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

“Couldn’t he have taken up her spoor?” said Elvesdon.

“Not much. There had been a succession of violent thunder-storms, and the face of the veldt was washed smooth by torrential rains. No spoor to be taken up.”

“By Jove, it’s a mysterious affair,” said Elvesdon. “How long ago was it, by the way?”

“Eighteen or nineteen years. He was arrested and kept in the tronk for some weeks, while every hole and corner of his farm was searched. They even dug up the cattle-kraals in search of remains – you know, Elvesdon, like that Moat Farm business in England a year or two ago – only of course in this case they found nothing. Thornhill half laughed when he was told of this, only saying that he had never for a moment imagined they would. Well of course, there was only one way out; for no one knows better than yourself that a man can’t be put upon his trial for murder until it is proved that a murder has been committed, which in this case it seemed impossible to do. So our friend was turned loose again.”

“Of course. But what of the general opinion. Was it believed he’d done it?”

“That’s just how it was. Not a man Jack or woman Jill but was firmly convinced of it, and for a long time he was practically boycotted. For the matter of that, even now they don’t get many visitors you may have noticed.”

“Yes. That has occurred to me. By the way. Vine, what about the children. How did the suspicion affect them as they grew up? Did they believe it?”

“The boys didn’t, but the strange and sad part of it is that the girl did, and does still.”

Elvesdon started.

“And – does still?” he echoed. “I see.”

Now the situation stood explained. Edala’s strange behaviour, the cold aloofness with which she treated her father, except at rare intervals. Heavens, what a ghastly shadow to lie between them! Yet, as it did so he, perhaps her behaviour was not altogether unnatural.

“The boys didn’t believe it?” he repeated.

“No – never. They grew up firmly refusing to believe it. They were fine youngsters. Jim, poor chap, was killed in the Matopos in ’96. He was the eldest. Hyland is broking at the Rand. By the way, Thornhill was telling me the other day that he expected him down on a visit.”

“Yes, I know. There was someone else he was expecting, an English relative. She wrote to him from Durban, inviting herself, and he wired her back to roll up as soon as she liked. Then he heard nothing more about her. By the Lord, I wonder,” he broke off. “I wonder if she got hold of this yam about him, and concluded to stop away. It might be.”

“So it might. But what I wonder at, Elvesdon, is that this affair should be all news to you. Why it caused some considerable kick up at the time.”

“At the time. That’s just it. It must have been during the couple of years I was over in England and the States. – Come in,” as a knock came at the door.

“Please sir,” said the native constable, who was proud of airing his English, “dere’s one lady – like see Nkose.”

“One lady? Look here Isaac. Do you mean a ‘lady’ or some bywoner vrouw, come for a summons against somebody?”

“Dis one lady, sir. She ask for Mr Elvesdon, not for de magistrate.”

“Oh, show her in. Don’t go, doctor, till we see what she wants.”

Chapter Sixteen.

The New Arrival

The native constable was holding open the door. There was a soft rustle of feminine attire as its wearer crossed the empty Court room, and the newcomer entered.

“Mr Elvesdon, I believe?” she said, after a rapid glance at both men, and easily identifying the right one. “I must introduce myself. My name is Carden – Evelyn Carden – and you may have heard of me from Mr Thornhill. He lives near here, does he not?”

“Yes. About two hours. Sit down, Miss Carden,” handing her a chair. “As a matter of fact I have heard of you. The Thornhills have been wondering that they did not – after your letter.”

The newcomer’s eyebrows went up in surprise.

“The Thornhills not heard!” she exclaimed wonderingly. “But they must have. Why I wired from Durban here, just as I was directed; but it was to put off coming just then. And they never received it?”

“No. I can answer for that. Er – by the way, did you send it yourself, Miss Carden?”

“Well, no. The fact is I didn’t. I gave it, the wire, and also a letter, to a coolie porter at a station just this side of Pinetown – I forget the name – to send for me.”

Elvesdon smiled.

“That accounts for the whole trouble,” he said.

