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

by Bertram Mitford

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

  ...AND THE ODD TRICK.

  John Ames stared at this communication till his eyes were dizzy, and awild rush of joy surged through his being. Its genuineness he could notdoubt. The bank paper, the bank seal--even the signature of the letterhe knew by name. Now he was no longer a penniless nobody, but thepossessor of what was really a small fortune. Why, indeed, should anyfalse pride stand in the way of his acceptance of it? People receivedbequests, even from unknown testators--received them thankfully; whyshould not he? The testator was living, yet practically dead to hiskind. Again, there was a sort of appeal in the very wording of thisstrange communication. Why should he wreck his life's happiness uponany rock of false pride? He could now press his suit upon, at any rate,independent terms.

  Then, to dash his exultation, in came that ugly thought again. Could itreally be that that odious woman was deputed by Nidia? Horrible! Whatwas this sudden access to competence in such a case? "A brilliantfuture mapped out for her." Even now, under his changed fortunes, suchwas not within his reach to offer her. John Ames was a proud man and asensitive one. Could it be that his ideal had stopped down from herpedestal? Then, by a comic twist of thought, came back thatconversation down by the blue sea at Camp's Bay. This pedestal to let!Yes, it was comical.

  But again, by another twist of thought, came back that day in all itsidyllic aspects; in all the golden glow of love and faith, and vague,indefinable hope. Came back also that parting in the solitudes of agrim wilderness, that pressure of the hands, that last long look intothe eyes. Surely there was truth; there, far from artificialrestraints, was the soul laid bare. John Ames became sane again.

  Yet it was in no great exaltation of mind that he wended his way, acouple of days later, to the dwelling occupied by Mrs Bateman. He haddeclared he would enter it no more, but now, under the circumstances, hewould do so once. He would be firm and decided, too, in the attainmentof his object, and that was to see Nidia alone. He would take nodenial.

  This time, however, he was spared the necessity of further conflict.Nidia was there to welcome him, and she was alone. She looked at himsearchingly, and her eyes were grave.

  "What is the matter?" she said. "You are looking careworn and anxious.Why?"

  "Am I? Oh, it's nothing. Some active service will soon send thataway."

  "Active service?"

  "Yes. I'm going to volunteer."

  "Haven't you had enough of that yet?"

  "I haven't had any. My active service up till now has been strictlyconfined to running away, and uncommonly `active' service it has been,let me assure you."

  "Running away?" she repeated. "Yes; it is the sort of running away thatone has a particular admiration for. Running away on foot, forinstance, with about a thousand savages a hundred yards behind, so thata wounded comrade may ride away on one's horse."

  He flushed. That wretched Shackleton had been firing off that staleyarn here too. Of course, it would look as though he himself hadinspired it.

  "Don't look annoyed," said Nidia, softly; "because I haven't half done.`Running away,' too, in order to take care of a certain helplessfugitive belonging to the helpless sex, who would otherwise certainlyhave been murdered, or certainly have come to some miserable end a dozentimes over, is another kind of flight which appeals."

  "Oh, for Heaven's sake leave that part of it! It was no thanks to meand my blundering asinine stupidity that you came in safe at all."

  "No. But, you see, I happen to hold a different opinion. And now,John, I have a little sore grievance against you, and I want to work itoff. We don't see much of you now. Why not?"

  "Well, `_we_' don't want to. Do you happen to know that only a coupleof days ago I was requested not to come here any more?"

  "Do I happen to know? Why, of course I don't. This is the first I'veheard of it," answered Nidia, speaking quickly and with someindignation. "I did not even know you had been here a couple of daysago. I only know how I have missed you since."

  "It is hardly fair, though, to give that as a reason. There may beothers. One is, perhaps, that I thought you might have too much of anot very good thing; that you might have had enough of me during all thetime we were together, and change is congenial sometimes. Again,perhaps, it is that I have not been feeling particularly cheerful oflate, and feared to inflict it upon you."

