A Frontier Mystery

She nodded, smiling softly.

“Yes. And I have. And – what did you answer?”

“I answered that I would look forward to it every day until it came. And I have.”

“And is the result disappointing?”

“You know it is not.”

I have stated elsewhere that I seldom err in my reading of the human countenance, and now it seemed that all Paradise was opening before my eyes as I noticed a slight accession of colour to the beautiful face, a deepening of the tender smile which curved the beautiful lips. Then words poured forth in a torrent. What was I saying? For the life of me I could not tell, but one thing was certain. I was saying what I meant. Then again her hand reached forth to mine, and its pressure, while maddening me, told that whatever I was saying, it at any rate was not unacceptable when —

Arlo, who had been lying at our feet, sprang up and growled, then subsided immediately, wagging his tail and whining as he snuffed in the direction of the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Hallo, Glanton,” sung out a gruff voice. “You taking lessons in high art? They’re wondering where you’ve got to, Aïda. They’re going to have tea.”

“Well, tell them not to wait. I’ll be in directly when I’m ready.”

“Oh no. No hurry about that,” answered Falkner with an evil grin, flinging himself on the ground beside us, and proceeding leisurely to fill his pipe. “We’ll all stroll back together – eh, Glanton?”

I am ashamed to remember how I hated Falkner Sewin at that moment. Had he heard what I had been saying, or any part of it? But he had thrust his obnoxious presence between it and the answer, and that sort of opportunity does not readily recur, and if it does, why the repetition is apt to fall flat.

He lay there, maliciously watching me – watching us – and the expression of his face was not benevolent, although he grinned. He noted his cousin’s slight confusion, and delighted to add to it by keeping his glance fixed meaningly upon her face. Then he would look from the one to the other of us, and his grin would expand. There was a redeeming side to his disgust at the situation from his point of view. He was annoying us both – annoying us thoroughly – and he knew it.

She, for her part, showed no sign of it as she continued her painting serenely. Further exasperated, Falkner began teasing Arlo, and this had the effect of wearying Aïda of the situation. She got up and announced her intention of returning to the house.

And Falkner, walking on the other side of her, solaced himself with making objectionable remarks, in an objectionable tone, knowing well that the same stopped just short of anything one could by any possibility take up.

Chapter Twenty Four.

“The Answer is – Yes.”

Nothing could exceed the warmth and cordiality of the reception I experienced at the hands of the rest of the family. I might have been one of themselves so rejoiced they all seemed at having me in their midst again – all of course save Falkner. But among the feminine side of the house I thought to detect positive relief, as though my return had dispelled some shadowy and haunting apprehension. There was something about the old Major, however, that convinced me he was cherishing an idea in the back ground, an idea upon which he would invite my opinion at the earliest opportunity. And that opportunity came.

“Let’s stroll down and look at the garden, Glanton,” he began, presently. “I want to show you what I’ve been doing while you were away.”

And without giving anyone an opportunity of joining us, even if they had wanted to, he led the way forth.

I listened as he expatiated upon the improvements he had been making, even as I had listened many a time before, but it struck me his explanations were a little incoherent, a little flurried, like the speech of a man who is not talking of that which lies uppermost in his mind. He continued thus until we had reached the furthest limit of the cultivated ground, where a high bush fence shut this off from possible depredations on the part of bucks or other nocturnal marauders. It was a secluded spot, and there was no sign of any of the others intending to join us.

“Try one of these cigars, Glanton,” he began, tendering his case. Then, after one final look round to make sure we were not only alone, but likely to remain so, he went on: “Let’s sit down here and have a quiet smoke. There’s something I want to get your opinion about. You know this witch doctor chap, Ukozi?”

“Of course I do. What has he been up to?”

“Up to? Oh, nothing. But the fact is I have taken a liking to the fellow. He interests me. He’s been showing me some queer things of late – yes, devilish queer things. And he’s promised to show me some more.”

“What sort of queer things, Major?” I struck in.

“All sorts. Well, the finding of Aïda’s lost coin was a queer enough thing in itself. Now wasn’t it?”

“Yes. But – it’s mere conjuring. You’d probably be surprised to know how the trick was done.”

