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

Chapter Twelve.

Two Letters

“How much longer is that man going to hang about here?” said Edala, gazing, somewhat frowningly, from the window of her father’s book room, which looked out upon the cattle-kraals and the group of huts, occupied by the native servants, which stood adjacent thereto.

“Who? Oh, Manamandhla! Not for long, I should think. Do you know, child, he’s rather an interesting chap to talk to and has become quite civil. He asked me to let him stop on here a bit, and he’d help with the cattle now we’re short-handed.”

“Well, we shall be more so soon, for old Patolo can’t stand him. He’ll be clearing next, you’ll see.”

“Not he. They’ll strike it off all right. Patolo has been cattle-herd-in-chief to me nearly all your life, and knows where he’s well off. And Manamandhla may prove useful in other ways.”

The object of their talk, and the girl’s animadversion, had just emerged from one of the huts. For a moment he stood gazing at the weather, then drawing his ample green blanket close around his tall form, he strode away over the veldt.

“Why have you got such a down on him, child? He’s respectful and civil enough to you, isn’t he?”

“Oh yes – at least for the present.”

“Why should he not continue to be?” went on her father.

“I don’t know. No, I don’t. I suppose it’s – instinct.”

She still stood gazing out of the window, and her face was troubled, even resentful. She could not forget the expression that had come upon her father’s face, fleeting as it had been, when they had first met this man yonder on the summit of Sipazi mountain. It was not his first meeting either, for he had brought home the story of the Zulu’s insolence on that other occasion. She felt puzzled – even suspicious, and therefore resentful.

It was a grey, drizzling afternoon, and the splendour of forest and mountain, lovely in the sparkle of blue sky and dazzling sun, was blotted out by rain and mist, with dreary and depressing effect. Low clouds swept along the base of the heights, whirling back now and then to display some great krantz such as the face of Sipazi, its altitude, multiplied by the dimness, looming up in awful grandeur, to fade again into the murk.

Instinct! Thornhill did not like that word, and it was no mere flash in the pan either. The child was so confoundedly sharp at leaping to conclusions; generally accurate ones too, and that with nothing to go upon. He had tried to assume his normal unconcern of speech and manner, in talking on this subject – for this was not the first time it had been brought up – and could only wonder if he had succeeded.

“Are you afraid of him, then?” he said at last.

“Afraid? No. But I don’t like him, and I wish he’d clear. I don’t believe he’s up to any good at all here.”

“Now, dear, aren’t you just a trifle unreasonable as to this particular ‘bee’ of yours?” said her father, somewhat annoyed. “You say you’re not afraid of him, and I’ve told you the man is useful to me in ways. Now am I to run this farm or are you? That’s the question.”

“I don’t want to run the place, of course. I’m only afraid this paragon of yours is aiming at doing that. What a perfectly beastly afternoon,” she broke off, turning away from the window.

“Ah well, we can do with rain,” he answered. “Another night’s downpour ’ll make all the difference in the world. Getting hipped, eh? Go and thump the keyboard a bit – you never get tired of that – and forget the existence of the obnoxious Manamandhla.”

“If I shan’t disturb you.”

“You know, dear, you never do disturb me,” he answered, tenderly.

The girl passed into the other room, and sat down at her piano.

“What a little beast I am to him,” she was thinking – “and yet – and yet! It all seems too awful. How I wish he would let me go away, as I wanted to.”

The notes came gurgling out under her deft touch, but for once her mind was not in her art. But for the rain she would have taken refuge in some outdoor pursuit; anything, even if it were to climb up to what she called her ‘aerial throne’ – dangling between earth and heaven; anything for movement. But the steady rain came down in monotonous drip – drip; moreover, it was a cold rain, and under no circumstance was out-of-doors inviting.

Thornhill sat in his library, and took down book after book, but somehow he, too, could not settle down to his favourite pastime. His thoughts were of this child whom he had always idolised, and still did; yet she repaid him by consistently turning away from him. Perhaps if he had affected a like indifference it might have told – women being what they were. Yet, in this case, he could hardly think so; knowing the nature of the cloud that hung between them; even the venom from beyond the grave, and the effects of which he had hoped that time would dim. But time had not done so.

