A Frontier Mystery

“The dog,” I went on. “He is very unfriendly towards you. Why?”

“Who may say? The dogs of the white people are seldom friendly to us, and our dogs are seldom friendly to the whites. And this dog is very white.”

I got out a large native snuff tube I always carried, and gave him some.

“Come up to Isipanga before we start,” I said. “I have a present there for him who should serve these faithfully.”

“You are my father, Iqalaqala,” and with this formula of thanks, he once more saluted and went his way.

“What have you been talking about all this time?” said Edith Sewin. “By the way isn’t it extraordinary that Arlo won’t take to Ivondwe? Such a good boy as he is, too.”

“Perhaps he’s a thundering great scoundrel at bottom,” said Falkner, “and Arlo’s instinct gets below the surface.”

“Who’s a thundering great scoundrel at bottom, Falkner?” said Mrs Sewin’s voice in the doorway.

“Eh. Oh come now, aunt. You mustn’t use these slang terms you know. Look, you’re shocking Glanton like anything.”

“You’ll shock him more for an abominably rude boy who pokes fun at his elders,” laughed the old lady. “But come in now and have tea. What a lovely afternoon it is – but a trifle drowsy.”

“Meaning that somebody’s been asleep,” rejoined Falkner mischievously, climbing out of his hammock. “Oh well. So it is. Let’s go for a stroll presently or we shall all be going to sleep. Might take the fishing lines and see what we can get out of the waterhole.”

“Fishing lines? And it’s Sunday,” said Mrs Sewin, who was old fashioned.

“Oh I forgot. Never mind the lines. We can souse Arlo in and teach him to dive.”

“We can do nothing of the kind,” said Arlo’s owner, decisively. “He came within an ace of splitting his poor dear head the last time you threw him in, and from such a height too. What do you think of that, Mr Glanton?” turning to me. And then she gave me the story of how Falkner had taken advantage of the too obedient and confiding Arlo – and of course I sympathised.

When we got fairly under way for our stroll – I had some difficulty by the bye in out-manoeuvring the Major’s efforts to keep me pottering about listening to his schemes as to his hobby – the garden to wit – the heat of the day had given place to the most perfect part of the same, the glow of the waning afternoon, when the sun is but one hour or so off his disappearance. We sauntered along a winding bush path, perforce in single file, and soon, when this widened, I don’t know how, but I found myself walking beside Miss Sewin.

I believe I was rather silent. The fact is, reason myself out of it as I would, I was not in the least anxious to leave home, and now that it had come to the point would have welcomed any excuse to have thrown up the trip. Yet I was not a millionaire – very far from it – consequently money had to be made somehow, and here was a chance of making quite a tidy bit – making it too, in a way that to myself was easy, and absolutely congenial. Yet I would have shirked it. Why?

“What is preoccupying your thoughts to such an alarming extent,” said my companion, flashing at me a smile in which lurked a spice of mischief. “Is it the cares and perils of your expedition – or what?”

“By Jove – I must apologise. You must find me very dull, Miss Sewin,” I answered, throwing off my preoccupation as with an effort. “The fact is I believe I was thinking of something of the kind – ruling out the ‘perils.’ Do you know, I believe you’ve all been rather spoiling me here – spoiling me, I mean, for – well, for my ordinary life. But – anyhow, the memory of the times I have known lately – of days like this for instance – will be something to have with one, wherever one is.”

I was stopped by a surprised look in her face. Her eyes had opened somewhat, as I had delivered myself of the above rather lame declamation. Yet I had spoken with quite an unwonted degree of warmth, when contrasted with my ordinary laconic way of expressing myself. “Good Lord!” I thought, “I seem to be getting sentimental. No wonder she thinks I’ve got softening of the brain.”

But if she thought so she gave no sign of anything of the sort. On the contrary her tone was kind and sympathetic, as she said:

“Strange how little we can enter into the lives of others. Now yours, I suppose, is lonely enough at times.”

“Oh, I’ve nothing to complain of,” I answered with a laugh, anxious to dispel any impression of sentimentality which my former words and tone might have set up. “I started on this sort of life young, and have been at it in one way or another ever since. It hasn’t used me badly, either.”

She looked at me, with that straight, clear glance, and again a little smile that was rather enigmatical, hovered around her lips. But before she could say anything, even if she had intended to, Falkner’s voice was raised in front.

