Prester John

Published：2026-07-30 22:35:16 Source: engineering kits for 12 year olds Author: Science Kits

PRESTER JOHN

by JOHN BUCHAN

TO
LIONEL PHILLIPS

Time,science kits for 9 year olds under 25 dollars they say, must the best of us capture,
And travel and battle and gems and gold
No more can kindle the ancient rapture,
For even the youngest of hearts grows old.
But in you, I think, the boy is not over;
So take this medley of ways and wars
As the gift of a friend and a fellow-lover
Of the fairest country under the stars.

J. B.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
THE MAN ON THE KIRKCAPLE SHORE

I mind as if it were yesterday my first sight of the man. Little I knew at thetime how big the moment was with destiny, or how often that face seen in thefitful moonlight would haunt my sleep and disturb my waking hours. But I mindyet the cold grue of terror I got from it, a terror which was surely more thanthe due of a few truant lads breaking the Sabbath with their play.

The town of Kirkcaple, of which and its adjacent parish of Portincross myfather was the minister, lies on a hillside above the little bay of Caple, andlooks squarely out on the North Sea. Round the horns of land which enclose thebay the coast shows on either side a battlement of stark red cliffs throughwhich a burn or two makes a pass to the water’s edge. The bay itself is ringedwith fine clean sands, where we lads of the burgh school loved to bathe in thewarm weather. But on long holidays the sport was to go farther afield among thecliffs; for there there were many deep caves and pools, where podleys might becaught with the line, and hid treasures sought for at the expense of the skinof the knees and the buttons of the trousers. Many a long Saturday I havepassed in a crinkle of the cliffs, having lit a fire of driftwood, and madebelieve that I was a smuggler or a Jacobite new landed from France. There was aband of us in Kirkcaple, lads of my own age, including Archie Leslie, the sonof my father’s session-clerk, and Tam Dyke, the provost’s nephew. We weresealed to silence by the blood oath, and we bore each the name of some historicpirate or sailorman. I was Paul Jones, Tam was Captain Kidd, and Archie, need Isay it, was Morgan himself. Our tryst was a cave where a little water calledthe Dyve Burn had cut its way through the cliffs to the sea. There weforgathered in the summer evenings and of a Saturday afternoon in winter, andtold mighty tales of our prowess and flattered our silly hearts. But the sobertruth is that our deeds were of the humblest, and a dozen of fish or a handfulof apples was all our booty, and our greatest exploit a fight with the roughsat the Dyve tan-work.

My father’s spring Communion fell on the last Sabbath of April, and on theparticular Sabbath of which I speak the weather was mild and bright for thetime of year. I had been surfeited with the Thursday’s and Saturday’s services,and the two long diets of worship on the Sabbath were hard for a lad of twelveto bear with the spring in his bones and the sun slanting through the gallerywindow. There still remained the service on the Sabbath evening—a dolefulprospect, for the Rev. Mr Murdoch of Kilchristie, noted for the length of hisdiscourses, had exchanged pulpits with my father. So my mind was ripe for theproposal of Archie Leslie, on our way home to tea, that by a little skill wemight give the kirk the slip. At our Communion the pews were emptied of theirregular occupants and the congregation seated itself as it pleased. The manseseat was full of the Kirkcaple relations of Mr Murdoch, who had been invitedthere by my mother to hear him, and it was not hard to obtain permission to sitwith Archie and Tam Dyke in the cock-loft in the gallery. Word was sent to Tam,and so it happened that three abandoned lads duly passed the plate and tooktheir seats in the cock-loft. But when the bell had done jowing, and we heardby the sounds of their feet that the elders had gone in to the kirk, we slippeddown the stairs and out of the side door. We were through the churchyard in atwinkling, and hot-foot on the road to the Dyve Burn. It was the fashion of thegenteel in Kirkcaple to put their boys into what were known as Eton suits—longtrousers, cut-away jackets, and chimney-pot hats. I had been one of theearliest victims, and well I remember how I fled home from the Sabbath schoolwith the snowballs of the town roughs rattling off my chimney-pot. Archie hadfollowed, his family being in all things imitators of mine. We were now clothedin this wearisome garb, so our first care was to secrete safely our hats in amarked spot under some whin bushes on the links. Tam was free from the bondageof fashion, and wore his ordinary best knickerbockers. From inside his jackethe unfolded his special treasure, which was to light us on our expedition—anevil-smelling old tin lantern with a shutter.

Tam was of the Free Kirk persuasion, and as his Communion fell on a differentday from ours, he was spared the bondage of church attendance from which Archieand I had revolted. But notable events had happened that day in his church. Ablack man, the Rev. John Something-or-other, had been preaching. Tam was fullof the portent. “A nagger,” he said, “a great black chap as big as your father,Archie.” He seemed to have banged the bookboard with some effect, and had keptTam, for once in his life, awake. He had preached about the heathen in Africa,and how a black man was as good as a white man in the sight of God, and he hadforecast a day when the negroes would have something to teach the British inthe way of civilization. So at any rate ran the account of Tam Dyke, who didnot share the preacher’s views. “It’s all nonsense, Davie. The Bible says thatthe children of Ham were to be our servants. If I were the minister I wouldn’tlet a nigger into the pulpit. I wouldn’t let him farther than the Sabbathschool.”

Night fell as we came to the broomy spaces of the links, and ere we hadbreasted the slope of the neck which separates Kirkcaple Bay from the cliffs itwas as dark as an April evening with a full moon can be. Tam would have had itdarker. He got out his lantern, and after a prodigious waste of matches kindledthe candle-end inside, turned the dark shutter, and trotted happily on. We hadno need of his lighting till the Dyve Burn was reached and the path began todescend steeply through the rift in the crags.

It was here we found that some one had gone before us. Archie was great inthose days at tracking, his ambition running in Indian paths. He would walkalways with his head bent and his eyes on the ground, whereby he several timesfound lost coins and once a trinket dropped by the provost’s wife. At the edgeof the burn, where the path turns downward, there is a patch of shingle washedup by some spate. Archie was on his knees in a second. “Lads,” he cried,“there’s spoor here;” and then after some nosing, “it’s a man’s track, goingdownward, a big man with flat feet. It’s fresh, too, for it crosses the dampbit of gravel, and the water has scarcely filled the holes yet.”

We did not dare to question Archie’s woodcraft, but it puzzled us who thestranger could be. In summer weather you might find a party of picnickers here,attracted by the fine hard sands at the burn mouth. But at this time of nightand season of the year there was no call for any one to be trespassing on ourpreserves. No fishermen came this way, the lobster-pots being all to the east,and the stark headland of the Red Neb made the road to them by the water’s edgedifficult. The tan-work lads used to come now and then for a swim, but youwould not find a tan-work lad bathing on a chill April night. Yet there was noquestion where our precursor had gone. He was making for the shore. Tamunshuttered his lantern, and the steps went clearly down the corkscrew path.“Maybe he is after our cave. We’d better go cannily.”

The glim was dowsed—the words were Archie’s—and in the best contraband mannerwe stole down the gully. The business had suddenly taken an eerie turn, and Ithink in our hearts we were all a little afraid. But Tam had a lantern, and itwould never do to turn back from an adventure which had all the appearance ofbeing the true sort. Half way down there is a scrog of wood, dwarf alders andhawthorn, which makes an arch over the path. I, for one, was glad when we gotthrough this with no worse mishap than a stumble from Tam which caused thelantern door to fly open and the candle to go out. We did not stop to relightit, but scrambled down the screes till we came to the long slabs of reddishrock which abutted on the beach. We could not see the track, so we gave up thebusiness of scouts, and dropped quietly over the big boulder and into thecrinkle of cliff which we called our cave.

There was nobody there, so we relit the lantern and examined our properties.Two or three fishing-rods for the burn, much damaged by weather; some sea-lineson a dry shelf of rock; a couple of wooden boxes; a pile of driftwood forfires, and a heap of quartz in which we thought we had found veins of gold—suchwas the modest furnishing of our den. To this I must add some broken claypipes, with which we made believe to imitate our elders, smoking a foul mixtureof coltsfoot leaves and brown paper. The band was in session, so following ourritual we sent out a picket. Tam was deputed to go round the edge of the clifffrom which the shore was visible, and report if the coast was clear.

He returned in three minutes, his eyes round with amazement in the lanternlight. “There’s a fire on the sands,” he repeated, “and a man beside it.”

Here was news indeed. Without a word we made for the open, Archie first, andTam, who had seized and shuttered his lantern, coming last. We crawled to theedge of the cliff and peered round, and there sure enough, on the hard bit ofsand which the tide had left by the burn mouth, was a twinkle of light and adark figure.

The moon was rising, and besides there was that curious sheen from the seawhich you will often notice in spring. The glow was maybe a hundred yardsdistant, a little spark of fire I could have put in my cap, and, from itscrackling and smoke, composed of dry seaweed and half-green branches from theburnside thickets. A man’s figure stood near it, and as we looked it movedround and round the fire in circles which first of all widened and thencontracted.

The sight was so unexpected, so beyond the beat of our experience, that we wereall a little scared. What could this strange being want with a fire athalf-past eight of an April Sabbath night on the Dyve Burn sands? We discussedthe thing in whispers behind a boulder, but none of us had any solution.“Belike he’s come ashore in a boat,” said Archie. “He’s maybe a foreigner.” ButI pointed out that, from the tracks which Archie himself had found, the manmust have come overland down the cliffs. Tam was clear he was a madman, and wasfor withdrawing promptly from the whole business.

But some spell kept our feet tied there in that silent world of sand and moonand sea. I remember looking back and seeing the solemn, frowning faces of thecliffs, and feeling somehow shut in with this unknown being in a strange union.What kind of errand had brought this interloper into our territory? For awonder I was less afraid than curious. I wanted to get to the heart of thematter, and to discover what the man was up to with his fire and his circles.

The same thought must have been in Archie’s head, for he dropped on his bellyand began to crawl softly seawards. I followed, and Tam, with sundrycomplaints, crept after my heels. Between the cliffs and the fire lay somesixty yards of débrisand boulders above the level of all but the highspring tides. Beyond lay a string of seaweedy pools and then the hard sands ofthe burnfoot. There was excellent cover among the big stones, and apart fromthe distance and the dim light, the man by the fire was too preoccupied in histask to keep much look-out towards the land. I remember thinking he had chosenhis place well, for save from the sea he could not be seen. The cliffs are soundercut that unless a watcher on the coast were on their extreme edge he wouldnot see the burnfoot sands.

Archie, the skilled tracker, was the one who all but betrayed us. His kneeslipped on the seaweed, and he rolled off a boulder, bringing down with him aclatter of small stones. We lay as still as mice, in terror lest the man shouldhave heard the noise and have come to look for the cause. By-and-by when Iventured to raise my head above a flat-topped stone I saw that he wasundisturbed. The fire still burned, and he was pacing round it. On the edge ofthe pools was an outcrop of red sandstone much fissured by the sea. Here was anexcellent vantage-ground, and all three of us curled behind it, with our eyesjust over the edge. The man was not twenty yards off, and I could see clearlywhat manner of fellow he was. For one thing he was huge of size, or so heseemed to me in the half-light. He wore nothing but a shirt and trousers, and Icould hear by the flap of his feet on the sand that he was barefoot.

Suddenly Tam Dyke gave a gasp of astonishment. “Gosh, it’s the black minister!”he said.

It was indeed a black man, as we saw when the moon came out of a cloud. Hishead was on his breast, and he walked round the fire with measured, regularsteps. At intervals he would stop and raise both hands to the sky, and bend hisbody in the direction of the moon. But he never uttered a word.

“It’s magic,” said Archie. “He’s going to raise Satan. We must bide here andsee what happens, for he’ll grip us if we try to go back. The moon’s owerhigh.”

The procession continued as if to some slow music. I had been in no fear of theadventure back there by our cave; but now that I saw the thing from close athand, my courage began to ebb. There was something desperately uncanny aboutthis great negro, who had shed his clerical garments, and was now practisingsome strange magic alone by the sea. I had no doubt it was the black art, forthere was that in the air and the scene which spelled the unlawful. As wewatched, the circles stopped, and the man threw something on the fire. A thicksmoke rose of which we could feel the aromatic scent, and when it was gone theflame burned with a silvery blueness like moonlight. Still no sound came fromthe minister, but he took something from his belt, and began to make oddmarkings in the sand between the inner circle and the fire. As he turned, themoon gleamed on the implement, and we saw it was a great knife.

We were now scared in real earnest. Here were we, three boys, at night in alonely place a few yards from a savage with a knife. The adventure was far pastmy liking, and even the intrepid Archie was having qualms, if I could judgefrom his set face. As for Tam, his teeth were chattering like a threshing-mill.

Suddenly I felt something soft and warm on the rock at my right hand. I feltagain, and, lo! it was the man’s clothes. There were his boots and socks, hisminister’s coat and his minister’s hat.

This made the predicament worse, for if we waited till he finished his rites weshould for certain be found by him. At the same time, to return over theboulders in the bright moonlight seemed an equally sure way to discovery. Iwhispered to Archie, who was for waiting a little longer. “Something may turnup,” he said. It was always his way.

I do not know what would have turned up, for we had no chance of testing it.The situation had proved too much for the nerves of Tam Dyke. As the man turnedtowards us in his bowings and bendings, Tam suddenly sprang to his feet andshouted at him a piece of schoolboy rudeness then fashionable in Kirkcaple.

“Wha called ye partan-face, my bonny man?” Then, clutching his lantern, he ranfor dear life, while Archie and I raced at his heels. As I turned I had aglimpse of a huge figure, knife in hand, bounding towards us.

Though I only saw it in the turn of a head, the face stamped itself indeliblyupon my mind. It was black, black as ebony, but it was different from theordinary negro. There were no thick lips and flat nostrils; rather, if I couldtrust my eyes, the nose was high-bridged, and the lines of the mouth sharp andfirm. But it was distorted into an expression of such a devilish fury andamazement that my heart became like water.

We had a start, as I have said, of some twenty or thirty yards. Among theboulders we were not at a great disadvantage, for a boy can flit quickly overthem, while a grown man must pick his way. Archie, as ever, kept his wits thebest of us. “Make straight for the burn,” he shouted in a hoarse whisper; we’llbeat him on the slope.”

We passed the boulders and slithered over the outcrop of red rock and thepatches of sea-pink till we reached the channel of the Dyve water, which flowsgently among pebbles after leaving the gully. Here for the first time I lookedback and saw nothing. I stopped involuntarily, and that halt was nearly myundoing. For our pursuer had reached the burn before us, but lower down, andwas coming up its bank to cut us off.

At most times I am a notable coward, and in these days I was still more of one,owing to a quick and easily-heated imagination. But now I think I did a bravething, though more by instinct than resolution. Archie was running first, andhad already splashed through the burn; Tam came next, just about to cross, andthe black man was almost at his elbow. Another second and Tam would have beenin his clutches had I not yelled out a warning and made straight up the bank ofthe burn. Tam fell into the pool—I could hear his spluttering cry—but he gotacross; for I heard Archie call to him, and the two vanished into the thicketwhich clothes all the left bank of the gully. The pursuer, seeing me on his ownside of the water, followed straight on; and before I knew it had become a racebetween the two of us.

I was hideously frightened, but not without hope, for the screes and shelves ofthis right side of the gully were known to me from many a day’s exploring. Iwas light on my feet and uncommonly sound in wind, being by far the bestlong-distance runner in Kirkcaple. If I could only keep my lead till I reacheda certain corner I knew of, I could outwit my enemy; for it was possible fromthat place to make a detour behind a waterfall and get into a secret path ofours among the bushes. I flew up the steep screes, not daring to look round;but at the top, where the rocks begin, I had a glimpse of my pursuer. The mancould run. Heavy in build though he was he was not six yards behind me, and Icould see the white of his eyes and the red of his gums. I saw something else—aglint of white metal in his hand. He still had his knife.

Fear sent me up the rocks like a seagull, and I scrambled and leaped, makingfor the corner I knew of. Something told me that the pursuit was slackening,and for a moment I halted to look round. A second time a halt was nearly theend of me. A great stone flew through the air, and took the cliff an inch frommy head, half-blinding me with splinters. And now I began to get angry. Ipulled myself into cover, skirted a rock till I came to my corner, and lookedback for the enemy. There he was scrambling by the way I had come, and making aprodigious clatter among the stones. I picked up a loose bit of rock and hurledit with all my force in his direction. It broke before it reached him, but aconsiderable lump, to my joy, took him full in the face. Then my terrorsrevived. I slipped behind the waterfall and was soon in the thicket, andtoiling towards the top.

I think this last bit was the worst in the race, for my strength was failing,and I seemed to hear those horrid steps at my heels. My heart was in my mouthas, careless of my best clothes, I tore through the hawthorn bushes. Then Istruck the path and, to my relief, came on Archie and Tam, who were runningslowly in desperate anxiety about my fate. We then took hands and soon reachedthe top of the gully.

For a second we looked back. The pursuit had ceased, and far down the burn wecould hear the sounds as of some one going back to the sands.

“Your face is bleeding, Davie. Did he get near enough to hit you?” Archieasked.

“He hit me with a stone. But I gave him better. He’s got a bleeding nose toremember this night by.”

We did not dare take the road by the links, but made for the nearest humanhabitation. This was a farm about half a mile inland, and when we reached it welay down by the stack-yard gate and panted.

“I’ve lost my lantern,” said Tam. “The big black brute! See if I don’t tell my father.”

“Ye’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Archie fiercely. “He knows nothing aboutus and can’t do us any harm. But if the story got out and he found out who wewere, he’d murder the lot of US.”

He made us swear secrecy, which we were willing enough to do, seeing veryclearly the sense in his argument. Then we struck the highroad and trotted backat our best pace to Kirkcaple, fear of our families gradually ousting fear ofpursuit. In our excitement Archie and I forgot about our Sabbath hats, reposingquietly below a whin bush on the links.

We were not destined to escape without detection. As ill luck would have it, MrMurdoch had been taken ill with the stomach-ache after the second psalm, andthe congregation had been abruptly dispersed. My mother had waited for me atthe church door, and, seeing no signs of her son, had searched the gallery.Then the truth came out, and, had I been only for a mild walk on the links,retribution would have overtaken my truantry. But to add to this I arrived homewith a scratched face, no hat, and several rents in my best trousers. I waswell cuffed and sent to bed, with the promise of full-dress chastisement whenmy father should come home in the morning.

My father arrived before breakfast next day, and I was duly and soundlywhipped. I set out for school with aching bones to add to the usual depressionof Monday morning. At the corner of the Nethergate I fell in with Archie, whowas staring at a trap carrying two men which was coming down the street. It wasthe Free Church minister—he had married a rich wife and kept a horse—drivingthe preacher of yesterday to the railway station. Archie and I were in behind adoorpost in a twinkling, so that we could see in safety the last of our enemy.He was dressed in minister’s clothes, with a heavy fur-coat and a brand newyellow-leather Gladstone bag. He was talking loudly as he passed, and the FreeChurch minister seemed to be listening attentively. I heard his deep voicesaying something about the “work of God in this place.” But what I noticedspecially—and the sight made me forget my aching hinder parts—was that he had aswollen eye, and two strips of sticking-plaster on his cheek.

CHAPTER II
FURTH! FORTUNE!

In this plain story of mine there will be so many wild doings ere the end isreached, that I beg my reader’s assent to a prosaic digression. I will tellbriefly the things which happened between my sight of the man on the Kirkcaplesands and my voyage to Africa. I continued for three years at the burgh school,where my progress was less notable in my studies than in my sports. One by oneI saw my companions pass out of idle boyhood and be set to professions. TamDyke on two occasions ran off to sea in the Dutch schooners which used to loadwith coal in our port; and finally his father gave him his will, and he wasapprenticed to the merchant service. Archie Leslie, who was a year my elder,was destined for the law, so he left Kirkcaple for an Edinburgh office, wherehe was also to take out classes at the college. I remained on at school till Isat alone by myself in the highest class—a position of little dignity and deeploneliness. I had grown a tall, square-set lad, and my prowess at Rugbyfootball was renowned beyond the parishes of Kirkcaple and Portincross. To myfather I fear I was a disappointment. He had hoped for something in his sonmore bookish and sedentary, more like his gentle, studious self.

On one thing I was determined: I should follow a learned profession. The fearof being sent to an office, like so many of my schoolfellows, inspired me tothe little progress I ever made in my studies. I chose the ministry, not, Ifear, out of any reverence for the sacred calling, but because my father hadfollowed it before me. Accordingly I was sent at the age of sixteen for ayear’s finishing at the High School of Edinburgh, and the following winterbegan my Arts course at the university.

If Fate had been kinder to me, I think I might have become a scholar. At anyrate I was just acquiring a taste for philosophy and the dead languages when myfather died suddenly of a paralytic shock, and I had to set about earning aliving.

My mother was left badly off, for my poor father had never been able to savemuch from his modest stipend. When all things were settled, it turned out thatshe might reckon on an income of about fifty pounds a year. This was not enoughto live on, however modest the household, and certainly not enough to pay forthe colleging of a son. At this point an uncle of hers stepped forward with aproposal. He was a well-to-do bachelor, alone in the world, and he invited mymother to live with him and take care of his house. For myself he proposed apost in some mercantile concern, for he had much influence in the circles ofcommerce. There was nothing for it but to accept gratefully. We sold our fewhousehold goods, and moved to his gloomy house in Dundas Street. A few dayslater he announced at dinner that he had found for me a chance which might leadto better things.

“You see, Davie,” he explained, “you don’t know the rudiments of business life.There’s no house in the country that would take you in except as a commonclerk, and you would never earn much more than a hundred pounds a year all yourdays. If you want to better your future you must go abroad, where white men areat a premium. By the mercy of Providence I met yesterday an old friend, ThomasMackenzie, who was seeing his lawyer about an estate he is bidding for. He isthe head of one of the biggest trading and shipping concerns in theworld—Mackenzie, Mure, and Oldmeadows—you may have heard the name. Among otherthings he has half the stores in South Africa, where they sell everything fromBibles to fish-hooks. Apparently they like men from home to manage the stores,and to make a long story short, when I put your case to him, he promised you aplace. I had a wire from him this morning confirming the offer. You are to beassistant storekeeper at—” (my uncle fumbled in his pocket, and then read fromthe yellow slip) “at Blaauwildebeestefontein. There’s a mouthful for you.”

In this homely way I first heard of a place which was to be the theatre of somany strange doings.

“It’s a fine chance for you,” my uncle continued. “You’ll only be assistant atfirst, but when you have learned your job you’ll have a store of your own.Mackenzie’s people will pay you three hundred pounds a year, and when you get astore you’ll get a percentage on sales. It lies with you to open up new tradeamong the natives. I hear that Blaauw—something or other, is in the far northof the Transvaal, and I see from the map that it is in a wild, hilly country.You may find gold or diamonds up there, and come back and buy PortincrossHouse.” My uncle rubbed his hands and smiled cheerily.

Truth to tell I was both pleased and sad. If a learned profession was denied meI vastly preferred a veld store to an Edinburgh office stool. Had I not beenstill under the shadow of my father’s death I might have welcomed the chance ofnew lands and new folk. As it was, I felt the loneliness of an exile. Thatafternoon I walked on the Braid Hills, and when I saw in the clear springsunlight the coast of Fife, and remembered Kirkcaple and my boyish days, Icould have found it in me to sit down and cry.

A fortnight later I sailed. My mother bade me a tearful farewell, and my uncle,besides buying me an outfit and paying my passage money, gave me a present oftwenty sovereigns. “You’ll not be your mother’s son, Davie,” were his lastwords, “if you don’t come home with it multiplied by a thousand.” I thought atthe time that I would give more than twenty thousand pounds to be allowed tobide on the windy shores of Forth.

I sailed from Southampton by an intermediate steamer, and went steerage to saveexpense. Happily my acute homesickness was soon forgotten in another kind ofmalady. It blew half a gale before we were out of the Channel, and by the timewe had rounded Ushant it was as dirty weather as ever I hope to see. I laymortal sick in my bunk, unable to bear the thought of food, and too feeble tolift my head. I wished I had never left home, but so acute was my sickness thatif some one had there and then offered me a passage back or an immediatelanding on shore I should have chosen the latter.

It was not till we got into the fair-weather seas around Madeira that Irecovered enough to sit on deck and observe my fellow-passengers. There weresome fifty of us in the steerage, mostly wives and children going to joinrelations, with a few emigrant artisans and farmers. I early found a friend ina little man with a yellow beard and spectacles, who sat down beside me andremarked on the weather in a strong Scotch accent. He turned out to be a MrWardlaw from Aberdeen, who was going out to be a schoolmaster. He was a man ofgood education, who had taken a university degree, and had taught for someyears as an under-master in a school in his native town. But the east winds haddamaged his lungs, and he had been glad to take the chance of a poorly paidcountry school in the veld. When I asked him where he was going I was amazed tobe told, “Blaauwildebeestefontein.”

Mr Wardlaw was a pleasant little man, with a sharp tongue but a cheerfultemper. He laboured all day at primers of the Dutch and Kaffir languages, butin the evening after supper he would walk with me on the after-deck and discussthe future. Like me, he knew nothing of the land he was going to, but he wasinsatiably curious, and he affected me with his interest. “This place,Blaauwildebeestefontein,” he used to say, “is among the Zoutpansberg mountains,and as far as I can see, not above ninety miles from the railroad. It looksfrom the map a well-watered country, and the Agent-General in London told me itwas healthy or I wouldn’t have taken the job. It seems we’ll be in the heart ofnative reserves up there, for here’s a list of chiefs—”Mpefu, Sikitola,Majinje, Magata; and there are no white men living to the east of us because ofthe fever. The name means the ‘spring of the blue wildebeeste,’ whateverfearsome animal that may be. It sounds like a place for adventure, Mr Crawfurd.You’ll exploit the pockets of the black men and I’ll see what I can do withtheir minds.” There was another steerage passenger whom I could not helpobserving because of my dislike of his appearance. He, too, was a little man,by name Henriques, and in looks the most atrocious villain I have ever clappedeyes on. He had a face the colour of French mustard—a sort of dirty green—andbloodshot, beady eyes with the whites all yellowed with fever. He had waxedmoustaches, and a curious, furtive way of walking and looking about him. We ofthe steerage were careless in our dress, but he was always clad in immaculatewhite linen, with pointed, yellow shoes to match his complexion. He spoke to noone, but smoked long cheroots all day in the stern of the ship, and studied agreasy pocket-book. Once I tripped over him in the dark, and he turned on mewith a snarl and an oath. I was short enough with him in return, and he lookedas if he could knife me.

“I’ll wager that fellow has been a slave-driver in his time,” I told MrWardlaw, who said, “God pity his slaves, then.”

And now I come to the incident which made the rest of the voyage pass all toosoon for me, and foreshadowed the strange events which were to come. It was theday after we crossed the Line, and the first-class passengers were having decksports. A tug-of-war had been arranged between the three classes, and ahalf-dozen of the heaviest fellows in the steerage, myself included, wereinvited to join. It was a blazing hot afternoon, but on the saloon deck therewere awnings and a cool wind blowing from the bows. The first-class beat thesecond easily, and after a tremendous struggle beat the steerage also. Thenthey regaled us with iced-drinks and cigars to celebrate the victory.

I was standing at the edge of the crowd of spectators, when my eye caught afigure which seemed to have little interest in our games. A large man inclerical clothes was sitting on a deck-chair reading a book. There was nothingnovel about the stranger, and I cannot explain the impulse which made me wishto see his face. I moved a few steps up the deck, and then I saw that his skinwas black. I went a little farther, and suddenly he raised his eyes from hisbook and looked round. It was the face of the man who had terrified me yearsago on the Kirkcaple shore.

I spent the rest of the day in a brown study. It was clear to me that somedestiny had prearranged this meeting. Here was this man travelling prosperouslyas a first-class passenger with all the appurtenances of respectability. Ialone had seen him invoking strange gods in the moonlight, I alone knew of thedevilry in his heart, and I could not but believe that some day or other theremight be virtue in that knowledge.

The second engineer and I had made friends, so I got him to consult thepurser’s list for the name of my acquaintance. He was down as the Rev. JohnLaputa, and his destination was Durban. The next day being Sunday, who shouldappear to address us steerage passengers but the black minister. He wasintroduced by the captain himself, a notably pious man, who spoke of thelabours of his brother in the dark places of heathendom. Some of us were hurtin our pride in being made the target of a black man’s oratory. Especially MrHenriques, whose skin spoke of the tar-brush, protested with oaths against theinsult. Finally he sat down on a coil of rope, and spat scornfully in thevicinity of the preacher.

For myself I was intensely curious, and not a little impressed. The man’s facewas as commanding as his figure, and his voice was the most wonderful thingthat ever came out of human mouth. It was full and rich, and gentle, with thetones of a great organ. He had none of the squat and preposterous negrolineaments, but a hawk nose like an Arab, dark flashing eyes, and a cruel andresolute mouth. He was black as my hat, but for the rest he might have sat fora figure of a Crusader. I do not know what the sermon was about, though otherstold me that it was excellent. All the time I watched him, and kept saying tomyself, “You hunted me up the Dyve Burn, but I bashed your face for you.”Indeed, I thought I could see faint scars on his cheek.

The following night I had toothache, and could not sleep. It was too hot tobreathe under cover, so I got up, lit a pipe, and walked on the after-deck toease the pain. The air was very still, save for the whish of water from thescrews and the steady beat of the engines. Above, a great yellow moon lookeddown on me, and a host of pale stars.

The moonlight set me remembering the old affair of the Dyve Burn, and my mindbegan to run on the Rev. John Laputa. It pleased me to think that I was on thetrack of some mystery of which I alone had the clue. I promised myself tosearch out the antecedents of the minister when I got to Durban, for I had amarried cousin there, who might know something of his doings. Then, as I passedby the companion-way to the lower deck, I heard voices, and peeping over therail, I saw two men sitting in the shadow just beyond the hatch of the hold.

I thought they might be two of the sailors seeking coolness on the open deck,when something in the figure of one of them made me look again. The next secondI had slipped back and stolen across the after-deck to a point just above them.For the two were the black minister and that ugly yellow villain, Henriques.

I had no scruples about eavesdropping, but I could make nothing of their talk.They spoke low, and in some tongue which may have been Kaffir or Portuguese,but was in any case unknown to me. I lay, cramped and eager, for many minutes,and was just getting sick of it when a familiar name caught my ear. Henriquessaid something in which I caught the word “Blaauwildebeestefontein.” I listenedintently, and there could be no mistake. The minister repeated the name, andfor the next few minutes it recurred often in their talk. I went backstealthily to bed, having something to make me forget my aching tooth. First ofall, Laputa and Henriques were allies. Second, the place I was bound for hadsomething to do with their schemes.

I said nothing to Mr Wardlaw, but spent the next week in the assiduous toil ofthe amateur detective. I procured some maps and books from my friend, thesecond engineer, and read all I could about Blaauwildebeestefontein. Not thatthere was much to learn; but I remember I had quite a thrill when I discoveredfrom the chart of the ship’s run one day that we were in the same latitude asthat uncouthly-named spot. I found out nothing, however, about Henriques or theRev. John Laputa. The Portuguese still smoked in the stern, and thumbed hisgreasy notebook; the minister sat in his deck-chair, and read heavy volumesfrom the ship’s library. Though I watched every night, I never found them againtogether.

At Cape Town Henriques went ashore and did not return. The minister did notbudge from the ship the three days we lay in port, and, indeed, it seemed to methat he kept his cabin. At any rate I did not see his great figure on deck tillwe were tossing in the choppy seas round Cape Agulhas. Sea-sickness againattacked me, and with short lulls during our stoppages at Port Elizabeth andEast London, I lay wretchedly in my bunk till we sighted the bluffs of Durbanharbour.

Here it was necessary for me to change my ship, for in the interests of economyI was going by sea to Delagoa Bay, and thence by the cheap railway journey intothe Transvaal. I sought out my cousin, who lived in a fine house on the Berea,and found a comfortable lodging for the three days of my stay there. I madeinquiries about Mr Laputa, but could hear nothing. There was no native ministerof that name, said my cousin, who was a great authority on all nativequestions. I described the man, but got no further light. No one had seen orheard of such a being, “unless,” said my cousin, “he is one of those AmericanEthiopian rascals.”

My second task was to see the Durban manager of the firm which I had undertakento serve. He was a certain Mr Colles, a big fat man, who welcomed me in hisshirt-sleeves, with a cigar in his mouth. He received me pleasantly, and tookme home to dinner with him.

“Mr Mackenzie has written about you,” he said. “I’ll be quite frank with you,Mr Crawfurd. The firm is not exactly satisfied about the way business has beengoing lately at Blaauwildebeestefontein. There’s a grand country up there, anda grand opportunity for the man who can take it. Japp, who is in charge, is anold man now and past his best, but he has been long with the firm, and we don’twant to hurt his feelings. When he goes, which must be pretty soon, you’ll havea good chance of the place, if you show yourself an active young fellow.”

He told me a great deal more about Blaauwildebeestefontein, principally tradingdetails. Incidentally he let drop that Mr Japp had had several assistants inthe last few years. I asked him why they had left, and he hesitated.

“It’s a lonely place, and they didn’t like the life. You see, there are fewwhite men near, and young fellows want society. They complained, and were movedon. But the firm didn’t think the more of them.”

I told him I had come out with the new schoolmaster.

“Yes,” he said reflectively, “the school. That’s been vacant pretty oftenlately. What sort of fellow is this Wardlaw? Will he stay, I wonder?”

“From all accounts,” I said, “Blaauwildebeestefontein does not seem popular.”

“It isn’t. That’s why we’ve got you out from home. The colonial-born doesn’tfind it fit in with his idea of comfort. He wants society, and he doesn’t liketoo many natives. There’s nothing up there but natives and a few back-veldDutchmen with native blood in them. You fellows from home are less set on aneasy life, or you wouldn’t be here.”

There was something in Mr Colles’s tone which made me risk another question.

“What’s the matter with the place? There must be more wrong with it thanloneliness to make everybody clear out. I have taken on this job, and I mean tostick to it, so you needn’t be afraid to tell me.”

The manager looked at me sharply. “That’s the way to talk, my lad. You look asif you had a stiff back, so I’ll be frank with you. There is something aboutthe place. It gives the ordinary man the jumps. What it is, I don’t know, andthe men who come back don’t know themselves. I want you to find out for me.You’ll be doing the firm an enormous service if you can get on the track of it.It may be the natives, or it may be the takhaars, or it may be something else.Only old Japp can stick it out, and he’s too old and doddering to care aboutmoving. I want you to keep your eyes skinned, and write privately to me if youwant any help. You’re not out here for your health, I can see, and here’s achance for you to get your foot on the ladder.

“Remember, I’m your friend,” he said to me again at the garden gate. “Take myadvice and lie very low. Don’t talk, don’t meddle with drink, learn all you canof the native jabber, but don’t let on you understand a word. You’re sure toget on the track of something. Good-bye, my boy,” and he waved a fat hand tome.

That night I embarked on a cargo-boat which was going round the coast toDelagoa Bay. It is a small world—at least for us far-wandering Scots. For whoshould I find when I got on board but my old friend Tam Dyke, who was secondmate on the vessel? We wrung each other’s hands, and I answered, as best Icould, his questions about Kirkcaple. I had supper with him in the cabin, andwent on deck to see the moorings cast.

Suddenly there was a bustle on the quay, and a big man with a handbag forcedhis way up the gangway. The men who were getting ready to cast off tried tostop him, but he elbowed his way forward, declaring he must see the captain.Tam went up to him and asked civilly if he had a passage taken. He admitted hehad not, but said he would make it right in two minutes with the captainhimself. The Rev. John Laputa, for some reason of his own, was leaving Durbanwith more haste than he had entered it.

I do not know what passed with the captain, but the minister got his passageright enough, and Tam was even turned out of his cabin to make room for him.This annoyed my friend intensely.

“That black brute must be made of money, for he paid through the nose for this,or I’m a Dutchman. My old man doesn’t take to his black brethren any more thanI do. Hang it all, what are we coming to, when we’re turning into a bloomingcargo boat for niggers?”

I had all too little of Tam’s good company, for on the afternoon of the secondday we reached the little town of Lourenco Marques. This was my final landingin Africa, and I mind how eagerly I looked at the low, green shores and thebush-covered slopes of the mainland. We were landed from boats while the shiplay out in the bay, and Tam came ashore with me to spend the evening. By thistime I had lost every remnant of homesickness. I had got a job before me whichpromised better things than colleging at Edinburgh, and I was as keen to get upcountry now as I had been loth to leave England. My mind being full ofmysteries, I scanned every Portuguese loafer on the quay as if he had been aspy, and when Tam and I had had a bottle of Collates in a cafe I felt that atlast I had got to foreign parts and a new world.

Tam took me to supper with a friend of his, a Scot by the name of Aitken, whowas landing-agent for some big mining house on the Rand. He hailed from Fifeand gave me a hearty welcome, for he had heard my father preach in his youngdays. Aitken was a strong, broad-shouldered fellow who had been a sergeant inthe Gordons, and during the war he had done secret-service work in Delagoa. Hehad hunted, too, and traded up and down Mozambique, and knew every dialect ofthe Kaffirs. He asked me where I was bound for, and when I told him there wasthe same look in his eyes as I had seen with the Durban manager.

“You’re going to a rum place, Mr Crawfurd,” he said.

“So I’m told. Do you know anything about it? You’re not the first who haslooked queer when I’ve spoken the name.”

“I’ve never been there,” he said, “though I’ve been pretty near it from thePortuguese side. That’s the funny thing about Blaauwildebeestefontein.Everybody has heard of it, and nobody knows it.”

“I wish you would tell me what you have heard.”

“Well, the natives are queer up thereaways. There’s some kind of a holy placewhich every Kaffir from Algoa Bay to the Zambesi and away beyond knows about.When I’ve been hunting in the bush-veld I’ve often met strings of Kaffirs fromhundreds of miles distant, and they’ve all been going or coming fromBlaauwildebeestefontein. It’s like Mecca to the Mohammedans, a place they go toon pilgrimage. I’ve heard of an old man up there who is believed to be twohundred years old. Anyway, there’s some sort of great witch or wizard living inthe mountains.”

Aitken smoked in silence for a time; then he said, “I’ll tell you anotherthing. I believe there’s a diamond mine. I’ve often meant to go up and look forit.”

Tam and I pressed him to explain, which he did slowly after his fashion.

“Did you ever hear of I.D.B.—illicit diamond broking?” he asked me. “Well, it’snotorious that the Kaffirs on the diamond fields get away with a fair number ofstones, and they are bought by Jew and Portuguese traders. It’s against the lawto deal in them, and when I was in the intelligence here we used to have a lotof trouble with the vermin. But I discovered that most of the stones came fromnatives in one part of the country—more or less roundBlaauwildebeestefontein—and I see no reason to think that they had all beenstolen from Kimberley or the Premier. Indeed some of the stones I got hold ofwere quite different from any I had seen in South Africa before. I shouldn’twonder if the Kaffirs in the Zoutpansberg had struck some rich pipe, and hadthe sense to keep quiet about it. Maybe some day I’ll take a run up to see youand look into the matter.”

After this the talk turned on other topics till Tam, still nursing hisgrievance, asked a question on his own account. “Did you ever come across agreat big native parson called Laputa? He came on board as we were leavingDurban, and I had to turn out of my cabin for him.” Tam described himaccurately but vindictively, and added that “he was sure he was up to no good.”

Aitken shook his head. “No, I don’t know the man. You say he landed here? Well,I’ll keep a look-out for him. Big native parsons are not so common.”

Then I asked about Henriques, of whom Tam knew nothing. I described his face,his clothes, and his habits. Aitken laughed uproariously.

“Tut, my man, most of the subjects of his Majesty the King of Portugal wouldanswer to that description. If he’s a rascal, as you think, you may be certainhe’s in the I.D.B. business, and if I’m right about Blaauwildebeestefonteinyou’ll likely have news of him there some time or other. Drop me a line if hecomes, and I’ll get on to his record.”

I saw Tam off in the boat with a fairly satisfied mind. I was going to a placewith a secret, and I meant to find it out. The natives roundBlaauwildebeestefontein were queer, and diamonds were suspected somewhere inthe neighbourhood.

Henriques had something to do with the place, and so had the Rev. John Laputa,about whom I knew one strange thing. So did Tam by the way, but he had notidentified his former pursuer, and I had told him nothing. I was leaving twomen behind me, Colles at Durban and Aitken at Lourenco Marques, who would helpme if trouble came. Things were shaping well for some kind of adventure.

The talk with Aitken had given Tam an inkling of my thoughts. His last words tome were an appeal to let him know if there was any fun going.

“I can see you’re in for a queer job. Promise to let me hear from you ifthere’s going to be a row, and I’ll come up country, though I should have todesert the service. Send us a letter to the agents at Durban in case we shouldbe in port. You haven’t forgotten the Dyve Burn, Davie?”

