Forging the Blades: A Tale of the Zulu Rebellion

Chapter Nineteen.
The Forest

“And all this time we have been forgetting our picnic,” reminded Verna merrily.

They undid the saddle bags and spread out the contents. Nothing had been forgotten, for had not she herself packed them?

“Why, this might be an up-the-river jaunt,” said Denham, as the appetising daintiness of each article of food revealed itself. And then these two healthy people, realising perfectly that there is a time for the material as well as for the romantic, fell-to with a will.

Not much was said as they took the homeward way; for one thing, it is difficult to converse when you are riding single file, and to keep a bright look out for projecting boughs or tangling trailers calculated to sweep you from your saddle in summary and unpleasant fashion at the same time. Yet there was a glow of happiness in the hearts of both, that could do without words. Again, as on their way forth, Denham was contemplating his guide with feelings of intense admiration and love; but now, superadded, the exultation of security. And yet – we have said that he was a singularly modest man, for one of his personal gifts and material advantages – he still found himself wondering what a woman like this could see in him.

“You’re not conversational, Alaric,” said Verna, over her shoulder. “What’s the subject of the meditation?”

“I ought to answer ‘you – and you only,’ but it wouldn’t be true. The fact is, I have been obliged to divide contemplation of you with an enduring and superhuman effort to save myself from dangling – an executed corpse – from any one of these confounded trailers.”

She laughed – merrily, happily.

“Well, I can’t spare you yet. Look! the stuff’s thinning here. You can come alongside again.”

Hardly had he done so than both horses cocked their ears, snuffing uneasily.

“Why, what is it?” exclaimed Denham, rising in his stirrups to peer forward. “By Jove! It’s a skeleton. Let’s investigate.”

He dismounted, and helped Verna from the saddle. They were careful to hitch up the horses, and then went forward.

As Denham had said, it was a skeleton, or rather what was left of one. The skull was separated from the trunk and the dry rib-bones were mostly scattered, while those of the limbs still held together. But just beside it was the unmistakable remnant of what had been a fire, and a large one at that.

“What does it mean?” said Denham. “Some poor devil got lost, and died of starvation beside his own fire?”

Verna shook her head. She was gazing down thoughtfully at the white bones and their surroundings.

“That’s not the reading of it,” she said. “That’s no white man’s skull. Look at the teeth. Further, its owner’s end was not starvation.”

“How knowest thou that, O Sherlock Holmes up to date?” Denham had picked up the skull and was examining it with interest. “At any rate, he didn’t die from a bang on the head.”

“No; but he was killed, all the same, by others.”

“Sherlock Holmes again. Go on.”

“Well, no self-respecting native with the fear of Inswelaboya and other horrors of the night before his eyes, that is to say, any native, would dream of coming in here alone for anything you could offer him.”

“Wait a bit, Sherlock,” laughed the other. “I think I’ve got you on one point. You said ‘horrors of the night.’ How do you know it was night?”

“I deduce it from the size of the fire. Such a big one as it was would never have been built in the daytime. There must have been several in it; the ground is too dry for tracks to show, but for some reason or other this one has been killed by the rest.”

“Verna, you are simply wonderful. Talk about woodcraft!”

She looked pleased.

“Well,” she said, “I know the people and their ways. Not only that” – looking rather serious – “I hear and overhear things that you wouldn’t understand, or rather wouldn’t be able to get behind even if you had a fair amount of the language at your disposal, and you’re not making a bad progress under my poor tuition, Alaric.”

“Delighted. Only it isn’t ‘poor.’”

She made laughing rejoinder, and these two happy people talked on lightly, or half seriously by turns, rejoicing ill their newly-welded happiness. And the skull stared drearily up from the ground, sad relic of a fellow-creature done to death here in the forest gloom amid every circumstance of torment and blood.

“Hallo! what’s the matter with the gees?” said Denham suddenly. “They seem unhappy about something, and it can’t be only about this old skull.”

For the horses were showing great uneasiness, snorting and snuffing and striving to free themselves.

“They’ve seen or scented something,” pronounced Verna.

“Well, we’d better investigate,” said Denham, holding ready the small bore, yet hard-hitting, rifle he had brought with him in view of “specimens,” and advancing in the direction to which the horses’ fears pointed. “Keep back, Verna. It may be a snake or a leopard.”

Hardly were the words uttered than a serpentine head and neck of a dull yellow colour rose up out of the herbage, then subsided, with a half-startled hiss. Denham felt his sleeve plucked, as though to arrest his advance.

