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

The words were not uttered passionately. There was a calm solemnity about them which caused the other to believe that she would keep her word. What comfort could be administered to such remorse as this?

Then, in a moment, the scales dropped from Evelyn’s eyes, and she stood there as one who beheld a new revelation. Everything stood clear now, the aloofness with which the neighbourhood had treated her relatives and for which Thornhill had, with good-humoured contempt, pronounced himself duly thankful; in that the said neighbourhood consisted of a rotten crowd, the bulk of whom were scarcely able to write their own names, and the residue perhaps too well able to write those of other people. Edala’s attitude, too, stood explained. If she believed that her father had done this thing why the estrangement was only natural. If she believed – but – how could she – how could she? Before Evelyn could reply, however, a step was heard outside, and the door opened.

Hyland half drew back, then entered.

“Now, now, you two. This won’t do you know. Didn’t you promise me to keep up?” he said but there was a suspicious quaver in his own voice which rendered his tone gruff. “The more so that I’ve got some news for you.”

“News. Quick! What is it?” Edala sprang to her feet, while Evelyn’s face lightened.

“He is alive.”

A gasp escaped both girls.

“Where? Where?”

“At Nteseni’s ‘Great Place.’ Don’t interrupt and I’ll tell you all about it. Well then, you remember the fellow I questioned during the fight, the prisoner I mean? He sent for me this morning, and said he could tell me something I would like to hear; and after a little beating around he told me that father and Elvesdon are still alive, and if I promised not to turn him over to the police along with the other prisoners he’d tell me where they were. Of course I promised, and he said at Nteseni’s. How did he know? Well he did know, and it didn’t matter how, but if we wanted to get them away we must lose no time.

“How did I know he was telling the truth, I asked. Easily, he answered. If we were going to make an attempt to get them out, we could take him with us. All he asked was that he should be allowed to escape when we had found them. I talked this over with Prior and he agreed, so I went around on the quiet beating up volunteers. I got about two dozen, and we’re going to slip off quietly as soon as it’s dark. By pushing the horses a bit we can do it, and be back here again to-morrow morning – with them.”

“Oh Hyland, for God’s sake do,” said Edala. “But what if this man is only trying to lead you into some trap?”

“We shall take precious good care that in such an eventuality he’ll be the first man to go under – and he jolly well knows it. We’re keeping the jump-off on the strict Q.T. though, so don’t you go giving it away.”

“Of course not. It’s a long time to wait, though, until dark.”

“It’s just as long to me – you may swear to that,” answered Hyland. “But it would simply wreck the whole biz if we moved a moment before.”

A troop of Mounted Police had arrived at Kwabulazi later on the same day as the repulse – perhaps an inkling of their approach on the part of the rebels had had something to do with the abandonment of the attack. Other refugees, too, had come in, and the place was now a large and important laager. The prisoners were set to work to bury the slain, and the wounded were attended to in the camp hospital under the direction of our former acquaintance, Dr Vine, and things were ship-shape again. Ndabakosi’s kraals had been burnt, but the old chief and some of his headmen had surrendered; he declaring that he had nothing to do with the attack upon the place, the impi being composed almost entirely of strangers; a statement which Hyland Thornhill for one, remembering his experience at Ndabakosi’s kraal, took with a considerable dash of salt.

Now Hyland’s praises were in everybody’s mouth. His coolness and daring during the fight had been witnessed by all, and his brusque and almost commandeering manner was quite forgiven him. Men will overlook – especially at such a time as this – a great deal in one who has given them ocular proof of the above-named qualities; moreover all there knew that this one was undergoing at heart an intense grief and apprehension. So when he went about quietly, asking the most likely men to back him up in his perilous venture he met with no single refusal. He could have doubled his force had he so wished, but he did not. This was to be a run-through venture, not a fighting one, and for such a purpose a small force was better than a larger one.

