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

“Nice little room, isn’t it?” said his host rejoining him, for he had excused himself for a minute. “Yes, that portrait – that’s my eldest boy. Poor chap, he was killed in the Matabele rising in ’96. That other’s the second – I’ve only the two. He’s away at the Rand; making his fortune – as he thinks; fortunately he’s got none to lose.”

“What fine looking fellows,” said Elvesdon. “By Jove they are.”

The other smiled.

“That group there,” he went on, “represents Edala in various stages of growing up. You’ll recognise the latest.”

“Yes. It’s a splendid likeness.” The while he was thinking to himself, “Edala! what an out-of-the-way name. Edala! Well, it fits its owner anyway.”

“I daresay you’d like a cold splash – we’ll have dinner directly. Come this way. You’ll find everything in there,” opening the door of a spare room.

His host’s voice almost made Elvesdon start, so wrapped up was he in his new train of thought. It did not leave him, either, when he was splashing his head and face in a basin of cold water. Truly this was a strange beginning to his new term of office; for he had only been at Kwabulazi a few days. Well, it was a good one anyhow.

On entering the dining-room he did not know whether to feel surprised or not. Only three places were laid. There was no Mrs Thornhill then? These two – father and daughter – were alone together.

But before they had got half through the meal Elvesdon became alive to something. There was not that freedom and cordiality between the two, that whole-souled intimacy of companionship, which under the circumstances might have been expected. A kind of constraint seemed to rest between them, and yet why? It was puzzling. Remembering the real emotion displayed by his host when the latter had learned what had occurred that morning, it was even more puzzling. He did not fail, however, to note that the affection seemed mostly on the parental side. This struck him as strange: nor did there appear to be anything to account for it. There was nothing of the tyrannical or even irritable type of parent about his host, who, on the contrary, seemed calm and quiet and considerate in everything he said or did; he himself had been greatly taken with him. What then could it mean?

Ah, now a solution presented itself. The girl had probably contracted some engagement, or wanted to, to which her father had objected. And in the result there was an estrangement between them. He had seen one or two cases of the kind before. The thought, however, seemed to depress him though half-unconsciously. Yet why should it? What could it possibly matter to him – he asked himself. Yes, what the devil could it matter to him? Thus pondering, he joined in the conversation in a half-absent kind of way, though wholly unconscious of any such frame of mind. The fact, however, did not escape his host, who was divided in opinion as to the cause.

“I suppose you’ve had a good deal of experience in the native department,” said the latter, when they had got into roomy cane-chairs on the verandah and pipes were in full blast. Edala had retired, announcing an intention of having forty winks and reappearing when it was cooler.

“Fair. I was on the Pondo border for a time. It was more interesting, in a way, still I’m glad to get back here.”

“What do you think of these rumours of unrest?” said Thornhill.

“There is unrest, and it wants careful handling. Still you haven’t got to believe everything you hear. I’ve been doing a round since I came, trying to get at the general feeling. I was at Tongwana’s kraal this morning and the old chap was profusely civil, so were all his people: in fact it was on my way back from there that I – er – first met your daughter.”

“Oh, Tongwana? Yes, he’s all right. By the way, I was forgetting. If you’ll excuse me for a minute I’ll send some boys down to collect your saddle and bridle.”

“Thanks. I daresay you could lend me some sort of a mount to get home on, could you?”

“Oh, you shan’t walk,” said Thornhill, drily, over his shoulder.

He soon returned, and the two sat chatting over things in general and the neighbourhood in particular; as to which latter Elvesdon was loud in his appreciation. It was delightful country, he declared, and this farm especially was charmingly situated. The other smiled.

“Well, ride over whenever you feel inclined. We shall always be delighted to see you,” the speaker had grown grave, and his hearer knew what he was thinking about. “I don’t know if you’re very hard-worked. I know that outlying Civil servants are not as a rule – your predecessor certainly wasn’t. So whenever you don’t know what else to do with yourself, why this isn’t an overpoweringly long ride. We might get up a day in the kloofs when the close time is over.”

