Chapter Twenty Seven.
The Dive of the Water Rat
We stood there – we four – gazing into each other’s livid faces. Then the Major broke down. Sinking to the ground he covered his face with his hands and sobbed. I broke fiercely away. I could not stand for a moment doing nothing, so I set to work to go right round the pool and see if I could find any further trace. But the search was a vain one.
“The next thing is, what are we going to do?” said Falkner when we had rejoined them. “We don’t propose to spend the rest of the day staring at each other like stuck pigs, I take it?”
“We ought to drag the hole,” I said, “but we haven’t got the necessary appliances, nor even a draw net. Can any of you think of some expedient?”
“We might get a long pole, and splice a couple of meat-hooks to the end somehow,” said Falkner, “and probe about with that. Only, the cursed hole is about a mile too deep for the longest pole to get anywhere near the bottom in the middle.”
“Amakosi!”
We started at the interruption. So intent had we been that not one of us had been aware of the approach of a fifth – and he a native.
“Ha, Ivondwe!” I cried, recognising him. “What knowest thou of this, for I think thou couldst not have been far from this place at sundown yesterday?”
He answered in English.
“Do the Amakosi think the young missis has got into the water?”
“They do,” I said, still keeping to the vernacular. “Now, Water Rat, prove worthy of thy name. Dive down, explore yon water to its furthest depths for her we seek. Then shall thy reward be great.”
“That will I do, Iqalaqala,” he answered – greatly to my surprise I own, for I had been mocking him by reason of his name.
“And the snake?” I said. “The snake that dwells in the pool. Dost thou not fear it?”
I had been keenly watching his face, and the wonder that came into it looked genuine.
“Why as to that,” he answered, “and if there be a snake yet I fear it not. I will go.”
He stood looking down upon the water for a moment; he needed to lose no time in undressing, for save for his mútya he was unclad. Now he picked up two large stones and holding one in each hand, he poised himself at a point about ten feet above the surface. Then he dived.
Down he went – straight down – and the water closed over him. We stood staring at the widening circles, but could see nothing beneath the surface. Then it suddenly dawned upon us that he had been under water an abnormally long time.
“He’ll never come up again now,” declared Falkner. “No man living could stick under water all that time,” he went on after a wait that seemed like an hour to us. “The beast has either got hold of him, or he’s got stuck somehow and drowned. Oh good Lord!”
For a black head shot up on the further side of the hole, and a couple of strokes bringing it and its owner to the brink, he proceeded calmly to climb out, showing no sign of any undue strain upon his powers of endurance.
“Thou art indeed well named, Ivondwe,” I said. “We thought the snake had got thee.”
“Snake? I saw no snake,” he answered. “But I will go down again. There is still one part which I left unsearched.”
He sat for a moment, then picked up two stones as before. He walked round to an even higher point above the water, and this time dived obliquely.
“By Jove, he must have come to grief now,” said Falkner. “Why he’s been a much longer time down.”
As we waited and still Ivondwe did not reappear, the rest of us began to think that Falkner was right. It seemed incredible that any man could remain under so long unless artificially supplied with air. Then just as we had given him up Ivondwe rose to the surface as before.
This time he was panting somewhat, as well he might. “There is no one down there,” he began, as soon as he had recovered breath.
“No one?”
“No one. All round the bottom did I go – and there was no one. Au! it is fearsome down there in the gloom and the silence, and the great eels gliding about like snakes. But she whom you seek must be found elsewhere. Not under that water is she.”
Was he going on the native principle of telling you what you would most like to know? I wondered. Then Falkner began kicking off his boots.
“Here goes for a search on my own account,” he said. “Coming, Glanton? If there’s nothing to hurt him, there’s nothing to hurt us. We’ll try his dodge of holding a couple of stones. We’ll get down further that way.”
Ivondwe shook his head.
“You will not get down at all,” he said, in English.
“I’ll have a try at any rate. Come along, Glanton.”
I am at home in the water but not for any time under it. Half the time spent by Ivondwe down there would have been enough to drown me several times over. However I would make the attempt.
The result was even as I expected. With all the will in the world I had not the power, and so far from getting to the bottom, I was forced to return to the surface almost immediately. Falkner fared not much better.
“It must be an awful depth,” he said. “I couldn’t even touch bottom, and I’m no slouch in the diving line.”