All this time he had been taking stock of the newcomer. She was of fair height, and plainly but unmistakably well dressed. She had straight features and a reposeful expression, an abundance of light brown hair, and clear grey eyes. She had just missed being exactly pretty, yet the face was an attractive one, and there was an atmosphere of refinement and savoir faire about her that left no room for doubt as to her standing in the social scale. She seemed about two or three and thirty in point of age – in reality she was not more than twenty-eight. All this he summed up in a flash, as he went through the above preliminary formalities.

“This is Dr Vine, our District Surgeon, Miss Carden,” he said in introduction. “Are you travelling alone, may I ask?”

“Yes. This time I thought I’d spring a surprise on my unknown relative, so of course I was obliged to hire a cart at Telani – the driver is such a disagreeable old man, by the bye. And the horses are wretched beasts. Why I had to stop the night at a most abominable roadside place – an accommodation house, I think they called it – presumably because ‘accommodation’ in every sense, was the very last thing they had to offer.” She laughed, so did the two men.

“Then there was a monster centipede kept appearing and disappearing on the wall above my bed, so that I had to keep the light going all night, and hardly got any sleep at all. And now one of the horses is dead lame, and I am wondering how I am going to get on to Mr Thornhill’s – unless you can help me, Mr Elvesdon.”

There was a something in the tone of this tail-off that conveyed to the listeners the impression that she was very much accustomed to being ‘helped’ – in things great as well as small – and made no scruple about requisitioning such help.

“Certainly I can, Miss Carden,” answered Elvesdon. “If you will allow me I shall be delighted to drive you out to Thornhill’s this afternoon. Meanwhile it is just lunch time – if you will give me the pleasure of your company – you too, doctor? Very well then, we may as well adjourn at once.”

During lunch Elvesdon was somewhat silent. He had directed his native servants when to inspan his spider and to transfer the visitor’s baggage to that useful vehicle – further, he had arranged matters with the driver of the hired cart, an unprepossessing specimen of what would be defined in the Southern States as ‘mean white,’ and while doing so, the astounding revelation made to him by Vine had come back to him with all its full force. He did not know what to think. Thornhill seemed to him the last man in the world to commit a cold-blooded murder – and that the murder of a woman – but – what if it was a hot-blooded one? Looking back upon his observation of this new found friend he recalled a certain something that contained the possibilities of such – goaded by the weight of an intolerable incubus. And his sons believed in him and his daughter did not? Well, Elvesdon leaned to the opinion of the sons, and all his official instinct weighed on that side. There was absolutely no evidence that any crime had been effected at all, and did not the legal text-books teem with instances of disappearance for which innocent people had been executed in the ‘good old times’? Why of course. No. He at any rate was going to keep an open mind, and turn into fact the time-worn legal fiction that the accused was innocent until he was proved guilty.

So he was rather silent during lunch. The weight of Vine’s revelation was still on him; but the newcomer was quite at her ease and chatted away with Prior and the doctor.

But later, when they were bowling away merrily behind a fresh, well trotting pair of horses bound for Sipazi, he was obliged to put this new train of thought out of his head, for the new arrival plied him with all sorts of questions, as to the country and its natives, and other things; then got on to the subject of Thornhill.

“I have never seen him, you know, Mr Elvesdon, since I was ever so small. I don’t know anything really about him beyond what my poor mother told me. By the way – did he marry again?”

Elvesdon started unconsciously. In his present train of thought he was wondering how much she knew as to the matter about which he had only just heard.

“No. He has one girl at home now, and a boy away at the Rand.”

“Oh. That’s nice. Tell me. What is the girl like?”

“Charming. She’s like no other girl I’ve ever seen.”

The reply was made in a perfectly even tone, without any perceptible enthusiasm. The other was interested at once.

“What’s her name?”

“Edala. Peculiar name isn’t it?”

“Rather. Do you think we shall get on?”

Elvesdon burst out laughing.

“I should think it highly probable that you would. She is very unconventional – and you – well if you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Carden, I should think the same held good as regards yourself.”

“Of course I don’t mind your saying so; and it happens to be true. I like being talked to rationally, and not talked down to – as you men are too given to talking to us women. You know – a sort of humouring us, as if we were a lot of spoilt children.”