  Nidia's face, which at first had taken on a hurt look, now grew verysoft.

  "What have you been troubled about? Can you not tell me? _Me_,remember?"

  The very tone was a caress. But somehow it recalled the abominable hintthrown out by Mrs Bateman that very morning--the imputation that hadstung and insulted him to the very core of his finest feelings--and therecollection hardened him.

  "Whatever I have been troubled about will trouble me as long as lifeitself," he answered, looking her in the eyes full and straight. "But Idid not come here to whine to you, trouble or not. I came to saygood-bye."

  "Good-bye?"

  "Yes. I have volunteered for active service, and am under orders to bein readiness to take the field at a moment's notice."

  "Then you may consider those orders cancelled. You are under orders toremain where you are until further notice."

  "What?" he said, looking down at her where she stood, for he had risenpreparatory to taking his leave. "To remain where I am? What do youmean, Nidia?"

  "I mean that you can't go, and I don't intend that you shall. Heavens,what do you want to go getting yourself killed for? Wasn't it badenough when you nearly did--when I--when we--all thought you were? Youhave got to stay here and take care of me."

  What was this? Nidia's self-possession breaking down so signally? Werehis eyes and ears utterly deceiving him? There was what soundedsuspiciously like the catch of a sob in her voice, and in her eyes thatsame look of appeal, of wistfulness, he had seen there when they badeeach other that last farewell in the wilds of the Matopos. His faceflushed beneath its bronze, then went white; but his voice was firm asever as he imprisoned her with his arms.

  "To take care of you? Then I must do so for life, Nidia."

  "Yes; I think you had better, as you know how to do it so well," shereplied, raising her lips.

  It was their first kiss; but it was even as the welding of two souls.It was their first kiss, but for a very brief space the only one. Withno further necessity for self-containment, John Ames seemed to pourforth his whole soul, his whole nature, in adoration of this girl, thefirst sight of whom had turned the whole current of his thoughts andinner life. All of this Nidia learned, and was infinitely, radiantlyhappy.

  "Shall I tell you something--darling?" she said. "Strange as it maysound, I have never loved anybody before--have never felt the slightestinclination to. But when I saw you, I knew the possibility was there.You were--are--so different to everybody else. I missed you sofrightfully when you left to come up here. There, I never told you thatbefore. And all the time we were out together in the mountains I lovedbeing with you--felt so safe with you, somehow, and--Oh!"

  The last ejaculation was evoked by the appearance of a third party onthe scene. In the doorway stood Mrs Bateman, speechless, herhigh-featured countenance livid with amazement, rage, and baffled spite.

  "Come here, Susie, and say, `Bless you, my children,'" called out Nidia,a lovely blush coming over her face, as she realised the very nearpropinquity in which she stood to the other occupant of the room, who,for his part, said nothing.

  But there came no answer. The other turned and walked away in silence.She had thrown her king and her ace, but the odd trick remained, andthis John Ames held.

  Shiminya, the sorcerer, was seated in his _muti_ kraal on the Umgwaneriver, but he was not alone. With him sat Nanzicele, ex-sergeant of thenative police.

  From the tone of their voices they seemed not on very good terms. Notto put too fine a point upon it, they were quarrelling.

  Now, the cause of the difference lay in the f
act that Nanzicele aspiredto join the ranks of the Abantwana 'Mlimo. Shiminya, on the other hand,was resolved that the hierarchy of the Great Abstraction would be betterwithout him, and was breaking this resolve as gently as might be.

  But Nanzicele had been drinking. He had obtained some gin among certainoverlooked loot of a sacked store, and Nanzicele, foiled in his objects,and half drunk, was a very unpleasant customer indeed, not to say asufficiently formidable one.