During the afternoon one of the detectives sent out by Prior slipped quietly into the camp. He confirmed the statement of the Zulu in every particular. The prisoners were at Nteseni’s kraal. One had been murdered, that morning, and that was the Police trooper. He had been killed by order of the chief, and the impi had been ‘doctored’ with his blood. The others would have shared the same fate had not another chief, one presumably of higher authority than Nteseni, prevented it, and he had only done this with some difficulty. These facts had the detective been able to gather owing to the wonderful and telegraphic swiftness with which news spreads among natives; for it must not be supposed that he himself had been at the scene of the tragedy – or anywhere near it.

Here was grand comfort for the two sorrowing women, but the lamentable side of the story, the murder of poor young Parry was kept from them, as indeed it was from the camp at large until the expedition should have returned. They could hardly find words for their thankfulness and hope. But would those leaden hours of sunlight never cease to drag on?

“Hyland, darling,” pleaded Edala, as she hung around her brother’s neck as the time came to start. “You will not be reckless will you? When you have got them you will come straight back – you won’t delay for the sake of a fight unless you are obliged – you are always tempted to do that, you know. Think what I – what we – shall be suffering all the time.”

“No – little one. You may take your oath I’ll do nothing of the kind. But I’ll bring him – them – back or I won’t come back myself. That, also, you may take your oath to,” he answered huskily, gruffly. “Now – good-bye – good-bye.”

He disappeared into the darkness. No lights were shown – no fuss was made about seeing them off. So the two women were left alone to weep – and perchance to pray.

Had it been light enough as the horsemen moved away it might have been seen that they led among them two spare mounts. It might also have been seen that there was another led horse, but it was not a riderless one. On its back, his feet tied beneath its belly with a raw-hide thong, sat the Zulu prisoner. Though firmly convinced of the good faith of the latter, Hyland had no idea of taking any risks. To a savage, even though riding in their very midst, to slip off into the darkness of the thick bush and disappear would be no impossible feat, but to do so, firmly bound to the horse itself, would be: and this had been explained to him. But he took it with characteristic imperturbability.

“What I have said I will do I will do. What Ugwala says he will do he will do. I am content,” was his unruffled comment upon this apparent indignity.

“Attend, Njalo,” whispered Hyland, ranging his horse alongside that of the captive. “If you are true to us now and we rescue those whom we seek, letting you escape is not all that will happen to you for good. Cattle shall be yours – cattle that will make you almost a rich man among your people, after the troubles are all over. That will be good, will it not, and such is my word to you?”

“Au! Nkose has an open hand,” answered the man in a gratified tone. “And I think that the two whom you seek will return with you.”

“The two whom you seek,” he had said. Not until afterwards did it occur to Hyland to wonder how it was the speaker knew that there were only two left to seek. Here again that wonderful, mysterious native telegraphy must have come in.

Chapter Thirty One.

Manamandhla’s Story

To the said ‘two’ it seemed that life could contain no further horrors, and that they had better get it over and done with, and this held good especially of Elvesdon, as the younger and less hardened. Thornhill was speculating as to how it was that Manamandhla, so far from hastening their death, seemed to have averted it. The tumult had not been renewed, and nobody had come near them. Then later on they had been allowed to sit outside, and even to stroll about a little as usual. But there seemed to be very few people at the kraal, and, noting this, they looked at each other as though inspired by a new hope.

The day wore on. The unrolled panorama of bush and cliff and spur grew purple and dim in the declining sun. In the mind of both was the thought – Would they see the set of another sun?

“Look here, Thornhill,” said Elvesdon as though seized with a sudden impulse. “I don’t know whether either of us will get away from here alive, or both. But I want to say something. In case we do, have you any objection to my trying to win your daughter’s love?”

If the other was startled he did not show it. The two were seated upon a rock just outside the kraal, watching the changing lights over the far-away kloofs as the sun sank behind the highest ridge to the westward. Both were scraping together the last shreds of their remaining stock of tobacco, which might perhaps afford them a last half pipe apiece.

“Why no,” was the meditative answer. “But do you think you can do it, Elvesdon?”

“I had hopes. But why I mention it – here and now of all places – is because if you should get away and I should not, I should like Edala to know that my last thoughts were of her, as indeed all my thoughts have been ever since I’ve known her. She is unique, Thornhill. I don’t suppose there’s another girl in the world in the least like her.”

