The White Hand and the Black: A Story of the Natal Rising

“So do I; and I hate medicine too; but both are necessary sometimes. Down with it.”

Evelyn obeyed, with more than one additional shudder. But the end justified the means, for, sitting back in a low roomy armchair, she soon felt drowsy and dropped off to sleep.

Edala felt no inclination to follow her example, on the contrary she had never felt more wakeful in her life. She wandered from room to room. There was her father’s library, and his favourite chair and reading lamp. There were his cherished books, and all the surrounding was alive with his presence. She could hardly realise that he was no longer there, but instead was a prisoner – a hostage – in the hands of insurrectionary savages; whose wild mad scheme of rebellion could end in no other way than that utterly disastrous to themselves, and then – ?

She looked around the room, and a terrible wave of compunction, or remorse came over her. How hard, how selfish, how unloving she had been towards him. Who was she that she should judge him? Yet she had, and that at every moment of the day.

All the affection and care and consideration he had lavished upon her came back now. It would, when it was too late, he had more than once said in his bitterness – Evelyn too had all unconsciously echoed his words. And it had. Should she ever see him again – ever look upon that loving presence – to whom she had been all in all for the whole of her young life, and whom she had met with ingratitude and repulsion? In the lonely silence of the still midnight the girl who had faced physical danger with a calm front, and rare readiness of resource, broke down.

“Father darling – darling! come back to me,” she moaned. “Only come back to me, to your little one again, and all shall be so different, so different.”

She had dropped upon her knees, her head buried in the chair – his chair. Her heart seemed breaking in her sobs – her great sobs – which hardly relieved it. What if she should never see him again, to tell him how his words had been surely fulfilled – never – never? No, she could not realise it. This room, which more than any other in the house seemed sacred to his presence and – now empty of it. A large portrait of him hung on the wall. Rising she went over and pressed her lips to the cold, not too carefully dusted, glass again and again.

The sound of stirring in the other room now came to her ears. It brought her down to the hard, material side of the situation. She dashed the tears from her eyes, fiercely, determinedly, and went to join her relative. Evelyn was awake again, and was looking around in rather a frightened way.

“Oh, here you are, Edala! Shall we start? I feel ever so much refreshed now. But you, child – have you had some sleep?”

“Yes – no,” was the half-absent reply. “Start? Yes, as soon as you’re ready. Wait though. I’ll go and get some supplies for the way. Later on you’ll find it no joke walking thirteen miles across the veldt on nothing but air.”

She was all material and practical again now. In a marvellously short space of time she returned with a well packed wallet stored with provisions.

“You sling this on,” handing the other a vulcanite water bottle. “I’ll carry the skoff – and the gun. It’s a pity you couldn’t learn to shoot, Evelyn, or you might have carried another. As it is we’ll hide the other two – inside the piano. No Kafir would think of looking for them there.”

This was done, then having carefully extinguished the lights and being well wrapped up, for the nights were fresh; and in dark attire, for safety’s sake, they went forth.

“I wonder if we shall ever see the old house again,” said Edala bitterly. “It’ll probably be burned to the ground, and all father’s treasured books,” – she added, with the catch of a sob. “These brutes – who have known you all your life, and then even they fall away from you! They’ll stick at nothing.”

There was silence then as they started upon their long tramp. The bodies of the poor dogs lay where they had been slain, plainly outlined under the cold moon, whose light glared down too upon that other mangled human relic, which, fortunately they could not see. High in the air invisible plover wheeled and whistled, and down in the blackness of the kloofs, right across their way, the answering bay of hunting jackals, and the deeper voice of the striped hyena, echoed eerily upon the night. Evelyn shuddered.

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Edala. “Nothing to be afraid of there – quite the contrary. It means that our way is clear, or no animal would be kicking up all that row. That’s just what we want. Hallo – here’s our friend back again,” she broke off, as a trample of hoofs, and a quick shrill bellow, told that the bull had returned. Again Evelyn shuddered.

“Will he attack us?” she said.