CHAPTER III
BLAAUWILDEBEESTEFONTEIN

The Pilgrim’s Progress had been the Sabbath reading of my boyhood, and as Icame in sight of Blaauwildebeestefontein a passage ran in my head. It was thatwhich tells how Christian and Hopeful, after many perils of the way, came tothe Delectable Mountains, from which they had a prospect of Canaan. After manydusty miles by rail, and a weariful journey in a Cape-cart through arid plainsand dry and stony gorges, I had come suddenly into a haven of green. The Springof the Blue Wildebeeste was a clear rushing mountain torrent, which swirledover blue rocks into deep fern-fringed pools. All around was a tableland oflush grass with marigolds and arum lilies instead of daisies and buttercups.Thickets of tall trees dotted the hill slopes and patched the meadows as ifsome landscape-gardener had been at work on them. Beyond, the glen fell steeplyto the plains, which ran out in a faint haze to the horizon. To north and southI marked the sweep of the Berg, now rising high to a rocky peak and nowstretching in a level rampart of blue. On the very edge of the plateau wherethe road dipped for the descent stood the shanties of Blaauwildebeestefontein.The fresh hill air had exhilarated my mind, and the aromatic scent of theevening gave the last touch of intoxication. Whatever serpent might lurk in it,it was a veritable Eden I had come to.

Blaauwildebeestefontein had no more than two buildings of civilized shape; thestore, which stood on the left side of the river, and the schoolhouse opposite.For the rest, there were some twenty native huts, higher up the slope, of thetype which the Dutch call rondavels. The schoolhouse had a prettygarden, but the store stood bare in a patch of dust with a few outhouses andsheds beside it. Round the door lay a few old ploughs and empty barrels, andbeneath a solitary blue gum was a wooden bench with a rough table. Nativechildren played in the dust, and an old Kaffir squatted by the wall.

My few belongings were soon lifted from the Cape-cart, and I entered the shop.It was the ordinary pattern of up-country store—a bar in one corner with anarray of bottles, and all round the walls tins of canned food and the odds andends of trade. The place was empty, and a cloud of flies buzzed over the sugarcask.

Two doors opened at the back, and I chose the one to the right. I found myselfin a kind of kitchen with a bed in one corner, and a litter of dirty plates onthe table. On the bed lay a man, snoring heavily. I went close to him, andfound an old fellow with a bald head, clothed only in a shirt and trousers. Hisface was red and swollen, and his breath came in heavy grunts. A smell of badwhisky hung over everything. I had no doubt that this was Mr Peter Japp, mysenior in the store. One reason for the indifferent trade atBlaauwildebeestefontein was very clear to me: the storekeeper was a sot.

I went back to the shop and tried the other door. It was a bedroom too, butclean and pleasant. A little native girl—Zeeta, I found they called her—wasbusy tidying it up, and when I entered she dropped me a curtsy. “This is yourroom, Baas,” she said in very good English in reply to my question. The childhad been well trained somewhere, for there was a cracked dish full of oleanderblossom on the drawers’-head, and the pillow-slips on the bed were as clean asI could wish. She brought me water to wash, and a cup of strong tea, while Icarried my baggage indoors and paid the driver of the cart. Then, havingcleaned myself and lit a pipe, I walked across the road to see Mr Wardlaw.

I found the schoolmaster sitting under his own fig-tree reading one of hisKaffir primers. Having come direct by rail from Cape Town, he had been a weekin the place, and ranked as the second oldest white resident.

“Yon’s a bonny chief you’ve got, Davie,” were his first words. “For three dayshe’s been as fou as the Baltic.”

I cannot pretend that the misdeeds of Mr Japp greatly annoyed me. I had thereversion of his job, and if he chose to play the fool it was all in myinterest. But the schoolmaster was depressed at the prospect of such company.“Besides you and me, he’s the only white man in the place. It’s a poor look-outon the social side.”

The school, it appeared, was the merest farce. There were only five whitechildren, belonging to Dutch farmers in the mountains. The native side was moreflourishing, but the mission schools at the locations got most of the nativechildren in the neighbourhood. Mr Wardlaw’s educational zeal ran high. Hetalked of establishing a workshop and teaching carpentry and blacksmith’s work,of which he knew nothing. He rhapsodized over the intelligence of his pupilsand bemoaned his inadequate gift of tongues. “You and I, Davie,” he said, “mustsit down and grind at the business. It is to the interest of both of us. TheDutch is easy enough. It’s a sort of kitchen dialect you can learn in afortnight. But these native languages are a stiff job. Sesuto is the chiefhereabouts, and I’m told once you’ve got that it’s easy to get the Zulu. Thenthere’s the thing the Shangaans speak—Baronga, I think they call it. I’ve got aChristian Kaffir living up in one of the huts who comes every morning to talkto me for an hour. You’d better join me.”

I promised, and in the sweet-smelling dust crossed the road to the store. Jappwas still sleeping, so I got a bowl of mealie porridge from Zeeta and went tobed.

Japp was sober next morning and made me some kind of apology. He had chroniclumbago, he said, and “to go on the bust” now and then was the best cure forit. Then he proceeded to initiate me into my duties in a tone of exaggeratedfriendliness. “I took a fancy to you the first time I clapped eyes on you,” hesaid. “You and me will be good friends, Crawfurd, I can see that. You’re aspirited young fellow, and you’ll stand no nonsense. The Dutch about here are aslim lot, and the Kaffirs are slimmer. Trust no man, that’s my motto. The firmknow that, and I’ve had their confidence for forty years.”

The first day or two things went well enough. There was no doubt that, properlyhandled, a fine trade could be done in Blaauwildebeestefontein. The countrysidewas crawling with natives, and great strings used to come through from Shangaanterritory on the way to the Rand mines. Besides, there was business to be donewith the Dutch farmers, especially with the tobacco, which I foresaw could beworked up into a profitable export. There was no lack of money either, and wehad to give very little credit, though it was often asked for. I flung myselfinto the work, and in a few weeks had been all round the farms and locations.At first Japp praised my energy, for it left him plenty of leisure to sitindoors and drink. But soon he grew suspicious, for he must have seen that Iwas in a fair way to oust him altogether. He was very anxious to know if I hadseen Colles in Durban, and what the manager had said. “I have letters,” he toldme a hundred times, “from Mr Mackenzie himself praising me up to the skies. Thefirm couldn’t get along without old Peter Japp, I can tell you.” I had no wishto quarrel with the old man, so I listened politely to all he said. But thisdid not propitiate him, and I soon found him so jealous as to be a nuisance. Hewas Colonial-born and was always airing the fact. He rejoiced in my rawness,and when I made a blunder would crow over it for hours. “It’s no good, MrCrawfurd; you new chums from England may think yourselves mighty clever, but wemen from the Old Colony can get ahead of you every time. In fifty years you’llmaybe learn a little about the country, but we know all about it before westart.” He roared with laughter at my way of tying a voorslag, and hemade merry (no doubt with reason) on my management of a horse. I kept my temperpretty well, but I own there were moments when I came near to kicking Mr Japp.

The truth is he was a disgusting old ruffian. His character was shown by histreatment of Zeeta. The poor child slaved all day and did two men’s work inkeeping the household going. She was an orphan from a mission station, and inJapp’s opinion a creature without rights. Hence he never spoke to her exceptwith a curse, and used to cuff her thin shoulders till my blood boiled. One daythings became too much for my temper. Zeeta had spilled half a glass of Japp’swhisky while tidying up the room. He picked up a sjambok, and proceeded to beather unmercifully till her cries brought me on the scene. I tore the whip fromhis hands, seized him by the scruff and flung him on a heap of potato sacks,where he lay pouring out abuse and shaking with rage. Then I spoke my mind. Itold him that if anything of the sort happened again I would report it at onceto Mr Colles at Durban. I added that before making my report I would beat himwithin an inch of his degraded life. After a time he apologized, but I couldsee that thenceforth he regarded me with deadly hatred.

There was another thing I noticed about Mr Japp. He might brag about hisknowledge of how to deal with natives, but to my mind his methods were adisgrace to a white man. Zeeta came in for oaths and blows, but there wereother Kaffirs whom he treated with a sort of cringing friendliness. A big blackfellow would swagger into the shop, and be received by Japp as if he were hislong-lost brother. The two would collogue for hours; and though at first I didnot understand the tongue, I could see that it was the white man who fawned andthe black man who bullied. Once when Japp was away one of these fellows cameinto the store as if it belonged to him, but he went out quicker than heentered. Japp complained afterwards of my behaviour. “’Mwanga is a good friendof mine,” he said, “and brings us a lot of business. I’ll thank you to be civilto him the next time.” I replied very shortly that ’Mwanga or anybody else whodid not mend his manners would feel the weight of my boot.

The thing went on, and I am not sure that he did not give the Kaffirs drink onthe sly. At any rate, I have seen some very drunk natives on the road betweenthe locations and Blaauwildebeestefontein, and some of them I recognized asJapp’s friends. I discussed the matter with Mr Wardlaw, who said, “I believethe old villain has got some sort of black secret, and the natives know it, andhave got a pull on him.” And I was inclined to think he was right.

By-and-by I began to feel the lack of company, for Wardlaw was so full of hisbooks that he was of little use as a companion. So I resolved to acquire a dog,and bought one from a prospector, who was stony-broke and would have sold hissoul for a drink. It was an enormous Boer hunting-dog, a mongrel in whose bloodran mastiff and bulldog and foxhound, and Heaven knows what beside. In colourit was a kind of brindled red, and the hair on its back grew against the lie ofthe rest of its coat. Some one had told me, or I may have read it, that a backlike this meant that a dog would face anything mortal, even to a charging lion,and it was this feature which first caught my fancy. The price I paid was tenshillings and a pair of boots, which I got at cost price from stock, and theowner departed with injunctions to me to beware of the brute’s temper.Colin—for so I named him—began his career with me by taking the seat out of mybreeches and frightening Mr Wardlaw into a tree. It took me a stubborn battleof a fortnight to break his vice, and my left arm to-day bears witness to thestruggle. After that he became a second shadow, and woe betide the man who haddared to raise his hand to Colin’s master. Japp declared that the dog was adevil, and Colin repaid the compliment with a hearty dislike.

With Colin, I now took to spending some of my ample leisure in exploring thefastnesses of the Berg. I had brought out a shot-gun of my own, and I borroweda cheap Mauser sporting rifle from the store. I had been born with a good eyeand a steady hand, and very soon I became a fair shot with a gun and, Ibelieve, a really fine shot with the rifle. The sides of the Berg were full ofquail and partridge and bush pheasant, and on the grassy plateau there wasabundance of a bird not unlike our own blackcock, which the Dutch calledkorhaan. But the great sport was to stalk bush-buck in the thickets,which is a game in which the hunter is at small advantage. I have been knockeddown by a wounded bush-buck ram, and but for Colin might have been badlydamaged. Once, in a kloof not far from the Letaba, I killed a fine leopard,bringing him down with a single shot from a rocky shelf almost on the top ofColin. His skin lies by my fireside as I write this tale. But it was during thedays I could spare for an expedition into the plains that I proved the greatqualities of my dog. There we had nobler game to follow—wildebeest andhartebeest, impala, and now and then a koodoo. At first I was a completeduffer, and shamed myself in Colin’s eyes. But by-and-by I learned something ofveld-craft: I learned how to follow spoor, how to allow for the wind, and stalkunder cover. Then, when a shot had crippled the beast, Colin was on its tracklike a flash to pull it down. The dog had the nose of a retriever, the speed ofa greyhound, and the strength of a bull-terrier. I blessed the day when thewandering prospector had passed the store.

Colin slept at night at the foot of my bed, and it was he who led me to make animportant discovery. For I now became aware that I was being subjected toconstant espionage. It may have been going on from the start, but it was nottill my third month at Blaauwildebeestefontein that I found it out. One night Iwas going to bed, when suddenly the bristles rose on the dog’s back and hebarked uneasily at the window. I had been standing in the shadow, and as Istepped to the window to look out I saw a black face disappear below thepalisade of the backyard. The incident was trifling, but it put me on my guard.The next night I looked, but saw nothing. The third night I looked, and caughta glimpse of a face almost pressed to the pane. Thereafter I put up theshutters after dark, and shifted my bed to a part of the room out of line withthe window.

It was the same out of doors. I would suddenly be conscious, as I walked on theroad, that I was being watched. If I made as if to walk into the roadside bushthere would be a faint rustling, which told that the watcher had retired. Thestalking was brilliantly done, for I never caught a glimpse of one of thestalkers. Wherever I went—on the road, on the meadows of the plateau, or on therugged sides of the Berg—it was the same. I had silent followers, who betrayedthemselves now and then by the crackling of a branch, and eyes were alwayslooking at me which I could not see. Only when I went down to the plains didthe espionage cease. This thing annoyed Colin desperately, and his walks abroadwere one continuous growl. Once, in spite of my efforts, he dashed into thethicket, and a squeal of pain followed. He had got somebody by the leg, andthere was blood on the grass.

Since I came to Blaauwildebeestefontein I had forgotten the mystery I had setout to track in the excitement of a new life and my sordid contest with Japp.But now this espionage brought back my old preoccupation. I was being watchedbecause some person or persons thought that I was dangerous. My suspicionsfastened on Japp, but I soon gave up that clue. It was my presence in the storethat was a danger to him, not my wanderings about the countryside. It might bethat he had engineered the espionage so as to drive me out of the place insheer annoyance; but I flattered myself that Mr Japp knew me too well toimagine that such a game was likely to succeed.

The mischief was that I could not make out who the trackers were. I had visitedall the surrounding locations, and was on good enough terms with all thechiefs. There was ’Mpefu, a dingy old fellow who had spent a good deal of hislife in a Boer gaol before the war. There was a mission station at his place,and his people seemed to me to be well behaved and prosperous. Majinje was achieftainess, a little girl whom nobody was allowed to see. Her location was amiserable affair, and her tribe was yearly shrinking in numbers. Then there wasMagata farther north among the mountains. He had no quarrel with me, for heused to give me a meal when I went out hunting in that direction; and once heturned out a hundred of his young men, and I had a great battue of wild dogs.Sikitola, the biggest of all, lived some distance out in the flats. I knew lessabout him; but if his men were the trackers, they must have spent most of theirdays a weary way from their kraal. The Kaffirs in the huts atBlaauwildebeestefontein were mostly Christians, and quiet, decent fellows, whofarmed their little gardens, and certainly preferred me to Japp. I thought atone time of riding into Pietersdorp to consult the Native Commissioner. But Idiscovered that the old man, who knew the country, was gone, and that hissuccessor was a young fellow from Rhodesia, who knew nothing about anything.Besides, the natives round Blaauwildebeestefontein were well conducted, andreceived few official visitations. Now and then a couple of Zulu policemenpassed in pursuit of some minor malefactor, and the collector came for thehut-tax; but we gave the Government little work, and they did not trouble theirheads about us.

As I have said, the clues I had brought out with me to Blaauwildebeestefonteinbegan to occupy my mind again; and the more I thought of the business thekeener I grew. I used to amuse myself with setting out my various bits ofknowledge. There was first of all the Rev. John Laputa, his doings on theKirkcaple shore, his talk with Henriques about Blaauwildebeestefontein, and hisstrange behaviour at Durban. Then there was what Colles had told me about theplace being queer, how nobody would stay long either in the store or theschoolhouse. Then there was my talk with Aitken at Lourenco Marques, and hisstory of a great wizard in the neighbourhood to whom all Kaffirs madepilgrimages, and the suspicion of a diamond pipe. Last and most important,there was this perpetual spying on myself. It was as clear as daylight that theplace held some secret, and I wondered if old Japp knew. I was fool enough oneday to ask him about diamonds. He met me with contemptuous laughter. “There’syour ignorant Britisher,” he cried. “If you had ever been to Kimberley youwould know the look of a diamond country. You’re as likely to find diamondshere as ocean pearls. But go out and scrape in the spruit if you like; you’llmaybe find some garnets.”

I made cautious inquiries, too, chiefly through Mr Wardlaw, who was becoming agreat expert at Kaffir, about the existence of Aitken’s wizard, but he couldget no news. The most he found out was that there was a good cure for feveramong Sikitola’s men, and that Majinje, if she pleased, could bring rain.

The upshot of it all was that, after much brooding, I wrote a letter to MrColles, and, to make sure of its going, gave it to a missionary to post inPietersdorp. I told him frankly what Aitken had said, and I also told him aboutthe espionage. I said nothing about old Japp, for, beast as he was, I did notwant him at his age to be without a livelihood.

CHAPTER IV
MY JOURNEY TO THE WINTER-VELD

A reply came from Colles, addressed not to me but to Japp. It seemed that theold fellow had once suggested the establishment of a branch store at a placeout in the plains called Umvelos’, and the firm was now prepared to take up thescheme. Japp was in high good humour, and showed me the letter. Not a word wassaid of what I had written about, only the bare details about starting thebranch. I was to get a couple of masons, load up two wagons with bricks andtimber, and go down to Umvelos’ and see the store built. The stocking of it andthe appointment of a storekeeper would be matter for further correspondence.Japp was delighted, for, besides getting rid of me for several weeks, it showedthat his advice was respected by his superiors. He went about bragging that thefirm could not get on without him, and was inclined to be more insolent to methan usual in his new self-esteem. He also got royally drunk over the head ofit.

I confess I was hurt by the manager’s silence on what seemed to me more vitalmatters. But I soon reflected that if he wrote at all he would write direct tome, and I eagerly watched for the post-runner. No letter came, however, and Iwas soon too busy with preparations to look for one. I got the bricks andtimber from Pietersdorp, and hired two Dutch masons to run the job. The placewas not very far from Sikitola’s kraal, so there would be no difficulty aboutnative helpers. Having my eyes open for trade, I resolved to kill two birdswith one stone. It was the fashion among the old-fashioned farmers on thehigh-veld to drive the cattle down into the bush-veld—which they call thewinter-veld—for winter pasture. There is no fear of red-water about thatseason, and the grass of the plains is rich and thick compared with theuplands. I discovered that some big droves were passing on a certain day, andthat the owners and their families were travelling with them in wagons.Accordingly I had a light naachtmaalfitted up as a sort of travellingstore, and with my two wagons full of building material joined the caravan. Ihoped to do good trade in selling little luxuries to the farmers on the roadand at Umvelos’.

It was a clear cold morning when we started down the Berg. At first my handswere full with the job of getting my heavy wagons down the awesome precipicewhich did duty as a highway. We locked the wheels with chains, and tied greatlogs of wood behind to act as brakes. Happily my drivers knew their business,but one of the Boer wagons got a wheel over the edge, and it was all that tenmen could do to get it back again.

After that the road was easier, winding down the side of a slowly opening glen.I rode beside the wagons, and so heavenly was the weather that I was contentwith my own thoughts. The sky was clear blue, the air warm, yet with a wintrytonic in it, and a thousand aromatic scents came out of the thickets. The piedbirds called “Kaffir queens” fluttered across the path. Below, the KleinLabongo churned and foamed in a hundred cascades. Its waters were no more theclear grey of the “Blue Wildebeeste’s Spring,” but growing muddy with itsapproach to the richer soil of the plains.

Oxen travel slow, and we outspanned that night half a day’s march short ofUmvelos’. I spent the hour before sunset lounging and smoking with the Dutchfarmers. At first they had been silent and suspicious of a newcomer, but bythis time I talked their taal fluently, and we were soon on good terms. Irecall a discussion arising about a black thing in a tree about five hundredyards away. I thought it was an aasvogel, but another thought it was a baboon.Whereupon the oldest of the party, a farmer called Coetzee, whipped up hisrifle and, apparently without sighting, fired. A dark object fell out of thebranch, and when we reached it we found it a baviaan[1] sure enough,shot through the head. “Which side are you on in the next war?” the old manasked me, and, laughing, I told him “Yours.”

After supper, the ingredients of which came largely from my naachtmaal,we sat smoking and talking round the fire, the women and children being snug inthe covered wagons. The Boers were honest companionable fellows, and when I hadmade a bowl of toddy in the Scotch fashion to keep out the evening chill, weall became excellent friends. They asked me how I got on with Japp. Old Coetzeesaved me the trouble of answering, for he broke in with Skellum!Skellum![2] I asked him his objection to the storekeeper, but he wouldsay nothing beyond that he was too thick with the natives. I fancy at some timeMr Japp had sold him a bad plough.

We spoke of hunting, and I heard long tales of exploits—away on the Limpopo, inMashonaland, on the Sabi and in the Lebombo. Then we verged on politics, and Ilistened to violent denunciations of the new land tax. These were oldresidenters, I reflected, and I might learn perhaps something of value. So verycarefully I repeated a tale I said I had heard at Durban of a great wizardsomewhere in the Berg, and asked if any one knew of it. They shook their heads.The natives had given up witchcraft and big medicine, they said, and were moreafraid of a parson or a policeman than any witch-doctor. Then they werestarting on reminiscences, when old Coetzee, who was deaf, broke in and askedto have my question repeated.

“Yes,” he said, “I know. It is in the Rooirand. There is a devil dwells there.”

I could get no more out of him beyond the fact that there was certainly a greatdevil there. His grandfather and father had seen it, and he himself had heardit roaring when he had gone there as a boy to hunt. He would explain nofurther, and went to bed.

Next morning, close to Sikitola’s kraal, I bade the farmers good-bye, aftertelling them that there would be a store in my wagon for three weeks atUmvelos’ if they wanted supplies. We then struck more to the north towards ourdestination. As soon as they had gone I had out my map and searched it for thename old Coetzee had mentioned. It was a very bad map, for there had been nosurveying east of the Berg, and most of the names were mere guesses. But Ifound the word “Rooirand” marking an eastern continuation of the northern wall,and probably set down from some hunter’s report. I had better explain here thechief features of the country, for they bulk largely in my story. The Berg runsnorth and south, and from it run the chief streams which water the plain. Theyare, beginning from the south, the Olifants, the Groot Letaba, the Letsitela,the Klein Letaba, and the Klein Labongo, on which standsBlaauwildebeestefontein. But the greatest river of the plain, into which theothers ultimately flow, is the Groot Labongo, which appears full-born from somesubterranean source close to the place called Umvelos’. North fromBlaauwildebeestefontein the Berg runs for some twenty miles, and then makes asharp turn eastward, becoming, according to my map, the Rooirand.

I pored over these details, and was particularly curious about the GreatLabongo. It seemed to me unlikely that a spring in the bush could produce sogreat a river, and I decided that its source must lie in the mountains to thenorth. As well as I could guess, the Rooirand, the nearest part of the Berg,was about thirty miles distant. Old Coetzee had said that there was a devil inthe place, but I thought that if it were explored the first thing found wouldbe a fine stream of water.

We got to Umvelos’ after midday, and outspanned for our three weeks’ work. Iset the Dutchmen to unload and clear the ground for foundations, while I wentoff to Sikitola to ask for labourers. I got a dozen lusty blacks, and soon wehad a business-like encampment, and the work went on merrily. It was rougharchitecture and rougher masonry. All we aimed at was a two-roomed shop with akind of outhouse for stores. I was architect, and watched the marking out ofthe foundations and the first few feet of the walls. Sikitola’s people provedthemselves good helpers, and most of the building was left to them, while theDutchmen worked at the carpentry. Bricks ran short before we got very far, andwe had to set to brick-making on the bank of the Labongo, and finish off thewalls with green bricks, which gave the place a queer piebald look.

I was not much of a carpenter, and there were plenty of builders without me, soI found a considerable amount of time on my hands. At first I acted asshopkeeper in the naachtmaal, but I soon cleared out my stores to theDutch farmers and the natives. I had thought of going back for more, and thenit occurred to me that I might profitably give some of my leisure to theRooirand. I could see the wall of the mountains quite clear to the north,within an easy day’s ride. So one morning I packed enough food for a day ortwo, tied my sleeping-bag on my saddle, and set off to explore, afterappointing the elder of the Dutchmen foreman of the job in my absence.

It was very hot jogging along the native path with the eternal olive-green busharound me. Happily there was no fear of losing the way, for the Rooirand stoodvery clear in front, and slowly, as I advanced, I began to make out the detailsof the cliffs. At luncheon-time, when I was about half-way, I sat down with myZeiss glass—my mother’s farewell gift—to look for the valley. But valley I sawnone. The wall—reddish purple it looked, and, I thought, of porphyry—wascontinuous and unbroken. There were chimneys and fissures, but none greatenough to hold a river. The top was sheer cliff; then came loose kranzes intiers, like the seats in a gallery, and, below, a dense thicket of trees. Iraked the whole line for a break, but there seemed none. “It’s a bad job forme,” I thought, “if there is no water, for I must pass the night there.” Thenight was spent in a sheltered nook at the foot of the rocks, but my horse andI went to bed without a drink. My supper was some raisins and biscuits, for Idid not dare to run the risk of increasing my thirst. I had found a great bankof débrissloping up to the kranzes, and thick wood clothing all theslope. The grass seemed wonderfully fresh, but of water there was no sign.There was not even the sandy channel of a stream to dig in.

In the morning I had a difficult problem to face. Water I must find at allcosts, or I must go home. There was time enough for me to get back withoutsuffering much, but if so I must give up my explorations. This I was determinednot to do. The more I looked at these red cliffs the more eager I was to findout their secret. There must be water somewhere; otherwise how account for thelushness of the vegetation?

My horse was a veld pony, so I set him loose to see what he would do. Hestrayed back on the path to Umvelos’. This looked bad, for it meant that he didnot smell water along the cliff front. If I was to find a stream it must be onthe top, and I must try a little mountaineering.

Then, taking my courage in both my hands, I decided. I gave my pony a cut, andset him off on the homeward road. I knew he was safe to get back in four orfive hours, and in broad day there was little fear of wild beasts attackinghim. I had tied my sleeping bag on to the saddle, and had with me but twopocketfuls of food. I had also fastened on the saddle a letter to my Dutchforeman, bidding him send a native with a spare horse to fetch me by theevening. Then I started off to look for a chimney.

A boyhood spent on the cliffs at Kirkcaple had made me a bold cragsman, and theporphyry of the Rooirand clearly gave excellent holds. But I walked many wearymiles along the cliff-foot before I found a feasible road. To begin with, itwas no light task to fight one’s way through the dense undergrowth of the lowerslopes. Every kind of thorn-bush lay in wait for my skin, creepers tripped meup, high trees shut out the light, and I was in constant fear lest a blackmambamight appear out of the tangle. It grew very hot, and the screesabove the thicket were blistering to the touch. My tongue, too, stuck to theroof of my mouth with thirst.

The first chimney I tried ran out on the face into nothingness, and I had tomake a dangerous descent. The second was a deep gully, but so choked withrubble that after nearly braining myself I desisted. Still going eastwards, Ifound a sloping ledge which took me to a platform from which ran a crack with alittle tree growing in it. My glass showed me that beyond this tree the crackbroadened into a clearly defined chimney which led to the top. If I can oncereach that tree, I thought, the battle is won. The crack was only a few incheswide, large enough to let in an arm and a foot, and it ran slantwise up aperpendicular rock. I do not think I realized how bad it was till I had gonetoo far to return. Then my foot jammed, and I paused for breath with my legsand arms cramping rapidly. I remember that I looked to the west, and sawthrough the sweat which kept dropping into my eyes that about half a mile off apiece of cliff which looked unbroken from the foot had a fold in it to theright. The darkness of the fold showed me that it was a deep, narrow gully.However, I had no time to think of this, for I was fast in the middle of myconfounded crack. With immense labour I found a chockstone above my head, andmanaged to force my foot free. The next few yards were not so difficult, andthen I stuck once more.

For the crack suddenly grew shallow as the cliff bulged out above me. I hadalmost given up hope, when I saw that about three feet above my head grew thetree. If I could reach it and swing out I might hope to pull myself up to theledge on which it grew. I confess it needed all my courage, for I did not knowbut that the tree might be loose, and that it and I might go rattling down fourhundred feet. It was my only hope, however, so I set my teeth, and wriggling upa few inches, made a grab at it. Thank God it held, and with a great effort Ipulled my shoulder over the ledge, and breathed freely.

My difficulties were not ended, but the worst was past. The rest of the gullygave me good and safe climbing, and presently a very limp and weary figure layon the cliff-top. It took me many minutes to get back my breath and to conquerthe faintness which seized me as soon as the need for exertion was over.

When I scrambled to my feet and looked round, I saw a wonderful prospect. Itwas a plateau like the high-veld, only covered with bracken and little busheslike hazels. Three or four miles off the ground rose, and a shallow valeopened. But in the foreground, half a mile or so distant, a lake lay gleamingin the sun.

I could scarcely believe my eyes as I ran towards it, and doubts of a miragehaunted me. But it was no mirage, but a real lake, perhaps three miles incircumference, with bracken-fringed banks, a shore of white pebbles, and cleardeep blue water. I drank my fill, and then stripped and swam in the blessedcoolness. After that I ate some luncheon, and sunned myself on a flat rock. “Ihave discovered the source of the Labongo,” I said to myself. “I will write tothe Royal Geographical Society, and they will give me a medal.”

I walked round the lake to look for an outlet. A fine mountain stream came inat the north end, and at the south end, sure enough, a considerable riverdebauched. My exploring zeal redoubled, and I followed its course in a deliriumof expectation. It was a noble stream, clear as crystal, and very unlike themuddy tropical Labongo at Umvelos’. Suddenly, about a quarter of a mile fromthe lake, the land seemed to grow over it, and with a swirl and a hollow roar,it disappeared into a mighty pot-hole. I walked a few steps on, and from belowmy feet came the most uncanny rumbling and groaning. Then I knew what oldCoetzee’s devil was that howled in the Rooirand.

Had I continued my walk to the edge of the cliff, I might have learned a secretwhich would have stood me in good stead later. But the descent began to make meanxious, and I retraced my steps to the top of the chimney whence I had come. Iwas resolved that nothing would make me descend by that awesome crack, so Ikept on eastward along the top to look for a better way. I found one about amile farther on, which, though far from easy, had no special risks save fromthe appalling looseness of the débris. When I got down at length, Ifound that it was near sunset. I went to the place I had bidden my native lookfor me at, but, as I had feared, there was no sign of him. So, making the bestof a bad job, I had supper and a pipe, and spent a very chilly night in a holeamong the boulders.

I got up at dawn stiff and cold, and ate a few raisins for breakfast. There wasno sign of horses, so I resolved to fill up the time in looking for the fold ofthe cliff which, as I had seen from the horrible crack of yesterday, containeda gully. It was a difficult job, for to get the sidelong view of the cliff Ihad to scramble through the undergrowth of the slopes again, and even a certainway up the kranzes. At length I got my bearings, and fixed the place by sometall trees in the bush. Then I descended and walked westwards.

Suddenly, as I neared the place, I heard the strangest sound coming from therocks. It was a deep muffled groaning, so eerie and unearthly that for themoment I stood and shivered. Then I remembered my river of yesterday. It mustbe above this place that it descended into the earth, and in the hush of dawnthe sound was naturally louder. No wonder old Coetzee had been afraid ofdevils. It reminded me of the lines in Marmion—

“Diving as if condemned to lave
Some demon’s subterranean cave,
Who, prisoned by enchanter’s spell,
Shakes the dark rock with groan and yell.”

While I was standing awestruck at the sound, I observed a figure moving towardsthe cliffs. I was well in cover, so I could not have been noticed. It was avery old man, very tall, but bowed in the shoulders, who was walking slowlywith bent head. He could not have been thirty yards from me, so I had a clearview of his face. He was a native, but of a type I had never seen before. Along white beard fell on his breast, and a magnificent kaross of leopard skincovered his shoulders. His face was seamed and lined and shrunken, so that heseemed as old as Time itself.

Very carefully I crept after him, and found myself opposite the fold where thegully was. There was a clear path through the jungle, a path worn smooth bymany feet. I followed it through the undergrowth and over the screes till itturned inside the fold of the gully. And then it stopped short. I was in a deepcleft, but in front was a slab of sheer rock. Above, the gully looked darkerand deeper, but there was this great slab to pass. I examined the sides, butthey were sheer rock with no openings.

Had I had my wits about me, I would have gone back and followed the spoor,noting where it stopped. But the whole thing looked black magic to me; mystomach was empty and my enterprise small. Besides, there was the terriblemoaning of the imprisoned river in my ears. I am ashamed to confess it, but Iran from that gully as if the devil and all his angels had been following me.Indeed, I did not slacken till I had put a good mile between me and thoseuncanny cliffs. After that I set out to foot it back. If the horses would notcome to me I must go to them.

I walked twenty-five miles in a vile temper, enraged at my Dutchmen, mynatives, and everybody. The truth is, I had been frightened, and my pride wassore about it. It grew very hot, the sand rose and choked me, the mopani treeswith their dull green wearied me, the “Kaffir queens” and jays and rollerswhich flew about the path seemed to be there to mock me. About half-way home Ifound a boy and two horses, and roundly I cursed him. It seemed that my ponyhad returned right enough, and the boy had been sent to fetch me. He had gothalf-way before sunset the night before, and there he had stayed. I discoveredfrom him that he was scared to death, and did not dare go any nearer theRooirand. It was accursed, he said, for it was an abode of devils, and onlywizards went near it. I was bound to admit to myself that I could not blamehim. At last I had got on the track of something certain about this mysteriouscountry, and all the way back I wondered if I should have the courage to followit up.

[1] Baboon.

[2] Schelm: Rascal.

CHAPTER V
MR WARDLAW HAS A PREMONITION

A week later the building job was finished, I locked the door of the new store,pocketed the key, and we set out for home. Sikitola was entrusted with thegeneral care of it, and I knew him well enough to be sure that he would keephis people from doing mischief. I left my empty wagons to follow at theirleisure and rode on, with the result that I arrived at Blaauwildebeestefonteintwo days before I was looked for.

I stabled my horse, and went round to the back to see Colin. (I had left him athome in case of fights with native dogs, for he was an ill beast in a crowd.) Ifound him well and hearty, for Zeeta had been looking after him. Then some whimseized me to enter the store through my bedroom window. It was open, and Icrawled softly in to find the room fresh and clean from Zeeta’s care. The doorwas ajar, and, hearing voices, I peeped into the shop.

Japp was sitting on the counter talking in a low voice to a big native—the same’Mwanga whom I had bundled out unceremoniously. I noticed that the outer doorgiving on the road was shut, a most unusual thing in the afternoon. Japp hadsome small objects in his hand, and the two were evidently arguing about aprice. I had no intention at first of eavesdropping, and was just about to pushthe door open, when something in Japp’s face arrested me. He was up to no good,and I thought it my business to wait.

The low tones went on for a little, both men talking in Kaffir, and then Japplifted up one of the little objects between finger and thumb. It was a smallroundish stone about the size of a bean, but even in that half light there wasa dull lustre in it.

At that I shoved the door open and went in. Both men started as if they hadbeen shot. Japp went as white as his mottled face permitted. “What the—” hegasped, and he dropped the thing he was holding.

I picked it up, and laid it on the counter. “So,” I said, “diamonds, Mr Japp.You have found the pipe I was looking for. I congratulate you.”

My words gave the old ruffian his cue. “Yes, yes,” he said, “I have, or rathermy friend ’Mwanga has. He has just been telling me about it.”

The Kaffir looked miserably uncomfortable. He shifted from one leg to theother, casting longing glances at the closed door.

“I tink I go,” he said. “Afterwards we will speak more.”

I told him I thought he had better go, and opened the door for him. Then Ibolted it again, and turned to Mr Japp.

“So that’s your game,” I said. “I thought there was something funny about you,but I didn’t know it was I.D.B. you were up to.”

He looked as if he could kill me. For five minutes he cursed me with aperfection of phrase which I had thought beyond him. It was no I.D.B., hedeclared, but a pipe which ’Mwanga had discovered. “In this kind of country?” Isaid, quoting his own words. “Why, you might as well expect to find oceanpearls as diamonds. But scrape in the spruit if you like; you’ll maybe findsome garnets.”

He choked down his wrath, and tried a new tack. “What will you take to holdyour tongue? I’ll make you a rich man if you’ll come in with me.” And then hestarted with offers which showed that he had been making a good thing out ofthe traffic.

I stalked over to him, and took him by the shoulder. “You old reprobate,” Iroared, “if you breathe such a proposal to me again, I’ll tie you up like asack and carry you to Pietersdorp.”

At this he broke down and wept maudlin tears, disgusting to witness. He said hewas an old man who had always lived honestly, and it would break his heart ifhis grey hairs were to be disgraced. As he sat rocking himself with his handsover his face, I saw his wicked little eyes peering through the slits of hisfingers to see what my next move would be.

“See here, Mr Japp,” I said, “I’m not a police spy, and it’s no business ofmine to inform against you. I’m willing to keep you out of gaol, but it must beon my own conditions. The first is that you resign this job and clear out. Youwill write to Mr Colles a letter at my dictation, saying that you find the worktoo much for you. The second is that for the time you remain here the diamondbusiness must utterly cease. If ’Mwanga or anybody like him comes inside thestore, and if I get the slightest hint that you’re back at the trade, in you goto Pietersdorp. I’m not going to have my name disgraced by being associatedwith you. The third condition is that when you leave this place you go clearaway. If you come within twenty miles of Blaauwildebeestefontein and I findyou, I will give you up.”

He groaned and writhed at my terms, but in the end accepted them. He wrote theletter, and I posted it. I had no pity for the old scamp, who had feathered hisnest well. Small wonder that the firm’s business was not as good as it mightbe, when Japp was giving most of his time to buying diamonds from nativethieves. The secret put him in the power of any Kaffir who traded him a stone.No wonder he cringed to ruffians like ’Mwanga.

The second thing I did was to shift my quarters. Mr Wardlaw had a spare roomwhich he had offered me before, and now I accepted it. I wanted to be no moremixed up with Japp than I could help, for I did not know what villainy he mightlet me in for. Moreover, I carried Zeeta with me, being ashamed to leave her atthe mercy of the old bully. Japp went up to the huts and hired a slattern tomind his house, and then drank heavily for three days to console himself.

That night I sat smoking with Mr Wardlaw in his sitting-room, where a welcomefire burned, for the nights on the Berg were chilly. I remember the occasionwell for the queer turn the conversation took. Wardlaw, as I have said, hadbeen working like a slave at the Kaffir tongues. I talked a kind of Zulu wellenough to make myself understood, and I could follow it when spoken; but he hadreal scholarship in the thing, and knew all about the grammar and the differentdialects. Further, he had read a lot about native history, and was full of thedoings of Tchaka and Mosilikatse and Moshesh, and the kings of old. Havinglittle to do in the way of teaching, he had made up for it by readingomnivorously. He used to borrow books from the missionaries, and he must havespent half his salary in buying new ones.

To-night as he sat and puffed in his armchair, he was full of stories about afellow called Monomotapa. It seems he was a great black emperor whom thePortuguese discovered about the sixteenth century. He lived to the north inMashonaland, and had a mountain full of gold. The Portuguese did not make muchof him, but they got his son and turned him into a priest.

I told Wardlaw that he was most likely only a petty chief, whose exploits weremagnified by distance, the same as the caciques in Mexico. But the schoolmasterwould not accept this.

“He must have been a big man, Davie. You know that the old ruins in Rhodesia,called Zimbabwe, were long believed to be Phoenician in origin. I have a bookhere which tells all about them. But now it is believed that they were built bynatives. I maintain that the men who could erect piles like that”—and he showedme a picture—”were something more than petty chiefs.”

Presently the object of this conversation appeared. Mr Wardlaw thought that wewere underrating the capacity of the native. This opinion was natural enough ina schoolmaster, but not in the precise form Wardlaw put it. It was not hisintelligence which he thought we underrated, but his dangerousness. Hisreasons, shortly, were these: There were five or six of them to every whiteman; they were all, roughly speaking, of the same stock, with the same tribalbeliefs; they had only just ceased being a warrior race, with a powerfulmilitary discipline; and, most important, they lived round the rim of thehigh-veld plateau, and if they combined could cut off the white man from thesea. I pointed out to him that it would only be a matter of time before weopened the road again. “Ay,” he said, “but think of what would happen beforethen. Think of the lonely farms and the little dorps wiped out of the map. Itwould be a second and bloodier Indian mutiny. “I’m not saying it’s likely,” hewent on, “but I maintain it’s possible. Supposing a second Tchaka turned up,who could get the different tribes to work together. It wouldn’t be so veryhard to smuggle in arms. Think of the long, unwatched coast in Gazaland andTongaland. If they got a leader with prestige enough to organize a crusadeagainst the white man, I don’t see what could prevent a rising.”

“We should get wind of it in time to crush it at the start,” I said.

“I’m not so sure. They are cunning fellows, and have arts that we know nothingabout. You have heard of native telepathy. They can send news over a thousandmiles as quick as the telegraph, and we have no means of tapping the wires. Ifthey ever combined they could keep it as secret as the grave. My houseboy mightbe in the rising, and I would never suspect it till one fine morning he cut mythroat.”

“But they would never find a leader. If there was some exiled prince ofTchaka’s blood, who came back like Prince Charlie to free his people, theremight be danger; but their royalties are fat men with top hats and oldfrock-coats, who live in dirty locations.”

Wardlaw admitted this, but said that there might be other kinds of leaders. Hehad been reading a lot about Ethiopianism, which educated American negroes hadbeen trying to preach in South Africa. He did not see why a kind of bastardChristianity should not be the motive of a rising. “The Kaffir finds it an easyjob to mix up Christian emotion and pagan practice. Look at Hayti and some ofthe performances in the Southern States.”

