In the Whirl of the Rising

“This is not the unarmed gathering you would think, Qubani,” he said, speaking in quick low tones. “Each man – and there are nearly two hundred of them – has his weapons all ready, and would have them in his hand in far less time than it would take you to run – say from here to Ehlatini.”

“Whou!” ejaculated the witch-doctor, bringing his hand to his mouth.

“Moreover, all round Gandela there is laid that which would blow a whole impi into the air did such walk over it. The whites know where it is, but it would be very dangerous for strangers.”

“Ha!”

Another cheer went up, as another prize was given away. Incidentally Lamont thought how fortunate he had been in not winning the tent-pegging competition, for he could not have received his prize by deputy, and it was still important to keep a close watch on Qubani.

“And now, O great isanusi,” he went on, “what would be thy fate did those here know what my múti has told me? No quick and easy death, I fear.”

A troubled and anxious look came into the old man’s face.

“You are my father, Lamonti, but your talk is dark – very dark. Ou! Yet though I understand it not, I will do all you wish.”

“That will be wise. Now we will look at them receiving the rewards. Come.”

The prize tent was at the farther end of the enclosure and facing the Ehlatini ridge, towards which the spectators’ backs were, by the position, of necessity turned. But Lamont, as he manoeuvred his prisoner on to the fringe of the crowd, took care that his was not. He noticed, moreover, a thread of smoke arising from the summit of the ridge. Well, there was nothing very extraordinary about that – or – there might have been.

“Throw up thy cap, Qubani,” he said pleasantly, as another cheer broke forth and some hats were thrown in the air. “Throw up thy cap, and rejoice with us. Thy white cap.”

The witch-doctor dared not refuse. With a broad grin, as though he were entering into the fun of the thing, he threw into the air —the white signal.

Again, and again, every time the cheering broke forth, Lamont banteringly bade him throw it higher, promising much tywala when the proceedings were over, till finally many of the spectators turned their attention to him and laughed like anything, cheering him. And one of them remarked that it was worth coming for alone, just to see the old boy flinging up his cap and hooraying like a white man and a brother.

They little knew, those light-hearted ones, that but for one man’s nerve and presence of mind the red signal would have gone up, and then —

Chapter Thirteen.

On Ehlatini

When Clare Vidal awoke on the morning after the race meeting, and her thoughts went back to some of the events and incidents of that sporting and festive gathering, she was fain to own herself sorely puzzled: and those events and incidents, it may as well be said, comprised the extraordinary behaviour of Lamont. He had deliberately snubbed her. He had been especially favoured in being singled out and asked to help her – and, incidentally, her sister – and had, lamely, but decidedly refused. Refused! Why, not a man there present but would have sprung to comply with such a request – such a command – as she laughingly recalled how on their first arrival in the country, by the Umtali route at the close of the war of occupation, she had been christened ‘The Queen of the Laager,’ when a passing scare had rendered it advisable to laager up. Yet this one had refused – refused her! Well, what then? He was simply a morose, unmannerly misogynistic brute! No. She could not look upon it in this light at all.

She had awakened early, and felt that a walk in the cloudless morning air, before the sun rays developed into an oppressive steaminess, would do her good. Gandela at large had not awakened early. There had been a good deal of late carousing among the rougher spirits there gathered together for the occasion, and a good deal of house-to-house visitation, also late, on the part of the more refined. So Gandela at large slept late proportionately.

The Fullertons’ house was on the very outskirts of the township, and she stepped forth straight on to the open veldt. The dew lay, sparkling and silvery, upon the green mimosa fronds, and made a diamond carpet of the parched burnt-up grass upon which her steps left footprints. How beautiful was the early morning in this fresh open land. The call and twitter of birds made strange unknown melody as she passed on her way, leaving the shining zinc roofs of the straggling township, turning her face toward the free open country. There lay the race-course, away on her left, and her face was set toward the dark bushy ridge of Ehlatini.

Two ‘go-away’ birds sped before her, uttering their cat-like call, as, with crest perkily erect and flicking their tails, they danced from frond to frond. How cool the inviting depths of that bush line looked, billowing down the slope of the hill, challenging exploration of their bosky recesses.