“Wake up, Aïda, and come along. I’m just going to heave Arlo in.”

“No. You’re not to,” she cried hurrying forward.

The others had already reached the waterhole, and there was Falkner, on the rock brink, holding on to Arlo, grinning mischievously. The dog was licking his hands, and whining softly, his tail agitating in deprecatory wags. He wasn’t in the least anxious for the plunge – and speaking personally I should have been uncommonly sorry to have undertaken to make him take it against his will, but then Falkner was one of the family. Now there was a half playful scrimmage between him and his cousin, in the result of which Arlo was rescued from taking what really was rather a high leap, and frisked and gambolled around us in delight.

This waterhole or pool, was rather a curious one. It filled a cup-like basin about twenty-five yards across, surrounded by precipitous rocks save at the lower end, and here, overflowing, it trickled down to join the Tugela, about half a mile distant. It was fed from a spring from above, which flowed down a gully thickly festooned with maidenhair fern. Where we now stood, viz. at the highest point, there was a sheer drop of about twenty feet to the surface of the water – a high leap for a dog, though this one had done it two or three times and had come to no harm. The hole was of considerable depth, and right in the centre rose a flat-headed rock. It was a curious waterhole, as I said, and quite unique, and I more than suspected, though I could never get anything definite out of them, that the natives honoured it with some sort of superstitious regard. Incidentally it held plenty of coarse fish, of no great size, likewise stupendous eels – item of course mud-turtles galore.

“Hie in, old dog! Hie in!” cried Falkner.

But Arlo had no intention whatever of “hie-ing in,” being in that sense very much of an “old dog.” He barked in response and frisked and wagged his tail, the while keeping well beyond reach of Falkners treacherous grasp.

“Rum place this, Glanton,” said the latter. “I wonder there ain’t any crocs in it.”

“How do you know there are not?” I said.

“Oh hang it, what d’you mean? Why we’ve swum here often enough, haven’t we?”

“Not very. Still – it’s jolly deep you know. There may be underground tunnels, connecting it with anywhere?”

“Oh hang it. I never thought of that. What a chap you are for putting one off a thing, Glanton.”

“I never said there were, mind. I only suggested the possibility.”

He raised himself on one elbow, and his then occupation – shying stones at every mud-turtle that showed an unwary head – was suspended.

“By Jove! Are there any holes like this round Hensley’s place?” he said earnestly.

“Not any,” I answered. “This one is unique; hence its curiosity.”

“Because, if there were, that might account for where the old chap’s got to. Underground tunnels! I never thought of that, by Jove. What d’you think of that, Edith? Supposing you were having a quiet swim here, and some jolly croc grabbed you by the leg and lugged you into one of those underground tunnels Glanton says there are. Eh?” grinned Falkner, who was fond of teasing his cousins.

“I wouldn’t be having a quiet swim in it, for one thing. I think it’s a horrid place,” answered the girl, while I for my part, mildly disclaimed having made any such statement as that which he had attributed to me.

“Bosh!” he declared. “Why you can take splendid headers from the middle rock there. Oh – good Lord!”

The exclamation was forcible, and to it was appended a sort of amazed gasp from all who saw. And in truth I was not the least amazed of the lot. For there was a disturbance in the depths of the pool. One glimpse of something smooth, and sinuous, and shiny – something huge, and certainly horrible – was all we obtained, as not even breaking the surface to which it rose, the thing, whatever it might be – sank away from sight.

“What was it?”

“Can’t say for certain,” I said, replying to the general query. “It didn’t come up high enough to take any shape at all. It might have been a big python lying at the bottom of the hole, and concluding it had lain there long enough came up, when the sight of us scared it down again. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a crocodile.”

“Tell you what, Glanton. You don’t catch me taking any more headers in there again in a hurry,” said Falkner. “Ugh! If we’d only known!”

“There is prestige in the unknown,” I said. “It may be something quite harmless – some big lizard, or a harmless snake.”

“Well it’s dashed odd we should just have been talking of that very sort of thing,” said the Major. “Let’s keep quiet now and watch, and see if it comes up again.”

We did, but nothing came of it. Indeed if I alone had seen the thing I should have distrusted my senses, should have thought my imagination was playing me false. But they had all seen it.

“I shall come down here again with the rifle and watch for an hour or two a day,” said Falkner. “Or how would it be to try bait for the beast, whatever it is – eh, Glanton?”