Then he shook the ashes out of his pipe and leaned forward with a solemn face.“I’ll admit the truth to you, Davie. I’m black afraid.”

He looked so earnest and serious sitting there with his short-sighted eyespeering at me that I could not help being impressed.

“Whatever is the matter?” I asked. “Has anything happened?”

He shook his head. “Nothing I can put a name to. But I have a presentiment thatsome mischief is afoot in these hills. I feel it in my bones.”

I confess I was startled by these words. You must remember that I had nevergiven a hint of my suspicions to Mr Wardlaw beyond asking him if a wizard livedin the neighbourhood—a question anybody might have put. But here was theschoolmaster discovering for himself some mystery in Blaauwildebeestefontein.

I tried to get at his evidence, but it was very little. He thought there werean awful lot of blacks about. “The woods are full of them,” he said. I gatheredhe did not imagine he was being spied on, but merely felt that there were morenatives about than could be explained. “There’s another thing,” he said. “Thenative bairns have all left the school. I’ve only three scholars left, and theyare from Dutch farms. I went to Majinje to find out what was up, and an oldcrone told me the place was full of bad men. I tell you, Davie, there’ssomething brewing, and that something is not good for us.”

There was nothing new to me in what Wardlaw had to tell, and yet that talk lateat night by a dying fire made me feel afraid for the second time since I hadcome to Blaauwildebeestefontein. I had a clue and had been on the look-out formysteries, but that another should feel the strangeness for himself made itseem desperately real to me. Of course I scoffed at Mr Wardlaw’s fears. I couldnot have him spoiling all my plans by crying up a native rising for which hehad not a scrap of evidence.

“Have you been writing to anybody?” I asked him.

He said that he had told no one, but he meant to, unless things got better. “Ihaven’t the nerve for this job, Davie,” he said; “I’ll have to resign. And it’sa pity, for the place suits my health fine. You see I know too much, and Ihaven’t your whinstone nerve and total lack of imagination.”

I told him that it was simply fancy, and came from reading too many books andtaking too little exercise. But I made him promise to say nothing to anybodyeither by word of mouth or letter, without telling me first. Then I made him arummer of toddy and sent him to bed a trifle comforted.

The first thing I did in my new room was to shift the bed into the corner outof line with the window. There were no shutters, so I put up an old table-topand jammed it between the window frames. Also, I loaded my shot-gun and kept itby my bedside. Had Wardlaw seen these preparations he might have thought moreof my imagination and less of my nerve. It was a real comfort to me to put outa hand in the darkness and feel Colin’s shaggy coat.

CHAPTER VI
THE DRUMS BEAT AT SUNSET

Japp was drunk for the next day or two, and I had the business of the store tomyself. I was glad of this, for it gave me leisure to reflect upon the variousperplexities of my situation. As I have said, I was really scared, more out ofa sense of impotence than from dread of actual danger. I was in a fog ofuncertainty. Things were happening around me which I could only dimly guess at,and I had no power to take one step in defence. That Wardlaw should have feltthe same without any hint from me was the final proof that the mystery was nofigment of my nerves. I had written to Colles and got no answer. Now the letterwith Japp’s resignation in it had gone to Durban. Surely some notice would betaken of that. If I was given the post, Colles was bound to consider what I hadsaid in my earlier letter and give me some directions. Meanwhile it was mybusiness to stick to my job till I was relieved.

A change had come over the place during my absence. The natives had almostdisappeared from sight. Except the few families living roundBlaauwildebeestefontein one never saw a native on the roads, and none came intothe store. They were sticking close to their locations, or else they had goneafter some distant business. Except a batch of three Shangaans returning fromthe Rand, I had nobody in the store for the whole of one day. So about fouro’clock I shut it up, whistled on Colin, and went for a walk along the Berg.

If there were no natives on the road, there were plenty in the bush. I had theimpression, of which Wardlaw had spoken, that the native population of thecountryside had suddenly been hugely increased. The woods were simplyhotchingwith them. I was being spied on as before, but now there wereso many at the business that they could not all conceal their tracks. Every nowand then I had a glimpse of a black shoulder or leg, and Colin, whom I kept onthe leash, was half-mad with excitement. I had seen all I wanted, and went homewith a preoccupied mind. I sat long on Wardlaw’s garden-seat, trying to puzzleout the truth of this spying.

What perplexed me was that I had been left unmolested when I had gone toUmvelos’. Now, as I conjectured, the secret of the neighbourhood, whatever itwas, was probably connected with the Rooirand. But when I had ridden in thatdirection and had spent two days in exploring, no one had troubled to watch me.I was quite certain about this, for my eye had grown quick to note espionage,and it is harder for a spy to hide in the spare bush of the flats than in thedense thickets on these uplands.

The watchers, then, did not mind my fossicking round their sacred place. Why,then, was I so closely watched in the harmless neighbourhood of the store? Ithought for a long time before an answer occurred to me. The reason must bethat going to the plains I was going into native country and away fromcivilization. But Blaauwildebeestefontein was near the frontier. There must besome dark business brewing of which they may have feared that I had an inkling.They wanted to see if I proposed to go to Pietersdorp or Wesselsburg and tellwhat I knew, and they clearly were resolved that I should not. I laughed, Iremember, thinking that they had forgotten the post-bag. But then I reflectedthat I knew nothing of what might be happening daily to the post-bag.

When I had reached this conclusion, my first impulse was to test it by ridingstraight west on the main road. If I was right, I should certainly be stopped.On second thoughts, however, this seemed to me to be flinging up the gameprematurely, and I resolved to wait a day or two before acting.

Next day nothing happened, save that my sense of loneliness increased. I feltthat I was being hemmed in by barbarism, and cut off in a ghoulish land fromthe succour of my own kind. I only kept my courage up by the necessity ofpresenting a brave face to Mr Wardlaw, who was by this time in a very brokencondition of nerves. I had often thought that it was my duty to advise him toleave, and to see him safely off, but I shrank from severing myself from myonly friend. I thought, too, of the few Dutch farmers within riding distance,and had half a mind to visit them, but they were far off over the plateau andcould know little of my anxieties.

The third day events moved faster. Japp was sober and wonderfully quiet. Hegave me good-morning quite in a friendly tone, and set to posting up the booksas if he had never misbehaved in his days. I was so busy with my thoughts thatI, too, must have been gentler than usual, and the morning passed like ahoneymoon, till I went across to dinner.

I was just sitting down when I remembered that I had left my watch in mywaistcoat behind the counter, and started to go back for it. But at the door Istopped short. For two horsemen had drawn up before the store.

One was a native with what I took to be saddle-bags; the other was a small slimman with a sun helmet, who was slowly dismounting. Something in the cut of hisjib struck me as familiar. I slipped into the empty schoolroom and stared hard.Then, as he half-turned in handing his bridle to the Kaffir, I got a sight ofhis face. It was my former shipmate, Henriques. He said something to hiscompanion, and entered the store.

You may imagine that my curiosity ran to fever-heat. My first impulse was tomarch over for my waistcoat, and make a third with Japp at the interview.Happily I reflected in time that Henriques knew my face, for I had grown nobeard, having a great dislike to needless hair. If he was one of the villainsin the drama, he would mark me down for his vengeance once he knew I was here,whereas at present he had probably forgotten all about me. Besides, if I walkedin boldly I would get no news. If Japp and he had a secret, they would not blabit in my presence.

My next idea was to slip in by the back to the room I had once lived in. Buthow was I to cross the road? It ran white and dry some distance each way infull view of the Kaffir with the horses. Further, the store stood on a barepatch, and it would be a hard job to get in by the back, assuming, as Ibelieved, that the neighbourhood was thick with spies.

The upshot was that I got my glasses and turned them on the store. The door wasopen, and so was the window. In the gloom of the interior I made out Henriques’legs. He was standing by the counter, and apparently talking to Japp. He movedto shut the door, and came back inside my focus opposite the window. There hestayed for maybe ten minutes, while I hugged my impatience. I would have givena hundred pounds to be snug in my old room with Japp thinking me out of thestore.

Suddenly the legs twitched up, and his boots appeared above the counter. Japphad invited him to his bedroom, and the game was now to be played beyond myken. This was more than I could stand, so I stole out at the back door and tookto the thickest bush on the hillside. My notion was to cross the road half amile down, when it had dropped into the defile of the stream, and then to comeswiftly up the edge of the water so as to effect a back entrance into thestore.

As fast as I dared I tore through the bush, and in about a quarter of an hourhad reached the point I was making for. Then I bore down to the road, and wasin the scrub about ten yards off it, when the clatter of horses pulled me upagain. Peeping out I saw that it was my friend and his Kaffir follower, whowere riding at a very good pace for the plains. Toilfully and crossly Ireturned on my tracks to my long-delayed dinner. Whatever the purport of theirtalk, Japp and the Portuguese had not taken long over it.

In the store that afternoon I said casually to Japp that I had noticed visitorsat the door during my dinner hour. The old man looked me frankly enough in theface. “Yes, it was Mr Hendricks,” he said, and explained that the man was aPortuguese trader from Delagoa way, who had a lot of Kaffir stores east of theLebombo Hills. I asked his business, and was told that he always gave Japp acall in when he was passing.

“Do you take every man that calls into your bedroom, and shut the door?” Iasked.

Japp lost colour and his lip trembled. “I swear to God, Mr Crawfurd, I’ve beendoing nothing wrong. I’ve kept the promise I gave you like an oath to mymother. I see you suspect me, and maybe you’ve cause, but I’ll be quite honestwith you. I have dealt in diamonds before this with Hendricks. But to-day, whenhe asked me, I told him that that business was off. I only took him to my roomto give him a drink. He likes brandy, and there’s no supply in the shop.”

I distrusted Japp wholeheartedly enough, but I was convinced that in this casehe spoke the truth. “Had the man any news?” I asked.

“He had and he hadn’t,” said Japp. “He was always a sullen beggar, and neverspoke much. But he said one queer thing. He asked me if I was going to retire,and when I told him ‘yes,’ he said I had put it off rather long. I told him Iwas as healthy as I ever was, and he laughed in his dirty Portugoose way. ‘Yes,Mr Japp,’ he says, ‘but the country is not so healthy.’ I wonder what the chapmeant. He’ll be dead of blackwater before many months, to judge by his eyes.”

This talk satisfied me about Japp, who was clearly in desperate fear ofoffending me, and disinclined to return for the present to his old ways. But Ithink the rest of the afternoon was the most wretched time in my existence. Itwas as plain as daylight that we were in for some grave trouble, trouble towhich I believed that I alone held any kind of clue. I had a pile ofevidence—the visit of Henriques was the last bit—which pointed to some greatsecret approaching its disclosure. I thought that that disclosure meant bloodand ruin. But I knew nothing definite. If the commander of a British army hadcome to me then and there and offered help, I could have done nothing, onlyasked him to wait like me. The peril, whatever it was, did not threaten meonly, though I and Wardlaw and Japp might be the first to suffer; but I had aterrible feeling that I alone could do something to ward it off, and just whatthat something was I could not tell. I was horribly afraid, not only of unknowndeath, but of my impotence to play any manly part. I was alone, knowing toomuch and yet too little, and there was no chance of help under the broad sky. Icursed myself for not writing to Aitken at Lourenco Marques weeks before. Hehad promised to come up, and he was the kind of man who kept his word.

In the late afternoon I dragged Wardlaw out for a walk. In his presence I hadto keep up a forced cheerfulness, and I believe the pretence did me good. Wetook a path up the Berg among groves of stinkwood and essenwood, where afailing stream made an easy route. It may have been fancy, but it seemed to methat the wood was emptier and that we were followed less closely. I remember itwas a lovely evening, and in the clear fragrant gloaming every foreland of theBerg stood out like a great ship above the dark green sea of the bush. When wereached the edge of the plateau we saw the sun sinking between two far bluepeaks in Makapan’s country, and away to the south the great roll of the highveld. I longed miserably for the places where white men were thronged togetherin dorps and cities. As we gazed a curious sound struck our ears. It seemed tobegin far up in the north—a low roll like the combing of breakers on the sand.Then it grew louder and travelled nearer—a roll, with sudden spasms of harshersound in it; reminding me of the churning in one of the pot-holes of Kirkcaplecliffs. Presently it grew softer again as the sound passed south, but new noteswere always emerging. The echo came sometimes, as it were, from stark rock, andsometimes from the deep gloom of the forests. I have never heard an eeriersound. Neither natural nor human it seemed, but the voice of that world betweenwhich is hid from man’s sight and hearing.

Mr Wardlaw clutched my arm, and in that moment I guessed the explanation. Thenative drums were beating, passing some message from the far north down theline of the Berg, where the locations were thickest, to the great blackpopulation of the south.

“But that means war,” Mr Wardlaw cried.

“It means nothing of the kind,” I said shortly. “It’s their way of sendingnews. It’s as likely to be some change in the weather or an outbreak of cattledisease.”

When we got home I found Japp with a face like grey paper. “Did you hear thedrums?”he asked.

“Yes,” I said shortly. “What about them?”

“God forgive you for an ignorant Britisher,” he almost shouted. “You may heardrums any night, but a drumming like that I only once heard before. It was in’79 in the ’Zeti valley. Do you know what happened next day? Cetewayo’s impiscame over the hills, and in an hour there wasn’t a living white soul in theglen. Two men escaped, and one of them was called Peter Japp.”

“We are in God’s hands then, and must wait on His will,” I said solemnly.

There was no more sleep for Wardlaw and myself that night. We made the bestbarricade we could of the windows, loaded all our weapons, and trusted to Colinto give us early news. Before supper I went over to get Japp to join us, butfound that that worthy had sought help from his old protector, the bottle, andwas already sound asleep with both door and window open.

I had made up my mind that death was certain, and yet my heart belied myconviction, and I could not feel the appropriate mood. If anything I was morecheerful since I had heard the drums. It was clearly now beyond the power of meor any man to stop the march of events. My thoughts ran on a native rising, andI kept telling myself how little that was probable. Where were the arms, theleader, the discipline? At any rate such arguments put me to sleep before dawn,and I wakened at eight to find that nothing had happened. The clear morningsunlight, as of old, made Blaauwildebeestefontein the place of a dream. Zeetabrought in my cup of coffee as if this day were just like all others, my pipetasted as sweet, the fresh air from the Berg blew as fragrantly on my brow. Iwent over to the store in reasonably good spirits, leaving Wardlaw busy on thepenitential Psalms.

The post-runner had brought the mail as usual, and there was one private letterfor me. I opened it with great excitement, for the envelope bore the stamp ofthe firm. At last Colles had deigned to answer.

Inside was a sheet of the firm’s notepaper, with the signature of Colles acrossthe top. Below some one had pencilled these five words:

“The Blesbok[1] are changing ground.”

I looked to see that Japp had not suffocated himself, then shut up the store,and went back to my room to think out this new mystification.

The thing had come from Colles, for it was the private notepaper of the Durbanoffice, and there was Colles’ signature. But the pencilling was in a differenthand. My deduction from this was that some one wished to send me a message, andthat Colles had given that some one a sheet of signed paper to serve as a kindof introduction. I might take it, therefore, that the scribble was Colles’reply to my letter.

Now, my argument continued, if the unknown person saw fit to send me a message,it could not be merely one of warning. Colles must have told him that I wasawake to some danger, and as I was in Blaauwildebeestefontein, I must be nearerthe heart of things than any one else. The message must therefore be in thenature of some password, which I was to remember when I heard it again.

I reasoned the whole thing out very clearly, and I saw no gap in my logic. Icannot describe how that scribble had heartened me. I felt no more the crushingisolation of yesterday. There were others beside me in the secret. Help must beon the way, and the letter was the first tidings.

But how near?—that was the question; and it occurred to me for the first timeto look at the postmark. I went back to the store and got the envelope out ofthe waste-paper basket. The postmark was certainly not Durban. The stamp was aCape Colony one, and of the mark I could only read three letters, T. R. S. Thiswas no sort of clue, and I turned the thing over, completely baffled. Then Inoticed that there was no mark of the post town of delivery. Our letters toBlaauwildebeestefontein came through Pietersdorp and bore that mark. I comparedthe envelope with others. They all had a circle, and “Pietersdorp” in broadblack letters. But this envelope had nothing except the stamp.

I was still slow at detective work, and it was some minutes before theexplanation flashed on me. The letter had never been posted at all. The stampwas a fake, and had been borrowed from an old envelope. There was only one wayin which it could have come. It must have been put in the letter-bag while thepostman was on his way from Pietersdorp. My unknown friend must therefore besomewhere within eighty miles of me. I hurried off to look for the post-runner,but he had started back an hour before. There was nothing for it but to wait onthe coming of the unknown.

That afternoon I again took Mr Wardlaw for a walk. It is an ingrained habit ofmine that I never tell anyone more of a business than is practically necessary.For months I had kept all my knowledge to myself, and breathed not a word to asoul. But I thought it my duty to tell Wardlaw about the letter, to let him seethat we were not forgotten. I am afraid it did not encourage his mind. Occultmessages seemed to him only the last proof of a deadly danger encompassing us,and I could not shake his opinion.

We took the same road to the crown of the Berg, and I was confirmed in mysuspicion that the woods were empty and the watchers gone. The place was asdeserted as the bush at Umvelos’. When we reached the summit about sunset wewaited anxiously for the sound of drums. It came, as we expected, louder andmore menacing than before. Wardlaw stood pinching my arm as the great tattooswept down the escarpment, and died away in the far mountains beyond theOlifants. Yet it no longer seemed to be a wall of sound, shutting us out fromour kindred in the West. A message had pierced the wall. If the blesbok werechanging ground, I believed that the hunters were calling out their hounds andgetting ready for the chase.

[1] A species of buck.

CHAPTER VII
CAPTAIN ARCOLL TELLS A TALE

It froze in the night, harder than was common on the Berg even in winter, andas I crossed the road next morning it was covered with rime. All my fears hadgone, and my mind was strung high with expectation. Five pencilled words mayseem a small thing to build hope on, but it was enough for me, and I went aboutmy work in the store with a reasonably light heart. One of the first things Idid was to take stock of our armoury. There were five sporting Mausers of acheap make, one Mauser pistol, a Lee-Speed carbine, and a little nickel-platedrevolver. There was also Japp’s shot-gun, an old hammered breech-loader, aswell as the gun I had brought out with me. There was a good supply ofcartridges, including a stock for a .400 express which could not be found. Ipocketed the revolver, and searched till I discovered a good sheath-knife. Iffighting was in prospect I might as well look to my arms.

All the morning I sat among flour and sugar possessing my soul in as muchpatience as I could command. Nothing came down the white road from the west.The sun melted the rime; the flies came out and buzzed in the window; Japp gothimself out of bed, brewed strong coffee, and went back to his slumbers.Presently it was dinner-time, and I went over to a silent meal with Wardlaw.When I returned I must have fallen asleep over a pipe, for the next thing Iknew I was blinking drowsily at the patch of sun in the door, and listening forfootsteps. In the dead stillness of the afternoon I thought I could discern ashuffling in the dust. I got up and looked out, and there, sure enough, wassome one coming down the road.

But it was only a Kaffir, and a miserable-looking object at that. I had neverseen such an anatomy. It was a very old man, bent almost double, and clad in aragged shirt and a pair of foul khaki trousers. He carried an iron pot, and afew belongings were tied up in a dirty handkerchief. He must have been adacha[1] smoker, for he coughed hideously, twisting his body with theparoxysms. I had seen the type before—the old broken-down native who had no kinto support him, and no tribe to shelter him. They wander about the roads,cooking their wretched meals by their little fires, till one morning they arefound stiff under a bush.

The native gave me a good-day in Kaffir, then begged for tobacco or a handfulof mealie-meal.

I asked him where he came from.

“From the west, Inkoos,” he said, “and before that from the south. It is a soreroad for old bones.”

I went into the store to fetch some meal, and when I came out he had shuffledclose to the door. He had kept his eyes on the ground, but now he looked up atme, and I thought he had very bright eyes for such an old wreck.

“The nights are cold, Inkoos,” he wailed, “and my folk are scattered, and Ihave no kraal. The aasvogels follow me, and I can hear the blesbok.” “Whatabout the blesbok?” I asked with a start.

“The blesbok are changing ground,” he said, and looked me straight in the face.

“And where are the hunters?” I asked. “They are here and behind me,” he said inEnglish, holding out his pot for my meal, while he began to edge into themiddle of the road.

I followed, and, speaking English, asked him if he knew of a man named Colles.

“I come from him, young Baas. Where is your house? Ah, the school. There willbe a way in by the back window? See that it is open, for I’ll be thereshortly.” Then lifting up his voice he called down in Sesuto all manner ofblessings on me for my kindness, and went shuffling down the sunlit road,coughing like a volcano.

In high excitement I locked up the store and went over to Mr Wardlaw. Nochildren had come to school that day, and he was sitting idle, playingpatience. “Lock the door,” I said, “and come into my room. We’re on the brinkof explanations.”

In about twenty minutes the bush below the back-window parted and the Kaffirslipped out. He grinned at me, and after a glance round, hopped very nimblyover the sill. Then he examined the window and pulled the curtains.

“Is the outer door shut?” he asked in excellent English. “Well, get me some hotwater, and any spare clothes you may possess, Mr Crawfurd. I must getcomfortable before we begin our indaba.[2] We’ve the night before us, sothere’s plenty of time. But get the house clear, and see that nobody disturbsme at my toilet. I am a modest man, and sensitive about my looks.”

I brought him what he wanted, and looked on at an amazing transformation.Taking a phial from his bundle, he rubbed some liquid on his face and neck andhands, and got rid of the black colouring. His body and legs he left untouched,save that he covered them with shirt and trousers from my wardrobe. Then hepulled off a scaly wig, and showed beneath it a head of close-cropped grizzledhair. In ten minutes the old Kaffir had been transformed into an activesoldierly-looking man of maybe fifty years. Mr Wardlaw stared as if he had seena resurrection.

“I had better introduce myself,” he said, when he had taken the edge off histhirst and hunger. “My name is Arcoll, Captain James Arcoll. I am speaking toMr Crawfurd, the storekeeper, and Mr Wardlaw, the schoolmaster, ofBlaauwildebeestefontein. Where, by the way, is Mr Peter Japp? Drunk? Ah, yes,it was always his failing. The quorum, however, is complete without him.”

By this time it was about sunset, and I remember I cocked my ear to hear thedrums beat. Captain Arcoll noticed the movement as he noticed all else. “You’relistening for the drums, but you won’t hear them. That business is over here.To-night they beat in Swaziland and down into the Tonga border. Three daysmore, unless you and I, Mr Crawfurd, are extra smart, and they’ll be hearingthem in Durban.”

It was not till the lamp was lit, the fire burning well, and the house lockedand shuttered, that Captain Arcoll began his tale.

“First,” he said, “let me hear what you know. Colles told me that you were akeen fellow, and had wind of some mystery here. You wrote him about the way youwere spied on, but I told him to take no notice. Your affair, Mr Crawfurd, hadto wait on more urgent matters. Now, what do you think is happening?” I spokevery shortly, weighing my words, for I felt I was on trial before these brighteyes. “I think that some kind of native rising is about to commence.”

“Ay,” he said dryly, “you would, and your evidence would be the spying anddrumming. Anything more?”

“I have come on the tracks of a lot of I.D.B. work in the neighbourhood. Thenatives have some supply of diamonds, which they sell bit by bit, and I don’tdoubt but they have been getting guns with the proceeds.”

He nodded, “Have you any notion who has been engaged in the job?”

I had it on my tongue to mention Japp, but forbore, remembering my promise. “Ican name one,” I said, “a little yellow Portugoose, who calls himself Henriquesor Hendricks. He passed by here the day before yesterday.”

Captain Arcoll suddenly was consumed with quiet laughter. “Did you notice theKaffir who rode with him and carried his saddlebags? Well, he’s one of my men.Henriques would have a fit if he knew what was in those saddlebags. Theycontain my change of clothes, and other odds and ends. Henriques’ own stuff isin a hole in the spruit. A handy way of getting one’s luggage sent on, eh? Thebags are waiting for me at a place I appointed.” And again Captain Arcollindulged his sense of humour. Then he became grave, and returned to hisexamination.

“A rising, with diamonds as the sinews of war, and Henriques as the chiefagent. Well and good! But who is to lead, and what are the natives going torise about?”

“I know nothing further, but I have made some guesses.”

“Let’s hear your guesses,” he said, blowing smoke rings from his pipe.

“I think the main mover is a great black minister who calls himself JohnLaputa.”

Captain Arcoll nearly sprang out of his chair. “Now, how on earth did you findthat out? Quick, Mr Crawfurd, tell me all you know, for this is desperatelyimportant.”

I began at the beginning, and told him the story of what happened on theKirkcaple shore. Then I spoke of my sight of him on board ship, his talk withHenriques about Blaauwildebeestefontein, and his hurried departure from Durban.

Captain Arcoll listened intently, and at the mention of Durban he laughed. “Youand I seem to have been running on lines which nearly touched. I thought I hadgrabbed my friend Laputa that night in Durban, but I was too cocksure and heslipped off. Do you know, Mr Crawfurd, you have been on the right trail longbefore me? When did you say you saw him at his devil-worship? Seven years ago?Then you were the first man alive to know the Reverend John in his truecolours. You knew seven years ago what I only found out last year.”

“Well, that’s my story,” I said. “I don’t know what the rising is about, butthere’s one other thing I can tell you. There’s some kind of sacred place forthe Kaffirs, and I’ve found out where it is.” I gave him a short account of myadventures in the Rooirand.

He smoked silently for a bit after I had finished. “You’ve got the skeleton ofthe whole thing right, and you only want the filling up. And you found outeverything for yourself? Colles was right; you’re not wanting in intelligence,Mr Crawfurd.”

It was not much of a compliment, but I have never been more pleased in my life.This slim, grizzled man, with his wrinkled face and bright eyes, was clearlynot lavish in his praise. I felt it was no small thing to have earned a word ofcommendation.

“And now I will tell you my story,” said Captain Arcoll. “It is a long story,and I must begin far back. It has taken me years to decipher it, and, remember,I’ve been all my life at this native business. I can talk every dialect, and Ihave the customs of every tribe by heart. I’ve travelled over every mile ofSouth Africa, and Central and East Africa too. I was in both the Matabele wars,and I’ve seen a heap of other fighting which never got into the papers. So whatI tell you you can take as gospel, for it is knowledge that was not learned ina day.”

He puffed away, and then asked suddenly, “Did you ever hear of Prester John?”

“The man that lived in Central Asia?” I asked, with a reminiscence of astory-book I had as a boy. “No, no,” said Mr Wardlaw, “he means the King ofAbyssinia in the fifteenth century. I’ve been reading all about him. He was aChristian, and the Portuguese sent expedition after expedition to find him, butthey never got there. Albuquerque wanted to make an alliance with him andcapture the Holy Sepulchre.”

Arcoll nodded. “That’s the one I mean. There’s not very much known about him,except Portuguese legends. He was a sort of Christian, but I expect that hispractices were as pagan as his neighbours’. There is no doubt that he was agreat conqueror. Under him and his successors, the empire of Ethiopia extendedfar south of Abyssinia away down to the Great Lakes.”

“How long did this power last?” I asked wondering to what tale this wasprologue.

“That’s a mystery no scholar has ever been able to fathom. Anyhow, the centreof authority began to shift southward, and the warrior tribes moved in thatdirection. At the end of the sixteenth century the chief native power was roundabout the Zambesi. The Mazimba and the Makaranga had come down from the LakeNyassa quarter, and there was a strong kingdom in Manicaland. That was theMonomotapa that the Portuguese thought so much of.”

Wardlaw nodded eagerly. The story was getting into ground that he knew about.

“The thing to remember is that all these little empires thought themselves thesuccessors of Prester John. It took me a long time to find this out, and I havespent days in the best libraries in Europe over it. They all looked back to agreat king in the north, whom they called by about twenty different names. Theyhad forgotten about his Christianity, but they remembered that he was aconqueror.

“Well, to make a long story short, Monomotapa disappeared in time, and freshtribes came down from the north, and pushed right down to Natal and the Cape.That is how the Zulus first appeared. They brought with them the story ofPrester John, but by this time it had ceased to be a historical memory, and hadbecome a religious cult. They worshipped a great Power who had been theirancestor, and the favourite Zulu word for him was Umkulunkulu. The belief wasperverted into fifty different forms, but this was the central creed—thatUmkulunkulu had been the father of the tribe, and was alive as a spirit towatch over them.

“They brought more than a creed with them. Somehow or other, some fetich haddescended from Prester John by way of the Mazimba and Angoni and Makaranga.What it is I do not know, but it was always in the hands of the tribe which forthe moment held the leadership. The great native wars of the sixteenth century,which you can read about in the Portuguese historians, were not for territorybut for leadership, and mainly for the possession of this fetich. Anyhow, weknow that the Zulus brought it down with them. They called itNdhlondhlo, which means the Great Snake, but I don’t suppose that it wasany kind of snake. The snake was their totem, and they would naturally calltheir most sacred possession after it.

“Now I will tell you a thing that few know. You have heard of Tchaka. He was asort of black Napoleon early in the last century, and he made the Zulus theparamount power in South Africa, slaughtering about two million souls toaccomplish it. Well, he had the fetich, whatever it was, and it was believedthat he owed his conquests to it. Mosilikatse tried to steal it, and that waswhy he had to fly to Matabeleland. But with Tchaka it disappeared. Dingaan didnot have it, nor Panda, and Cetewayo never got it, though he searched thelength and breadth of the country for it. It had gone out of existence, andwith it the chance of a Kaffir empire.”

Captain Arcoll got up to light his pipe, and I noticed that his face was grave.He was not telling us this yarn for our amusement.

“So much for Prester John and his charm,” he said. “Now I have to take up thehistory at a different point. In spite of risings here and there, andoccasional rows, the Kaffirs have been quiet for the better part of half acentury. It is no credit to us. They have had plenty of grievances, and we areno nearer understanding them than our fathers were. But they are scattered anddivided. We have driven great wedges of white settlement into their territory,and we have taken away their arms. Still, they are six times as many as we are,and they have long memories, and a thoughtful man may wonder how long the peacewill last. I have often asked myself that question, and till lately I used toreply, ‘For ever because they cannot find a leader with the proper authority,and they have no common cause to fight for.’ But a year or two ago I began tochange my mind.

“It is my business to act as chief Intelligence officer among the natives.Well, one day, I came on the tracks of a curious person. He was a Christianminister called Laputa, and he was going among the tribes from Durban to theZambesi as a roving evangelist. I found that he made an enormous impression,and yet the people I spoke to were chary of saying much about him. Presently Ifound that he preached more than the gospel. His word was ‘Africa for theAfricans,’ and his chief point was that the natives had had a great empire inthe past, and might have a great empire again. He used to tell the story ofPrester John, with all kinds of embroidery of his own. You see, Prester Johnwas a good argument for him, for he had been a Christian as well as a greatpotentate. “For years there has been plenty of this talk in South Africa,chiefly among Christian Kaffirs. It is what they call ‘Ethiopianism,’ andAmerican negroes are the chief apostles. For myself, I always thought the thingperfectly harmless. I don’t care a fig whether the native missions break awayfrom the parent churches in England and call themselves by fancy names. Themore freedom they have in their religious life, the less they are likely tothink about politics. But I soon found out that Laputa was none of your flabbyeducated negroes from America, and I began to watch him.

“I first came across him at a revival meeting in London, where he was a greatsuccess. He came and spoke to me about my soul, but he gave up when I droppedinto Zulu. The next time I met him was on the lower Limpopo, when I had thepleasure of trying to shoot him from a boat.” Captain Arcoll took his pipe fromhis mouth and laughed at the recollection.

“I had got on to an I.D.B. gang, and to my amazement found the evangelist amongthem. But the Reverend John was too much for me. He went overboard in spite ofthe crocodiles, and managed to swim below water to the reed bed at the side.However, that was a valuable experience for me, for it gave me a clue.

“I next saw him at a Missionary Conference in Cape Town, and after that at ameeting of the Geographical Society in London, where I had a long talk withhim. My reputation does not follow me home, and he thought I was an Englishpublisher with an interest in missions. You see I had no evidence to connecthim with I.D.B., and besides I fancied that his real game was something biggerthan that; so I just bided my time and watched.

“I did my best to get on to his dossier, but it was no easy job. However, Ifound out a few things. He had been educated in the States, and well educatedtoo, for the man is a good scholar and a great reader, besides the finestnatural orator I have ever heard. There was no doubt that he was of Zulu blood,but I could get no traces of his family. He must come of high stock, for he isa fine figure of a man. “Very soon I found it was no good following him in hisexcursions into civilization. There he was merely the educated Kaffir; a greatpet of missionary societies, and a favourite speaker at Church meetings. Youwill find evidence given by him in Blue-Books on native affairs, and he countedmany members of Parliament at home among his correspondents. I let that sidego, and resolved to dog him when on his evangelizing tours in the back-veld.

“For six months I stuck to him like a leech. I am pretty good at disguises, andhe never knew who was the broken-down old Kaffir who squatted in the dirt atthe edge of the crowd when he spoke, or the half-caste who called him ‘Sir’ anddrove his Cape-cart. I had some queer adventures, but these can wait. The gistof the thing is, that after six months which turned my hair grey I got aglimmering of what he was after. He talked Christianity to the mobs in thekraals, but to the indunas[3] he told a different story.”

Captain Arcoll helped himself to a drink. “You can guess what that story was,Mr Crawfurd. At full moon when the black cock was blooded, the Reverend Johnforgot his Christianity. He was back four centuries among the Mazimba sweepingdown on the Zambesi. He told them, and they believed him, that he was theUmkulunkulu, the incarnated spirit of Prester John. He told them that he wasthere to lead the African race to conquest and empire. Ay, and he told themmore: for he has, or says he has, the Great Snake itself, the necklet ofPrester John.”

Neither of us spoke; we were too occupied with fitting this news into our chainof knowledge.

Captain Arcoll went on. “Now that I knew his purpose, I set myself to find outhis preparations. It was not long before I found a mighty organization at workfrom the Zambesi to the Cape. The great tribes were up to their necks in theconspiracy, and all manner of little sects had been taken in. I have sat attribal councils and been sworn a blood brother, and I have used the secretpassword to get knowledge in odd places. It was a dangerous game, and, as Ihave said, I had my adventures, but I came safe out of it—with my knowledge.

“The first thing I found out was that there was a great deal of wealthsomewhere among the tribes. Much of it was in diamonds, which the labourersstole from the mines and the chiefs impounded. Nearly every tribe had itssecret chest, and our friend Laputa had the use of them all. Of course thedifficulty was changing the diamonds into coin, and he had to start I.D.B. on abig scale. Your pal, Henriques, was the chief agent for this, but he had othersat Mozambique and Johannesburg, ay, and in London, whom I have on my list. Withthe money, guns and ammunition were bought, and it seems that a prettyflourishing trade has been going on for some time. They came in mostly overlandthrough Portuguese territory, though there have been cases of consignments toJohannesburg houses, the contents of which did not correspond with the invoice.You ask what the Governments were doing to let this go on. Yes, and you maywell ask. They were all asleep. They never dreamed of danger from the natives,and in any case it was difficult to police the Portuguese side. Laputa knew ourweakness, and he staked everything on it.

“My first scheme was to lay Laputa by the heels; but no Government would act onmy information. The man was strongly buttressed by public support at home, andSouth Africa has burned her fingers before this with arbitrary arrests. Then Itried to fasten I.D.B. on him, but I could not get my proofs till too late. Inearly had him in Durban, but he got away; and he never gave me a secondchance. For five months he and Henriques have been lying low, because theirscheme was getting very ripe. I have been following them through Zululand andGazaland, and I have discovered that the train is ready, and only wants thematch. For a month I have never been more than five hours behind him on thetrail; and if he has laid his train, I have laid mine also.”

Arcoll’s whimsical, humorous face had hardened into grimness, and in his eyesthere was the light of a fierce purpose. The sight of him comforted me, inspite of his tale.

“But what can he hope to do?” I asked. “Though he roused every Kaffir in SouthAfrica he would be beaten. You say he is an educated man. He must know he hasno chance in the long run.”

“I said he was an educated man, but he is also a Kaffir. He can see the firststage of a thing, and maybe the second, but no more. That is the native mind.If it was not like that our chance would be the worse.”

“You say the scheme is ripe,” I said; “how ripe?”

Arcoll looked at the clock. “In half an hour’s time Laputa will be with ’Mpefu.There he will stay the night. To-morrow morning he goes to Umvelos’ to meetHenriques. To-morrow evening the gathering begins.”

“One question,” I said. “How big a man is Laputa?”

“The biggest thing that the Kaffirs have ever produced. I tell you, in myopinion he is a great genius. If he had been white he might have been a secondNapoleon. He is a born leader of men, and as brave as a lion. There is novillainy he would not do if necessary, and yet I should hesitate to call him ablackguard. Ay, you may look surprised at me, you two pragmatical Scotsmen; butI have, so to speak, lived with the man for months, and there’s fineness andnobility in him. He would be a terrible enemy, but a just one. He has the heartof a poet and a king, and it is God’s curse that he has been born among thechildren of Ham. I hope to shoot him like a dog in a day or two, but I am gladto bear testimony to his greatness.”

“If the rising starts to-morrow,” I asked, “have you any of his plans?”

He picked up a map from the table and opened it. “The first rendezvous issomewhere near Sikitola’s. Then they move south, picking up contingents; andthe final concentration is to be on the high veld near Amsterdam, which isconvenient for the Swazis and the Zulus. After that I know nothing, but ofcourse there are local concentrations along the whole line of the Berg fromMashonaland to Basutoland. Now, look here. To get to Amsterdam they must crossthe Delagoa Bay Railway. Well, they won’t be allowed to. If they get as far,they will be scattered there. As I told you, I too have laid my train. We havethe police ready all along the scarp of the Berg. Every exit from nativeterritory is watched, and the frontier farmers are out on commando. We haveregulars on the Delagoa Bay and Natal lines, and a system of field telegraphslaid which can summon further troops to any point. It has all been kept secret,because we are still in the dark ourselves. The newspaper public knows nothingabout any rising, but in two days every white household in South Africa will bein a panic. Make no mistake, Mr Crawfurd; this is a grim business. We shallsmash Laputa and his men, but it will be a fierce fight, and there will be muchgood blood shed. Besides, it will throw the country back another half-century.Would to God I had been man enough to put a bullet through his head in coldblood. But I could not do it—it was too like murder; and maybe I shall neverhave the chance now.”

“There’s one thing puzzles me,” I said. “What makes Laputa come up here tostart with? Why doesn’t he begin with Zululand?”

“God knows! There’s sure to be sense in it, for he does nothing without reason.We may know to-morrow.”

But as Captain Arcoll spoke, the real reason suddenly flashed into my mind:Laputa had to get the Great Snake, the necklet of Prester John, to give hisleadership prestige. Apparently he had not yet got it, or Arcoll would haveknown. He started from this neighbourhood because the fetich was somewherehereabouts. I was convinced that my guess was right, but I kept my own counsel.

“To-morrow Laputa and Henriques meet at Umvelos’, probably at your new store,Mr Crawfurd. And so the ball commences.”

My resolution was suddenly taken.

“I think,” I said, “I had better be present at the meeting, as representing thefirm.”

Captain Arcoll stared at me and laughed. “I had thought of going myself,” hesaid.

“Then you go to certain death, disguise yourself as you please. You cannot meetthem in the store as I can. I’m there on my ordinary business, and they willnever suspect. If you’re to get any news, I’m the man to go.”

He looked at me steadily for a minute or so. “I’m not sure that’s such a badidea of yours. I would be better employed myself on the Berg, and, as you say,I would have little chance of hearing anything. You’re a plucky fellow, MrCrawfurd. I suppose you understand that the risk is pretty considerable.”

“I suppose I do; but since I’m in this thing, I may as well see it out.Besides, I’ve an old quarrel with our friend Laputa.”

“Good and well,” said Captain Arcoll. “Draw in your chair to the table, then,and I’ll explain to you the disposition of my men. I should tell you that Ihave loyal natives in my pay in most tribes, and can count on earlyintelligence. We can’t match their telepathy; but the new type of fieldtelegraph is not so bad, and may be a trifle more reliable.”

Till midnight we pored over maps, and certain details were burned in on mymemory. Then we went to bed and slept soundly, even Mr Wardlaw. It was strangehow fear had gone from the establishment, now that we knew the worst and had afighting man by our side.

[1] Hemp.

[2] Council.

[3] Lesser chiefs.

CHAPTER VIII
I FALL IN AGAIN WITH THE REVEREND JOHN LAPUTA

Once, as a boy, I had earnestly desired to go into the army, and had hopes ofrising to be a great general. Now that I know myself better, I do not think Iwould have been much good at a general’s work. I would have shirked theloneliness of it, the isolation of responsibility. But I think I would havedone well in a subaltern command, for I had a great notion of carrying outorders, and a certain zest in the mere act of obedience. Three days before Ihad been as nervous as a kitten because I was alone and it was “up to me,” asAmericans say, to decide on the next step. But now that I was only one wheel ina great machine of defence my nervousness seemed to have fled. I was well awarethat the mission I was bound on was full of risk; but, to my surprise, I feltno fear. Indeed, I had much the same feeling as a boy on a Saturday’s holidaywho has planned a big expedition. One thing only I regretted—that Tam Dyke wasnot with me to see the fun. The thought of that faithful soul, now beatingsomewhere on the seas, made me long for his comradeship. As I shaved, Iremember wondering if I would ever shave again, and the thought gave me notremors. For once in my sober life I was strung up to the gambler’s pitch ofadventure.