“Leave it, and come away,” Verna whispered. “It’s the indhlondhlo. They’re frightfully dangerous.”

“Leave it?” he whispered back. “Why, it’s the very thing I’ve been hoping to come upon all these weeks! Leave it? Not for anything.”

“Not for me?”

“For you? Wait a bit, Verna, and follow my plan. You’ll see something directly. Take the rifle” – handing it to her – “go a few yards back, and when I clench my open hand behind me, like this, shoot. Aim at the lowest part of the neck so as not to spoil the skin. But don’t make any sudden movement whatever you do.”

His nerves were thrilling now with excitement suppressed but intense. All the “collector” was predominant; he only saw before him the “specimen,” the rare “specimen,” which he had coveted so long in vain. Dangerous! Well, many wild animals were that, but they were “collected” all the same.

“But I warn you it’s deadly dangerous,” she repeated; yet she carried out his orders implicitly.

Denham began to whistle in a low, but exquisitely clear tone. This he raised gradually, but always continuous, and never sounding a false note. The effect was magical. The yellow head and neck shot up again above the herbage, waved a moment, then remained perfectly still. No hissing or hostile sign proceeded from the entranced reptile, for entranced it certainly was. Verna waiting, the rifle held ready, was entranced too, and as those sweet, clear notes swelled by degrees higher and higher to sink in faultlessly harmonised modulation, then to rise again, something of an eerie magnetism thrilled through her being as though she shared the influence with the formidable and deadly reptile thus held in thrall. Moments seemed hours. Would he never give the signal? A little more of this and even her nerves would be too much strung to reply to it.

The melody rose higher and higher, but always correspondingly clear. More of the reptile’s length towered up now. Without taking her eyes off it, Verna saw the hand behind Denham close. Her finger pressed the trigger. The yellow neck flung back with a quick, whip-like movement, and there was a rustling among the herbage which told its own tale.

“Did you hit?” whispered Denham, without turning his head.

“Oh yes; you can never make any mistake about that when you’re behind a rifle. But – ”

She broke off in amazement. The other had gone quite white, or at any rate as white as his bronze sunburn would allow. He seemed aware of it himself.

“You did it magnificently,” he said, passing a hand over his eyes as though to clear them. “You know,” he went on, half in apology, half in explanation, “that sort of thing takes it out of one. It isn’t only the musical part of it. A certain amount of magnetism, of expenditure of force, comes in. But let’s inspect the quarry.”

“Careful, dearest. We’d better make sure it’s quite dead. They are frightfully venomous.”

“Wherefore you want to take the lead,” flinging a restraining arm around her. “That won’t do at all.”

But all danger was over. Verna’s bullet had severed the spinal cord. The reptile was dead, but the muscular vitality kept its coils writhing in a manner suggestive of lingering life. All the collector again was uppermost in Denham as he contemplated the writhing booty. He saw it already carefully and naturally set up in his museum.

“Can’t be less than seven feet,” he said, turning it about gingerly with a stick. “But, darling, what a dead shot you are! All my best specimens you obtain for me.”

“But I shouldn’t have obtained this one if you hadn’t kept it still in the first instance. Alaric, you never told me you added snake-charming to your other accomplishments. Do you know, though, if it had been anybody else I should have thought it decidedly uncanny. Have you done much of it?”

“Only tried it once before in my life. Then it came to me as a sudden idea. I thought I’d experimentalise again in this instance. I happen to be able to whistle rather above the average, so I was always careful to keep the note clear. I had a sort of feeling that the least break would destroy the spell at once. By the way, think there’s another anywhere about? – they say snakes go in couples.”

“No, no, no!” she answered, instinctively slipping a restraining hand beneath his arm. “Be content with this one. Besides, we have got to get it home.”

“So we have, by Jove!” with a glance up at the sun. “Now let me think of the best way to work. The horses won’t stick it near them, I’m afraid. But this is worth having, and no mistake. They grow larger than this, though, don’t they, Verna?”

“Yes,” she answered, with a touch of anxiety. “But they are very rare and very dangerous. A snake isn’t like a lion or anything of that sort. He’s about ten times as quick, and offers no mark for a bullet, and if you use shot you spoil the skin. No; be content with this one.”

“Why, you sworn big-game huntress, you talk with weighty wisdom. Now I am still debating the difficult problem of how to get this specimen home.”

“Nkose! Nkosazana!”