  Now he was raising his voice threateningly, jeering Shiminya, and morethan hinting that he was a rank impostor--he and all his cloth. Theseer's snake-like eyes sparkled with vindictive hate, for he was no morefond of being reviled and insulted than other and commoner mortals.

  Another consideration actuating this precious pair was that each was ina position to give the other away. Both knew that the result of therising was but a question of time, and each had an idea that he mightpurchase safety at the expense of the other.

  A large bowl of _tywala_ was on the ground between them. Suddenly, asShiminya stooped to raise this, his confederate whirled up his stick,intending to bring it down upon the sorcerer's head in such wise thatthe Umlimo would be without one of his most valuable myrmidons. But themove was not quick enough. The blow, instead of shattering skull, camedown on shoulder, with numbing, crushing effect. Lithe as an eel,Shiminya twisted, and sprang to his feet. At him sprang Nanzicele. Thesorcerer had no weapon to hand. The big Matabele, pressing him hardagainst the thorn fence, had him at his mercy.

  Not quite. As the second blow descended, something entered Nanzicele'sside, sharp, fiery, scathing. Then Shiminya fell, his limbs squirmingin spasmodic quiver, and from his relaxed grasp there fell a smallknife. This Nanzicele pushed aside with his foot, uttering acontemptuous grunt.

  "_Au_! That does not kill," he growled, surveying his ribs, whence theblood flowed freely, but from a mere flesh-wound. Then shifting hisknobstick into his left hand, the vengeful savage seized a broad-bladedassegai, and plunged it into the vitals of his prostrate confederate.

  "Yeh-bo!" he cried. "Fare thee well, Shiminya. The Umtwana 'Mlimo canbleed as well as an ordinary man--can die! _Hlala-gahle Umtwana'Mlimo_!"

  The body of the sorcerer lay motionless. Gazing upon it for a moment,Nanzicele turned away to the huts. There was plunder there, plenty ofit, and for some little while he turned his attention thitherward,finding and appropriating to his own use a good many things of vastvalue in his eyes, arms and ammunition, wearing apparel, tobacco, andwhat not. But as he opened one of the huts there darted out against hislegs something grey and hairy and snarling, nearly upsetting him withthe shock and the scare. Before he had recovered from his startledsurprise the thing had vanished and now Nanzicele deemed it time to dolikewise.

  The sun's rays grew longer and longer, throwing shadows over theill-omened abode of dark dealings, and the motionless body that laythere. Then the body was motionless no longer. The limbs moved; nextthe head was raised, but feebly. Shiminya sat up.

  "Ah, ah! The Umtwana 'Mlimo is not so easy to kill, Nanzicele; andthou--for this thou shalt die a thousand deaths," he murmured.

  He reached over for the _tywala_ bowl, but it had been upset in thescuffle and was empty. Parched with a feverish and burning thirst, thesorcerer dragged himself on hands and knees to the hut wherein he knewthere was more of the liquor. He reached it at length, trailing broadsplashes of blood behind him. Creeping within, he found the greatcalabash. It was empty. Nanzicele had drained it.

  In a tremble of exhaustion Shiminya sank to the ground. The cold dewsof death were upon his face. The awful coldness throughout his frame,the result of a prodigious loss of blood, became an agony. Air! Agreat craving for air was upon him. His brain reeled, and his lungsgasped. He felt as though he could no longer move.

  Then the door was darkened, and something brushed in. With a superhumaneffort he collected his energies.

  "Hamba, Lupiswana!" he gurgled. "Hamba-ke!"

  But the brute took no notice of the voice before which it was wont tocower and tremble. It crouched, snarling. Then it put its head downand licked the blood-gouts which had fallen upon the ground from theveins of its evil master.

  The latter began to experience some of the agonies he had delighted towitness in his victims. The savage beast had tasted blood--his blood.And he himself was too weak to have resisted the onslaught of a rat.

  Again he called, trying to infuse strength into his voice. But thecrafty beast knew his state exactly, it had learnt to gauge helplessnessin the case of too many other victims, perhaps. It only crawled alittle nearer, still growling.