“No doubt. But – do you know?” This somewhat eagerly.

“No, I don’t. I doubt though, whether it’s worth knowing. Well, Major, you’ve got bitten with a sort of inclination towards occultism, and Ukozi comes in handy as a means of showing you a thing or two. Isn’t that it?”

“Well yes. But – Glanton, I seem to have heard you admit that these fellows can do a good deal. Yet, now you make light of this one?”

“To speak frankly, Major, I think the less you have to do with him, or any of his kidney, the better. By the way, how the dickens do you manage to talk to him? Have you learnt?”

“Oh, I work that through Ivondwe. That’s a treasure you’ve found for us, Glanton. Yes sir, a real treasure. He takes all the bother and anxiety of the place clean off my hands.”

“That’s good,” I said. But at the same time I was not at all sure that it was. I recalled to mind what Aïda had said in her letter with regard to “an influence” under which they seemed to be drawn, this old man especially. No, it was not good that he should be on such terms with natives, and one of them his own servant. For the first time I began to distrust Ivondwe, though as yet I was groping entirely in the dark. For one thing, I could see no adequate motive. Motive is everything, bearing in mind what an essentially practical animal your savage invariably is; and here there was none.

“Well?” said the Major expectantly, impatient under my silence. The truth was I found myself in something of a quandary. Old gentlemen – notably those of the Anglo-Indian persuasion – were, I knew, prone to exceeding impatience under criticism of their latest fad, and for reasons which scarcely need guessing never was there a time when I felt less inclined to incur the resentment of this one.

“I can only repeat what I said before, Major?” I answered. “Candidly I think you’d better leave Ukozi, and his occultism, alone.”

“But it interests me, man. I tell you it interests me. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to make interesting investigations if I have a mind to? Answer me that.”

“Look here,” I said. “I know these people, Major, and you don’t. I have a good many ‘eyes and ears’ – as they would put it – scattered about among them, and I’ll try and find out what Ukozi’s game is. He hasn’t started in to fleece you any, you say?”

“No. That he certainly hasn’t.”

“All the more reason why he needs looking after. Well now don’t you have anything more to say to him, at any rate until you hear from me again.”

“He won’t give me the chance. I haven’t seen him for quite a long time. He’s never been away for so long a time before.”

In my own mind I could not but connect Ukozi’s sudden absenteeism in some way with my return.

“Here come the others,” went on the Major. “And Glanton,” he added hurriedly, “don’t let on to the women about what I’ve been telling you, there’s a good fellow.”

I was rather glad to be spared the necessity of making or avoiding any promise. It was near sundown, and as they joined us for a stroll in the cool of the evening I thought to catch a significant flash in Aïda’s eyes, as though she were fully aware of the burden of her father’s conversation with me. Falkner was away at the kraals, for it was counting in time, and I for one did not regret his absence.

Yes, it was a ray of Paradise that sunset glow, as we walked among the flowers in the dew of the evening, for although we two were not alone together yet there was a sweet subtle understanding between us which was infinitely restful. Falkner’s interruption, however unwelcome, had not been altogether inopportune, for it had occurred too late; too late, that is, to prevent a very real understanding, though precluding anything more definite. That would come with the next opportunity.

“The usual storm,” remarked Mrs Sewin, looking up, as a low, heavy boom sounded from a black pile of cloud beyond the river valley. “We get one nearly every day now, and, oh dear, I never can get used to them, especially at night.”

“Pooh!” said the Major. “There’s no harm in them, and we’ve got two new conductors on the house. We’re right as trivets, eh, Glanton?”

“Absolutely, I should say,” I answered. We had completed our stroll and had just returned to the house. It would soon be dinner time and already was almost dark.

We were very merry that evening I remember. The Major, glad of someone else to talk to, was full of jokes and reminiscences, while I, happy in the consciousness of the presence beside me, joined heartily in the old man’s mirth, and we were all talking and laughing round the table as we had never talked and laughed before. Only Falkner was sulky, and said nothing; which was rather an advantage, for his remarks would certainly have been objectionable had he made any. Then suddenly in the middle of some comic anecdote, came a crash which seemed to shake the house to its very foundations, setting all the glasses and crockery on the table rattling. Mrs Sewin uttered a little scream.

