John Ames, Native Commissioner: A Romance of the Matabele Rising

by Bertram Mitford

  CHAPTER NINE.

  THE SCOURGE--AND AFTER.

  Madula's kraal, in the Sikumbutana, was again in a state of profoundmalcontentment and unrest, and again for much the same reason as before.Then that reason had been the imminent loss of its cattle, now thatloss had become a certainty. The dread scourge had swept over the land,in all its dire unsparingness, and now Madula and his people wereconvened to witness the destruction of their worldly wealth.

  For the edict of the ruling power had gone forth. The animals were tobe destroyed, and that wholesale. Segregated into small herds, theywere carefully watched. With the first case of sickness becomingapparent the whole herd containing it was doomed. And now nearly thewhole of Madula's herds had been declared infected.

  The place appointed for this wholesale slaughter was an open plain somelittle distance from the kraal. About threescore dead oxen lay wherethey had fallen, the nostrils of a few still frothy with the fatalrunning which denoted the fell pestilence. John Ames, grounding hissmoking rifle, turned to talk with Inglefield and another white man, thelatter being one of the Government cattle inspectors. Both thesecarried rifles, too, and behind them was drawn up a troop of nativepolice. In a great semicircle Madula's people squatted around, theircountenances heavy with sullen rankling, their hearts bitter andvengeful. In the mind of the chief the dexterous venom of Shiminya wastaking full effect. The fact of a few cattle being sick was seized uponby their rulers as a pretext for the destruction of all; and what wouldbecome of the people then? In the minds of the people the predictionsof Umlimo were being fulfilled to the letter. Now, however, they couldafford to wait. Soon there would be no more cattle; soon--very soon--there would be no more whites.

  John Ames, laying down his weapon, addressed the muttering, broodingsavages. It was a most revolting task that which had been put upon him,he explained; not one that he would have undertaken of his own freewill. To shoot down miserable unresisting animals in cold blood, oneafter another, could not be otherwise. It would seem to the people thatto destroy the whole as well as the sick was an act of sheer wantontyranny, but they must not look at it in that light. The Government wastheir father, and had their interests at heart; and although it wasfound necessary to reduce them to seeming poverty for the time being,yet they would not be losers in the long run. Then, again, they were inno worse case than the white men themselves, whose cattle was destroyedin the same way if disease broke out; but, above all, they must bepatient, and bear in mind that by right of conquest all the cattle inthe land belonged to the Government, and what they had was only allowedthem by favour. This disease was a cloud they were all passing through,white and black alike. It would pass, and the sun would shine forthagain. Let them be patient.

  John Ames, in the plenitude of his experience, noted the sullen apathywherewith his words were received, yet he attached no greater importanceto it than he reckoned it deserved; he could appreciate the outrage ontheir feelings which this wholesale destruction of their most cherishedpossessions must involve. Then Madula spoke.

  "What Jonemi had told them must be true, since Jonemi said it. But whatthe people could not understand was why Government should have restoredthem their cattle, if only to destroy it all before their eyes; shouldgive it back with one hand to take it away with the other. That did notseem like the fatherly act of a fatherly Government. Nor could theyunderstand why the beasts that were not sick should be shot just thesame as those that were. Let them be spared until the signs of sicknessshowed, then shoot them. Those signs might never show themselves." Andmore to the same effect.

  With infinite patience John Ames laid himself out to explain, for thetwentieth time, all he had said before. It was like reasoning with awall. "Let the people only have patience," he concluded. "Let thepeople have patience."

  "M--m!" hummed his auditors, assenting. "Let the people have patience."

  But there was a significance in their tone which was lost on him then,though afterwards he was destined to grasp it.

  "It's a disgusting business all this butchery," he observed, as he andthe other two white men were riding homeward together. "I don't wonderthe people are exasperated. As Madula says, they'll never understandhow the Government can give them back the cattle with one hand only totake it all away with the other."

  "It strikes me that Mr Madula says a great deal too much," saidInglefield, dropping the bridle on his horse's neck, while shielding amatch with both hands so as to light his pipe. "A little experience ofthe inside of Bulawayo gaol would do him all the good in the world, inmy opinion."

  "You can't work these people that way, Inglefield, as I'm always tellingyou," rejoined John Ames. "You've got to remember that a man likeMadula wants some humouring. He was a bigwig here before either you orI held our commissions in this country, possibly before we had,practically, ever heard of it. Now, for my part, I always try and bearthat in mind when dealing with the old-time indunas, and I'm confidentit pays."

