The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley

“It’s a most infernal place, Ridgeley,” he said gloomily. “It’s overhung by a big krantz, which is a pretty good look-out post, and surrounded by holes and caves you could stow anything away in. I don’t know how we are going to get Mouse back again short of paying through the nose for him. I must sleep on it and think out some plan. That young brute, Nkumbi! I feel quite murderous – as if I could shoot him on sight.”

In view of the late occurrence, Sintoba received instructions to keep watch a part of the night, while Dawes himself took the remainder, not that he thought it at all probable that any attempt at further depredations would be made, still it was best to be on the safe side. And in fact no further attempt was made, and the night in its calm and starry beauty, went by undisturbed.

The place where the waggons were outspanned was open and grassy. Around stretched the wide and rolling veldt; here a conical hillock rising abruptly from the plain, there the precipitous line of a range of mountains. About half a mile from the site of the outspan ran a spruit or watercourse, the bed of which, deep and yawning, now held but a tiny thread of water, trickling over its sandy bottom. The banks of this spruit were thickly studded with bush, and out of them branched several deep dongas or rifts worn out of the soil by the action of the water.

It was a hot morning. The sun blazed fiercely from the cloudless sky, and from the ground there arose a shimmer of heat. Away on the plain the two spans of oxen were dotted about grazing, in charge of one of the leaders, whose dark form could be seen, a mere speck, squatting among the grass. In the shade of one of the waggons, Dawes and Gerard sat, finishing their breakfast, while at a fire some fifty yards off, the natives were busy preparing theirs, stirring the contents of the three-legged pot, and keeping up a continual hum of conversation the while.

“No, I don’t like the look of things at all,” repeated Dawes, beginning to fill his pipe. “It is some days now since we crossed into the Zulu country, and the people hardly come near us. It looks as if all this talk about a war was going to lead to something. I’m afraid they are turning ugly about that boundary question. I meant to have trekked north on the west side of the Blood River, and taken this part of the country on our way back, if we had anything left to trade that is, but with all these reported ructions between the Zulus and Boers in the disputed territory, I reckon we’d be quieter and safer in Zululand proper.”

“How ever will they settle the claim?” said Gerard.

“Heaven only knows. Here we have just annexed the Transvaal, and got nothing for our pains but a bankrupt State whose people hate us, and a lot of awkward liabilities, and not the least awkward is this disputed boundary. If we give it over to the Dutch, Cetywayo is sure to make war on them, and therein comes the fun of our new liability. We shall have to protect them, they being now British subjects, and when we have squashed the Zulus, the Boers will turn on us. If, on the other hand, we give it over to the Zulus, we are giving away half the district of Utrecht, and turning out a lot of people who have been living there for years under what they thought good and sound title from their own government, which doesn’t seem right either. And any middle course will please neither party, and be worse than useless.”

“I suppose, if the truth were known, the Transvaal claim is actually a fraud?”

“I believe it is. They claim that Mpande ceded them the land. Now I don’t believe for a moment the old king would have been such a fool as to do anything of the kind, and even if he had been inclined to for the sake of peace, Cetywayo, who practically held the reins then, would never have let him. Well, if that Commission don’t sit mighty soon, it’ll be no good for it to sit at all, for there’ll be wigs on the green long before.”

“I wonder if we shall ever see poor Mouse again,” said Gerard.

A sound of deep-toned voices and the rattle of assegai hafts caused both to turn. Three Zulus were approaching rapidly. Striding up to the waggons they halted, and gazing fixedly at the two white men, they gave the usual greeting, “Saku bona” – and dropped into a squatting posture. They were fine specimens of humanity, tall and straight. One was a kehla, but the other two were unringed. For clothing they wore nothing but the inevitable mútya. Each was fully armed with large war-shield, knobkerrie, and several murderous looking assegais.

The first greeting over, Gerard asked to look at some of these. With a dry smile one of the warriors handed over his weapons, but to a suggestion that he should trade one or two of them he returned a most emphatic refusal.

“What is the news?” asked Dawes, having distributed some snuff.

“News!” replied the ringed man. “Ou! there is none.”

