness and desolation than this weird, granite-surrounded fastness is hardly imaginable. The great round moon, floating on high, seems to the impressionable multitude to lower and spread – almost to burn.

And now the “Abantwana ’Mlimo” rise from their squatting posture, and, forming into a double line, their faces lifted towards the black, gaping hole, begin to sing. Their chant rolls forth in a regular rhythm, but the usual accompaniment of the stamping of feet is at first absent. But the song, the wild savage harmony of voices fitting well into their parts, is more tuneful, more melodious, than most barbaric outbursts of the kind. Its burden may be rendered somewhat in this wise —

“Voice from the air, Lighten our way! Word of the Wise, Say! shall we slay? Voice of the Great, Speaking from gloom; Say! shall we wait Darkness of doom?”

The echoes ring out upon the still night air, rolling in eddies of sound among the granite crags. The company of sorcerers, every nerve and muscle at its highest tension, softly move their feet to the time, as again and again they repeat their awesome invocation, and with each repetition the sound gathers volume, until it reaches a mighty roar. The multitude, stricken motionless with the awe of a great expectation, gaze upward with protruding eyeballs, awaiting a reply. It comes.

The singing of the Abantwana ’Mlimo has ceased. There is a silence that may be felt, only broken by a strained breathing from hundreds of throats. Then, from the black cave, high above, sounds forth a voice – a single voice, but of amazing volume and power, the voice of the Great Abstraction – of the Umlimo himself. And the answer is delivered in the same rhythm as the invocation —

“Dire is the scourge, Sweeping from far: Bed is the spear, Warming for war. Burned is the earth, Gloom in the skies; Nation’s new birth – Manhood arise!”

Strong and firm the Voice rolls forth, booming from that black portal as with a thunder note – clear to a marvel in its articulation, cold, remorseless in the decision of its darkly prophesying utterance. Indescribably awe-inspiring as it pours forth its trumpet notes upon the dead silence, small wonder that to the subdued eager listeners it is the voice of a god. Thrice is the rhythm repeated, until every word has burned deep into their minds as melted lead into a beam of soft-grained wood.