“I hope not, because this time I shall have to shoot. A charge of Treble A. at ten yards’ll split even his tough skull. But the last thing I want to do is to loose off a shot at all. By the way, that’s old Blue Hump. He must have got cut off from the herd when they drove it off – or cleared on his own. He’s a vicious old brute, anyway.”

The animal was trotting parallel with their course and every now and then they could make out the great branching horns above the bush sprays. But he must have grown tired of it, or feared to come to closer quarters, for presently they Saw no more of him.

“There’s a pathway here that cuts a considerable corner,” said Edala. “Whew! how cold it is.”

It was, and in spite of the exercise and plentiful wrapping up, both girls shivered. There were stealthy rustlings in the darkness of the brake, and once a great ant-bear rushing across the road, looking pale and uncanny in the moonlight, drew a stifled shriek from Evelyn. The other laughed.

“They’re the most harmless things on earth. Hyland and I and poor Jim used to hunt them often at night with assegais.”

Thus they travelled on, and soon Evelyn became accustomed to the unwonted experience of walking all night across wild country in potential peril at every step: fortunately she was in hard physical training by now. Once Edala’s quick vision had detected a puff adder lying in the path, but a few stones hurled from a little distance, soon drove the bloated, hissing reptile to seek safety somewhere else. Now and again a great owl would drop down right in front of their faces, and they could see his head turning from side to side as he sailed along on noiseless pinions, uttering his ghostly hoot: or the ‘churn’ of the nightjar would echo weirdly from beneath some overhanging rock; or again, a tiger-wolf howled, and big beetles in blundering flight, boomed through the air. So the voices of the night were never still.

They had sat down for a brief rest, and some refreshment, then on again. Suddenly Edala grew uneasy. A white mist was settling down upon the land. This was serious; for not only might they run plump into those it was all important to avoid, but there was grave danger of getting ‘turned round’ and finding themselves back at Sipazi again. The mist deepened, and so did Edala’s growing anxiety. It was one of those thick white mists which settle down upon the land in the small hours of the morning, fearfully disconcerting from a wayfarer’s point of view, but which melt away as by magic before the sun is an hour high. But that was small comfort to these two. They wanted to be at Kwabulazi before the sun was above the horizon at all. Suddenly Edala started.

“Hark!” she whispered, stopping short.

In front – directly in front – was audible a deep, confused murmur of sound, rolling, as it seemed, from one point to another, and drawing nearer and nearer. And with it came another sound. Those who have heard it can never mistake it, and these two had heard it all too significantly of late. It was the quivering rattle of assegai hafts.

From the sounds, spread out as they were right across their front, it was manifest that a large body of natives was moving towards them in open order. The fact that they were all armed told its own tale. This was a rebel impi, and but for the friendly mist these two would have run right into it.

“Quick, Evelyn! This way!” breathed, rather than whispered, Edala.

Holding her companion’s hand she drew her after her. The way she was taking now ascended sharply, but it was the only way. The rime rolled along, now in gusty puffs. This seemed to tell that they were gaining some height. Both were panting from their exertion, but there was no such thing as pausing, for now from the sounds beneath it was evident that the savages had suddenly altered their line of march, and were coming on in the same direction as themselves. Had they heard the sound of their steps, the clinking of a stone – what not? Anyway they could not go down, these two. That was out of the question.

On and upward. A puff of damp air, now nearly in their teeth, showed that they had attained the summit of some height. Suddenly Edala seized her companion’s hand in a strong grip and held it – and its owner.

“What is it?” whispered the latter.

“We are on the edge of a big krantz, that’s all. Three or four more steps and we should have been over.”

It was even as she had said. The ground ended just in front of them, and the blast of air coming up denoted a cliff, and one of considerable height.

But now it was lightening, and they could make out the long smooth edge of the height stretching away on their left front. And – good Heavens! Now the voices sounded from that direction —advancing from that direction as though to meet the owners of those coming up behind. These two were in a trap, caught between two fires. It was evident that the savages suspected their presence – the presence of somebody – and were quartering the ground in order to clear up the mystery. And there was nowhere to hide. The mountain top was flat and grassy. Suddenly Edala gave a violent start.

“I know our bearings now,” she whispered. “We’re on the top of Sipazi. Now Evelyn, there’s one chance for us, and one only – if you’ve the nerve to take it.”