Clare was in splendid physical form, and walked with a straight willowy swing from the hips, rejoicing in the sheer physical exercise of her youth and strength. She looked up at the ridge above her, then back at the scattered township behind. To gain the summit would mean a fine view, also taking in the far, unknown stretch of country beyond. She had never wandered this way before, and it would be a novelty and something to expatiate upon to those lazy people whom she had left behind in a state of prolonged slumber. Slumber! and on such a morning.

The morning air blew balmy and warm, straight down from the Zambesi and beyond; straight down from the heart of the great mysterious continent. Later on it would be hot, oppressive. And in the shade of the mimosa, and wild fig, and mahobo-hobo, birds piped and called to each other.

Clare struck into a narrow path, which wound up, a mere cattle-track, through the thickness of the bush. It was delightful this roaming about a wild land alone. Soon, with no great effort or tax upon her powers of wind and limb, she had gained the summit of the ridge.

And then, on the farther side, other ridges went ribbing away in the distance, like billows of dark verdure; but on the right, where they ended, sloping abruptly to the more even ground of the gently undulating country beyond, far away in a film of light and vista, to lose itself in a hazy blue on the skyline nearly a hundred miles distant, stretched a vast mysterious wilderness. Then she sat down beneath the shade of a large overhanging wild fig, to take it all in.

She was used to wildness, and loved it. Reared in one of the wildest tracts of wild Ireland, she had delighted to go forth on solitary rambles, with trout rod and creel, more than ankle deep in soft bog soil, tramping laboriously to her field of action in high mountain lough, where the shrieking gust of a squall every half hour or so drove her to refuge beneath some great rock, what time the trout sulked, only to rise fast and furious when the rain squall had passed, and the raven croaked from the shining wet crags. And this solemn blue vista, stretching away in its vastness, formed a contrast indeed to the stormy glistening grandeur of her former mountain home; here with its hot, sub-tropical steaminess; yet there was that in common between both of them – that both were the wilds.

In the dreaminess of her reverie she started suddenly. The loud neighing of a horse, together with the violent flapping of an empty saddle as the animal shook himself, caused a sudden inroad upon her meditations that produced that effect. There, hitched to a bush, stood a horse, one moreover that she seemed to recognise. Yes, it was the large, high-withered roan that Lamont had ridden when, at her urgent request, he had entered for the tent-pegging competition and – had not won.

In a moment Clare’s meditations, dreamy and otherwise, were scattered to the winds. There was the horse, but – where was its owner? A strange inclination – impulse, rather – to get away, to return before he should discover her presence, came upon her. Yet – why? Why on earth – why?

But whatever the ground for such aspirations they were not to be fulfilled, for at that moment a voice hailed her – an astonished voice.

“Why, Miss Vidal, good morning. Who in the world would have dreamed of meeting you up here?”

“I might say the same, Mr Lamont. I thought I would take a bit of a stroll while all Gandela was sleeping off last night’s orgies. Strange, but I’ve never been up here. I suppose it is because the climb rather froze Lucy off – and I didn’t bother to come alone. Do you know I think this country makes people very lazy.”

“Oh yes. There’s a steaminess about it that gets on to one’s energies somehow. It’ll infect you too when you’ve been out here a little longer.”

“Now don’t talk down to me, Mr Lamont. I feel quite an old pioneer. I came up here during the war, you know.”

“Yes, yes. Just over two years ago.”

“Well, you needn’t be so supercilious. Especially as you don’t seem to have been over-successful yourself this morning.”

“Successful? Oh, I see,” following her glance to the magazine rifle he carried. “No. Game is scarce since the rinderpest, and especially right near Gandela, like this.”

“Look what I found just now, in the bush, before I got to the top here,” she said. “It must be some sort of native ornament.”

She held out to him two white cow-tails, fastened to a kind of bracelet of twisted sinew.

“Yes, it is. Very much of a native ornament.”

The tone was dry, and – she thought – rather curious. She went on —

“I have more than one grievance against you, Mr Lamont. First of all, why didn’t you come in and see us last night? We had quite a number of men dropping in.”

“All the more reason why I shouldn’t, isn’t it? Too much of a crowd, you know.”

“No, I don’t. We can never have too much of a crowd of our friends.”