“But you must remember that if we don’t humour you, ‘you women,’ or at any rate the majority of you, vote us disagreeable if not rude; a favourite word with ‘you women’ by the way. It has such a fine, sonorous, roll-round-the-tongue flavour, you know.”

Evelyn Carden laughed – and laughed merrily. Elvesdon noticed that her laugh was light, open, free-hearted. There was no affectation, or posing, about it.

“I like that,” she said, “the more so that it is absolutely true. I suppose you are often over at the Thornhills’, Mr Elvesdon, as you are so near?”

“Oh yes. I put in Sundays with them, and enjoy it. Your relative is a particularly cultured and companionable man, Miss Carden, and in his quiet way, very genial.”

“And – Edala?”

This with just a spice of mischief, which the other ignored.

“I have already given you my opinion on that subject,” he said.

“How delightful. I am so glad I came up here. I only put it off because some people whose acquaintance I made on board ship asked me out to stay with them at their place near Malvern. I do hope, though, that Mr Thornhill won’t be offended with me about the non-delivery of the wire, but it really wasn’t my fault.”

Here Elvesdon did not entirely agree. He thought she ought to have made more sure. But he said:

“You need have no uneasiness on that score. Thornhill is a man with a large up-country experience, and I know of no better training for teaching a man to take things as they come.”

“Better and better,” she pronounced. “Why, how interesting he will be. But, you yourself, Mr Elvesdon – you must have some strange experiences too?”

“Well, you see, one can’t go through an official life like mine without. But, for the most part, they are experiences of queer and out of the way phases of human nature. I haven’t had any serious adventures if that’s what you mean.”

“No?”

“No. Never mind. I’m used to that note of disappointment. When I was over in England on leave three years and a half ago, I was always being asked how many lions I’d shot – the impression apparently being that one strolled out after office hours and bagged a few brace – and I answered frankly that I’d never seen a lion outside a cage – though I’ve heard them, by the way, at a long and respectful distance – I went down like a shot in general estimation. At last I began to feel like Clive, when hauled up over the looting business, ‘astonished at my own moderation,’ and thought it time to invent a lion lie or two. But it was too late then.”

Again she laughed – heartily, merrily. She turned a glance of unmitigated approval upon the man beside her. He, too, seemed rather unlike other people, with his easy, unconventional flow of talk and ideas; yet whether his life had been spent outside the sphere of adventure or not, she felt certain that given an emergency he would prove the strong, capable official, ready and able to deal with it at the critical or perilous moment.

Elvesdon’s mind, too, was running upon her and he was speculating as to the effect her presence would have upon those among whom her lot was to be cast for a time. She was bright, lively, natural; just the very companion for Edala, though somewhat older. Thornhill, too, wanted livening up; and now, seen in the light of the revelation he had heard that morning, Elvesdon thoroughly understood the restraint which had lain upon that household of two. This stranger from the outside world was just the one to take both out of themselves.

They left the more open rolling country, where the road suddenly dived down into the bosky ruggedness of a long winding valley, and here Evelyn grew enthusiastic over the romantic grandeur of the black forest-clad rifts sloping down from a great row of castellated crags. Here, too, bird and animal life seemed suddenly to blossom into being. Troops of monkeys skipped whimsically among the tree-tops chattering at the wayfarers, and the piping of bright spreuws flashing from frond to frond among the thorn bushes, and the call of the hoepoe, and the mellow cooing of doves making multitudinous melody throughout the broad valley into which they were descending, together with the quaint, grating duet of the yellow thrush – then, too, the deep boom of great hornbills stalking among the grass and stones, yonder, down the slope – all blended harmoniously in the unclouded evening calm, for the sun was near his rest now, and the stupendous krantz fronting the Sipazi mountain shone like fire.

“Why, it is glorious,” declared the newcomer gazing around. “What a lovely country this is.”

“There’s our destination,” said Elvesdon, pointing to the homestead lying on the farther side of the valley beneath, whence already the dogs were announcing their arrival in deep-mouthed clamour. “And there are your relatives,” he added, as two figures could be seen coming down from the front stoep, “and they are already taking stock of us through binoculars.”

Thornhill’s greeting was quiet but cordial.