  For a while they lay thus, man and beast, mutually eyeing each other.The eyes of the former were becoming glazed with the agony of utterweakness but active apprehension. Those of the latter glared yellow andbaleful in the semi-gloom of the hut. It was a horrid sight.

  "Hamba, Lupiswana!" repeated the sorcerer, instinctively groping for aweapon. But with a shrill snarl the brute was at his throat, tearingand worrying, and, although a small animal, so furious was its frenzyover this new and copious feast of blood, that it shook the light formof the wizard, almost as it would have done that of a newly droppedfawn. And then in the semi-gloom was the horrible spectacle of a manwith his throat half torn out, feebly battling with the enraged furiousbeast covered with blood and uttering its guttural snarls, as it toreand clawed at his already lacerated vitals. But the struggle did notlast. The grim "familiar spirit" had triumphed over its evil master.Shiminya the sorcerer lay dead in his _muti_ kraal, and the horriblebrute lay growling and snarling as it gorged itself to repletion uponhis mangled body.

  And Nanzicele? Exultant, yet somewhat fearing, he decamped with hisbooty; but he did not get far. A dizziness and griping pain was uponhim, and he sank down in the river-bed, by a water-hole. What was it?His wound was slight. Ha! The knife! Yes. A greenish froth was onthe surface of his wound. The knife was poisoned.

  His agonies now were hardly less than those of his slayer, and histhirst became intense. Crawling to a water-hole, he staggered over itto drink, then drew back appalled. He could not drink there, at anyrate. It was the very hole into which he had helped throw theunfortunate girl Nompiza. Her decomposing lineaments seemed to glowerat him from the surface of the water as he bent over to drink. With araucous yell he flung himself back, and then, in a paroxysm of agonisedconvulsions, the rebel and treacherous murderer yielded up the ghost.

  He too, you see, had thought to hold the trump card over hisconfederate, but it was the latter who held the odd trick. Yet betterfor both, swifter and more merciful, would have been the noosed rope ofthe white man's justice than the end which had overtaken them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY.

  CONCLUSION.

  Golden August--a sky of cloudless blue softening into the autumn hazewhich dims the horizon; golden August, with the whirr of thereaping-machine, as the yellow wheat falls to the harvest, blending withthe cooing of wood-pigeons among the leafy shades of the park; goldenAugust, with its still, rich atmosphere, and roll of green champaign andvelvety coppice, and honeysuckle-twined hedgerow, and dappled kinestanding knee-deep in shaded pond; in short, golden August in one of thefairest scenes of fair England.

  Here and there red roofs clustering around a grey church tower, whosesparkling vane flashes in the sun; here and there a solitary thatch. Infront a lovely sward stretching down to a sunken fence, and a gap,revealing the charming vista of landscape beyond--such is the outlookfrom the library window of the beautiful and sumptuous home into whichwe will take a brief and only peep, for it has been for some years pastNidia's home, and is the property of her father. _Has_ been? we said.That it should continue to be so, forms, as it happens, thesubject-matter of the very conversation going on at that moment betweenthem.

  Nidia herself seems in no wise to have altered; indeed, why should she,unless to grow more charming, more alluring than before, that being theonly alteration happiness is potent to e
ffect? For on the third fingerof her left hand a plain gold ring of suspicious newness proclaims thatshe is Nidia Commerell no longer. The other party to the conversationis her father.

  "It is really good of you, child," the latter is saying, "to come backso soon to your old father, left all alone. Not many would have doneit--at any rate, at such a time as this. But I don't want to beselfish. You had been away from me so long, and had been so near--well,being away altogether it would have been, I suppose, but for that finefellow, John Ames--that--well, I did want to see my little girl againfor a few days before she started on her travels, not in an infernalsavage-ridden country this time, thank God!"

