A Secret of the Lebombo

Wyvern was just thinking how even that inducement would not persuade him to see a moment more of his host than necessity obliged, so intense was the aversion the latter had inspired in him, when a sudden and violent push from behind, almost of the nature of a blow, sent him staggering and then sprawling, cannoning against and nearly upsetting his said host, who was some three or four yards ahead. Simultaneously the detonating roar of an explosion, seeming to come out of the ground itself, rent the air, and a perfect hail of missiles cut leaves and twigs from the bush, or ploughed up the ground a few yards to the right of the path they were pursuing.

“Hold up, man, hold up! Not hit, are you?” sung out Bully Rawson, with great concern. “No? That’s all right. Blast me if that wasn’t one of them spring-guns I’ve been settin’ around this land for the bucks we’ve just been talking about Man, there was half a pound of loepers in it if there was one. You must have kicked the string. The wonder is I didn’t.”

“Bit risky, isn’t it?” struck in Fleetwood, drily.

“Course. But I haven’t been seeing to them for some time. I swear I’d forgotten there were any left set at all.”

“Well, I saw the string,” rejoined Fleetwood, and his tone was decidedly short. “Wyvern was about to kick it, and so I sent him flying just in time. Legs blown off at the shins – no doctor – shock and loss of blood – stone dead in three minutes. Seems to me your place is a bit dangerous, Bully.”

“So it is. The wonder is I didn’t kick it myself. Well let’s chuck mouching about and get back to the store and have another drink. We deserve it after that. Well, I’ll hammer someone sweetly for leaving that thing there, that’s one consolation.”

“It’s none,” said Wyvern, also shortly. “Hammer yourself.”

“Eh? What do you mean?” said the other, trying to suppress his rising fury. “Ah well. Let’s have a look at the gun.”

There it was – a clumsy-looking, half-rusty iron tube like unto a young cannon, secreted in the bushes. To the peg which held up the hammer was attached a long string, its other end being made fast so that it came across the path. Any unwary animal which should collide with that string, would find all its worldly interests at an end there and then. Again Rawson was profuse in his apologies.

But thereafter, the tone of conversation between the two and the third became somewhat strained, and their farewell was none too cordial. As they rode back to their outspan Fleetwood said:

“He’s beginning early.”

“Do you think he meant to shove that tree down on me?”

“Of course he did. When that failed he remembered the spring-gun.”

“Do you think that was a put up thing too?”

“I should rather say so. Look here, Wyvern. I saw him step over the string. He knew it was there.”

“The deuce you did.”

“Well I did. I’ve got a rum sort of instinct, Wyvern, and it has saved more than one man’s life before to-day.”

“And it has saved one man’s life twice to-day, old chap,” answered Wyvern gravely.

“That’s nothing as between you and me,” rejoined the other. “When I remember that day on the Hlobane – ”

“Oh damn the Hlobane,” cut in Wyvern. “Now do you think this unhung scoundrel has any inkling of our errand?”

“No, but for some reason or other he’d rather have our room than our company, and the best road towards that is to get rid of us. I had my eye on him from the very beginning, luckily. I saw him start shoving at that tree, and the only way to stop you dead short was to invent that snake-bite lie, just as the only way to make you clear the spring-gun string was to give you the shove I did. You let it off, but the sudden pitch forward just cleared the charge.”

“Well, if he gets up to anything of that sort openly I shall shoot,” said Wyvern decisively.

“So shall I,” said Fleetwood, with equal decision.

The while the subject of these remarks, having solaced his feelings by thrashing one of his dependents, and getting considerably drunk, was arriving at the conclusion that the process of “taking care of” Wyvern was not going to prove as easy as it looked, and that he himself had begun upon it very badly indeed.

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Opal

An amphitheatre of bush and krantzes, the latter fringed on the sides and brink with the feathery droop of forest trees: dark, lateral kloofs running steeply up into the face of the heights: beyond the silence of a great wilderness, but enhanced by the varying bird voices upon the heat of the still atmosphere, or the hum of insects and the chirrup of crickets; and, over all, the deep blue arch of an unclouded sky.