Both started. In their preoccupation they had been totally unaware of the presence of any third person. They looked up to become aware of the presence of such, in the person of a tall Zulu, and he Mandevu. The appearance of the latter caused Denham some vague uneasiness. It seemed as though this man were dogging him. The next words were not calculated to allay the feeling.

“That was a great snake,” he said, “and well killed. Whau! when last I saw a snake bewitched like that it was not so well killed, it was cut nearly in half. Nkose must be isanusi to have the power of keeping a snake – two snakes – still in such wise.”

Verna translated this for Denham’s benefit, and translated it well, word for word. Inwardly it puzzled her a little, for it seemed to convey some hidden meaning. But to her companion the words were disquieting, to say the least of it, and more than ever confirmed the idea that the Zulu was following him from place to place with a purpose.

“Tell him, Verna,” he said, “that I want this taken home. If he has any boys he can fetch them along, and they shall be well paid, nor will I forget himself.”

This was put. Mandevu thought he could find the boys – there was a kraal a little way off. He would see. This Verna knew to be absolutely untrue, but Denham was delighted. He presented Mandevu with a half-sovereign, intimating that there was more where that came from when the service required should be accomplished. That worthy strode off into the forest on the spot.

Verna was rather silent as they sat and waited. That curious instinctive consciousness of being watched or followed was upon her. She did not believe that Mandevu had come upon them by mere chance or that he was alone. She remembered their meeting with him near Sapazani’s kraal, and also that Denham had run against him twice at Ezulwini. Now if they, or either of them, were being watched, to what end? And here she owned herself puzzled.

Presently Mandevu reappeared with two boys. Meanwhile Denham had been doctoring his prize with some subtle chemical substance by way of preservative. He did not notice that none of them looked in the direction of the skeleton, plainly visible from there. He was too intent upon his new find. But Verna did. However, as she had said, she knew the people, so forbore to remark upon it. Yet a muttered exclamation on the part of one of the two did not escape her.

“Whau! The snake of Sebela! It, too, is dead.”

And hearing it, a good deal of the mystery of the skeleton was solved. For she had known Sebela – alive. The forest had its secrets. Its shades witnessed scenes intensely human – dark as well as golden.

Chapter Twenty.
Sergeant Dickinson’s Find

Meanwhile some curious and somewhat startling circumstances were developing. Sergeant Dickinson, N.P., stationed at Makanya, was – as we heard Harry Stride say in substance – an astute officer. So astute was he as to render him unpopular with a section of the natives, and notably with those who were disaffected. Twice, indeed, had his life been attempted by these, but with firm faith in the proverb, “Threatened men live long,” such attempts had not seriously affected him. They were “all in the day’s work,” and only served to create a little excitement in an otherwise rather monotonous round.

Harry Stride’s find of the saddle below the Bobi drift had come to him as a godsend. Could he work up a case out of it? He thought about it a good deal, and round and round; but this was after he had started with one of the four troopers under his command on a patrol immediately, and the two were threading the several hours of difficult and rugged forest path in the direction of the find.

He had no difficulty in locating the exact spot. Stride’s description had been lucid and accurate – the drift itself, of course, was well-known to him.

“The thing to do, Symes,” he said, “is to examine both banks right the way down. If the saddle was here there may be other things further on. We’ll take this side first.”

Carefully Dickinson quartered the river bank, the trooper leading both horses. It was rough going, but both were young and hard. Suddenly the trooper exclaimed —

“Look there, Dickinson!”

He was pointing to the other side. Something like a strip of clothing was fluttering from a bush hardly above water level. When the river was higher it would have been beneath it.

Now a strip of clothing in that position, amid the wildest part of the very wild Makanya forest, was a thing to attract attention. The natives frequently wore clothes, it was true; still, under the circumstances Sergeant Dickinson thought it worthy of note. And just as he had so decided, something else caught his attention.

“Symes,” he said quickly, “I’m going to swim across. I fancy there’s something worth finding on the other side.”

“Swim across?” said Symes, with an expletive. “I wouldn’t. The river’s full of blooming crocs.”

“I know. But we’ll give ’em a holy scare first.”

“Why not ride round by the blanked drift and come down the bank?” said Trooper Symes. “This is a plaguy rotten deep hole.”

“Because of that krantz. It comes right down to the water, and to dodge it means the devil’s own delay getting here. And if what I see is what I think, why, every minute is important.”

He had thrown off his tunic – he knew better than to throw off all his clothes to swim a crocodile-infested river, for with this obnoxious saurian, as with the wily shark, experience goes to show that a clothed man is safer than an unclothed one; possibly there is something alarming in the artificiality of his clothes – or is it the bad fit of his tailor? Now he drew his revolver and so did the trooper. Both fired several shots into the water at various points.