“Welcome to Sipazi,” he said. “We had about given you up, but better late than never. I am afraid you’ll find it dull here, but after all, it’ll be a new experience I should think.”

“Of course it will, Mr Thornhill, and a delightful one. So this is – Edala.” And the two girls kissed each other.

“How did you know my name?” said Edala, with a laugh.

“Why you don’t suppose I haven’t been ‘pumping’ Mr Elvesdon all about you during our most delightful drive out here, do you? Of course I have.” And then she began entering upon explanations as to the seeming silence in answer to the telegram.

“Oh well, no matter. You’re here now, anyhow,” answered Thornhill characteristically. And Evelyn Carden, looking up into the strong, bearded, rather melancholy face, was deciding that she was going to like its owner very much indeed; and Elvesdon superintending the process of outspanning, was wondering whether these two girls were going to take to each other; and Edala was thinking that they were.

But – somehow, with the faintest possible twinge of uneasiness, the emphasis on those words ‘our most delightful drive’ jarred on her.

Chapter Seventeen.

A Trap – and a Tragedy

Four men were seated together within a hut. This hut was one of half a dozen which constituted a small kraal, standing at the foot of a smooth perpendicular cliff.

Two of these four we have already seen and two we have not. The former were Babatyana and Nxala; of the latter, one was Nteseni, an influential chief whose kraals adjoined those of Babatyana, while the fourth was Zisiso, a witch-doctor of great, though secret repute. As was to be expected they were plotting. It was night, and the other inhabitants of the kraal, if such there were, slept.

“So my múti was not strong enough, Nxala?” the witch-doctor was saying. “Au! I have never known it like that before.”

“He who is gone was old, my father, and his hand shook,” was the answer. “Who, then, may say as to the strength of the múti when scattered upon the floor of a hut? And now Ntwezi has the vessel that contained it.”

“That should have broken in pieces,” murmured Zisiso.

“Yet it did not, for it reached not the ground.”

“Ntwezi is ever suspicious,” commented the old man.

“Ever suspicious. But there is one who serves him who would serve him no longer. He will be here to-night.”

“That is well. We will hear him.”

This witch-doctor, Zisiso, was a mild, pleasant, genial-mannered old man, to all outward appearance, especially when he came in contact with Europeans. Then, there was no limit to the gentle, self-deprecating plausibility with which he alluded to himself. Elvesdon, for one, had been completely taken in by him, and was, in fact, rather partial to him. More than one missionary had taken him in hand; with conspicuous success from the point of view of the missionary. But he never attended their services or meetings. He was too old, he said. Still he was glad to have heard such a good ‘word.’ He would welcome death now, because he was longing to see all the beautiful things which the Abafundisi had told him were coming after.

The witch-doctor’s trade is forbidden by the laws of the Colony, but it is carried on for all that. The good old custom of ‘smelling out’ has of course disappeared, but what may not be done impressively and in the light of day can be done just as effectively without making any fuss. Someone obnoxious dies or disappears, there are plenty of ways of accounting for his absence. He has gone away to the mines to earn money, or he has trodden on a nail, and contracted tetanus, or his cows gave diseased milk – and so forth. For old Zisiso was a past master on the subject of both external and internal poisons.

It may readily be imagined in what respectful dread he was held among the tribes. Even influential chiefs, such as these here assembled, dared not incur his ill-will, otherwise it is probable that he would have met with a violent and mysterious death long before; besides they never knew when they might not be glad to turn his services to their own account. Even the educated, semi-civilised natives dared not for their lives have done anything to arouse his hostility.

The new Ethiopian movement was to Zisiso utterly laughable, and such exponents of it as the Rev. Job Magwegwe too contemptible for words. But he was too polite to make public his views. A considerable section of the people had thrown themselves into it, and the movement seemed spreading. As an isanusi all his instincts were to make a study of it lest haply he might turn it to account.

Old Zisiso’s professional instincts were not in themselves ignoble, in that they were not dictated by lust of gain, or cupidity, beyond a certain ingrained acquisitiveness common to all savages. Thanks to his wide and mysterious powers, to which allusion has been made, he was already rich in possessions beyond his needs, for he was too old to lobola for more wives. No, it was sheer pride in his profession, similar to that which might prompt the civilised man of science to welcome and investigate any new departure in scientific discovery. But of course the aim towards which Magwegwe and his associates and employers were supposed to be working, was, in the shrewd eyes of this old sorcerer, the veriest humbug.