“Mercy! We’re struck!” she gasped.

“Not we,” returned the Major. “But that was a blazer, by Jingo!”

“Pretty near,” growled Falkner.

“Oh, it’s horrid,” said Mrs Sewin, “and there’s no getting away from it.”

“No, there isn’t,” I said. “If you were in London now you might get away from it by burrowing underground. I knew a man there whose wife was so mortally scared of thunder and lightning that whenever a storm became imminent she used to make him take her all round the Inner Circle. She could neither see nor hear anything of it in the Underground train.”

“That was ingenious. Did you invent that story, Mr Glanton?” said Edith Sewin, mischievously.

Another crash drowned the laugh that followed, and upon the ensuing silence, a strange hollow roar was audible.

“The river’s down, by Jove!” growled Falkner.

“No. It isn’t the river. It’s a tremendously heavy rain shower,” I said, listening.

“Let’s go outside and see what it looks like,” he went on pushing back his chair.

We had done dinner, and this proposal seemed to find favour, for a move was made accordingly. We went out we four, for Mrs Sewin was afraid to stir and the Major remained in with her. Nearer and nearer the roar of the rain cloud approached, though as yet not a drop had fallen over us. Again the blue lightning leaped forth, simultaneously with another appalling crash, cutting short a wrangle which had got up between Falkner and Edith Sewin, and ending it in a little squeal on the part of the latter. But already I had seized my opportunity, under cover of the racket.

“That question I was asking you to-day when we were interrupted,” I whispered to my companion. “It was not answered.”

Then came the flash. In the blue gleam, bright as noon-day, I could see the beautiful, clear cut face turned upwards, as though watching the effect, with calm serenity. Through the thunder roar that followed I could still catch the words.

“The answer is – Yes. Will that satisfy you?”

And a hand found mine in a momentary pressure.

Thus amid black darkness and lightning and storm our troth was plighted. An ill omen? I thought not. On the contrary, it seemed appropriate to my case; for in it much of a hard but healthy life had been passed amid rude exposure to the elements, and that I should have secured the happiness – the great happiness – of my life amid the battling forces of the said elements seemed not unfitting.

The vast rain cloud went whooping along the river-bed, gleaming in starry sparkle as the lightning beams stabbed it, but not a drop fell upon us. The storm had passed us by.

Chapter Twenty Five.

The Witch Doctor Again

From the moment that Aïda Sewin and I had become engaged life was, to me, almost too good to live. As I have said, I was no longer young, and now it seemed to me that my life up till now had been wasted, and yet not, for I could not but feel intensely thankful that I had kept it for her. I might have been “caught young,” and have made the utter mess of life in consequence that I had seen in the case of many of my contemporaries, but I had not, and so was free to drink to the full of this new found cup of happiness. And full it was, and running over.

Of course I didn’t intend to remain on at Isipanga. The trading and knockabout days were over now. I would buy a good farm and settle down, and this resolve met with Aïda’s entire approval. She had no more taste for a town life than I had myself. The only thing she hoped was that I should find such a place not too far from her people.

“The fact is I don’t know how they’ll ever get on without you,” she said one day when we were talking things over. “They are getting old, you see, and Falkner isn’t of much use, between ourselves. I doubt if he ever will be.”

This made me laugh, remembering Falkner’s aspirations and the cocksure way in which he had “warned me off” that night in Majendwa’s country. But I was as willing to consider her wishes in this matter, as I was in every other.

Falkner had accepted the situation, well – much as I should have expected him to, in that he had sulked, and made himself intensely disagreeable for quite a long time. I was sorry for him, but not so much as I might have been, for I felt sure that it was his conceit which had received the wound rather than his feelings. Which sounds ill natured.

Tyingoza was not particularly elated when I broke the news of my intended departure.

“So you are going to build a new hut at last, Iqalaqala,” he said, with a chuckle.

“I am, but not here.”

“Not here?”

“No. I am going to leave trading, and raise cattle instead.”