He laughed – again, she thought, strangely.

“That’s novel doctrine to me, anyway,” he said. “I was always under the impression one could – and very much so. But I don’t think your brother-in-law likes me. Isn’t that good enough excuse?”

“No, it isn’t. Dick doesn’t constitute the whole establishment. But, here is another thing. I own I’ve been dying of curiosity over it ever since. Why was it of so much importance that you should spend the rest of the day with that snuffy old savage? You were sticking to him closer than a brother. In fact you were at each other’s elbow all the time. More than one noticed it.”

“Oh, did they?” and here she noticed a touch of concern in his tone. Then, as if he had come to some sudden resolution, “I believe you have good nerves, Miss Vidal?”

“Yes,” wonderingly.

“Well, get Fullerton to take, or send, you and your sister into Buluwayo without further delay.”

Now Clare wondered indeed.

“Why?” she said simply.

“Yes, that’s a fair question. But if I explain, will you undertake not to get panic-stricken, and also to leave events to me – in short, not to give away what I may tell you, no, not even to your sister.”

“Why, of course. But – you don’t mean to say these savages are meditating a war – on us?”

“Yes I do. And not only that, but the whole thing is cut and dried, and it’s only a question when to begin. Now I shall be able to answer your other question. You thought me no end boorish and ungracious yesterday. Well, the reason why I stuck to old Qubani like a brother, instead of being of service to you, was that, if I had not, the whole of Gandela would at this moment be a heap of ashes, and the race-course piled with the bodies of every man, woman, and child in the place.”

“Good Heavens! You don’t mean that?” ejaculated Clare, staring at him.

“Certainly I do. There was an impi stationed here – up here where we are sitting, and at a signal from Qubani it was to rush the whole show. And then – ”

“What was the signal?”

“He was to throw up the red cap he was wearing. It was to be done during the prize-giving, so as to be less noticeable.”

“And – you prevented him?”

“I should think so. I showed him a six-shooter – I had one in each pocket – and promised to blow his head off if he didn’t give me that red cap right there. Now a native is nothing if not practical, and the fact of all in Gandela being massacred was nothing to this one if he wasn’t there to see the fun, as, of course, he wouldn’t be. So – he handed over the red cap. I own, though, it was rather a tense moment while he was sort of hesitating whether to do so or not.”

Clare could only gasp, and stared speechless at this man, whom she had heard her brother-in-law, and others, describe as something of a coward – and of whom she, in spite of her better instincts, had thought sorely and with resentment only yesterday, by reason of what she termed to herself his ‘rudeness’ in flatly refusing to do what she had asked him. Good Heavens! And all the time, by his nerve and cool-headedness, he had saved her and the whole settlement from a hideous death. What a cool, masterful, resourceful brain was here.

“But, Mr Lamont,” she broke forth at last, “how did you know that this awful thing was contemplated – was to happen?”

“Well, that’s something of a story. I heard it among them – heard the whole scheme in all its details. Of course they don’t know that, or I shouldn’t be alive here, talking to you at this moment. Indeed, the amazement of the old witch-doctor at finding himself euchred imparted a comic element into a most confoundedly tragical situation.”

Clare looked at him in silence. She was turning over in her mind the events of the previous day. She remembered how the fact of him appearing in a coat had been commented on as an out-of-the-way circumstance. Now it all stood explained. It was to conceal the deadly weapon wherewith he had compelled the treacherous Matabele to abandon his murderous plan. And what an awful contrast was there – that gathering, as unsuspecting and light-hearted as though in the midst of peaceful England, while not a mile away hovered a storm-cloud of bloodthirsty savages awaiting the signal to overwhelm the whole in a whirlwind of massacre and agonising death. And this had been averted by the coolness and resolution of one man.

“You may or may not have noticed that the old ruffian was wearing two caps, a red and a white?”

“Yes, I remarked on that,” said Clare. “I wondered his head didn’t split.”

“Well, the white cap was to be the signal that the time was not ripe. I made him throw up that, and hooray with the rest of us.”

“Yes, I remember that too, and how we all laughed.”