“But what in blazes d’you think you do see?” said Symes.

“I’ll tell you when I get to the other side,” and Sergeant Dickinson took the water with a mighty splash.

It was not very wide there, though smooth and deep. A few long, strong strokes and the swimmer was on the other side, holding his revolver holster high above water in one hand, for he of all people did not care to be unarmed in that locality.

Eagerly, excitedly, he climbed up the bank. An exclamation of satisfaction mingled with utter disgust escaped him.

“Symes,” he called out. “You’ve got to go back to camp as hard as you can push your horse; hitch mine up to the bush yonder, but firmly. Get my kodak – see it’s not been used since I filled it yesterday – and then get back here as hard as ever you can.”

“Kodak! I’m blanked! You might let on what you’ve found,” grumbled Symes.

“It’s a head, man, a white man’s head. I can’t bring it across the river, it’s in such a disgusting condition that the damn thing’d tumble to pieces. Ugh! Must take its likeness to establish identity. So put your best leg forward.”

Trooper Symes at once laid himself out to sustain the traditional reputation of his rank. He swore.

“Don’t blab the affair in camp,” called out his superior, as he started.

The latter, left alone, began eagerly, with his investigations. Anything more revolting than the aspect of his find can hardly be imagined. Yet considering that it must have been in the water several days, and several more since it had been stranded through the subsidence of the river, it was surprising in what a recognisable state the swollen features were. Yet, the horror and repulsion of this revolting sight was merged in Dickinson’s professional exultation as he examined it long and attentively. It had not been severed by any sharp instrument, but presented the appearance of having been torn off. This pointed to the agency of crocodiles. Yet why had they left it? Here was a mystery to be unearthed, a clue to go upon. Here was the corpus delicti. The bullet hole in the broken saddle which Stride had brought him was another link in the chain. Were there no others?

First there was the strip of clothing which he had seen from the other side. It he examined. It was of khaki-like material, something akin to that employed for the uniform of the Force, and yet different. Ah, what was this? Trailing in the river was the fragment of a coat, hitched to a thorn. In his eagerness to get at it he nearly fell into the water.

There was a pocket. Eagerly the sergeant’s hand investigated this, only to come in contact with what seemed a mass of pulp. He drew it forth. It slipped through his fingers and fell into the river – once it had been papers, but the immersion had reduced it to pulp, yet not quite all of it so escaped. One fragment remained, and it seemed to have been part of an extra strong envelope. This he examined eagerly. It bore a blurred and faded scrawl, most of which had entirely disappeared. By dint of the most patient and careful scrutiny Dickinson succeeded in making out —

H. Gold

Box

Jo

The rest had gone with the other fragment of the envelope – had run off to pulp.

“H. Gold – something. Box – something. Jo – hannesburg,” was how he pieced this scanty clue together. “Well, Johannesburg is all ‘gold,’ or it’s supposed to be,” and he grinned to himself at this lame joke. “But I wonder what’s the other half of the name – Goldstein or Goldschmidt, or Goldberg or Gold – what? Then, again, there must be tens of thousands of P.O. boxes there too, and it’s clearly one of these. But how the deuce one is to trace any of the thousands of children of Israel whose names begin with ‘Gold’ is another side of the joke.”

He carefully copied the fragment into his notebook, imitating as nearly as possible, and that was very nearly indeed, the character of the writing. Then he looked around in search of further fragments. There were none.

Dickinson got a couple of sticks, for he could not touch the loathly thing, and having first lighted his pipe, managed to get the head into a possible position for photographic purposes. Then he sat down – at a respectable distance – and began to study the features.

“One of the children of Israel, if ever there was one, and no mistake about it,” he decided. “Ugh, I’ve looked at the ugly thing long enough.”

Another pipe was filled and lighted. He felt hungry, and the stuff he had brought with him for lunch was in his holster on the other side. He did not care to swim the river alone, with no one to help scare potential crocodiles. He felt thirsty too, but he would have to feel a great deal more so before letting himself drink from the water that had held that dreadful thing facing him. He cut some boughs and placed them over it to keep off the flies, then returned to his seat in the demi-shade of a thorn-tree, and proceeded to elaborate theories with all his might – not that there was much to go upon as yet.

