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

Chapter Nine.

The Scourge – and After

Madúla’s kraal, in the Sikumbutana, was again in a state of profound malcontentment and unrest, and again for much the same reason as before. Then that reason had been the imminent loss of its cattle, now that loss had become a certainty. The dread scourge had swept over the land, in all its dire unsparingness, and now Madúla and his people were convened to witness the destruction of their worldly wealth.

For the edict of the ruling power had gone forth. The animals were to be destroyed, and that wholesale. Segregated into small herds, they were carefully watched. With the first case of sickness becoming apparent the whole herd containing it was doomed. And now nearly the whole of Madúla’s herds had been declared infected.

The place appointed for this wholesale slaughter was an open plain some little distance from the kraal. About threescore dead oxen lay where they had fallen, the nostrils of a few still frothy with the fatal running which denoted the fell pestilence. John Ames, grounding his smoking rifle, turned to talk with Inglefield and another white man, the latter being one of the Government cattle inspectors. Both these carried rifles, too, and behind them was drawn up a troop of native police. In a great semicircle Madúla’s people squatted around, their countenances heavy with sullen rankling, their hearts bitter and vengeful. In the mind of the chief the dexterous venom of Shiminya was taking full effect. The fact of a few cattle being sick was seized upon by their rulers as a pretext for the destruction of all; and what would become of the people then? In the minds of the people the predictions of Umlimo were being fulfilled to the letter. Now, however, they could afford to wait. Soon there would be no more cattle; soon – very soon – there would be no more whites.

John Ames, laying down his weapon, addressed the muttering, brooding savages. It was a most revolting task that which had been put upon him, he explained; not one that he would have undertaken of his own free will. To shoot down miserable unresisting animals in cold blood, one after another, could not be otherwise. It would seem to the people that to destroy the whole as well as the sick was an act of sheer wanton tyranny, but they must not look at it in that light. The Government was their father, and had their interests at heart; and although it was found necessary to reduce them to seeming poverty for the time being, yet they would not be losers in the long run. Then, again, they were in no worse case than the white men themselves, whose cattle was destroyed in the same way if disease broke out; but, above all, they must be patient, and bear in mind that by right of conquest all the cattle in the land belonged to the Government, and what they had was only allowed them by favour. This disease was a cloud they were all passing through, white and black alike. It would pass, and the sun would shine forth again. Let them be patient.

John Ames, in the plenitude of his experience, noted the sullen apathy wherewith his words were received, yet he attached no greater importance to it than he reckoned it deserved; he could appreciate the outrage on their feelings which this wholesale destruction of their most cherished possessions must involve. Then Madúla spoke.

“What Jonemi had told them must be true, since Jonemi said it. But what the people could not understand was why Government should have restored them their cattle, if only to destroy it all before their eyes; should give it back with one hand to take it away with the other. That did not seem like the fatherly act of a fatherly Government. Nor could they understand why the beasts that were not sick should be shot just the same as those that were. Let them be spared until the signs of sickness showed, then shoot them. Those signs might never show themselves.” And more to the same effect.

With infinite patience John Ames laid himself out to explain, for the twentieth time, all he had said before. It was like reasoning with a wall. “Let the people only have patience,” he concluded. “Let the people have patience.”

“M – m!” hummed his auditors, assenting. “Let the people have patience.”

But there was a significance in their tone which was lost on him then, though afterwards he was destined to grasp it.

“It’s a disgusting business all this butchery,” he observed, as he and the other two white men were riding homeward together. “I don’t wonder the people are exasperated. As Madúla says, they’ll never understand how the Government can give them back the cattle with one hand only to take it all away with the other.”

“It strikes me that Mr Madúla says a great deal too much,” said Inglefield, dropping the bridle on his horse’s neck, while shielding a match with both hands so as to light his pipe. “A little experience of the inside of Bulawayo gaol would do him all the good in the world, in my opinion.”

“You can’t work these people that way, Inglefield, as I’m always telling you,” rejoined John Ames. “You’ve got to remember that a man like Madúla wants some humouring. He was a bigwig here before either you or I held our commissions in this country, possibly before we had, practically, ever heard of it. Now, for my part, I always try and bear that in mind when dealing with the old-time indunas, and I’m confident it pays.”

