Chapter Twenty Four.
As an Oasis
Day dawned, cloudless and golden, in its full African splendour. The night had passed without any alarm, but, to make sure, the force had divided the night between it to mount guard, that section of it off duty sleeping in the open – arms ready to hand.
Their leader appeared to be made of iron. Stirring events, peril, fatigue, had been crowded into his experience since his last night’s sleep, four nights ago, but all seemed to go for nothing. He was here, there, everywhere, the night through, seeming to need no sleep. And with the first sign of a glimmer of dawn, the whole force was up and under arms, waiting and ready, for that is the hour – when sleep is heaviest, and vigilance in consequence relaxed – that the untiring savage favours for making his attack. But no such attack was made, and the night passed quietly and without alarm, as we have said.
“Dash it all, Lamont! Why don’t you turn in, man? You’re overdoing it, you know. You haven’t had forty winks for about four nights. You’ll bust up all of a sudden, and at the wrong time, if you don’t watch it. How’s that?”
Thus Peters, what time the tired and worn-out men were simply subsiding on the bare ground, and dropping off into log-like slumber the moment they touched it; and that under the glorious blue of the heavens and the sweeping gold of the newly risen sun.
“I couldn’t sleep, Peters – no, not if I were paid to,” was the answer. “But I’m going to see if I can scare up a tub and a razor. At present I must be looking the most desperate ruffian you could not wish to meet in a lonely lane.”
Peters looked after him and shook his head, slowly and mournfully.
“He’s got it,” he said to himself. “By the Lord, he’s got it. I could see that when, like the blithering ass I am, I interrupted them that evening. No, it isn’t sheer aptitude for tough campaigning that keeps his peepers open when nobody else can keep theirs.”
Peters was absolutely right. His friend and comrade was in a state of mental exaltation that reacted physically. He could hardly believe in his happiness, even yet. How had it come about? In his pride and cynicism it might have been months before he would have brought matters to the testing point – it is even conceivable it might have been never. Yet, all unpremeditated and on the spur of the moment, he had done so – and now, and now —
Good Heavens! life was too golden henceforward, and as the flaming wheel of the sun rose higher and higher in the unflecked blue, the glory of the newborn day seemed to Lamont to attune itself to the glow of happiness and peace which had settled down upon his whole being. The bloodshed and strife and massacre! of which he had been a witness, was as a thing outside, a thing put completely behind.
It was decided that no move should be made that day. A bare suggestion that they should attempt the return to Gandela revived all poor Lucy Fullerton’s terrors. She would sooner die at once, she declared, than go through the horrors of yesterday all over again.
“Yes, you seemed to have got the funks to some considerable purpose,” grumbled Fullerton. “Hang it, Lucy, I thought you had more pluck. Look at Clare, now. She was positively enjoying it.”
“Oh no, she wasn’t,” corrected that young person, who had just entered. “No, not in the very least. But I suppose different people take on different forms of scare. Mine took that of a sort of desperate excitement.”
“Yours? Form of scare! By jingo! that’s a ‘form of scare’ we could do with plenty of during these jolly lively days,” returned Fullerton.
“Oh, and look here, Dick,” went on the girl. “I must ask you not to talk about it – I mean not to go bragging around to everybody that your sister-in-law shot twenty or forty or sixty Matabele – or whatever you are going to make it – in the fight at the Kezane Store.”
“Why in thunder not? Why shouldn’t you have your share of the kudos as well as anyone else in the same racket?”
“Because I don’t want it. Because I want to forget my share in it. The consciousness of having taken life, even in the very extremity of self-defence, can never be a subject of self-congratulation, especially to a woman. I, for one, don’t want ever to hear it referred to.”
“Well, you are squeamish, Clare. Let me tell you that the rest of us don’t share your opinions. There isn’t a man jack, from Lamont downwards, who hasn’t been blowing your trumpet loud enough to wake the dead.”
A softer look came into her face at the name. Perhaps her brother-in-law partially read it, perhaps he didn’t.
“By the way, Dick,” she went on, “I suppose by this time you have found reason for somewhat altering your opinion of Mr Lamont’s courage, have you? It used to be rather unfavourable, if I remember right.”
“Rather, I should think I had. I told him so too, during a lull in the scrimmage.”
“Oh, you told him so. And what did he answer?”
“Nothing. He sloshed a pistol-bullet into a big buck nigger who’d romped up in the long grass to blaze into us. By George, here he is.”
“Who? The ‘nigger’?”
“Morning, Lamont. Come to have breakfast, of course?” for they had just sat down. “We were just talking about you.”
“I’ll change the subject to a more interesting one then,” was the answer. “How are you, Mrs Fullerton, and did you have a restful night, for I’m sure you deserved one?”
“Not very. I’m a shocking coward, but I’m afraid it’s constitutional,” answered poor Lucy. But he laughingly reassured her, and talked about the fineness of the day, and the extent of the view around Kezane, and soon got away from yesterday’s battle entirely.