“The people will be sorry, Iqalaqala, for we have been friends. Au! is it not ever so in life? You hold a man by the hand, and lo, a woman takes hold of his other hand, and – he holds yours no more.”

“But in this case we still hold each other by the hand, Tyingoza,” I said. “For I am not going into another country nor does the whole world lie between Isipanga and where I shall be.”

“The people will be sorry,” he repeated.

It was not long before Kendrew found his way over.

“Heard you were back, Glanton,” he said. “Well and how did you get on with Sewin up-country?”

“Middling. He has his uses, and – he hasn’t.”

“Well, I shouldn’t find any use for him for long. It’s all I can do to stand that dashed commandeering way of his, and ‘haw-haw’ swagger, as it is. Been down there since you got back? But of course you have,” he added with a knowing laugh. “I say though, but doesn’t it seem a sin to bury two splendid looking girls in an out-of-the-way place like this?”

“Don’t know about that. At any rate I propose to bury one of them in just such an out-of-the-way place,” I answered. “I believe it’s the thing to offer congratulations on these occasions, so congratulate away, Kendrew. I’ll try and take it calmly.”

“Eh – what the dev – Oh I say, Glanton – You don’t mean – ?”

“Yes, I do mean. Compose yourself, Kendrew. You look kind of startled.”

“Which of them is it?”

“Guess,” I said, on mischief intent, for I detected a note of eagerness in his tone and drew my own conclusions.

“The eldest of course?”

“Right,” I answered after a moment of hesitation intended to tease him a little longer.

“Why then, I do congratulate you, old chap,” he said with a heartiness in which I thought his own relief found vent. “I say though. You haven’t lost much time about it.”

“No? Well you must allow for the hastiness of youth.”

And then he fired off a lot more good wishes, and soon suggested we should ride over to the Sewins together as he was so near. And reading his motive I sympathised with him and agreed.

Two months had gone by since my engagement to Aïda Sewin and they had gone by without a cloud. If I were to say that a larger proportion of them was spent by me at her father’s place than at my own, decidedly I should not be exaggerating. But we learnt to know each other very thoroughly in that time, and the more I learnt to know her the more did I marvel what I had done to deserve one hundredth part of the happiness that henceforth was to irradiate my life. Truly our sky was without a cloud.

I had found a farm that seemed likely to suit me. It was now only a question of price, and the owner was more than likely to come down to mine. The place was distant by only a few hours’ easy ride, and that was a consideration.

“Everything seems to favour us,” Aïda said. “You know, dear, it is such a relief to me to know that we need not be far away from the old people after all. I would of course go to the other ends of the earth with you if necessity required it, but at the same time I am deeply thankful it does not. And then, you know, you needn’t be afraid of any of the ‘relations-in-law’ bugbear; because they look up to you so. In fact we have come to look upon you as a sort of Providence. While you were away, if anything went wrong, father would fume a bit and always end by saying: ‘I wish to Heaven Glanton was back. It would be all right if Glanton were here!’ mother, too, would say much the same. So you see you will have very amenable relations-in-law after all.”

“Oh, I’m not afraid of that in the least,” I answered. “As a matter of fact, as you know, I don’t think your father was at all well advised in coming out here to set up farming at his age and with his temperament. But now he is here we must pull him through, and we’ll do it all right, never fear. But Aïda, if it was a wrong move on his part think what it has resulted in for me.”

“And for me,” she said softly.

I have set out in this narrative deliberately to spare the reader detailed accounts of love passages between myself and this beautiful and peerless woman whose love I had so strangely won; for I hold that such are very far too sacred to be imparted to a third person, or put down in black and white for the benefit of the world at large. Suffice it that the most exacting under the circumstances could have had no reason to complain of any lack of tenderness on her part – ah, no indeed!

This conversation took place during a long walk which we had been taking. Aïda was fond of walking, and, except for long distances, preferred it to riding; wherein again our tastes coincided. She was observant too and keenly fond of Nature; plants, insects, birds, everything interested her; and if she saw anything she wanted to look at she could do it far better, she said, on foot than on horseback. So we had taken to walking a good deal. This afternoon we had been to a certain point on the river which she had wanted to sketch, and now were returning leisurely through the bush, picking our way along cattle or game paths. Arlo, for once, was not with us. Falkner had taken him in the other direction. He wanted to train him as a hunting dog, he said, and now he had gone after a bush-buck.