“Oh, you go on the coddling plan,” was the thoughtless retort. “For my part – well – a nigger’s a nigger, whether he’s an induna or whether he isn’t, and he ought to be taught to respect white men. I wouldn’t make any difference whatever he was. An induna! Faugh! A dirty snuffy nigger with a greasy black curtain ring stuck on top of his head. Pooh! Fancy treating such a brute as that with respect!”

“All right, Inglefield. I don’t in the least agree with you. Perhaps when you’ve had a little experience you may be in a position to form an opinion as to which of our lines is the most workable one.”

“Oh, draw it mild, Ames,” retorted the police officer, ill-humouredly. “It doesn’t follow that because a fellow can patter by the hour to a lot of niggers that he knows everything. I say, old chap, why don’t you chip in for some of old Madúla’s daughters – marry ’em, don’t you know? He has some spanking fine ones, anyway.”

The tone was ill-tempered and sneering to the last degree. Inglefield could be bumptious and quarrelsome at times, but he had a poor life of it, with a detestable wife, and an appointment of no great emolument, nor holding out any particular prospect of advancement. All of which bearing in mind, John Ames controlled his not unnatural resentment, and answered equably: —

“Because I hope to make a better thing of life, Inglefield. But that sort of thing is rather apt to stick to a man, and crop up just when least convenient. I’m no prig or puritan, so putting it on that ground alone, it’s better not touched.”

“Oh, all right, old chap; only don’t be so beastly satirical. I can’t help grousing like the devil at times when I think how I’m stuck away here in this infernal God-forsaken hole. Wish I could fall into a bunk at Bulawayo or Salisbury or anywhere. Even Crosse here has a better time of it going around sniffing out rinderpest.”

“Don’t know about that,” said the cattle inspector. “I’ll swap you bunks, anyway, Inglefield.”

“Wish we could, that’s all,” replied the police officer, who was in a decidedly “grousy” vein, as he owned himself, half petulantly, half laughingly, when presently the conical huts of Sikumbutana hove in sight over the brow of the rise. “Well, now, Ames, you’ll roll up to ‘skoff’ at seven, won’t you, unless you’ll change your mind and come in now?”

“I’ll roll up all right. But not now, I’ve got some work on hand, and it’s early yet.”

“Very well. Seven, then. Don’t go sending over some tinpot excuse, you unreliable beggar.”

“No; I’ll be there. So long. So long, Crosse.” And he turned his horse’s head into the track that led to his own compound. “Rum chap that fellow Ames,” said Inglefield, when he and the cattle inspector were alone together. “He’s a rattling good chap at bottom, and we are really great pals, but we fight like the devil whenever we have to do with each other officially.”

“How’s that?” said Crosse, a quiet, self-contained man, with a large sandy beard and steady, reliable eyes.

“Oh, I don’t know. He’s so beastly officious – he calls it conscientious. Always prating about ‘conscientious discharge of his duties’ – ‘can’t conscientiously do it’ – and so on. You know. Now, only the other day – or, rather, just before he went on leave – he must needs get my pet sergeant reduced – a fellow worth his weight in gold to me as a hunter. Now, of course, the chap has turned sulky, and swears he’s no good – can’t tell where game is or is likely to be, or anything.”

“So. How did he get him reduced?”

“Oh, some rotten bother with that old nigger who was out to-day, Madúla. Nanzicele – Oh, blazes! I can’t manage these infernal clicks.”

“Never mind; you’ll learn some day,” said Crosse. “Well, what did Nanzicele do?”

“Nothing. That’s the point of the whole joke. He was sent to collar some cattle from Madúla, and he – didn’t collar it.”

“And is that why he was reduced?”

“No fear. It was for trying to collar it. The niggers came in and complained to Ames, and Ames insisted on an inquiry. He took two mortal days over it, too; a rotten trumpery affair that ought to have been let rip. Then a lot of darn red tape, and my sergeant was reduced. No; Ames always pampers the niggers, and some day he’ll find out his mistake. If they come around – especially these indunas – he talks to them as if they were somebody. I’d sjambok them out of the compound.”