“Do men travel in such haste to deliver no news?” pursued Dawes, with a meaning glance at the heaving chests and perspiring bodies of the messengers, for such he was sure they were. “But never mind. It is no affair of mine. Yet, do you seek the kraal of the chief, Sirayo? If you do, you might carry my ‘word’ to him.”

The man, after a shade of hesitation, answered that Sirayo’s kraal happened to be their destination. He would carry the “word” of the white trader.

“Tell him then I have lost a horse. If the chief has it found and returned to me, I will send him a bottle of tywala3, a new green blanket, and this much gwai (tobacco), measuring a length of about a yard. I will further send him a long sheath-knife.”

“We hear your words, Umlúngu. They shall be spoken into the ears of the chief. Now we must resume our road, Hlala-ni-gahle!”

With which sonorous farewell the Zulus turned and strode away across the veldt at the same quick and hurried pace as before.

“Just as I told you, Ridgeley,” said Dawes, lighting his pipe with characteristic calmness. “We shall have to pay some sort of blackmail. Lucky if we get Mouse back at all.”

They remained outspanned all day on the same spot. About an hour before sundown two Zulus were seen approaching. They made their appearance suddenly and at no great distance, emerging from the line of scrub which bordered upon the water spruit.

“Hau!” exclaimed Sintoba. “It is Nkumbi-ka-zulu.”

The chief’s son, with his companion, drew near, and greeted those around the waggon in an easy, offhand fashion, as though he were quite willing to forgive and forget any little unpleasantness of the day before. His father, he said, had received Jandosi’s message, and had sent him at once and in all haste to talk about it. He thought the horse might be found, but what Jandosi offered was not quite enough. There were few people at his father’s kraal. Sirayo could not get them to turn out for so little as the promised reward would amount to when divided among the searchers. Now Sirayo’s “word” was this. If Jandosi would offer, say six bottles of tywala– the white tywala that is drunk out of square bottles – to be distributed among the people, together with the gwai and the other things, and a gun and some cartridges for the chief himself, something might be done; in fact, the horse was pretty sure to be found. But the gun was what the chief desired most; and in fact the gun he must have, hinted Nkumbi-ka-zulu, with a grin of hardly concealed triumph.

The barefaced impudence, the open rascality of the demand, would have made the blood boil in the veins of any less even-tempered man than John Dawes. The latter, however, took it quite coolly. But all the while he was thinking out some plan whereby he might recover possession of the horse, and at the same time turn the tables on the rascally old chief and his scamp of a son. To this end, and with a view to gaining time, he engaged the latter in a protracted haggle, and mixed some gin and water for his refreshment. To his surprise, however, Nkumbi-ka-zulu refused the proffered tywala– saying he did not like it. The other Zulu, however, less particular, drained the pannikin to the very last drop, and asked for more.

Would not some knives do instead of the gun? asked Dawes; or a coloured umbrella, anything in fact? The gun was almost a necessary of life, and he could not part with it. He could get another horse from the Boers on the Transvaal border, but not another gun. But Nkumbi-ka-zulu was firm. His father must have a gun, he said. There was nothing else that would be acceptable.

Now while this haggle was in progress one of the spans of oxen, which had been out grazing in charge of the leader of Gerard’s waggon, was being driven leisurely in. Wondering why half the oxen should thus be left behind, Gerard drew off from the talkers, whom he understood but imperfectly, and turned to meet the “boy” in order to learn the reason. But the latter, without seeming to notice his presence, waited until he was quite near, and going behind the animals, so as to be momentarily screened from the group at the waggons, said in a low tone —

“I hashe – La-pa.” (“The horse – over there.”)

The words – the quick side glance towards the line of bush – were sufficient. Gerard’s pulses tingled with excitement, but he refrained from any further questioning. With an effort preserving his self-possession, he strolled leisurely back to the waggon. He took in the situation, and his coolness and promptitude at once suggested a plan.

The remainder of the oxen were in almost the contrary direction to that indicated by the native as being the hiding-place of the stolen horse. Shading his eyes to look at them, he said to Dawes – speaking slowly, and with rather a tired drawl —

“I think I’ll ride out and bring in the oxen. When I’m halfway there, I shall turn and bring in something else. Don’t let these two chaps stir from here till I come back. Hold them here at any price.”