The glory of the slanting sun rays swept wide and golden over the broad river valley as the sinking disc touched the green gold line of the further ridge, then sank beneath it, leaving the sweep of bush-clad mound and lower lying level first lividly clear, then indistinct in the purple afterglow. Birds had ceased to pipe farewell to the last light of falling day, and here and there along the river bank a jackal was shrilly baying. But if the light of day had failed, with it another lamp had been lighted in the shape of a broad moon approaching its full, its globe reddening into an increasing glow with the twilight darkening of the sky.

“We shall pass by the waterhole,” I said. “You are not afraid.”

“Afraid? With you? But it is an uncanny place. We have rather avoided it since that time we first saw that weird thing in it. But we have been there since in the daytime with Falkner, and father, and whatever the thing may have been we have never seen it since.”

“Well, we’ll have a look at it in this grand moonlight. Perhaps the bogey may condescend to appear again.”

“Hark!” exclaimed Aïda suddenly. “What is that?” Then listening – “Why, it’s a lamb or a kid that must have strayed or been left out.”

A shrill bleat came to our ears – came from the bush on the further side of the hole to us, but still a little way beyond it.

“Couldn’t we manage to catch it?” she went on. “It’ll be eaten by the jackals, poor little thing.”

“Instead of by us,” I laughed. “Well, it doesn’t make much difference to it though it does to its owner. Wait – Don’t speak,” I added in a whisper, for my ears had caught a sound which hers had missed.

We stood motionless. We were on high ground not much more than twenty yards above the pool, every part of which we could see as it lay, its placid surface showing like a dull, lack-lustre eye in the moonlight. In the gloom of the bush we were completely hidden, but through the sprays we could see everything that might take place.

Again the bleat went forth shrilly, this time much nearer. But – it ceased suddenly, as if it had been choked off in the middle.

A dark figure stood beside the pool, on the very brink, the figure of a man – a native – and in his hands he held something white – something that struggled. It was a half-bred Angora kid – the little animal whose bleat we had heard. I could see the glint of the man’s head-ring in the moonlight; then for a moment, as he turned it upward, I could see his face, and it was that of Ukozi, the one-eyed witch doctor. An increased pressure on my arm told that my companion had seen it too. I dared not speak, for I was curious to see what he was about to do. I could only motion her to preserve the strictest silence.

The witch doctor stood waving the kid – held in both hands by the fore and hind feet – high over his head, and chanting a deep-toned incantation; yet in such “dark” phraseology was this couched that even I couldn’t make head or tail of it. It seemed to call upon some “Spirit of the Dew” whatever that might be, and was so wrapped up in “dark” talk as to be unintelligible failing a key. Then, as we looked, there arose a splashing sound. The surface of the pool was disturbed. A sinuous undulation ran through it in a wavy line, right across the pool, and then – and then – a mighty length rose glistening from the water, culminating in a hideous head whose grisly snout and sunken eye were those of the python species. This horror glided straight across to where the witch doctor stood, and as it reached him its widely-opened jaws seemed to champ down upon his head. Not upon it, however, did they close, but upon the body of the white kid which he had deftly placed there, quickly springing back at the same time. Then it turned, and as it glided back, the wretched little animal kicking and bleating frantically in its jaws, it seemed as if the hideous brute were rushing straight for us. Aïda’s face was white as death, and I had to repress in her a panic longing to turn and fly. My firm touch however sufficed to calm her, and we crouched motionless, watching Ukozi on the further side. The serpent had disappeared from our view.

The whole thing was horrible and eerie to a degree. The witch doctor now was in a species of frenzy, walking up and down, with a half-dancing movement, as he called out, thick and fast, the sibongo of the serpent. It was a nasty, uncanny, heathenish performance, and revolted me; although through it there shone one redeeming – even humorous – side. We had sat and watched it while Ukozi was blissfully ignorant of our presence. He, the great witch doctor, had no inspiration or inkling that he was being watched! One day I would twit him with it.