“Of course I primed him with the state of preparedness we were all in, though not seeming to be – and that there were Maxims hidden under that waggon sail instead of soda-water bottles. Good Lord, if the bar-keeper had sent his boy to get out a fresh box of the same! but he didn’t, luckily.”

“Yes, indeed. But what have you done about the affair, Mr Lamont? and is the old witch-doctor in prison?”

“As yet I’ve done nothing except come up here the first thing this morning and verify the whole affair. And I have. There are abundant traces that a large number of Matabele have occupied this ground for hours. Look at the thing you picked up – do you know what it is?”

“This?” said Clare, holding out the cow-tails on the string.

“Yes. Well, that is part of the regular war-gear. It is tied round the leg above the calf – and this thing you found forms an important ‘pièce de conviction.’ It is never worn when moving about in the ordinary way. Well, old Qubani is not detained, because I saw it answered my purpose best to let him go.”

Chapter Fourteen.

A Good Understanding

“To let him go?” echoed the girl. “But – ought you not to have had him arrested as a traitor and a murderer? Good Heavens! The whole plot is too awful.”

“And so I divulge it to you first, instead of to my fellow-man Orwell, R.M., or Isard, commanding the Matabeleland Mounted Police in Gandela. Why?”

Clare looked puzzled.

“I don’t know why,” she said. “But it seems a dreadful responsibility.”

“So I was inclined to think – in fact, very much did think – when having mapped out my plans everything seemed to conspire to smash them up. Yourself among the said everything.”

“Myself? Now, how?”

Lamont smiled that queer sour smile again.

“Why, certainly. Didn’t you make a point of my entering for the tent-pegging? What would have happened if I’d won? I couldn’t receive a prize by deputy. Didn’t you want me to help you and your sister, what time to have left the side of our worthy and reverend magician would have been fatal?”

“Yes. I did that,” said Clare penitently. “But, Mr Lamont, how on earth could I have foreseen that anything of the kind was brewing?”

“No, you couldn’t. I’m not blaming you, you understand, no, not for a moment.”

What was this? Not blaming her? Blaming her! Clare Vidal was not accustomed to be ‘blamed’ any more than to have her requests refused, especially in this land where there were not even enough women to go round, as she was fond of putting it. She was wondering what awful and scathing rejoinder she would have made to any man who should have ventured on such a remark to her a day or two ago. Yet to this one, lounging back there with one elbow resting on a big cold stone, lighting his pipe, she had no thought of scathing rejoinder. She was all aglow with admiration of his nerve and self-reliance.

“Then there was a bore of a fellow – Jim Steele – who was rather screwed, and wanted me to fight him, silly ass! Of course I wasn’t going to do that there, under any circumstances, but he – and the other idiots who thought I was afraid of him – little dreamt how they were trying to dig their own graves. For our worthy schemer Qubani would have thought me grotesque with a swelled eye, and you are bound to sustain some such damage in a rough-and-tumble with a big powerful devil like Steele. It was important then that Qubani should not think me grotesque.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve heard about that affair. There’s very little that doesn’t get round to us, in a small place like this, Mr Lamont. And you told him you’d meet him later – I know all about it, you see. Well, you mustn’t. It’s not at all worthy of grown men to act like a lot of overgrown schoolboys. It’s undignified.”

“Oh, I very much more than quite agree with you there. But then I promised the chap. Now, how can I go back on a promise?”

More than ever now did her brother-in-law’s insinuations with regard to this man come back to Clare. And it struck her that he did not plead that cowardice might be imputed to him if he failed – only that having made a promise he ought to keep it. “He isn’t a bad chap at bottom, Jim Steele,” went on Lamont, “except when he’s squiffy, and then he gets quarrelsome. Probably he’ll have forgotten all about everything by the time he wakes, or if not will recognise that he’s made an ass of himself.”

“I should hope so, indeed. But we are getting away from the witch-doctor. Why did you let him go?”

“Instinct, pure instinct. Natives are queer animals, and you don’t always know quite how to take them. If we had kept old Qubani, the township might have been rushed this very night. By turning him loose, full up with what I told him – well the move is justified by results, or you and I would not be talking together up here comfortably at this moment. Now this one has taken on a sort of respect for me – they do that, you know. I asked him what he thought would happen if I gave away for what purpose he was there. He wilted at that. Then I told him I gave him his life, and he must not be less generous. He talked round and round for a little, then said that I had better begin to move with my things at a time of the moon I reckoned out at somewhere about a fortnight hence. So now you see why I want you to get Fullerton to take you in to Buluwayo.”