Personally he had no particular desire to see the whites ‘driven into the sea’; an eventuality he was far too astute to believe for a moment possible. He was old enough to remember how, under former kings in Zululand, those of his craft, no matter how eminent and skilled, held their lives and possessions on precarious tenure. Dingane and Mpande, for instance, expected a great deal – a great deal too much – from their sorcerers. Cetywayo, to be sure, did not bother his head about them, to speak of. But there, under the rule of the Amangisi, he and his brother witch-doctors could practise unhindered, always provided they did so with due care and secrecy. What, then, was to be gained by trying to upset the existing state of things?

These considerations should, on every ground of reason and self-interest, have ranged old Zisiso on the side of law and order, yet they did not. The South African native is a strangely complex animal, and there are times when it is impossible to tell what line he may or may not adopt, no matter how powerfully self-interest ought to move him in a given direction, and such was the case with this one. Most probably he was actuated by the sheer love of plotting which had characterised his profession from time immemorial; which in fact, was absolutely essential to the keeping-up of its very existence.

“He who comes this night,” went on Nxala, “he who comes this night, will bring back the drinking bowl of him who is gone. He has put another in its place, and when the white doctor sees it, au! he will pronounce that an isanusi of the standing of Zisiso does not know what múti is,” he added quizzically.

“I trust not this dog of Ntwezi’s,” said Nteseni, gruffly. This chief had a strong and heavy face, and though large of frame, unlike most of his rank his size was not due to obesity – the result of a great indulgence in tywala and very little exercise. On the contrary he was a savage of weight and muscle, and would have proved an uncommonly tough customer even to a more than average white man if once they got to close grips.

“Nobody trusts anybody, brother,” murmured the old witch-doctor, pleasantly. “Yet we will hear what he has to say.”

“We will hear,” echoed Babatyana, getting out his snuff-box, and passing it round. Nxala prodded the fire with a stick, and the embers flared up. There was silence as the four sat, taking snuff, the firelight glinting on the shine of their headrings. Suddenly the raucous yaps of a superannuated cur were heard outside.

“Here is the man from Ntwezi’s, brother,” said Babatyana turning to Nxala. “Go out to him or he may be afraid.”

He addressed obeyed. Those within the hut could hear the murmur of deep tones. Then Nxala reappeared, followed by the stranger.

The latter was clad in European attire. As he stooped through the low, arched doorway Nteseni gave the fire a vigorous kick. It flared up anew in a sudden bright light. Nteseni had seen something – a something which he had expected to see.

The newcomer saluted the chiefs, nor was his greeting of old Zisiso any less respectful. The latter handed him snuff – then added humorously:

“Ou! I am old, I am forgetting. Those who are young, and who dwell among the whites, take their gwai in the form of smoke. Here is some, my son,” searching for a bag, “and doubtless thou hast a pipe. Fill it then, and we will talk.”

The other murmured a word of acknowledgment, and did as he was told. Then, from the packet of his jacket – which bulged – he drew forth a bundle. This he proceeded to undo, revealing many fragments of baked clay, in short the fragments of a black drinking bowl.

“Here is what I promised my father,” he said, addressing the witch-doctor. “Whau! I put another in its place, and now I think the Dokotela will believe that Ntwezi is laughing at him.”

“Yet it were better to have brought it whole,” said Nteseni.

“That could I not do,” answered the visitor, who was no other than Elvesdon’s native detective, Teliso. “The shape would have betrayed it.”

“M-m!” hummed the listeners.

Now Nteseni took the fragments and with extraordinary ingenuity and patience began piecing them together. As to the latter – well they had the whole night before them!

“There is not a piece missing,” he pronounced, “no, not even a small piece. To have left such would have been dangerous.”

“Would it not, my father? But I desire the ruin of Ntwezi. He has reduced my pay, and I would be revenged. Further, he has promised to thrash me. I will not go back to him.”