My job was to go to Umvelos’ as if on my ordinary business, and if possiblefind out something of the evening’s plan of march. The question was how to sendback a message to Arcoll, assuming I had any difficulty in getting away. Atfirst this puzzled us both, and then I thought of Colin. I had trained the dogto go home at my bidding, for often when I used to go hunting I would haveoccasion to visit a kraal where he would have been a nuisance. Accordingly, Iresolved to take Colin with me, and, if I got into trouble, to send word byhim.

I asked about Laputa’s knowledge of our preparations. Arcoll was inclined tothink that he suspected little. The police and the commandos had been kept verysecret, and, besides, they were moving on the high veld and out of the ken ofthe tribes. Natives, he told me, were not good scouts so far as white man’swork was concerned, for they did not understand the meaning of what we did. Onthe other hand, his own native scouts brought him pretty accurate tidings ofany Kaffir movements. He thought that all the bush country of the plain wouldbe closely watched, and that no one would get through without some kind ofpass. But he thought also that the storekeeper might be an exception, for hispresence would give rise to no suspicions. Almost his last words to me were tocome back hell-for-leather if I saw the game was hopeless, and in any case toleave as soon as I got any news. “If you’re there when the march begins,” hesaid, “they’ll cut your throat for a certainty.” I had all the various policeposts on the Berg clear in my mind, so that I would know where to make for ifthe road to Blaauwildebeestefontein should be closed.

I said good-bye to Arcoll and Wardlaw with a light heart, though theschoolmaster broke down and implored me to think better of it. As I turned downinto the gorge I heard the sound of horses’ feet far behind, and, turning back,saw white riders dismounting at the dorp. At any rate I was leaving the countrywell guarded in my rear.

It was a fine morning in mid-winter, and I was in very good spirits as I joggedon my pony down the steep hill-road, with Colin running beside me. A monthbefore I had taken the same journey, with no suspicion in my head of what thefuture was to bring. I thought about my Dutch companions, now with their cattlefar out on the plains. Did they know of the great danger, I wondered. All theway down the glen I saw no sign of human presence. The game-birds mocked mefrom the thicket; a brace of white berghaancircled far up in the blue;and I had for pleasant comrade the brawling river. I dismounted once to drink,and in that green haven of flowers and ferns I was struck sharply with a senseof folly. Here were we wretched creatures of men making for each other’sthroats, and outraging the good earth which God had made so fair a habitation.

I had resolved on a short cut to Umvelos’, avoiding the neighbourhood ofSikitola’s kraal, so when the river emerged from the glen I crossed it andstruck into the bush. I had not gone far before I realized that somethingstrange was going on. It was like the woods on the Berg a week before. I hadthe impression of many people moving in the bush, and now and then I caught aglimpse of them. My first thought was that I should be stopped, but soon itappeared that these folk had business of their own which did not concern me. Iwas conscious of being watched, yet it was clear that the bush folk were notthere for the purpose of watching me.

For a little I kept my spirits, but as the hours passed with the same uncannyhurrying to and fro all about me my nerves began to suffer. Weeks of espionageat Blaauwildebeestefontein had made me jumpy. These people apparently meant meno ill, and had no time to spare on me, But the sensation of moving throughthem was like walking on a black-dark night with precipices all around. I feltodd quiverings between my shoulder blades where a spear might be expected tolodge. Overhead was a great blue sky and a blazing sun, and I could see thepath running clear before me between the walls of scrub. But it was likemidnight to me, a midnight of suspicion and unknown perils. I began to wishheartily I had never come.

I stopped for my midday meal at a place called Taqui, a grassy glade in thebush where a tiny spring of water crept out from below a big stone, only todisappear in the sand. Here I sat and smoked for half an hour, wondering whatwas going to become of me. The air was very still, but I could hear the rustleof movement somewhere within a hundred yards. The hidden folk were busy abouttheir own ends, and I regretted that I had not taken the road by Sikitola’s andseen how the kraals looked. They must be empty now, for the young men werealready out on some mission. So nervous I got that I took my pocket-book andwrote down certain messages to my mother, which I implored whoever should findmy body to transmit. Then, a little ashamed of my childishness, I pulled myselftogether, and remounted.

About three in the afternoon I came over a low ridge of bush and saw thecorrugated iron roof of the store and the gleam of water from the Labongo. Thesight encouraged me, for at any rate it meant the end of this disquieting ride.Here the bush changed to trees of some size, and after leaving the ridge theroad plunged for a little into a thick shade. I had forgotten for a moment thefolk in the bush, and when a man stepped out of the thicket I pulled up myhorse with a start.

It was a tall native, who carried himself proudly, and after a glance at me,stalked along at my side. He wore curious clothes, for he had a kind of linentunic, and around his waist hung a kilt of leopard-skin. In such a man onewould have looked for a ting-kop,[1] but instead he had a mass of hair,not like a Kaffir’s wool, but long and curled like some popular musician’s. Ishould have been prepared for the face, but the sight of it sent a sudden chillof fright through my veins. For there was the curved nose, the deep flashingeyes, and the cruel lips of my enemy of the Kirkcaple shore.

Colin was deeply suspicious and followed his heels growling, but he neverturned his head.

“The day is warm, father,” I said in Kaffir. “Do you go far?”

He slackened his pace till he was at my elbow. “But a short way, Baas,” hereplied in English; “I go to the store yonder.”

“Well met, then,” said I, “for I am the storekeeper. You will find little init, for it is newly built and not yet stocked. I have ridden over to see toit.”

He turned his face to me. “That is bad news. I had hoped for food and drinkyonder. I have travelled far, and in the chill nights I desire a cover for myhead. Will the Baas allow me to sleep the night in an outhouse?”

By this time I had recovered my nerve, and was ready to play the part I haddetermined on. “Willingly,” I said. “You may sleep in the storeroom if youcare. You will find sacks for bedding, and the place is snug enough on a coldnight.”

He thanked me with a grave dignity which I had never seen in any Kaffir. As myeye fell on his splendid proportions I forgot all else in my admiration of theman. In his minister’s clothes he had looked only a heavily built native, butnow in his savage dress I saw how noble a figure he made. He must have been atleast six feet and a half, but his chest was so deep and his shoulders somassive that one did not remark his height. He put a hand on my saddle, and Iremember noting how slim and fine it was, more like a high-bred woman’s than aman’s. Curiously enough he filled me with a certain confidence.

“I do not think you will cut my throat,” I said to myself. “Your game is toobig for common murder.”

The store at Umvelos’ stood as I had left it. There was the sjambok I hadforgotten still lying on the window sill. I unlocked the door, and a stiflingsmell of new paint came out to meet me. Inside there was nothing but the chairsand benches, and in a corner the pots and pans I had left against my nextvisit. I unlocked the cupboard and got out a few stores, opened the windows ofthe bedroom next door, and flung my kaross on the cartel which did duty as bed.Then I went out to find Laputa standing patiently in the sunshine.

I showed him the outhouse where I had said he might sleep. It was the largestroom in the store, but wholly unfurnished. A pile of barrels and packing-casesstood in the corner, and there was enough sacking to make a sort of bed.

“I am going to make tea,” I said. “If you have come far you would maybe like acup?”

He thanked me, and I made a fire in the grate and put on the kettle to boil.Then I set on the table biscuits, and sardines, and a pot of jam. It was mybusiness now to play the fool, and I believe I succeeded to admiration in thepart. I blush to-day to think of the stuff I talked. First I made him sit on achair opposite me, a thing no white man in the country would have done. Then Itold him affectionately that I liked natives, that they were fine fellows andbetter men than the dirty whites round about. I explained that I was fresh fromEngland, and believed in equal rights for all men, white or coloured. Godforgive me, but I think I said I hoped to see the day when Africa would belongonce more to its rightful masters.

He heard me with an impassive face, his grave eyes studying every line of me. Iam bound to add that he made a hearty meal, and drank three cups of strong teaof my brewing. I gave him a cigar, one of a lot I had got from a Dutch farmerwho was experimenting with their manufacture—and all the while I babbled ofmyself and my opinions. He must have thought me half-witted, and indeed beforelong I began to be of the same opinion myself. I told him that I meant to sleepthe night here, and go back in the morning to Blaauwildebeestefontein, and thento Pietersdorp for stores. By-and-by I could see that he had ceased to pay anyattention to what I said. I was clearly set down in his mind as a fool. Insteadhe kept looking at Colin, who was lying blinking in the doorway, one wary eyecocked on the stranger.

“You have a fine dog,” he observed.

“Yes,” I agreed, with one final effort of mendacity, “he’s fine to look at, buthe has no grit in him. Any mongrel from a kraal can make him turn tail.Besides, he is a born fool and can’t find his way home. I’m thinking of gettingrid of him.”

Laputa rose and his eye fell on the dog’s back. I could see that he saw the lieof his coat, and that he did not agree with me.

“The food was welcome, Baas,” he said. “If you will listen to me I can repayhospitality with advice. You are a stranger here. Trouble comes, and if you arewise you will go back to the Berg.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, with an air of cheerful idiocy. “But backto the Berg I go the first thing in the morning. I hate these stinking plains.”

“It were wise to go to-night,” he said, with a touch of menace in his tone.

“I can’t,” I said, and began to sing the chorus of a ridiculous music-hallsong—

“There’s no place like home—but
I’m afraid to go home in the dark.”

Laputa shrugged his shoulders, stepped over the bristling Colin, and went out.When I looked after him two minutes later he had disappeared.

[1] The circlet into which, with the aid of gum, Zulu warriors weave theirhair.

CHAPTER IX
THE STORE AT UMVELOS’

I sat down on a chair and laboured to collect my thoughts. Laputa had gone, andwould return sooner or later with Henriques. If I was to remain alive tillmorning, both of them must be convinced that I was harmless. Laputa wasprobably of that opinion, but Henriques would recognize me, and I had no wishto have that yellow miscreant investigating my character. There was only oneway out of it—I must be incapably drunk. There was not a drop of liquor in thestore, but I found an old whisky bottle half full of methylated spirits. Withthis I thought I might raise an atmosphere of bad whisky, and for the rest Imust trust to my meagre gifts as an actor.

Supposing I escaped suspicion, Laputa and Henriques would meet in the outhouse,and I must find some means of overhearing them. Here I was fairly baffled.There was no window in the outhouse save in the roof, and they were sure toshut and bolt the door. I might conceal myself among the barrels inside; butapart from the fact that they were likely to search them before beginning theirconference, it was quite certain that they would satisfy themselves that I wassafe in the other end of the building before going to the outhouse.

Suddenly I thought of the cellar which we had built below the store. There wasan entrance by a trap-door behind the counter, and another in the outhouse. Ihad forgotten the details, but my hope was that the second was among thebarrels. I shut the outer door, prised up the trap, and dropped into the vault,which had been floored roughly with green bricks. Lighting match after match, Icrawled to the other end and tried to lift the door. It would not stir, so Iguessed that the barrels were on the top of it. Back to the outhouse I went,and found that sure enough a heavy packing-case was standing on a corner. Ifixed it slightly open, so as to let me hear, and so arranged the odds and endsround about it that no one looking from the floor of the outhouse would guessat its existence. It occurred to me that the conspirators would want seats, soI placed two cases at the edge of the heap, that they might not be tempted toforage in the interior.

This done, I went back to the store and proceeded to rig myself out for mypart. The cellar had made me pretty dirty, and I added some new daubs to myface. My hair had grown longish, and I ran my hands through it till it stood uplike a cockatoo’s crest. Then I cunningly disposed the methylated spirits inthe places most likely to smell. I burned a little on the floor, I spilt someon the counter and on my hands, and I let it dribble over my coat. In fiveminutes I had made the room stink like a shebeen. I loosened the collar of myshirt, and when I looked at myself in the cover of my watch I saw a specimen ofdebauchery which would have done credit to a Saturday night’s police cell.

By this time the sun had gone down, but I thought it better to kindle no light.It was the night of the full moon—for which reason, I supposed, Laputa hadselected it—and in an hour or two the world would be lit with that ghostlyradiance. I sat on the counter while the minutes passed, and I confess I foundthe time of waiting very trying for my courage. I had got over my worstnervousness by having something to do, but whenever I was idle my fearsreturned. Laputa had a big night’s work before him, and must begin soon. Myvigil, I told myself, could not be long.

My pony was stalled in a rough shed we had built opposite the store. I couldhear him shaking his head and stamping the ground above the croaking of thefrogs by the Labongo. Presently it seemed to me that another sound came frombehind the store—the sound of horses’ feet and the rattle of bridles. It washushed for a moment, and then I heard human voices. The riders had tied uptheir horses to a tree and were coming nearer.

I sprawled gracefully on the counter, the empty bottle in my hand, and my eyesfixed anxiously on the square of the door, which was filled with the blueglimmer of the late twilight. The square darkened, and two men peered in. Colingrowled from below the counter, but with one hand I held the scruff of hisneck.

“Hullo,” I said, “ish that my black friend? Awfly shorry, old man, but I’vef’nish’d th’ whisky. The bo-o-ottle shempty,” and I waved it upside down withan imbecile giggle.

Laputa said something which I did not catch. Henriques laughed an ugly laugh.

“We had better make certain of him,” he said.

The two argued for a minute, and then Laputa seemed to prevail. The door wasshut and the key, which I had left in the lock, turned on me.

I gave them five minutes to get to the outhouse and settle to business. Then Iopened the trap, got into the cellar, and crawled to the other end. A ray oflight was coming through the partially raised door. By a blessed chance someold bricks had been left behind, and of these I made a footstool, which enabledme to get my back level with the door and look out. My laager of barrels wasintact, but through a gap I had left I could see the two men sitting on the twocases I had provided for them. A lantern was set between them, and Henriqueswas drinking out of a metal flask.

He took something—I could not see what—out of his pocket, and held it beforehis companion.

“Spoils of war,” he said. “I let Sikitola’s men draw first blood. They neededit to screw up their courage. Now they are as wild as Umbooni’s.

Laputa asked a question.

“It was the Dutchmen, who were out on the Koodoo Flats with their cattle. Man,it’s no good being squeamish. Do you think you can talk over these surlyback-veld fools? If we had not done it, the best of their horses would now beover the Berg to give warning. Besides, I tell you, Sikitola’s men wantedblooding. I did for the old swine, Coetzee, with my own hands. Once he set hisdogs on me, and I don’t forget an injury.”

Laputa must have disapproved, for Henriques’ voice grew high.

“Run the show the way you please,” he cried; “but don’t blame me if you make ahash of it. God, man, do you think you are going to work a revolution on skimmilk? If I had my will, I would go in and stick a knife in the drunken hog nextdoor.”

“He is safe enough,” Laputa replied. “I gave him the chance of life, and helaughed at me. He won’t get far on his road home.”

This was pleasant hearing for me, but I scarcely thought of myself. I wasconsumed with a passion of fury against the murdering yellow devil. With LaputaI was not angry; he was an open enemy, playing a fair game. But my fingersitched to get at the Portugoose—that double-dyed traitor to his race. As Ithought of my kindly old friends, lying butchered with their kinsfolk out inthe bush, hot tears of rage came to my eyes. Perfect love casteth out fear, theBible says; but, to speak it reverently, so does perfect hate. Not for safetyand a king’s ransom would I have drawn back from the game. I prayed for onething only, that God in His mercy would give me the chance of settling withHenriques.

I fancy I missed some of the conversation, being occupied with my own passion.At any rate, when I next listened the two were deep in plans. Maps were spreadbeside them, and Laputa’s delicate forefinger was tracing a route. I strainedmy ears, but could catch only a few names. Apparently they were to keep in theplains till they had crossed the Klein Labongo and the Letaba. I thought Icaught the name of the ford of the latter; it sounded like Dupree’s Drift.After that the talk became plainer, for Laputa was explaining in his clearvoice. The force would leave the bush, ascend the Berg by the glen of the GrootLetaba, and the first halt would be called at a place called Inanda’s Kraal,where a promontory of the high-veld juts out behind the peaks called theWolkberg or Cloud Mountains. All this was very much to the point, and the namessunk into my memory like a die into wax.

“Meanwhile,” said Laputa, “there is the gathering at Ntabakaikonjwa.[1] It willtake us three hours’ hard riding to get there.”

Where on earth was Ntabakaikonjwa? It must be the native name for the Rooirand,for after all Laputa was not likely to use the Dutch word for his own sacredplace.

“Nothing has been forgotten. The men are massed below the cliffs, and thechiefs and the great indunas will enter the Place of the Snake. The door willbe guarded, and only the password will get a man through. That word is‘Immanuel,’ which means, ‘God with us.’”

“Well, when we get there, what happens?” Henriques asked with a laugh. “Whatkind of magic will you spring on us?”

There was a strong contrast between the flippant tone of the Portugoose and thegrave voice which answered him.

“The Keeper of the Snake will open the holy place, and bring forth theIsetembiso sami.[2] As the leader of my people, I will assume the collar ofUmkulunkulu in the name of our God and the spirits of the great dead.”

“But you don’t propose to lead the march in a necklace of rubies,” saidHenriques, with a sudden eagerness in his voice.

Again Laputa spoke gravely, and, as it were, abstractedly. I heard the voice ofone whose mind was fixed on a far horizon.

“When I am acclaimed king, I restore the Snake to its Keeper, and swear neverto clasp it on my neck till I have led my people to victory.”

“I see,” said Henriques. “What about the purification you mentioned?”

I had missed this before and listened earnestly.

“The vows we take in the holy place bind us till we are purged of them atInanda’s Kraal. Till then no blood must be shed and no flesh eaten. It was thefashion of our forefathers.”

“Well, I think you’ve taken on a pretty risky job,” Henriques said. “Youpropose to travel a hundred miles, binding yourself not to strike a blow. It issimply putting yourself at the mercy of any police patrol.”

“There will be no patrol,” Laputa replied. “Our march will be as secret and asswift as death. I have made my preparations.”

“But suppose you met with opposition,” the Portugoose persisted, “would therule hold?”

“If any try to stop us, we shall tie them hand and foot, and carry them withus. Their fate will be worse than if they had been slain in battle.”

“I see,” said Henriques, whistling through his teeth. “Well, before we startthis vow business, I think I’ll go back and settle that storekeeper.”

Laputa shook his head. “Will you be serious and hear me? We have no time toknife harmless fools. Before we start for Ntabakaikonjwa I must have from youthe figures of the arming in the south. That is the one thing which remains tobe settled.”

I am certain these figures would have been most interesting, but I never heardthem. My feet were getting cramped with standing on the bricks, and Iinadvertently moved them. The bricks came down with a rattle, and unfortunatelyin slipping I clutched at the trap. This was too much for my frail prop, andthe door slammed down with a great noise.

Here was a nice business for the eavesdropper! I scurried along the passage asstealthily as I could and clambered back into the store, while I heard thesound of Laputa and Henriques ferreting among the barrels. I managed tothrottle Colin and prevent him barking, but I could not get the confounded trapto close behind me. Something had jammed in it, and it remained half a footopen.

I heard the two approaching the door, and I did the best thing that occurred tome. I pulled Colin over the trap, rolled on the top of him, and began to snoreheavily as if in a drunken slumber.

The key was turned, and the gleam of a lantern was thrown on the wall. It flewup and down as its bearer cast the light into the corners.

“By God, he’s gone,” I heard Henriques say. “The swine was listening, and hehas bolted now.”

“He won’t bolt far,” Laputa said. “He is here. He is snoring behind thecounter.”

These were anxious moments for me. I had a firm grip on Colin’s throat, but nowand then a growl escaped, which was fortunately blended with my snores. I feltthat a lantern was flashed on me, and that the two men were peering down at theheap on the half-opened trap. I think that was the worst minute I ever spent,for, as I have said, my courage was not so bad in action, but in a passive gameit oozed out of my fingers.

“He is safe enough,” Laputa said, after what seemed to me an eternity. “Thenoise was only the rats among the barrels.” I thanked my Maker that they hadnot noticed the other trap-door. “All the same I think I’ll make him safer,”said Henriques.

Laputa seemed to have caught him by the arm.

“Come back and get to business,” he said. “I’ve told you I’ll have no moremurder. You will do as I tell you, Mr Henriques.”

I did not catch the answer, but the two went out and locked the door. I pattedthe outraged Colin, and got to my feet with an aching side where the confoundedlid of the trap had been pressing. There was no time to lose for the two in theouthouse would soon be setting out, and I must be before them.

With no better light than a ray of the moon through the window, I wrote amessage on a leaf from my pocket-book. I told of the plans I had overheard, andespecially I mentioned Dupree’s Drift on the Letaba. I added that I was goingto the Rooirand to find the secret of the cave, and in one final sentenceimplored Arcoll to do justice on the Portugoose. That was all, for I had notime for more. I carefully tied the paper with a string below the collar of thedog.

Then very quietly I went into the bedroom next door—the side of the storefarthest from the outhouse. The place was flooded with moonlight, and thewindow stood open, as I had left it in the afternoon. As softly as I could Iswung Colin over the sill and clambered after him. In my haste I left my coatbehind me with my pistol in the pocket.

Now came a check. My horse was stabled in the shed, and that was close to theouthouse. The sound of leading him out would most certainly bring Laputa andHenriques to the door. In that moment I all but changed my plans. I thought ofslipping back to the outhouse and trying to shoot the two men as they cameforth. But I reflected that, before I could get them both, one or other wouldprobably shoot me. Besides, I had a queer sort of compunction about killingLaputa. I understood now why Arcoll had stayed his hand from murder, and I wasbeginning to be of his opinion on our arch-enemy.

Then I remembered the horses tied up in the bush. One of them I could get withperfect safety. I ran round the end of the store and into the thicket, keepingon soft grass to dull my tread. There, tied up to a merula tree, were two ofthe finest beasts I had seen in Africa. I selected the better, an Africanderstallion of the blaauw-schimmel, or blue-roan type, which is famous forspeed and endurance. Slipping his bridle from the branch, I led him a littleway into the bush in the direction of the Rooirand.

Then I spoke to Colin. “Home with you,” I said. “Home, old man, as if you wererunning down a tsessebe.”[3]

The dog seemed puzzled. “Home,” I said again, pointing west in the direction ofthe Berg. “Home, you brute.”

And then he understood. He gave one low whine, and cast a reproachful eye on meand the blue roan. Then he turned, and with his head down set off with greatlopes on the track of the road I had ridden in the morning.

A second later and I was in the saddle, riding hell-for-leather for the north.

[1] Literally, “The Hill which is not to be pointed at”.

[2] Literally, “Very sacred thing”.

[3] A species of buck, famous for its speed.

CHAPTER X
I GO TREASURE-HUNTING

For a mile or so I kept the bush, which was open and easy to ride through, andthen turned into the path. The moon was high, and the world was all a dim darkgreen, with the track a golden ivory band before me. I had looked at my watchbefore I started, and seen that it was just after eight o’clock. I had a greathorse under me, and less than thirty miles to cover. Midnight should see me atthe cave. With the password I would gain admittance, and there would wait forLaputa and Henriques. Then, if my luck held, I should see the inner workings ofthe mystery which had puzzled me ever since the Kirkcaple shore. No doubt Ishould be roughly treated, tied up prisoner, and carried with the army when themarch began. But till Inanda’s Kraal my life was safe, and before that came theford of the Letaba. Colin would carry my message to Arcoll, and at the Driftthe tables would be turned on Laputa’s men.

Looking back in cold blood, it seems the craziest chain of accidents to counton for preservation. A dozen possibilities might have shattered any link of it.The password might be wrong, or I might never get the length of those who knewit. The men in the cave might butcher me out of hand, or Laputa might think mybehaviour a sufficient warrant for the breach of the solemnest vow. Colin mightnever get to Blaauwildebeestefontein, Laputa might change his route of march,or Arcoll’s men might fail to hold the Drift. Indeed, the other day atPortincross I was so overcome by the recollection of the perils I had dared andGod’s goodness towards me that I built a new hall for the parish kirk as atoken of gratitude.

Fortunately for mankind the brain in a life of action turns more to the matterin hand than to conjuring up the chances of the future. Certainly it was in nodiscomfort of mind that I swung along the moonlit path to the north. Truth totell, I was almost happy. The first honours in the game had fallen to me. Iknew more about Laputa than any man living save Henriques; I had my finger onthe central pulse of the rebellion. There was hid treasure ahead of me—a greatnecklace of rubies, Henriques had said. Nay, there must be more, I argued. Thiscave of the Rooirand was the headquarters of the rising, and there must bestored their funds—diamonds, and the gold they had been bartered for. I believethat every man has deep in his soul a passion for treasure-hunting, which willoften drive a coward into prodigies of valour. I lusted for that treasure ofjewels and gold. Once I had been high-minded, and thought of my duty to mycountry, but in that night ride I fear that what I thought of was my duty toenrich David Crawfurd. One other purpose simmered in my head. I was devouredwith wrath against Henriques. Indeed, I think that was the strongest motive formy escapade, for even before I heard Laputa tell of the vows and thepurification, I had it in my mind to go at all costs to the cave. I am apeaceable man at most times, but I think I would rather have had thePortugoose’s throat in my hands than the collar of Prester John.

But behind my thoughts was one master-feeling, that Providence had given me mychance and I must make the most of it. Perhaps the Calvinism of my father’spreaching had unconsciously taken grip of my soul. At any rate I was a fatalistin creed, believing that what was willed would happen, and that man was but apuppet in the hands of his Maker. I looked on the last months as a clear coursewhich had been mapped out for me. Not for nothing had I been given a clue tothe strange events which were coming. It was foreordained that I should goalone to Umvelos’, and in the promptings of my own fallible heart I believed Isaw the workings of Omnipotence. Such is our moral arrogance, and yet withoutsuch a belief I think that mankind would have ever been content to bidesluggishly at home.

I passed the spot where on my former journey I had met the horses, and knewthat I had covered more than half the road. My ear had been alert for the soundof pursuit, but the bush was quiet as the grave. The man who rode my pony wouldfind him a slow traveller, and I pitied the poor beast bucketed along by anangry rider. Gradually a hazy wall of purple began to shimmer before me,apparently very far off. I knew the ramparts of the Rooirand, and let myschimmelfeel my knees in his ribs. Within an hour I should be at thecliff’s foot.

I had trusted for safety to the password, but as it turned out I owed my lifemainly to my horse. For, a mile or so from the cliffs, I came to the fringes ofa great army. The bush was teeming with men, and I saw horses picketed inbunches, and a multitude of Cape-carts and light wagons. It was like a colossalgathering for naachtmaal[1] at a Dutch dorp, but every man was black. Isaw through a corner of my eye that they were armed with guns, though manycarried in addition their spears and shields. Their first impulse was to stopme. I saw guns fly to shoulders, and a rush towards the path. The boldest gamewas the safest, so I dug my heels into the schimmeland shouted for apassage. “Make way!” I cried in Kaffir. “I bear a message from the Inkulu.[2]Clear out, you dogs!”

They recognized the horse, and fell back with a salute. Had I but known it, thebeast was famed from the Zambesi to the Cape. It was their king’s own charger Irode, and who dared question such a warrant? I heard the word pass through thebush, and all down the road I got the salute. In that moment I ferventlythanked my stars that I had got away first, for there would have been no comingsecond for me.

At the cliff-foot I found a double line of warriors who had the appearance of aroyal guard, for all were tall men with leopard-skin cloaks. Theirrifle-barrels glinted in the moon-light, and the sight sent a cold shiver downmy back. Above them, among the scrub and along the lower slopes of the kranzes,I could see further lines with the same gleaming weapons. The Place of theSnake was in strong hands that night.

I dismounted and called for a man to take my horse. Two of the guards steppedforward in silence and took the bridle. This left the track to the cave open,and with as stiff a back as I could command, but a sadly fluttering heart, Imarched through the ranks.

The path was lined with guards, all silent and rigid as graven images. As Istumbled over the stones I felt that my appearance scarcely fitted the dignityof a royal messenger. Among those splendid men-at-arms I shambled along in oldbreeches and leggings, hatless, with a dirty face, dishevelled hair, and a tornflannel shirt. My mind was no better than my body, for now that I had arrived Ifound my courage gone. Had it been possible I would have turned tail and fled,but the boats were burned behind me, and I had no choice. I cursed my rashfolly, and wondered at my exhilaration of an hour ago. I was going into theblack mysterious darkness, peopled by ten thousand cruel foes. My knees rubbedagainst each other, and I thought that no man had ever been in more deadlydanger.

At the entrance to the gorge the guards ceased and I went on alone. Here therewas no moonlight, and I had to feel my way by the sides. I moved very slowly,wondering how soon I should find the end my folly demanded. The heat of theride had gone, and I remember feeling my shirt hang clammily on my shoulders.

Suddenly a hand was laid on my breast, and a voice demanded, “The word?”

“Immanuel,” I said hoarsely.

Then unseen hands took both my arms, and I was led farther into the darkness.My hopes revived for a second. The password had proved true, and at any rate Ishould enter the cave.

In the darkness I could see nothing, but I judged that we stopped before thestone slab which, as I remembered, filled the extreme end of the gorge. Myguide did something with the right-hand wall, and I felt myself being drawninto a kind of passage. It was so narrow that two could not go abreast, and solow that the creepers above scraped my hair. Something clicked behind me likethe turnstile at the gate of a show.

Then we began to ascend steps, still in utter darkness, and a great boomingfell on my ear. It was the falling river which had scared me on my formervisit, and I marvelled that I had not heard it sooner. Presently we came outinto a gleam of moonlight, and I saw that we were inside the gorge and farabove the slab. We followed a narrow shelf on its left side (or “true right”,as mountaineers would call it) until we could go no farther. Then we did aterrible thing. Across the gorge, which here was at its narrowest, stretched aslab of stone. Far, far below I caught the moonlight on a mass of hurryingwaters. This was our bridge, and though I have a good head for crags, I confessI grew dizzy as we turned to cross it. Perhaps it was broader than it looked;at any rate my guides seemed to have no fear, and strode across it as if it wasa highway, while I followed in a sweat of fright. Once on the other side, I washanded over to a second pair of guides, who led me down a high passage runninginto the heart of the mountain.

The boom of the river sank and rose as the passage twined. Soon I saw a gleamof light ahead which was not the moon. It grew larger, until suddenly the roofrose and I found myself in a gigantic chamber. So high it was that I could notmake out anything of the roof, though the place was brightly lit with torchesstuck round the wall, and a great fire which burned at the farther end. But thewonder was on the left side, where the floor ceased in a chasm. The left wallwas one sheet of water, where the river fell from the heights into the infinitedepth, below. The torches and the fire made the sheer stream glow and sparklelike the battlements of the Heavenly City. I have never seen any sight sobeautiful or so strange, and for a second my breath stopped in admiration.

There were two hundred men or more in the chamber, but so huge was the placethat they seemed only a little company. They sat on the ground in a circle,with their eyes fixed on the fire and on a figure which stood before it. Theglow revealed the old man I had seen on that morning a month before movingtowards the cave. He stood as if in a trance, straight as a tree, with his armscrossed on his breast. A robe of some shining white stuff fell from hisshoulders, and was clasped round his middle by a broad circle of gold. His headwas shaven, and on his forehead was bound a disc of carved gold. I saw from hisgaze that his old eyes were blind.

“Who comes?” he asked as I entered.

“A messenger from the Inkulu,” I spoke up boldly. “He follows soon with thewhite man, Henriques.”

Then I sat down in the back row of the circle to await events. I noticed thatmy neighbour was the fellow ’Mwanga whom I had kicked out of the store. HappilyI was so dusty that he could scarcely recognize me, but I kept my face turnedaway from him. What with the light and the warmth, the drone of the water, thesilence of the folk, and my mental and physical stress, I grew drowsy and allbut slept.

[1] The Communion Sabbath.

[2] A title applied only to the greatest chiefs.

CHAPTER XI
THE CAVE OF THE ROOIRAND

I was roused by a sudden movement. The whole assembly stood up, and each manclapped his right hand to his brow and then raised it high. A low murmur of“Inkulu” rose above the din of the water. Laputa strode down the hall, withHenriques limping behind him. They certainly did not suspect my presence in thecave, nor did Laputa show any ruffling of his calm. Only Henriques looked wearyand cross. I guessed he had had to ride my pony.

The old man whom I took to be the priest advanced towards Laputa with his handsraised over his head. A pace before they met he halted, and Laputa went on hisknees before him. He placed his hands on his head, and spoke some words which Icould not understand. It reminded me, so queer are the tricks of memory, of anold Sabbath-school book I used to have which had a picture of Samuel ordainingSaul as king of Israel. I think I had forgotten my own peril and was enthralledby the majesty of the place—the wavering torches, the dropping wall of greenwater, above all, the figures of Laputa and the Keeper of the Snake, who seemedto have stepped out of an antique world.

Laputa stripped off his leopard skin till he stood stark, a noble form of aman. Then the priest sprinkled some herbs on the fire, and a thin smoke rose tothe roof. The smell was that I had smelled on the Kirkcaple shore, sweet,sharp, and strange enough to chill the marrow. And round the fire went thepriest in widening and contracting circles, just as on that Sabbath evening inspring.

Once more we were sitting on the ground, all except Laputa and the Keeper.Henriques was squatting in the front row, a tiny creature among so many burlysavages. Laputa stood with bent head in the centre.

Then a song began, a wild incantation in which all joined. The old priest wouldspeak some words, and the reply came in barbaric music. The words meant nothingto me; they must have been in some tongue long since dead. But the music toldits own tale. It spoke of old kings and great battles, of splendid palaces andstrong battlements, of queens white as ivory, of death and life, love and hate,joy and sorrow. It spoke, too, of desperate things, mysteries of horror longshut to the world. No Kaffir ever forged that ritual. It must have comestraight from Prester John or Sheba’s queen, or whoever ruled in Africa whentime was young.

I was horribly impressed. Devouring curiosity and a lurking nameless fearfilled my mind. My old dread had gone. I was not afraid now of Kaffir guns, butof the black magic of which Laputa had the key.

The incantation died away, but still herbs were flung on the fire, till thesmoke rose in a great cloud, through which the priest loomed misty and huge.Out of the smoke-wreaths his voice came high and strange. It was as if sometreble stop had been opened in a great organ, as against the bass drone of thecataract.

He was asking Laputa questions, to which came answers in that rich voice whichon board the liner had preached the gospel of Christ. The tongue I did notknow, and I doubt if my neighbours were in better case. It must have been someold sacred language—Phoenician, Sabaean, I know not what—which had survived inthe rite of the Snake.

Then came silence while the fire died down and the smoke eddied away in wreathstowards the river. The priest’s lips moved as if in prayer: of Laputa I sawonly the back, and his head was bowed.

Suddenly a rapt cry broke from the Keeper. “God has spoken,” he cried. “Thepath is clear. The Snake returns to the House of its Birth.”

An attendant led forward a black goat, which bleated feebly. With a hugeantique knife the old man slit its throat, catching the blood in a stone ewer.Some was flung on the fire, which had burned small and low.

“Even so,” cried the priest, “will the king quench in blood the hearth-fires ofhis foes.”

Then on Laputa’s forehead and bare breast he drew a bloody cross. “I sealthee,” said the voice, “priest and king of God’s people.” The ewer was carriedround the assembly, and each dipped his finger in it and marked his forehead. Igot a dab to add to the other marks on my face.

“Priest and king of God’s people,” said the voice again, “I call thee to theinheritance of John. Priest and king was he, king of kings, lord of hosts,master of the earth. When he ascended on high he left to his son the sacredSnake, the ark of his valour, to be God’s dower and pledge to the people whomHe has chosen.”

I could not make out what followed. It seemed to be a long roll of the kingswho had borne the Snake. None of them I knew, but at the end I thought I caughtthe name of Tchaka the Terrible, and I remembered Arcoll’s tale.

The Keeper held in his arms a box of curiously wrought ivory, about two feetlong and one broad. He was standing beyond the ashes, from which, in spite ofthe blood, thin streams of smoke still ascended. He opened it, and drew outsomething which swung from his hand like a cascade of red fire.

“Behold the Snake,” cried the Keeper, and every man in the assembly, exceptingLaputa and including me, bowed his head to the ground and cried “Ow.”

“Ye who have seen the Snake,” came the voice, “on you is the vow of silence andpeace. No blood shall ye shed of man or beast, no flesh shall ye eat till thevow is taken from you. From the hour of midnight till sunrise on the second dayye are bound to God. Whoever shall break the vow, on him shall the curse fall.His blood shall dry in his veins, and his flesh shrink on his bones. He shallbe an outlaw and accursed, and there shall follow him through life and deaththe Avengers of the Snake. Choose ye, my people; upon you is the vow.”

By this time we were all flat on our faces, and a great cry of assent went up.I lifted my head as much as I dared to see what would happen next.

The priest raised the necklace till it shone above his head like a halo ofblood. I have never seen such a jewel, and I think there has never been anothersuch on earth. Later I was to have the handling of it, and could examine itclosely, though now I had only a glimpse. There were fifty-five rubies in it,the largest as big as a pigeon’s egg, and the least not smaller than mythumbnail. In shape they were oval, cut on both sides en cabochon, and on eachcertain characters were engraved. No doubt this detracted from their value asgems, yet the characters might have been removed and the stones cut in facets,and these rubies would still have been the noblest in the world. I was no jewelmerchant to guess their value, but I knew enough to see that here was wealthbeyond human computation. At each end of the string was a great pearl and agolden clasp. The sight absorbed me to the exclusion of all fear. I, DavidCrawfurd, nineteen years of age, an assistant-storekeeper in a back-veld dorp,was privileged to see a sight to which no Portuguese adventurer had everattained. There, floating on the smoke-wreaths, was the jewel which may oncehave burned in Sheba’s hair. As the priest held the collar aloft, the assemblyrocked with a strange passion. Foreheads were rubbed in the dust, and thenadoring eyes would be raised, while a kind of sobbing shook the worshippers. Inthat moment I learned something of the secret of Africa, of Prester John’sempire and Tchaka’s victories.

“In the name of God,” came the voice, “I deliver to the heir of John the Snakeof John.”

Laputa took the necklet and twined it in two loops round his neck till theclasp hung down over his breast. The position changed. The priest knelt beforehim, and received his hands on his head. Then I knew that, to the confusion ofall talk about equality, God has ordained some men to be kings and others toserve. Laputa stood naked as when he was born. The rubies were dulled againstthe background of his skin, but they still shone with a dusky fire. Above theblood-red collar his face had the passive pride of a Roman emperor. Only hisgreat eyes gloomed and burned as he looked on his followers.

“Heir of John,” he said, “I stand before you as priest and king. My kingship isfor the morrow. Now I am the priest to make intercession for my people.”

He prayed—prayed as I never heard man pray before—and to the God of Israel! Itwas no heathen fetich he was invoking, but the God of whom he had oftenpreached in Christian kirks. I recognized texts from Isaiah and the Psalms andthe Gospels, and very especially from the two last chapters of Revelation. Hepled with God to forget the sins of his people, to recall the bondage of Zion.It was amazing to hear these bloodthirsty savages consecrated by their leaderto the meek service of Christ. An enthusiast may deceive himself, and I did notquestion his sincerity. I knew his heart, black with all the lusts of paganism.I knew that his purpose was to deluge the land with blood. But I knew also thatin his eyes his mission was divine, and that he felt behind him all the armiesof Heaven.

“Thou hast been a strength to the poor,” said the voice, “a refuge from thestorm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the Terrible Ones is as astorm against a wall.

“Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers, as the heat in a dry place;the branch of the Terrible Ones shall be brought low.

“And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feastof fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow.

“And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over allpeople, and the vail that is brought over all nations.

“And the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth; forthe Lord hath spoken it.”

I listened spellbound as he prayed. I heard the phrases familiar to me in myschooldays at Kirkcaple. He had some of the tones of my father’s voice, andwhen I shut my eyes I could have believed myself a child again. So much he hadgot from his apprenticeship to the ministry. I wondered vaguely what the goodfolks who had listened to him in churches and halls at home would think of himnow. But there was in the prayer more than the supplications of the quondampreacher. There was a tone of arrogant pride, the pride of the man to whom theAlmighty is only another and greater Lord of Hosts. He prayed less as asuppliant than as an ally. A strange emotion tingled in my blood, half awe,half sympathy. As I have said, I understood that there are men born tokingship.

He ceased with a benediction. Then he put on his leopard-skin cloak and kilt,and received from the kneeling chief a spear and shield. Now he was more kingthan priest, more barbarian than Christian. It was as a king that he now spoke.

I had heard him on board the liner, and had thought his voice the mostwonderful I had ever met with. But now in that great resonant hall the magic ofit was doubled. He played upon the souls of his hearers as on a musicalinstrument. At will he struck the chords of pride, fury, hate, and mad joy. Nowthey would be hushed in breathless quiet, and now the place would echo withsavage assent. I remember noticing that the face of my neighbour, ’Mwanga, wasrunning with tears.