  "Oh, you go on the coddling plan," was the thoughtless retort. "For mypart--well--a nigger's a nigger, whether he's an induna or whether heisn't, and he ought to be taught to respect white men. I wouldn't makeany difference whatever he was. An induna! Faugh! A dirty snuffynigger with a greasy black curtain ring stuck on top of his head. Pooh!Fancy treating such a brute as that with respect!"

  "All right, Inglefield. I don't in the least agree with you. Perhapswhen you've had a little experience you may be in a position to form anopinion as to which of our lines is the most workable one."

  "Oh, draw it mild, Ames," retorted the police officer, ill-humouredly."It doesn't follow that because a fellow can patter by the hour to a lotof niggers that he knows everything. I say, old chap, why don't youchip in for some of old Madula's daughters--marry 'em, don't you know?He has some spanking fine ones, anyway."

  The tone was ill-tempered and sneering to the last degree. Inglefieldcould be bumptious and quarrelsome at times, but he had a poor life ofit, with a detestable wife, and an appointment of no great emolument,nor holding out any particular prospect of advancement. All of whichbearing in mind, John Ames controlled his not unnatural resentment, andanswered equably:--

  "Because I hope to make a better thing of life, Inglefield. But thatsort of thing is rather apt to stick to a man, and crop up just whenleast convenient. I'm no prig or puritan, so putting it on that groundalone, it's better not touched."

  "Oh, all right, old chap; only don't be so beastly satirical. I can'thelp grousing like the devil at times when I think how I'm stuck awayhere in this infernal God-forsaken hole. Wish I could fall into a bunkat Bulawayo or Salisbury or anywhere. Even Crosse here has a bettertime of it going around sniffing out rinderpest."

  "Don't know about that," said the cattle inspector. "I'll swap youbunks, anyway, Inglefield."

  "Wish we could, that's all," replied the police officer, who was in adecidedly "grousy" vein, as he owned himself, half petulantly, halflaughingly, when presently the conical huts of Sikumbutana hove in sightover the brow of the rise. "Well, now, Ames, you'll roll up to `skoff'at seven, won't you, unless you'll change your mind and come in now?"

  "I'll roll up all right. But not now, I've got some work on hand, andit's early yet."

  "Very well. Seven, then. Don't go sending over some tinpot excuse, youunreliable beggar."

  "No; I'll be there. So long. So long, Crosse." And he turned hishorse's head into the track that led to his own compound. "Rum chapthat fellow Ames," said Inglefield, when he and the cattle inspectorwere alone together. "He's a rattling good chap at bottom, and we arereally great pals, but we fight like the devil whenever we have to dowith each other officially."

  "How's that?" said Crosse, a quiet, self-contained man, with a largesandy beard and steady, reliable eyes.

  "Oh, I don't know. He's so beastly officious--he calls itconscientious. Always prating about `conscientious discharge of hisduties'--`can't conscientiously do it'--and so on. You know.
Now, onlythe other day--or, rather, just before he went on leave--he must needsget my pet sergeant reduced--a fellow worth his weight in gold to me asa hunter. Now, of course, the chap has turned sulky, and swears he's nogood--can't tell where game is or is likely to be, or anything."

  "So. How did he get him reduced?"

  "Oh, some rotten bother with that old nigger who was out to-day, Madula.Nanzicele--Oh, blazes! I can't manage these infernal clicks."

  "Never mind; you'll learn some day," said Crosse. "Well, what didNanzicele do?"

  "Nothing. That's the point of the whole joke. He was sent to collarsome cattle from Madula, and he--didn't collar it."

  "And is that why he was reduced?"

  "No fear. It was for _trying_ to collar it. The niggers came in andcomplained to Ames, and Ames insisted on an inquiry. He took two mortaldays over it, too; a rotten trumpery affair that ought to have been letrip. Then a lot of darn red tape, and my sergeant was reduced. No;Ames always pampers the niggers, and some day he'll find out hismistake. If they come around--especially these indunas--he talks tothem as if they were somebody. _I'd_ sjambok them out of the compound."

  Crosse, listening, was chuckling to himself, for he knew whose judgmentwas likely to be the soundest, that of the speaker or that of Ames.Then he said:--

  "And this Nanzicele--is he that big tall Kafir who was nearest us, onthe outside of the line, during the cattle-shooting?"

