A Frontier Mystery

We did however so reach it, and there a surprise awaited, to me, I may as well own, not altogether a pleasant one, for it took the shape of Kendrew. Now Kendrew, as I have said, was a good fellow enough, yet this was the last evening I should spend here for some time. Kendrew was all very well at his own place or at mine – but somehow I didn’t want him here, at any rate not to-day, added to which he was a good-looking chap, and lively – a novelty too. There, you see – I am not above owning to my own small meannesses. It transpired moreover that I was the indirect agency through which he was there, for the first thing he said on seeing me was:

“There you are, Glanton. Thought I’d ride up and see how you were getting on, and when I got to your place they told me you had come down here. So I thought I’d come on and find you, and take the opportunity of making Major Sewin’s acquaintance at the same time. Nothing like getting to know one’s neighbours, and there ain’t so many of them, eh?”

“Glad you did,” I answered, shaking hands with him as heartily as ever. Yet at bottom, that “neighbour” idea struck unpleasantly. Kendrew as a neighbour was all very well, and I nailed him as such – for myself, but confound it, I didn’t want him getting too “neighbourly” here; and that, too, just as I was going away myself for a time. And then I realised, more fully than ever, what it meant to me to be fulfilling the rôle of a sort of little Providence to these people. Now Kendrew would lay himself out to do that during my absence, and in short, on my return I might find, to use a vulgar syllogism, that my own nose had been most effectually put out of joint.

They had taken to him already, and were on the best of terms – I could see that. Kendrew was one of those jolly, happy-go-lucky souls that people do take to on sight, and he had youth on his side. Moreover my misgivings were in no wise dispelled by the look of surprised whole-hearted admiration which came into his face at sight of Aïda Sewin. There was no mistaking this, for if there is one thing I pride myself on it is a faculty for reading every expression of the human countenance no matter how swift and fleeting such may be. Perhaps it is that constant intercourse with savages has endowed me with one of their most unfailing characteristics, but, at any rate, there it is.

“We’re going to have a storm,” said the Major, looking upward. “Aïda – Glanton – you’re only just in time. You too, Mr Kendrew. You’ll stay the night of course?”

Kendrew answered that he’d be delighted, and forthwith began to make himself at home in his free and easy fashion. He was not in the least afflicted with shyness, and had no objection whatever to being drawn on the subject of his experiences. He had plenty of stories to tell, and told them well too, only perhaps it was rather mean of me to think that he need not so uniformly have made himself the hero of each and all of them. I don’t know that I can plead in extenuation that when we sat down to table the fellow by some means or other contrived to manoeuvre himself into the chair next to Miss Sewin, a seat I had especially marked out for myself, and in fact usually filled. Added to which, once there, he must needs fill up the intervals between blowing his own trumpet by talking to her in a confoundedly confidential, appropriating sort of style; which I entirely though secretly resented. And I was on the eve of an absence! Decidedly events tended to sour me that evening – and it was the last.

“What’s the matter? Did the old witch doctor tell you something momentous that you forgot to pass on to me? You are very silent to-night.”

It was her voice. We had risen from table and I had gone out on to the stoep, “to see if the storm was passing off,” as I put it carelessly. There was a chorus of voices and laughter within, Kendrew having turned the tables on Falkner in the course of some idiotic chaff.

“Am I?” I answered. “I get that way sometimes. Result of living alone, I suppose. No, Ukozi did not tell me anything stupendous. Amusing chap, Kendrew, isn’t he?” as another chorus of laughter went up from within.

“He seems a nice sort of boy. And now – you start on Wednesday? Shall we see you again between this and then?”

“I’m afraid not, Miss Sewin. Tyingoza’s nephew has disappointed me over the span of oxen he was going to hire me, and I shall have to spend to-morrow and the day after riding Heaven knows where in search of another span. Oxen – at any rate reliable ones – are precious scarce just now everywhere.”

“I’m sorry. I – we – shall miss you so much, Mr Glanton – and you have been so kind to us – ”

“That all?” I thought to myself bitterly. “Sort of ‘make myself generally useful’ blank that will create.” Her next words made me feel ashamed of myself.