  "Of course I wanted to see you again, dear--and just as much as you didme," returned Nidia, meaning it, too. "But even the `infernalsavage-ridden country' has its bright side."

  "Meaning John Ames," said the old gentleman, with a laugh.

  In aspect Mr Commerell was of about medium height, scrupulously neat inhis attire. He wore a short white beard, and had very refined features;and looking into his eyes, it was easy to see whence Nidia had got hers.In manner he was very straight to the point and downright, but it wasnot the downrightness which in nineteen cases out of twenty degeneratesinto mere brusquerie. He and John Ames had taken to each otherwonderfully, and the old gentleman had already begun to look upon hisson-in-law as his own son.

  "What I have got to say, child, is this," he went on; "and mind you, Idon't much like saying it. However, here it is. When you have doneyour round on the Continent, why not come back here and make this yourhome? I know the old argument against relations-in-law in the samehouse and all that, but here it's different. You should both be as freeas air as far as I am concerned. You know I am not of the interferingsort--indeed, you could have your own set of apartments, for the matterof that. But when I bought this property to retire to in my old age, itwas with an eye to some such contingency, and--um--well, it could nothave befallen better. Well, what I was coming to is that it is a largeproperty and wants some looking after, and John will find plenty to doin looking after it. He will have to look after it for himself and youwhen my time is up, so may as well begin now."

  But Nidia took the old man's face between her hands as he sat, andstopped his utterance with a very loving kiss.

  "Father, darling, don't say any more about relations-in-law andinterfering, and all that--bosh. Yes, bosh. _You_ interfering, indeed!And for the matter of that, I know that John is awfully fond of you;you get on splendidly together. Of course we will come back and takecare of you, and we'll all be as happy together as the day is long."

  "God bless you, Nidia, child! Hallo! here he comes."

  "Who?" asked Nidia, with a ripple of mirth over the inconsequence of theremark--which certainly was funny.

  "John, of course. He is a fine fellow, Nidia. Didn't know they growmen like that in those parts"--with a very approving gaze at theadvancing figure of his son-in-law, who, strolling along the terrace,was drinking in the lovely panorama of fair English landscape,contrasting it, perchance, with certain weird regions of granite boulderand tumbled rock and impenetrable thorn thicket. And here it may benoted that, her present happiness notwithstanding, Nidia had by no meansforgotten her sad and terrible experiences, and there were times whenshe would start up in her sleep wild-eyed and with a scream of horror,as she saw once more the mutilated corpses of the murdered settler'sfamily, or found herself alone in the shaggy wilds of the Matopos. Butthe awakening more than made up for the reminiscence. She was young,and of sound and buoyant Constitution, and the grim and ghastlyrecollection of appalling sights and peril passed through wouldeventually fade.

  "Am I interrupting you?" said John Ames, as at his entrance the twolooked up. "Nidia was going to stroll down to the bridge with me, MrCommerell; but if you want her, why, I shall have to keep myselfcompany."

  "Considerate, as few of them are or would be under the circumstances,"thought the old gentleman to himself. But aloud he said, "No--no. It'sall right. We've done our talk, John. You'd better take her with you,and she can tell you what it has all been about. Besides, I have somebusiness to attend to."

  He watched them strolling along the terrace together, and a strangejoyful peace was around the old man's heart.

  "God bless them!" he murmured to himself--his spectacles, perhaps, atrifle dim. "They are a well matched pair, and surely this is aHeaven-made union if such a thing exists. God bless them, and send themevery happiness!"

  And here we take leave to join in the above aspiration; for althoughourselves no believers in the old-fashioned "lived-happy-ever-after"theory, holding that about nineteen such cases out of twenty, putting itat a modest proportion, are, in actual fact, but sparsely hedged aroundwith the a "happy" qualification, yet here we think it possible that thetwentieth case may be found, if only that all the circumstancesattendant upon it go to make for that desirable end.

  The End.