“Oh, that might be arranged. That chap you sent us – Ivondwe – is worth his weight in gold – in fact I never would have believed such a thing as a trustworthy nigger existed, before he came.”
Now I have already put on record that the last thing on earth I desired was Falkner’s company on the expedition I was planning – and the same still held good – and yet – and yet – he was Aïda Sewin’s relative and she seemed to take a great interest in him. Perhaps it was with an idea of pleasing her – or I wonder if it was a certain anxiety as to leaving this young man at her side while I was away myself, goodness knows, but the fact remains that before we reached my place he had extracted from me what was more than half a promise that I would entertain the idea.
And this I knew, even then, was tantamount to an entire promise.
Chapter Eleven.
A Farewell Visit
“Nyamaki has not returned?” queried Tyingoza, who, seated, in his accustomed place under the window of the store, had been taking snuff and chatting about things in general.
“Not that I have heard of,” I answered. “I was at his place but a day or two back. Will he return, Tyingoza?”
“And the young one – he who sits in Nyamaki’s place – does he think he will return?”
What was the object of this answer turned into another question? What was in Tyingoza’s mind? However I replied:
“He is inclined to think not. He thinks his relation has wandered away somewhere – perhaps into the river, and will never be heard of again.”
“Ah! Into the river! Well, that might be, Iqalaqala. Into the river! The ways of you white people are strange, impela!”
Tyingoza, you see, was enigmatical, but then he often was, especially if he thought I was trying to get behind his mind – as he put it. Clearly he was not going to commit himself to any definite opinion regarding the disappearing Hensley.
“Ukozi is in these parts,” I went on.
“Ukozi? Ha! I have not seen him. Did he visit you here?”
“Not here,” I answered, with intent to be as enigmatical as himself.
“Ukozi is a very lion among izanusi. Why do not the white people get him to find Nyamaki?”
“And the practice of an isanusi is not allowed by the white people. How then can they make use of such?” I said.
The chief shrugged his shoulders slightly, and there was a humorous twinkle in his eyes.
“It is as you say, Iqalaqala. Yet their Amapolise cannot find him. You white people know a great deal, but you do not know everything.”
“Now, Tyingoza, I would ask: What people does?”
Then he laughed and so did I, and this was all I got out of my attempt at “pumping” Tyingoza. Yet, not quite all. That suggestion of his as to employing the witch doctor was destined to stick. Afterwards it was destined to come back to me with very great force indeed.
Now I began to shut up the store, early in the day as it was, for I meant to go over to the Sewins. It would be almost my last visit: for the preparations for my trip were nearly complete and in two or three days I proposed to start. Moreover I had received a note from the old Major, couched in a reproachful vein on behalf of his family, to the effect that I was becoming quite a stranger of late, and so forth; all of which went to show that my plan of not giving them more of my company than I thought they could do with – had answered.
“So you are going kwa Zulu directly?” said Tyingoza, as he took his leave. “And not alone. That is a pity.”
He had never referred to Falkner’s practical joke. Now, of course, I thought he was referring to it.
“Well, the boy is only a boy,” I answered. “I will keep him in order once over there, that I promise.”
Again his eyes twinkled, as he bade me farewell with all his usual cordiality.
Not much of this remark did I think, as I took my way down the now well worn bush path, but I own that the idea of employing Ukozi to throw light on the disappearance of Hensley, gave me something to think of – for as I have said before, I had reason to respect the powers claimed – and undoubtedly possessed – by many of his craft. I would put it to Kendrew. It was his affair not mine, and if anyone moved in the matter it should be he.
There was an ominous stillness about the Sewins’ homestead as I approached, and I own to a feeling of considerable disappointment as the thought crossed my mind that the family was away, but reassurance succeeded in the shape of a large white dog, which came rushing furiously down the path, barking in right threatening fashion – only to change into little whines of delight and greeting as it recognised me. This was a factor in the Sewin household which I have hitherto omitted to introduce. He was one of the Campagna breed of sheep herding dogs, and was Aïda’s especial property, she having discovered him as a puppy during a tour in Italy. He was a remarkably handsome beast, pure white, and was of the size and strength of a wolf, to which he bore a strong family likeness. He had honoured me with his friendship from the very first – a mark of favour which he was by no means wont to bestow upon everybody, as his mistress was careful to point out.