He stood a good chance for the next Sub-Inspectorship which should fall vacant; could he but work up this case successfully it would be the making of him. There was a girl over in Natal whom he wanted to marry, and to whom he was more than half engaged; but they had agreed to wait for the Sub-Inspectorship. It was hot, very hot. Would his comrade never come back? The hours wore on. The ripple and murmur of the river was soothing. Dickinson felt drowsy. Presently he slid more and more from his sitting posture and slept, and dreamed of the girl over in Natal.

He slept on and on, now hard and dreamlessly. But by that time Sergeant Dickinson, N.P., was in greater peril than he had ever been in his life.

“Yonder now, Shumilana,” whispered Mandevu. “The distance is near enough. It is not safe to go nearer, but at such short distance, for one who was taught to shoot when in the Nongqai, (in this instance the Zululand Native Police), and turned out of it through him who lies yonder, it is not possible to miss.”

And the two dark figures crouched down upon the rock which overlooked the sleeping Dickinson at about two hundred yards, while the discharged policeman stealthily drew forward his Martini rifle and carefully sighted it.

Wake up, Dickinson, for this man is one of the few natives who can use a rifle with accuracy of aim, and he has been taught by the ruling race. And he is drawing a fine “bead” on the two hundred yards sight. He held the same rank in his corps that you hold in yours, and it was through your agency that he was – rightly – degraded and dismissed the Force. He is as cool-nerved as you are yourself, and is not likely to miss. Wake up, if you would ever see the girl over in Natal again. Wake up, Dickinson!

Just then a lizard runs over the face of the sleeper, causing him to half jump up, half roll over. Bang, crash! and the bullet embeds itself in the trunk of the thorn-tree, which a second before had been supporting the weight of his body. It takes only another second for him to throw himself flat behind a mound of loose stones surmounted by a growth of short bush.

Sergeant Dickinson is as brave a man as there is in the Force, and that is saying a great deal. He realises now that he is in a tight corner. The rascal, whoever he may be, can shoot; moreover, he has a rifle, whereas he himself has only his regulation revolver. The enemy can keep beyond range and stalk him, from a distance, at leisure. And to enforce this side of the situation bang comes another bullet, right through the growth of bush which surmounts the loose stones. But a Martini is a slow-firing rifle, and the target, with lightning-like resource, has flattened down behind the stones.

“Good line that, damn him,” he growls, as the air caused by the humming missile is distinctly perceptible above his head. “Well, I’m done at last. He can’t go on missing all day.”

“I thought thou couldst shoot true, Shumilana,” whispers Mandevu. “Whau!”

The last, staccato. For a bullet has splattered hard against the rock upon which the two are lying. It has not come from the man in yonder flimsy cover, but from across the river. Another follows sharp, and it splinters the stock of Shumilana’s piece, causing him to drop it with a growl of pain, for the shock has strained the muscles of his wrist and numbed his whole arm. The two savages drop from their lurking-place and glide away like snakes into the thicker bush, only barely in time to avoid another bullet which rips viciously over them. And Trooper Symes chuckles as he rides down to the river bank, where the other horse whinnies excitedly at the reunion.

Dickinson’s first remark was characteristic.

“Got the kodak, Symes?”

“Of course. Here it is.”

“Well, I’ll bring it through.”

“No fear. It’ll save time if I do.”

Holding the case high above his head, Symes was through in a minute.

“It’s a case of sharp’s the word if we’re to catch the light,” said Dickinson, and forthwith he proceeded to uncover the ghastly relic. “There,” he went on, having taken half-a-dozen snapshots at every angle, “we’ve got the workings of something of a case.”

“Faugh! Ugly-looking devil, any way you look at him,” pronounced Symes. “A blanked ‘Sheeny’ if ever there was one.”

Characteristically again, then and only then did Dickinson refer to the very narrow escape he had had.

“What made you bring the rifle, Symes?”

“Dunno. Thought we might get a chance at a buck going back. Lucky I did.”

“Rather; they’d have done for me. I hadn’t a chance. Shake, old chap.”

The two comrades shook hands, and then thought no more about the matter. It was all in the day’s work.

“I wonder,” said Dickinson, when they had regained the other side – they had buried the head under a pile of stones, “I wonder who the swine could have been who was sniping me. He knew how to shoot, by the Lord! Shouldn’t wonder if it’s some discharged Nongqai. I always held it a mistake teaching those chaps to shoot.”

Symes agreed – with language, as usual. Then they had a hurried snack, and rode off – two very wet police – to find some safer and more open locality for their night camp. But that, too, was all in the day’s work.