Crosse, listening, was chuckling to himself, for he knew whose judgment was likely to be the soundest, that of the speaker or that of Ames. Then he said: —

“And this Nanzicele – is he that big tall Kafir who was nearest us, on the outside of the line, during the cattle-shooting?”

“Yes; that’s the chap. By George! he’s a splendid chap, as plucky as the very devil. Many a time I’ve had him out with me, and he’d go through anything. He was with me once when I missed a charging lion out beyond Inyati. He didn’t miss him, though – not much. I’d trust my life to that fellow any day in the week.”

“Trust your life to him, would you?”

“Yes. Rather.”

“M – m!”

“Yes, I would. You don’t know the chap, Crosse. I do. See?”

“’M – yes.”

The while, John Ames, having turned his horse over to his boy, entered his office. There was not much to do that day, as it happened, so after spending half an hour looking over some papers, he locked up for the day, and adjourned to the hut which served him for sitting and dining room combined, in which we have already seen him.

He threw himself into a chair and lighted a pipe. There was an absent, thoughtful look in his eyes, which had been there ever since he found himself alone; wherefore it is hardly surprising that in lieu of seeking solace in literature, he should have sat, to all outward appearances, doing nothing. In reality, he was thinking – thinking hard and deeply.

A month had gone by since his unexpected and most unwelcome recall; but unwelcome as it had been, he could not quarrel with it on the ground of its superfluity. Times had been lively since his return – more than lively – but not in an exhilarating sense. The rinderpest had taken firm root in the land, and was in a fair way of clearing it of horned cattle from end to end. Not at domestic cattle did it stay its ravages either. The wild game went down before its fell breath; every variety of stately and beautiful antelope, formerly preserved with judicious care beneath the rule of the barbarian king, underwent decimation. But it was in the mowing down of the cattle that the serious side of the scourge came, because, apart from the actual loss to the white settlers, the enforced destruction of the native stock rendered the savages both desperate and dangerous. Already rumours of rising were in the air. The sullen, brooding demeanour exhibited by Madúla’s people was but a sample of the whole.

To the perilous side of the position, as regarded himself individually, John Ames was not blind. He was far too experienced for that. And his position was full of peril. Apart from a rising, he was marked out as the actual agent in executing the most hateful law ever forced upon a conquered people. His was the hand by which actually perished its animal wealth. Every bullock or heifer shot down sent a pang of fierce vindictiveness through more than one savage heart. In blind, barbaric reasoning, what more plausible than that to destroy the instrument would be to render inoperative the cause which set that instrument in motion? A blow from behind, a sudden stab, in the desperate impulse of the moment – what more likely?

Not of peril, present or potential, however, was he thinking, as he sat there alone, but of the change, absorbing and entire, which had come over his life since returning from his all too brief furlough. He had left, cool, well-balanced, even-minded; he had returned, so far as his inner moments were concerned, in a trance, a state of absorption. It was wonderful. He hardly recognised himself. But what a new glad sunshine was now irradiating his lonely life. The recollection! Why, he could sit for hours going over it all again. Not again only, but again and again. Everything, from the first accidental meeting to that last bright and golden day by an enchanted sea – to the last farewell. Every word, every tone was recalled and weighed. Ah, he had not known what it was to live before! He had grovelled like a blind grub in the dust and darkness – now he was soaring in arrowy gleams upon wings of light. But – no words had been uttered, no promises exchanged. What matter? If at times of physical depression he felt misgivings he put them from him.

True to her promise, Nidia had written – once – and with that letter he had had no cause to find fault. She had even sent him a dainty little portrait of herself, the only one she had, she explained; but where that was habitually kept we decline to say, “We shall meet again,” she had declared. Yet if that utterance were to be unfulfilled, if indeed this dream were to fade, to go the way of too many such dreams, and to end in a drear awakening, even then was it not something to have lived in the dream, to have looked upon life as so new and golden and altogether priceless? With such considerations would he comfort himself in moments of depression.

“We shall meet again.”

Often he would picture to himself that meeting. There would be others present most probably, but she, in his sight, would be alone. She would be surrounded by adorers, of course, but as her eyes met his she would know there was in reality but one. In all the adjuncts to her serene loveliness which taste and daintiness could surround her with, she would stand before him. Such would be their meeting, and upon it he dwelt; and to it his imagination reached through space, as to the culminating ecstasy of the goal of a life attained.