“Well, Arlo, old chap. Where are they all?” I said, as the dog trotted before my horse, turning to look back with an occasional friendly whine. As I drew rein in front of the stoep Falkner came forth, looking very handsome and athletic in his snowy linen suit, for it was hot.
“Hallo Glanton, glad to see you,” he said, quite cordially, but in rather a subdued tone for him. “Come round and off-saddle. They’ll be out in a minute, they’re having prayers, you know. I slipped out when I heard your horse.”
It was Sunday, and the Major, I remembered, made a point of reading the church service on that day: in the middle of which I had arrived.
“Tell you what, old chap,” he went on. “I’m rather glad of the excuse. Beastly bore that sort of thing, don’t you know, but the old people wouldn’t like it if I were to cut.”
“Only the old people?” I said.
“No, the whole bilin’ of ’em. Life wouldn’t be worth living for the rest of the day if I didn’t cut in. So I do – just to please them all. See? Well, we’ll go and smoke a pipe till they come out.”
Falkner had pulled out quite a genial stop to play upon for my benefit – but then, I had agreed to take him with me on the trip. On the subject of which he now waxed eloquent. Would we certainly be on the road by Wednesday, and was there anything he could do, and so forth? I was able to reassure him abundantly on these points, and his exuberant delight was like that of a schoolboy on the eve of the holidays, causing me to think to myself rather sadly, that were I in his shoes, with a home like this, and the society of sweet, refined English ladies for my daily portion, I would not be in the least eager to exchange it for the roughness and ups and downs of a trading trip and the kraals of savages. But then after all, there was a considerable difference in our years, and my experience was a good deal behind me, whereas his was not.
Soon the family came out, and I was received with all the accustomed cordiality, and rather more. Why had I not been near them for so long, especially as I was about to go away for quite a considerable time, and so forth? I began to feel self-reproachful, as I thought of my motive, but it was not easy to find an excuse, the usual “rather busy,” and when I tried I could see Aïda Sewin’s clear eyes reading my face, and there was the faintest glimmer of a smile about her lips that seemed to say plainly: “I don’t believe a word of it.”
“So you’re going to take this fellow with you after all, Glanton,” said the Major as we sat down to lunch. “Well, you’ll have a handful, by Jove you will! I hope you’ll keep him in order, that’s all.”
“Oh he’ll be all right, Major,” I said. “And the experience won’t do him any harm either.”
“Don’t you go trying any more experiments at the expense of the chiefs’ head-rings up there, Falkner,” said Edith, the younger girl.
“Oh shut up,” growled Falkner. “That joke’s a precious stale one. I seem to be getting ‘jam and judicious advice’ all round, by Jove!”
“Well, and you want it – at any rate the advice – only you never take it,” was the retort.
“Nobody ever does, Miss Edith,” I said, coming to his rescue. “Advice is one of those commodities people estimate at its own cost – nothing to wit; and set the same value upon it.”
“Now you’re cynical, Mr Glanton,” she answered, “and I don’t like cynical people.”
“That’s a calamity, but believe me, I’m not naturally so. Why I rather set up for being a philanthropist,” I said.
“You certainly are one, as we have every reason to know,” interposed her sister.
I felt grateful but foolish, having no mind to be taken seriously. But before I could stutter forth any reply, which was bound to have been an idiotic one, she went on, tactfully:
“For instance that boy you sent us – Ivondwe. Why he’s a treasure. Everything has gone right since he came. He can talk English, for one thing.”
“Can he? That’s an accomplishment I should never have given him credit for, and I don’t know that it’s altogether a recommendation. You know, we don’t care for English-speaking natives. But you mustn’t talk it to him, Miss Sewin. You must talk to him in the vernacular. How are you getting on, by the way?”
“Oh, indifferently. You might have given me a little more help, you know.”
The reproach carried its own sting. Of course I might. What an ass I was to have thrown away such an opportunity.
“Yes, he’s a first-rate boy, Glanton,” said the Major. “I don’t know what we should do without him now.”
“You haven’t started in to punch his head yet, eh Falkner?” I said, banteringly, rather with the object of turning attention from my share in this acquisition.