Wyvern wiped his wet face with his wet handkerchief and gasped. He realised that he was getting limp – the enervating limpness produced by the torrid, up-country, steamy heat, and, proportionately, was getting depressed. So far they seemed no nearer their goal. They had searched, always with the greatest caution, but without success, or even a clue; and Hlabulana, their guide, seemed not nearly so confident now they had reached the locality as he had seemed when he made his statement to Fleetwood. In brief he was puzzled but would not own to it – only put them off in his vague native way. Added to which Joe Fleetwood had been more than once down with rather a bad attack of old up-country fever; in fact he was lying in camp at that moment not able to get about. But Wyvern, leaving him in the care of Hlabulana and Mtezani, the young Zulu to whom they had afforded asylum when the Usutus had pursued him right into their camp – and that under strict orders not to lose sight of him until his own return – had started forth, in his wearied impatience, to see if he could get no nearer the difficulty of solving matters.

Bully Rawson had troubled them no further. In fact they had seen but little of that worthy, who when they suggested trekking on had heartily approved of the idea. Now they were about thirty miles distant from him, allowing for the roundabout roughness of the road. It seemed as though he intended to trouble them no longer, and their precautions, though not exactly suspended, were very much less rigid as time went by.

Wyvern eyed the expanse of savage wilderness – forest and cliff and height – with a sombre hatred. What if this discovery they had come up here to make should elude them after all? What if these recesses, practically labyrinthine in their vastness, should hold that which he had come to seek, that upon which he had pinned his future; should hold it there at his very feet while he walked over it unconscious? The thought was maddening. His depression deepened.

Then arose before him more strongly than ever – for it was ever before him – the vision of Lalanté; of Lalanté, wide-eyed, smiling, ever hopeful – of Lalanté, a tower of strength in her sweetness and confidence, unique in his experience; his complement, his other half – than whom the whole world could not contain another similar. How, in that far wilderness, he longed and yearned for her presence, her soothing comforting words, the love thrill in the sweetness of her voice, his all – all his – his alone! It was so long since he had been able to receive even the words written by her, to realise that the paper on which they were traced had been pressed by her hand, warm and strong with the pulses of love. When would he again? If this scheme failed, the failure would be irretrievable, abject. And she? Could she go on for ever hoping in him? Would not the surroundings of her life ultimately prove too strong for her? She was young, much younger than himself: could she continue to believe in a man who was an utter and consistent failure all along the line? In the solitude of the great wilderness he was brought more face to face with his knowledge of life – of life and its experiences – and the retrospect was like iron entering into his soul. Her presence was no longer with him: would it ever be again – for of such was life?

All the old time came back: the sweet time at Seven Kloofs when they had been together, sometimes for days at a time, either there or at her own home, especially that blissful day they had spent alone and free from all interruption, the last of its kind before the rupture came; and it seemed as though he had not appreciated it enough then – seemed so now, though in actual fact it would have been impossible for him to have done so more. He could almost find it in his heart to have cursed Le Sage for setting up that barrier between them during those last weeks, what time they could have made the most of the sad sweetness of impending parting; could have set up a rich barrier of love against the blank and separation that was to come. And with it all there came over him a wave of longing – a craving, a yearning – that was perfectly irresistible, but for the accidents of time and distance, to behold Lalanté once more, to hold her once more to him, to hear the full, love-fraught tones of her voice, to look into her eyes, let what might happen afterward. This undertaking had ended in the clouds, and all the buoyant hope which had sustained him had ebbed.

Thus musing he wandered on mechanically, hardly noting whether game he had come out to shoot was to be found or not. Then something caught his gaze. He stood and stared – shading his eyes, and then took a few quick strides. Something shone: shone but dully – but still shone. It was only a steel button.

Wyvern was not an excitable man, but now he thought to hear the pulses of his heart thud violently within his chest. As he stooped and picked up the button, he picked up something else at the same time. It was a knife.

A sheath-knife, red with rust, and with an iron handle – quaint and of an unfamiliar make and pattern. Quickly, but carefully he examined the ground further, and now his heart beat quicker still. On the ground were several fragments of what looked like moss-grown bits of pottery. He bent down and examined them. The largest piece could be nothing else than the fragment of a skull – a human skull.