“Well you might try to-morrow. Otherwise there isn’t much time,” I answered. “We trek on Wednesday, remember.”

Now all hands having grown tired of sitting there, on the watch for what didn’t appear, a homeward move was suggested, and duly carried out. We had covered a good part of the distance when Miss Sewin made a discovery, and an unpleasant one. A gold coin which was wont to hang on her watch chain had disappeared.

“I must go back,” she said. “I wouldn’t lose that coin for anything. You know, Mr Glanton, I have a superstition about it.”

She went on to explain that she had it at the time we had seen the disturbance in the waterhole so that it must have come off on the way down, even if not actually while we were on the rocks up there. Of course I offered to go back and find it for her, but she would not hear of it. She must go herself, and equally of course I couldn’t let her go alone. Would I if I could? Well, my only fear was that Falkner would offer his escort. But he did not, only suggesting that as it was late it was not worth while bothering about the thing to-night. He would be sure to find it in the morning when he came up with a rifle to try and investigate the mystery of the pool. But she would not hear of this. She insisted on going back, and – I was jubilant.

I knew the coin well by sight. It was of heavy unalloyed gold, thickly stamped with an inscription in Arabic characters. But, as we took our way along the bush path, expecting every moment to catch the gleam of it amid the dust and stones, nothing of the sort rewarded our search, and finally we came to the rocks at the head of the pool.

“This is extraordinary and more than disappointing,” she said, as a hurried glance around showed no sign of the missing coin. “I know I had it on here because I was fingering it while we were looking at the water. I wouldn’t have lost it for anything. What can have become of it, Mr Glanton? Do you think it can have fallen into the water?”

“That, of course, isn’t impossible,” I said. “But – let’s have another search.”

I was bending down with a view to commencing this, when a cry from Aïda arrested me.

“Oh, there it is. Look.”

She was standing on the brink of the rocks where they were at their highest above water, peering over. Quickly I was at her side, and following her glance could make out something that glittered. It was in a crevice about five feet below, but as for being able to make it out for certain, why we could not. The crevice was narrow and dark.

“I think I can get at that,” I said, having taken in the potentialities of hand and foothold.

“No – no,” she answered. “I won’t have it. What if you were to fall into the water – after what we have just seen? No. Leave it till to-morrow, and bring a rope.”

This was absolutely sound sense, but I’ll own to a sort of swagger, show-off, inclination coming into my mind. The climb down was undoubtedly risky, but it would be on her account.

“As to that,” I answered with a laugh, “even if I were to tumble in, I should make such an almighty splash as to scare the father of all crocodiles, or whatever it is down there. By the time he’d recovered I should be out again on the other side.”

“Don’t risk it,” she repeated earnestly. “Leave it till to-morrow. With a long reim you can easily get down.”

But I was already partly over the rock. In another moment I should have been completely so, with the almost certain result, as I now began to realise, of tumbling headlong into the pool below, when a diversion occurred. Arlo, who had been lying at his mistress’ feet, now sprang up, and charged furiously at the nearest line of bush, barking and growling like mad.

Chapter Thirteen.

The Incident of the Lost Coin

The dog stopped short, hackles erect, and fangs bared, emitting a series of deep-toned growls which to the object of his hostility should have been disconcerting, to put it mildly. But, somehow, he seemed disinclined to pursue his investigations to the bitter end. This was strange.

“What can it be?” was the thought in my own mind simultaneous with the voiced query of my companion.

Natives – Ivondwe excepted – were wont to hold Arlo in respect, not to say awe, upon first acquaintance. The one who now made his appearance, betrayed no sign of any such feeling, as he came towards us. Yet he was armed with nothing more reliable than a slender redwood stick. He came forward, deliberately, with firm step, as though no aroused and formidable beast were threatening him with a very sharp and gleaming pair of jaws, the sun glinting upon his head-ring and shining bronze frame, came forward and saluted. Then I noticed – we both noticed – that he had only one eye.

“Ha – Ukozi. I see you – see you again,” I observed, in greeting.

“Inkosikazi!” he uttered, saluting my companion.

What struck me at that moment was the behaviour of the dog. Instead of rushing in upon the new arrival, and putting him vigorously on the defensive until called off, as was his way, he seemed concerned to keep his distance, and while still growling and snarling in deep-toned mutter I could detect in his tone an unmistakable note of fear. This too was strange.