“Where ought we to search, Ivondwe?” I said in the vernacular, “for so far there is no more trace than that left by a bird in the air? It will mean large reward to any who should help to find her – yes, many cattle.”
“Would that I might win such,” he answered. Then pointing with his stick, “Lo, the Amapolise.”
Our horses began to snort and neigh, as the police patrol rode up. I recognised my former acquaintance, Sergeant Simcox, but the inspector in command of the troop was along.
“I’ve just come from your house, Major Sewin,” he said after a few words of sympathy, “and I left a couple of men there, so you need be under no apprehension by reason of your ladies being alone. Now have you lighted upon any fresh clue?”
“Eh? What? Clue?” echoed the old man dazedly. “No.”
So I took up the parable, telling how I had found spoor leading to the waterhole and that here it had stopped. I pointed out where the ground had been smoothed over as though to erase the traces of a struggle.
“Now,” I concluded, “if you will come a little apart with me, I’ll tell you something that seems to bolster up my theory with a vengeance.”
He looked at me somewhat strangely, I thought. But he agreed, and I put him in possession of the facts about Ukozi in his relations with Major Sewin, and how Aïda had consulted me about them during my absence in Zululand, bringing the story down to that last startling scene here on this very spot three nights ago.
“Well you ought to know something about native superstitions, Mr Glanton,” he said. “Yet this seems a strange one, and utterly without motive to boot.”
“I know enough about native superstitions to know that I know nothing,” I answered. “I know this, that those exist which are not so much as suspected by white men, and produce actions which, as you say, seem utterly without motive.”
“If we could only lay claw on this witch doctor,” he said, thoughtfully.
“Yes indeed. But he’ll take uncommonly good care that we can’t.”
“Meanwhile I propose to arrest this boy on suspicion, for I find that he couldn’t have been very far from where Miss Sewin was last seen, at the time.”
“Ivondwe?”
“That’s his name. It may only be a coincidence mind – but you remember old Hensley’s disappearance?”
“Rather.”
“Well this Ivondwe was temporarily doing some cattle herding for Hensley at the time, filling another man’s place. It certainly is a coincidence that another mysterious disappearance should take place, and he right at hand again.”
“It certainly is,” I agreed. “But Ivondwe has been here for months, and I’ve known him for years. There isn’t a native I’ve a higher opinion of.”
“For all that I’m going to arrest him. It can do no harm and may do a great deal of good. But first I’ll ask him a few questions.”
Inspector Manvers was colonial born and could speak the native language fluently. I warned him of Ivondwe’s acquaintance with English in case he should say anything in an aside to me.
To every question, Ivondwe answered without hesitation. He had been looking after the cattle, yonder, over the rise, at the time, much too far off to have heard or seen anything. Had he been near, the dog would have kept him off. The dog was always unfriendly towards him.
“Where is Ukozi?” asked the inspector. The question was met by a deprecatory laugh.
“Where is the bird that flew over our heads a few hours ago?” asked Ivondwe. “I would remind the chief of the Amapolise that the one question is as easy to answer as the other. A great isanusi such as Ukozi does not send men before him crying aloud his movements.”
“That we shall see,” said the inspector. “Meanwhile Ivondwe, you are arrested and must go with us.”
“Have I not searched the depths of yonder pool?” was Ivondwe’s unconcerned remark. “Ask these.”
“Well, you are a prisoner, and if you make any attempt to escape you will be shot without challenge.” Then turning to me. “Now I think we had better continue our search down to the river bank. I need hardly tell you, Mr Glanton, how I sympathise with you, but we must not lose hope yet. People do strange and unaccountable things at times – generally the last people in the world who would be likely to do them. We shall find Miss Sewin yet.”
“Have you found Hensley yet?” I said bitterly.
He looked grave. The cases were too startlingly akin.
“The old gentleman had better be persuaded to go home,” he said, with a pitying glance at the Major, who was sitting in a state of utter collapse. Kendrew volunteered to effect this. He could join us afterwards, he said.
For the remaining hours of daylight we searched, leaving not a square yard of ground uninvestigated for a radius of miles. But – we found nothing – not even the remotest trace or clue.
I suppose, if I lived to be a thousand I should never forget the agony of that day. Mile after mile of our patient and exhaustive search, and still – nothing. The sickening blank as we returned, obliged to give it up for that day, only to renew our efforts with the first glimmer of returning light!