Further search revealed more remains, green and crumbly with age. Wyvern looked up at the tossing heights. Yes, here was the amphitheatre or hollow known as Ukohlo. He remembered every detail of the story; he and Joe Fleetwood had talked it over too often for it to be otherwise. Yes, and where the rocky side of the mountain rose abruptly were several holes and caves. The next thing would be to find the right one.

Now every detail of the story fitted in. Clearly this was the spot whereon the two wretched men had been suddenly and treacherously murdered. The knife, the human remains, all pointed that way. Hope, dispelling his former depression, bounded high once more. If necessary they would search every cranny and crevice, and thus could not fail to secure the prize.

But – it was buried. Well, they would dig if necessary. The object would be well worth the time and labour.

A shadow came between him and the light, then another. Wyvern looked up. Great white vultures were wheeling and soaring between him and the sun. What did it mean? Something must be dead or dying within this grim, untrodden wilderness tract; and that hard by, yet of such there was no perceptible sign. A strange, boding uneasiness settled upon him. What could it mean? He was the only living thing moving at that time. Again he looked up. The great white birds had multiplied to a very cloud, and they were right above him, floating round and round at some height.

Just there the holes and caves were formed by large boulders which had fallen together rather than by cracks in the solid cliff face. The opening of one of these formed a complete triangle, and towards this some mysterious instinct impelled Wyvern’s footsteps.

He paused a moment before the entrance. A damp, earthy smell came from within, and again the detail as to the earth which Hlabulana had seen sticking to the knives of the adventurers came back to his mind. Yet, the connection of ideas proved nothing. The same earthy smell would probably have greeted his nostrils had he entered any other of the caves which here opened in all directions. Still, there was no harm in just looking into this one.

A man of medium height could have entered it erect, but Wyvern had to stoop. Once inside however, the fissure widened. At the further end chinks of light penetrated where the boulders forming the hole had fallen together, and these formed dim shafts of sunlight upon the floor.

The latter was soft and earthy. Could it be here that the stuff was buried? Wyvern stamped upon the ground here and there, but it gave forth the same sound everywhere. Carefully, eagerly, he peered around – again and again. There was nothing. He was about to leave the place when —

Something shone.

On the ground, right under one of the shafts of light, it lay. Wyvern picked it up, and hurried to the daylight. Yet his instincts of precaution moved him to examine it while still within the shadow of the cave.

A yellowish, cut stone lay within his hand. Looking at it he felt sure that it was an opal. And then he had to call up all his self-control to steady his nerves. Hlabulana’s story was no myth. Clearly this was where the stuff was buried. He would go back and rouse up Fleetwoods – the good news alone was bound to effect a cure – and they would return together to dig it up. This rich secret which the Lebombo had held for so long within its grim fastnesses had been unfathomed at last. Its treasures would make them wealthy for life, and, above all, would bring him Lalanté.

Would they? He had not found them yet – and with the thought came another. Opals, according to popular superstition, were unlucky, and the first sign he had found of the existence and propinquity of the treasure was an opal. The next moment he laughed at himself for giving even a thought to such nonsense, and stepped forth once more into the open day.

Unlucky! Why the whole world seemed to open up in a paradise of delight. Unlucky! He would return and re-purchase Seven Kloofs, the place which he loved; and this time old Sanna would not have to complain that the place needed a “Missis.” Le Sage’s objection was not to himself but to his impecuniosity, and that obstacle removed, why then – Unlucky!

With a hard ring and a splash of lead, the bullet flattened on the rock beside him, simultaneously with the roar of the report, which rolled, in a volley of echoes, among the surrounding krantzes.

“Bully Rawson, of course,” exclaimed Wyvern to himself, as he quickly got behind a rock to consider best as to how he should return the fire.

But this was not quite so easy, for the simple reason that his assailant kept closely concealed. A wreath of smoke hanging in front of a thick row of foliage fringeing the lip of a low krantz some hundred yards distant, showed the point of concealment. He realised too, into what a tight place he had got. His cover was totally inadequate, and whoever was making a target of him could not go on missing him all day. Indeed it was marvellous that he should have missed so easy a mark at all.