Elvesdon jumped at this, and then Edala reappeared, stating two indisputable facts – that it was cooler, and, incidentally, tea-time. At last, with many a qualm of reluctance, he got up and declared it was time to go.

“Must you?” said the girl, with a quick lift of the eyes which he thought infinitely captivating.

“I’m afraid so, Miss Thornhill, though I do it with reluctance. Stern duty calls, you see. There’s no moon, and I don’t know this part of the country at all yet. I should get hopelessly entangled for the night in some most impenetrable part of the kloofs, and I have to hold Court early to-morrow; for there happens to be rather a lot to get through.”

“Edala, dear,” said Thornhill, “just sing out to them at the back to put Mr Elvesdon’s saddle on – the horse I told them.”

The girl reappeared in a moment, and then good-byes were interchanged. To Elvesdon’s relief nothing more was said on the subject of his timely aid, but he was appreciative of a great cordiality of manner.

“Here’s something that’ll carry you, Mr Elvesdon,” said Thornhill, as a horse was brought round to the stoep, a well groomed, capable looking beast with good paces. “You needn’t trouble to send him back again, if you’ll oblige me by accepting him. You lost your own on my account you know.”

But the other began to protest. Why all the horses in the world would be cheap at the price of what his own had been able to effect, he declared with, at that stage, somewhat unnecessary vehemence. Besides it seemed too much like accepting a reward for what he had done, though this he did not say.

“You are not offended, are you?” said Thornhill.

“Offended? No. But – er – ”

“Well, I shall be if you refuse to do me this favour, so let’s have no more indaba on the subject,” rejoined Thornhill, shortly.

The other gave way. He saw no alternative, for the last thing in the world he desired was to offend Edala’s father. The latter’s next words made the situation easier.

“Hope we shall see you again soon. Remember you’ll always find a real welcome here at any time, so don’t stand on ceremony. Good-bye.”

The younger man echoed the word heartily as he rode away. And then something struck him as funny. He was accustomed to issuing orders to other people, and now the positions were reversed. He had been dictated to, and that by no official superior but by a stranger of a few hours’ acquaintance, and he had meekly done as he was told. Yes, it was funny.

The two stood looking after him as he disappeared down the bush path. Then the girl said:

“Father, what have you done? You’ve given away Ratels – yes, given him away. And you’ve often said you wouldn’t part with him for five times his real value.”

“Yes. But I’ve never said I wouldn’t part with him for fifty thousand times – for fifty million times his real value.”

He dropped a hand upon her shoulder – that was all – then turned abruptly and went inside. The girl standing there alone gazed forth upon the tossing splendours of the sunlit wilderness, but actually seeing nothing of them, for her eyes were dim and moist. A struggle was going on within her. Then the lips, which had begun to tremble, hardened into firm compression. The struggle was over – unfortunately.

Chapter Three.

The Stranger from Zululand

At the time we make his acquaintance Michael Thornhill did not take his stock-farming seriously, but rather as a pastime. This he could afford to do, as from one source or another he had enough to last him comfortably for the rest of his life, and also to start his remaining son in anything sound and likely to bear good results.

His operations, then, in that line just paid their way, but very little more – a result in nowise due to any lack of capacity on his part, for he had gone through the mill himself in earlier life and was as thoroughly at home in all pertaining to stock-raising as the most strenuous and practical farmers in the colony. But he had a hobby, and it was a good one, and that was – literature.

Not the manufacture of it – oh no – or we might have felt bound to withhold the qualifying adjective. The absorption of it – ancient and modern – was his craze and his delight. He never had found time to indulge this during a hard-worked and hardening life, but had always looked forward to a good time coming when he should be able to do so. Now it had come.