Even the quick observant senses of the two Zulus were baffled by the slow carelessness of the tone. They half started as they saw him fling the saddle on the remaining horse, and ride off; but, noting the direction he took, their suspicions were quite lulled. They dropped back into their easy, good-humoured, half-impudent tone and attitude.

“Well, Jandosi, what do you say?” said the chief’s son. “The sun is nearly down and I must return to my father. Is he to have the gun?”

“I suppose there is no help for it,” replied Dawes. “After all, I can get another gun. But that horse – he is a good horse. Wait, I will see which of the two guns I will give.” And he climbed into the waggon-tent.

“That is the one, Jandosi. The double-barrel. That is the one!” cried Nkumbi-ka-Zulu, half starting to his feet as Dawes reappeared. But he dropped again into his squatting position, with marvellous celerity and a dismayed ejaculation.

This change was brought about by one quick, stern, peremptory word – that and the perception that both barrels were covering him full and point-blank. And behind those barrels shone a pair of steel grey eyes, which the chief’s son knew to go with the coolest brain and steadiest hand on the whole Zulu border.

“Stir a finger, Nkumbi, and you are a dead man!” continued Dawes. “The first of you who moves is dead that moment!”

“Whau!” cried both Zulus, their eyes starting from their heads. But they made no attempt to move, for they knew this white man to be absolutely a man of his word. For a few minutes this singular group remained thus immovable. The cool, resolute white man, and the two savages staring in petrified consternation into the month of the deadly weapon that threatened them. Then, not even the certainty of a swift death could avail to repress the sudden start and half-stifled cry of rage and mortification which escaped them. For Gerard, having covered about half the distance towards the outlying span of oxen had now suddenly turned and was riding back at full gallop towards the line of bush.

“Don’t move – don’t move!” repeated Dawes, and the ominous flash in his eyes was sufficient. Immovable as statues, the two Zulus squatted. Then a sound of distant neighing was heard, and in a few minutes Gerard was seen to emerge from the bushes, leading a second horse. It was the missing Mouse.

Still Dawes did not alter his position, nor did he suffer his prisoners to. He heard his young companion arrive and tie up the horses. He heard him climb into the waggon; then, when he saw him at his side armed with the other gun, he spoke.

“Since when have the Zulu people become thieves, and the son of a chief a common ishinga! (rascal) I have always boasted that in the Zulu country my property was safer than even among my own people, but I can do so no more, since my horse was stolen by the son of a chief, and his father connived at the theft.” The tone, the words, bitter and scathing, seemed to sting them like a lash.

“You have found your horse, not we, Jandosi, that is all,” retorted Nkumbi-ka-zulu with a scowl of sullen hate. “How did we know he was there any more than you did yourself? You have found your horse – be content.”

“I promised your father certain things, Nkumbi, if he found the horse. He has sent it back and I will keep my word. But he deserves to receive nothing at all; nor will I ever again trade in his district.”

Then he lowered his piece and instructed Gerard to fetch out the articles agreed upon. In silence the Zulus received them. Rage and shame was depicted on their countenances, and their efforts to laugh off the situation were a dead failure. Among the Bantu race nothing is more disconcerting than to be caught lying, and these two scions of it felt extremely foolish accordingly.

“Whau! Jandosi,” mocked Nkumbi-ka-zulu. “We are only two, armed with spears and kerries. You have fire-weapons, and four Amakafula. Yet we fear you not. Come forth from your waggons, you alone. Leave the fire-weapons behind and bring sticks, I will meet you hand to hand – man to man – and we will fight it out. I who am only a boy.”

But of this valiant offer John Dawes, who was giving orders to inspan, took no immediate notice. At length he said —

“You will get quite as much fighting as you can well take care of, Nkumbi-ka-zulu, if you go on a little longer on your present tack. And, mark me, anybody who tries to interfere with me will get more than enough. Farewell to you. Trek!”

This last to the drivers. The whips cracked, the drivers yelled, and the waggons rolled ponderously forward. The two Zulus were left standing there a picture of mortification and disgust.