He spoke of the great days of Prester John, and a hundred names I had neverheard of. He pictured the heroic age of his nation, when every man was awarrior and hunter, and rich kraals stood in the spots now desecrated by thewhite man, and cattle wandered on a thousand hills. Then he told tales of whiteinfamy, lands snatched from their rightful possessors, unjust laws which forcedthe Ethiopian to the bondage of a despised caste, the finger of scorneverywhere, and the mocking word. If it be the part of an orator to rouse thepassion of his hearers, Laputa was the greatest on earth. “What have ye gainedfrom the white man?” he cried. “A bastard civilization which has sapped yourmanhood; a false religion which would rivet on you the chains of the slave. Ye,the old masters of the land, are now the servants of the oppressor. And yet theoppressors are few, and the fear of you is in their hearts. They feast in theirgreat cities, but they see the writing on the wall, and their eyes areanxiously turning lest the enemy be at their gates.” I cannot hope in myprosaic words to reproduce that amazing discourse. Phrases which the hearershad heard at mission schools now suddenly appeared, not as the white man’slearning, but as God’s message to His own. Laputa fitted the key to the cipher,and the meaning was clear. He concluded, I remember, with a picture of theoverthrow of the alien, and the golden age which would dawn for the oppressed.Another Ethiopian empire would arise, so majestic that the white man everywherewould dread its name, so righteous that all men under it would live in ease andpeace.

By rights, I suppose, my blood should have been boiling at this treason. I amashamed to confess that it did nothing of the sort. My mind was mesmerized bythis amazing man. I could not refrain from shouting with the rest. Indeed I wasa convert, if there can be conversion when the emotions are dominant and thereis no assent from the brain. I had a mad desire to be of Laputa’s party. Orrather, I longed for a leader who should master me and make my soul his own, asthis man mastered his followers. I have already said that I might have made agood subaltern soldier, and the proof is that I longed for such a general.

As the voice ceased there was a deep silence. The hearers were in a sort oftrance, their eyes fixed glassily on Laputa’s face. It was the quiet of tensenerves and imagination at white-heat. I had to struggle with a spell whichgripped me equally with the wildest savage. I forced myself to look round atthe strained faces, the wall of the cascade, the line of torches. It was thesight of Henriques that broke the charm. Here was one who had no part in theemotion. I caught his eye fixed on the rubies, and in it I read only adevouring greed. It flashed through my mind that Laputa had a foe in his owncamp, and the Prester’s collar a votary whose passion was not that of worship.

The next thing I remember was a movement among the first ranks. The chiefs wereswearing fealty. Laputa took off the collar and called God to witness that itshould never again encircle his neck till he had led his people to victory.Then one by one the great chiefs and indunas advanced, and swore allegiancewith their foreheads on the ivory box. Such a collection of races has neverbeen seen. There were tall Zulus and Swazis with ringkopsand featherhead-dresses. There were men from the north with heavy brass collars andanklets; men with quills in their ears, and earrings and nose-rings; shavenheads, and heads with wonderfully twisted hair; bodies naked or all but naked,and bodies adorned with skins and necklets. Some were light in colour, and somewere black as coal; some had squat negro features, and some thin, high-bonedArab faces. But in all there was the air of mad enthusiasm. For a day they wereforsworn from blood, but their wild eyes and twitching hands told their futurepurpose.

For an hour or two I had been living in a dream-world. Suddenly my absorptionwas shattered, for I saw that my time to swear was coming. I sat in the extremeback row at the end nearest the entrance, and therefore I should naturally bethe last to go forward. The crisis was near when I should be discovered, forthere was no question of my shirking the oath.

Then for the first time since I entered the cave I realized the frightfuldanger in which I stood. My mind had been strung so high by the ritual that Ihad forgotten all else. Now came the rebound, and with shaky nerves I had toface discovery and certain punishment. In that moment I suffered the worstterror of my life. There was much to come later, but by that time my senseswere dulled. Now they had been sharpened by what I had seen and heard, mynerves were already quivering and my fancy on fire. I felt every limb shakingas ’Mwanga went forward. The cave swam before my eyes, heads were multipliedgiddily, and I was only dimly conscious when he rose to return.

Nothing would have made me advance, had I not feared Laputa less than myneighbours. They might rend me to pieces, but to him the oath was inviolable. Istaggered crazily to my feet, and shambled forwards. My eye was fixed on theivory box, and it seemed to dance before me and retreat.

Suddenly I heard a voice—the voice of Henriques—cry, “By God, a spy!” I felt mythroat caught, but I was beyond resisting.

It was released, and I was pinned by the arms. I must have stood vacantly, witha foolish smile, while unchained fury raged round me. I seemed to hear Laputa’svoice saying, “It is the storekeeper.” His face was all that I could see, andit was unperturbed. There was a mocking ghost of a smile about his lips.

Myriad hands seemed to grip me and crush my breath, but above the clamour Iheard a fierce word of command. After that I fainted.

CHAPTER XII
CAPTAIN ARCOLL SENDS A MESSAGE

I once read—I think in some Latin writer—the story of a man who was crushed toa jelly by the mere repeated touch of many thousand hands. His murderers werenot harsh, but an infinite repetition of the gentlest handling meant death. Ido not suppose that I was very brutally manhandled in the cave. I was trussedup tight and carried out to the open, and left in the care of the guards. Butwhen my senses returned I felt as if I had been cruelly beaten in every part.The raw-hide bonds chafed my wrists and ankle and shoulders, but they were theleast part of my aches. To be handled by a multitude of Kaffirs is like beingshaken by some wild animal. Their skins are insensible to pain, and I have seena Zulu stand on a piece of red-hot iron without noticing it till he was warnedby the smell of burning hide. Anyhow, after I had been bound by Kaffir handsand tossed on Kaffir shoulders, I felt as if I had been in a scrimmage of madbulls. I found myself lying looking up at the moon. It was the edge of thebush, and all around was the stir of the army getting ready for the road. Youknow how a native babbles and chatters over any work he has to do. It says muchfor Laputa’s iron hand that now everything was done in silence. I heard thenickering of horses and the jolt of carts as they turned from the bush into thepath. There was the sound of hurried whispering, and now and then a sharpcommand. And all the while I lay, staring at the moon and wondering if I wasgoing to keep my reason.

If he who reads this doubts the discomfort of bonds let him try them forhimself. Let him be bound foot and hand and left alone, and in half an hour hewill be screaming for release. The sense of impotence is stifling, and I feltas if I were buried in some landslip instead of lying under the open sky, withthe night wind fanning my face. I was in the second stage of panic, which isnext door to collapse. I tried to cry, but could only raise a squeak like abat. A wheel started to run round in my head, and, when I looked at the moon, Isaw that it was rotating in time. Things were very bad with me. It was ’Mwangawho saved me from lunacy. He had been appointed my keeper, and the first I knewof it was a violent kick in the ribs. I rolled over on the grass down a shortslope. The brute squatted beside me, and prodded me with his gun-barrel.

“Ha, Baas,” he said in his queer English. “Once you ordered me out of yourstore and treated me like a dog. It is ’Mwanga’s turn now. You are ’Mwanga’sdog, and he will skin you with a sjambok soon.”

My wandering wits were coming back to me. I looked into his bloodshot eyes andsaw what I had to expect. The cheerful savage went on to discuss just the kindof beating I should get from him. My bones were to be uncovered till the lashcurled round my heart. Then the jackals would have the rest of me.

This was ordinary Kaffir brag, and it made me angry. But I thought it best togo cannily.

“If I am to be your slave,” I managed to say, “it would be a pity to beat me sohard. You would get no more work out of me.”

’Mwanga grinned wickedly. “You are my slave for a day and a night. After thatwe kill you—slowly. You will burn till your legs fall off and your knees are onthe ground, and then you will be chopped small with knives.”

Thank God, my courage and common sense were coming back to me.

“What happens to me to-morrow,” I said, “is the Inkulu’s business, not yours. Iam his prisoner. But if you lift your hand on me to-day so as to draw one dropof blood the Inkulu will make short work of you. The vow is upon you, and ifyou break it you know what happens.” And I repeated, in a fair imitation of thepriest’s voice, the terrible curse he had pronounced in the cave.

You should have seen the change in that cur’s face. I had guessed he was acoward, as he was most certainly a bully, and now I knew it. He shivered, anddrew his hand over his eyes.

“Nay, Baas,” he pleaded, “it was but a joke. No harm shall come on you to-day.But tomorrow—” and his ugly face grew more cheerful.

“To-morrow we shall see what we shall see,” I said stoically, and a louddrum-beat sounded through the camp.

It was the signal for moving, for in the east a thin pale line of gold wasbeginning to show over the trees. The bonds at my knees and ankles were cut,and I was bundled on to the back of a horse. Then my feet were strapped firmlybelow its belly. The bridle of my beast was tied to ’Mwanga’s, so that therewas little chance of escape even if I had been unshackled.

My thoughts were very gloomy. So far all had happened as I planned, but Iseemed to have lost my nerve, and I could not believe in my rescue at theLetaba, while I thought of Inanda’s Kraal with sheer horror. Last night I hadlooked into the heart of darkness, and the sight had terrified me. What partshould I play in the great purification? Most likely that of the Biblicalscapegoat. But the dolour of my mind was surpassed by the discomfort of mybody. I was broken with pains and weariness, and I had a desperate headache.Also, before we had gone a mile, I began to think that I should split in two.The paces of my beast were uneven, to say the best of it, and the bump-bump waslike being on the rack. I remembered that the saints of the Covenant used tojourney to prison this way, especially the great Mr Peden, and I wondered howthey liked it. When I hear of a man doing a brave deed, I always want todiscover whether at the time he was well and comfortable in body. That, I amcertain, is the biggest ingredient in courage, and those who plan and executegreat deeds in bodily weakness have my homage as truly heroic. For myself, Ihad not the spirit of a chicken as I jogged along at ’Mwanga’s side. I wishedhe would begin to insult me, if only to distract my mind, but he keptobstinately silent. He was sulky, and I think rather afraid of me.

As the sun got up I could see something of the host around me. I am no hand atguessing numbers, but I should put the fighting men I saw at not less thantwenty thousand. Every man of them was on this side his prime, and all werearmed with good rifles and bandoliers. There were none of your old roers[1] anddecrepit Enfields, which I had seen signs of in Kaffir kraals. These guns werenew, serviceable Mausers, and the men who bore them looked as if they knew howto handle them. There must have been long months of training behind this show,and I marvelled at the man who had organized it. I saw no field-guns, and thelittle transport they had was evidently for food only. We did not travel inranks like an orthodox column. About a third of the force was mounted, and thisformed the centre. On each wing the infantry straggled far afield, but therewas method in their disorder, for in the bush close ranks would have beenimpossible. At any rate we kept wonderfully well together, and when we mounteda knoll the whole army seemed to move in one piece. I was well in the rear ofthe centre column, but from the crest of a slope I sometimes got a view infront. I could see nothing of Laputa, who was probably with the van, but in thevery heart of the force I saw the old priest of the Snake, with his treasurecarried in the kind of litter which the Portuguese call a machila, between rowsof guards. A white man rode beside him, whom I judged to be Henriques. Laputatrusted this fellow, and I wondered why. I had not forgotten the look on hisface while he had stared at the rubies in the cave. I had a notion that thePortugoose might be an unsuspected ally of mine, though for blackguard reasons.

About ten o’clock, as far as I could judge by the sun, we passed Umvelos’, andtook the right bank of the Labongo. There was nothing in the store to loot, butit was overrun by Kaffirs, who carried off the benches for firewood. It gave mean odd feeling to see the remains of the meal at which I had entertained Laputain the hands of a dozen warriors. I thought of the long sunny days when I hadsat by my nachtmaal while the Dutch farmers rode in to trade. Now these menwere all dead, and I was on my way to the same bourne.

Soon the blue line of the Berg rose in the west, and through the corner of myeye, as I rode, I could see the gap of the Klein Labongo. I wondered if Arcolland his men were up there watching us. About this time I began to be sowretched in body that I ceased to think of the future. I had had no food forseventeen hours, and I was dropping from lack of sleep. The ache of my boneswas so great that I found myself crying like a baby. What between pain andweakness and nervous exhaustion, I was almost at the end of my tether, andshould have fainted dead away if a halt had not been called. But about midday,after we had crossed the track from Blaauwildebeestefontein to the Portuguesefrontier, we came to the broad, shallow drift of the Klein Labongo. It is theway of the Kaffirs to rest at noon, and on the other side of the drift weencamped. I remember the smell of hot earth and clean water as my horsescrambled up the bank. Then came the smell of wood-smoke as fires were lit. Itseemed an age after we stopped before my feet were loosed and I was allowed tofall over on the ground. I lay like a log where I fell, and was asleep in tenseconds. I awoke two hours later much refreshed, and with a raging hunger. Myankles and knees had been tied again, but the sleep had taken the worststiffness out of my joints. The natives were squatting in groups round theirfires, but no one came near me. I satisfied myself by straining at my bondsthat this solitude gave no chance of escape. I wanted food, and I shouted on’Mwanga, but he never came. Then I rolled over into the shadow of awacht-en-beetje bush to get out of the glare.

I saw a Kaffir on the other side of the bush who seemed to be grinning at me.Slowly he moved round to my side, and stood regarding me with interest.

“For God’s sake get me some food,” I said.

“Ja, Baas,” was the answer; and he disappeared for a minute, and returned witha wooden bowl of hot mealie-meal porridge, and a calabash full of water.

I could not use my hands, so he fed me with the blade of his knife. Suchporridge without salt or cream is beastly food, but my hunger was so great thatI could have eaten a vat of it.

Suddenly it appeared that the Kaffir had something to say to me. As he fed mehe began to speak in a low voice in English.

“Baas,” he said, “I come from Ratitswan, and I have a message for you.”

I guessed that Ratitswan was the native name for Arcoll. There was no one elselikely to send a message. “Ratitswan says,” he went on, “‘Look out for Dupree’sDrift.’ I will be near you and cut your bonds; then you must swim across whenRatitswan begins to shoot.”

The news took all the weight of care from my mind. Colin had got home, and myfriends were out for rescue. So volatile is the mood of 19 that I veered roundfrom black despair to an unwarranted optimism. I saw myself already safe, andLaputa’s rising scattered. I saw my hands on the treasure, and Henriques’ uglyneck below my heel.

“I don’t know your name,” I said to the Kaffir, “but you are a good fellow.When I get out of this business I won’t forget you.”

“There is another message, Baas,” he said. “It is written on paper in a strangetongue. Turn your head to the bush, and see, I will hold it inside the bowl,that you may read it.”

I did as I was told, and found myself looking at a dirty half-sheet ofnotepaper, marked by the Kaffir’s thumbs. Some words were written on it inWardlaw’s hand; and, characteristically, in Latin, which was not a bad cipher.I read—

“Henricus de Letaba transeunda apud Duprei vada jam nos certioresfecit.”[2]

I had guessed rightly. Henriques was a traitor to the cause he had espoused.Arcoll’s message had given me new heart, but Wardlaw’s gave me information oftremendous value. I repented that I had ever underrated the schoolmaster’ssense. He did not come out of Aberdeen for nothing.

I asked the Kaffir how far it was to Dupree’s Drift, and was told three hours’march. We should get there after the darkening. It seemed he had permission toride with me instead of ’Mwanga, who had no love for the job. How he managedthis I do not know; but Arcoll’s men had their own ways of doing things. Heundertook to set me free when the first shot was fired at the ford. Meantime Ibade him leave me, to avert suspicion.

There is a story of one of King Arthur’s knights—Sir Percival, I think—thatonce, riding through a forest, he found a lion fighting with a serpent. He drewhis sword and helped the lion, for he thought it was the more natural beast ofthe two. To me Laputa was the lion, and Henriques the serpent; and though I hadno good will to either, I was determined to spoil the serpent’s game. He wasafter the rubies, as I had fancied; he had never been after anything else. Hehad found out about Arcoll’s preparations, and had sent him a warning, hoping,no doubt, that, if Laputa’s force was scattered on the Letaba, he would have achance of getting off with the necklace in the confusion. If he succeeded, hewould go over the Lebombo to Mozambique, and whatever happened afterwards inthe rising would be no concern of Mr Henriques. I determined that he shouldfail; but how to manage it I could not see. Had I had a pistol, I think I wouldhave shot him; but I had no weapon of any kind. I could not warn Laputa, forthat would seal my own fate, even if I were believed. It was clear that Laputamust go to Dupree’s Drift, for otherwise I could not escape; and it was equallyclear that I must find the means of spoiling the Portugoose’s game.

A shadow fell across the sunlight, and I looked up to see the man I wasthinking of standing before me. He had a cigarette in his mouth, and his handsin the pockets of his riding-breeches. He stood eyeing me with a curious smileon his face.

“Well, Mr Storekeeper,” he said, “you and I have met before under pleasantercircumstances.”

I said nothing, my mind being busy with what to do at the drift.

“We were shipmates, if I am not mistaken,” he said. “I dare say you found itnicer work smoking on the after-deck than lying here in the sun.”

Still I said nothing. If the man had come to mock me, he would get no changeout of David Crawfurd.

“Tut, tut, don’t be sulky. You have no quarrel with me. Between ourselves,” andhe dropped his voice, “I tried to save you; but you had seen rather too much tobe safe. What devil prompted you to steal a horse and go to the cave? I don’tblame you for overhearing us; but if you had had the sense of a louse you wouldhave gone off to the Berg with your news. By the way, how did you manage it? Acellar, I suppose. Our friend Laputa was a fool not to take better precautions;but I must say you acted the drunkard pretty well.”

The vanity of 19 is an incalculable thing. I rose to the fly.

“I know the kind of precaution you wanted to take,” I muttered.

“You heard that too? Well, I confess I am in favour of doing a job thoroughlywhen I take it up.”

“In the Koodoo Flats, for example,” I said.

He sat down beside me, and laughed softly. “You heard my little story? You areclever, Mr Storekeeper, but not quite clever enough. What if I can act a partas well as yourself?” And he thrust his yellow face close to mine.

I saw his meaning, and did not for a second believe him; but I had the sense totemporize.

“Do you mean to say that you did not kill the Dutchmen, and did not mean toknife me?”

“I mean to say that I am not a fool,” he said, lighting another cigarette.

“I am a white man, Mr Storekeeper, and I play the white man’s game. Why do youthink I am here? Simply because I was the only man in Africa who had the pluckto get to the heart of this business. I am here to dish Laputa, and by God I amgoing to do it.”

I was scarcely prepared for such incredible bluff. I knew every word was a lie,but I wanted to hear more, for the man fascinated me.

“I suppose you know what will happen to you,” he said, flicking the ashes fromhis cigarette. “To-morrow at Inanda’s Kraal, when the vow is over, they willgive you a taste of Kaffir habits. Not death, my friend—that would be simpleenough—but a slow death with every refinement of horror. You have broken intotheir sacred places, and you will be sacrificed to Laputa’s god. I have seennative torture before, and his own mother would run away shrieking from a manwho had endured it.”

I said nothing, but the thought made my flesh creep.

“Well,” he went on, “you’re in an awkward plight, but I think I can help you.What if I can save your life, Mr Storekeeper? You are trussed up like a fowl,and can do nothing. I am the only man alive who can help you. I am willing todo it, too—on my own terms.”

I did not wait to hear those terms, for I had a shrewd guess what they wouldbe. My hatred of Henriques rose and choked me. I saw murder and trickery in hismean eyes and cruel mouth. I could not, to be saved from the uttermost horror,have made myself his ally.

“Now listen, Mr Portugoose,” I cried. “You tell me you are a spy. What if Ishout that through the camp? There will be short shrift for you if Laputa hearsit.”

He laughed loudly. “You are a bigger fool than I took you for. Who wouldbelieve you, my friend. Not Laputa. Not any man in this army. It would onlymean tighter bonds for these long legs of yours.”

By this time I had given up all thought of diplomacy. “Very well, youyellow-faced devil, you will hear my answer. I would not take my freedom fromyou, though I were to be boiled alive. I know you for a traitor to the whiteman’s cause, a dirty I.D.B. swindler, whose name is a byword among honest men.By your own confession you are a traitor to this idiot rising. You murdered theDutchmen and God knows how many more, and you would fain have murdered me. Ipray to Heaven that the men whose cause you have betrayed and the men whosecause you would betray may join to stamp the life out of you and send your soulto hell. I know the game you would have me join in, and I fling your offer inyour face. But I tell you one thing—you are damned yourself. The white men areout, and you will never get over the Lebombo. From black or white you will getjustice before many hours, and your carcass will be left to rot in the bush.Get out of my sight, you swine.”

In that moment I was so borne up in my passion that I forgot my bonds and mygrave danger. I was inspired like a prophet with a sense of approachingretribution. Henriques heard me out; but his smile changed to a scowl, and aflush rose on his sallow cheek.

“Stew in your own juice,” he said, and spat in my face. Then he shouted inKaffir that I had insulted him, and demanded that I should be bound tighter andgagged.

It was Arcoll’s messenger who answered his summons. That admirable fellowrushed at me with a great appearance of savagery. He made a pretence ofswathing me up in fresh rawhide ropes, but his knots were loose and the thingwas a farce. He gagged me with what looked like a piece of wood, but was inreality a chunk of dry banana. And all the while, till Henriques was out ofhearing, he cursed me with a noble gift of tongues.

The drums beat for the advance, and once more I was hoisted on my horse, whileArcoll’s Kaffir tied my bridle to his own. A Kaffir cannot wink, but he has away of slanting his eyes which does as well, and as we moved on he would turnhis head to me with this strange grimace.

Henriques wanted me to help him to get the rubies—that I presumed was the offerhe had meant to make. Well, thought I, I will perish before the jewel reachesthe Portuguese’s hands. He hoped for a stampede when Arcoll opposed thecrossing of the river, and in the confusion intended to steal the casket. Myplan must be to get as near the old priest as possible before we reached theford. I spoke to my warder and told him what I wanted. He nodded, and in thefirst mile we managed to edge a good way forward. Several things came to aidus. As I have said, we of the centre were not marching in close ranks, but in aloose column, and often it was possible by taking a short cut on rough groundto join the column some distance ahead. There was a vlei, too, which manycircumvented, but we swam, and this helped our lead. In a couple of hours wewere so near the priest’s litter that I could have easily tossed a cricket ballon the head of Henriques who rode beside it.

Very soon the twilight of the winter day began to fall. The far hills grew pinkand mulberry in the sunset, and strange shadows stole over the bush. Stillcreeping forward, we found ourselves not twenty yards behind the litter, whilefar ahead I saw a broad, glimmering space of water with a high woody bankbeyond.

“Dupree’s Drift;” whispered my warder. “Courage, Inkoos;[3] in an hour’s timeyou will be free.”

[1] Boer elephant guns.

[2] “Henriques has already told us about the crossing at Dupree’s Drift.”

[3] Great chief.

CHAPTER XIII
THE DRIFT OF THE LETABA

The dusk was gathering fast as we neared the stream. From the stagnant reachesabove and below a fine white mist was rising, but the long shallows of the fordwere clear. My heart was beginning to flutter wildly, but I kept a tight gripon myself and prayed for patience. As I stared into the evening my hopes sank.I had expected, foolishly enough, to see on the far bank some sign of myfriends, but the tall bush was dead and silent.

The drift slants across the river at an acute angle, roughly S.S.W. I did notknow this at the time, and was amazed to see the van of the march turnapparently up stream. Laputa’s great voice rang out in some order which wasrepeated down the column, and the wide flanks of the force converged on thenarrow cart-track which entered the water. We had come to a standstill whilethe front ranks began the passage.

I sat shaking with excitement, my eyes straining into the gloom. Water holdsthe evening light for long, and I could make out pretty clearly what washappening. The leading horsemen rode into the stream with Laputa in front. Theford is not the best going, so they had to pick their way, but in five or tenminutes they were over. Then came some of the infantry of the flanks, whocrossed with the water to their waists, and their guns held high above theirheads. They made a portentous splashing, but not a sound came from theirthroats. I shall never know how Laputa imposed silence on the most noisy raceon earth. Several thousand footmen must have followed the riders, anddisappeared into the far bush. But not a shot came from the bluffs in front.

I watched with a sinking heart. Arcoll had failed, and there was to be no checkat the drift. There remained for me only the horrors at Inanda’s Kraal. Iresolved to make a dash for freedom, at all costs, and was in the act oftelling Arcoll’s man to cut my bonds, when a thought occurred to me.

Henriques was after the rubies, and it was his interest to get Laputa acrossthe river before the attack began. It was Arcoll’s business to split the force,and above all to hold up the leader. Henriques would tell him, and for thatmatter he must have assumed himself, that Laputa would ride in the centre ofthe force. Therefore there would be no check till the time came for thepriest’s litter to cross.

It was well that I had not had my bonds cut. Henriques came riding towards me,his face sharp and bright as a ferret’s. He pulled up and asked if I were safe.My Kaffir showed my strapped elbows and feet, and tugged at the cords to provetheir tightness.

“Keep him well,” said Henriques, “or you will answer to Inkulu. Forward withhim now and get him through the water.” Then he turned and rode back.

My warder, apparently obeying orders, led me out of the column and into thebush on the right hand. Soon we were abreast of the litter and some twentyyards to the west of it. The water gleamed through the trees a few paces infront. I could see the masses of infantry converging on the drift, and thechurning like a cascade which they made in the passage.

Suddenly from the far bank came an order. It was Laputa’s voice, thin andhigh-pitched, as the Kaffir cries when he wishes his words to carry a greatdistance. Henriques repeated it, and the infantry halted. The riders of thecolumn in front of the litter began to move into the stream.

We should have gone with them, but instead we pulled our horses back into thedarkness of the bush. It seemed to me that odd things were happening around thepriest’s litter. Henriques had left it, and dashed past me so close that Icould have touched him. From somewhere among the trees a pistol-shot crackedinto the air.

As if in answer to a signal the high bluff across the stream burst into a sheetof fire. “A sheet of fire” sounds odd enough for scientific warfare. I saw thatmy friends were using shot-guns and firing with black powder into the mob inthe water. It was humane and it was good tactics, for the flame in the greydusk had the appearance of a heavy battery of ordnance. Once again I heardHenriques’ voice. He was turning the column to the right. He shouted to them toget into cover, and take the water higher up. I thought, too, that from faraway I heard Laputa.

These were maddening seconds. We had left the business of cutting my bondsalmost too late. In the darkness of the bush the strips of hide could only befelt for, and my Kaffir had a woefully blunt knife. Reims are always tough tosever, and mine had to be sawn through. Soon my arms were free, and I wasplucking at my other bonds. The worst were those on my ankles below the horse’sbelly. The Kaffir fumbled away in the dark, and pricked my beast so that hereared and struck out. And all the while I was choking with impatience, andgabbling prayers to myself.

The men on the other side had begun to use ball-cartridge. I could see througha gap the centre of the river, and it was filled with a mass of struggling menand horses. I remember that it amazed me that no shot was fired in return. ThenI remembered the vow, and was still more amazed at the power of a ritual onthat savage horde.

The column was moving past me to the right. It was a disorderly rabble whichobeyed Henriques’ orders. Bullets began to sing through the trees, and onerider was hit in the shoulder and came down with a crash. This increased theconfusion, for most of them dismounted and tried to lead their horses in thecover. The infantry coming in from the wings collided with them, and there wasa struggle of excited beasts and men in the thickets of thorn and mopani. Andstill my Kaffir was trying to get my ankles loose as fast as a plunging horsewould let him. At last I was free, and dropped stiffly to the ground. I fellprone on my face with cramp, and when I got up I rolled like a drunk man. HereI made a great blunder. I should have left my horse with my Kaffir, and biddenhim follow me. But I was too eager to be cautious, so I let it go, and cryingto the Kaffir to await me, I ran towards the litter.

Henriques had laid his plans well. The column had abandoned the priest, and bythe litter were only the two bearers. As I caught sight of them one fell with abullet in his chest. The other, wild with fright, kept turning his head toevery quarter of the compass. Another bullet passed close to his head. This wastoo much for him, and with a yell he ran away.

As I broke through the thicket I looked to the quarter whence the bullets hadcome. These, I could have taken my oath, were not fired by my friends on thefarther bank. It was close-quarter shooting, and I knew who had done it. But Isaw nobody. The last few yards of the road were clear, and only out in thewater was the struggling shouting mass of humanity. I saw a tall man on a bighorse plunge into the river on his way back. It must be Laputa returning tocommand the panic.

My business was not with Laputa but with Henriques. The old priest in thelitter, who had been sleeping, had roused himself, and was looking vacantlyround him. He did not look long. A third bullet, fired from a dozen yards away,drilled a hole in his forehead. He fell back dead, and the ivory box, which layon his lap, tilted forward on the ground.

I had no weapon of any kind, and I did not want the fourth bullet for myself.Henriques was too pretty a shot to trifle with. I waited quietly on the edge ofthe shade till the Portugoose came out of the thicket. I saw him runningforward with a rifle in his hand. A whinny from a horse told me that somewherenear his beast was tied up. It was all but dark, but it seemed to me that Icould see the lust of greed in his eyes as he rushed to the litter.

Very softly I stole behind him. He tore off the lid of the box, and pulled outthe great necklace. For a second it hung in his hands, but only for a second.So absorbed was he that he did not notice me standing full before him. Nay, helifted his head, and gave me the finest chance of my life. I was something of aboxer, and all my accumulated fury went into the blow. It caught him on thepoint of the chin, and his neck cricked like the bolt of a rifle. He felllimply on the ground and the jewels dropped from his hand.

I picked them up and stuffed them into my breeches pocket.

Then I pulled the pistol out of his belt. It was six-chambered, and I knew thatonly three had been emptied. I remembered feeling extraordinarily cool andcomposed, and yet my wits must have been wandering or I would have never takenthe course I did.

The right thing to do—on Arcoll’s instructions—was to make for the river andswim across to my friends. But Laputa was coming back, and I dreaded meetinghim. Laputa seemed to my heated fancy omnipresent. I thought of him as coveringthe whole bank of the river, whereas I might easily have crossed a littlefarther down, and made my way up the other bank to my friends. It was plainthat Laputa intended to evade the patrol, not to capture it, and there,consequently, I should be safe. The next best thing was to find Arcoll’sKaffir, who was not twenty yards away, get some sort of horse, and break forthe bush. Long before morning we should have been over the Berg and in safety.Nay, if I wanted a mount, there was Henriques’ whinnying a few paces off.

Instead I did the craziest thing of all. With the jewels in one pocket, and thePortugoose’s pistol in the other, I started running back the road we had come.

CHAPTER XIV
I CARRY THE COLLAR OF PRESTER JOHN

I ran till my breath grew short, for some kind of swift motion I had to have orchoke. The events of the last few minutes had inflamed my brain. For the firsttime in my life I had seen men die by violence—nay, by brutal murder. I had putmy soul into the blow which laid out Henriques, and I was still hot with thepride of it. Also I had in my pocket the fetich of the whole black world; I hadtaken their Ark of the Covenant, and soon Laputa would be on my trail. Fear,pride, and a blind exultation all throbbed in my veins. I must have run threemiles before I came to my sober senses.

I put my ear to the ground, but heard no sound of pursuit. Laputa, I argued,would have enough to do for a little, shepherding his flock over the water. Hemight surround and capture the patrol, or he might evade it; the vow preventedhim from fighting it. On the whole I was clear that he would ignore it and pushon for the rendezvous. All this would take time, and the business of the priestwould have to wait. When Henriques came to he would no doubt have a story totell, and the scouts would be on my trail. I wished I had shot the Portugoosewhile I was at the business. It would have been no murder, but a righteousexecution.

Meanwhile I must get off the road. The sand had been disturbed by an army, sothere was little fear of my steps being traced. Still it was only wise to leavethe track which I would be assumed to have taken, for Laputa would guess I hadfled back the way to Blaauwildebeestefontein. I turned into the bush, whichhere was thin and sparse like whins on a common.

The Berg must be my goal. Once on the plateau I would be inside the white man’slines. Down here in the plains I was in the country of my enemies. Arcoll meantto fight on the uplands when it came to fighting. The black man might rage ashe pleased in his own flats, but we stood to defend the gates of the hills.Therefore over the Berg I must be before morning, or there would be a dead manwith no tales to tell.

I think that even at the start of that night’s work I realized the exceedingprecariousness of my chances. Some twenty miles of bush and swamp separated mefrom the foot of the mountains. After that there was the climbing of them, forat the point opposite where I now stood the Berg does not descend sharply onthe plain, but is broken into foot-hills around the glens of the Klein Letabaand the Letsitela. From the spot where these rivers emerge on the flats to thecrown of the plateau is ten miles at the shortest. I had a start of an hour orso, but before dawn I had to traverse thirty miles of unknown and difficultcountry. Behind me would follow the best trackers in Africa, who knew everyfoot of the wilderness. It was a wild hazard, but it was my only hope. At thistime I was feeling pretty courageous. For one thing I had Henriques’ pistolclose to my leg, and for another I still thrilled with the satisfaction ofhaving smitten his face.

I took the rubies, and stowed them below my shirt and next my skin. I remembertaking stock of my equipment and laughing at the humour of it. One of the heelswas almost twisted off my boots, and my shirt and breeches were old at the bestand ragged from hard usage. The whole outfit would have been dear at fiveshillings, or seven-and-six with the belt thrown in. Then there was thePortugoose’s pistol, costing, say, a guinea; and last, the Prester’s collar,worth several millions.

What was more important than my clothing was my bodily strength. I was stillvery sore from the bonds and the jog of that accursed horse, but exercise wasrapidly suppling my joints. About five hours ago I had eaten a filling, thoughnot very sustaining, meal, and I thought I could go on very well till morning.But I was still badly in arrears with my sleep, and there was no chance of mysnatching a minute till I was over the Berg. It was going to be a race againsttime, and I swore that I would drive my body to the last ounce of strength.

Moonrise was still an hour or two away, and the sky was bright with myriadstars. I knew now what starlight meant, for there was ample light to pick myway by. I steered by the Southern Cross, for I was aware that the Berg rannorth and south, and with that constellation on my left hand I was bound toreach it sooner or later. The bush closed around me with its mysterious dullgreen shades, and trees, which in the daytime were thin scrub, now loomed liketall timber. It was very eerie moving, a tiny fragment of mortality, in thatgreat wide silent wilderness, with the starry vault, like an impassivecelestial audience, watching with many eyes. They cheered me, those stars. Inmy hurry and fear and passion they spoke of the old calm dignities of man. Ifelt less alone when I turned my face to the lights which were slanting alikeon this uncanny bush and on the homely streets of Kirkcaple.

The silence did not last long. First came the howl of a wolf, to be answered byothers from every quarter of the compass. This serenade went on for a bit, tillthe jackals chimed in with their harsh bark. I had been caught by darknessbefore this when hunting on the Berg, but I was not afraid of wild beasts. Thatis one terror of the bush which travellers’ tales have put too high. It wastrue that I might meet a hungry lion, but the chance was remote, and I had mypistol. Once indeed a huge animal bounded across the road a little in front ofme. For a moment I took him for a lion, but on reflection I was inclined tothink him a very large bush-pig.

By this time I was out of the thickest bush and into a piece of parkland withlong, waving tambuki grass, which the Kaffirs would burn later. The moon wascoming up, and her faint rays silvered the flat tops of the mimosa trees. Icould hear and feel around me the rustling of animals. Once or twice a bigbuck—an eland or a koodoo—broke cover, and at the sight of me went off snortingdown the slope. Also there were droves of smaller game—rhebok and springbok andduikers—which brushed past at full gallop without even noticing me.

The sight was so novel that it set me thinking. That shy wild things shouldstampede like this could only mean that they had been thoroughly scared. Nowobviously the thing that scared them must be on this side of the Letaba. Thismust mean that Laputa’s army, or a large part of it, had not crossed atDupree’s Drift, but had gone up the stream to some higher ford. If that was so,I must alter my course; so I bore away to the right for a mile or two, making aline due north-west.

In about an hour’s time the ground descended steeply, and I saw before me theshining reaches of a river. I had the chief features of the countryside clearin my mind, both from old porings over maps, and from Arcoll’s instructions.This stream must be the Little Letaba, and I must cross it if I would get tothe mountains. I remembered that Majinje’s kraal stood on its left bank, andhigher up in its valley in the Berg ’Mpefu lived. At all costs the kraals mustbe avoided. Once across it I must make for the Letsitela, another tributary ofthe Great Letaba, and by keeping the far bank of that stream I should cross themountains to the place on the plateau of the Wood Bush which Arcoll had told mewould be his headquarters.

It is easy to talk about crossing a river, and looking to-day at the slenderstreak on the map I am amazed that so small a thing should have given me suchugly tremors. Yet I have rarely faced a job I liked so little. The stream ranyellow and sluggish under the clear moon. On the near side a thick growth ofbush clothed the bank, but on the far side I made out a swamp with tallbulrushes. The distance across was no more than fifty yards, but I would haveswum a mile more readily in deep water. The place stank of crocodiles. Therewas no ripple to break the oily flow except where a derelict branch swayed withthe current. Something in the stillness, the eerie light on the water, and therotting smell of the swamp made that stream seem unhallowed and deadly.

I sat down and considered the matter. Crocodiles had always terrified me morethan any created thing, and to be dragged by iron jaws to death in that hideousstream seemed to me the most awful of endings. Yet cross it I must if I were toget rid of my human enemies. I remembered a story of an escaped prisoner duringthe war who had only the Komati River between him and safety. But he dared notenter it, and was recaptured by a Boer commando. I was determined that suchcowardice should not be laid to my charge. If I was to die, I would at leasthave given myself every chance of life. So I braced myself as best I could, andlooked for a place to enter.

The veld-craft I had mastered had taught me a few things. One was that wildanimals drink at night, and that they have regular drinking places. I thoughtthat the likeliest place for crocodiles was at or around such spots, and,therefore, I resolved to take the water away from a drinking place. I went upthe bank, noting where the narrow bush-paths emerged on the water-side. Iscared away several little buck, and once the violent commotion in the bushshowed that I had frightened some bigger animal, perhaps a hartebeest. Stillfollowing the bank I came to a reach where the undergrowth was unbroken and thewater looked deeper.

Suddenly—I fear I must use this adverb often, for all the happenings on thatnight were sudden—I saw a biggish animal break through the reeds on the farside. It entered the water and, whether wading or swimming I could not see,came out a little distance. Then some sense must have told it of my presence,for it turned and with a grunt made its way back.

I saw that it was a big wart-hog, and began to think. Pig, unlike other beasts,drink not at night, but in the daytime. The hog had, therefore, not come todrink, but to swim across. Now, I argued, he would choose a safe place, for thewart-hog, hideous though he is, is a wise beast. What was safe for him would,therefore, in all likelihood be safe for me.

With this hope to comfort me I prepared to enter. My first care was the jewels,so, feeling them precarious in my shirt, I twined the collar round my neck andclasped it. The snake-clasp was no flimsy device of modern jewellery, and I hadno fear but that it would hold. I held the pistol between my teeth, and with aprayer to God slipped into the muddy waters.

I swam in the wild way of a beginner who fears cramp. The current was light andthe water moderately warm, but I seemed to go very slowly, and I was cold withapprehension. In the middle it suddenly shallowed, and my breast came against amudshoal. I thought it was a crocodile, and in my confusion the pistol droppedfrom my mouth and disappeared.

I waded a few steps and then plunged into deep water again. Almost before Iknew, I was among the bulrushes, with my feet in the slime of the bank. Withfeverish haste I scrambled through the reeds and up through roots andundergrowth to the hard soil. I was across, but, alas, I had lost my onlyweapon.

The swim and the anxiety had tired me considerably, and though it meant delay,I did not dare to continue with the weight of water-logged clothes to impedeme. I found a dry sheltered place in the bush and stripped to the skin. Iemptied my boots and wrung out my shirt and breeches, while the Prester’sjewels were blazing on my neck. Here was a queer counterpart to Laputa in thecave!

The change revived me, and I continued my way in better form. So far there hadbeen no sign of pursuit. Before me the Letsitela was the only other stream, andfrom what I remembered of its character near the Berg I thought I should havelittle trouble. It was smaller than the Klein Letaba, and a rushing torrentwhere shallows must be common.

I kept running till I felt my shirt getting dry on my back. Then I restored thejewels to their old home, and found their cool touch on my breast verycomforting. The country was getting more broken as I advanced. Little kopjeswith thickets of wild bananas took the place of the dead levels. Long before Ireached the Letsitela, I saw that I was right in my guess. It ran, a brawlingmountain stream, in a narrow rift in the bush. I crossed it almost dry-shod onthe boulders above a little fall, stopping for a moment to drink and lave mybrow.

After that the country changed again. The wood was now getting like that whichclothed the sides of the Berg. There were tall timber-trees—yellowwood,sneezewood, essenwood, stinkwood—and the ground was carpeted with thick grassand ferns. The sight gave me my first earnest of safety. I was approaching myown country. Behind me was heathendom and the black fever flats. In front werethe cool mountains and bright streams, and the guns of my own folk.