It may be wondered why he did not settle down in some town, where there was a good library, and acquaintances from whom he could borrow useful books; and indeed several did venture so to hint. But his answer was simple. He had lived in the veldt all his life – up country or down, or on the road. He would feel lost if he did not wake up to hear the multifold sounds of the bush – to inhale the fresh, strong, sweet air as the sun shot up fiery over tree-fringed ridge or iron mountain top. And the life of the veldt! It had always been his life – it was too late to change now. To look round on the black wildness of those bushy kloofs, or yonder great mountain, frowning down majestically, with its mighty cliff wall shining red in the afterglow of the sunset, and to realise that he owned all this – that this fragment of splendid Nature was his property – all his own – why the realisation was sheer ecstasy. Whereby it is obvious that there was a large element of the poetic about the man.

Exchange all this for a sun-baked, dust-swept town? Not he. It had even been hinted to him by well meaning acquaintances – mostly of the feminine persuasion – that there was his daughter to be considered, that life alone in a wild and sparsely colonised part of the country was rather a dull life for a girl. This was certainly touching him on a susceptible point, but to such representations he would reply that even up-to-date fathers were entitled to some consideration – that even they could not be required to take a back seat in every question. For the rest there was nothing he denied his daughter which by any possibility he could procure for her; moreover she could have as many friends to stay with her as the house would hold, and for as long as she chose. But somehow she seldom had any. For some reason or other they rarely came. This, however, did not trouble Edala in the least. She was not particularly fond of other girls. She was too individual for most girls of her age. They could not quite make her out. And – there may have been another reason.

But on this score Edala herself never complained. Her occupations and amusements filled up all her time, and she never felt lonely. She could shoot, too, and sometimes, when out with her father, would turn over a big bushbuck ram streaking across a small open space, as neatly as he could himself. This was only when they were alone together. If there was a regular hunt she never took part in it.

Her ambition Was to become an art student, at one of the great centres. She firmly believed in her own capabilities in that line. Her father had taken her to Europe on purpose to show her all that was best of the kind, and she had come back more dissatisfied than ever. She wanted to join the regular ranks – to start at the bottom of the ladder. But Michael Thornhill had a will of his own.

“Patience, dear,” he would say. “You have plenty of time before you, and I don’t see the fun of raising children to have them desert me just when I want them most.”

Edala had not taken the remark in good part. She had flashed forth that it was no good having anything in one, if one was to be stuck away on a Natal farm all one’s life with no opportunity of bringing it out. Her father shook his head sadly.

“There may come a day when you will be glad to find yourself back on that same Natal farm,” he said. Then he went out.

Of this he was thinking as he sat in his library a few mornings after Elvesdon’s timely appearance. Why now should he not let her have her way? Why should he not send her to Europe as she wished? He himself could sell or let the farm, and trek far up country on a protracted hunting expedition; for the idea of life here without Edala was not to be thought of for a moment.

There was more than a sense of thwarted ambition which came between himself and the child he idolised. The dark cloud that separated them took the form of a dead hand. Black and bitter suspicion corroded the girl’s mind, and when the consciousness of it was more especially brought home to Thornhill from time to time, the whirlwind of vengeful hate that stormed through his heart was simply inconceivable. But not towards her. It was retrospective.

Just such a paroxysm was on him now. He could not read. He gazed listlessly around at his well filled book-shelves – with their miscellaneous stock of literature – in which he took such pleasure and pride, but made no move towards disturbing their contents. A restlessness came upon him. He could not remain still. Jumping up, he put his head through the window and shouted out to the stable boy to saddle up a horse.

Edala was on the stoep as he passed out. She was putting some finishing touches to a water-colour drawing. In his then mood he did not suggest that she should accompany him; perhaps he feared the effect of a refusal or a reluctant consent.

“Are you going out, father? It’s awfully hot.”

“Yes, I’m going a short round. Back by dinner time.”

Three or four great rough-haired dogs, lying in the shade behind the stable, sprang up as the horse was led forth, whining and squirming with wild excitement at sight of the gun in their master’s hand. He, however, drove them back; he was not going to hunt, but there was always the chance of coming across unwary “vermin” – a jackal perhaps, or a rooikat.

The first point he made for was the scene of yesterday’s episode. As he approached it a low hum of voices was borne to his ears. Some half dozen natives stood clustered round the spot. The carcase of Elvesdon’s horse lay swollen and distended, tainting the air, and beside it the great snake. But on the latter was their attention concentrated.