From such soarings, however, comes a descent, as abrupt as it is profound, in this hard work-a-day world. John Ames sat bolt upright with a start of dismay, for the clock opposite told its own tale. His musings had carried him over some hours. It was nearly dark, and he was due – almost overdue – at Inglefield’s.

Chapter Ten.

The Igniting of the Flame

“That man’s late again. He always is. Tom, don’t ever ask him again. He seems to treat me with studied rudeness.”

Thus Mrs Inglefield, consulting her watch. She was an acid looking person, who might once have been passable in aspect. Now the deepening of her habitual frown was far from prepossessing.

“It’s only on the stroke of seven,” said Inglefield, shortly. “Give him a little law, Annie. He’ll be here directly. Perhaps some nigger turned up at the last moment on particular business.”

The suggestion was like throwing paraffin upon flames.

“That makes it worse,” exploded the lady. “To keep me – to keep us – waiting to suit the convenience of a few filthy blacks – ”

“Well, give the chap a show,” snapped Inglefield, not in the best of humours himself. The while, Crosse, the cattle inspector, sat profoundly pitying Inglefield, thinking, too, that the defaulter, when he did come, was not going to enjoy his dinner overmuch.

“Hope I’m not late,” said a voice in the doorway.

“Not a bit, Ames; at least, only two minutes, and that doesn’t count,” cried Inglefield, cordially, feeling very much “in opposition.”

“Roll up, man, and have an appetiser, Crosse, you’ll cut in?”

John Ames, ignoring the coldness of his hostess’ greeting, noticed that fully a quarter of an hour went by before they sat down to table. When they did sit down the interior of the hut looked snug enough. The bright lamp shed a cheerful glow upon the white napery and silver forks; and pictures and knick-knacks upon the walls and about the room – or rather, the hut, for such it was – rendered the place pleasant and homelike, suggestive of anything but the wilds of savage Matabeleland. Any remark, however, which he addressed to his hostess was met by a curt monosyllable, she turning immediately to converse with Crosse, affably voluble. It mattered nothing. He had only consented to come upon Inglefield’s urgent and repeated invitation, having experienced that sample of behaviour before.

“What sort of a time did you have down in Cape Town, Ames?” said Crosse presently, when he could conversationally break away.

“Rather a good one. It was a great nuisance having to come back.”

“Mr Coates was such a nice man,” interpolated Mrs Inglefield, with meaning, referring to John Ames’s locum tenens. “We used to see a great deal of him.”

“Find any nice girls down there, eh, Ames?” said Inglefield, slily, fully alive to the unveiled rudeness of his spouse.

“Oh yes – several.”

“And one in particular, eh?” went on the other, waggishly, drawing a bow at a venture; for John Ames was not one to wear his heart upon his sleeve or to embark in chatter upon the subject nearest and dearest to that organ.

“Nice girls! I didn’t know there were any nowadays,” snapped Mrs Inglefield. “A pack of bicycling, cigarette-smoking, forward tomboys!”

“Oh, come, Mrs Inglefield,” laughed Crosse, “you mustn’t be so down on them. They’re only up to date, you know.”

“Up to date! Then, thank Heaven I’m not up to date; I’m only old-fashioned,” she retorted.

“I’d be sorry to wear the boots of the chip who told you so, Annie,” pronounced Inglefield. “Besides, you’re romping hard over Ames’s feelings; at least, I surmise you are. He’s too close a bird to give the show away. But– as poor old Corney Grain used to say.”

“Oh, I always say what I mean,” she answered, with an air which plainly added: “if people don’t like it so much the worse for the people.” And John Ames was thinking that never again, under any circumstances whatever, would he sit at the table of this abominably ill-bred and offensive woman. He was right. He never would; but for a reason that it was as well he – and all of them seated there – did not so much as dream.

Then, partly that subject-matter for conversation is, to isolated dwellers in a remote wilderness, necessarily limited, partly because he deemed it a safe topic, Inglefield led the talk round to the day’s doings – the destruction of Madúla’s cattle.