As I struggled on—for I was getting very footsore and weary—I became aware ofan odd sound in my rear. It was as if something were following me. I stoppedand listened with a sudden dread. Could Laputa’s trackers have got up with mealready? But the sound was not of human feet. It was as if some heavy animalwere plunging through the undergrowth. At intervals came the soft pad of itsfeet on the grass.

It must be the hungry lion of my nightmare, and Henriques’ pistol was in themud of the Klein Letaba! The only thing was a tree, and I had sprung for oneand scrambled wearily into the first branches when a great yellow animal cameinto the moonlight.

Providence had done kindly in robbing me of my pistol. The next minute I was onthe ground with Colin leaping on me and baying with joy. I hugged that blessedhound and buried my head in his shaggy neck, sobbing like a child. How he hadtraced me I can never tell. The secret belongs only to the Maker of good andfaithful dogs.

With him by my side I was a new man. The awesome loneliness had gone. I felt asif he were a message from my own people to take me safely home. He clearly knewthe business afoot, for he padded beside me with never a glance to right orleft. Another time he would have been snowking in every thicket; but now he wason duty, a serious, conscientious dog with no eye but for business.

The moon went down, and the starry sky was our only light. The thick gloomwhich brooded over the landscape pointed to the night being far gone. I thoughtI saw a deeper blackness ahead which might be the line of the Berg. Then camethat period of utter stillness when every bush sound is hushed and the worldseems to swoon. I felt almost impious hurrying through that profound silence,when not even the leaves stirred or a frog croaked.

Suddenly as we came over a rise a little wind blew on the back of my head, anda bitter chill came into the air. I knew from nights spent in the open that itwas the precursor of dawn. Sure enough, as I glanced back, far over the plain apale glow was stealing upwards into the sky. In a few minutes the pall meltedinto an airy haze, and above me I saw the heavens shot with tremors of bluelight. Then the foreground began to clear, and there before me, with theirheads still muffled in vapour, were the mountains.

Xenophon’s Ten Thousand did not hail the sea more gladly than I welcomed thosefrowning ramparts of the Berg.

Once again my weariness was eased. I cried to Colin, and together we ran downinto the wide, shallow trough which lies at the foot of the hills. As the sunrose above the horizon, the black masses changed to emerald and rich umber, andthe fleecy mists of the summits opened and revealed beyond shining spaces ofgreen. Some lines of Shakespeare ran in my head, which I have always thoughtthe most beautiful of all poetry:

“Night’s candles are burned out, and jocund day
Walks tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.”

Up there among the clouds was my salvation. Like the Psalmist, I lifted my eyesto the hills from whence came my aid.

Hope is a wonderful restorative. To be near the hills, to smell their odours,to see at the head of the glens the lines of the plateau where were white menand civilization—all gave me new life and courage. Colin saw my mood, andspared a moment now and then to inspect a hole or a covert. Down in the shallowtrough I saw the links of a burn, the Machudi, which flowed down the glen itwas my purpose to ascend. Away to the north in the direction of Majinje’s werepatches of Kaffir tillage, and I thought I discerned the smoke from fires.Majinje’s womankind would be cooking their morning meal. To the south ran athick patch of forest, but I saw beyond it the spur of the mountain over whichruns the highroad to Wesselsburg. The clear air of dawn was like wine in myblood. I was not free, but I was on the threshold of freedom. If I could onlyreach my friends with the Prester’s collar in my shirt, I would have performeda feat which would never be forgotten. I would have made history by my gloriousfolly. Breakfastless and footsore, I was yet a proud man as I crossed thehollow to the mouth of Machudi’s glen.

My chickens had been counted too soon, and there was to be no hatching. Colingrew uneasy, and began to sniff up wind. I was maybe a quarter of a mile fromthe glen foot, plodding through the long grass of the hollow, when thebehaviour of the dog made me stop and listen. In that still air sounds carryfar, and I seemed to hear the noise of feet brushing through cover. The noisecame both from north and south, from the forest and from the lower course ofthe Machudi.

I dropped into shelter, and running with bent back got to the summit of alittle bush-clad knoll. It was Colin who first caught sight of my pursuers. Hewas staring at a rift in the trees, and suddenly gave a short bark. I lookedand saw two men, running hard, cross the grass and dip into the bed of thestream. A moment later I had a glimpse of figures on the edge of the forest,moving fast to the mouth of the glen. The pursuit had not followed me; it hadwaited to cut me off. Fool that I was, I had forgotten the wonders of Kaffirtelegraphy. It had been easy for Laputa to send word thirty miles ahead to stopany white man who tried to cross the Berg.

And then I knew that I was very weary.

CHAPTER XV
MORNING IN THE BERG

I was perhaps half a mile the nearer to the glen, and was likely to get therefirst. And after that? I could see the track winding by the waterside and thencrossing a hill-shoulder which diverted the stream. It was a road a man couldscarcely ride, and a tired man would have a hard job to climb. I do not thinkthat I had any hope. My exhilaration had died as suddenly as it had been born.I saw myself caught and carried off to Laputa, who must now be close on therendezvous at Inanda’s Kraal. I had no weapon to make a fight for it. My foemenwere many and untired. It must be only a matter of minutes till I was in theirhands.

More in a dogged fury of disappointment than with any hope of escape I forcedmy sore legs up the glen. Ten minutes ago I had been exulting in the glories ofthe morning, and now the sun was not less bright or the colours less fair, butthe heart had gone out of the spectator. At first I managed to get some paceout of myself, partly from fear and partly from anger. But I soon found that mybody had been tried too far. I could plod along, but to save my life I couldnot have hurried. Any healthy savage could have caught me in a hundred yards.

The track, I remember, was overhung with creepers, and often I had to squeezethrough thickets of tree-ferns. Countless little brooks ran down from thehillside, threads of silver among the green pastures. Soon I left the streamand climbed up on the shoulder, where the road was not much better than aprecipice. Every step was a weariness. I could hardly drag one foot after theother, and my heart was beating like the fanners of a mill, I had spasms ofacute sickness, and it took all my resolution to keep me from lying down by theroadside.

At last I was at the top of the shoulder and could look back. There was no signof anybody on the road so far as I could see. Could I have escaped them? I hadbeen in the shadow of the trees for the first part, and they might have lostsight of me and concluded that I had avoided the glen or tried one of thefaces. Before me, I remember, there stretched the upper glen, a greencup-shaped hollow with the sides scarred by ravines. There was a high waterfallin one of them which was white as snow against the red rocks. My wits must havebeen shaky, for I took the fall for a snowdrift, and wondered sillily why theBerg had grown so Alpine.

A faint spasm of hope took me into that green cup. The bracken was as thick ason the Pentlands, and there was a multitude of small lovely flowers in thegrass. It was like a water-meadow at home, such a place as I had often inboyhood searched for moss-cheepers’ and corncrakes’ eggs. Birds were cryinground me as I broke this solitude, and one small buck—a klipspringer—rose frommy feet and dashed up one of the gullies. Before me was a steep green wall withthe sky blue above it. Beyond it was safety, but as my sweat-dimmed eyes lookedat it I knew that I could never reach it.

Then I saw my pursuers. High up on the left side, and rounding the rim of thecup, were little black figures. They had not followed my trail, but, certain ofmy purpose, had gone forward to intercept me. I remember feeling a punyweakling compared with those lusty natives who could make such good going onsteep mountains. They were certainly no men of the plains, but hillmen,probably some remnants of old Machudi’s tribe who still squatted in the glen.Machudi was a blackguard chief whom the Boers long ago smashed in one of theirnative wars. He was a fierce old warrior and had put up a good fight to thelast, till a hired impi of Swazis had surrounded his hiding-place in the forestand destroyed him. A Boer farmer on the plateau had his skull, and used todrink whisky out of it when he was merry.

The sight of the pursuit was the last straw. I gave up hope, and my intentionswere narrowed to one frantic desire—to hide the jewels. Patriotism, which I hadalmost forgotten, flickered up in that crisis. At any rate Laputa should nothave the Snake. If he drove out the white man, he should not clasp thePrester’s rubies on his great neck.

There was no cover in the green cup, so I turned up the ravine on the rightside. The enemy, so far as I could judge, were on the left and in front, and inthe gully I might find a pot-hole to bury the necklet in. Only a desperateresolution took me through the tangle of juniper bushes into the red screes ofthe gully. At first I could not find what I sought. The stream in the ravineslid down a long slope like a mill-race, and the sides were bare and stony.Still I plodded on, helping myself with a hand on Colin’s back, for my legswere numb with fatigue. By-and-by the gully narrowed, and I came to a flatplace with a long pool. Beyond was a little fall, and up this I climbed into anetwork of tiny cascades. Over one pool hung a dead tree-fern, and a bay fromit ran into a hole of the rock. I slipped the jewels far into the hole, wherethey lay on the firm sand, showing odd lights through the dim blue water. ThenI scrambled down again to the flat space and the pool, and looked round to seeif any one had reached the edge of the ravine. There was no sign as yet of thepursuit, so I dropped limply on the shingle and waited. For I had suddenlyconceived a plan.

As my breath came back to me my wits came back from their wandering. These menwere not there to kill me, but to capture me. They could know nothing of thejewels, for Laputa would never have dared to make the loss of the sacred Snakepublic. Therefore they would not suspect what I had done, and would simply leadme to Laputa at Inanda’s Kraal. I began to see the glimmerings of a plan forsaving my life, and by God’s grace, for saving my country from the horrors ofrebellion. The more I thought the better I liked it. It demanded a bold front,and it might well miscarry, but I had taken such desperate hazards during thepast days that I was less afraid of fortune. Anyhow, the choice lay betweencertain death and a slender chance of life, and it was easy to decide.

Playing football, I used to notice how towards the end of a game I might besore and weary, without a kick in my body; but when I had a straight job oftackling a man my strength miraculously returned. It was even so now. I lay onmy side, luxuriating in being still, and slowly a sort of vigour crept backinto my limbs. Perhaps a half-hour of rest was given me before, on the lip ofthe gully, I saw figures appear. Looking down I saw several men who had comeacross from the opposite side of the valley, scrambling up the stream. I got tomy feet, with Colin bristling beside me, and awaited them with the stiffestface I could muster.

As I expected, they were Machudi’s men. I recognized them by the red ochre intheir hair and their copper-wire necklets. Big fellows they were, long-leggedand deep in the chest, the true breed of mountaineers. I admired their lighttread on the slippery rock. It was hopeless to think of evading such men intheir own hills.

The men from the side joined the men in front, and they stood looking at mefrom about twelve yards off. They were armed only with knobkerries, and veryclearly were no part of Laputa’s army. This made their errand plain to me.

“Halt!” I said in Kaffir, as one of them made a hesitating step to advance.“Who are you and what do you seek?”

There was no answer, but they looked at me curiously. Then one made a motionwith his stick. Colin gave a growl, and would have been on him if I had notkept a hand on his collar. The rash man drew back, and all stood stiff andperplexed.

“Keep your hands by your side,” I said, “or the dog, who has a devil, willdevour you. One of you speak for the rest and tell me your purpose.”

For a moment I had a wild notion that they might be friends, some of Arcoll’sscouts, and out to help me. But the first words shattered the fancy.

“We are sent by Inkulu,” the biggest of them said. “He bade us bring you tohim.”

“And what if I refuse to go?”

“Then, Baas, we must take you to him. We are under the vow of the Snake.”

“Vow of fiddlestick!” I cried. “Who do you think is the bigger chief, theInkulu or Ratitswan? I tell you Ratitswan is now driving Inkulu before him as awind drives rotten leaves. It will be well for you, men of Machudi, to makepeace with Ratitswan and take me to him on the Berg. If you bring me to him, Iand he will reward you; but if you do Inkulu’s bidding you will soon be huntedlike buck out of your hills.”

They grinned at one another, but I could see that my words had no effect.Laputa had done his business too well.

The spokesman shrugged his shoulders in the way the Kaffirs have. “We wish youno ill, Baas, but we have been bidden to take you to Inkulu. We cannot disobeythe command of the Snake.”

My weakness was coming on me again, and I could talk no more. I sat down plumpon the ground, almost falling into the pool. “Take me to Inkulu,” I stammeredwith a dry throat, “I do not fear him;” and I rolled half-fainting on my back.

These clansmen of Machudi were decent fellows. One of them had some Kaffir beerin a calabash, which he gave me to drink. The stuff was thin and sickly, butthe fermentation in it did me good. I had the sense to remember my need ofsleep. “The day is young,” I said, “and I have come far. I ask to be allowed tosleep for an hour.”

The men made no difficulty, and with my head between Colin’s paws I slippedinto dreamless slumber.

When they wakened me the sun was beginning to climb the sky, I judged it to beabout eight o’clock. They had made a little fire and roasted mealies. Some ofthe food they gave me, and I ate it thankfully. I was feeling better, and Ithink a pipe would have almost completed my cure.

But when I stood up I found that I was worse than I had thought. The truth is,I was leg-weary, which you often see in horses, but rarely in men. What theproper explanation is I do not know, but the muscles simply refuse to answerthe direction of the will. I found my legs sprawling like a child’s who islearning to walk.

“If you want me to go to the Inkulu, you must carry me,” I said, as I droppedonce more on the ground.

The men nodded, and set to work to make a kind of litter out of theirknobkerries and some old ropes they carried. As they worked and chattered Ilooked idly at the left bank of the ravine—that is, the left as you ascend it.Some of Machudi’s men had come down there, and, though the place looked sheerand perilous, I saw how they had managed it. I followed out bit by bit thetrack upwards, not with any thought of escape, but merely to keep my mind undercontrol. The right road was from the foot of the pool up a long shelf to aclump of juniper. Then there was an easy chimney; then a piece of goodhand-and-foot climbing; and last, another ledge which led by an easy gradientto the top. I figured all this out as I have heard a condemned man will countthe windows of the houses on his way to the scaffold.

Presently the litter was ready, and the men made signs to me to get into it.They carried me down the ravine and up the Machudi burn to the green walls atits head. I admired their bodily fitness, for they bore me up those steepslopes with never a halt, zigzagging in the proper style of mountain transport.In less than an hour we had topped the ridge, and the plateau was before me.

It looked very homelike and gracious, rolling in gentle undulations to thewestern horizon, with clumps of wood in its hollows. Far away I saw smokerising from what should be the village of the Iron Kranz. It was the country ofmy own people, and my captors behoved to go cautiously. They were old hands atveld-craft, and it was wonderful the way in which they kept out of sight evenon the bare ridges. Arcoll could have taught them nothing in the art ofscouting. At an incredible pace they hurried me along, now in a meadow by astream side, now through a patch of forest, and now skirting a green shoulderof hill.

Once they clapped down suddenly, and crawled into the lee of some thickbracken. Then very quietly they tied my hands and feet, and, not urgently,wound a dirty length of cotton over my mouth. Colin was meantime held tight andmuzzled with a kind of bag strapped over his head. To get this over hissnapping jaws took the whole strength of the party. I guessed that we werenearing the highroad which runs from the plateau down the Great Letaba valleyto the mining township of Wesselsburg, away out on the plain. The policepatrols must be on this road, and there was risk in crossing. Sure enough Iseemed to catch a jingle of bridles as if from some company of men riding inhaste.

We lay still for a little till the scouts came back and reported the coastclear. Then we made a dart for the road, crossed it, and got into cover on theother side, where the ground sloped down to the Letaba glen. I noticed incrossing that the dust of the highway was thick with the marks of shod horses.I was very near and yet very far from my own people.

Once in the rocky gorge of the Letaba we advanced with less care. We scrambledup a steep side gorge and came on to the small plateau from which the CloudMountains rise. After that I was so tired that I drowsed away, heedless of thebumping of the litter. We went up and up, and when I next opened my eyes we hadgone through a pass into a hollow of the hills. There was a flat space a mileor two square, and all round it stern black ramparts of rock. This must beInanda’s Kraal, a strong place if ever one existed, for a few men could defendall the approaches. Considering that I had warned Arcoll of this rendezvous, Imarvelled that no attempt had been made to hold the entrance. The place wasimpregnable unless guns were brought up to the heights. I remember thinking ofa story I had heard—how in the war Beyers took his guns into the Wolkberg, andthereby saved them from our troops. Could Arcoll be meditating the sameexploit?

Suddenly I heard the sound of loud voices, and my litter was dropped roughly onthe ground. I woke to clear consciousness in the midst of pandemonium.

CHAPTER XVI
INANDA’S KRAAL

The vow was at an end. In place of the silent army of yesterday a mob ofmaddened savages surged around me. They were chanting a wild song, andbrandishing spears and rifles to its accompaniment. From their bloodshot eyesstared the lust of blood, the fury of conquest, and all the aboriginal passionson which Laputa had laid his spell. In my mind ran a fragment from Laputa’sprayer in the cave about the “Terrible Ones.” Machudi’s men—stout fellows, theyheld their ground as long as they could—were swept out of the way, and the waveof black savagery seemed to close over my head.

I thought my last moment had come. Certainly it had but for Colin. The bag hadbeen taken from his head, and the fellow of Machudi’s had dropped the roperound his collar. In a red fury of wrath the dog leaped at my enemies. Thoughevery man of them was fully armed, they fell back, for I have noticed alwaysthat Kaffirs are mortally afraid of a white man’s dog. Colin had the sense tokeep beside me. Growling like a thunderstorm he held the ring around my litter.

The breathing space would not have lasted long, but it gave me time to get tomy feet. My wrists and feet had been unbound long before, and the rest hadcured my leg-weariness. I stood up in that fierce circle with the clearknowledge that my life hung by a hair.

“Take me to Inkulu,” I cried. “Dogs and fools, would you despise his orders? Ifone hair of my head is hurt, he will flay you alive. Show me the way to him,and clear out of it.”

I dare say there was a break in my voice, for I was dismally frightened, butthere must have been sufficient authority to get me a hearing. Machudi’s menclosed up behind me, and repeated my words with flourishes and gestures. Butstill the circle held. No man came nearer me, but none moved so as to give mepassage.

Then I screwed up my courage, and did the only thing possible. I walkedstraight into the circle, knowing well that I was running no light risk. Mycourage, as I have already explained, is of little use unless I am doingsomething. I could not endure another minute of sitting still with those fierceeyes on me.

The circle gave way. Sullenly they made a road for me, closing up behind on myguards, so that Machudi’s men were swallowed in the mob, Alone I stalkedforward with all that huge yelling crowd behind me.

I had not far to go. Inanda’s Kraal was a cluster of kyas and rondavels, shapedin a half-moon, with a flat space between the houses, where grew a big merulatree. All around was a medley of little fires, with men squatted beside them.Here and there a party had finished their meal, and were swaggering about witha great shouting. The mob into which I had fallen was of this sort, and I sawothers within the confines of the camp. But around the merula tree there was agathering of chiefs, if I could judge by the comparative quiet and dignity ofthe men, who sat in rows on the ground. A few were standing, and among them Icaught sight of Laputa’s tall figure. I strode towards it, wondering if thechiefs would let me pass.

The hubbub of my volunteer attendants brought the eyes of the company round tome. In a second it seemed every man was on his feet. I could only pray thatLaputa would get to me before his friends had time to spear me. I remember Ifixed my eyes on a spur of hill beyond the kraal, and walked on with the bestresolution I could find. Already I felt in my breast some of the long thinassegais of Umbooni’s men.

But Laputa did not intend that I should be butchered. A word from him broughthis company into order, and the next thing I knew I was facing him, where hestood in front of the biggest kya, with Henriques beside him, and some of thenorthern indunas. Henriques looked ghastly in the clear morning light, and hehad a linen rag bound round his head and jaw, as if he suffered from toothache.His face was more livid, his eyes more bloodshot, and at the sight of me hishand went to his belt, and his teeth snapped. But he held his peace, and it wasLaputa who spoke. He looked straight through me, and addressed Machudi’s men.

“You have brought back the prisoner. That is well, and your service will beremembered. Go to ’Mpefu’s camp on the hill there, and you will be given food.”

The men departed, and with them fell away the crowd which had followed me. Iwas left, very giddy and dazed, to confront Laputa and his chiefs. The wholescene was swimming before my eyes. I remember there was a clucking of hens fromsomewhere behind the kraal, which called up ridiculous memories. I was tryingto remember the plan I had made in Machudi’s glen. I kept saying to myself likea parrot: “The army cannot know about the jewels. Laputa must keep his losssecret. I can get my life from him if I offer to give them back.” It hadsounded a good scheme three hours before, but with the man’s hard face beforeme, it seemed a frail peg to hang my fate on.

Laputa’s eye fell on me, a clear searching eye with a question in it.

There was something he was trying to say to me which he dared not put intowords. I guessed what the something was, for I saw his glance run over my shirtand my empty pockets.

“You have made little of your treachery,” he said. “Fool, did you think toescape me? I could bring you back from the ends of the earth.”

“There was no treachery,” I replied. “Do you blame a prisoner for trying toescape? When shooting began I found myself free, and I took the road for home.Ask Machudi’s men and they will tell you that I came quietly with them, when Isaw that the game was up.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It matters very little what you did. You are herenow.— Tie him up and put him in my kya,” he said to the bodyguard. “I havesomething to say to him before he dies.”

As the men laid hands on me, I saw the exultant grin on Henriques’ face. It wasmore than I could endure.

“Stop,” I said. “You talk of traitors, Mr Laputa. There is the biggest andblackest at your elbow. That man sent word to Arcoll about your crossing atDupree’s Drift. At our outspan at noon yesterday he came to me and offered memy liberty if I would help him. He told me he was a spy, and I flung his offerin his face. It was he who shot the Keeper by the river side, and would havestolen the Snake if I had not broken his head. You call me a traitor, and youlet that thing live, though he has killed your priest and betrayed your plans.Kill me if you like, but by God let him die first.”

I do not know how the others took the revelation, for my eyes were only for thePortugoose. He made a step towards me, his hands twitching by his sides.

“You lie,” he screamed in that queer broken voice which much fever gives. “Itwas this English hound that killed the Keeper, and felled me when I tried tosave him. The man who insults my honour is dead.” And he plucked from his belta pistol.

A good shot does not miss at two yards. I was never nearer my end than in thatfraction of time while the weapon came up to the aim. It was scarcely a second,but it was enough for Colin. The dog had kept my side, and had stood docilelyby me while Laputa spoke. The truth is, he must have been as tired as I was. Asthe Kaffirs approached to lay hands on me he had growled menacingly, but when Ispoke again he had stopped. Henriques’ voice had convinced him of a more urgentdanger, and so soon as the trigger hand of the Portugoose rose, the dog sprang.The bullet went wide, and the next moment dog and man were struggling on theground.

A dozen hands held me from going to Colin’s aid, but oddly enough no onestepped forward to help Henriques. The ruffian kept his head, and though thedog’s teeth were in his shoulder, he managed to get his right hand free. I sawwhat would happen, and yelled madly in my apprehension. The yellow wristcurved, and the pistol barrel was pressed below the dog’s shoulder. Thrice hefired, the grip relaxed, and Colin rolled over limply, fragments of shirt stillhanging from his jaw. The Portugoose rose slowly with his hand to his head, anda thin stream of blood dripping from his shoulder. As I saw the faithful eyesglazing in death, and knew that I had lost the best of all comrades, I wentclean berserk mad. The cluster of men round me, who had been staring open-eyedat the fight, were swept aside like reeds. I went straight for the Portugoose,determined that, pistol or no pistol, I would serve him as he had served mydog.

For my years I was a well-set-up lad, long in the arms and deep in the chest.But I had not yet come to my full strength, and in any case I could not hope tofight the whole of Laputa’s army. I was flung back and forwards like ashuttlecock. They played some kind of game with me, and I could hear theidiotic Kaffir laughter. It was blind man’s buff, so far as I was concerned,for I was blind with fury. I struck out wildly left and right, beating the airoften, but sometimes getting in a solid blow on hard black flesh. I was soundlybeaten myself, pricked with spears, and made to caper for savage sport.Suddenly I saw Laputa before me, and hurled myself madly at his chest. Some onegave me a clout on the head, and my senses fled.

When I came to myself, I was lying on a heap of mealie-stalks in a dark room. Ihad a desperate headache, and a horrid nausea, which made me fall back as soonas I tried to raise myself. A voice came out of the darkness as I stirred—avoice speaking English.

“Are you awake, Mr Storekeeper?”

The voice was Laputa’s, but I could not see him. The room was pitch dark,except for a long ray of sunlight on the floor.

“I’m awake,” I said. “What do you want with me?”

Some one stepped out of the gloom and sat down near me. A naked black footbroke the belt of light on the floor.

“For God’s sake get me a drink,” I murmured. The figure rose and fetched apannikin of water from a pail. I could hear the cool trickle of the drops onthe metal. A hand put the dish to my mouth, and I drank water with a strongdash of spirits. This brought back my nausea, and I collapsed on themealie-stalks till the fit passed. Again the voice spoke, this time from closeat hand.

“You are paying the penalty of being a fool, Mr Storekeeper. You are young todie, but folly is common in youth. In an hour you will regret that you did notlisten to my advice at Umvelos’.”

I clawed at my wits and strove to realize what he was saying. He spoke of deathwithin an hour. If it only came sharp and sudden, I did not mind greatly. Theplan I had made had slipped utterly out of my mind. My body was so wretched,that I asked only for rest. I was very lighthearted and foolish at that moment.

“Kill me if you like,” I whispered. “Some day you will pay dearly for it all.But for God’s sake go away and leave me alone.”

Laputa laughed. It was a horrid sound in the darkness.

“You are brave, Mr Storekeeper, but I have seen a brave man’s courage ebb veryfast when he saw the death which I have arranged for you. Would you like tohear something of it by way of preparation?”

In a low gentle voice he began to tell me mysteries of awful cruelty. At firstI scarcely heard him, but as he went on my brain seemed to wake from itslethargy. I listened with freezing blood. Not in my wildest nightmares had Iimagined such a fate. Then in despite of myself a cry broke from me.

“It interests you?” Laputa asked. “I could tell you more, but something must beleft to the fancy. Yours should be an active one,” and his hand gripped myshaking wrist and felt my pulse.

“Henriques will see that the truth does not fall short of my forecast,” he wenton. “For I have appointed Henriques your executioner.”

The name brought my senses back to me.

“Kill me,” I said, “but for God’s sake kill Henriques too. If you did justiceyou would let me go and roast the Portugoose alive. But for me the Snake wouldbe over the Lebombo by this time in Henriques’ pocket.”

“But it is not, my friend. It was stolen by a storekeeper, who will shortly bewishing he had died in his mother’s womb.”

My plan was slowly coming back to me.

“If you value Prester John’s collar, you will save my life. What will yourrising be without the Snake? Would they follow you a yard if they suspected youhad lost it?”

“So you would threaten me,” Laputa said very gently. Then in a burst of wrathhe shouted, “They will follow me to hell for my own sake. Imbecile, do youthink my power is built on a trinket? When you are in your grave, I will beruling a hundred millions from the proudest throne on earth.”

He sprang to his feet, and pulled back a shutter of the window, letting a floodof light into the hut. In that light I saw that he had in his hands the ivorybox which had contained the collar.

“I will carry the casket through the wars,” he cried, “and if I choose never toopen it, who will gainsay me? You besotted fool, to think that any theft ofyours could hinder my destiny!” He was the blustering savage again, and Ipreferred him in the part. All that he said might be true, but I thought Icould detect in his voice a keen regret, and in his air a touch of disquiet.The man was a fanatic, and like all fanatics had his superstitions.

“Yes,” I said, “but when you mount the throne you speak of, it would be a pitynot to have the rubies on your neck after all your talk in the cave.”

I thought he would have throttled me. He glowered down at me with murder in hiseyes. Then he dashed the casket on the floor with such violence that it brokeinto fragments.

“Give me back the Ndhlondhlo,” he cried, like a petted child. “Give meback the collar of John.”

This was the moment I had been waiting for.

“Now see here, Mr Laputa,” I said. “I am going to talk business. Before youstarted this rising, you were a civilized man with a good education. Well, justremember that education for a minute, and look at the matter in a sensiblelight. I’m not like the Portugoose. I don’t want to steal your rubies. I swearto God that what I have told you is true. Henriques killed the priest, andwould have bagged the jewels if I had not laid him out. I ran away because Iwas going to be killed to-day, and I took the collar to keep it out ofHenriques’ hands. I tell you I would never have shot the old man myself. Verywell, what happened? Your men overtook me, and I had no choice but tosurrender. Before they reached me, I hid the collar in a place I know of. Now,I am going to make you a fair and square business proposition. You may be ableto get on without the Snake, but I can see you want it back. I am in a tightplace and want nothing so much as my life. I offer to trade with you. Give memy life, and I will take you to the place and put the jewels in your hand.Otherwise you may kill me, but you will never see the collar of John again.”

I still think that was a pretty bold speech for a man to make in a predicamentlike mine. But it had its effect. Laputa ceased to be the barbarian king, andtalked like a civilized man.

“That is, as you call it, a business proposition. But supposing I refuse it?Supposing I take measures here—in this kraal—to make you speak, and then sendfor the jewels.”

“There are several objections,” I said, quite cheerfully, for I felt that I wasgaining ground. “One is that I could not explain to any mortal soul how to findthe collar. I know where it is, but I could not impart the knowledge. Anotheris that the country between here and Machudi’s is not very healthy for yourpeople. Arcoll’s men are all over it, and you cannot have a collection ofsearch parties rummaging about in the glen for long. Last and most important,if you send any one for the jewels, you confess their loss. No, Mr Laputa, ifyou want them back, you must go yourself and take me with you.”

He stood silent for a little, with his brows knit in thought. Then he openedthe door and went out. I guessed that he had gone to discover from his scoutsthe state of the country between Inanda’s Kraal and Machudi’s glen. Hope hadcome back to me, and I sat among the mealie-stalks trying to plan the future.If he made a bargain I believed he would keep it. Once set free at the head ofMachudi’s, I should be within an hour or two of Arcoll’s posts. So far, I haddone nothing for the cause. My message had been made useless by Henriques’treachery, and I had stolen the Snake only to restore it. But if I got off withmy life, there would be work for me to do in the Armageddon which I sawapproaching. Should I escape, I wondered. What would hinder Laputa from settinghis men to follow me, and seize me before I could get into safety? My onlychance was that Arcoll might have been busy this day, and the countryside toofull of his men to let Laputa’s Kaffirs through. But if this was so, Laputa andI should be stopped, and then Laputa would certainly kill me. I wished—and yetI did not wish—that Arcoll should hold all approaches. As I reflected, my firstexhilaration died away. The scales were still heavily weighted against me.

Laputa returned, closing the door behind him.

“I will bargain with you on my own terms. You shall have your life, and inreturn you will take me to the place where you hid the collar, and put it intomy hands. I will ride there, and you will run beside me, tied to my saddle. Ifwe are in danger from the white men, I will shoot you dead. Do you accept?”

“Yes,” I said, scrambling to my feet, and ruefully testing my shaky legs. “Butif you want me to get to Machudi’s you must go slowly, for I am nearlyfoundered.”

Then he brought out a Bible, and made me swear on it that I would do as Ipromised.

“Swear to me in turn,” I said, “that you will give me my life if I restore thejewels.”

He swore, kissing the book like a witness in a police-court. I had forgottenthat the man called himself a Christian.

“One thing more I ask,” I said. “I want my dog decently buried.” “That has beenalready done,” was the reply. “He was a brave animal, and my people honourbravery.”

CHAPTER XVII
A DEAL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

My eyes were bandaged tight, and a thong was run round my right wrist and tiedto Laputa’s saddle-bow. I felt the glare of the afternoon sun on my head, andmy shins were continually barked by stones and trees; but these were my onlytidings of the outer world. By the sound of his paces Laputa was riding theschimmel, and if any one thinks it easy to go blindfold by a horse’sside I hope he will soon have the experience. In the darkness I could not tellthe speed of the beast. When I ran I overshot it and was tugged back; when Iwalked my wrist was dislocated with the tugs forward.

For an hour or more I suffered this breakneck treatment. We were descending.Often I could hear the noise of falling streams, and once we splashed through amountain ford. Laputa was taking no risks, for he clearly had in mind thepossibility of some accident which would set me free, and he had no desire tohave me guiding Arcoll to his camp.

But as I stumbled and sprawled down these rocky tracks I was not thinking ofLaputa’s plans. My whole soul was filled with regret for Colin, and rageagainst his murderer. After my first mad rush I had not thought about my dog.He was dead, but so would I be in an hour or two, and there was no cause tolament him. But at the first revival of hope my grief had returned. As theybandaged my eyes I was wishing that they would let me see his grave. As Ifollowed beside Laputa I told myself that if ever I got free, when the war wasover I would go to Inanda’s Kraal, find the grave, and put a tombstone over itin memory of the dog that saved my life. I would also write that the man whoshot him was killed on such and such a day at such and such a place by Colin’smaster. I wondered why Laputa had not the wits to see the Portugoose’streachery and to let me fight him. I did not care what were the weapons—knivesor guns, or naked fists—I would certainly kill him, and afterwards the Kaffirscould do as they pleased with me. Hot tears of rage and weakness wet thebandage on my eyes, and the sobs which came from me were not only those ofweariness.

At last we halted. Laputa got down and took off the bandage, and I found myselfin one of the hill-meadows which lie among the foothills of the Wolkberg. Theglare blinded me, and for a little I could only see the marigolds growing at myfeet. Then I had a glimpse of the deep gorge of the Great Letaba below me, andfar to the east the flats running out to the hazy blue line of the Lebombohills. Laputa let me sit on the ground for a minute or two to get my breath andrest my feet. “That was a rough road,” he said. “You can take it easier now,for I have no wish to carry you.” He patted the schimmel, and thebeautiful creature turned his mild eyes on the pair of us. I wondered if herecognized his rider of two nights ago.

I had seen Laputa as the Christian minister, as the priest and king in thecave, as the leader of an army at Dupree’s Drift, and at the kraal we had leftas the savage with all self-control flung to the winds. I was to see thisamazing man in a further part. For he now became a friendly and rationalcompanion. He kept his horse at an easy walk, and talked to me as if we weretwo friends out for a trip together. Perhaps he had talked thus to Arcoll, thehalf-caste who drove his Cape-cart.

The wooded bluff above Machudi’s glen showed far in front. He told me the storyof the Machudi war, which I knew already, but he told it as a saga. There hadbeen a stratagem by which one of the Boer leaders—a Grobelaar, I think—got someof his men into the enemy’s camp by hiding them in a captured forage wagon.

“Like the Trojan horse,” I said involuntarily.

“Yes,” said my companion, “the same old device,” and to my amazement he quotedsome lines of Virgil.

“Do you understand Latin?” he asked.

I told him that I had some slight knowledge of the tongue, acquired at theuniversity of Edinburgh. Laputa nodded. He mentioned the name of a professorthere, and commented on his scholarship.

“O man!” I cried, “what in God’s name are you doing in this business? You thatare educated and have seen the world, what makes you try to put the clock back?You want to wipe out the civilization of a thousand years, and turn us all intosavages. It’s the more shame to you when you know better.”

“You misunderstand me,” he said quietly. “It is because I have suckedcivilization dry that I know the bitterness of the fruit. I want a simpler andbetter world, and I want that world for my own people. I am a Christian, andwill you tell me that your civilization pays much attention to Christ? You callyourself a patriot? Will you not give me leave to be a patriot in turn?”

“If you are a Christian, what sort of Christianity is it to deluge the landwith blood?”

“The best,” he said. “The house must be swept and garnished before the man ofthe house can dwell in it. You have read history. Such a purging has descendedon the Church at many times, and the world has awakened to a new hope. It isthe same in all religions. The temples grow tawdry and foul and must becleansed, and, let me remind you, the cleanser has always come out of thedesert.”

I had no answer, being too weak and forlorn to think. But I fastened on hispatriotic plea.

“Where are the patriots in your following? They are all red Kaffirs crying forblood and plunder. Supposing you were Oliver Cromwell you could make nothingout of such a crew.”

“They are my people,” he said simply.

By this time we had forded the Great Letaba, and were making our way throughthe clumps of forest to the crown of the plateau. I noticed that Laputa keptwell in cover, preferring the tangle of wooded undergrowth to the open spacesof the water-meadows. As he talked, his wary eyes were keeping a sharp look-outover the landscape. I thrilled with the thought that my own folk were near athand.

Once Laputa checked me with his hand as I was going to speak, and in silence wecrossed the kloof of a little stream. After that we struck a long strip offorest and he slackened his watch.

“If you fight for a great cause,” I said, “why do you let a miscreant likeHenriques have a hand in it? You must know that the man’s only interest in youis the chance of loot. I am for you against Henriques, and I tell you plainthat if you don’t break the snake’s back it will sting you.”

Laputa looked at me with an odd, meditative look.

“You misunderstand again, Mr Storekeeper. The Portuguese is what you call a‘mean white.’ His only safety is among us. I am campaigner enough to know thatan enemy, who has a burning grievance against my other enemies, is a good ally.You are too hard on Henriques. You and your friends have treated him as aKaffir, and a Kaffir he is in everything but Kaffir virtues. What makes you soanxious that Henriques should not betray me?”

“I’m not a mean white,” I said, “and I will speak the truth. I hope, in God’sname, to see you smashed; but I want it done by honest men, and not by a yellowdevil who has murdered my dog and my friends. Sooner or later you will find himout; and if he escapes you, and there’s any justice in heaven, he won’t escapeme.”

“Brave words,” said Laputa, with a laugh, and then in one second he becamerigid in the saddle. We had crossed a patch of meadow and entered a wood,beyond which ran the highway. I fancy he was out in his reckoning, and did notthink the road so near. At any rate, after a moment he caught the sound ofhorses, and I caught it too. The wood was thin, and there was no room forretreat, while to recross the meadow would bring us clean into the open. Hejumped from his horse, untied with amazing quickness the rope halter from itsneck, and started to gag me by winding the thing round my jaw.

I had no time to protest that I would keep faith, and my right hand wastethered to his pommel. In the grip of these great arms I was helpless, and ina trice was standing dumb as a lamp-post; while Laputa, his left arm round bothof mine, and his right hand over the schimmel’s eyes, strained his earslike a sable antelope who has scented danger.

There was never a more brutal gagging. The rope crushed my nose and drove mylips down on my teeth, besides gripping my throat so that I could scarcelybreathe. The pain was so great that I became sick, and would have fallen butfor Laputa. Happily I managed to get my teeth apart, so that one coil slippedbetween, and eased the pain of the jaws. But the rest was bad enough to make mebite frantically on the tow, and I think in a little my sharp front teeth wouldhave severed it. All this discomfort prevented me seeing what happened. Thewood, as I have said, was thin, and through the screen of leaves I had aconfused impression of men and horses passing interminably. There can only havebeen a score at the most; but the moments drag if a cord is gripping yourthroat. When Laputa at length untied me, I had another fit of nausea, andleaned helplessly against a tree.

Laputa listened till the sound of the horses had died away; then silently westole to the edge of the road, across, and into the thicker evergreen bush onthe far side. At a pace which forced me to run hard, we climbed a steepishslope, till ahead of us we saw the bald green crown of the meadowlands. Inoticed that his face had grown dark and sullen again. He was in an enemy’scountry, and had the air of the hunted instead of the hunter. When I stopped heglowered at me, and once, when I was all but overcome with fatigue, he liftedhis hand in a threat. Had he carried a sjambok, it would have fallen on myback.

If he was nervous, so was I. The fact that I was out of the Kaffir country andin the land of my own folk was a kind of qualified liberty. At any moment, Ifelt, Providence might intervene to set me free. It was in the bond that Laputashould shoot me if we were attacked; but a pistol might miss. As far as myshaken wits would let me, I began to forecast the future. Once he got thejewels my side of the bargain was complete. He had promised me my life, butthere had been nothing said about my liberty; and I felt assured that Laputawould never allow one who had seen so much to get off to Arcoll with histidings. But back to that unhallowed kraal I was resolved I would not go. Hewas armed, and I was helpless; he was strong, and I was dizzy with weakness; hewas mounted, and I was on foot: it seemed a poor hope that I should get away.There was little chance from a wandering patrol, for I knew if we were followedI should have a bullet in my head, while Laputa got off on the schimmel.I must wait and bide events. At the worst, a clean shot on the hillside in arace for life was better than the unknown mysteries of the kraal. I prayedearnestly to God to show me His mercy, for if ever man was sore bested by theheathen it was I.

To my surprise, Laputa chose to show himself on the green hill-shoulder. Helooked towards the Wolkberg and raised his hands. It must have been somesignal. I cast my eyes back on the road we had come, and I thought I saw somefigures a mile back, on the edge of the Letaba gorge. He was making sure of myreturn.

By this time it was about four in the afternoon, and as heavenly weather as theheart of man could wish. The meadows were full of aromatic herbs, which, as wecrushed them, sent up a delicate odour. The little pools and shallows of theburns were as clear as a Lothian trout-stream. We were now going at a goodpace, and I found that my earlier weariness was growing less. I was being keyedup for some great crisis, for in my case the spirit acts direct on the body,and fatigue grows and ebbs with hope. I knew that my strength was not far frombreaking-point; but I knew also that so long as a chance was left me I shouldhave enough for a stroke.