“But, he won’t do it. He might if you were to put it to him.”

“That’s just when he wouldn’t. You know what they’d say, Miss Vidal ‘Lamont’s got ’em again’ – meaning the funks.”

This was said with little bitterness, rather with a sort of tolerant contempt. Clare felt ashamed as she remembered all the remarks to which she had listened, reflecting on this man’s courage, and all because he did not take kindly to some low, pothouse brawl. She kindled.

“How can anyone say such a thing – such a wicked thing – when you have saved the whole settlement from massacre?”

“Oh, that wouldn’t count. To begin with, they wouldn’t believe what I’ve just been telling you – would say I’d invented it. They’ll believe it fast enough in a week or two’s time though. By the way, it was the sight of old Qubani and his red cap that made me miss that last tilt at the peg, and a good thing I did miss it. Providential, as Father Mathias would say.”

“Father Mathias? Have you seen him lately?” said Clare.

“We travelled part of the way together when I was coming back from Lyall’s. We were caught in a nasty dry thunderstorm and took refuge in Zwabeka’s kraal. It was there I overheard that nice little conspiracy.”

“And so you travelled with Father Mathias?” said Clare. “I hope you were nice to him. He is a great friend of ours.”

“Nice to him, Miss Vidal?” answered Lamont, raising his brows as if amused at the question. “Why not? He is a very nice man. Why should I be other than nice to him?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Except that – well, he is a priest.”

“What then? Oh, I see what you mean. But I have no prejudice against priests. On the contrary – my experience of them is that they are kindly, tolerant men, very self-sacrificing and with considerable knowledge of human nature. When you’ve said that, it follows that they are almost invariably good company. This one was decidedly so. Why on earth should I not be ‘nice’ to him?”

“Oh well, you know – you Protestants do have prejudices of the kind,” she answered somewhat lamely.

“But I am not a Protestant.”

“Not a Protestant? I don’t quite understand.”

“Certainly not I don’t protest against anything or anybody. I believe in competition, and if the Catholic Church were to capture this country, or England, or the entire world for that matter, I should reckon that the very fact of doing so would be to establish its claim to the right to do so.”

Woman the apostle – woman the missioner – felt moved to say, “Why don’t you examine her claims to do so, and then aid in furthering them?” But Clare Vidal, looking at the speaker, only quoted to herself, “Thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven.”

“As a matter of fact,” went on Lamont, “I find among Catholics far more tolerance – using the word in its broad, work-a-day sense – than among those belonging to any other creed. By the way – are you one, may I ask?”

“Why, of course.”

“I didn’t know. Well, you must take my opinion – given in utter ignorance of the fact – for what it’s worth. There’s a sort of a Catholic colony near my place at home, and the priest is one of my most valued friends.”

Clare brightened.

“Really?” she said. “How nice. But, Mr Lamont, how is it you live over here? Do you prefer this country to England?”

“I think it prefers me. You see, I can’t afford to live in my own place. It’s dipped – mortgaged, you understand – almost past praying for. So it’s let, and here I am.”

“So that’s why you are here?”

“Yes. The life suits me too. I believe if a miracle were to be worked, and my place started again clear for me, I should still stick out here, or at any rate come out every other year.”

Clare looked at him, and the beautiful Irish eyes, their deep blue framed by thick dark lashes, were sympathetic and soft. She was thinking of the abominable stories Ancram had been spreading about this man; how he had been hounded out of his county for cowardice, and so on. She repeated —

“So that is why you are out here?”

“Of course,” he answered looking at her with mild astonishment. “Why else should I be?”

“Oh no. I hope you don’t think me very inquisitive, Mr Lamont. Why, it really seems as if I were trying to – to ‘pump’ you – isn’t that the word?”

“But such a thought never entered my head. Why should it?”

Clare felt uncomfortable. There was manifestly no answer to be made to this. So she said —

“By the way, who is this Mr Ancram? You knew him at home, didn’t you?”