“And that?”

“My ‘aerial throne.’”

The other gasped. She remembered how her flesh had crept before, when Edala had taken her to see the famous tree, how she had turned away almost faint, as she watched the girl spring out fearlessly on to this dreadful seat – with a careless laugh as though she had just dropped into an armchair. And now she too must sit dangling over the awful height. At that moment she almost preferred to take her chance of the assegais of the savages. But that chance might possibly mean even a worse one, and the thought decided her, as Edala whispered impatiently: —

“It’s got to be done. It’s our only chance. But you can’t fall. I’ll take care of that. Come.”

The deep voices sounded alarmingly near now. We have said that the brow of the mountain went down by a grass steep that was almost precipitous, to the stump of the tree. Edala let herself down this with cat-like security of footing, keeping ever a firm hold upon her companion – her gun she wedged into the root of a stunted bush growing out from the grass.

“Now we’re all right,” she whispered, as they sat wedged upon the projecting tree trunk, their feet dangling over space. “You can’t possibly fall, you know, as long as you hang on to that root, and I’m holding you. It’s a triumph of matter over mind instead of t’other way on, and as long as you forget there’s more than six foot of drop between this and the ground why you’re as jolly here as in an armchair on the stoep.”

And the other was somewhat reassured, although the situation to her was ghastly and horrible in the extreme. But now the voices drew very near indeed, were right overhead. Fortunately the mist had suddenly thickened, and the tree, which was some little way down, was quite blotted out to the vision of those above. To Edala, who understood what was said, the moment was one of awful tensity. Someone had been upon the mountain, of that they were convinced. But where could they be? There was no hiding place. Unless they had fallen over the cliff they would be here now.

Thus the discussion flowed on. Even the vibration of the tread of feet above caused the tree trunk to quiver slightly. At any moment the mist might lift. And it seemed to these two, suspended over awful space, an eternity. Then with unspeakable relief and thankfulness they heard the footsteps and voices retreating.

“Not yet,” breathed Edala. “Not yet. We must let them get clear away first. See. It’s getting lighter.”

It was. The dawn was at hand; in fact had already begun to break. The outline of the cliff above was visible now, plainly visible, and devoutly thankful did Edala feel that this lightening had been deferred as long as it had.

“My ‘aerial throne’ has its uses, Evelyn – eh?” she whispered.

Then something moved her to look up again. Her exaltation was dashed, shattered to the ground. On the brink, calmly gazing down upon them, stood the tall figure of a man – a dark man – and the outline of his figure and head-ring stood out against the sickly murk. She recognised Manamandhla. The bitterness of death had come.

For a few moments the Zulu thus stood, his eyes meeting hers. Then, without a word, he turned away and disappeared.

Chapter Twenty Six.

Of a Home-Coming

The kraal of the chief, Ndabakosi, was in a state of somewhat unusual excitement. Men were passing from hut to hut, but there were few women to be seen. The blue smoke reeks rose to bluer sky, and the odour of kine was in the air. Around, the veldt, dotted with feathery mimosa, lay shimmering in the afternoon heat.

The kraal was a fairly large one, but somewhat of a strain must have been put upon its capacity for accommodation, for a considerable number of people seemed to be gathered here – not all together, for they kept continually passing and re-passing from hut to hut, and hardly ever in the same groups. Quite a number of them too, carried assegais, and, not a few, shields. Clearly something was in the wind.

The horseman, pacing along the dusty track of road, was not in a good humour. We regret to have to record that more than once he swore – swore right heartily too. Nothing is more conducive to such behaviour than the discovery, in the course of a hot and tedious journey, that one’s mount has gone lame. This one had just made such a discovery – wherefore – he swore.

Dismounting, he looked again at the defaulting hoof, felt the pastern. Seen thus, he was a tall, broad shouldered young fellow, light-haired, blue-eyed, straight as a dart. He was puzzled. There was nothing to account for this sudden lameness. The steed was not of the best, but it was the best he could hire when he got off the train at Telani, at an early hour that morning, in his impatience to get home. And now it was out of the question that he should reach home that night. The horse was not very lame, certainly; but it was likely to go lamer still with every mile or so.