The moon rose, flooding down over the dim veldt. I recalled that last time when we two had wandered so happily over this very same ground. No presentiment had we then, no warning of mysterious danger hanging over us. How happy we had been – how secure in each other’s love – and now! Oh God! it was too much.
“Look here,” I burst forth roughly. “What’s the good of you people? Yes, what the devil’s the good of you? What do you draw your pay for anyway? If you had unearthed the secret of Hensley’s disappearance this one would never have come about. Your whole force isn’t worth a tinker’s twopenny damn and the sooner it’s disbanded and sent about its silly business the better.”
The police inspector was a thoroughly good fellow, and a gentleman. He didn’t take any offence at this, for he knew and respected the agony I was undergoing. We were riding a little ahead of the patrol, and therefore were alone together.
“Look here, Glanton,” he said. “Abuse us as much as ever you like and welcome if only it’ll relieve your feelings. I don’t resent it. You may be, in a measure, right as to Hensley. We all thought – and you thought yourself if you remember – that the old chap had got off the rails somehow, in an ordinarily natural if mysterious way. But now I’m certain there’s some devilish foul play going on, and the thing is to get to the bottom of it. Now let’s keep our heads, above all things, and get to the bottom of it. This is my idea. While we go on with our search to-morrow, you go and find Tyingoza and enlist his aid. He’s a very influential chief, and has a good reputation, moreover you’re on first-rate terms with him. I believe he could help us if anybody could. What do you think?”
“I have thought of that already,” I answered gloomily. “But an isanusi of Ukozi’s repute is more powerful than the most powerful chief – at any rate on this side of the river. Still it’s a stone not to be left unturned. I’ll ride up the first thing in the morning. No, I’ll go before. I’ll start to-night.”
But I was not destined to do so. On returning to the house I found that both the Major and his wife were in a state of complete prostration. They seemed to cling to the idea of my presence. It was of no use for me to point out to them that the police patrol was camped, so to say, right under their very windows, not to mention Falkner and Kendrew in the house itself. They would not hear of my leaving that night. Edith, too, begged me to fall in with their wishes. A refusal might be dangerous to her father, she put it. Utterly exasperated and amazed at the selfishness, as I deemed it, of the old people, I seemed to have run my head against a blank wall.
“Look here, Edith,” I said. “They are simply sacrificing Aïda by throwing obstacles in my way like this. What am I to do?”
“This,” she answered. “Fall in with their wishes, till they are asleep. They will sleep, if only through sheer exhaustion, and if they don’t I’ll take care that they do, through another agency. Then, carry out your own plan and God bless you in it.”
“God bless you, for the brave resourceful girl you are,” I rejoined. “Manvers and I have been knocking together a scheme, and nothing on God’s earth is going to interfere with it. Well, we’ll make believe – but, at midnight I’m off, no matter what happens.”
“That’s right, Glanton,” said Kendrew, who had entered with an opportuneness that under other and less interested circumstances I should have regarded as suspicious. “Edith and I will take care of the old birds, never fear.”
Utterly heartsick, and though unconsciously so, physically weary by reason of the awful strain of the last twelve hours, I only sought to be alone. I went into the room I always occupied and shut myself in. Sleep? Yes, I would welcome it, if only as a respite. I don’t know whether it came or not.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
What Jan Boom Told
It seemed as though I had slept five minutes when I started wide awake, listening. There was a faint sound of scratching upon the window pane. Then it ceased, to be followed by a succession of gentle taps.
Noiselessly I got out of bed, and drawing my revolver from its holster, stood listening once more. There was no mistake about it. Somebody was trying to attract my attention.
Even then – in that tense moment, the drear anguish of yesterday surged like a wave through my mind; but, upon it a gleam of hope. What was this fresh mystery, for, of course, it was in some way connected with the suggestion of tragedy – with the mysterious disappearance of my love?
There were no curtains, only blinds. Softly, noiselessly, I slipped to the window and displaced one of these, just sufficiently to leave a crack to be able to see through. The moon was shining, bright and clear, and all in the front of the house was illuminated almost as though by daylight I made out a dark figure crouching under the window, and held the revolver clenched and ready as I put up the sash.
“Who?” I said, in the Zulu.
“Nkose! It is I – Jan Boom.”
“Yes. And what do you want?”
“Nkose! Try and slip out of the house, unseen I want to talk. But others may be waking too. Do it. It concerns her whom you seek.”