“The curious part of it is that Arlo won’t take to him,” went on Miss Sewin. “He’s on perfectly good terms with the other boys but he seems to hate this one. Not that Ivondwe isn’t kind to him. He tries all he can to make friends with him but it’s no good. Arlo won’t even take food from him. Now why is this?”
“I’m afraid that’s beyond me,” I answered, “unless it is that the instinct of a dog, like that of a horse, isn’t quite so supernaturally accurate as we accustom ourselves to think.”
This was a subject that was bound to start discussion, and animated at that – and soon I found myself in somewhat of a corner, the ladies, especially, waxing warm over the heretical insinuation I had made. Then the Major, drawing on his experiences as a cavalry officer, took my side on the subject of equine intelligence, or lack of it, and Falkner took up the impartial advocate line, and we were all very jolly and merry through it all, and certainly conversation did not lag.
Lunch over, the Major announced his intention of having forty winks, and the rest of us adjourned to the stoep, and roomy cane chairs.
“One thing I like about this country,” pronounced Falkner, when he had got a cigar in full blast, and was lounging luxuriously in a hammock – a form of recumbency I detest – “and that is that provided you’re in the shade you can always sit out of doors. Now in India you can’t. It’s a case of shaded rooms, and chiks, and a black beast swinging a punkah – whom you have to get up and kick every half-hour when he forgets to go on – till about sundown. Here it’s glorious.”
I was inclined to share his opinion, and said so. At the same time there came into my mind the full consciousness that the glorification here lay in the peculiar circumstances of the case – to wit the presence and companionship of these two sweet and refined girls. The elder was in creamy white, relieved by a flower or two, which set off her soft dark beauty to perfection; the other was garbed in some light blue gossamer sort of arrangement which matched her eyes and went wonderfully with her golden hair, and ladies, if you want anything more definitely descriptive I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed, for what do I, Godfrey Glanton, trader in the Zulu, know about such awesome and wondrous mysteries? I only know – and that I do know – when anything appeals to me as perfect and not to be improved upon – and the picture which these two presented certainly did so appeal.
Outside, the blaze of sunlight – rich, full, and golden, without being oppressive or overpowering – lay slumbrous upon the sheeny roll of foliage. Here and there the red face of a krantz gleamed like bronze, and away on a distant spur the dark ring of a native kraal sent upward its spiral of blue smoke. Bright winged little sugar birds flitted familiarly in and out among the passion flower creeper which helped to shade the stoep, quite unaffected by our presence and conversation – though half scared temporarily as a laugh would escape Falkner or myself. Striped butterflies hovered among the sunflowers in front, and the booming hum of large bees mingled with the shriller whizz of long-waisted hornets sailing in and out of their paper-like nests under the roof – and at these if they ventured too low, Arlo, whose graceful white form lay curled up beside his mistress’ chair, would now and again fling up his head with a vicious snap. The scene, the hour, was one of the most perfect and restful peace: little did we think, we who sat there, enjoying it to the full, what of horror and dread lay before us ere we should look upon such another.
Chapter Twelve.
The Mystery of the Waterhole
Suddenly Arlo sprang up, barking furiously.
“Shut up, you brute,” growled Falkner, for this sudden interruption had, as he put it, made him jump. But the dog heeded him not, as he sprang up and rushed down the steps still giving vehement tongue.
“Be quiet, Arlo, do you hear!” ordered his mistress. “It’s only Ivondwe.”
The calm clear voice commanded obedience where Falkner’s bluster did not. To the furious barking succeeded a series of threatening growls, not loud but deep. In the midst of which the innocent cause of the disturbance appeared, smiling, and as little perturbed by this sudden and rather formidable onslaught, as though it were a matter of an ordinary kraal cur.
To the physiognomist this Ivondwe was a remarkably prepossessing native – rather handsome in the good-looking style of his race. He had a pleasant, open countenance, good-humoured withal, and when he smiled it would be hard to equal his display of magnificent white teeth. Though somewhat past his first youth and the owner of a couple of wives he did not wear the head-ring; for he was fond of earning money in doing spells of work for white men, such as waggon driving, or the sort of job on which he was now engaged: and this being so he held, and perhaps rightly, that the ring would not be exactly in keeping. I had known him well for some time and had always had a high opinion of him.