Then his thoughts took another turn – towards his surviving son, to wit; and, in the result, a great longing to see him again. He, at any rate, did not share Edala’s attitude. His faith in his father was full, frank and perfect; and he made no secret of the fact. Why should he not come down on a visit. These stock-broking chaps at the Rand nearly always hunted in couples like other predatory professionals. Hyland would be sure to have a partner, or someone who could take charge of his job while he was away. He would write to him, and by Jove, this was post day – in fact the boy who rode post over from Elvesdon’s was almost due, only was usually late. However, it didn’t matter: he could be detained.

Thornhill got out sheets of paper. Edala, at the present moment, seemed to be literally obeying his injunctions to ‘thump the keyboard,’ for she was in full swing in the middle of a fine lilting song, to a somewhat thunderous accompaniment, in the other room.

“My dear Hyland,” he began:

“Don’t you feel like a change of air and scene after your ten months of labour in the City of Gold – dust; and that dust all and entirely in the air, save when it’s in the larynxes and lungs of its eighty odd thousand inhabitants – mostly Hebrews? If so, I should think you could get your brother – shark – to take on your share and his own too, of the process of fleecing the child-like and unwary investor – even as you did – between you – of late, in the matter of a certain ancient relative of one of the firm – who shall be nameless – and that on the ground that there were not sufficient Heathen Chinee-s on the mines. Well then, do so, and load up on board the train as soon as you like after receipt of this, and trek down here for as long as you like. Edala is getting a bit hipped. I’m not sure the same doesn’t hold good a little of her – and your – unrespected parent.

“Things here are much the same, except that we’ve got a new man at Kwabulazi in the room of old Carston transferred, as the official letters say – a chap named Elvesdon, an exceedingly wide awake, smart chap, and devilish good company. You’re sure to like him. Old Tongwana often asks after you. We’ve also got a new man here – black – named Mana – ”

Thornhill stopped, then carefully erased the last phrase – he did not know why, perhaps it was due to what Edala had called ‘instinct.’ Then he went on —

“There are rows and rumours of rows about possible bother among the people here, mainly over the new poll-tax, as, by the way, you will of course have heard – since all the doings of the known world are known at that hub of the Universe, Johannesburg, about forty-eight hours sooner than they are known – say in London. But it will probably end in smoke. If it doesn’t, such a fire eater as yourself will be more in your element here than there, I should think, after your experiences in Matabeleland, and of the pom-poms of Brother Boer.

“Well, load yourself up on the first train you can capture, old chap, and hasten to smoke the pipe of peace under the welcoming roof of —

“Your old Governor.”

This characteristic letter Thornhill read over, with a chuckle or two, stuck down the envelope and directed it.

Hyland Thornhill, Esq.

P.O. Box Something or other,

Johannesburg.

Just then Edala came in.

“Hullo. What’s that you’re sending, father?”

“Never you mind,” throwing it on the blotting pad, face downwards. “It’s a secret – another secret,” he could not refrain from adding, maliciously.

“But I will see,” she returned, making a playful, but tolerably determined snatch at the envelope. “Is it to Hyland? Is it?” as a brown and iron hand effectually baffled her attempt. “You are telling him to come – are you? Are you?”

“Ah-ah! Curiosity, thy name is woman!”

She had got him by the shoulders, and was shaking him, quite child-like and boisterous. He loved this mood.

“There are more people in the world than Hyland,” he said. “Why should I bother about an impudent neglectful rascal who hardly ever takes the trouble to communicate with the author of his being, let alone to come in person and ascertain whether that worthy is dead or not?”

“It is to Hyland. I know it is. And you are telling him to come. You are, father? Say you are. Do you hear? Say you are.”

“Oh, keep cool,” ironically, for she was still shaking him by the shoulders. “Learn to trust in – the fulness of time.”

It may be that the double meaning was not lost on her. But at that moment there befel an interruption. The dogs at the back of the house had sprung up and were barking furiously.

“Post, I suppose?” said Thornhill going to the window.

“There! I thought it was to Hyland!” cried Edala, who took the opportunity of snatching up the letter, which lay face downward on the table, and reading the address. “You are telling him to come, aren’t you?”

“Time will show,” he answered teasingly. “But telling him’s one thing, whether he’ll do as he’s told is another. A lifelong experience of him, and, incidentally, of his sister, would move me to bet on the latter contingency.”

