Loe raamatut: «Forging the Blades: A Tale of the Zulu Rebellion», lehekülg 8

Chapter Fifteen.
The First Day

They were inspecting the great koodoo head in Ben Halse’s yard. Denham was delighted.

“Why, it’s perfect,” he declared. “Perfect, simply perfect.”

“Yes, I believe it’s an absolute record. But we’ll have to be a bit careful how we get it away; however, there’s no hurry about that.”

“There’s an old saying, you know, Mr Halse,” said Denham: “‘short accounts make long friends.’ So you won’t mind taking over this now,” and he handed the other a folded cheque.

Ben Halse opened it, and started. Then he handed it back.

“It’s too much,” he said. “The head’s worth a good deal, but not as much as that. No.”

“It’s worth it all to me,” was the answer. “Well, then, name your own figure.”

Ben did so.

“Right,” said Denham, “you shall have your way. But I’d rather have had mine,” he laughed.

“A very common complaint,” answered his host. “What would you like to do this morning? In the afternoon Verna could take you down into the forest, or anywhere else you like. She’s busy this morning, and I have things to see to.”

Denham declared that that would be a delightful programme. He could get through the morning easily enough, he said. They must on no account make a stranger of him, or put themselves out in any way. The while he had been keeping one ear open for Verna’s voice, which came to them, raised in snatches of song, from the other side of the house.

It was the day after his arrival at the store. They had all travelled up together, having borrowed some extra harness and inspanned Denham’s horse as “unicorn,” so that the extra weight didn’t count so much, and he was conscious of having thoroughly enjoyed the journey. Nor would he try to disguise to himself the fact that this result was largely due to the presence of Ben Halse’s daughter.

It had taken all of three days; two nights being got through in such scanty accommodation as could be obtained at lonely wayside stores similar to that of Ben himself, though infinitely rougher, and the third night camping in the veldt; during which, by the bye, Denham had started out of his sleep declaring that a whacking big spider had just run over his face, which was more than likely the case. But through heat and dust and discomfort Verna’s spirits never flagged, and her cheerfulness remained unruffled. Now a three days’ journey under such circumstances is a pretty good test of character, and her attitude throughout was thoroughly appreciated by her fellow-traveller and guest. She was unique, he decided, unique and splendid.

He found her now engaged upon exactly the same homely occupation as that on which she was engaged on the occasion of our first making her acquaintance – bread-making, to wit.

“Useful as always, Miss Halse,” he remarked. “Why, I don’t know how we should have got on coming along but for you.”

She flashed a smile up at him.

“How did you get on without me when you came along through the Makanya bush?” she said mischievously.

If there was that in the allusion that brought a change into Denham’s face it was only momentary.

“I had to then, worse luck,” he laughed. “But I managed it somehow.” Then they both laughed – easily, happily.

Denham, looking down at her as she sat there, came to the conclusion that she was more charming than ever. The sheen of her abundant brown hair, carelessly but becomingly coiled, the dark semicircle of the eyelashes on the cheek, the strong, supple figure so splendidly outlined, the movement of the shapely arms as she kneaded the dough – why, this homely performance was a poem in itself. Then the staging – the fall of wooded slope to a deep down vista of plain below – dim in the noontide haze where on the right a darker line in contrast to the open green showed part of the great mysterious forest tract. Even the utterly unaesthetic dwelling-house hardly seemed to spoil the picture.

“Well, and what is the subject of all this profound thought?” she asked suddenly, with a quick, bright, upward glance.

He started, looked at her straight, and told her. Yet, somehow, he did it in such a way as to avoid banality, possibly because so naturally.

“What did I tell you once before?” she said, but she changed colour ever so slightly. “That you must not pay me compliments. They don’t come well from you – I mean they are too petty.”

It might have been his turn to answer with a “tu quoque.” But he did not. What he said was —

“I was answering your question. I was describing the picture I had seen in my own mind. How could I have left out the principal figure in it?”

Again she glanced up at him, was about to speak, then seemed to change her mind. If her personality had struck Denham as unique, the very same thing seemed to have struck her as regarded himself. The intellectual face, the tall, fine frame, the easy, cultured manner, half-a-score other things about him – all these rendered him a personality clean outside her own experience. Whereby it will be seen that the atmosphere around Ben Halse’s remote and primitive dwelling was, even at this early stage, charged with abundant potentialities.

“And ‘the principal figure’ in it is all floury and generally dishevelled,” she said at last, with a light laugh.