Again the superstition concerning the opal recurred to him. No sooner had he found the stone than he found himself in grave danger. Every moment now he expected another bullet. He would almost certainly never live to realise the bright fair future he had just been mapping out. Well, the brutal cowardly ruffian who had come out there to do him to death in the dark as it were, should not benefit by the clue he himself had discovered, and to this end, concealed by the rock, he scraped a hole in the soil and deposited the stone within it. Then he called out: —

“Rawson, you cowardly skulker. Haven’t you the pluck to meet me man to man? Come out and show yourself, can’t you?”

There was no reply.

“Oh, you’re plucky enough at thrashing defenceless women, and boys not a third of your size,” went on Wyvern. “Come out now and we’ll fight fair with anything you like. Come out, funk-stick.”

This time an answer came, or some sort of an answer, and it took the form of quick muttered voices in the Zulu tongue, together with the sound of a scuffle, and a clinking fall of small stones down the face of the krantz. Then a voice was raised – also in the Zulu tongue.

“Come up here, Nkose. Come up here. I have him fast.”

And Wyvern knew the voice for that of Mtezani, the young Zulu whose life they had saved, and he went.

But before he went he scraped up the opal which he had buried beneath the loose soil.

Chapter Twenty Three.

Of the Hostile Usutus

Wyvern had no difficulty in making his way up to the spot whence the shot had been fired, and arriving there an unexpected sight met his eyes. There, sure enough, was Mtezani, and in his hand he held a big, wicked-looking assegai, upraised and in striking attitude, while beneath him, face to the earth, he seated astride upon it, lay the body of a man, another native. Beside them both lay a rifle.

“Lie still, dog,” warned the young Zulu. “Lie still, and move not, else my broad blade shall pin thee to the earth. Nkose! Here is he who would have shot you. Look at him.”

Wyvern did so, and could not but feel some astonishment, for he recognised in his would-be murderer the boy whom Bully Rawson had so mercilessly thrashed on the first occasion of his visiting that worthy’s kraal, Pakisa.

“Here he is,” went on the chief’s son. “I was behind him when he fired the shot, but just too late to prevent him. But he got no chance of another. Whau!” and his glance rested meaningly on a heavy, short-handled knob-stick which lay on the ground beside them, and at the head of his prisoner, from which blood was trickling. “I am going to kill him now, Nkose, but first he will tell us why he shot at you. Now dog, why was it?” emphasising the question by a sharp dig in the back with the assegai he held.

The wretched Pakisa, beside himself with fear, stammered forth that it was an accident; that he had taken the Inkosi for a buck, and had fired at him.

“That for the first lie,” said Mtezani, emphasising the remark with another dig, which made the prostrate one squirm and moan. “Answer, or I cut thee to pieces, strip by strip. Now – why was it?”

“He said I must.”

“Ha! Inxele?”

“Eh-hé, Inxele. He promised to shoot me if I failed, and now he will.”

“He will not. Go on,” said Wyvern. “Why were you to shoot me?”

“I cannot tell, Nkose. Except – yes, I heard him say, when he had taken too much tywala, that you must go – that you must be taken care of – yes that was how he put it, but I knew what he meant. He gave me this gun – I often go out and shoot game for him, Nkose– and told me to go and watch for you. If I did not take care of you, and that soon, he would come after me, and shoot me, wherever I might be. And he would have done it. I know Inxele, Nkose, if you do not.”

“And the other Inkosi, U’ Joe – were you to have ‘taken care’ of him too?” said Wyvern.

“Nothing did he say about that, Nkose,” was the answer. “It was you – only you.”

Wyvern pondered. What sort of vindictive fiend could this be, he thought, who could deliberately and in cold blood order his assassination merely because he had disapproved of his brutal and barbarous ways? Then the incidents of the falling tree and the spring-gun recurred to him. That these were no accidents he had long since determined, and now here was a fresh attempt; but that Rawson had some powerful motive for removing him out of existence over and above that of sheer vindictiveness, of course never came into his mind.

“How long have you been watching for an opportunity to ‘take care of me’?” he asked, but his Zulu was defective, and it was not at once that he could compass the answer.