“Who is he?” said Miss Sewin, as the newcomer placidly squatted himself. “Is he a chief?”

“Something bigger perhaps,” I answered. “He’s a witch doctor.”

“What? A witch doctor?” her eyes brightening with interest. “I thought witch doctors were horrid shrivelled old creatures who wore all sorts of disgusting things as charms and amulets.”

“Most of them do, and so would this one when he’s plying his trade in earnest. Yet he’s about the biggest witch doctor along this border, and his fame extends to Zululand as well.”

“Ah!” as an idea struck her. “Now here’s a chance for him to keep up his reputation. I wonder if he could find my coin.”

As we both knew where it was – or indeed in any case – the opportunity seemed not a bad one. But I said:

“You must remember, Miss Sewin, that native doctors, like white ones, don’t practice for nothing, and often on the same terms. What if this one should ask as the price of his services – no – professional attendance, shouldn’t it be? – a great deal more than the lost article’s worth?”

“Don’t let him. But in any case I don’t believe he has the ghost of a chance of finding it.”

“Don’t you be too sure,” I said. And then, before I could open upon him on the subject Ukozi opened on me on another.

“Nyamaki is not home again, Iqalaqala?”

I was beginning to get sick of the disappearing Hensley by that time, so I answered shortly:

“Not yet.”

“Ha! The Queen cannot do everything, then. You did not go home that night, Iqalaqala?”

“I did not. Your múti is great, Ukozi – great enough to stop a horse.”

“Múti! Who talks of múti? I did but foresee. And Umsindo? He, too, did not reach Nyamaki’s house that night?”

“No.”

“What is in the water yonder?” he went on, bending over to look into the pool, for he had squatted himself very near its brink. “It moves.”

Both of us followed his gaze, instinctively, eagerly. And by Jove! as we looked, there arose the same disturbance, the same unwinding of what seemed like a shining sinuous coil, yet taking no definite shape. Again it sank, as it had risen, and a hiss of seething bubbles, and the circling rings radiating to the sides, alone bore witness to what had happened.

“I declare it’s rather uncanny,” said my companion. “Does he know what it is? Ask him.”

I put it to Ukozi. We had swum there several times, dived deep down too, nearly to the bottom, deep as it was, yet we had never been disturbed by anything. Only to-day, before his arrival, had we seen this thing for the first time – and that only once. He echoed my words, or part of them.

“Nearly to the bottom! But this place has no bottom.”

“Now you forget, father of mystery,” I said, knowingly. “It has, for we have sounded it, with a piece of lead at the end of a line.”

He looked amused, shaking his head softly.

“Yet, it is as I say,” he answered. “It has no bottom.”

Rapidly I gave Miss Sewin the burden of our conversation, and she looked puzzled. The while, Arlo, crouching a few yards off, was eyeing the witch doctor strangely, uttering low growls which deepened every time he made a movement, and still, beneath the sound I could always detect that same note of fear.

“What is in the water down there, Ukozi?” I said. “Not a crocodile. What then?”

He was in no hurry to reply. He took snuff.

“Who may tell?” he answered, having completed that important operation. “Yet, Iqalaqala, are you still inclined – you and Umsindo – to continue swimming there, and diving nearly to the bottom – ah-ah! nearly to the bottom?”

He had put his head on one side and was gazing at me with that expression of good-humoured mockery which a native knows so well how to assume. I, for my part, was owning to myself that it would take a very strong motive indeed to induce me to adventure my carcase again within the alluring depths of that confounded tagati pool, for so it now seemed. Moreover I knew I should get no definite enlightenment from him – at any rate that day – so thought I might just as well try him on the subject of Miss Sewin’s loss. But as I was about to put it to him he began:

“That which you seek is not down there.”

“Not down there?” I echoed. “But, what do we seek, father of the wise?”

“It shines.”

The thing was simple. He had found it and planted it somewhere, with a view to acquiring additional repute, and – incidentally – remuneration.

“I think we shall recover your coin, Miss Sewin,” I said.

“Ah. He can find it for us then? If he does I shall become quite a convert to witch doctorism, for want of a better word.”

“You will see. Now, Ukozi. Where is that which we seek?”

“Au! It shines – like the sun. To find it something else that shines will be necessary. Something that shines – like the moon.”

