A Frontier Mystery

“Time!” I sung out stentoriously. “Haven’t you two fellows pummelled each other enough?” I went on, appearing before the combatants. “What’s it all about, any way?”

“Glanton – by the Lord!” ejaculated Falkner, startled, and, I fancied, looking a trifle ashamed of himself.

“What’s it all about?” repeated Kendrew. “Well, you see, Glanton, I ain’t naturally a quarrelsome chap, but when a man comes onto my place, and begins upon me in a God Almighty ‘haw-haw’ sort of tone as ‘my good fellow’ and doesn’t even condescend to tell me who he is when asked, why it’s enough to get my back up, isn’t it?”

I thought it was, but I wasn’t going to say so, and his allusion to “my place” made me smile.

“Look here,” I said decisively. “This is all a misunderstanding. You didn’t know each other, now I’ll introduce you. Sewin, this is Kendrew, a very good fellow when you get to know him – Kendrew, this is Sewin, a very good fellow when you get to know him. Now shake hands.”

And they did, but the expression upon each face was so comical that I could hardly keep from roaring, which would have upset the whole understanding; in that each would have felt more savage at being made ridiculous.

“Well, if I’ve been uncivil I’ll not be above owning it,” said Kendrew. “So come inside Mr – Sewin, and we’ll have a drink and think no more about it.”

“So we will,” growled Falkner, partly through his handkerchief, for he had undergone the bloodletting which I had told myself would be salutary in his case. However there was no harm done, and having roared for a boy to off-saddle, Kendrew led the way inside, on conviviality intent.

“You’re early here, Sewin,” I said. “Where did you sleep?”

“Sleep. In the blessed veldt. I called in at your place, but as far as I could make out your nigger said you’d gone to Helpmakaar. So I thought I’d go down to the river bank and try that place you pointed out to us for a buck, then call back later and have a shakedown with you when you come back.”

Here Kendrew interrupted us by bellowing to his boy to put on a great deal of beefsteak to fry, and to hurry up with it. “After a night in the veldt you’ll be ready for breakfast, I should think,” he explained heartily.

While we were at breakfast Falkner gave us a further outline of his doings. A mist had come up along the river bank, and in the result he had completely lost his bearings. Instead of taking his way back to my place he had wandered on in the opposite direction, tiring his horse and exasperating himself, as every high ridge surmounted only revealed a further one with a deep, rugged, bushy valley intervening. At last his horse had refused to go any further, and he had to make up his mind to lie by in the veldt and wait till morning.

“The rum part of it was,” he went on, “I couldn’t have been very far from here – and you’d think a horse would have known by instinct there was a stable in front of him. Well, I, for one, am choked off belief in the marvellous instinct of horses, and all that sort of rot. This brute wasn’t tired either – he simply and flatly refused to go on.”

“Where was that?” I said, now roused to considerable interest. “At least, I mean – was it far from here?”

“No. I just said it wasn’t,” he answered, a little testily. “It was just where the path dives through a pile of red rocks – you would know it, Glanton. It’s like a sort of natural gateway. Well nothing on earth would induce that silly beast to go through there, and, d’you know, upon my soul I began to feel a bit creepy – remembering how the niggers have likely got a sort of grudge against me. So I thought after all, I’d better stay where I was and wait till morning – and – here I am.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been anybody laying for you, Sewin. You may make your mind easy on that point,” I said. “Possibly though, there may have been a snake, a big mamba perhaps, lying in the path just at that point – and your horse knew it. That’d be sufficient to hold him back.”

“By Jove! I shouldn’t wonder,” he said. “Wish I could have glimpsed him though. A full charge of treble A would have rid this country of one snake at any rate.”

Falkner’s experience had so exactly corresponded with my own as to impress me. While I had been held up in this eerie and mysterious manner on one side of the pile of rocks, the same thing had happened to him on the other, and, so far as I could make out, at just about the same time. Well, we would see if anything of the sort should befall us presently when we passed the spot in the broad light of day. The while the two late combatants had been discussing the disappearance of Hensley.

“Rum thing to happen,” commented Falkner. “Ain’t you rather – well, uncomfortable, at times, here, all alone?”