“That makes the charm of the study.”

“Do you paint, then, Mr Denham, in addition to your other scientific accomplishments?”

“No; I thought I could dabble in it at one time, but had too many serious irons in the fire. Still, I’m given to drawing mental pictures, and this is one of them, that’s all. By the way, your father was saying you were going to be kind enough to act as my guide this afternoon. Is that so?”

“Oh yes. We were talking about it before you came out. Where would you like to go?”

“That I leave entirely to you. By the way, yes. Will you show me the spot where you shot the record head?”

“It’s rather far, I’m afraid, for one afternoon. However, we’ll see. Well, I’m through with this job now. I’ll put it inside. Look! there are some people coming to the store, I expect. Yes, they are. Come and see me shop-keep, Mr Denham.”

She took the tin of dough into the kitchen, and returned in a second with some keys.

Two women and a youth were approaching. Verna unlocked the door, and, as he entered, Denham looked curiously around and above at the multifold variety of trade goods. The atmosphere was inclined to be musty, and, by virtue of the nature of some of the things, not over-fragrant.

The natives entered, rather shyly, giving the salute. They stared curiously at Denham. His fine physique and general bearing impressed them. There could only be one opinion as to what had brought him there. He had come to offer U’ Ben lobola for the Inkosazana. But they would make a fine pair! This they told each other afterwards.

“Well, what is wanted?” Verna asked.

“Tobacco. Smoking tobacco such as white people use,” answered one of the women.

“Sapazani’s ‘children’ indulging in white men’s customs? Ah, ah!” answered Verna, with a shake of the head. The woman looked somewhat subdued, and managed to convey that it was a thing they did not wish talked about.

The while Denham was taking in the whole scene, keenly interested. Never had the liquid Zulu sounded so melodious as when it flowed from Verna’s lips, he decided to himself. Then other things were requisitioned. Yards of calico were unfolded, and critically examined by the intending purchaser. He watched the deftness and patience with which Verna handled the things and bore with the intending purchasers, who would look at the articles and then go and squat in a corner of the room and talk over the transaction with each other in an undertone. The boy was looking at him sideways, with staring eyeballs.

“That’s their way,” said Verna, with a merry glance at him. “You can’t rush these people. If you did you’d lose all your trade.”

“By Jove! but I never thought there could be so much poetry in handing things out over a counter,” he burst forth.

“Thanks. But remember what I told you just now, also on a former occasion,” she answered, her eyes sparkling with fun. “You must not pay me compliments, especially ironical ones. I am only an up-country trader’s daughter, who helps her father, up to her little best.”

“Upon my conscience there was nothing ironical about it,” he replied somewhat vehemently, “It was dead, sober earnest.”

She smiled again and nodded; then turning to the native women suggested they had been a good while making up their minds. They took the hint, and the deal was concluded.

Denham, the while, was in something of a maze. Most girls situated as she was would have rather tried to keep him off witnessing this phase of their everyday home life – in other words, would have tried all they knew to “sink the shop.” This one, on the contrary, had actually invited him to witness it, just as she might have invited him to come and have a look at the garden.

“Well, Mr Denham,” said Verna, as the red-painted top-knots of the two women vanished round the doorpost, “and what do you think of me in my capacity of shop-girl?”

“If I were to tell you I should lay myself open to another rebuke,” he answered, with a laugh in his eyes.

“Have I been so hard on you as that? I didn’t mean to be. By the way, you are not smoking. Try some of this,” reaching down an open bag of Magaliesberg from a shelf.

“Thanks. I say, what’s this?” looking at the bullet hole in the wall.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” she answered rather shamefacedly. “At least, you heard all about it down at Ezulwini. Anyway, it’s nothing to brag about. Let’s go outside.”

“Certainly,” acquiesced Denham, grasping, with ready tact, that she did not wish to pursue the subject. And he was right. Even as in the matter of shooting the koodoo she shrank from dwelling upon anything that would tend to set her forth in his eyes as a strong, self-reliant Amazon type of woman; more so now than then.

“I wish I was more like other girls, Mr Denham,” she broke forth with that winning, breezy naturalness which had so struck him. “If I were musical, for instance, and all that, I could play to you of an evening. I’m afraid you must find the evenings so slow.”

“I’ve only had one evening here, and I didn’t find that a bit slow,” he answered. “Incidentally, the other evenings we have spent together have been anything but slow.”