I knew the ways of a native in such a matter, wherefore without hesitation, I put up the window as noiselessly as I could, and was out in a moment. Bearing in mind the strange and mysterious times upon which we had fallen I didn’t leave the weapon behind me in the room either.
“You are alone?” I said.
“I am alone, Nkose. Come round behind the waggon shed – or, better still, into the openness of the bush itself. There can we hold our indaba.”
“Good. Now – lead on.”
As I walked behind the Xosa, I was all aglow with eagerness. What had he discovered – or, had he discovered anything? Could I trust him? I remembered my first dislike of him, and how it had faded. What could he know of this last outrage? What part had he borne in it, if any? And if none, how could he be of any assistance?
“Well, Jan Boom,” I said when we were safe from possible interruption. “You know of course that the man who is the one to enable me to recover the Inkosikazi unharmed, will find himself in possession of sufficient cattle to purchase two new wives, with something to spare?”
“I know it, Nkose, and you – you also know what I said to you when I wanted to remain and work for you,” he answered significantly.
I did remember it. His words came back to me, though I had long since dismissed them from my mind. The plot was thickening.
The Xosa took a long and careful look round, and if my patience was strained to bursting point I knew enough of these people to know that you never get anything out of them by hurrying them. Then he bent his head towards me and whispered:
“If you follow my directions exactly you will recover the Inkosikazi. If not you will never see her again.”
“Never see her again?” I echoed with some idea of gaining time in order to collect myself.
“Has Nyamaki ever been seen again?” said Jan Boom.
“Do you know where she is?”
“I know where she will be to-morrow night.”
To-morrow night! And I had been expecting instant action.
“Look here,” I said, seizing him by the shoulder with a grip that must have hurt. “Has she been injured in any way? Tell me. Has she?”
“Not yet,” he answered. “No – not yet. But – if you fail to find her, and take her from where she is, to-morrow night – she will die, and that not easily.”
This time he did wince under my grip. In my awful agony I seemed hardly to know what I was doing. The whole moonlit scene seemed to be whirling round with me. My love – in peril! in peril of some frightful and agonising form of death! Oh Heaven help me to keep my wits about me! Some such idea must have communicated itself to the Xosa’s mind, for he said:
“Nkose must keep cool. No man can do a difficult thing if his head is not cool.”
Even then I noticed that he was looking at me with wonder tinged with concern. In ordinary matters – and some out of the ordinary – I was among the coolest headed of mortals. Now I seemed quite thrown off my balance. Somehow it never occurred to me to doubt the truth of Jan Boom’s statement.
“Where is this place?” I asked.
“That you will learn to-morrow night, Nkose, for I myself will take you there – if you are cautious. If not – !”
“Look here, Jan Boom. You want to earn the cattle which I shall give as a reward?”
“Cattle are always good to have, Nkose!”
“Well what other motive have you in helping me in this matter? You have not been very long with me, and I cannot recall any special reason why you should serve me outside of ordinary things.”
“Be not too curious, Nkose!” he answered, with a slight smile. “But, whether you fail or succeed to-morrow night, my life will be sought, for it will be known how you came there.”
“Have no fear as to that, Jan Boom, for I will supply you with the means of defending your life six times over – and you, too, come of a warrior race.”
“That is so, Nkose. I am of the Ama Gcaleka. Now talk we of our plan. To-morrow you will return home, starting from here after the sun is at its highest. Up to the time of starting you will help in the search in whatever direction it is made. But if you show any sign or give reason to suspect you know it is all being made in vain, it will mean the failure of our plan, and then – ”
“Not on my account shall it fail then,” I said. “Tell me, Jan Boom. Is Ukozi at the back of this?”
“His eyes and ears are everywhere,” was the reply, accompanied by a significant glance around. “When you ride homeward to-morrow, your horse will be very lame.”
“Very lame?” I echoed in astonishment.
“Very lame. You yourself will lame it. So shall Ukozi’s eyes be deceived. For a man who has just returned home does not ride forth immediately on a horse that is very lame.”
I saw his drift – and it was ingenious.
“You will give out that you are tired of a useless search, that you are exhausted and intend to sleep for three days, and you will pretend to have drunk too much of the strong waters. So shall Ukozi’s eyes be deceived.”
“But Jan Boom, you and Tom are the only people on the place,” I urged.
“U’ Tom? Hau! Ukozi’s eyes and ears are everywhere,” was the enigmatical answer.