Now he saluted, and addressing himself to Falkner, in very fair English, asked leave to go over to a neighbouring kraal after the cattle were in. There was a merrymaking there, on the strength of the wedding of someone or other of his numerous kinsfolk.
“So, Ivondwe,” I said, in the vernacular, when he had got his answer. “So you speak with the tongue of the Amangisi, and I knew it not?”
He laughed.
“That is so, Iqalaqala,” he answered. “Yet it is well for Umsindo, who is long since tired of talking to deaf ones. Au! How shall he talk yonder —kwa Majendwa?”
Umsindo, meaning a man who is given to swagger, was Falkner’s native name, though he didn’t know it.
“That we shall see,” I said. “It may be that by then his tongue will have become loosened. But now, while he is away you must do well by these here. They treat you well, and their hands are very open – so open that soon you will be for building a new hut.”
He laughed, and owned that such might indeed be the case. All the while the great white dog was walking up and down behind him, eyeing his calves and snarling malevolently.
“The dog,” I went on. “He is very unfriendly towards you. Why?”
“Who may say? The dogs of the white people are seldom friendly to us, and our dogs are seldom friendly to the whites. And this dog is very white.”
I got out a large native snuff tube I always carried, and gave him some.
“Come up to Isipanga before we start,” I said. “I have a present there for him who should serve these faithfully.”
“You are my father, Iqalaqala,” and with this formula of thanks, he once more saluted and went his way.
“What have you been talking about all this time?” said Edith Sewin. “By the way isn’t it extraordinary that Arlo won’t take to Ivondwe? Such a good boy as he is, too.”
“Perhaps he’s a thundering great scoundrel at bottom,” said Falkner, “and Arlo’s instinct gets below the surface.”
“Who’s a thundering great scoundrel at bottom, Falkner?” said Mrs Sewin’s voice in the doorway.
“Eh. Oh come now, aunt. You mustn’t use these slang terms you know. Look, you’re shocking Glanton like anything.”
“You’ll shock him more for an abominably rude boy who pokes fun at his elders,” laughed the old lady. “But come in now and have tea. What a lovely afternoon it is – but a trifle drowsy.”
“Meaning that somebody’s been asleep,” rejoined Falkner mischievously, climbing out of his hammock. “Oh well. So it is. Let’s go for a stroll presently or we shall all be going to sleep. Might take the fishing lines and see what we can get out of the waterhole.”
“Fishing lines? And it’s Sunday,” said Mrs Sewin, who was old fashioned.
“Oh I forgot. Never mind the lines. We can souse Arlo in and teach him to dive.”
“We can do nothing of the kind,” said Arlo’s owner, decisively. “He came within an ace of splitting his poor dear head the last time you threw him in, and from such a height too. What do you think of that, Mr Glanton?” turning to me. And then she gave me the story of how Falkner had taken advantage of the too obedient and confiding Arlo – and of course I sympathised.
When we got fairly under way for our stroll – I had some difficulty by the bye in out-manoeuvring the Major’s efforts to keep me pottering about listening to his schemes as to his hobby – the garden to wit – the heat of the day had given place to the most perfect part of the same, the glow of the waning afternoon, when the sun is but one hour or so off his disappearance. We sauntered along a winding bush path, perforce in single file, and soon, when this widened, I don’t know how, but I found myself walking beside Miss Sewin.
I believe I was rather silent. The fact is, reason myself out of it as I would, I was not in the least anxious to leave home, and now that it had come to the point would have welcomed any excuse to have thrown up the trip. Yet I was not a millionaire – very far from it – consequently money had to be made somehow, and here was a chance of making quite a tidy bit – making it too, in a way that to myself was easy, and absolutely congenial. Yet I would have shirked it. Why?
“What is preoccupying your thoughts to such an alarming extent,” said my companion, flashing at me a smile in which lurked a spice of mischief. “Is it the cares and perils of your expedition – or what?”
“By Jove – I must apologise. You must find me very dull, Miss Sewin,” I answered, throwing off my preoccupation as with an effort. “The fact is I believe I was thinking of something of the kind – ruling out the ‘perils.’ Do you know, I believe you’ve all been rather spoiling me here – spoiling me, I mean, for – well, for my ordinary life. But – anyhow, the memory of the times I have known lately – of days like this for instance – will be something to have with one, wherever one is.”