“First of all Elvesdon, don’t talk of me getting away, and you not. Is that likely now? We stand or fall together. And if they want a second blood feast – the damned butchering brutes – they can take it out of me. You’re the younger man of the two, and have a sight more life in front of you than I have. So you skip away if you see a chance while they are busy with me.”

Elvesdon laughed, rather mirthlessly.

“That would be such a noble way of returning to Edala, wouldn’t it? How she’d thank me for coming to tell her I’d left her father to be chopped to pieces in order to save my own precious skin on her account, wouldn’t she? No, I’m afraid you must ‘ask us another,’ Thornhill.”

The latter suddenly sprang to his feet.

“Come on Elvesdon. We must buck up, man. We’re both getting too much into the holy blues. But the sight of that poor young devil being butchered this morning got on to even my tough old time-hardened nerves, I allow. Well, to get back to what you were saying. If we’re lucky and get out of this, you are welcome to try your chances with Edala – from what I’ve seen of you I can say that wholeheartedly. Only I warn you that – to use your own words – she is unique. But I daresay you’ve more than half fixed it up between you before this.”

“I wish we had,” was the answer. And then at a signal from the armed group that watched them, they returned to the hut.

But they found it already tenanted. A man was seated there warming himself by a fire to which he had just applied a light, and the gleam of the darting flames was reflected from his head-ring. Then indeed was astonishment depicted on the faces of both – especially on that of Thornhill – as they recognised the features of Manamandhla.

The Zulu returned their greeting, and sat silent for a few minutes. So did they. Blank amazement was in the mind of one, but the other – hoped. And he had the least reason to hope anything from the man before him, but he remembered that this man’s voice had been raised powerfully for their protection that very day, wherefore he hoped – on his companion’s behalf if not on his own. Then Manamandhla spoke.

“My life is yet my own, Inqoto, which is well for some.”

Thornhill understood the allusion and – hoped still more. He made the usual murmur of assent.

“Listen Abelungu,” went on the Zulu, “and I will tell a story. There were two children – brothers. They fought in the ranks of the ibuto called Ngobamakosi what time the impi of the Great Great One was defeated kwa Nodvengu. (Historically known as the battle of Ulundi.) Both were wounded in the battle, and could not flee far, so when the white horsemen poured forth in pursuit they soon overtook these, who lay down, already dead. The horsemen thundered down upon them, and seeing that they still moved – for who at such a time sees anything but red? – pointed their pistols. But another white man rode there too and he pointed his pistol too – not at those who lay there but at those who threatened them. They were angry, and words rose high, but they rode on and left those two children, of whom one is alive to-day.”

The speaker paused, and began deliberately to take snuff. Elvesdon was interested; Thornhill was more, as he bent his glance keenly upon the dark face before him.

“Time – a long time – rolled on, and one of those ‘children,’ then a young man no longer, but ringed, sought out the white man who had saved him and his brother from death. He found him and —au! he himself became lame for life. For he fell – but he arose again. Then twice after that he escaped death.”

Thornhill’s face became rigid. He had entertained an angel unawares and had, all unconsciously, done his best to transform him into a devil. Elvesdon, too, began to see through the veil – though not entirely. He recalled the incident in the kloof when his friend had fired straight at this man, and but for his timely interruption and that of Edala would certainly have shot him dead. The Zulu for his part knew exactly how much to render clear to both and how much to keep dark from one.

“And now Inqoto,” he went on. “Thy daughter? What of her?”

“She is safe.” There was a rigid eagerness in the tone that by no means conveyed the assurance intended to be conveyed.

“She is safe,” was the answer, and Thornhill sank back with a sigh of relief. “Hers was one life saved by those of the two children kwa Nodwengu. She, and another, had taken hiding on the tree which grows out from Sipazi-pazi. Two eyes saw them, many others who sought for them on the mountain top – ah ah – on the mountain top – did not. She is safe at Kwabulazi – both are safe.”

A great sigh of relief went up from both listeners. They could fill in all the details. But Thornhill, to his companion’s amazement went through a strange performance. He leaped to his feet, and the next moment was swinging the narrator to and fro as he sat, with a vice-like hand upon each shoulder.