“Not me. You see my theory is that the poor old boy went off his nut and quietly wandered away somewhere and got into some hole, if not into the river. Now I’ve no idea of going off my nut, so I don’t feel in the least uncomfortable. In fact decidedly the reverse.”

“Well but – what of the niggers?”

Kendrew let go a jolly laugh.

“They’re all right,” he said. “Let’s go and look at your gee, Glanton. Hope he’s still lame, so you can’t get on, then we’ll all three have a jolly day of it.”

I, for one, knew we were destined to have nothing of the kind – not in the sense intended by Kendrew, that is – and I wanted to get home. Needless to say when my steed was led forth he walked with his usual elasticity, manifesting not the smallest sign of lameness.

“That’s dashed odd,” commented Kendrew, after carefully examining the inside of every hoof and feeling each pastern. “Oh, well, he’s sure to begin limping directly you start, so you’d better give him another day to make sure.”

But this I resisted, having my own reasons for making a start Falkner apparently had his too, for he was proof against the other’s pressing invitation to remain and make a day of it.

“Well after all, you might get to punching each other’s heads again, and I not there to prevent it,” I said, jocularly. “Good-bye, Kendrew.”

“Not half a bad chap that, after all,” said Falkner, as we rode along together.

“No. And if you’d wait to find that out before going for people you’d get along much better in these parts,” I answered. And then I improved upon the occasion to read him a considerable lecture. To do him justice he took it very well.

“Look,” he broke in. “It must have been just the other side of this that I got stuck last night.”

I had not needed my attention to be drawn to the spot, for already, as we were approaching it I had been noting the behaviour of my horse. It was normal. Beyond a slight cocking of the ears we might as well have been traversing any other section of our path; indeed it was as though the strange interruption of last night had been a matter of sheer imagination, but for one consideration. Of the extraordinary and overwhelming effluvium which had poisoned the air then, there was now no longer a trace, and this disposed of the theory that anything dead had been lying thereabouts. Had such a cause been responsible for it, the air would not have cleared so quickly. No – Ukozi had played some trick upon me for some reason of his own, but – what was that reason? Even a witch doctor does not play the fool without some motive.

“I believe your theory is the correct one, after all, Glanton,” interrupted my companion. “Depend upon it some big black beast of a mamba was stopping the way. Look. Here’s where I gave up.”

“So I see,” I answered, for we had now got through to the other side of the ridge of rocks.

“See? How?”

“Spoor. Look. The dust is all disturbed and kicked about. Here’s where your gee refused.”

“So it is. I see it now myself. What a cute chap you are, Glanton. Oh, and I say, Glanton – ” after a momentary hesitation, “don’t let on to them at home about that little breeze I had with Kendrew down there, that’s a good chap.”

I promised. This was his motive, then, in resolving to return with me? But it was not.

“When are you going on that trading trip – into the Zulu country?” he went on.

“In two or three weeks’ time,” I answered.

“By Jove, but I would like to go with you. I’d like to make a little for myself. I want it all, I can tell you. But even that’s not the first consideration. I’d like to see those parts and gain some experience. You wouldn’t find me in the way, I promise you. I’d do every mortal thing you said – and keep out of ructions, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

“What about the farm?” I answered. “Your uncle isn’t equal to looking after it single handed.”

“Oh, that might be arranged. That chap you sent us – Ivondwe – is worth his weight in gold – in fact I never would have believed such a thing as a trustworthy nigger existed, before he came.”

Now I have already put on record that the last thing on earth I desired was Falkner’s company on the expedition I was planning – and the same still held good – and yet – and yet – he was Aïda Sewin’s relative and she seemed to take a great interest in him. Perhaps it was with an idea of pleasing her – or I wonder if it was a certain anxiety as to leaving this young man at her side while I was away myself, goodness knows, but the fact remains that before we reached my place he had extracted from me what was more than half a promise that I would entertain the idea.

And this I knew, even then, was tantamount to an entire promise.

Chapter Eleven.

A Farewell Visit

“Nyamaki has not returned?” queried Tyingoza, who, seated, in his accustomed place under the window of the store, had been taking snuff and chatting about things in general.

“Not that I have heard of,” I answered. “I was at his place but a day or two back. Will he return, Tyingoza?”

“And the young one – he who sits in Nyamaki’s place – does he think he will return?”