A trampling of hoofs and then the postboy appeared, mounted on an undersized pony and clad in a long military surtout of ancient date. The rain was dripping from the ragged brim of his battered hat, but this affected him not at all, for his black shining face split into a dazzling white grin as he raised his hand in salute. The dogs, who knew him, had retreated, muttering, as though resenting being done out of hostilities; though even now they were sniffing around his utterly indifferent legs, not altogether reassuringly, as having dismounted he came to the door.

“Well Gomfu – what is the news?” said Thornhill, taking the leather bag.

“News? Au! Nkose will find all his news in there.”

“But nearer than that. Here, I mean.”

The boy grinned slyly.

“U Jobo is preaching around the locations. Whau! but he is telling news to the people – great news.”

This, as we have said, was the native name of that estimable Ethiopian apostle the Rev. Job Magwegwe. Thornhill had heard of him.

“Why does not the Government send the police after him, Nkose?” went on the other. “Or are the ears of the Government stopped? Or those of Ntwezi?”

Thornhill laughed.

“You are not a kolwa (Christian native) then, Gomfu?”

The other clicked contemptuously.

“I am not a fool, Nkose, The Abafundisi (Missionaries) preach to us what they do not believe themselves. They say that their God made all men equal, black and white, but what is that but childishness? Equal? Nkose– who ever heard of a white man becoming the servant of a native, but it would take years to count the natives in all the land who are the servants of white men. Equal? Whau!”

“That is so, Gomfu.”

“Nkose. Again. What if the son of – I do not say a common man but of a chief such as Tongwana, or Zavula, were to send lobola for the daughter of an umfundisi, and many of them have daughters – what would be the answer? Would it not be anger at a native presuming to dream of marriage with the daughter of a white man? – of a white man who preaches that black and white are all equal? Certainly it would, and rightly. And we natives who are not fools know this. We want no Abafundisi telling as childishness, particularly Amafengu, such as U Jobo. Equal! Hau!”

“Nkosazana!”

The latter in salutation of Edala, who appeared at the door.

“Father, when you’ve quite done trying to make Gomfu a worse heathen than he is already, and, incidentally, than you are yourself, it might occur to you to bring in the post-bag,” she said.

“Gomfu’s quaint theology has the merit of being logical, eke simple,” he answered coming back into the room. “Here’s the bag. Where’s the key? Now then,” he went on, having unlocked the bag and turned out its contents. “Graphic. Country Life. Natal Witness. Eastern Province Herald– that’s enough journalism. Letters? None for you. M-m. One, two, three – all business Four – no. Number 4 isn’t biz, but – yes it is – it’s English. They make our stamps and the English ones so much alike now that there’s no telling the difference. Now I wonder who that can be from,” scrutinising the direction narrowly. “There’s no one in England likely to write to me.”

“Father. Look again. You must be getting blind. Why it is one of our stamps after all, and the postmark is Durban – or what’s left of it.”

“Has Durban, then, met with nearly total destruction?” he inquired, tranquilly.

“Now, don’t be absurd. You know I meant the postmark.”

“Oh, the postmark? Small wonder I was in doubt, for the sole use of the average postmark is to throw a hopeless blind on both the locality and the date of posting.”

“Well the best way of solving the mystery, and the shortest, would be to open the letter and look at the signature.”

“Ah! Ah! A woman’s way of reading a novel – looking at the end first.”

“Father, are you going to open that letter or are you not? If you have no curiosity on the subject of an unknown hand I have. And – it’s a feminine hand too.”

Chapter Thirteen.

Manamandhla’s Beef

“Yes, it’s a feminine hand,” he echoed, gazing critically on the envelope. “There’s character in it too. Now I wonder who the deuce it can be from.”

“Father, will you open it? Can’t you see I am dying with curiosity?”

“Now, I’m not – not one little bit,” he answered, delighted to tease her. “In fact I wouldn’t mind postponing the further investigation of this mysterious missive for at least a week. Letters in unknown hands are generally of that character. For the matter of that, only too often so are those in known ones.”

For answer she suddenly snatched the letter from his hand and tore it open. “There now. Will you read it?” she said, giving it back.