  "Yes; that's the chap. By George! he's a splendid chap, as plucky asthe very devil. Many a time I've had him out with me, and he'd gothrough anything. He was with me once when I missed a charging lion outbeyond Inyati. _He_ didn't miss him, though--not much. I'd trust mylife to that fellow any day in the week."

  "Trust your life to him, would you?"

  "Yes. Rather."

  "M--m!"

  "Yes, I would. You don't know the chap, Crosse. I do. See?"

  "'M--yes."

  The while, John Ames, having turned his horse over to his boy, enteredhis office. There was not much to do that day, as it happened, so afterspending half an hour looking over some papers, he locked up for theday, and adjourned to the hut which served him for sitting and diningroom combined, in which we have already seen him.

  He threw himself into a chair and lighted a pipe. There was an absent,thoughtful look in his eyes, which had been there ever since he foundhimself alone; wherefore it is hardly surprising that in lieu of seekingsolace in literature, he should have sat, to all outward appearances,doing nothing. In reality, he was thinking--thinking hard and deeply.

  A month had gone by since his unexpected and most unwelcome recall; butunwelcome as it had been, he could not quarrel with it on the ground ofits superfluity. Times had been lively since his return--more thanlively--but not in an exhilarating sense. The rinderpest had taken firmroot in the land, and was in a fair way of clearing it of horned cattlefrom end to end. Not at domestic cattle did it stay its ravages either.The wild game went down before its fell breath; every variety ofstately and beautiful antelope, formerly preserved with judicious carebeneath the rule of the barbarian king, underwent decimation. But itwas in the mowing down of the cattle that the serious side of thescourge came, because, apart from the actual loss to the white settlers,the enforced destruction of the native stock rendered the savages bothdesperate and dangerous. Already rumours of rising were in the air.The sullen, brooding demeanour exhibited by Madula's people was but asample of the whole.

  To the perilous side of the position, as regarded himself individually,John Ames was not blind. He was far too experienced for that. And hisposition was full of peril. Apart from a rising, he was marked out asthe actual agent in executing the most hateful law ever forced upon aconquered people. His was the hand by which actually perished itsanimal wealth. Every bullock or heifer shot down sent a pang of fiercevindictiveness through more than one savage heart. In blind, barbaricreasoning, what more plausible than that to destroy the instrument wouldbe to render inoperative the cause which set that instrument in motion?A blow from behind, a sudden stab, in the desperate impulse of themoment--what more likely?

  Not of peril, present or potential, however, was he thinking, as he satthere alone, but of the change, absorbing and entire, which had comeover his life since returning from his all too brief furlough. He hadleft, cool, well-balanced, even-minded; he had returned, so far as hisinner moments were concerned, in a trance, a state of absorption. Itwas wonderful. He hardly recognised himself. But what a new gladsunshine was now irradiating his lonely life. The recollection! Why,he could sit for hours going over it all again. Not again only, butagain and again. Everything, from the first accidental meeting to thatlast bright and golden day by an enchanted sea--to the last farewell.Every word, every tone was recalled and weighed. Ah, he had not knownwhat it was to live before! He had grovelled like a blind grub in thedust and darkness--now he was soaring in arrowy gleams upon wings oflight. But--no words had been uttered, no promises exchanged. Whatmatter? If at times of physical depression he felt misgivings he putthem from him.

  True to her promise, Nidia had written--once--and with that letter hehad had no cause to find fault. She had even sent him a dainty littleportrait of herself, the only one she had, she explained; but where thatwas habitually kept we decline to say, "We shall meet again," she haddeclared. Yet if that utterance were to be unfulfilled, if indeed thisdream were to fade, to go the way of too many such dreams, and to end ina drear awakening, even then was it not something to have lived in thedream, to have looked upon life as so new and golden and altogetherpriceless? With such considerations would he comfort himself in momentsof depression.

  "We shall meet again."

  Often he would picture to himself that meeting. There would be otherspresent most probably, but she, in his sight, would be alone. She wouldbe surrounded by adorers, of course, but as her eyes met his she wouldknow there was in reality but one. In all the adjuncts to her sereneloveliness which taste and daintiness could surround her with, she wouldstand before him. Such would be their meeting, and upon it he dwelt;and to it his imagination reached through space, as to the culminatingecstasy of the goal of a life attained.

  From such soarings, however, comes a descent, as abrupt as it isprofound, in this hard work-a-day world. John Ames sat bolt uprightwith a start of dismay, for the clock opposite told its own tale. Hismusings had carried him over some hours. It was nearly dark, and he wasdue--almost overdue--at Inglefield's.