“Manamandhla, my brother!” he exclaimed in a deep, quivering tone. “You saved her life like this? You? See now. Before I am killed here I will write that on paper which shall give you after the trouble is over what will make you a rich man, and what will protect you if you are known as having taken part in the trouble. Now – now I see everything. I did not before.”

At first the Zulu looked astonished at this outburst, and then his magnificent white teeth showed in a gratified smile.

“Whau!” he exclaimed. “A life for a life – that is a safe rule. The life of a woman does not count. The oxen which Inqoto has given to my brother’s son pay for that. But the lives of the two ‘children’ – warriors in the ibuto known as Ngobamakosi – such are the lives of men. And these I give ye two – so far as I can,” he added somewhat seriously. “Listen. I am not chief here, Nteseni is. But Nteseni is away with most of his people. This night you must leave. To-morrow may be too late. Here are the weapons you came with – ”

From under his blanket he produced two revolvers, the same which had been taken from them at their capture.

” – For food, if you have none, that I cannot help, but you are both strong. Listen. Now I am going out hence, and I shall draw those who watch this hut away with me. When you no longer hear voices, then go forth, but be careful to leave the door of the hut in its place. Hambani gahle!”

He crawled through the low doorway and was gone, leaving the two staring at each other in speechless amazement. To Thornhill, especially, it seemed like a dream. He remembered the long-forgotten incident now recalled, and how in the rout after Ulundi he had saved two youths who had sunk down exhausted in their flight, from being ruthlessly pistolled by two of his own comrades in the troop of irregular Horse in which he was serving – and now this was one of them: this man of whom he had gone in dread as a witness against him, whose blood he had sought with deadly persistency and on two occasions had nearly shed It was wonderful – wonderful.

And this man – this savage – had been the means of saving Edala – his darling – his idolised child – from a bloody death or worse brutalities at the hands of the fiends who sought her! By the side of that the fact of the saving of their own lives counted as nothing – nothing.

“Well, Elvesdon. I think it’s time to skip,” he said as at last the sound of deep-toned voices died into silence.

Cautiously they took down the door and slipped out, taking care to place it in position again. There was no sign of life in the kraal, except the muffled murmur of a few drowsy voices coming from one or two of the huts. In a minute they had gained the welcome darkness of the bush.

“Now I think we can steer our way,” whispered Thornhill. “Our nearest is by old Zisiso’s kraal, but that’s a regular path, and we don’t want that. We’ll keep a bit up, and we shall have the double advantage of avoiding the enemy – every Kafir is an enemy now – and being able to get an occasional outlook over the country. If we don’t fetch Kwabulazi by sunrise we shall have to lie low all through to-morrow.”

Steadily they held on. Thornhill was a master of veldt-craft, and Elvesdon did not come very far behind him in that line for all that he was professionally an official. The night air blew keen and chill, very chill, but the walking exercise largely counteracted that. And the sense of freedom again was exhilarating in itself – still more so was the sense of the impending reunion.

They did not talk as they travelled – when they had occasion to do so it was in the barest whispers. In ordinary and peaceful times they would not have encountered a living soul, for the native is strongly averse to moving about at night. Now, however, it was different. They might run into an impi at any moment, travelling swiftly across country to take up its position for attack or observation.

The night was dark, but, fortunately there was no mist. The stars to a certain degree piloted their direction, as they do, or should do, to every dweller in the free, sparsely inhabited open. Only this was not so sparsely inhabited, in that twice they came upon a large kraal where the inhabitants were alert and on the move, a thing they would never have been at that time of night, in peaceful times.

Now as they got almost within the glow of the red fires of one of these there was a rush and an open-mouthed clamour of curs, and that in their direction. The inhabitants, too, seemed to pause, and gaze suspiciously upwards – fortunately they were above them, on the apex of a ridge.

“Gahle, Gahle! Elvesdon!” whispered Thornhill. “They’ve spotted us. This way. Don’t rattle more stones than you can help.”

They plunged down the other side of the rise. Ah but, they were many wearisome miles from safety – and they were unmounted.