I was stopped by a surprised look in her face. Her eyes had opened somewhat, as I had delivered myself of the above rather lame declamation. Yet I had spoken with quite an unwonted degree of warmth, when contrasted with my ordinary laconic way of expressing myself. “Good Lord!” I thought, “I seem to be getting sentimental. No wonder she thinks I’ve got softening of the brain.”
But if she thought so she gave no sign of anything of the sort. On the contrary her tone was kind and sympathetic, as she said:
“Strange how little we can enter into the lives of others. Now yours, I suppose, is lonely enough at times.”
“Oh, I’ve nothing to complain of,” I answered with a laugh, anxious to dispel any impression of sentimentality which my former words and tone might have set up. “I started on this sort of life young, and have been at it in one way or another ever since. It hasn’t used me badly, either.”
She looked at me, with that straight, clear glance, and again a little smile that was rather enigmatical, hovered around her lips. But before she could say anything, even if she had intended to, Falkner’s voice was raised in front.
“Wake up, Aïda, and come along. I’m just going to heave Arlo in.”
“No. You’re not to,” she cried hurrying forward.
The others had already reached the waterhole, and there was Falkner, on the rock brink, holding on to Arlo, grinning mischievously. The dog was licking his hands, and whining softly, his tail agitating in deprecatory wags. He wasn’t in the least anxious for the plunge – and speaking personally I should have been uncommonly sorry to have undertaken to make him take it against his will, but then Falkner was one of the family. Now there was a half playful scrimmage between him and his cousin, in the result of which Arlo was rescued from taking what really was rather a high leap, and frisked and gambolled around us in delight.
This waterhole or pool, was rather a curious one. It filled a cup-like basin about twenty-five yards across, surrounded by precipitous rocks save at the lower end, and here, overflowing, it trickled down to join the Tugela, about half a mile distant. It was fed from a spring from above, which flowed down a gully thickly festooned with maidenhair fern. Where we now stood, viz. at the highest point, there was a sheer drop of about twenty feet to the surface of the water – a high leap for a dog, though this one had done it two or three times and had come to no harm. The hole was of considerable depth, and right in the centre rose a flat-headed rock. It was a curious waterhole, as I said, and quite unique, and I more than suspected, though I could never get anything definite out of them, that the natives honoured it with some sort of superstitious regard. Incidentally it held plenty of coarse fish, of no great size, likewise stupendous eels – item of course mud-turtles galore.
“Hie in, old dog! Hie in!” cried Falkner.
But Arlo had no intention whatever of “hie-ing in,” being in that sense very much of an “old dog.” He barked in response and frisked and wagged his tail, the while keeping well beyond reach of Falkners treacherous grasp.
“Rum place this, Glanton,” said the latter. “I wonder there ain’t any crocs in it.”
“How do you know there are not?” I said.
“Oh hang it, what d’you mean? Why we’ve swum here often enough, haven’t we?”
“Not very. Still – it’s jolly deep you know. There may be underground tunnels, connecting it with anywhere?”
“Oh hang it. I never thought of that. What a chap you are for putting one off a thing, Glanton.”
“I never said there were, mind. I only suggested the possibility.”
He raised himself on one elbow, and his then occupation – shying stones at every mud-turtle that showed an unwary head – was suspended.
“By Jove! Are there any holes like this round Hensley’s place?” he said earnestly.
“Not any,” I answered. “This one is unique; hence its curiosity.”
“Because, if there were, that might account for where the old chap’s got to. Underground tunnels! I never thought of that, by Jove. What d’you think of that, Edith? Supposing you were having a quiet swim here, and some jolly croc grabbed you by the leg and lugged you into one of those underground tunnels Glanton says there are. Eh?” grinned Falkner, who was fond of teasing his cousins.
“I wouldn’t be having a quiet swim in it, for one thing. I think it’s a horrid place,” answered the girl, while I for my part, mildly disclaimed having made any such statement as that which he had attributed to me.
“Bosh!” he declared. “Why you can take splendid headers from the middle rock there. Oh – good Lord!”