“But you will come and see us directly you return, won’t you? I shall look forward to it, mind – and – I hate being disappointed.”

Good Heavens! The voice, the gleam of white teeth in the little smile, the softening of eyes in the starlight! Had we been alone I believe I should have lost my head, and uttered I don’t know what. But you can’t say anything of that sort with a lot of people jabbering and laughing, and nothing between you and them but an open door and ditto window.

“You shall not be disappointed in that very unimportant particular at any rate,” I answered. “And you are good enough to say you will look forward to it. Why I shall look forward to it every day until it comes.”

This was pretty plain-speaking and no mistake, but I had been surprised out of myself. What she might have answered I can’t even conjecture, for at that moment through a lull in the racket within, was raised a voice.

“Glanton? Yes. He’s a good old buffer, Glanton. Why, what’s become of him?”

Aïda Sewin’s eyes met mine and I could see that she was bubbling over with the humour of the situation. We broke into a hearty laugh, yet not loud enough to reach those within.

“There. Now I hope you’re duly flattered,” she said. “A fresh unconsidered outburst like that must be genuine. We don’t often hear so much good of ourselves even without being listeners.”

“But consider the qualifying adjective. That, you know, is rather rough.”

“Not necessarily. Only a term of good fellowship, I expect. No. You ought to feel brotherly towards him after that.”

Somehow the whimsicality of it did avail to restore my good humour, or the words and tone of her utterances that went before may have had something to do with it. Had she been reading my thoughts as I sat silent among the rest? Well, what if she had?

The storm had passed us by and a haze of continuous lightning in the loom of a receding cloud together with an occasional mutter away over the further ridge of the Tugela valley was all that remained of it. She had moved towards the end of the stoep as though to obtain a nearer view of this.

“I have something on my mind, Miss Sewin,” I began, “and it is this. You are good enough to say I have been of use to you all, needless to say how delighted I am to have been able to be. Well now, I shall be right out of the way for a time, and I am trying to puzzle out a plan of letting me know in case you might urgently want me.”

I don’t know what on earth moved me to say this. Why should they want me – urgently or otherwise? To my surprise she answered:

“It would be a great relief to my mind if you could. I don’t know what you’ll think of me, Mr Glanton, but there are times when our isolation frightens me, and then I think we never ought to have come here. And now you are going away, and Falkner, too. And – do you know, I have an uneasy feeling that I couldn’t account for to save my life, but it’s there, unfortunately. I believe it has something to do with the witch doctor, and that eerie affair down at the pool.”

“As to that don’t let it affect you. Ukozi is a clever specimen of a witch doctor but not a malevolent one. For the rest you are as safe here as you would be in any country part of England, and a good deal safer than in some.”

The words “we never ought to have come here” alarmed me. What if when I returned I should find them gone? Oh, but – that wouldn’t bear thinking of. So I did my best to reassure her, and to all appearances succeeded. Yet if I had known then – or had the faintest inkling of – what I afterwards knew – Well when I did it was too late.

Chapter Fourteen.

A Bad Beginning

We crossed Umzinyati above where the Blood River joins it. This was something of a round but I didn’t want to pass through Sirayo’s section of the country; for it so happened I had had a bit of a breeze with him on a former occasion, and he would remember it; moreover his clan were a troublesome lot, and likely enough wouldn’t stick at trifles – not the salt of Zululand by any means. So I elected to make a few days of easy trek outside the border, and then cross over into Zululand a good deal further north.

Old transport-riders will tell you there is no life so fascinating as that of the road. With all its hardships and drawbacks – drought, wet, waterless out-spans, mudholes into which wheels sink axle deep, bad and flooded drifts, involving hours of labour, and perhaps the borrowing of a brother trekker’s friendly span – heat, cold – everything – yet the sense of being on the move, the constant change of scene, even of climate – has a charm all its own. This I can quite believe – because the waggon life off the road is even more fascinating still, in that the drawbacks are fewer, and you are more independent. You trek or outspan at your own sweet will, undeterred by any misgivings as to goods being delayed an inordinate time in delivery and the potential loss of future commissions in consequence. And you have time and opportunity to indulge in sport if there is any to be had, and there generally is when you are right off the roads, unless the country carries too thick a population.