“You’ve got to be firm with these chaps, Ridgeley, once you do have a difference with them,” said Dawes, in his ordinarily self-possessed and careless tone. “Well, it’s lucky we’ve got Mouse back again so cheap. That was really an uncommonly smart idea of yours, and a well-carried out one.”

They trekked on the best part of the night, Gerard and Dawes thoroughly armed. Each rode on horseback, keeping a careful watch lest the treachery of the now exasperated chief should prompt some aggression under cover of night; but none took place. In the morning they beheld two large bodies of Zulus in the distance, marching to the north-westward, and could distinguish the glint of spears, and the echo of their marching song. But on whatever errand these impis were bound, they evinced no desire to molest the trekkers, or even to investigate nearer; in fact, their object seemed to be rather to avoid these latter.

“There’s trouble brewing,” said Dawes, with a grave shake of the head as he watched the impis disappearing over a distant ridge. “Those chaps are bound for the disputed territory, and if they fall foul of the Boers it’ll start the war going in fine style. I don’t like the look of things at all. The sooner we get into Swaziland the better. The Zulu country’s just a trifle too disturbed.”

Chapter Eleven.

A New Terror

Several months later than the events last recorded, a large trek might have been seen, wending its way southward along the rugged bush veldt lying beneath the Lebombo mountains, just outside the Zulu boundary.

It is evening, and the lustrous glow of the setting sun reddens the great precipices of the craggy range, tingeing with vivid gold the green roll of the bush. The lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep and goats are harmoniously mingled on the still and balmy air; and over and above this comes the rumble of the waggons and the occasional crack of a whip. A little duiker-buck springs from his form, to stand a moment, his soft eye dilating, the black tips of his tiny, horns pricked up as he listens, then darts away noiselessly into the scrub. Bright-plumaged birds flash screaming from the path as the unwonted tumult draws near, for not often are they alarmed in this wise, here in their bosky solitudes.

First come a number of cattle, the vari-coloured hides dappling the prevailing green and brown of the veldt; a mixed lot too, for among the small but compact Zulu breed, towering in elephantine proportions above them, is here and there the buffalo-like frame of a Boer trek-ox with its strongly pronounced hump and great branching horns. Cows with their calves, too, are there, and an occasional thrust and clash of horns and angry low betoken the collision of two or more quarrelsome beasts, whom the herd’s kerries, however, avail to pacify even if his voice suffices not. These travel leisurely, feeding as they go, and are in excellent condition. Some little way behind comes a flock of sheep and goats, also feeding as they go, and propelled by as travel-stained and dusty-looking a native as the one who herds the cattle aforesaid. The rear is brought up by two waggons, one behind the other, each drawn by a full span of sixteen oxen. The native driver of each, walking alongside, wields his whip languidly and lazily, and the leader is so tired that he can hardly put one foot before the other, for the day has been a sweltering hot one. Even the two horses fastened behind the last waggon have no elasticity in their step, as with drooping head they plod mechanically on, and the dust hangs in a cloud above the line of march.

Seated in front of the foremost waggon, smoking their pipes, are two white men, also travel-stained and dusty. In one of them we have no difficulty in recognising the weather-tanned lineaments and impassive expression of John Dawes. The other countenance – well, we might have some difficulty in recognising the owner, might excusably hesitate before pronouncing it to be that of our friend, Gerard Ridgeley. Yet he it is.

For those few months of healthy open-air life have done wonders for Gerard – have wrought a greater change in him than the same number of years spent under ordinary conditions would have done. They have, in fact, made a man of him. His frame has broadened and his muscles are set. There is a firm, self-reliant look in his face, now bronzed to the hue of that of John Dawes himself, and he has grown a beard. In short, any one who saw him now would pronounce him to have become a remarkably fine-looking fellow.

By no means all fun has Gerard found that up-country trading trip. Of toil – hard, prosaic, wearying – plenty has come his way. There have been times, for instance, when every muscle has been strained and aching with the labour of digging out the waggons, stuck fast over axle-deep in a mud hole – digging them out only to see them plunge in again deeper than ever; or again in offloading everything, and carrying the whole cargo piecemeal up some short but rugged acclivity impossible to avoid, and up which the great vehicles could only be drawn empty. Half fainting beneath the burning glare of a well-nigh tropical sun – toiling amid the sheeting downpour of days of rain, and that too often on a ration of mealies or hard biscuit, and a little brack or muddy water – he has never yet dreamed of shirking, never complained.