“It’s just possible I might borrow a horse at old Ndabakosi’s place,” he said to himself, “and that can’t be more than a mile further on. Yes there it is,” as, topping a rise, he could discern a ring of domed huts crowning a kopje a little way off the road in front. “These nigger gees are beastly screws as a rule, but ‘needs must, etc.,’ and it may get me as far as Kwabulazi to-night at any rate. He’s a decent old chap is Ndabakosi, and a long cool pull of tywala won’t come in badly just now. Gee up, you brute!”

Hyland Thornhill’s visions of home-coming were pleasant in spite of the above-detailed contretemps. It would be no end jolly to see the old man again – he and his father had always been more like chums than anything else, and the confidence between them was perfect. And little Edala – she was wrong-headed on certain points, but still – what times they would have. And the strange visitor? He wondered what she would be like. Well, the more the merrier – anyway, he was going to have a ripping time of it now he had broken loose at last. He had put up a surprise visit on them, and it would all be great fun.

But between himself and Sipazi there lay – Ndabakosi’s kraal.

The latter, for a moment had been unwontedly lively; then it was as dead. When Hyland Thornhill rode up to it, two ringed men stood watching his approach with listless curiosity.

“Saku bona ’madoda!” he cried. “And the chief – how is he?”

They returned his greeting.

The chief was asleep, they said. In fact he was getting old, and was not very well.

“Au! That is bad news,” returned Hyland. “But – we are old friends. I would like to look upon his face once more. Tell him Ugwala is here,” giving his native nickname.

The two, whose faces were strange to him, looked at each other. Then one went in the direction of the chief’s hut, while the other went in another direction. The while Hyland had not dismounted. Presently the first returned.

The chief was awake, he said, and would see Ugwala presently. Meanwhile would he not dismount?

But a very strange kind of instinct had come over Hyland Thornhill, warning him to do nothing of the kind. It happened that as he sat in the saddle waiting, he had happened to see, by a side glance, the hut which the other man had entered. The doorway, for one brief moment, had been crowded with faces, whose expression there was no mistaking. His glance had also caught the gleam of assegais. All the rumours he had heard on the way down and, especially when he had got off the train at Telani, where in fact he had been seriously warned against taking this journey all alone – came back to him. He remembered, too, that many of the more reliable chiefs were reported to be disaffected.

“I will not wait, then,” he answered. “I must reach Kwabulazi to-night. Hlala-gahle.”

The other grunted a sullen reply. Hyland, as he pushed his lame horse along, did not feel at all easy in his mind. He would have felt less so still had he seen what happened a few minutes afterwards. Hardly was he out of sight of the kraal than a number of armed savages issued from it, racing over the veldt at an angle of forty-five divergent from the direction he was taking. But they knew their own plan. They knew moreover that he was riding a lame horse. And they never intended he should reach Kwabulazi that night – or ever.

As he held on his way his uneasiness took a new turn, and that on behalf of his father and sister. If things were going from bad to worse Sipazi was a lonely place. Surely his father would know better than to remain on there. Perhaps they were already in laager – he had heard that in some parts the farmers were going into laager – and again and again he cursed his luckless mount which had had the unfortunate foolishness to go dead lame just as he wanted him to put his best foot foremost.

Stung by these obtruding apprehensions, Hyland lashed his steed savagely. It sprang forward into a half-hearted canter, and again he lashed it. In front rose a long acclivity, the straight road ribanded out in red dust, in contrast to the green of the veldt. Then began a race – all unconsciously on the part of one competitor, but not so on that of others. Threescore armed savages were straining every muscle to gain the top of that acclivity the first, advancing stealthily through the mimosa bushes and long grass.

Up this the sorry horse cantered half heartedly. But Hyland Thornhill was in a bad temper now, a condition of mind begotten of growing anxiety. What was a mere quadruped to him then? And again the raw-hide lash curled round the animal’s ribs. It gave a feeble kick or two, but started off at a fairly respectable pace.

“Get on, you brute!” he growled savagely.