“Whau! but that was the very king of serpents,” one of them was saying. “I, who am old, have never seen one like it – no never.”

“M-m!” hummed his hearers. “Nkose!”

This in respectful greeting as they became aware of the new arrival’s presence. He acknowledged it.

“I, who am old, have never seen one like it, impela,” repeated the speaker. “Nkose. The snake – the king of snakes – has killed the horse, but who has killed the snake?”

“The horse,” said Thornhill. “He fell over on it and broke its back, just after it had struck him.”

“It is the horse of – of – the new magistrate – at Kwabulazi,” went on the other. “He was at my kraal just before.”

“That is so, Tongwana. Here is gwai,” getting out a large snuff-horn, which came in handy on such occasions.

“Nkose!” cried the chief, receiving it in both hands. He was an old man, with a white beard, and, of course, head-ringed. Two of the others were also ringed. As Thornhill told the story of the occurrence many were the murmurs of surprise that went up. The new magistrate at Kwabulazi was clearly no fool of a white man, and this inference impressed them greatly.

One of them, however, it did not seem to impress at all, and that was one of the ringed men. He had listened in a careless, almost contemptuous way to the narrative, uttering no remark or interjection. He was of fine stature, and unlike Tongwana and two or three of the others, wore no article of European clothing; wherein he showed taste, for the savage in his mútya alone looks an immeasurably finer savage than his brother clad in the same, with a super-added shirt, usually none too clean. Him Thornhill set down as a Zulu from beyond the border: but at the same time he was vaguely conscious of having seen him somewhere before.

This man now, without a word of farewell greeting, detached himself from the group, and began to walk leisurely away. Then it became noticeable that he walked with a slight limp.

“Bullet in the war of ’79 did that,” decided Thornhill grimly, as he looked after him. “Wonder if he’ll compete for another distinguishing mark of the same kind before long.” Then aloud —

“Who is he?”

They looked at each other.

“He is a stranger, Nkose,” answered Tongwana with a whimsical smile. “From the other side?”

“E-hé.”

“Yet it seems I have seen him before. No matter. For the rest, amadoda, the house is very near and contains that which is good to eat and drink. The Inkosazana (lit. Little Chieftainess) is there, and will see to that. I return soon myself. Hambani gahle!”

They were delighted, and chorussed a sonorous farewell. Thornhill made it a rule to treat his native neighbours on liberal and friendly terms, consequently the relations between them were of the best. None of his stock was ever missing nor did he ever lack farm servants. Incidentally, some of his white neighbours disagreed with him on the point. They said he was spoiling the natives. But, out of the plenitude of his experience he had found it a policy that paid.

Now, when after a few minutes’ ride along the bush track he overtook the stranger, that worthy’s demeanour towards himself constituted quite an unusual experience. It was off-hand, to say the least of it, almost offensive.

“May I not have first right to ride along the paths on my own farm?” began Thornhill, banteringly. For the path here was exceedingly narrow with high thick bush on either hand, and the other showed not the least anxiety to make way for him, but strode on as though there was no one within a hundred miles. It was all Thornhill could do to restrain himself from bringing down the butt of his gun hard and violently between the broad, shining shoulders. It was, if possible, more difficult still, as the stranger replied, without halting or even looking back:

“Patience, Inqoto. The path is not wide enough for two.”

This gazula– or addressing a white man familiarly by his native name, even though that name in this instance was a complimentary one, referring to decisiveness of character – would have led then and there to a breach of the peace on the part of most white men, especially as the tone of the speaker bordered on the contemptuous. This one only waxed coldly sarcastic.

“I see you, King. Bayéte, King of the Heavens and the world! Elephant! Lion! Divider of the Sun! Shaker of the Earth!” he went on, giving the other half a dozen more titles of royal sibongo. “Whau! It is truly the Great Great One come to life again, for who else in these times would walk about my farm armed with assegais?”

The path had now widened out. The savage halted and stepped aside.