Before I realized where we were we had rounded the hill, and were looking downon the green cup of the upper Machudi’s glen. Far down, I remember, where thetrees began, there was a cloud of smoke. Some Kaffir—or maybe Arcoll—had firedthe forest. The smoke was drifting away under a light west wind over the farplains, so that they were seen through a haze of opal.

Laputa bade me take the lead. I saw quite clear the red kloof on the far side,where the collar was hid. To get there we might have ridden straight into thecup, but a providential instinct made me circle round the top till we were onthe lip of the ravine. This was the road some of Machudi’s men had taken, andunthinkingly I followed them. Twenty minutes’ riding brought us to the place,and all the while I had no kind of plan of escape. I was in the hands of myMaker, watching, like the Jews of old, for a sign.

Laputa dismounted and looked down into the gorge.

“There is no road there,” I said. “We must go down to the foot and come up thestream-side. It would be better to leave your horse here.” He started down thecliff, which from above looks a sheer precipice. Then he seemed to agree withme, took the rope from the schimmel’s neck, and knee-haltered his beast.And at that moment I had an inspiration.

With my wrist-rope in his hand, he preceded me down the hill till we got to thered screes at the foot of the kloof. Then, under my guidance, we turned up intothe darkness of the gorge. As we entered I looked back, and saw figures comingover the edge of the green cup—Laputa’s men, I guessed. What I had to do mustbe done quickly.

We climbed up the burn, over the succession of little cataracts, till we cameto the flat space of shingle and the long pool where I had been taken thatmorning. The ashes of the fire which Machudi’s men had made were plain on therock. After that I had to climb a waterfall to get to the rocky pool where Ihad bestowed the rubies.

“You must take off this thong,” I said. “I must climb to get the collar. Coverme with a pistol if you like. I won’t be out of sight.”

Laputa undid the thong and set me free. From his belt he took a pistol, cockedit, and held it over his left hand. I had seen this way of shooting adopted byindifferent shots, and it gave me a wild hope that he might not be much of amarksman.

It did not take me long to find the pool, close against the blackened stump ofa tree-fern. I thrust in my hand and gathered up the jewels from the cool sand.They came out glowing like living fires, and for a moment I thrilled with asense of reverence. Surely these were no common stones which held in them thevery heart of hell. Clutching them tightly, I climbed down to Laputa.

At the sight of the great Snake he gave a cry of rapture. Tearing it from me,he held it at arm’s length, his face lit with a passionate joy. He kissed it,he raised it to the sky; nay, he was on his knees before it. Once more he wasthe savage transported in the presence of his fetich. He turned to me withburning eyes.

“Down on your knees,” he cried, “and reverence the Ndhlondhlo. Down, youimpious dog, and seek pardon for your sacrilege.”

“I won’t,” I said. “I won’t bow to any heathen idol.”

He pointed his pistol at me.

“In a second I shoot where your head is now. Down, you fool, or perish.”

“You promised me my life,” I said stubbornly, though Heaven knows why I choseto act thus.

He dropped the pistol and flung himself on me. I was helpless as a baby in hishands. He forced me to the ground and rolled my face in the sand; then hepulled me to my feet and tossed me backward, till I almost staggered into thepool. I saved myself, and staggered instead into the shallow at the foot of it,close under the ledge of the precipice.

That morning, when Machudi’s men were cooking breakfast, I had figured out aroute up the cliff. This route was now my hope of escape. Laputa had droppedhis pistol, and the collar had plunged him in an ecstasy of worship. Now, ifever, was my time. I must get on the shelf which ran sideways up the cliff, andthen scramble for dear life.

I pretended to be dazed and terrified.

“You promised me my life,” I whimpered.

“Your life,” he cried. “Yes, you shall have your life; and before long you willpray for death.”

“But I saved the Collar,” I pleaded. “Henriques would have stolen it. I broughtit safe here, and now you have got it.”

Meantime I was pulling myself up on the shelf, and loosening with one hand aboulder which overhung the pool.

“You have been repaid,” he said savagely. “You will not die.”

“But my life is no use without liberty,” I said, working at the boulder till itlay loose in its niche.

He did not answer, being intent on examining the Collar to see if it hadsuffered any harm.

“I hope it isn’t scratched,” I said. “Henriques trod on it when I hit him.”

Laputa peered at the gems like a mother at a child who has had a fall. I saw mychance and took it. With a great heave I pulled the boulder down into the pool.It made a prodigious splash, sending a shower of spray over Laputa and theCollar. In cover of it I raced up the shelf, straining for the shelter of thejuniper tree.

A shot rang out and struck the rock above me. A second later I had reached thetree and was scrambling up the crack beyond it.

Laputa did not fire again. He may have distrusted his shooting, or seen abetter way of it. He dashed through the stream and ran up the shelf like aklipspringer after me. I felt rather than saw what was happening, and with myheart in my mouth I gathered my dregs of energy for the last struggle.

You know the nightmare when you are pursued by some awful terror, and, thoughsick with fear, your legs have a strange numbness, and you cannot drag them inobedience to the will. Such was my feeling in the crack above the juniper tree.In truth, I had passed the bounds of my endurance. Last night I had walkedfifty miles, and all day I had borne the torments of a dreadful suspense. I hadbeen bound and gagged and beaten till the force was out of my limbs. Also, andabove all, I had had little food, and I was dizzy with want of sleep. My feetseemed leaden, my hands had no more grip than putty. I do not know how Iescaped falling into the pool, for my head was singing and my heart thumping inmy throat. I seemed to feel Laputa’s great hand every second clawing at myheels.

I had reason for my fears. He had entered the crack long before I had reachedthe top, and his progress was twice as fast as mine. When I emerged on thetopmost shelf he was scarcely a yard behind me. But an overhang checked hisbulky figure and gave me a few seconds’ grace. I needed it all, for these laststeps on the shelf were the totterings of an old man. Only a desperateresolution and an extreme terror made me drag one foot after the other. BlindlyI staggered on to the top of the ravine, and saw before me the schimmelgrazing in the light of the westering sun.

I forced myself into a sort of drunken run, and crawled into the saddle. Behindme, as I turned, I could see Laputa’s shoulders rising over the edge. I had noknife to cut the knee-halter, and the horse could not stir.

Then the miracle happened. When the rope had gagged me, my teeth must havenearly severed it at one place, and this Laputa had not noticed when he used itas a knee-halter. The shock of my entering the saddle made the schimmelfling up his head violently, and the rope snapped. I could not find thestirrups, but I dug my heels into his sides, and he leaped forward.

At the same moment Laputa began to shoot. It was a foolish move, for he mighthave caught me by running, since I had neither spurs nor whip, and the horsewas hampered by the loose end of rope at his knee. In any case, being anindifferent shot, he should have aimed at the schimmel, not at me; but Isuppose he wished to save his charger. One bullet sang past my head; a seconddid my business for me. It passed over my shoulder, as I lay low in the saddle,and grazed the beast’s right ear. The pain maddened him, and, rope-end and all,he plunged into a wild gallop. Other shots came, but they fell far short. I sawdimly a native or two—the men who had followed us—rush to intercept me, and Ithink a spear was flung. But in a flash we were past them, and their criesfaded behind me. I found the bridle, reached for the stirrups, and gallopedstraight for the sunset and for freedom.

CHAPTER XVIII
HOW A MAN MAY SOMETIMES PUT HIS TRUST IN A HORSE

I had long passed the limit of my strength. Only constant fear and wildalternations of hope had kept me going so long, and now that I was safe Ibecame light-headed in earnest. The wonder is that I did not fall off. Happilythe horse was good and the ground easy, for I was powerless to do any guiding.I simply sat on his back in a silly glow of comfort, keeping a line for thedying sun, which I saw in a nick of the Iron Crown Mountain. A sort of childishhappiness possessed me. After three days of imminent peril, to be free was tobe in fairyland. To be swishing through the long bracken or plunging among thebreast-high flowers of the meadowlands in a world of essential lights andfragrances, seemed scarcely part of mortal experience. Remember that I waslittle more than a lad, and that I had faced death so often of late that mymind was all adrift. To be able to hope once more, nay, to be allowed to ceaseboth from hope and fear, was like a deep and happy opiate to my senses. Spentand frail as I was, my soul swam in blessed waters of ease.

The mood did not last long. I came back to earth with a shock, as theschimmelstumbled at the crossing of a stream. I saw that the darknesswas fast falling, and with the sight panic returned to me. Behind me I seemedto hear the sound of pursuit. The noise was in my ears, but when I turned itceased, and I saw only the dusky shoulders of hills.

I tried to remember what Arcoll had told me about his headquarters, but mymemory was wiped clean. I thought they were on or near the highway, but I couldnot remember where the highway was. Besides, he was close to the enemy, and Iwanted to get back into the towns, far away from the battle-line. If I rodewest I must come in time to villages, where I could hide myself. These wereunworthy thoughts, but my excuse must be my tattered nerves. When a man comesout of great danger, he is apt to be a little deaf to the call of duty.

Suddenly I became ashamed. God had preserved me from deadly perils, but notthat I might cower in some shelter. I had a mission as clear as Laputa’s. Forthe first time I became conscious to what a little thing I owed my salvation.That matter of the broken halter was like the finger of Divine Providence. Ihad been saved for a purpose, and unless I fulfilled that purpose I shouldagain be lost. I was always a fatalist, and in that hour of strained body andsoul I became something of a mystic. My panic ceased, my lethargy departed, anda more manly resolution took their place. I gripped the schimmelby thehead and turned him due left. Now I remembered where the highroad ran, and Iremembered something else.

For it was borne in on me that Laputa had fallen into my hands. Without anysubtle purpose I had played a master game. He was cut off from his people,without a horse, on the wrong side of the highroad which Arcoll’s menpatrolled. Without him the rising would crumble. There might be war, evendesperate war, but we should fight against a leaderless foe. If he could onlybe shepherded to the north, his game was over, and at our leisure we could mopup the scattered concentrations.

I was now as eager to get back into danger as I had been to get into safety.Arcoll must be found and warned, and that at once, or Laputa would slip over toInanda’s Kraal under cover of dark. It was a matter of minutes, and on theseminutes depended the lives of thousands. It was also a matter of ebbingstrength, for with my return to common sense I saw very clearly how near mycapital was spent. If I could reach the highroad, find Arcoll or Arcoll’s men,and give them my news, I would do my countrymen a service such as no man inAfrica could render. But I felt my head swimming, I was swaying crazily in thesaddle, and my hands had scarcely the force of a child’s. I could only lielimply on the horse’s back, clutching at his mane with trembling fingers. Iremember that my head was full of a text from the Psalms about not puttingone’s trust in horses. I prayed that this one horse might be an exception, forhe carried more than Caesar and his fortunes.

My mind is a blank about those last minutes. In less than an hour after myescape I struck the highway, but it was an hour which in the retrospect unrollsitself into unquiet years. I was dimly conscious of scrambling through a ditchand coming to a ghostly white road. The schimmelswung to the right, andthe next I knew some one had taken my bridle and was speaking to me.

At first I thought it was Laputa and screamed. Then I must have tottered in thesaddle, for I felt an arm slip round my middle. The rider uncorked a bottlewith his teeth and forced some brandy down my throat. I choked and coughed, andthen looked up to see a white policeman staring at me. I knew the police by thegreen shoulder-straps.

“Arcoll,” I managed to croak. “For God’s sake take me to Arcoll.”

The man whistled shrilly on his fingers, and a second rider came cantering downthe road. As he came up I recognized his face, but could not put a name to it.“Losh, it’s the lad Crawfurd,” I heard a voice say. “Crawfurd, man, d’ye nomind me at Lourenco Marques? Aitken?”

The Scotch tongue worked a spell with me. It cleared my wits and opened thegates of my past life. At last I knew I was among my own folk.

“I must see Arcoll. I have news for him—tremendous news. O man, take me toArcoll and ask me no questions. Where is he? Where is he?”

“As it happens, he’s about two hundred yards off,” Aitken said. “That light yesee at the top of the brae is his camp.”

They helped me up the road, a man on each side of me, for I could never havekept in the saddle without their support. My message to Arcoll kept humming inmy head as I tried to put it into words, for I had a horrid fear that my witswould fail me and I should be dumb when the time came. Also I was in a fever ofhaste. Every minute I wasted increased Laputa’s chance of getting back to thekraal. He had men with him every bit as skilful as Arcoll’s trackers. UnlessArcoll had a big force and the best horses there was no hope. Often in lookingback at this hour I have marvelled at the strangeness of my behaviour. Here wasI just set free from the certainty of a hideous death, and yet I had lost alljoy in my security. I was more fevered at the thought of Laputa’s escape than Ihad been at the prospect of David Crawfurd’s end.

The next thing I knew I was being lifted off the schimmelby what seemedto me a thousand hands. Then came a glow of light, a great moon, in the centreof which I stood blinking. I was forced to sit down on a bed, while I was givena cup of hot tea, far more reviving than any spirits. I became conscious thatsome one was holding my hands, and speaking very slowly and gently.

“Davie,” the voice said, “you’re back among friends, my lad. Tell me, wherehave you been?”

“I want Arcoll,” I moaned. “Where is Ratitswan?” There were tears of weaknessrunning down my cheeks.

“Arcoll is here,” said the voice; “he is holding your hands, Davie. Quiet, lad,quiet. Your troubles are all over now.”

I made a great effort, found the eyes to which the voice belonged, and spoke tothem.

“Listen. I stole the collar of Prester John at Dupree’s Drift. I was caught inthe Berg and taken to the kraal—I forget its name—but I had hid the rubies.”

“Yes,” the voice said, “you hid the rubies,—and then?”

“Inkulu wanted them back, so I made a deal with him. I took him to Machudi’sand gave him the collar, and then he fired at me and I climbed and climbed ...I climbed on a horse,” I concluded childishly.

I heard the voice say “Yes?” again inquiringly, but my mind ran off at atangent.

“Beyers took guns up into the Wolkberg,” I cried shrilly. “Why the devil don’tyou do the same? You have the whole Kaffir army in a trap.”

I saw a smiling face before me.

“Good lad. Colles told me you weren’t wanting in intelligence. What if we havedone that very thing, Davie?”

But I was not listening. I was trying to remember the thing I most wanted tosay, and that was not about Beyers and his guns. Those were nightmare minutes.A speaker who has lost the thread of his discourse, a soldier who with abayonet at his throat has forgotten the password—I felt like them, and worse.And to crown all I felt my faintness coming back, and my head dropping withheaviness. I was in a torment of impotence.

Arcoll, still holding my hands, brought his face close to mine, so that hisclear eyes mastered and constrained me.

“Look at me, Davie,” I heard him say. “You have something to tell me, and it isvery important. It is about Laputa, isn’t it? Think, man. You took him toMachudi’s and gave him the collar. He has gone back with it to Inanda’s Kraal.Very well, my guns will hold him there.”

I shook my head. “You can’t. You may split the army, but you can’t hold Laputa.He will be over the Olifants before you fire a shot.” “We will hunt him downbefore he crosses. And if not, we will catch him at the railway.”

“For God’s sake, hurry then,” I cried. “In an hour he will be over it and backin the kraal.”

“But the river is a long way.”

“River?” I repeated hazily. “What river? The Letaba is not the place. It is theroad I mean.”

Arcoll’s hands closed firmly on my wrists.

“You left Laputa at Machudi’s and rode here without stopping. That would takeyou an hour. Had Laputa a horse?”

“Yes; but I took it,” I stammered. “You can see it behind me.” Arcoll droppedmy hands and stood up straight.

“By God, we’ve got him!” he said, and he spoke to his companions. A man turnedand ran out of the tent.

Then I remembered what I wanted to say. I struggled from the bed and put myhands on his shoulders.

“Laputa is our side of the highroad. Cut him off from his men, and drive himnorth—north—away up to the Rooirand. Never mind the Wolkberg and the guns, forthey can wait. I tell you Laputa is the Rising, and he has the collar. Withouthim you can mop up the Kaffirs at your leisure. Line the high-road with everyman you have, for he must cross it or perish. Oh, hurry, man, hurry; never mindme. We’re saved if we can chivy Laputa till morning. Quick, or I’ll have to gomyself.”

The tent emptied, and I lay back on the bed with a dim feeling that my duty wasdone and I could rest. Henceforth the affair was in stronger hands than mine. Iwas so weak that I could not lift my legs up to the bed, but sprawled half onand half off.

Utter exhaustion defeats sleep. I was in a fever, and my eyes would not close.I lay and drowsed while it seemed to me that the outside world was full of menand horses. I heard voices and the sound of hoofs and the jingle of bridles,but above all I heard the solid tramp of an army. The whole earth seemed to befull of war. Before my mind was spread the ribbon of the great highway. I sawit run white through the meadows of the plateau, then in a dark corkscrew downthe glen of the Letaba, then white again through the vast moonlit bush of theplains, till the shanties of Wesselsburg rose at the end of it. It seemed to meto be less a road than a rampart, built of shining marble, the Great Wall ofAfrica. I saw Laputa come out of the shadows and try to climb it, and alwaysthere was the sound of a rifle-breech clicking, a summons, and a flight. Ibegan to take a keen interest in the game. Down in the bush were the darkfigures of the hunted, and on the white wall were my own people—horse, foot,and artillery, the squadrons of our defence. What a general Arcoll was, and howgreat a matter had David Crawfurd kindled!

A man came in—I suppose a doctor. He took off my leggings and boots, cuttingthem from my bleeding feet, but I knew no pain. He felt my pulse and listenedto my heart. Then he washed my face and gave me a bowl of hot milk. There musthave been a drug in the milk, for I had scarcely drunk it before a tide ofsleep seemed to flow over my brain. The white rampart faded from my eyes and Islept.

CHAPTER XIX
ARCOLL’S SHEPHERDING

While I lay in a drugged slumber great things were happening. What I have totell is no experience of my own, but the story as I pieced it togetherafterwards from talks with Arcoll and Aitken. The history of the Rising hasbeen compiled. As I write I see before me on the shelves two neat blue volumesin which Mr Alexander Upton, sometime correspondent of the Times, hastold for the edification of posterity the tale of the war between the Plainsand the Plateau. To him the Kaffir hero is Umbooni, a half-witted ruffian, whomwe afterwards caught and hanged. He mentions Laputa only in a footnote as arenegade Christian who had something to do with fomenting discontent. Heconsiders that the word “Inkulu,” which he often heard, was a Zulu name forGod. Mr Upton is a picturesque historian, but he knew nothing of the mostromantic incident of all. This is the tale of the midnight shepherding of the“heir of John” by Arcoll and his irregulars.

At Bruderstroom, where I was lying unconscious, there were two hundred men ofthe police; sixty-three Basuto scouts under a man called Stephen, who was halfnative in blood and wholly native in habits; and three commandoes of thefarmers, each about forty strong. The commandoes were really companies of theNorth Transvaal Volunteers, but the old name had been kept and something of theold loose organization. There were also two four-gun batteries of volunteerartillery, but these were out on the western skirts of the Wolkberg followingBeyers’s historic precedent. Several companies of regulars were on their wayfrom Pietersdorp, but they did not arrive till the next day. When they camethey went to the Wolkberg to join the artillery. Along the Berg at strategicpoints were pickets of police with native trackers, and atBlaauwildebeestefontein there was a strong force with two field guns, for therewas some fear of a second Kaffir army marching by that place to Inanda’s Kraal.At Wesselsburg out on the plain there was a biggish police patrol, and a systemof small patrols along the road, with a fair number of Basuto scouts. But theroad was picketed, not held; for Arcoll’s patrols were only a branch of hisIntelligence Department. It was perfectly easy, as I had found myself, to slipacross in a gap of the pickets.

Laputa would be in a hurry, and therefore he would try to cross at the nearestpoint. Hence it was Arcoll’s first business to hold the line between the defileof the Letaba and the camp at Bruderstroom. A detachment of the police who werewell mounted galloped at racing speed for the defile, and behind them the restlined out along the road. The farmers took a line at right angles to the road,so as to prevent an escape on the western flank. The Basutos were sent into thewoods as a sort of advanced post to bring tidings of any movement there.Finally a body of police with native runners at their stirrups rode on to thedrift where the road crosses the Letaba. The place is called Main Drift, andyou will find it on the map. The natives were first of all to locate Laputa,and prevent him getting out on the south side of the triangle of hill and woodbetween Machudi’s, the road, and the Letaba. If he failed there, he must try toford the Letaba below the drift, and cross the road between the drift andWesselsburg. Now Arcoll had not men enough to watch the whole line, andtherefore if Laputa were once driven below the drift, he must shift his menfarther down the road. Consequently it was of the first importance to locateLaputa’s whereabouts, and for this purpose the native trackers were sentforward. There was just a chance of capturing him, but Arcoll knew too well hisamazing veld-craft and great strength of body to build much hope on that.

We were none too soon. The advance men of the police rode into one of theKaffirs from Inanda’s Kraal, whom Laputa had sent forward to see if the way wasclear. In two minutes more he would have been across and out of our power, forwe had no chance of overtaking him in the woody ravines of the Letaba. TheKaffir, when he saw us, dived back into the grass on the north side of theroad, which made it clear that Laputa was still there.

After that nothing happened for a little. The police reached their drift, andall the road west of that point was strongly held. The flanking commandoesjoined hands with one of the police posts farther north, and moved slowly tothe scarp of the Berg. They saw nobody; from which Arcoll could deduce that hisman had gone down the Berg into the forests.

Had the Basutos been any good at woodcraft we should have had betterintelligence. But living in a bare mountain country they are apt to findthemselves puzzled in a forest. The best men among the trackers were somerenegades of ’Mpefu, who sent back word by a device known only to Arcoll thatfive Kaffirs were in the woods a mile north of Main Drift. By this time it wasafter ten o’clock, and the moon was rising. The five men separated soon after,and the reports became confused. Then Laputa, as the biggest of the five, waslocated on the banks of the Great Letaba about two miles below Main Drift.

The question was as to his crossing. Arcoll had assumed that he would swim theriver and try to get over the road between Main Drift and Wesselsburg. But inthis assumption he underrated the shrewdness of his opponent. Laputa knewperfectly well that we had not enough men to patrol the whole countryside, butthat the river enabled us to divide the land into two sections and concentratestrongly on one or the other. Accordingly he left the Great Letaba unforded andresolved to make a long circuit back to the Berg. One of his Kaffirs swam theriver, and when word of this was brought Arcoll began to withdraw his postsfarther down the road. But as the men were changing ’Mpefu’s fellows got windof Laputa’s turn to the left, and in great haste Arcoll countermanded the moveand waited in deep perplexity at Main Drift.

The salvation of his scheme was the farmers on the scarp of the Berg. They litfires and gave Laputa the notion of a great army. Instead of going up the glenof Machudi or the Letsitela he bore away to the north for the valley of theKlein Letaba. The pace at which he moved must have been amazing. He had a greatphysique, hard as nails from long travelling, and in his own eyes he had anempire at stake. When I look at the map and see the journey which with vastfatigue I completed from Dupree’s Drift to Machudi’s, and then look at the hugespaces of country over which Laputa’s legs took him on that night, I am lost inadmiration of the man.

About midnight he must have crossed the Letsitela. Here he made a graveblunder. If he had tried the Berg by one of the faces he might have got on tothe plateau and been at Inanda’s Kraal by the dawning. But he over-estimatedthe size of the commandoes, and held on to the north, where he thought therewould be no defence. About one o’clock Arcoll, tired of inaction and consciousthat he had misread Laputa’s tactics, resolved on a bold stroke. He sent halfhis police to the Berg to reinforce the commandoes, bidding them get into touchwith the post at Blaauwildebeestefontein.

A little after two o’clock a diversion occurred. Henriques succeeded incrossing the road three miles east of Main Drift. He had probably left thekraal early in the night and had tried to cross farther west, but had beendeterred by the patrols. East of Main Drift, where the police were fewer, hesucceeded; but he had not gone far till he was discovered by the Basuto scouts.The find was reported to Arcoll, who guessed at once who this traveller was. Hedared not send out any of his white men, but he bade a party of the scoutsfollow the Portugoose’s trail. They shadowed him to Dupree’s Drift, where hecrossed the Letaba. There he lay down by the roadside to sleep, while they kepthim company. A hard fellow Henriques was, for he could slumber peacefully onthe very scene of his murder.

Dawn found Laputa at the head of the Klein Letaba glen, not far from ’Mpefu’skraal. He got food at a hut, and set off at once up the wooded hill above it,which is a promontory of the plateau. By this time he must have been weary, orhe would not have blundered as he did right into a post of the farmers. He waswithin an ace of capture, and to save himself was forced back from the scarp.He seems, to judge from reports, to have gone a little way south in the thickertimber, and then to have turned north again in the direction ofBlaauwildebeestefontein. After that his movements are obscure. He was seen onthe Klein Labongo, but the sight of the post at Blaauwildebeestefontein musthave convinced him that a korhaancould not escape that way. The next weheard of him was that he had joined Henriques. After daybreak Arcoll, havinggot his reports from the plateau, and knowing roughly the direction in whichLaputa was shaping, decided to advance his lines. The farmers, reinforced bythree more commandoes from the Pietersdorp district, still held the plateau,but the police were now on the line of the Great Letaba. It was Arcoll’s planto hold that river and the long neck of land between it and the Labongo. Hisforce was hourly increasing, and his mounted men would be able to prevent anyescape on the flank to the east of Wesselsburg.

So it happened that while Laputa was being driven east from the Berg, Henriqueswas travelling north, and their lines intersected. I should like to have seenthe meeting. It must have told Laputa what had always been in the Portugoose’sheart. Henriques, I fancy, was making for the cave in the Rooirand. Laputa, sofar as I can guess at his mind, had a plan for getting over the Portugueseborder, fetching a wide circuit, and joining his men at any of theconcentrations between there and Amsterdam.

The two were seen at midday going down the road which leads fromBlaauwildebeestefontein to the Lebombo. Then they struck Arcoll’s new front,which stretched from the Letaba to the Labongo. This drove them north again,and forced them to swim the latter stream. From there to the eastern extremityof the Rooirand, which is the Portuguese frontier, the country is open androlling, with a thin light scrub in the hollows. It was bad cover for thefugitives, as they found to their cost. For Arcoll had purposely turned hispolice into a flying column. They no longer held a line; they scoured acountry. Only Laputa’s incomparable veld-craft and great bodily strengthprevented the two from being caught in half an hour. They doubled back, swamthe Labongo again, and got into the thick bush on the north side of theBlaauwildebeestefontein road. The Basuto scouts were magnificent in the open,but in the cover they were again at fault. Laputa and Henriques fairly baffledthem, so that the pursuit turned to the west in the belief that the fugitiveshad made for Majinje’s kraal. In reality they had recrossed the Labongo andwere making for Umvelos’.

All this I heard afterwards, but in the meantime I lay in Arcoll’s tent in deepunconsciousness. While my enemies were being chased like partridges, I wasreaping the fruits of four days’ toil and terror. The hunters had become thehunted, the wheel had come full circle, and the woes of David Crawfurd werebeing abundantly avenged.

I slept till midday of the next day. When I awoke the hot noontide sun had madethe tent like an oven. I felt better, but very stiff and sore, and I had a mostungovernable thirst. There was a pail of water with a tin pannikin beside thetent pole, and out of this I drank repeated draughts. Then I lay down again,for I was still very weary.

But my second sleep was not like my first. It was haunted by wild nightmares.No sooner had I closed my eyes than I began to live and move in a fantasticworld. The whole bush of the plains lay before me, and I watched it as if fromsome view-point in the clouds. It was midday, and the sandy patches shimmeredunder a haze of heat. I saw odd little movements in the bush—a buck’s headraised, a paauw stalking solemnly in the long grass, a big crocodile rollingoff a mudbank in the river. And then I saw quite clearly Laputa’s figure goingeast.

In my sleep I did not think about Arcoll’s manoeuvres. My mind was wholly setupon Laputa. He was walking wearily, yet at a good pace, and his head wasalways turning, like a wild creature snuffing the wind. There was somethingwith him, a shapeless shadow, which I could not see clearly. His neck was bare,but I knew well that the collar was in his pouch.

He stopped, turned west, and I lost him. The bush world for a space was quitesilent, and I watched it eagerly as an aeronaut would watch the ground for adescent. For a long time I could see nothing. Then in a wood near a river thereseemed to be a rustling. Some guinea-fowl flew up as if startled, and a stembokscurried out. I knew that Laputa must be there.

Then, as I looked at the river, I saw a head swimming. Nay, I saw two, one somedistance behind the other. The first man landed on the far bank, and Irecognized Laputa. The second was a slight short figure, and I knew it wasHenriques.

I remember feeling very glad that these two had come together. It was certainnow that Henriques would not escape. Either Laputa would find out the truth andkill him, or I would come up with him and have my revenge. In any case he wasoutside the Kaffir pale, adventuring on his own.

I watched the two till they halted near a ruined building. Surely this was thestore I had built at Umvelos’. The thought gave me a horrid surprise. Laputaand Henriques were on their way to the Rooirand!

I woke with a start to find my forehead damp with sweat. There was some feveron me, I think, for my teeth were chattering. Very clear in my mind was thedisquieting thought that Laputa and Henriques would soon be in the cave.

One of two things must happen—either Henriques would kill Laputa, get thecollar of rubies, and be in the wilds of Mozambique before I could come up withhis trail; or Laputa would outwit him, and have the handling himself of thetreasure of gold and diamonds which had been laid up for the rising. If hethought there was a risk of defeat, I knew he would send my gems to the bottomof the Labongo, and all my weary work would go for nothing. I had forgotten allabout patriotism. In that hour the fate of the country was nothing to me, and Igot no satisfaction from the thought that Laputa was severed from his army. Myone idea was that the treasure would be lost, the treasure for which I hadrisked my life.

There is a kind of courage which springs from bitter anger and disappointment.I had thought that I had bankrupted my spirit, but I found that there was a newpassion in me to which my past sufferings taught no lesson. My uneasiness wouldnot let me rest a moment longer. I rose to my feet, holding on by the bed, andstaggered to the tent pole. I was weak, but not so very weak that I could notmake one last effort. It maddened me that I should have done so much and yetfail at the end.

From a nail on the tent pole hung a fragment of looking-glass which Arcoll usedfor shaving. I caught a glimpse of my face in it, white and haggard and lined,with blue bags below the eyes. The doctor the night before had sponged it, buthe had not got rid of all the stains of travel. In particular there was a faintsplash of blood on the left temple. I remembered that this was what I had gotfrom the basin of goat’s blood that night in the cave. I think that the sightof that splash determined me. Whether I willed it or not, I was sealed ofLaputa’s men. I must play the game to the finish, or never again know peace ofmind on earth. These last four days had made me very old.

I found a pair of Arcoll’s boots, roomy with much wearing, into which I thrustmy bruised feet. Then I crawled to the door, and shouted for a boy to bring myhorse. A Basuto appeared, and, awed by my appearance, went off in a hurry tosee to the schimmel. It was late afternoon, about the same time of dayas had yesterday seen me escaping from Machudi’s. The Bruderstroom camp wasempty, though sentinels were posted at the approaches. I beckoned the onlywhite man I saw, and asked where Arcoll was. He told me that he had no news,but added that the patrols were still on the road as far as Wesselsburg. Fromthis I gathered that Arcoll must have gone far out into the bush in his chase.I did not want to see him; above all, I did not want him to find Laputa. It wasmy private business that I rode on, and I asked for no allies.

Somebody brought me a cup of thick coffee, which I could not drink, and helpedme into the saddle. The schimmelwas fresh, and kicked freely as Icantered off the grass into the dust of the highroad. The whole world, Iremember, was still and golden in the sunset.

CHAPTER XX
MY LAST SIGHT OF THE REVEREND JOHN LAPUTA

It was dark before I got into the gorge of the Letaba. I passed many patrols,but few spoke to me, and none tried to stop me. Some may have known me, but Ithink it was my face and figure which tied their tongues. I must have been paleas death, with tangled hair and fever burning in my eyes. Also on my lefttemple was the splash of blood.

At Main Drift I found a big body of police holding the ford. I splashed throughand stumbled into one of their camp-fires. A man questioned me, and told methat Arcoll had got his quarry. “He’s dead, they say. They shot him out on thehills when he was making for the Limpopo.” But I knew that this was not true.It was burned on my mind that Laputa was alive, nay, was waiting for me, andthat it was God’s will that we should meet in the cave.

A little later I struck the track of the Kaffirs’ march. There was a broad,trampled way through the bush, and I followed it, for it led to Dupree’s Drift.All this time I was urging the schimmelwith all the vigour I had leftin me. I had quite lost any remnant of fear. There were no terrors left for meeither from Nature or man. At Dupree’s Drift I rode the ford without a thoughtof crocodiles. I looked placidly at the spot where Henriques had slain theKeeper and I had stolen the rubies. There was no interest or imaginationlingering in my dull brain. My nerves had suddenly become things of stolid,untempered iron. Each landmark I passed was noted down as one step nearer to myobject. At Umvelos’ I had not the leisure to do more than glance at the shellwhich I had built. I think I had forgotten all about that night when I lay inthe cellar and heard Laputa’s plans. Indeed, my doings of the past days wereall hazy and trivial in my mind. I only saw one sight clearly—two men, one talland black, the other little and sallow, slowly creeping nearer to the Rooirand,and myself, a midget on a horse, spurring far behind through the bush on theirtrail. I saw the picture as continuously and clearly as if I had been lookingat a scene on the stage. There was only one change in the setting; the threefigures seemed to be gradually closing together.

I had no exhilaration in my quest. I do not think I had even much hope, forsomething had gone numb and cold in me and killed my youth. I told myself thattreasure-hunting was an enterprise accursed of God, and that I should mostlikely die. That Laputa and Henriques would die I was fully certain. The threeof us would leave our bones to bleach among the diamonds, and in a little thePrester’s collar would glow amid a little heap of human dust. I was quiteconvinced of all this, and quite apathetic. It really did not matter so long asI came up with Laputa and Henriques, and settled scores with them. Thatmattered everything in the world, for it was my destiny.

I had no means of knowing how long I took, but it was after midnight before Ipassed Umvelos’, and ere I got to the Rooirand there was a fluttering of dawnin the east. I must have passed east of Arcoll’s men, who were driving the bushtowards Majinje’s. I had ridden the night down and did not feel so very tired.My horse was stumbling, but my own limbs scarcely pained me. To be sure I wasstiff and nerveless as if hewn out of wood, but I had been as bad when I leftBruderstroom. I felt as if I could go on riding to the end of the world.

At the brink of the bush I dismounted and turned the schimmelloose. Ihad brought no halter, and I left him to graze and roll. The light wassufficient to let me see the great rock face rising in a tower of dim purple.The sky was still picked out with stars, but the moon had long gone down, andthe east was flushing. I marched up the path to the cave, very different fromthe timid being who had walked the same road three nights before. Then myterrors were all to come: now I had conquered terror and seen the other side offear. I was centuries older.

But beside the path lay something which made me pause. It was a dead body, andthe head was turned away from me. I did not need to see the face to know who itwas. There had been only two men in my vision, and one of them was immortal.

I stopped and turned the body over. There was no joy in my heart, none of thelust of satisfied vengeance or slaked hate. I had forgotten about the killingof my dog and all the rest of Henriques’ doings. It was only with curiositythat I looked down on the dead face, swollen and livid in the first light ofmorning.

The man had been strangled. His neck, as we say in Scotland, was “thrawn”, andthat was why he had lain on his back yet with his face turned away from me. Hehad been dead probably since before midnight. I looked closer, and saw thatthere was blood on his shirt and hands, but no wound. It was not his blood, butsome other’s. Then a few feet off on the path I found a pistol with twochambers empty.

What had happened was very plain. Henriques had tried to shoot Laputa at theentrance of the cave for the sake of the collar and the treasure within. He hadwounded him—gravely, I thought, to judge from the amount of blood—but thequickness and marksmanship of the Portuguese had not availed to save his lifefrom those terrible hands. After two shots Laputa had got hold of him andchoked his life out as easily as a man twists a partridge’s neck. Then he hadgone into the cave.

I saw the marks of blood on the road, and hastened on. Laputa had been hours inthe cave, enough to work havoc with the treasure. He was wounded, too, anddesperate. Probably he had come to the Rooirand looking for sanctuary and restfor a day or two, but if Henriques had shot straight he might find a safersanctuary and a longer rest. For the third time in my life I pushed up thegully between the straight high walls of rock, and heard from the heart of thehills the thunder of the imprisoned river.

There was only the faintest gleam of light in the cleft, but it sufficed toshow me that the way to the cave was open. The hidden turnstile in the rightwall stood ajar; I entered, and carelessly swung it behind me. The gatesclashed into place with a finality which told me that they were firmly shut. Idid not know the secret of them, so how should I get out again?

These things troubled me less than the fact that I had no light at all now. Ihad to go on my knees to ascend the stair, and I could feel that the steps werewet. It must be Laputa’s blood.

Next I was out on the gallery which skirted the chasm. The sky above me wasgrowing pale with dawn, and far below the tossing waters were fretted withlight. A light fragrant wind was blowing on the hills, and a breath of it camedown the funnel. I saw that my hands were all bloody with the stains on thesteps, and I rubbed them on the rock to clean them. Without a tremor I crossedthe stone slab over the gorge, and plunged into the dark alley which led to theinner chamber.

As before, there was a light in front of me, but this time it was a pin-pointand not the glare of many torches. I felt my way carefully by the walls of thepassage, though I did not really fear anything. It was by the stopping of theselateral walls that I knew I was in the cave, for the place had only one singlespeck of light. The falling wall of water stood out grey green and ghostly onthe left, and I noticed that higher up it was lit as if from the open air.There must be a great funnel in the hillside in that direction. I walked a fewpaces, and then I made out that the spark in front was a lantern.

My eyes were getting used to the half-light, and I saw what was beside thelantern. Laputa knelt on the ashes of the fire which the Keeper had kindledthree days before. He knelt before, and half leaned on, a rude altar of stone.The lantern stood by him on the floor, and its faint circle lit something whichI was not unprepared for. Blood was welling from his side, and spreading in adark pool over the ashes.

I had no fear, only a great pity—pity for lost romance, for vain endeavour, forfruitless courage. “Greeting, Inkulu!” I said in Kaffir, as if I had been oneof his indunas.

He turned his head and slowly and painfully rose to his feet. The place, it wasclear, was lit from without, and the daylight was growing. The wall of theriver had become a sheet of jewels, passing from pellucid diamond above totranslucent emerald below. A dusky twilight sought out the extreme corners ofthe cave. Laputa’s tall figure stood swaying above the white ashes, his handpressed to his side.

“Who is it?” he said, looking at me with blind eyes.

“It is the storekeeper from Umvelos’,” I answered.

“The storekeeper of Umvelos’,” he repeated. “God has used the weak things ofthe world to confound the strong. A king dies because a pedlar is troublesome.What do they call you, man? You deserve to be remembered.”

I told him “David Crawfurd.”

“Crawfurd,” he repeated, “you have been the little reef on which a great vesselhas foundered. You stole the collar and cut me off from my people, and thenwhen I was weary the Portuguese killed me.”

“No,” I cried, “it was not me. You trusted Henriques, and you got your fingerson his neck too late. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“You warned me, and I will repay you. I will make you rich, Crawfurd. You are atrader, and want money. I am a king, and want a throne. But I am dying, andthere will be no more kings in Africa.”

The mention of riches did not thrill me as I had expected, but the last wordsawakened a wild regret. I was hypnotized by the man. To see him going out waslike seeing the fall of a great mountain.

He stretched himself, gasping, and in the growing light I could see how brokenhe was. His cheeks were falling in, and his sombre eyes had shrunk back intheir sockets. He seemed an old worn man standing there among the ashes, whilethe blood, which he made no effort to staunch, trickled down his side till itdripped on the floor. He had ceased to be the Kaffir king, or the Christianminister, or indeed any one of his former parts. Death was stripping him to hiselements, and the man Laputa stood out beyond and above the characters he hadplayed, something strange, and great, and moving, and terrible.

“We met for the first time three days ago,” he said, “and now you will be thelast to see the Inkulu.”

“Umvelos’ was not our first meeting,” said I. “Do you mind the Sabbath eightyears since when you preached in the Free Kirk at Kirkcaple? I was the boy youchased from the shore, and I flung the stone that blacked your eye. Besides, Icame out from England with you and Henriques, and I was in the boat which tookyou from Durban to Delagoa Bay. You and I have been long acquaint, Mr Laputa.”

“It is the hand of God,” he said solemnly. “Your fate has been twisted withmine, and now you will die with me.”

I did not understand this talk about dying. I was not mortally wounded likehim, and I did not think Laputa had the strength to kill me even if he wished.But my mind was so impassive that I scarcely regarded his words.

“I will make you rich,” he cried. “Crawfurd, the storekeeper, will be therichest man in Africa. We are scattered, and our wealth is another’s. He shallhave the gold and the diamonds—all but the Collar, which goes with me.”

He staggered into a dark recess, one of many in the cave, and I followed him.There were boxes there, tea chests, cartridge cases, and old brass-ribbedPortuguese coffers. Laputa had keys at his belt, and unlocked them, his fingersfumbling with weakness. I peered in and saw gold coin and little bags ofstones.