“Together!” There was something in the word, and the way in which he said it, that struck curiously upon her ears.

“I’m glad of that,” she answered. “One always thinks that anybody out from England, accustomed to the livelier sides of life, must become hideously bored in an out-of-the-way wilderness such as this really is.”

“It’s a very beautiful wilderness, anyway,” he said, looking out over the great panorama of mountain and plain and forest, extending over fifty miles, and misty in the heat of the unclouded sunlight. “But that’s where you make the mistake. The very contrast is so infinitely restful. Not only restful, but invigorating. Slow! Think, for instance, of all the vividly interesting stories and reminiscences your father has been telling me since we first met, and especially during our journey here. Why, they make this wonderful country simply glow with life – and such life! The life which puts those ‘livelier sides of life’ you were just quoting into a dull, drab groove of monotony. No, don’t for a moment imagine there is the slightest possibility of a chance of my feeling bored.”

There was a vehemence, an intensity, about this deliverance that rather astonished Verna. This man had another side, then? She had read him wrong, or at least not quite right, when she had just sized him up as an even, prosperous man of the world, one whose self-possession nothing could ruffle, a charming companion, but one past anything in the shape of a great enthusiasm. Now she began to realise that she had not seen every side of him, and the discovery in no way diminished her interest in him.

“Well, that rather relieves me, from the responsibility point of view, at any rate,” she answered, flashing up at him one of those bright smiles of hers. “So now, on the strength of it, I’ll get you to excuse me. There’s a lot to do inside. But we’ll have such a jolly time of it this afternoon.” And with a bright nod she left him.

Denham lit a fresh pipe, and strolled out a little way from the house. It seemed to him that something had been withdrawn. He missed Verna’s presence and gracious companionship. To the full consciousness of this he awoke with a start. He was too old and experienced to do anything that might seem like “hanging around” her, wherefore he took a walk. But as he looked out upon the panorama spread out in front and around, revelled in the glow of the ambient air, even found something to interest his naturalist soul, in the bushes or grass, he was still thinking – well, he had better not think. Yet, why should he not? The question pressed itself practically home to him. He was his own master, and in every way in a position to please himself. Why should he not do so?

What a rare “find” this was! he told himself, his thoughts running on Verna. And if he missed her presence because she had been obliged to withdraw for an hour or so, what did it mean? A phrase ran uneasily through his mind, “Can’t bear her out of his sight.” And this was the first day of his arrival. No, assuredly it was time to pull himself together. And then, her brightly uttered words of parting, “We’ll have such a jolly time of it this afternoon.” Well, it should be no fault of his if they did not.

Chapter Sixteen.
Drawing in

“Mr Denham, I think we’ll change the programme, shall we?” said Verna, as she came out, got up for the ride. “Instead of going down we’ll go up, if you don’t mind. Do you?”

“Why, of course not. I am in your hands entirely.”

The horses were waiting, saddled, the boy walking them up and down. Verna was in a sort of khaki-coloured riding habit, with a hat to match. In it was a subtle combination of the fashionable and civilised build with the congruous costume of the locality and surroundings that sat her altogether charmingly.

“All right, then. I’ll take you where you will get a beautiful view; and the road is delightful. If you feel like getting off to look for a specimen, do so at any time. Now, will you put me into that saddle?”

The smile she beamed at him recalled him to himself. The naked truth of it was that Denham had about shed himself, as a snake sheds its skin. He was a hard-headed man of the world – a keen, successful financier, yet by now he was dimly realising that he scarcely knew himself. Experiences came back to him – crowded up galore; yet it seemed to be reserved for him that he should meet, in the wilds of Zululand – and the wilds of Zululand can be very wild indeed, even up to date – an experience utterly outside of all that had gone before.

“Thanks,” she said, gathering up her reins. “Now we must go exactly where we like, and do exactly what we like. We are going to make an easy afternoon of it.”

“Certainly,” he answered. “I am very much in luck’s way. I never reckoned on being taken so much care of.”

“No? Well, you shall be. But I don’t think you require much taking care of after having picked your way all through the Makanya bush alone.”

That allusion again. Denham felt a droop all of a sudden. Yet it was only momentary. He had been alone with Verna practically the whole day. Ben Halse had not returned for the midday dinner, and they had got through it à deux. Thus together alone, the situation had set him thinking a great deal. In fancy he had pictured her sitting opposite him, as in that plain, rather primitive room, for any time, and the idea was pleasing.