“Since you have been at your present outspan, Nkose. He said he would shoot me, and he meant it.”

“And you, Mtezani,” said Wyvern, turning to the latter. “Said I not that you must not leave U’ Joe, or the camp until my return? Why then are you here?”

“Nkose! I have smelt this dog prowling about for two days following you. That is why I am here.”

Wyvern could hardly find further fault, so he only said:

“Let him up.”

“Nkose! I will let him up – I —Ijjí!”

The last came out in a strident ferocious gasp, as its utterer drove the broad blade of his assegai down between the shoulders of his helpless captive. The limbs contracted convulsively, and the slayer, maddened by a sudden access of ferocity, drove in his spear-head again and again.

“That dog will yelp no more,” he growled, rising erect.

Wyvern felt absolutely sick.

“What have you done, Mtezani?” he said, sternly. “You have killed an utterly defenceless man. That is not the act of a warrior but of a coward.”

The young Zulu looked more than sulky.

“That was not a man but a dog,” he said. “And he would have taken your life, Nkose.”

This was undeniable. Wyvern felt he could hardly quarrel with a man who had just saved his life; further he recognised that one of those irresistible impulses to shed blood common to most savages had come upon Mtezani. Moreover the thing was done, and no amount of objection on his part could undo it. So he rejoined:

“And you have saved it, Mtezani. Good. I will not forget.”

“Nkose is my father and saved mine,” was the reply. “Now we are a life for a life.”

The speaker had quite regained his good-humour. The paroxysm of savagery had passed, and his pleasant, intelligent face was as usual.

“Whau ’Nkose! What is one dog more or less?” he went on, with a careless laugh. “And – that one knew too much.”

“Knew too much?”

“Eh-hé! He was sent by Inxele to find out what you were here for, and to-day he knew. Now he knows no more.”

Wyvern stopped short and fixed his eyes on the other’s face.

“And you, Mtezani? Do you know?”

“Ou!” bringing a hand to his mouth. “Even that might be, Nkose. But others will not.”

Wyvern eyed him curiously, then led the way back to the camp.

“We shall have to reckon with Inxele about this, Mtezani,” he said. “You have killed his ‘dog.’”

“Hau! and I would kill the dog’s master,” and the savagery blazed up again. “I am a son of Majendwa, Nkose, and a son of Majendwa fears nobody, let alone a white ishinga (a worthless person) such as Inxele Whau, ’Nxele! Xi!”

The contempt expressed was so complete that Wyvern burst out laughing.

“White people like you and U’ Joe, Nkose,” went on the Zulu, “that is one thing, but such as Inxele, that is another! They say you have no king, you Amangisi (English), only a woman for king. If you had a king surely Inxele would have been long since dead.”

Wyvern laughed again at this way of putting things. It was naïve, to say the least of it.

Joe Fleetwood lay restless under several blankets when they reached the camp. The day was blazing hot, but the chills of the dread up-country fever held him in their grip.

“Buck up, old man,” said Wyvern gaily. “I’ve struck it at last.”

“So? Quite cert?” asked the other listlessly.

“Rather. Look at this,” showing the opal. And then he told him all about the finding of it. Fleetwood’s listlessness vanished.

“By Jove, we’re on the spot at last,” he said. “It’s awkward though, Wyvern, that sweep Bully being on our spoor like this. Looks as if he’d got some wind of our plan.”

“Yet that wretched devil that shot at me gave me to understand that it was only me he wanted out of the way. I own I’m stumped. Surely even such a brute as that wouldn’t persistently have a fellow murdered simply because he didn’t like him.”

“Not, eh? It’s plain you don’t know Bully Rawson.”

“Well, at any rate, it’s a relief to know he hasn’t scented our job,” said Wyvern. “Send the other boys out of reach on some sham errand, Joe, and let’s get Hlabulana here and talk things over.”

This was done. With perfect imperturbability the Zulu pronounced that Wyvern had hit upon the spot. When asked why he had allowed them to spend days and weeks in useless search when he could have cut it short by a word he answered:

“You white people cannot hide your minds, Amakosi, and the eyes and ears of Inxele have been ever present I was waiting until there was no more Inxele.”