What was the object of this answer turned into another question? What was in Tyingoza’s mind? However I replied:

“He is inclined to think not. He thinks his relation has wandered away somewhere – perhaps into the river, and will never be heard of again.”

“Ah! Into the river! Well, that might be, Iqalaqala. Into the river! The ways of you white people are strange, impela!”

Tyingoza, you see, was enigmatical, but then he often was, especially if he thought I was trying to get behind his mind – as he put it. Clearly he was not going to commit himself to any definite opinion regarding the disappearing Hensley.

“Ukozi is in these parts,” I went on.

“Ukozi? Ha! I have not seen him. Did he visit you here?”

“Not here,” I answered, with intent to be as enigmatical as himself.

“Ukozi is a very lion among izanusi. Why do not the white people get him to find Nyamaki?”

“And the practice of an isanusi is not allowed by the white people. How then can they make use of such?” I said.

The chief shrugged his shoulders slightly, and there was a humorous twinkle in his eyes.

“It is as you say, Iqalaqala. Yet their Amapolise cannot find him. You white people know a great deal, but you do not know everything.”

“Now, Tyingoza, I would ask: What people does?”

Then he laughed and so did I, and this was all I got out of my attempt at “pumping” Tyingoza. Yet, not quite all. That suggestion of his as to employing the witch doctor was destined to stick. Afterwards it was destined to come back to me with very great force indeed.

Now I began to shut up the store, early in the day as it was, for I meant to go over to the Sewins. It would be almost my last visit: for the preparations for my trip were nearly complete and in two or three days I proposed to start. Moreover I had received a note from the old Major, couched in a reproachful vein on behalf of his family, to the effect that I was becoming quite a stranger of late, and so forth; all of which went to show that my plan of not giving them more of my company than I thought they could do with – had answered.

“So you are going kwa Zulu directly?” said Tyingoza, as he took his leave. “And not alone. That is a pity.”

He had never referred to Falkner’s practical joke. Now, of course, I thought he was referring to it.

“Well, the boy is only a boy,” I answered. “I will keep him in order once over there, that I promise.”

Again his eyes twinkled, as he bade me farewell with all his usual cordiality.

Not much of this remark did I think, as I took my way down the now well worn bush path, but I own that the idea of employing Ukozi to throw light on the disappearance of Hensley, gave me something to think of – for as I have said before, I had reason to respect the powers claimed – and undoubtedly possessed – by many of his craft. I would put it to Kendrew. It was his affair not mine, and if anyone moved in the matter it should be he.

There was an ominous stillness about the Sewins’ homestead as I approached, and I own to a feeling of considerable disappointment as the thought crossed my mind that the family was away, but reassurance succeeded in the shape of a large white dog, which came rushing furiously down the path, barking in right threatening fashion – only to change into little whines of delight and greeting as it recognised me. This was a factor in the Sewin household which I have hitherto omitted to introduce. He was one of the Campagna breed of sheep herding dogs, and was Aïda’s especial property, she having discovered him as a puppy during a tour in Italy. He was a remarkably handsome beast, pure white, and was of the size and strength of a wolf, to which he bore a strong family likeness. He had honoured me with his friendship from the very first – a mark of favour which he was by no means wont to bestow upon everybody, as his mistress was careful to point out.

“Well, Arlo, old chap. Where are they all?” I said, as the dog trotted before my horse, turning to look back with an occasional friendly whine. As I drew rein in front of the stoep Falkner came forth, looking very handsome and athletic in his snowy linen suit, for it was hot.

“Hallo Glanton, glad to see you,” he said, quite cordially, but in rather a subdued tone for him. “Come round and off-saddle. They’ll be out in a minute, they’re having prayers, you know. I slipped out when I heard your horse.”

It was Sunday, and the Major, I remembered, made a point of reading the church service on that day: in the middle of which I had arrived.

“Tell you what, old chap,” he went on. “I’m rather glad of the excuse. Beastly bore that sort of thing, don’t you know, but the old people wouldn’t like it if I were to cut.”

“Only the old people?” I said.

“No, the whole bilin’ of ’em. Life wouldn’t be worth living for the rest of the day if I didn’t cut in. So I do – just to please them all. See? Well, we’ll go and smoke a pipe till they come out.”