Their way lay upward, the track so narrow in parts that they had to ride one behind the other, an arrangement fatal to conversation, for you cannot conveniently shout back over your shoulder. Now it led through some deep kloof, where the tall forest trees shut out the light of the sun, and the green depths were stirred by mysterious noises; now up a rocky steep, but ever at a foot’s pace. Verna was leading the way, and the other was admiring with all his might the poise of her splendid figure, sitting her horse so perfectly and gracefully; and though the surrounding bush was teeming with all sorts of strange life, dear to the naturalist, this one, for once, forgot to notice it, so engrossed was he in the contemplation of his guide.

“This is where I wanted to bring you,” said the latter at last. “We’ll hitch up the horses here and walk the rest of the path.”

They had emerged upon an open gully, high up on the range. A short climb, and they gained a great natural window in a tooth-shaped rock which overlooked a vast, tumbled mass of crag and valley and crater. Forest and open country lay spread out beneath, extending away in billowy roll for miles upon miles into dim, misty distance.

“By Jove! but it’s splendid!” cried Denham, as he gazed out over this. “I vote we sit here a bit and look at it.”

“I thought you’d like it,” she answered. “Yes, let’s have a rest.”

They sat down within the great rock-window, drinking in the splendid air, the world, as it were, at their feet. But somehow, and all of a sudden, a constraint, a silence, seemed to have fallen between them. It was perfectly unaccountable on any ground whatever, still it was there all the same. Could it be that by some mysterious phase of telepathy both were thinking the same thing? and that each knew that the other knew it? For there existed a tremendous mutual “draw” between these two, and yet they had only known each other a few days.

Then by some equally sudden and unaccountable phase of telepathy the constraint was mutually broken. The same idea had come into both their minds. It would never do to let this sort of thing take a hold on them thus early. Verna began to point out various landmarks, near and far.

“Look,” she said, turning from the open view, and pointing to a particularly tumbled and bushy range of hills about six miles off. “That’s where Sapazani’s kraal is. We’ll ride over some day and pay him a visit. How would you like that?”

“Very much indeed. I’d like to study these fellows a bit. They seem interesting. By the way, do you know what I’ve done, Miss Halse?”

“What?”

“Why, I’ve buried myself. I mean that I’ve put myself clean out of communication with the old country, except on the part of one confidential man in my business, and even he can’t communicate beyond Durban. How’s that for a prime way of taking a change?”

“Quite good. But what about the business side of it?”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’ve thoroughly fixed up all that. But it’s rather a joke, you know, effecting a complete disappearance.”

Then he went on to tell her a good deal about himself, yet without seeming to do so egotistically, of his early struggles, of his now assured position, of many an incident and more than one crisis in his life. To all of which she listened with vivid interest, with appreciation and sympathy.

“I am boring you, I’m afraid – ” he broke off.

“No, indeed. I am very much interested. What a hole and corner sort of life mine must seem to you!”

“Do you know you are a very great puzzle to me?” – he had nearly said “Verna.”

“Yes. Why?”

“You might have been everywhere, seen everything, from the way in which you talk. How on earth did you pick it up? – and you say you have never been outside Natal, except to the Rand.”

“Well, it’s true,” she answered, looking pleased. “I accept your verdict – as another compliment – and feel only proud.”

The constraint was broken down between them now, and they talked on and freely. There was that in the fact of her companion having told her so much about his life that wonderfully fascinated Verna. What was there about her that this strong, capable man of the world should take her into his confidence, especially on such short acquaintance? More and more she felt drawn towards him. How strange it must have been, she was thinking, before this new companionship had come into her life! And yet it was barely more than a week old.

And Denham? As he sat there chatting easily, the rings of blue smoke floating off lazily upon the still air, he too was thinking – and thinking pretty much the same thing. Again this new experience had come to him just at the right time. There was nothing to mar his enjoyment of it. A very short while earlier – well – there might have been. But not now. Yet while they talked he was studying his companion keenly. There was no posing, no little coquettish touches. She was perfectly natural.

“What a splendid thing it is to feel quite easy in one’s mind!” he went on, in pursuance of the subject of having, as he said, “buried” himself. “I can afford to feel that way just now, and it’s real luxury. I haven’t always been able to, no, not by any means.”

He broke off suddenly, then, as though moved by some strange impulse, went on —

“I wonder what moved me to tell you so much about myself. It wasn’t for the mere love of talking.”