The exclamation was forcible, and to it was appended a sort of amazed gasp from all who saw. And in truth I was not the least amazed of the lot. For there was a disturbance in the depths of the pool. One glimpse of something smooth, and sinuous, and shiny – something huge, and certainly horrible – was all we obtained, as not even breaking the surface to which it rose, the thing, whatever it might be – sank away from sight.
“What was it?”
“Can’t say for certain,” I said, replying to the general query. “It didn’t come up high enough to take any shape at all. It might have been a big python lying at the bottom of the hole, and concluding it had lain there long enough came up, when the sight of us scared it down again. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a crocodile.”
“Tell you what, Glanton. You don’t catch me taking any more headers in there again in a hurry,” said Falkner. “Ugh! If we’d only known!”
“There is prestige in the unknown,” I said. “It may be something quite harmless – some big lizard, or a harmless snake.”
“Well it’s dashed odd we should just have been talking of that very sort of thing,” said the Major. “Let’s keep quiet now and watch, and see if it comes up again.”
We did, but nothing came of it. Indeed if I alone had seen the thing I should have distrusted my senses, should have thought my imagination was playing me false. But they had all seen it.
“I shall come down here again with the rifle and watch for an hour or two a day,” said Falkner. “Or how would it be to try bait for the beast, whatever it is – eh, Glanton?”
“Well you might try to-morrow. Otherwise there isn’t much time,” I answered. “We trek on Wednesday, remember.”
Now all hands having grown tired of sitting there, on the watch for what didn’t appear, a homeward move was suggested, and duly carried out. We had covered a good part of the distance when Miss Sewin made a discovery, and an unpleasant one. A gold coin which was wont to hang on her watch chain had disappeared.
“I must go back,” she said. “I wouldn’t lose that coin for anything. You know, Mr Glanton, I have a superstition about it.”
She went on to explain that she had it at the time we had seen the disturbance in the waterhole so that it must have come off on the way down, even if not actually while we were on the rocks up there. Of course I offered to go back and find it for her, but she would not hear of it. She must go herself, and equally of course I couldn’t let her go alone. Would I if I could? Well, my only fear was that Falkner would offer his escort. But he did not, only suggesting that as it was late it was not worth while bothering about the thing to-night. He would be sure to find it in the morning when he came up with a rifle to try and investigate the mystery of the pool. But she would not hear of this. She insisted on going back, and – I was jubilant.
I knew the coin well by sight. It was of heavy unalloyed gold, thickly stamped with an inscription in Arabic characters. But, as we took our way along the bush path, expecting every moment to catch the gleam of it amid the dust and stones, nothing of the sort rewarded our search, and finally we came to the rocks at the head of the pool.
“This is extraordinary and more than disappointing,” she said, as a hurried glance around showed no sign of the missing coin. “I know I had it on here because I was fingering it while we were looking at the water. I wouldn’t have lost it for anything. What can have become of it, Mr Glanton? Do you think it can have fallen into the water?”
“That, of course, isn’t impossible,” I said. “But – let’s have another search.”
I was bending down with a view to commencing this, when a cry from Aïda arrested me.
“Oh, there it is. Look.”
She was standing on the brink of the rocks where they were at their highest above water, peering over. Quickly I was at her side, and following her glance could make out something that glittered. It was in a crevice about five feet below, but as for being able to make it out for certain, why we could not. The crevice was narrow and dark.
“I think I can get at that,” I said, having taken in the potentialities of hand and foothold.
“No – no,” she answered. “I won’t have it. What if you were to fall into the water – after what we have just seen? No. Leave it till to-morrow, and bring a rope.”
This was absolutely sound sense, but I’ll own to a sort of swagger, show-off, inclination coming into my mind. The climb down was undoubtedly risky, but it would be on her account.
“As to that,” I answered with a laugh, “even if I were to tumble in, I should make such an almighty splash as to scare the father of all crocodiles, or whatever it is down there. By the time he’d recovered I should be out again on the other side.”
“Don’t risk it,” she repeated earnestly. “Leave it till to-morrow. With a long reim you can easily get down.”
But I was already partly over the rock. In another moment I should have been completely so, with the almost certain result, as I now began to realise, of tumbling headlong into the pool below, when a diversion occurred. Arlo, who had been lying at his mistress’ feet, now sprang up, and charged furiously at the nearest line of bush, barking and growling like mad.