These advantages held good of our then trek. I had a first-rate tent waggon of which mention has already been made. This, besides its load of the lighter kinds of trade goods was fitted up with a kartel and mattress, for bad weather accommodation – in fine weather we preferred sleeping on the ground. For the heavier kind, blankets and Salampore cloth, pots and kettles and so forth, I had loaded up a buckwaggon, constructed to carry anything up to twelve or fourteen thousand pounds weight. Thus we travelled – carrying our home along with us.

A surprise had come upon me almost at the last moment, and that was that by no possibility could I get any natives in our neighbourhood to cross the Zulu border. Those who had at first engaged to cried off. If I had been trekking with only one waggon I could have cut the knot of the difficulty by driving it myself, and making my body servant Tom – who would have gone to the ends of the earth with me, and to the devil after that – act as leader, but I had two. Ivondwe I knew would have gone, but I could not think of taking him away from the Sewins. The thing became seriously annoying. I appealed to Tyingoza. What was the matter with all the people? Were they afraid, and, if so, what of?

He was rather mysterious. There were rumours around that the Zulus were not well disposed towards white people, he hinted, especially those away on the northern border, where the King’s authority was least strong. That being so those in the position of white men’s servants would undergo risk – grave risk. But he would see what he could do, and in the result he found me one man who understood driving. This man, whose name was Mfutela, came from a kraal not far from Maritzburg. He was a ringed man, and brought with him his son, a youngster of about fifteen, to do leader. That would do. Things were brightening so far. I could drive one of the waggons myself, until such time as I had taught Falkner Sewin enough of the art to enable him to relieve me, and having thus decided I was all ready to start when – another turned up.

This fellow was something of a mystery, and was not keen on answering questions, but I gathered that his name was Jan Boom, at least that was the only name he would own to, and that he was a Xosa from the Cape frontier – far enough away in all conscience – who had drifted up to these parts. I suspected he had “drifted” out of gaol, and that before the time appointed to him for compulsorily serving the Government had expired; but with this I didn’t concern myself at all. He was first-rate at working with oxen and that was all I cared about.

Falkner Sewin, contrary to my expectations, had given no trouble to speak of. He would grumble outrageously at first when I turned him out before it was light so as to be ready for the earliest possible trek, and on one occasion turned nasty. He hadn’t come along as my servant, he fumed, and wasn’t going to take orders from me. So I reminded him that it was no question of taking orders, but he had even gone so far as to promise to do all he was told. I pointed out further that I hadn’t asked him to help me in any way, but that if he was going to do anything to hinder me why there was nothing to prevent him changing his mind and finding his way home again: we had not come so far that he would meet with any great difficulty in the way of this. He saw I meant what I said, and after sulking for half a day he climbed down, which was as well, for if there was one thing I intended it was to be skipper of my own ship. All the same he was destined to prove a mighty handful before I’d done with him.

We trekked easy the first few days, for the grass was not so green as it might have been, and I wanted to avoid pushing my oxen while the waggons were loaded at their heaviest, and so far had met with no adventures. The first was to come, and it came in this wise.

We had crossed the Blood River, and after an extra long morning’s trek had outspanned on one of the small tributaries of that stream. We had not seen many people hitherto, and the demeanour of such as we had seen was strange; not exactly hostile, but sullen, and as different as possible to the light-hearted, good-humoured cordiality I had always found on previous trips into the Zulu country.

Perhaps this had something to do with the extra caution I laid upon Falkner, when having resolved to take advantage of our halt to ride over and visit a neighbouring chief with whom I had former acquaintance I saddled up with that intent. I took my boy Tom along, more because it enhances your prestige to move about attended than for any use I had for him, but Falkner couldn’t come to any harm. Jan Boom the Xosa, spoke fair English, in case any of the natives should visit the outspan, and their speech require interpreting, and the other driver Mfutela, seemed a reliable man. Surely, one would think, there was no room for Falkner to get into any mischief here.

I was away about three hours. When I came in sight of the camp again, Tom, who was trotting by the side of my horse, said something that made me start.