It may grieve the moralist, but it is hard fact that that outburst of bad temper saved the rider’s life. For by just the time saved by the enforced acceleration of the horse’s pace did he gain the top of the rise first and – became alive to what he had, by such a shave, escaped. The crawling forms were not a hundred yards distant on his right when he sighted them, and on realising that they were discovered, they bounded forward with a roar. But it was downhill work now, and Hyland sent his steed along at its best pace, soon leaving his enemies behind.

“Near thing that, damn it!” he muttered grimly, turning in his saddle to see if he was being pursued.

He was. Dark forms, strung out like a pack of hounds, were sprinting along the road in his rear. He had got a good start, but what if this confounded screw should stumble and fall? Then – good night! And Kwabulazi was not exactly near, either. He had a good, business-like revolver slung round him, concealed by his coat; but what was that against such odds? It would mean selling his life at the price of four or five of theirs, and keeping the last bullet for himself.

He had served in Matabeleland as well as in the Dutch war. He was hardened and resourceful, but among the things he had learned in the former campaign was the accepted fact that it did not do to fall into the power of hostile savages, helpless and unarmed.

But no more did he see of his pursuers, and he felt almost affectionately disposed towards his defaulting mount, as he topped the last neck, and looked down upon Kwabulazi.

What was this? The place was all alive with people. The tents of several waggons showed up white in the evening glow, and as he drew nearer he could see a number of men digging for all they were worth. They were making entrenchments. The place had gone into laager, then. His father and sister would be there, and safe. After his own experience he was filled with unutterable relief and thankfulness as he realised this.

Several of the surrounding farmers had gathered here with their families for mutual defence, and an outlying storekeeper or two, and all hands were turning to with a will to bank up an adequate breastwork. Within this the waggons, together with boxes and bales, should form an inner line of defence. There was a lull in the work as Hyland rode up.

“Dashed if it isn’t young Thornhill!” said one – an old man with a bushy grizzled beard.

“Dashed if it isn’t old Seth Curtis,” responded Hyland, coolly.

“Well that’s a damned respectful way to talk to a man old enough to be your father,” growled the other.

“Old enough to be, but thank God he isn’t. I’m quite content with the one I’ve got,” answered Hyland shortly. He was not inclined to be cordial towards the speaker, or towards anyone there. He resented the attitude the neighbours had taken up towards his father, and didn’t care how much they knew it. “Where is he, by the way?”

There was no answer. A sort of blankness came over the group which had gathered. Each looked at the other. Hyland felt his face growing white and cold. His fists instinctively clenched.

“Can’t some idiot answer?” he snarled savagely, glaring at the blank faces, with a murderous longing to run ‘amok’ and dash his fists in to them all. Then a girl’s voice sounded forth clear and full.

“Why – it’s Hyland.”

“Edala – where is he?” was the first question in the midst of a hurried embrace. “Not killed?”

“No – not that.”

“What then? Wounded?”

“No. But – they’ve got him.”

“Good God!”

“Come with me and I’ll tell you all about it quietly,” and she led him to Elvesdon’s house where she and Evelyn had taken up their quarters. The latter’s presence he hardly noticed as he acknowledged their introduction mechanically. Then Edala gave him all particulars of the semi-tragic termination to Tongwana’s war-dance.

“Why the people have known him all their lives,” said Hyland. “What can be their object? I could understand if they had killed him – them – but to keep them prisoners – Oh Lord! Edala, can nothing be done to rescue them? We can’t sit down and let things slide.”

And he began to pace about the room. Edala shook her head, dejectedly.

“Mr Prior has been doing what he can. He has sent out two of his native detectives to try and find out where they are, and bribe the chiefs to release them. He does not believe that Tongwana had any hand in it. Nteseni might have, or Babatyana. He, by the way, has broken out, and there are rumours that old Zavula has been murdered by him.”

“Well, it’s quite likely. Yet that paying dodge is about the only chance at present that I can see,” said Hyland, gloomily. “We must first find out where they are, and if they’re alive I’ll get ’em out, or go under myself – even if I have to do it alone, for I don’t suppose any of these white livered curs round here would risk their skins to lend me a hand. They’re first-rate at snapping at a man’s heels though,” he ended savagely.