“And if my horse is lame how shall I use him?”
“You would not use him in any case,” was his answer. “The sound of a horse’s hoof travels far at night, that of a man’s foot, not. We walk.”
“Walk? Why then the place must be quite near.”
“Quite near it is, Iqalaqala,” slipping into rather an unwarrantable familiarity in addressing me by my native name, but this didn’t exercise me you may be sure. “Quite near, but – nowhere near the snake pool. Quite the other way. You will take the nephew of Nyamaki with you.”
“Ah! And – what of Umsindo?”
“Ha! Umsindo? He is a good fighting bull – but then he is a blundering bull. Yet we will take him, for his strength will be useful. For, we will take Ukozi alive.”
“That will not be easy, Jan Boom. And then – just think, how much easier it will be to kill him.”
“Yet we will do it. We will take him alive. You were asking but now, Nkose, what other motive I had in helping you,” he answered, with a dash of significance.
“Ah!”
“So we will take Ukozi alive. Is that to be?”
“Most certainly, if possible. But will it be possible? He is sure to fight. He will have people with him of course.”
“Two, at the most. We had better take them alive too, if we can. It will make things worse for Ukozi. But to no one living save to the two we have named will you by word or hint give knowledge of what I have told you. To do so will mean certain failure.”
I promised.
“Tell me now about this place, Jan Boom, and how you learned of its existence,” I said, for now in my feverish impatience I would rather talk for the remainder of the night than go in to shut myself up with my thoughts throughout its hours of silence.
“I will do better, Nkose, I will show it you,” he answered. “Whau! if we succeed in what we are to do – and we must if the three of you only keep strictly to my directions – why then I may tell you; and with it a tale so strange that you, or other white people, will give it half belief or perhaps not any. Now I must go. There is still some of the night left, and it is important that none should know we have talked or even that I have been away from Isipanga. Return as silently as you came, and to-morrow, well before the sun goes down ride up to the house on a very lame horse.”
“And with the other two?”
“With the other two. Nkose!” With which parting salute he was gone.
I waited a little, listening. No sound disturbed the dead silence save here and there the ordinary voices of the night. Then I regained my room.
Sleep was of course out of the question, and now I set to work deliberately to marshal my thoughts and bring them to bear on the situation. I felt no misgiving as to the Xosa’s good faith – the fact that he had agreed to my being accompanied by two tried and trusted comrades seemed to prove that. Though had he stipulated that I should have gone alone, I should, while prepared for any emergency, unhesitatingly have accepted the conditions. Again, the reward was quite enough to tempt a man of his courage, especially as he came of a totally different race, added to which the corner of curtain which he had just lifted was sufficient to show that he bore a grudge against the witch doctor, not to say a very pretty feud. How and why this should be, passed my understanding, but I knew enough of natives and their ways to know that I didn’t know them, as, indeed, I believe no white man ever really does.
And the motive of this outrage? Clearly, it was due to some dark superstition, as I had suspected from the very first. She had not been injured up till now, would not be unless we failed to arrive in time. There was unspeakable comfort in this, for I felt confident the Xosa was sure of his facts. But what stages of horror and despair must she not have passed through since her mysterious capture? Well the villainous witch doctor should pay a heavy reckoning and those who had helped him; and, thinking of it, I, too, was all eagerness he should be taken alive; for a great many years of hard labour – perhaps with lashes thrown in – which should be his reward, would be a far worse thing to him than a mere swift and easy death.
Then followed a reaction. What if Jan Boom had miscalculated and we arrived too late after all? A cold perspiration poured down me at the thought. “She will die, and that not easily,” had been his words. That pointed to torture – oh good God! My innocent beautiful love! in the power of these fiends, and sacrificed to their hellish superstitions, and I helpless here! I seemed to be going mad.
No. That wouldn’t do. I was letting my imagination run away with me in the silence and the darkness, and above all I wanted cool-headedness and strength. I must make up my mind to believe the Xosa’s word and that all would yet be well. By this time the next night she would be with us again safe and sound.
Then I fell to wondering what sort of hiding-place could be found within a walk – an easy walk apparently – of my dwelling, and it baffled me. I could think of none. Moreover the surroundings had been scoured in search of the missing Hensley, and nothing of the kind had come to light. And then the first signs of dawn began to show, and I felt relieved, for now at any rate, one could be up and doing.