Falkner had pulled out quite a genial stop to play upon for my benefit – but then, I had agreed to take him with me on the trip. On the subject of which he now waxed eloquent. Would we certainly be on the road by Wednesday, and was there anything he could do, and so forth? I was able to reassure him abundantly on these points, and his exuberant delight was like that of a schoolboy on the eve of the holidays, causing me to think to myself rather sadly, that were I in his shoes, with a home like this, and the society of sweet, refined English ladies for my daily portion, I would not be in the least eager to exchange it for the roughness and ups and downs of a trading trip and the kraals of savages. But then after all, there was a considerable difference in our years, and my experience was a good deal behind me, whereas his was not.

Soon the family came out, and I was received with all the accustomed cordiality, and rather more. Why had I not been near them for so long, especially as I was about to go away for quite a considerable time, and so forth? I began to feel self-reproachful, as I thought of my motive, but it was not easy to find an excuse, the usual “rather busy,” and when I tried I could see Aïda Sewin’s clear eyes reading my face, and there was the faintest glimmer of a smile about her lips that seemed to say plainly: “I don’t believe a word of it.”

“So you’re going to take this fellow with you after all, Glanton,” said the Major as we sat down to lunch. “Well, you’ll have a handful, by Jove you will! I hope you’ll keep him in order, that’s all.”

“Oh he’ll be all right, Major,” I said. “And the experience won’t do him any harm either.”

“Don’t you go trying any more experiments at the expense of the chiefs’ head-rings up there, Falkner,” said Edith, the younger girl.

“Oh shut up,” growled Falkner. “That joke’s a precious stale one. I seem to be getting ‘jam and judicious advice’ all round, by Jove!”

“Well, and you want it – at any rate the advice – only you never take it,” was the retort.

“Nobody ever does, Miss Edith,” I said, coming to his rescue. “Advice is one of those commodities people estimate at its own cost – nothing to wit; and set the same value upon it.”

“Now you’re cynical, Mr Glanton,” she answered, “and I don’t like cynical people.”

“That’s a calamity, but believe me, I’m not naturally so. Why I rather set up for being a philanthropist,” I said.

“You certainly are one, as we have every reason to know,” interposed her sister.

I felt grateful but foolish, having no mind to be taken seriously. But before I could stutter forth any reply, which was bound to have been an idiotic one, she went on, tactfully:

“For instance that boy you sent us – Ivondwe. Why he’s a treasure. Everything has gone right since he came. He can talk English, for one thing.”

“Can he? That’s an accomplishment I should never have given him credit for, and I don’t know that it’s altogether a recommendation. You know, we don’t care for English-speaking natives. But you mustn’t talk it to him, Miss Sewin. You must talk to him in the vernacular. How are you getting on, by the way?”

“Oh, indifferently. You might have given me a little more help, you know.”

The reproach carried its own sting. Of course I might. What an ass I was to have thrown away such an opportunity.

“Yes, he’s a first-rate boy, Glanton,” said the Major. “I don’t know what we should do without him now.”

“You haven’t started in to punch his head yet, eh Falkner?” I said, banteringly, rather with the object of turning attention from my share in this acquisition.

“The curious part of it is that Arlo won’t take to him,” went on Miss Sewin. “He’s on perfectly good terms with the other boys but he seems to hate this one. Not that Ivondwe isn’t kind to him. He tries all he can to make friends with him but it’s no good. Arlo won’t even take food from him. Now why is this?”

“I’m afraid that’s beyond me,” I answered, “unless it is that the instinct of a dog, like that of a horse, isn’t quite so supernaturally accurate as we accustom ourselves to think.”

This was a subject that was bound to start discussion, and animated at that – and soon I found myself in somewhat of a corner, the ladies, especially, waxing warm over the heretical insinuation I had made. Then the Major, drawing on his experiences as a cavalry officer, took my side on the subject of equine intelligence, or lack of it, and Falkner took up the impartial advocate line, and we were all very jolly and merry through it all, and certainly conversation did not lag.

Lunch over, the Major announced his intention of having forty winks, and the rest of us adjourned to the stoep, and roomy cane chairs.