“Of course not. I was so interested —am, I ought to have said.” Verna’s eyes grew wonderfully soft as they met his. “It might, too, have been a certain sympathy.”

“That’s it,” he answered. “There was one thing I did not tell you, though. I wonder if I ever shall.”

“That rests with yourself,” she answered. “But why should you?”

“Upon my soul I don’t know.”

They were looking straight at each other. The atmosphere seemed highly charged. To Verna, in her then frame of mind, the enigmatical nature of the remark opened all sorts of possibilities. She was strongly taunted to reply, “Yes, tell me now, whatever it is.” But she remembered their short acquaintance, and the fact that this man was only a passing guest to make whose stay a pleasant one was only a part of her duty. The sympathetic vein cooled, then hardened.

Somehow her mood communicated itself to the other, perhaps another sign of the unconscious bond of sympathy between them. What had he so nearly done? he asked himself. Let out one of the most momentous secrets that could lie on any man, and to an acquaintance of a few days. But somehow the last expression rang hollow in his mind. Yet still, here was he, a hard-headed, experienced man of the world. He must not allow himself to be thrown off his balance under the influences of sunlight and air, and the drawing sympathy of a very rare and alluring personality. So they drifted off upon ordinary topics again, and at last Verna suggested it was time to be going home.

“Well, you have brought me to a lovely spot, for a first ride,” said Denham, as they took their way down the hill. “If you go on as you have begun I may be in danger of camping in these parts altogether. Hallo,” he broke off. “It’s as well we came down when we did. That fellow might have gone off with our horses.”

“He wouldn’t have,” answered Verna. “They are more like the old-time Zulus up here, when you could leave everything about and not a thing would disappear. Now, of course, civilisation has spoiled most of them.”

The man referred to, who had been squatting with his back towards them, now rose. He was a tall Zulu, and ringed; and he carried a small shield and a large assegai, the latter of which he had no business under the laws of the ruling race to be carrying at all. And Denham could not repress a start, for this was the same man he had run against twice at Ezulwini – and once before. He felt thoughtful. There seemed to be some design behind the fellow’s sporadic appearance.

“Who are you?” said Verna. “Not of Sapazani? I know all his ‘children.’”

“Inkosazana!”

“What is your name?”

“Mandevu.”

“Mandevu!” she echoed thoughtfully. “Ah, now I remember.”

“Inkosazana!”

“Where from?”

The man looked at her, and shook his head whimsically. He was rather a good-looking savage, decided Denham, especially now that he had discarded European clothing.

“From nowhere,” he answered, but with a curious glance at Denham, which the latter understood, and it set him thinking more deeply than ever. He remembered the bad character given him by Inspector James. He likewise remembered something else. Things were thickening up a bit. Verna talked a little longer, and then the Zulu resumed his way, when they followed his example.

“Is that your name among them?” asked Denham, as they rode along. “Inkosazana?”

“No,” answered Verna, laughing merrily. “It’s only a title. Inkosikazi is ‘chieftainess,’ and would be used for the principal wife of a chief. Inkosazana is a diminutive of it, and would be used for a chief’s daughters. In a word ‘Miss.’”

“I see. I shall really have to learn – under your tuition.”

“You really will,” she answered. And then they talked on as they rode home in the drooping day; and the evening lights shed full and varying upon the roll of landscape, the voices of wild Nature coming up from mysterious forest depths on either side, and the presence of this splendid girl beside him set Denham again thinking that this first day was nearly, if not quite, the most marvellous experience he had yet known.

Ben Halse had returned before they had. At table Verna was giving an account of their ride, mentioning, of course, their meeting with the Zulu. Denham could not help noticing that his host’s interest quickened at once.

“Mandevu!” he repeated. “What’s he doing in these parts, I wonder? Did he say, Verna?”

“Not he. He was as close as an oyster.”

“Why, he was at Ezulwini the other day.”

“Who is he, Mr Halse?” asked Denham. “A chief?”

“In a small way, yes. But – Well, this is a rum part of the world – far more so than you’d think, coming in upon it from the outside, and there are rum things done every other day that nobody knows anything about. I wouldn’t tell every one that, but, then, we seem to be standing in together, you and I, or rather the three of us. So I don’t mind letting on that the presence of Mandevu in these parts just now does set me thinking a bit.”

Denham didn’t care to push his inquiries, not then, at any rate. But the appearance of the mysterious Zulu had set him thinking too. Of which, however, he said nothing to his host.