“Do you know me, Inqoto?” he said. “Have you ever seen me before?”

“Surely. O Elephant. In another world,” came the ready and sarcastic reply.

“M-m! In another world. But it is in this world you shall see me again, Inqoto. Ah, ah! In this world. Hamba gahle!”

With which farewell, insolently sneering, the speaker turned and strolled leisurely away.

Chapter Four.

The Magistracy at Kwabulazi

The magistracy buildings at Kwabulazi, consisted of a roughly built thatched bungalow, a red brick oblong which was the Court house, and various groups of native huts which served to house the other Court officials – white and coloured – and the handful of mounted Police permanently quartered there. Another red brick structure represented the Post and Telegraph Office. The place was situated at the foot of a great mountain whose wooded slopes made, scenically, a fine background. In front the veldt rolled gently away; quite open, and sparsely dotted with mimosa; and for miles around, at intervals, rose the smoke of native kraals; for this was an important location.

Within the red brick oblong mentioned above Elvesdon sat, administering justice. There was not much to administer that day, for the cases before him involved the settlement of a series of the most petty and trivial disputes relating to cattle or other property, protracted beyond about five times their due length, as the way is with natives once they get to law. Beyond the parties concerned there was no audience to speak of. Three or four old ringed men, squatted in a corner on the floor, drowsed and blinked through the proceedings; while now and again two or three natives would enter noiselessly, listen for a few minutes and then as noiselessly depart.

The morning was drawing to an end, for which Elvesdon was not sorry. It was very hot, and the Court room was becoming unpleasantly redolent of native humanity. He was about to adjourn, when he became aware of the entrance of somebody. Looking up he beheld Thornhill.

The latter stood leaning against the wall just inside the door. Elvesdon, while putting three or four final questions to a voluble and perspiring witness, found himself wondering whether Thornhill was alone, or whether his daughter, preferring the shade and open air to the heat and stuffiness of the Court room, was waiting for him outside. So he sent down the witness and adjourned the Court straight away.

Thornhill crossed the room to shake hands with the clerk, whom he knew, and who was gathering up his papers, then he adjourned to the magistrate’s office.

Thither Elvesdon had gone straight on leaving the bench. If he had one little weakness it was – well, a very adequate sense of his official position, but only when not off duty – and this weakness suggested to him that it might impress the other more if he received him there, instead of going forward to greet him in the emptying Court room. As a matter of fact Elvesdon did show to advantage to the accompaniment of a tinge of officialdom, but, we are careful to emphasise, only at the proper time and place.

“Come in,” he called out in response to a knock. “Ah, Mr Thornhill, I’m so glad to see you,” and there was no official stiffness now about his tone or his handshake. “Anything I can do for you? But unless it’s of first-rate importance it’ll keep till after lunch, which you are going to take with me. So let’s go and get it.”

They went out into the fierce noontide glare, but even it was an improvement after the stuffiness within. Elvesdon called to a native constable to take Thornhill’s horse, and wondered if he felt a twinge of disappointment as he saw there was only one horse to be taken care of. Groups of natives squatting about in the shade, fighting all the points of evidence over again, saluted as they passed.

The clerk joined them at table. He was a thick-set stolid youth, with a shock of light hair, and a countenance wooden and mask-like; without much conversational ability, but a first-rate man at his work. For living purposes, he inhabited a couple of native huts, but messed with his official chief: which in many cases was a bore, as the latter subsequently explained to Thornhill; but Prior had had the same arrangement with the former man, and he couldn’t turn the poor devil out to feed by himself, which in that eventuality he would have had to do. Besides, he was a very decent fellow even if a bit heavy on hand.

During lunch they talked about sport, and the state of the country, and ordinary things. Immediately afterwards the clerk went out.

“Well, I’m getting firm into the saddle here, you see,” said Elvesdon, as they lit their pipes. “And I’m not sure that the situation isn’t going to turn out interesting.”

“Think so? Look here, I haven’t exactly come to look you up officially, still as my round took me rather near Kwabulazi, I thought I’d give you a look in and mention a little matter.”