I spurred forward. The outspan was hidden again by another rise in the ground. Topping this here is what I saw.

Standing forth, in an attitude of the noble art of self-defence, was Falkner Sewin. His fists were clenched, and his rolled up sleeves showed a really magnificent display of brown and corded muscle. Confronting him was a big Zulu, equally muscular, and armed with a formidable knobkerrie and a small shield. For “gallery” but with their backs to me, squatted in a semi-circle about thirty more Zulus.

Annoyed as I was, for the life of me I could not but feel interested. Both the contending parties were watching each other intently and it was clear that so novel a mode of fighting had appealed to this warlike people to the extent of their allowing their adversary fair play instead of rushing him by weight of numbers. I had seen the same kind of thing among them before, notably on that occasion when Tyingoza’s son had accepted the invitation to head a sort of flying invasion of the opposite side. But now, as then, they were destined to forget the strict rules of fair play when blood was up.

The Zulu was waltzing round Falkner, but the latter beyond turning to face him never moved, and his adversary seemed in no hurry to come within reach of those formidable fists. Then, goaded perhaps by the jeers of his comrades, who were tiring of a fight wherein no blows were struck, he feinted at his adversary’s head, then quick as thought threw up his shield and made a terrific sweep at Falkner’s leg beneath it.

But the latter was up to this stale dodge – indeed, I myself had put him up to it. Springing lightly aside, in time to avoid by a hair’s-breadth a blow that would have shattered his kneecap and set him up with a highly respectable limp that would have lasted him for the term of his natural life, he shot out his right fist in such wise as to catch his assailant smack full on the side of the jaw. The big Zulu went down like a shot buck hit in full course.

“He’s out!” cried Falkner. “John, tell ’em to put up their next man.”

But before Jan Boom could render this injunction or not render it, the whole lot had sprung to their feet and a mighty hubbub ensued. They had seized their weapons, and were gesticulating and pointing at Falkner: in fact, working themselves up to a state of wild and dangerous excitement. It was as well, perhaps, that unseen by them I was near enough to interpose.

“Hold!” I roared. “Hold! What means this? And who are ye that rush into my camp with weapons in your hands?”

As I said, I had approached unseen, and now the very suddenness of my appearance availed to stay the tumult, for a moment. But only for a moment. “Who are we? Au! Mlungu! that is no matter. Your oxen have eaten up our corn and now you must make it good. You must make it good we say.”

“Umlúngu” meaning simply “white man” was impudent, especially as I was sure some, if not all, of these knew me. At that moment I took in that they were all young men, of any age not much overtopping twenty, consequently at the most reckless and mischievous stage of human existence.

“Go – go,” I answered. “Send your fathers here. I talk not with children.”

The hubbub grew deafening and they drew in closer – growling, chattering in their fine deep voices, pointing viciously at us with their blades. My taunt had exasperated them to a dangerous degree. One fellow went so far as to dance out from among the rest and gwaza at me with his assegai, and all were brandishing theirs and closing in upon us nearer and nearer. I have always made a point of never being afraid of savages, but really when you get an irresponsible young ruffian lunging an eighteen-inch assegai blade within half that distance of your nose, and he backed up by thirty others, the situation begins to have its skeery side.

“Keep ’em steady a minute, Glanton, while I get out our ‘barkers’,” said Falkner. “That’ll start ’em to the rightabout double quick.”

“No. Better leave that. They’re only blowing off steam.”

But I wasn’t easy: more, I realised that the situation was a confoundedly ticklish one. They were working each other up into a state of ungovernable excitement, and simply howling down whatever I was trying to say. If I had had my pistol on I believe I should have drawn it, but it was at that moment reposing in one of the waggon pockets, some twenty-five yards behind us. The same held good of Falkner’s. He, characteristically, now brought matters to a crisis.

“Shut that silly jaw,” he growled, seizing the wrist of a fellow who was doing gwaza with a big assegai close to his face, and, with the other hand hitting him a terrific blow right between the eyes, felling him.

Then I thought my last hour had come, but no – they fell back as though scared. Falkner’s fighting powers had done us yeoman’s service after all, was the thought that flashed through my mind – and then I saw that it was not so; that our respite was due to another cause.