“One thing I like about this country,” pronounced Falkner, when he had got a cigar in full blast, and was lounging luxuriously in a hammock – a form of recumbency I detest – “and that is that provided you’re in the shade you can always sit out of doors. Now in India you can’t. It’s a case of shaded rooms, and chiks, and a black beast swinging a punkah – whom you have to get up and kick every half-hour when he forgets to go on – till about sundown. Here it’s glorious.”

I was inclined to share his opinion, and said so. At the same time there came into my mind the full consciousness that the glorification here lay in the peculiar circumstances of the case – to wit the presence and companionship of these two sweet and refined girls. The elder was in creamy white, relieved by a flower or two, which set off her soft dark beauty to perfection; the other was garbed in some light blue gossamer sort of arrangement which matched her eyes and went wonderfully with her golden hair, and ladies, if you want anything more definitely descriptive I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed, for what do I, Godfrey Glanton, trader in the Zulu, know about such awesome and wondrous mysteries? I only know – and that I do know – when anything appeals to me as perfect and not to be improved upon – and the picture which these two presented certainly did so appeal.

Outside, the blaze of sunlight – rich, full, and golden, without being oppressive or overpowering – lay slumbrous upon the sheeny roll of foliage. Here and there the red face of a krantz gleamed like bronze, and away on a distant spur the dark ring of a native kraal sent upward its spiral of blue smoke. Bright winged little sugar birds flitted familiarly in and out among the passion flower creeper which helped to shade the stoep, quite unaffected by our presence and conversation – though half scared temporarily as a laugh would escape Falkner or myself. Striped butterflies hovered among the sunflowers in front, and the booming hum of large bees mingled with the shriller whizz of long-waisted hornets sailing in and out of their paper-like nests under the roof – and at these if they ventured too low, Arlo, whose graceful white form lay curled up beside his mistress’ chair, would now and again fling up his head with a vicious snap. The scene, the hour, was one of the most perfect and restful peace: little did we think, we who sat there, enjoying it to the full, what of horror and dread lay before us ere we should look upon such another.

Chapter Twelve.

The Mystery of the Waterhole

Suddenly Arlo sprang up, barking furiously.

“Shut up, you brute,” growled Falkner, for this sudden interruption had, as he put it, made him jump. But the dog heeded him not, as he sprang up and rushed down the steps still giving vehement tongue.

“Be quiet, Arlo, do you hear!” ordered his mistress. “It’s only Ivondwe.”

The calm clear voice commanded obedience where Falkner’s bluster did not. To the furious barking succeeded a series of threatening growls, not loud but deep. In the midst of which the innocent cause of the disturbance appeared, smiling, and as little perturbed by this sudden and rather formidable onslaught, as though it were a matter of an ordinary kraal cur.

To the physiognomist this Ivondwe was a remarkably prepossessing native – rather handsome in the good-looking style of his race. He had a pleasant, open countenance, good-humoured withal, and when he smiled it would be hard to equal his display of magnificent white teeth. Though somewhat past his first youth and the owner of a couple of wives he did not wear the head-ring; for he was fond of earning money in doing spells of work for white men, such as waggon driving, or the sort of job on which he was now engaged: and this being so he held, and perhaps rightly, that the ring would not be exactly in keeping. I had known him well for some time and had always had a high opinion of him.

Now he saluted, and addressing himself to Falkner, in very fair English, asked leave to go over to a neighbouring kraal after the cattle were in. There was a merrymaking there, on the strength of the wedding of someone or other of his numerous kinsfolk.

“So, Ivondwe,” I said, in the vernacular, when he had got his answer. “So you speak with the tongue of the Amangisi, and I knew it not?”

He laughed.

“That is so, Iqalaqala,” he answered. “Yet it is well for Umsindo, who is long since tired of talking to deaf ones. Au! How shall he talk yonder —kwa Majendwa?”

Umsindo, meaning a man who is given to swagger, was Falkner’s native name, though he didn’t know it.

“That we shall see,” I said. “It may be that by then his tongue will have become loosened. But now, while he is away you must do well by these here. They treat you well, and their hands are very open – so open that soon you will be for building a new hut.”

He laughed, and owned that such might indeed be the case. All the while the great white dog was walking up and down behind him, eyeing his calves and snarling malevolently.