That trek, too, of nearly forty-eight hours over a parched land, where each expected water-hole was a mere surface of cracked and baked mud, and the oxen with hanging tongues and saliva-dropping jaws could hardly pull half a mile per hour, and the night was as brassy as the day, and their wanderings and divergences far and wide in search of the necessary fluid was rewarded with greater exhaustion than ever, and the red surface of the burning veldt stretched grim and forbidding to the sky-line, mocking them now and again with a fair mirage – that terrible time when they sat together on the waggon in silence and wondering what the end would be, or rather when it would be, then, too, no word of complaint had escaped Gerard.

Of dangers too he has borne his share. He can recall the horde of turbulent and aggressive natives crowding round the waggon of which he was in sole charge, when during a whole day his life and the lives of the two “boys” seemed to hang upon a hair, – nights spent in lonely watches, in an insecure and semi-hostile land, expecting the spears of predatory savages in the treacherous darkness. That other night, too, when he was lost in the veldt and had to lie out in the open, with hardly time to construct a hurried enclosure and collect sufficient firewood ere darkness fell, and to this slender protection alone had he been forced to trust for the safety of himself and his horse. Hardly till his dying day will he forget those terrible eyes flaming red in the light of his scanty fire, as a pair of prowling lions roared around his frail breastwork the long night through. These are but some of the dangers, some of the privations which have fallen to his lot. Yet as he looks back upon them all it is regretfully. He cannot feel unqualified satisfaction that the trip is drawing to a close.

For it is drawing to a close. With all its perils and hardships it has been a very fairly successful one, as the sheep and cattle which they are driving before them serve to show. So also do such other articles of barter as can be carried in the waggons, which latter, however, are travelling light; for nearly all the stock-in-trade has been disposed of.

Rumours have from time to time reached them in Swaziland and beyond, with regard to the state of Zulu affairs, and the latest of such reports has moved Dawes to decide to avoid the Zulu country, and re-enter Natal by way of the Transvaal. So to-morrow the southward course will be changed to a westward one, and the trek will be pursued along the north bank of the Pongolo.

During the months our friends had spent up-country, diplomatic relations between the Zulus and the British had become strained to a dangerous tension. Both parties were eyeing each other and preparing for war.

Seated on the waggon as aforesaid, our two friends are talking over the situation.

“We had better give them a wide berth, Ridgeley, until we get all this plunder safe home,” Dawes was saying. “Even now we are nearer the Pongolo than I like, and in the north of Zululand there’s a pretty thorough-paced blackguard or two, in the shape of an outlying chief who wouldn’t think twice of relieving us of all our travelling stock, under colour of the unsettled times – Umbelini, for instance, and that other chap they’re beginning to talk about, Ingonyama; though I don’t altogether believe that cock-and-bull story about the blood-drinking tribe – the Igazipuza. It’s too much like a Swazi lie. Still, I shall be glad when we are safe home again.”

Gerard made no answer beyond a half-absent affirmative. His thoughts were far away. In point of fact, although he looked back regretfully upon his past experiences and adventures, yet he was not entirely sorry that the trip was over. For he had not ceased to think of May Kingsland’s blue eyes and bright winsome face – had not ceased to wonder how the latter would look when he should see it again. And that would be very soon now.

“My word, Ridgeley, but you’ll have some yarns to spin to old Kingsland when we look in upon him on our way,” went on Dawes. “Why, he’ll hardly believe you’re the raw Britisher he was with on board ship! I never saw a fellow take so kindly to roughing it, and things. And you’ve filled out too, and become twice the chap you were all round.”

“I feel that I have,” answered Gerard, with something of a guilty start at the queer coincidence that Dawes’s thoughts should have been located on the same spot as his own. “And whatever this trip has done for me it’s thanks to you. Well, Dawes, I don’t mind telling you that I’m your debtor for life.”