Unseen by either party to the turmoil two Zulus had come up – and one of them I knew, and knowing him, felt devoutly thankful that he was a pretty considerable chief.

“Now I see men,” I said, “men with rings on. Now I can talk. Greeting, Nonguza.”

He answered me with scant cordiality. He was a tall, fine man, but his face was heavy and sullen, more than that, it was a cruel face. The glance he shot at Falkner especially was not benevolent.

“I see you, Iqalaqala,” he said. “What is this, for my dogs seem to be barking over loud!”

I told him what I knew, which was little enough, and calling the waggon drivers we got at the rest of it. They had gone to look after the oxen, which were turned loose to graze, and had arrived in time to find a crowd of armed Zulus driving them off. Some had come for themselves, driving them up to the waggons, threatening them. It was then that Falkner Sewin had come out, and singling out the spokesman had challenged him to fight.

Nonguza called to two of the rioters, and ordered them to tell their story. It was soon told. They had found our oxen eating and trampling the corn of their father, Magebe, and had driven them off until their owners should pay for the damage.

Now Magebe proved to be the man who accompanied Nonguza, and on hearing this he became excited, and must needs rush off to ascertain what damage had been done. This Jan Boom pronounced to be next to nothing.

“They were hardly in the field at all, Baas,” he said in an undertone, and excellent English. “Zulu nigger one damn great big liar.”

The speaker being some shades darker in colour than any Zulu there present I could hardly restrain a laugh. Falkner couldn’t. He guffawed outright. The chief looked angry.

“Steady, Sewin,” I warned. “You’re spoiling everything.” Then to Magebe. “We had better all go and look what has been done. Then we can settle it.”

The mealie crop was only just over the rise, so we were there very soon. I had told Falkner to come too, fearing he might get into more mischief if left behind: and yet it was almost as bad having him, for he eyed the two Zulus with a sort of resentful contempt, more than once expressing a desire to knock their qualified heads together.

Even as Jan Boom had said, the damage proved to be very slight; but Magebe, an old man and avaricious, set to work to make the most of it. Half his crop was ruined and so forth. I must pay him two oxen.

Of course I had no intention of doing anything of the sort, so we adjourned to the waggons again to talk it over. There the discussion became long and heated, notwithstanding the fact that I opened it by filling them up with a great deal of black coffee and sugar. Nonguza, who did most of the talking, and I felt sure would claim the lion’s share of the spoil whatever it might be, was especially curt and offensive. I got sick of it at last.

“Here,” I said, spreading a new green blanket on the ground, and piling upon it a couple of big butcher knives – which Zulus dearly love – some strings of black and white beads, a few brass buttons and a goodly length of roll tobacco. “This is more than twice the damage my oxen have done. So now, Magebe, take it, and I will send one of my drivers with these two,” pointing to the two young Zulus who had explained matters, “and he will bring back the oxen.”

But Magebe objected that this was not enough, no, not nearly enough.

“There it is. Take it or leave it. If you leave it, then we leave the Zulu country – walk out of it, for we cannot drag our waggons. Then, when the Great Great One – he who sits at Undini – is called upon to make good the loss of two spans of oxen, two waggons and the whole of their contents – to the Englishmen whose oxen were taken – were taken by Nonguza, the induna whom he sent to keep order here on the boundary, what will he say, that Lion – what will he do? Tell me that. What will he do?”

“I know nothing of your oxen, Umlúngu,” said Nonguza, sullenly. “It is not I who have taken them.”

“Not you? Ha! When an induna of the King is present, is he greater than only the head of a kraal – a large kraal certainly – or is he less? Tell me that, Nonguza?”

It was a good game of bluff to play, and I was about at the end of my patience. I held trumps and I knew my hand, for I knew perfectly on what errand this chief was there. Now he turned and gave an order to those who had lately been threatening us, and I knew that the game was won. Yet even then, as I noted the look of sullen vindictiveness that fled swiftly across the chief’s face, I was not inclined to exult, for I was well aware that he would go a good way to be even with me yet, and in the then unsettled state of the border it would be strange if some opportunity of making himself disagreeable did not afford itself.