“Certainly.” Then as the name at the end caught his eyes, a whistle of surprise escaped him. His fun sobered down while he read:

“The Royal Hotel,

“Durban.

“My dear distant Relative,

“We are related, but I believe distantly, at any rate poor mother always gave me to understand so, and latterly she talked a great deal of you. You may or may not have heard that we lost her between five or six months ago; but towards the last, when she was talking about you so often, she made me promise that I would find you out, and renew our acquaintance; though I don’t know about the ‘renewing’ part of it, for I was much too small in those days to remember anything of you now. However she gave me your address, and though it is an address of ever so many years ago it may still hold good, or at any rate be the means of finding you out eventually.”

Thornhill paused in his reading, and frowned. The reference to an address of ‘ever so many years ago’ awoke unpleasant memories. His address at that time was fairly public property, and it was the same one that he owned now.

“I have not been many days here,” the letter went on, “but it seems a delightful country, and I should like to see more of it. Can you take me in for a little while, and if so, please write or wire how I can get to you, and when. I have always heard that colonial ways are unconventional, and colonial houses ‘elastic,’ which sounds perfectly delightful, and emboldens me to sink ceremony. Hoping this will find you,

“Yours very truly,“Evelyn Carden.”

“Read that, and tell me what you think of it, Edala,” said Thornhill, handing over the letter.

The girl took it eagerly.

“I don’t know,” she said, when she was through with it. “It sounds as if she might be nice. I see she writes from the Royal in Durban. But – when? She gives no date.”

“Of course not – being a female. Nor does the postmark help any, as I said before.”

“Well, the postmark is neither designed nor executed by ‘females’,” retorted Edala.

“True, O Queen. You have me there. Well? What do you think of it?”

“Wire her to come, by all means. I like her free and easy style. She ought to be nice. But what’s she like, and who is she, when all’s said and done?”

“First for the wire. Gomfu is waiting as it is. Then we can enter into explanations.”

He got out a telegraph form and wrote:

“Miss Carden Royal Hotel Durban Train to Telani will meet you there only give a day or two for reply wire very welcome address Care of Elvesdon Kwabulazi: Thornhill.”

“Wa Gomfu!” he hailed.

“Nkose!”

The boy was round in a moment.

“Here. See that this goes directly you get back. Have they given you coffee in the kitchen, for the night is cold?”

“Nkose is my father. Ramasam is a very induna of the fire. Never have I met such coffee as his.”

“Well, here is gwai,” handing him a span of Boer tobacco. “Now go – and here is yet a letter to take.”

“Nkose!”

The boy disappeared and soon the retreating hoofs of his undersized pony could be heard splashing through the sludgy surface of the saturated veldt. The dogs growled again, presumably because having seen the same postboy appear regularly twice a week and go away again those sagacious animals must needs sustain their world-wide reputation for sagacity by doing something, though quite unnecessary – or possibly to vary the monotony of a wet and very dismal day. Anyhow they growled.

“You wanted to know about this new and distant relative,” said Thornhill, coming back into the room. “Well, I can’t tell you anything about her personally, because, as she says, she was too much of a kid to remember me, and I, for my part, just remember her as an ordinary kid, usually smeared with jam or some other sticky form of nastiness. Just that and nothing more.”

“But this mother she talks about – who was she?” went on Edala.

“Poor Mary Carden. Oh, we got rather friendly. She was a bit older than me though. I had something to do with the settling up of her affairs when she was left a widow – not that there was much to settle up, poor thing. By the bye, and yet this girl writes in rather an independent way, and dates from the Royal at Durban. Well, you know, hotels in this country aren’t cheap, and the Royal isn’t one of the cheapest by any means, although it’s good. They may have had a windfall since I knew them; probably have, since she seems to be out here for fun.”

“How old would she be, father?”

“Let me think now. Let me think back. She must be some years older than you, child. But it’ll be a good thing for you to have a companion for a time, who isn’t an old fogey. Of course we are both talking round our hats, as neither of us have the ghost of a notion what she’s like, and won’t have till we see her.”

“Well, we’ll chance it,” said Edala.

“That’s the best way. And now I think I’ll get on a horse and take a turn round. Old Patolo may be letting his cattle stray in this mist.”