Along the hillside they made their way, but how slow did that way seem to men unaccustomed to doing that sort of travelling on foot. The dawn began to show signs of breaking, and they were still a long way from Kwabulazi. A weary day of close hiding and starvation lay before them.

It was light enough now to distinguish the surroundings. Suddenly Thornhill stopped and was listening intently.

“All up,” he said. “Look.”

The other followed the direction of his gaze. The tops of the bushes were shaking in a long quivering line. Clearly their enemies had been tracking them like hounds, throughout the dark hours.

“We can make a stand here as well as anywhere,” growled Thornhill. “We hold five lives apiece, and the last bullet for ourselves – if we get time. Oh-h!”

A burning, blinding flash came before his eyes. Everything whirled round him, and he sank to the earth. Elvesdon set his teeth, with something like the snarl of a wild beast as his revolver bullet thudded hard into the naked form of the savage who had just hurled the deadly assegai, at the same time dropping another who was in the act of following it up by a second cast. For the moment none seemed anxious to take the risk of that quick, deadly aim.

Elvesdon glanced down at his unconscious friend, from whose head the blood was pouring. The assegai had struck him on the temple, and the blade, glancing along the skull had laid it bare in a frightful gash, with the effect of momentary stunning. The position was a low bush, the ground being open for more than a score of yards from it on the side of the attack, but this none of the assailants seemed eager to take the risk of crossing. He crouched down low so as to offer as small a mark as possible, and cool with the deadly calmness of desperation watched his chance.

It came. A movement among the bushes told that their enemies were making a surrounding move. For less than a second one of them showed, and again the pistol spoke, but whether with effect or not he was unable to determine. And then, if there was room for any addition to the utter despair which was upon him, Elvesdon’s quick, searching glance became alive to something else. On the roll of the slope, approaching from the direction they had been taking, the bushes were agitating in the morning stillness, and there was no breeze. His assailants were being reinforced, and as though to prove that fact beyond a doubt, there was a report of firearms, then another, and something hummed unpleasantly near. They had got rifles then? Well they could not go on missing him all day.

“Lie flat, Mister, and give us a chance of letting ’em have hell.”

The loud, hearty English hail was as a voice from Heaven. With characteristic promptitude Elvesdon obeyed, and then came a dropping volley, as the rescuers advanced in a line through the bushes, getting in their fire whenever an enemy showed himself. They were on foot, having left their horses just beyond the rise, with the object of making a silent advance and thus surprising the savages the more effectively.

The latter did not wait. They were in sufficient strength to tackle two men, but not such an opponent as the relieving force, of whose very number they were ignorant. So they wriggled away as swiftly and noiselessly as so many snakes, not, however, entirely without loss.

“Hallo. Who’s down?” cried Hyland Thornhill, coming up to the group standing around the two. “Eh? Who the blazes is down?”

They made way for him in silence.

“Oh, good God!” he cried, staggering to the ground beside the wounded man. “He isn’t killed – no damn it – he isn’t killed,” gritting his teeth. “Oh, dear old dad – tell me you know me, for God’s sake.”

A wave of returning consciousness swept over the face of the wounded man. He opened his eyes, and there was a gleam of recognition in them. Then he closed them, knitting his brows as though in pain.

Thus Hyland Thornhill succeeded in rescuing his father – but – was it too late?

Chapter Thirty Two.

Thornhill’s Story

“Will you go in and see him, Evelyn? No, it’s not you Edala. He wants to talk to Evelyn this time.”

Hyland had just come from his father’s sick room. Both girls, awaiting the summons, had started up. Some days had passed since the rescue party had returned to Kwabulazi, but the wounded man did not seem to improve. The doctor feared lest erysipelas might set in, it was even possible that the patient might lose his sight, for the wound had perforce been dressed in rough and ready fashion at the time – indeed but that they had put their best foot foremost in the retreat they would have been attacked by a force whose overwhelming strength would have rendered massacre almost a certainty. As it was they were pressed hard to within a mile of the entrenchments; but some at any rate among the savages had had experience in trying to rush that very entrenchment, and had no stomach for a repetition thereof. So the impi had drawn off.