“Money and diamonds,” he cried. “Once it was the war chest of a king, and nowit will be the hoard of a trader. No, by the Lord! The trader’s place is withthe Terrible Ones.” An arm shot out, and my shoulder was fiercely gripped.

“You stole my horse. That is why I am dying. But for you I and my army would beover the Olifants. I am going to kill you, Crawfurd,” and his fingers closed into my shoulder blades.

Still I was unperturbed. “No, you are not. You cannot. You have tried to andfailed. So did Henriques, and he is lying dead outside. I am in God’s keeping,and cannot die before my time.”

I do not know if he heard me, but at any rate the murderous fit passed. Hishand fell to his side and his great figure tottered out into the cave. Heseemed to be making for the river, but he turned and went through the door Ihad entered by. I heard him slipping in the passage, and then there was aminute of silence.

Suddenly there came a grinding sound, followed by the kind of muffled splashwhich a stone makes when it falls into a deep well. I thought Laputa had falleninto the chasm, but when I reached the door his swaying figure was coming outof the corridor. Then I knew what he had done. He had used the remnant of hisgiant strength to break down the bridge of stone across the gorge, and so cutoff my retreat.

I really did not care. Even if I had got over the bridge I should probably havebeen foiled by the shut turnstile. I had quite forgotten the meaning of fear ofdeath.

I found myself giving my arm to the man who had tried to destroy me.

“I have laid up for you treasure in heaven,” he said. “Your earthly treasure isin the boxes, but soon you will be seeking incorruptible jewels in the deepdeep water. It is cool and quiet down there, and you forget the hunger andpain.”

The man was getting very near his end. The madness of despair came back to him,and he flung himself among the ashes.

“We are going to die together, Crawfurd,” he said. “God has twined our threads,and there will be only one cutting. Tell me what has become of my army.”

“Arcoll has guns on the Wolkberg,” I said. “They must submit or perish.”

“I have other armies ... No, no, they are nothing. They will all wander andblunder and fight and be beaten. There is no leader anywhere ... And I amdying.”

There was no gainsaying the signs of death. I asked him if he would like water,but he made no answer. His eyes were fixed on vacancy, and I thought I couldrealize something of the bitterness of that great regret. For myself I was ascold as a stone. I had no exultation of triumph, still less any fear of my ownfate. I stood silent, the half-remorseful spectator of a fall like the fall ofLucifer.

“I would have taught the world wisdom.” Laputa was speaking English in astrange, thin, abstracted voice. “There would have been no king like me sinceCharlemagne,” and he strayed into Latin which I have been told since was anadaptation of the Epitaph of Charles the Great. “Sub hoc conditorio,” hecrooned, “situm est corpus Joannis, magni et orthodoxi Imperatoris, quiimperium Africanum nobiliter ampliavit, et multos per annos mundum feliciterrexit.”[1] He must have chosen this epitaph long ago.

He lay for a few seconds with his head on his arms, his breast heaving withagony.

“No one will come after me. My race is doomed, and in a little they will haveforgotten my name. I alone could have saved them. Now they go the way of therest, and the warriors of John become drudges and slaves.”

Something clicked in his throat, he gasped and fell forward, and I thought hewas dead. Then he struggled as if to rise. I ran to him, and with all mystrength aided him to his feet.

“Unarm, Eros,” he cried. “The long day’s task is done.” With the strange powerof a dying man he tore off his leopard-skin and belt till he stood stark as onthe night when he had been crowned. From his pouch he took the Prester’sCollar. Then he staggered to the brink of the chasm where the wall of greenwater dropped into the dark depth below.

I watched, fascinated, as with the weak hands of a child he twined the rubiesround his neck and joined the clasp. Then with a last effort he stood straightup on the brink, his eyes raised to the belt of daylight from which the waterfell. The light caught the great gems and called fires from them, the flames ofthe funeral pyre of a king.

Once more his voice, restored for a moment to its old vigour, rang out throughthe cave above the din of the cascade. His words were those which the Keeperhad used three nights before. With his hands held high and the Collar burningon his neck he cried, “The Snake returns to the House of its Birth.”

“Come,” he cried to me. “The Heir of John is going home.” Then he leapt intothe gulf. There was no sound of falling, so great was the rush of water. Hemust have been whirled into the open below where the bridge used to be, andthen swept into the underground deeps, where the Labongo drowses for thirtymiles. Far from human quest he sleeps his last sleep, and perhaps on a fragmentof bone washed into a crevice of rock there may hang the jewels that oncegleamed in Sheba’s hair.

[1] “Under this stone is laid the body of John, the great and orthodox Emperor,who nobly enlarged the African realm, and for many years happily ruled theworld.”

CHAPTER XXI
I CLIMB THE CRAGS A SECOND TIME

I remember that I looked over the brink into the yeasty abyss with a mindhovering between perplexity and tears. I wanted to sit down and cry—why, I didnot know, except that some great thing had happened. My brain was quite clearas to my own position. I was shut in this place, with no chance of escape andwith no food. In a little I must die of starvation, or go mad and throw myselfafter Laputa. And yet I did not care a rush. My nerves had been tried toogreatly in the past week. Now I was comatose, and beyond hoping or fearing.

I sat for a long time watching the light play on the fretted sheet of water andwondering where Laputa’s body had gone. I shivered and wished he had not leftme alone, for the darkness would come in time and I had no matches. After alittle I got tired of doing nothing, and went groping among the treasurechests. One or two were full of coin—British sovereigns, Kruger sovereigns,Napoleons, Spanish and Portuguese gold pieces, and many older coins rangingback to the Middle Ages and even to the ancients. In one handful there was asplendid gold stater, and in another a piece of Antoninus Pius. The treasurehad been collected for many years in many places, contributions of chiefs fromancient hoards as well as the cash received from I.D.B. I untied one or two ofthe little bags of stones and poured the contents into my hands. Most of thediamonds were small, such as a labourer might secrete on his person. The largerones—and some were very large—were as a rule discoloured, looking more like bigcairngorms. But one or two bags had big stones which even my inexperienced eyetold me were of the purest water. There must be some new pipe, I thought, forthese could not have been stolen from any known mine.

After that I sat on the floor again and looked at the water. It exercised amesmeric influence on me, soothing all care. I was quite happy to wait fordeath, for death had no meaning to me. My hate and fury were both lulled into atrance, since the passive is the next stage to the overwrought.

It must have been full day outside now, for the funnel was bright withsunshine, and even the dim cave caught a reflected radiance. As I watched theriver I saw a bird flash downward, skimming the water. It turned into the caveand fluttered among its dark recesses. I heard its wings beating the roof as itsought wildly for an outlet. It dashed into the spray of the cataract andescaped again into the cave. For maybe twenty minutes it fluttered, till atlast it found the way it had entered by. With a dart it sped up the funnel ofrock into light and freedom.

I had begun to watch the bird in idle lassitude, I ended in keen excitement.The sight of it seemed to take a film from my eyes. I realized the zest ofliberty, the passion of life again. I felt that beyond this dim underworldthere was the great joyous earth, and I longed for it. I wanted to live now. Mymemory cleared, and I remembered all that had befallen me during the last fewdays. I had played the chief part in the whole business, and I had won. Laputawas dead and the treasure was mine, while Arcoll was crushing the Rising at hisease. I had only to be free again to be famous and rich. My hopes had returned,but with them came my fears. What if I could not escape? I must perishmiserably by degrees, shut in the heart of a hill, though my friends were outfor rescue. In place of my former lethargy I was now in a fever of unrest.

My first care was to explore the way I had come. I ran down the passage to thechasm which the slab of stone had spanned. I had been right in my guess, forthe thing was gone. Laputa was in truth a Titan, who in the article of deathcould break down a bridge which would have taken any three men an hour toshift. The gorge was about seven yards wide, too far to risk a jump, and thecliff fell sheer and smooth to the imprisoned waters two hundred feet below.There was no chance of circuiting it, for the wall was as smooth as if it hadbeen chiselled. The hand of man had been at work to make the sanctuaryinviolable.

It occurred to me that sooner or later Arcoll would track Laputa to this place.He would find the bloodstains in the gully, but the turnstile would be shut andhe would never find the trick of it. Nor could he have any kaffirs with him whoknew the secret of the Place of the Snake. Still if Arcoll knew I was inside hewould find some way to get to me even though he had to dynamite the curtain ofrock. I shouted, but my voice seemed to be drowned in the roar of the water. Itmade but a fresh chord in the wild orchestra, and I gave up hopes in thatdirection.

Very dolefully I returned to the cave. I was about to share the experience ofall treasure-hunters—to be left with jewels galore and not a bite to sustainlife. The thing was too commonplace to be endured. I grew angry, and declinedso obvious a fate. “Ek sal ’n plan maak,” I told myself in the old Dutchman’swords. I had come through worse dangers, and a way I should find. To starve inthe cave was no ending for David Crawfurd. Far better to join Laputa in thedepths in a manly hazard for liberty.

My obstinacy and irritation cheered me. What had become of the lack-lustreyoung fool who had mooned here a few minutes back. Now I was as tense andstrung for effort as the day I had ridden from Blaauwildebeestefontein toUmvelos’. I felt like a runner in the last lap of a race. For four days I hadlived in the midst of terror and darkness. Daylight was only a few steps ahead,daylight and youth restored and a new world.

There were only two outlets from that cave—the way I had come, and the way theriver came. The first was closed, the second a sheer staring impossibility. Ihad been into every niche and cranny, and there was no sign of a passage. I satdown on the floor and looked at the wall of water. It fell, as I have alreadyexplained, in a solid sheet, which made up the whole of the wall of the cave.Higher than the roof of the cave I could not see what happened, except that itmust be the open air, for the sun was shining on it. The water was about threeyards distant from the edge of the cave’s floor, but it seemed to me that highup, level with the roof, this distance decreased to little more than a foot.

I could not see what the walls of the cave were like, but they looked smoothand difficult. Supposing I managed to climb up to the level of the roof closeto the water, how on earth was I to get outside on to the wall of the ravine? Iknew from my old days of rock-climbing what a complete obstacle the overhang ofa cave is.

While I looked, however, I saw a thing which I had not noticed before. On theleft side of the fall the water sluiced down in a sheet to the extreme edge ofthe cave, almost sprinkling the floor with water. But on the right side theforce of water was obviously weaker, and a little short of the level of thecave roof there was a spike of rock which slightly broke the fall. The spikewas covered, but the covering was shallow, for the current flowed from it in arose-shaped spray. If a man could get to that spike and could get a foot on itwithout being swept down, it might be possible—just possible—to do somethingwith the wall of the chasm above the cave. Of course I knew nothing about thenature of that wall. It might be as smooth as a polished pillar.

The result of these cogitations was that I decided to prospect the right wallof the cave close to the waterfall. But first I went rummaging in the back partto see if I could find anything to assist me. In one corner there was a rudecupboard with some stone and metal vessels. Here, too, were the few domesticutensils of the dead Keeper. In another were several locked coffers on which Icould make no impression. There were the treasure-chests too, but they heldnothing save treasure, and gold and diamonds were no manner of use to me. Otherodds and ends I found—spears, a few skins, and a broken and notched axe. I tookthe axe in case there might be cutting to do.

Then at the back of a bin my hand struck something which brought the blood tomy face. It was a rope, an old one, but still in fair condition and forty orfifty feet long. I dragged it out into the light and straightened its kinks.With this something could be done, assuming I could cut my way to the level ofthe roof.

I began the climb in my bare feet, and at the beginning it was very bad. Excepton the very edge of the abyss there was scarcely a handhold. Possibly in floodsthe waters may have swept the wall in a curve, smoothing down the inner partand leaving the outer to its natural roughness. There was one place where I hadto hang on by a very narrow crack while I scraped with the axe a hollow for myright foot. And then about twelve feet from the ground I struck the first ofthe iron pegs.

To this day I cannot think what these pegs were for. They were oldsquare-headed things which had seen the wear of centuries. They cannot havebeen meant to assist a climber, for the dwellers of the cave had clearly nevercontemplated this means of egress. Perhaps they had been used for some kind ofceremonial curtain in a dim past. They were rusty and frail, and one of themcame away in my hand, but for all that they marvellously assisted my ascent.

I had been climbing slowly, doggedly and carefully, my mind wholly occupiedwith the task; and almost before I knew I found my head close under the roof ofthe cave. It was necessary now to move towards the river, and the task seemedimpossible. I could see no footholds, save two frail pegs, and in the cornerbetween the wall and the roof was a rough arch too wide for my body to jamitself in. Just below the level of the roof—say two feet—I saw the submergedspike of rock. The waters raged around it, and could not have been more than aninch deep on the top. If I could only get my foot on that I believed I couldavoid being swept down, and stand up and reach for the wall above the cave.

But how to get to it? It was no good delaying, for my frail holds might give atany moment. In any case I would have the moral security of the rope, so Ipassed it through a fairly staunch pin close to the roof, which had an upwardtilt that almost made a ring of it. One end of the rope was round my body, theother was loose in my hand, and I paid it out as I moved. Moral support issomething. Very gingerly I crawled like a fly along the wall, my fingers nowclutching at a tiny knob, now clawing at a crack which did little more thanhold my nails. It was all hopeless insanity, and yet somehow I did it. The ropeand the nearness of the roof gave me confidence and balance. Then the holdsceased altogether a couple of yards from the water. I saw my spike of rock atrifle below me. There was nothing for it but to risk all on a jump. I drew therope out of the hitch, twined the slack round my waist, and leaped for thespike.

It was like throwing oneself on a line of spears. The solid wall of waterhurled me back and down, but as I fell my arms closed on the spike. There Ihung while my feet were towed outwards by the volume of the stream as if theyhad been dead leaves. I was half-stunned by the shock of the drip on my head,but I kept my wits, and presently got my face outside the falling sheet andbreathed.

To get to my feet and stand on the spike while all the fury of water wasplucking at me was the hardest physical effort I have ever made. It had to bedone very circumspectly, for a slip would send me into the abyss. If I moved anarm or leg an inch too near the terrible dropping wall I knew I should beplucked from my hold. I got my knees on the outer face of the spike, so thatall my body was removed as far as possible from the impact of the water. Then Ibegan to pull myself slowly up.

I could not do it. If I got my feet on the rock the effort would bring me toofar into the water, and that meant destruction. I saw this clearly in a secondwhile my wrists were cracking with the strain. But if I had a wall behind me Icould reach back with one hand and get what we call in Scotland a “stelf.” Iknew there was a wall, but how far I could not judge. The perpetual hammeringof the stream had confused my wits.

It was a horrible moment, but I had to risk it. I knew that if the wall was toofar back I should fall, for I had to let my weight go till my hand fell on it.Delay would do no good, so with a prayer I flung my right hand back, while myleft hand clutched the spike.

I found the wall—it was only a foot or two beyond my reach. With a heave I hadmy foot on the spike, and turning, had both hands on the opposite wall. There Istood, straddling like a Colossus over a waste of white waters, with the cavefloor far below me in the gloom, and my discarded axe lying close to a splashof Laputa’s blood.

The spectacle made me giddy, and I had to move on or fall. The wall was notquite perpendicular, but as far as I could see a slope of about sixty degrees.It was ribbed and terraced pretty fully, but I could see no ledge within reachwhich offered standing room. Once more I tried the moral support of the rope,and as well as I could dropped a noose on the spike which might hold me if Ifell. Then I boldly embarked on a hand traverse, pulling myself along a littleledge till I was right in the angle of the fall. Here, happily, the water wasshallower and less violent, and with my legs up to the knees in foam I managedto scramble into a kind of corner. Now at last I was on the wall of the gully,and above the cave. I had achieved by amazing luck one of the most difficult ofall mountaineering operations. I had got out of a cave to the wall above.

My troubles were by no means over, for I found the cliff most difficult toclimb. The great rush of the stream dizzied my brain, the spray made the rockdamp, and the slope steepened as I advanced. At one overhang my shoulder wasalmost in the water again. All this time I was climbing doggedly, with terrorsomewhere in my soul, and hope lighting but a feeble lamp. I was verydistrustful of my body, for I knew that at any moment my weakness might return.The fever of three days of peril and stress is not allayed by one night’s rest.

By this time I was high enough to see that the river came out of the groundabout fifty feet short of the lip of the gully, and some ten feet beyond whereI stood. Above the hole whence the waters issued was a loose slope of slabs andscrees. It looked an ugly place, but there I must go, for the rock-wall I wason was getting unclimbable.

I turned the corner a foot or two above the water, and stood on a slope ofabout fifty degrees, running from the parapet of stone to a line beyond whichblue sky appeared. The first step I took the place began to move. A bouldercrashed into the fall, and tore down into the abyss with a shattering thunder.I lay flat and clutched desperately at every hold, but I had loosened anavalanche of earth, and not till my feet were sprayed by the water did I get agrip of firm rock and check my descent. All this frightened me horribly, withthe kind of despairing angry fear which I had suffered at Bruderstroom, when Idreamed that the treasure was lost. I could not bear the notion of death when Ihad won so far.

After that I advanced, not by steps, but by inches. I felt more poised andpinnacled in the void than when I had stood on the spike of rock, for I had asubstantial hold neither for foot nor hand. It seemed weeks before I made anyprogress away from the lip of the waterhole. I dared not look down, but kept myeyes on the slope before me, searching for any patch of ground which promisedstability. Once I found a scrog of juniper with firm roots, and this gave me agreat lift. A little further, however, I lit on a bank of screes which slippedwith me to the right, and I lost most of the ground the bush had gained me. Mywhole being, I remember, was filled with a devouring passion to be quit of thisgully and all that was in it.

Then, not suddenly as in romances, but after hard striving and hope longdeferred, I found myself on a firm outcrop of weathered stone. In three stridesI was on the edge of the plateau. Then I began to run, and at the same time tolose the power of running. I cast one look behind me, and saw a deep cleft ofdarkness out of which I had climbed. Down in the cave it had seemed lightenough, but in the clear sunshine of the top the gorge looked a very pit ofshade. For the first and last time in my life I had vertigo. Fear of fallingback, and a mad craze to do it, made me acutely sick. I managed to stumble afew steps forward on the mountain turf, and then flung myself on my face.

When I raised my head I was amazed to find it still early morning. The dew wasyet on the grass, and the sun was not far up the sky. I had thought that myentry into the cave, my time in it, and my escape had taken many hours, whereasat the most they had occupied two. It was little more than dawn, such a dawn aswalks only on the hilltops. Before me was the shallow vale with its bracken andsweet grass, and farther on the shining links of the stream, and the loch stillgrey in the shadow of the beleaguering hills. Here was a fresh, clean land, aland for homesteads and orchards and children. All of a sudden I realized thatat last I had come out of savagery. The burden of the past days slipped from myshoulders. I felt young again, and cheerful and brave. Behind me was the blacknight, and the horrid secrets of darkness. Before me was my own country, forthat loch and that bracken might have been on a Scotch moor. The fresh scent ofthe air and the whole morning mystery put song into my blood. I remembered thatI was not yet twenty. My first care was to kneel there among the bracken andgive thanks to my Maker, who in very truth had shown me “His goodness in theland of the living.”

After a little I went back to the edge of the cliff. There where the road cameout of the bush was the body of Henriques, lying sprawled on the sand, with twodismounted riders looking hard at it. I gave a great shout, for in the men Irecognized Aitken and the schoolmaster Wardlaw.

CHAPTER XXII
A GREAT PERIL AND A GREAT SALVATION

I must now take up some of the ragged ends which I have left behind me. It isnot my task, as I have said, to write the history of the great Rising. That hasbeen done by abler men, who were at the centre of the business, and had someknowledge of strategy and tactics; whereas I was only a raw lad who wasprivileged by fate to see the start. If I could, I would fain make an epic ofit, and show how the Plains found at all points the Plateau guarded, how witsovercame numbers, and at every pass which the natives tried the great gunsspoke and the tide rolled back. Yet I fear it would be an epic without a hero.There was no leader left when Laputa had gone. There were months of guerrillafighting, and then months of reprisals, when chief after chief was hunted downand brought to trial. Then the amnesty came and a clean sheet, and white Africadrew breath again with certain grave reflections left in her head. On the wholeI am not sorry that the history is no business of mine. Romance died with “theheir of John,” and the crusade became a sorry mutiny. I can fancy howdifferently Laputa would have managed it all had he lived; how swift and suddenhis plans would have been; how under him the fighting would not have been inthe mountain glens, but far in the high-veld among the dorps and townships.With the Inkulu alive we warred against odds; with the Inkulu dead the balancesank heavily in our favour. I leave to others the marches and strategy of thething, and hasten to clear up the obscure parts in my own fortunes.

Arcoll received my message from Umvelos’ by Colin, or rather Wardlaw receivedit and sent it on to the post on the Berg where the leader had gone. Close onits heels came the message from Henriques by a Shangaan in his pay. It musthave been sent off before the Portugoose got to the Rooirand, from which itwould appear that he had his own men in the bush near the store, and that I waslucky to get off as I did. Arcoll might have disregarded Henriques’ news as atrap if it had come alone, but my corroboration impressed and perplexed him. Hebegan to credit the Portugoose with treachery, but he had no inclination to acton his message, since it conflicted with his plans. He knew that Laputa mustcome into the Berg sooner or later, and he had resolved that his strategy mustbe to await him there. But there was the question of my life. He had everyreason to believe that I was in the greatest danger, and he felt a certainresponsibility for my fate. With the few men at his disposal he could not hopeto hold up the great Kaffir army, but there was a chance that he might by abold stand effect my rescue. Henriques had told him of the vow, and had toldhim that Laputa would ride in the centre of the force. A body of men wellposted at Dupree’s Drift might split the army at the crossing, and under coverof the fire I might swim the river and join my friends. Still relying on thevow, it might be possible for well-mounted men to evade capture. Accordingly hecalled for volunteers, and sent off one of his Kaffirs to warn me of hisdesign. He led his men in person, and of his doings the reader already knowsthe tale. But though the crossing was flung into confusion, and the rear of thearmy was compelled to follow the northerly bank of the Letaba, there was nosign of me anywhere. Arcoll searched the river-banks, and crossed the drift towhere the old Keeper was lying dead. He then concluded that I had been murderedearly in the march, and his Kaffir, who might have given him news of me, wascarried up the stream in the tide of the disorderly army. Therefore, he and hismen rode back with all haste to the Berg by way of Main Drift, and reachedBruderstroom before Laputa had crossed the highway.

My information about Inanda’s Kraal decided Arcoll’s next move. Like me heremembered Beyers’s performance, and resolved to repeat it. He had no hope ofcatching Laputa, but he thought that he might hold up the bulk of his force ifhe got guns on the ridge above the kraal. A message had already been sent forguns, and the first to arrive got to Bruderstroom about the hour when I wasbeing taken by Machudi’s men in the kloof. The ceremony of the purificationprevented Laputa from keeping a good look-out, and the result was that a waywas made for the guns on the north-western corner of the rampart of rock. Itwas the way which Beyers had taken, and indeed the enterprise was directed byone of Beyers’s old commandants. All that day the work continued, while Laputaand I were travelling to Machudi’s. Then came the evening when I staggered intocamp and told my news. Arcoll, who alone knew how vital Laputa was to thesuccess of the insurrection, immediately decided to suspend all otheroperations and devote himself to shepherding the leader away from his army. Howthe scheme succeeded and what befell Laputa the reader has already been told.

Aitken and Wardlaw, when I descended from the cliffs, took me straight toBlaauwildebeestefontein. I was like a man who is recovering from bad fever,cured, but weak and foolish, and it was a slow journey which I made toUmvelos’, riding on Aitken’s pony. At Umvelos’ we found a picket who hadcaptured the schimmelby the roadside. That wise beast, when I turnedhim loose at the entrance to the cave, had trotted quietly back the way he hadcome. At Umvelos’ Aitken left me, and next day, with Wardlaw as companion, Irode up the glen of the Klein Labongo, and came in the afternoon to my oldhome. The store was empty, for Japp some days before had gone off post-haste toPietersdorp; but there was Zeeta cleaning up the place as if war had never beenheard of. I slept the night there, and in the morning found myself so muchrecovered that I was eager to get away. I wanted to see Arcoll about manythings, but mainly about the treasure in the cave.

It was an easy journey to Bruderstroom through the meadows of the plateau. Thefarmers’ commandoes had been recalled, but the ashes of their camp fires werestill grey among the bracken. I fell in with a police patrol and was taken bythem to a spot on the Upper Letaba, some miles west of the camp, where we foundArcoll at late breakfast. I had resolved to take him into my confidence, so Itold him the full tale of my night’s adventure. He was very severe with me, Iremember, for my daft-like ride, but his severity relaxed before I had donewith my story.

The telling brought back the scene to me, and I shivered at the picture of thecave with the morning breaking through the veil of water and Laputa in hisdeath throes. Arcoll did not speak for some time.

“So he is dead,” he said at last, half-whispering to himself. “Well, he was aking, and died like a king. Our job now is simple, for there is none of hisbreed left in Africa.”

Then I told him of the treasure.

“It belongs to you, Davie,” he said, “and we must see that you get it. This isgoing to be a long war, but if we survive to the end you will be a rich man.”

“But in the meantime?” I asked. “Supposing other Kaffirs hear of it, and comeback and make a bridge over the gorge? They may be doing it now.”

“I’ll put a guard on it,” he said, jumping up briskly. “It’s maybe not asoldier’s job, but you’ve saved this country, Davie, and I’m going to make surethat you have your reward.”

After that I went with Arcoll to Inanda’s Kraal. I am not going to tell thestory of that performance, for it occupies no less than two chapters in MrUpton’s book. He makes one or two blunders, for he spells my name with an “o,”and he says we walked out of the camp on our perilous mission “with faces whiteand set as a Crusader’s.” That is certainly not true, for in the first placenobody saw us go who could judge how we looked, and in the second place we wereboth smoking and feeling quite cheerful. At home they made a great fuss aboutit, and started a newspaper cry about the Victoria Cross, but the danger wasnot so terrible after all, and in any case it was nothing to what I had beenthrough in the past week.

I take credit to myself for suggesting the idea. By this time we had the armyin the kraal at our mercy. Laputa not having returned, they had no plans. Ithad been the original intention to start for the Olifants on the following day,so there was a scanty supply of food. Besides, there were the makings of apretty quarrel between Umbooni and some of the north-country chiefs, and Iverily believe that if we had held them tight there for a week they would havedestroyed each other in faction fights. In any case, in a little they wouldhave grown desperate and tried to rush the approaches on the north and south.Then we must either have used the guns on them, which would have meant a greatslaughter, or let them go to do mischief elsewhere. Arcoll was a merciful manwho had no love for butchery; besides, he was a statesman with an eye to thefuture of the country after the war. But it was his duty to isolate Laputa’sarmy, and at all costs, it must be prevented from joining any of theconcentrations in the south.

Then I proposed to him to do as Rhodes did in the Matoppos, and go and talk tothem. By this time, I argued, the influence of Laputa must have sunk, and thefervour of the purification be half-forgotten. The army had little food and noleader. The rank and file had never been fanatical, and the chiefs and indunasmust now be inclined to sober reflections. But once blood was shed the lust ofblood would possess them. Our only chance was to strike when their minds wereperplexed and undecided.

Arcoll did all the arranging. He had a message sent to the chiefs inviting themto an indaba, and presently word was brought back that an indaba was called forthe next day at noon. That same night we heard that Umbooni and about twenty ofhis men had managed to evade our ring of scouts and got clear away to thesouth. This was all to our advantage, as it removed from the coming indaba themost irreconcilable of the chiefs.

That indaba was a queer business. Arcoll and I left our escort at the foot of aravine, and entered the kraal by the same road as I had left it. It was a verybright, hot winter’s day, and try as I might, I could not bring myself to thinkof any danger. I believed that in this way most temerarious deeds are done; thedoer has become insensible to danger, and his imagination is clouded with someengrossing purpose. The first sentries received us gloomily enough, and closedbehind us as they had done when Machudi’s men haled me thither. Then the jobbecame eerie, for we had to walk across a green flat with thousands of eyeswatching us. By-and-by we came to the merula tree opposite the kyas, and therewe found a ring of chiefs, sitting with cocked rifles on their knees.

We were armed with pistols, and the first thing Arcoll did was to hand them toone of the chiefs. “We come in peace,” he said. “We give you our lives.”

Then the indaba began, Arcoll leading off. It was a fine speech he made, one ofthe finest I have ever listened to. He asked them what their grievances were;he told them how mighty was the power of the white man; he promised that whatwas unjust should be remedied, if only they would speak honestly andpeacefully; he harped on their old legends and songs, claiming for the king ofEngland the right of their old monarchs. It was a fine speech, and yet I sawthat it did not convince them. They listened moodily, if attentively, and atthe end there was a blank silence.

Arcoll turned to me. “For God’s sake, Davie,” he said, “talk to them aboutLaputa. It’s our only chance.”

I had never tried speaking before, and though I talked their tongue I had notArcoll’s gift of it. But I felt that a great cause was at stake, and I spoke upas best I could.

I began by saying that Inkulu had been my friend, and that at Umvelos’ beforethe rising he had tried to save my life. At the mention of the name I saw eyesbrighten. At last the audience was hanging on my words. I told them ofHenriques and his treachery. I told them frankly and fairly of the doings atDupree’s Drift. I made no secret of the part I played. “I was fighting for mylife,” I said. “Any man of you who is a man would have done the like.”

Then I told them of my last ride, and the sight I saw at the foot of theRooirand. I drew a picture of Henriques lying dead with a broken neck, and theInkulu, wounded to death, creeping into the cave.

In moments of extremity I suppose every man becomes an orator. In that hour andplace I discovered gifts I had never dreamed of. Arcoll told me afterwards thatI had spoken like a man inspired, and by a fortunate chance had hit upon theonly way to move my hearers. I told of that last scene in the cave, when Laputahad broken down the bridge, and had spoken his dying words—that he was the lastking in Africa, and that without him the rising was at an end. Then I told ofhis leap into the river, and a great sigh went up from the ranks about Me.

“You see me here,” I said, “by the grace of God. I found a way up the fall andthe cliffs which no man has ever travelled before or will travel again. Yourking is dead. He was a great king, as I who stand here bear witness, and youwill never more see his like. His last words were that the Rising was over.Respect that word, my brothers. We come to you not in war but in peace, tooffer a free pardon, and the redress of your wrongs. If you fight you fightwith the certainty of failure, and against the wish of the heir of John. I havecome here at the risk of my life to tell you his commands. His spirit approvesmy mission. Think well before you defy the mandate of the Snake, and risk thevengeance of the Terrible Ones.”

After that I knew that we had won. The chiefs talked among themselves in lowwhispers, casting strange looks at me. Then the greatest of them advanced andlaid his rifle at my feet.

“We believe the word of a brave man,” he said. “We accept the mandate of theSnake.”

Arcoll now took command. He arranged for the disarmament bit by bit, companiesof men being marched off from Inanda’s Kraal to stations on the plateau wheretheir arms were collected by our troops, and food provided for them. For thefull history I refer the reader to Mr Upton’s work. It took many days, andtaxed all our resources, but by the end of a week we had the whole of Laputa’sarmy in separate stations, under guard, disarmed, and awaiting repatriation.

Then Arcoll went south to the war which was to rage around the Swaziland andZululand borders for many months, while to Aitken and myself was entrusted thework of settlement. We had inadequate troops at our command, and but for ourprestige and the weight of Laputa’s dead hand there might any moment have beena tragedy. The task took months, for many of the levies came from the farnorth, and the job of feeding troops on a long journey was difficult enough inthe winter season when the energies of the country were occupied with thefighting in the south. Yet it was an experience for which I shall ever begrateful, for it turned me from a rash boy into a serious man. I knew then themeaning of the white man’s duty. He has to take all risks, recking nothing ofhis life or his fortunes, and well content to find his reward in the fulfilmentof his task. That is the difference between white and black, the gift ofresponsibility, the power of being in a little way a king; and so long as weknow this and practise it, we will rule not in Africa alone but wherever thereare dark men who live only for the day and their own bellies. Moreover, thework made me pitiful and kindly. I learned much of the untold grievances of thenatives, and saw something of their strange, twisted reasoning. Before we hadgot Laputa’s army back to their kraals, with food enough to tide them over thespring sowing, Aitken and I had got sounder policy in our heads than you willfind in the towns, where men sit in offices and see the world through a mist ofpapers.

By this time peace was at hand, and I went back to Inanda’s Kraal to look forColin’s grave. It was not a difficult quest, for on the sward in front of themerula tree they had buried him. I found a mason in the Iron Kranz village, andfrom the excellent red stone of the neighbourhood was hewn a square slab withan inscription. It ran thus: “Here lies buried the dog Colin, who was killed indefending D. Crawfurd, his master. To him it was mainly due that the KaffirRising failed.” I leave those who have read my tale to see the justice of thewords.

CHAPTER XXIII
MY UNCLE’S GIFT IS MANY TIMES MULTIPLIED

We got at the treasure by blowing open the turnstile. It was easy enough totrace the spot in the rock where it stood, but the most patient search did notreveal its secret. Accordingly we had recourse to dynamite, and soon laid barethe stone steps, and ascended to the gallery. The chasm was bridged withplanks, and Arcoll and I crossed alone. The cave was as I had left it. Thebloodstains on the floor had grown dark with time, but the ashes of thesacramental fire were still there to remind me of the drama I had borne a partin. When I looked at the way I had escaped my brain grew dizzy at the thoughtof it. I do not think that all the gold on earth would have driven me a secondtime to that awful escalade. As for Arcoll, he could not see its possibility atall.

“Only a madman could have done it,” he said, blinking his eyes at the greenlinn. “Indeed, Davie, I think for about four days you were as mad as they make.It was a fortunate thing, for your madness saved the country.”

With some labour we got the treasure down to the path, and took it under astrong guard to Pietersdorp. The Government were busy with the settling upafter the war, and it took many weeks to have our business disposed of. Atfirst things looked badly for me. The Attorney-General set up a claim to thewhole as spoils of war, since, he argued, it was the war-chest of the enemy wehad conquered. I do not know how the matter would have gone on legal grounds,though I was advised by my lawyers that the claim was a bad one. But the part Ihad played in the whole business, more especially in the visit to Inanda’sKraal, had made me a kind of popular hero, and the Government thought better oftheir first attitude. Besides, Arcoll had great influence, and the whole storyof my doings, which was told privately by him to some of the members of theGovernment, disposed them to be generous. Accordingly they agreed to treat thecontents of the cave as ordinary treasure trove, of which, by the law, one halfwent to the discoverer and one half to the Crown.

This was well enough so far as the gold was concerned, but another difficultyarose about the diamonds; for a large part of these had obviously been stolenby labourers from the mines, and the mining people laid claim to them as stolengoods. I was advised not to dispute this claim, and consequently we had a greatsorting-out of the stones in the presence of the experts of the differentmines. In the end it turned out that identification was not an easy matter, forthe experts quarrelled furiously among themselves. A compromise was at lastcome to, and a division made; and then the diamond companies behaved veryhandsomely, voting me a substantial sum in recognition of my services inrecovering their property. What with this and with my half share of the goldand my share of the unclaimed stones, I found that I had a very considerablefortune. The whole of my stones I sold to De Beers, for if I had placed them onthe open market I should have upset the delicate equipoise of diamond values.When I came finally to cast up my accounts, I found that I had secured afortune of a trifle over a quarter of a million pounds.

The wealth did not dazzle so much as it solemnized me. I had no impulse tospend any part of it in a riot of folly. It had come to me like fairy gold outof the void; it had been bought with men’s blood, almost with my own. I wantedto get away to a quiet place and think, for of late my life had been toocrowded with drama, and there comes a satiety of action as well as of idleness.Above all things I wanted to get home. They gave me a great send-off, and sangsongs, and good fellows shook my hand till it ached. The papers were full ofme, and there was a banquet and speeches. But I could not relish this glory asI ought, for I was like a boy thrown violently out of his bearings. Not till Iwas in the train nearing Cape Town did I recover my equanimity. The burden ofthe past seemed to slip from me suddenly as on the morning when I had climbedthe linn. I saw my life all lying before me; and already I had won success. Ithought of my return to my own country, my first sight of the grey shores ofFife, my visit to Kirkcaple, my meeting with my mother. I was a rich man nowwho could choose his career, and my mother need never again want for comfort.My money seemed pleasant to me, for if men won theirs by brains or industry, Ihad won mine by sterner methods, for I had staked against it my life. I satalone in the railway carriage and cried with pure thankfulness. These werecomforting tears, for they brought me back to my old common-place self.

My last memory of Africa is my meeting with Tam Dyke. I caught sight of him inthe streets of Cape Town, and running after him, clapped him on the shoulder.He stared at me as if he had seen a ghost.

“Is it yourself, Davie?” he cried. “I never looked to see you again in thisworld. I do nothing but read about you in the papers. What for did ye not sendfor me? Here have I been knocking about inside a ship and you have been gettingfamous. They tell me you’re a millionaire, too.”

I had Tam to dinner at my hotel, and later, sitting smoking on the terrace andwatching the flying-ants among the aloes, I told him the better part of thestory I have here written down.

“Man, Davie,” he said at the end, “you’ve had a tremendous time. Here are younot eighteen months away from home, and you’re going back with a fortune. Whatwill you do with it?” I told him that I proposed, to begin with, to finish myeducation at Edinburgh College. At this he roared with laughter.

“That’s a dull ending, anyway. It’s me that should have the money, for I’m fullof imagination. You were aye a prosaic body, Davie.”

“Maybe I am,” I said; “but I am very sure of one thing. If I hadn’t been aprosaic body, I wouldn’t be sitting here to-night.”

Two years later Aitken found the diamond pipe, which he had always believed layin the mountains. Some of the stones in the cave, being unlike any ordinaryAfrican diamonds, confirmed his suspicions and set him on the track. A Kaffirtribe to the north-east of the Rooirand had known of it, but they had neverworked it, but only collected the overspill. The closing down of one of thechief existing mines had created a shortage of diamonds in the world’s markets,and once again the position was the same as when Kimberley began. Accordinglyhe made a great fortune, and to-day the Aitken Proprietary Mine is one of themost famous in the country. But Aitken did more than mine diamonds, for he hadnot forgotten the lesson we had learned together in the work of resettlement.He laid down a big fund for the education and amelioration of the native races,and the first fruit of it was the establishment at Blaauwildebeestefonteinitself of a great native training college. It was no factory for makingmissionaries and black teachers, but an institution for giving the Kaffirs thekind of training which fits them to be good citizens of the state. There youwill find every kind of technical workshop, and the finest experimental farms,where the blacks are taught modern agriculture. They have proved themselves aptpupils, and to-day you will see in the glens of the Berg and in the plainsKaffir tillage which is as scientific as any in Africa. They have created ahuge export trade in tobacco and fruit; the cotton promises well; and there istalk of a new fibre which will do wonders. Also along the river bottoms theindia-rubber business is prospering.

There are playing-fields and baths and reading-rooms and libraries just as in aschool at home. In front of the great hall of the college a statue stands, thefigure of a black man shading his eyes with his hands and looking far over theplains to the Rooirand. On the pedestal it is lettered “Prester John,” but theface is the face of Laputa. So the last of the kings of Africa does not lackhis monument.

Of this institution Mr Wardlaw is the head. He writes to me weekly, for I amone of the governors, as well as an old friend, and from a recent letter I takethis passage:—

“I often cast my mind back to the afternoon when you and I sat on the stoep ofthe schoolhouse, and talked of the Kaffirs and our future. I had about a dozenpupils then, and now I have nearly three thousand; and in place of a tin-roofedshanty and a yard, I have a whole countryside. You laughed at me for mykeenness, Davie, but I’ve seen it justified. I was never a man of war like you,and so I had to bide at home while you and your like were straightening out thetroubles. But when it was all over my job began, for I could do what youcouldn’t do—I was the physician to heal wounds. You mind how nervous I was whenI heard the drums beat. I hear them every evening now, for we have made a rulethat all the Kaffir farms on the Berg sound a kind of curfew. It reminds me ofold times, and tells me that though it is peace nowadays we mean to keep allthe manhood in them that they used to exercise in war. It would do your eyesgood to see the garden we have made out of the Klein Labongo glen. The place isone big orchard with every kind of tropical fruit in it, and the irrigation damis as full of fish as it will hold. Out at Umvelos’ there is a tobacco-factory,and all round Sikitola’s we have square miles of mealie and cotton fields. Theloch on the Rooirand is stocked with Lochleven trout, and we have made abridle-path up to it in a gully east of the one you climbed. You ask aboutMachudi’s. The last time I was there the place was white with sheep, for wehave got the edge of the plateau grazed down, and sheep can get the short bitethere. We have cleaned up all the kraals, and the chiefs are members of ourcounty council, and are as fond of hearing their own voices as an Aberdeenbailie. It’s a queer transformation we have wrought, and when I sit and smokemy pipe in the evening, and look over the plains and then at the big blackstatue you and Aitken set up, I thank the Providence that has guided me so far.I hope and trust that, in the Bible words, ‘the wilderness and the solitaryplace are glad for us.’ At any rate it will not be my fault if they don’t‘blossom as the rose’. Come out and visit us soon, man, and see the work youhad a hand in starting....”

I am thinking seriously of taking Wardlaw’s advice.

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