Manamandhla the Zulu strode over the sopping veldt quite indifferent to the rain which beat down upon his bare head, and strove to permeate the thick folds of his green blanket, and while he walked he was thinking out a plan.

The subject of his thoughts was not tragical, not even weighty except as regarded his own immediate wants. He was tired of goat, he wanted beef and plenty of it. How should he get it? He thought he knew.

He could not expect Thornhill to kill a full grown beast, or any kind, even for him. But beef he hankered for, and have it he must. So now he held straight on over the veldt to where he knew he should find the cattle.

The mist was all in his favour, in fact it had suggested his plan, which was an ingenious one. He ascended the nearest ridge of the Sipazi mountain, his ears open. Presently both sound and scent told him he had come upon the object of his quest. In a moment more the forms of grazing cattle all round him, told that he was in the middle of the herd.

Some of the beasts snuffed and started, showing a tendency to canter away; others merely raised their heads and went on grazing as though nothing had happened. But this was not how he proposed to obtain beef. He had a broad assegai beneath his blanket, but he would not use it – not yet.

He crooned a milking song in a low tone as he went through the herd This had the effect of keeping quiet any of the wilder animals which might have been disposed to panic and stampede at the suddenness of his appearance in their midst. But he kept on edging more and more to the left; with the result that the animals on that side gave way more and more in the same direction, as he intended they should.

The cloud wreaths on this side took the form of spiral twirls, and a fresh, cold draught struck Manamandhla on the left ear. This was as it should be. Here the ground ended and the cliff began.

It was not the great overhanging cliff at the summit of the mountain, but the beginning of the same, and might have meant a sixty or seventy feet drop. But between the apparent brow of the krantz and the actual one was about ten feet of grass slope – a slope so steep as to be well-nigh precipitous, and in weather like this, deadly slippery. Now, as Manamandhla uttered a quick bark, at the same time flapping his blanket, the suddenly terrified animals between him and the brow, started at a run, plunging wildly, some this way, some that, to gallop off in wild panic. Not all though – all save one – and that a nearly full grown call It, he saw disappear over the brow, instinctively seeking safety upon the precipitous slope.

The Zulu chuckled. Crouching low, he was upon the brink in a moment, and peering over. There stood the poor stupid beast – a white one – its head down, and with difficulty keeping its footing. Manamandhla sprang up suddenly, again uttering a bark and flapping his blanket downwards. The poor animal, frenzied now with panic, made a wild frantic plunge, lost its footing and slid over the brink of the sheer cliff. Manamandhla had obtained his beef.

He emitted a chuckle of glee as the dull thud of the fallen carcase came up from below, then turned – to find himself face to face with – Thornhill.

The latter was standing some twelve or fifteen yards away, his right hand in his right pocket. Ever quick of perception, the Zulu grasped this fact and its significance. Instinctively he dropped into a half crouching attitude – the attitude of a wild beast preparing for its spring – and the grip of the broad assegai beneath his blanket tightened.

“No use, Manamandhla. You would be dead before you had taken five steps.”

The Zulu knew this. Even were it otherwise he had no wish for the other’s death – not just yet, at any rate. It was more profitable to himself to keep him alive. But for the moment he felt like a cornered animal, quick, desperate, dangerous.

“One of the beasts has gone over, Inqoto,” he said. “I would have prevented it, but when I tried to drive it back I drove it over instead. It is a pity.”

“It is. You were in want of beef, I think, Manamandhla,” was the answer, faintly mocking.

“Whau! Inqoto has not a very open hand, and I was tired of goat. There are ‘mouths’ on this mountain that do not return that which – those whom – they swallow. But there is one which can be got into by men with long lines. And – what would they find? Ah – ah! What would they find?”

The Zulu felt secure now, and yet, had he only known it, he had never stood in more deadly peril in his life. Thornhill had been waiting for some such chance as this and now it had come. For, from the moment he had arrived unobserved upon the scene all its opportunities had flashed upon his mind. The Zulu had deliberately driven one of his cattle over the krantz, and on being detected in the act had rushed upon him with an assegai; for he could pretty shrewdly guess what the other held concealed beneath the blanket. He had shot his assailant dead, in self defence, as he had no other alternative than to do. Thus he would be rid of this incubus, this blackmailer, and once more would be at peace. The time and opportunity had come.