I laughed to myself over this “dark” saying, and produced a half-crown – a new one.

“Here is what shines like the moon at full,” I said.

He held out both hands, looked at it for a moment as it lay in the hollow thus formed, then said:

“Halfway between this and where you left the other white people is a redwood tree – of which two sticks point over the path. From the path on the other side, a slope of smooth rock falls away. Just below this – resting upright between two stones – one pointed, the other round – is that which you seek.”

Briefly I translated this to my companion. Her reception of it showed a practical mind.

“What if he wants to send us off on a fool’s errand while he climbs down to the crevice there and gets hold of the real coin?” she said.

“Well, of course, nothing’s impossible. But, do you know, I believe him. I would in fact risk a considerable bet on it.”

“Well, I am in your hands, Mr Glanton,” she said. “You know these people thoroughly. I, not at all.”

To tell the truth, I believed Ukozi’s statement completely, so much so as not to think it worth while bothering about any thought of the responsibility I might be incurring. Otherwise I might have foreseen a reproachful manner, and a sinking in her estimation, if we found nothing. So I poured the contents of my snuff tube into Ukozi’s hands and bade him farewell.

“I declare I feel quite excited over this,” Aïda Sewin said, as we rapidly retraced our steps. “Look. Here is where we left the others – and – there’s the slab of rock.”

“Yes. It won’t be a difficult scramble. Now Miss Sewin, you shall have the opportunity of verifying Ukozi’s dictum yourself. So – you go first.”

In a moment we were below the rock – a matter of ten yards’ descent – and, in a small dry watercourse beneath we descried the glint of something. A cry of delight escaped her.

“Why, here it is. Just exactly as he described. Come and look, Mr Glanton.”

Sure enough at our feet, leaning almost upright between the two stones – the pointed one and the round – was the lost coin.

“But what was it we saw in the crevice?” she said, when the first astonishment was over. “That seemed to shine, too.”

“Probably a point of rock worn smooth. Well, Ukozi has again borne out his reputation.”

“Again? Why? Have you tried him before?”

Her eyes seemed to search my face. There was – or seemed to be – no prevaricating.

“Well, perhaps. Once. Or rather, he tried me. I’ll tell you about it some day. By Jingo, it’s getting dark, and I don’t like the look of the sky. The sooner we’re in the better.”

Great solid masses of cloud were banking up beyond the further ridge of the Tugela valley, and a low boom of thunder shivered the still air. A storm was coming up; probably a heavy one.

“How do you account for this kind of thing?” she said as we regained the path. “Could he have been passing here at the time I dropped the coin, and deliberately planned a sort of coup de theâtre?”

“In that case Arlo would have warned us of his presence. Yet he gave no sign.”

“Of course. And talking about Arlo, wasn’t it strange how he seemed not to mind that man’s presence? Why he can hardly be held in when a strange native comes about.”

“Yes. I noticed it. I suppose his instinct must have told him Ukozi was about to do us a good turn.”

She turned towards me, then shook her head.

“You are turning it off, Mr Glanton, I can see that. Yet there is something rather weird and inexplicable about the whole thing. You know, I was watching the witch doctor when the reptile or whatever it was came up in the pool, and it looked just as if he had raised it by some incantation. It is interesting very – but – rather eerie.”

“Oh they have their tricks of the trade, which they don’t divulge, you may be sure. The coin finding was really cleverly worked, however it was done; for, mind you, he came from quite the contrary direction, and, as a sheer matter of time, could have been nowhere near the place we found it in when we turned back.”

“It’s wonderful certainly, and I’m very glad indeed to have found my coin again. You must have seen some strange things in the course of your experience among these people, Mr Glanton? Tell me – what is the strangest of them?”

“If I were to tell you you wouldn’t believe me. Hallo! We’d better quicken our pace. I suppose you don’t want to arrive home wet through.”

The thundercloud had spread with amazing speed and blackness. The soft evening air had become hot and oppressive. Some self-denial was involved on my part in thus hurrying her, for I would fain have drawn out this walk alone with her, having now become, as you will say, Godfrey Glanton complete fool. Yet not such a fool as not to be blessed with a glimmer of common-sense, and this told me that, woman-like, she would not thank me for bringing her home in a state of draggled skirt and dripping, streaming hair, which would inevitably be the case did we fail to reach the house before the downpour should burst.