“It’s an infernally wasteful way of getting rid of them,” he said. “I dare say you’ve blazed away nearer a thousand cartridges than a hundred, eh, Ames?”

“Quite that. As you say, it is an abominable waste, and if ever the time comes when we shall sorely need every one of those cartridges for our own defence – ”

“Oh, now you’re croaking again, old chap,” interrupted Inglefield; while his spouse remarked —

“Faugh! I’d as soon be a slaughter-house butcher at once. Sooner.”

“Somebody must do it, you know, Mrs Inglefield,” replied John Ames, placidly. “If the job were turned over to natives they’d waste five times the number of cartridges, and the poor beasts would suffer all the more.”

“Suppose we change this very unpleasant subject,” she remarked, looking pointedly at him, quite ignoring the fact that it had been started by her husband, and she it was who had done the most towards keeping it going.

“Policeman he want to see Inkose.”

The interruption proceeded from one of the two small boys who acted as waiters, and who had just entered.

“Tell him to wait until I’ve done dinner, Piccanin,” replied Inglefield, placidly.

“It may be something important,” hazarded John Ames.

“Oh, it’ll keep till after dinner,” was the airy rejoinder. “Er – which policeman is it, Piccanin?”

“Big policeman, ’Nkose; him name Nanzicele. Him come up from barracks now.”

The men’s quarters – which, by the way, were not barracks but native huts – lay about three hundred yards below those occupied by their officer.

“Then tell ‘him’ to go back to them again, and wait until I’ve done dinner,” replied Inglefield, briskly; for he was of an obstinate turn, besides instinctively resenting anything like interference on the part of his brother official.

The small boy retired, and for a moment voices were heard outside. Then there entered – Nanzicele.

“Great Caesar!” cried Inglefield, reddening. “What the devil do you mean, sir, by disobeying orders? Go back to the barracks at once! Here, Puma! Hambasuka! Footsack!”

But ignoring the pointing finger of his irate superior, Nanzicele took one step to the side – leaving the door clear – and, standing at attention, ejaculated in loud and sonorous tones —

“Baba – ’Nkose!”

Was it a signal? Crosse, who was seated opposite the door, lurched forward, falling with his face on the table, simultaneously with the crash of two shots fired from outside. John Ames, pinned to his chair by a grip as powerful as steel, was impotent to do more than ineffectually struggle. Half a dozen stalwart savages rushed into the hut, and, dividing their forces, four of them threw themselves upon Inglefield, the remaining two turning their attention to the latter’s wife. It was all done in a moment. The suddenness of it, the total, utter unpreparedness of those who, but two seconds ago, had been unsuspectingly dining, left not the smallest chance of resistance. Inglefield, starting up, instinctively to seize the carving-knife, was stabbed again and again with sword-bayonets before he could raise a hand, and fell to the floor. The wretched woman, too petrified with the suddenness and terror of it all even to shriek, was promptly despatched; one savage drawing his weapon across her throat with a slash that nearly severed the head. It was all over in a moment. Yet one victim remained:

John Ames, now bound fast to his chair with straps, felt himself grow dizzy and sick with the horror of this appalling butchery. Blood dripped to the floor, then splashed in bright red drops on the garments of the murderers. And those garments were the uniform of the Native Police.

All seemed to heave in misty dimness before his eyes. In a moment he would faint. Then, with a vast effort of will, he recovered himself. Why had he been spared? In a moment the whole situation flashed through his brain. This was the beginning of a general rising. The Native Police had no grudge against their officers, let alone against Inglefield, who was, if anything, too easy-going. If they were in open revolt, then the rising was general, even as he and one or two others had feared might one day be the case. The fiercely sullen demeanour of Madúla and his people at the destruction of their cattle now assumed an aspect of deadly significance. The destruction of their cattle! Ah, there was the last straw! But – why had he been spared?

Then amid this scene of horror hope came uppermost. His administration had always been signalled by strict and impartial justice to the natives, even when white interests were concerned – a line, be it whispered, not invariably the rule in those days, when the policy known as “supporting the white man against the black” at any cost, was deemed wise and necessary. He was known to several of the chiefs, and by chiefs and people alike respected. It might well be that he was marked out for exemption from a general massacre.