Lamont’s morning greeting, as far as Clare was concerned, was a fine piece of acting, for they had arranged not to make public their understanding until safe back at Gandela. Yet the swift flash as glance met glance, and a subtle hand-pressure, were as eloquent as words to those most concerned.
Watching him, though not appearing to, Clare’s heart was aglow with illimitable pride and love. The emergency had brought out the man beyond even her estimate of him, and that had been not small. She had read him from the very first, had seen what was in him, and her instinct had been justified to the full. She was proud to remember how she had always believed in him, and that the more detraction reached her ears the more did it strengthen rather than sap that belief. And now – and now – he was hers and she was his.
Others dropped in – Peters, and Jim Steele, and Strange the doctor, and two or three more, and soon the talk became general. At a hint from Lamont the subject of the fight of yesterday was left out, and they got on to others, just as if nothing had occurred to disturb the peace in the midst of which, a short twenty-four hours back, they had imagined themselves to dwell. But it seemed to Lamont that Grunberger’s wife, a pleasant-looking Englishwoman who was taking care of their wants, was eyeing him with a mingling of covert amusement and interest. “Shall we stroll about outside, Miss Vidal?” he said, a little later, when they were out in the air again. “What do you think, Mrs Fullerton? A constitutional won’t hurt us.”
But Lucy protested that no consideration on earth would induce her to set foot outside the gates – as they knew she would. No, no. These horrible savages had a knack of springing up out of nowhere. Clare seemed to know how to take care of herself, but she, assuredly, did not. It was in vain for Lamont to impress upon her that the ground around the place was quite open, and that there were pickets posted at intervals where the not very thick bush began. She was obdurate – as he knew she would be.
The question of making some sort of patrol had been discussed, but it had been decided that it was not worth the risk. Their force was none too strong to defend the place if attacked by numbers, which was very likely to happen, for the Kezane was one of the largest and most important stores along the line of coaches, and was always well supplied with everything likely to tempt the cupidity of the savages. A patrol might venture too far and in the wrong direction, and get cut off; then what a serious weakening of their forces that would mean. So pickets were posted instead.
“Then you haven’t awoke to the conclusion you were rather hasty last night, Clare?”
“Have you?” she answered sweetly.
“Good God! Need you ask? But it is a fitting reply to an idiotic question.”
“Don’t be profane, and don’t call yourself undeserved names, dearest. But you don’t look as if you had had any sleep. Have you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I couldn’t have slept if I’d tried,” he said, the soft caressing solicitude of the remark stirring through his whole being. “But that’ll all come right. I’m hard as nails, remember.”
“I should think you were,” flashing up at him another admiring glance. “Oh, darling, I loved to see you yesterday. The sight of you went far to neutralise all the horrors of the situation.”
“Don’t, don’t,” he said, rather unsteadily, positively intoxicated with the sweetness of her tones, her looks. “Don’t quite try to give me ‘swelled head’ as those good chaps were trying to do last night. Because you might succeed, you know.”
“You could never get that. But – I have something to say to you, and I don’t believe you’re going to grant me the very first thing I’ve ever asked you.”
“And that – ?”
“I want you not to run into danger any more. You belong to me now – we belong to each other. If this is going to be a regular war – perhaps a long one – there can be no necessity for you to take part in it – I mean, to join expeditions, and all that. You will be helping quite enough by staying to defend Gandela, and taking care of me.”
He looked troubled.
“Oh, Clare, my darling one, what shall I say? Do you know, last night all these good fellows formed themselves into the nucleus of a corps on condition that I should lead them. And I promised. How can I climb down now?”
She looked at him, for a moment, full in the eyes, and her own kindled.
“You can’t. No, of course you can’t. I am not such a selfish idiot as to dream of expecting such a thing. Why, it is a distinct call to usefulness, to distinction. I would not try to hold you back from it now, no, not even if I could.”
“But, understand this,” he went on. “I will not move in the matter until I have seen you in safety – in entire and complete safety. Then – it is a duty. What would you think of me if I shirked that sort of duty? Would it not be to put a stamp of truth on the lies some of my kind friends have been spreading about me?”
“I won’t say I would think nothing of you, for I can’t imagine, let alone contemplate, such a contingency. But – now we are on the subject – I would like to hear your side of – of – all these stories. Don’t think that I doubt you – never think that, dearest – but I would like to be able to fling the lie in their faces.”
He was silent for a few moments as they paced up and down. They were out of earshot of the stockade but in full view of all within it. To all intents and purposes they were only two people walking up and down in ordinary converse, as a couple of ship-board acquaintances might walk up and down the deck of a passenger ship.
“Some years ago,” he resumed, “I had a quarrel with a man – a man who had been my friend. He had played me a dirty trick – a very dirty trick – the nature of it doesn’t matter, any more than his identity, now. I am not an angel, and have my share of original sin, which includes a temper, though since then I have tried my level best to keep it within bounds. Well, from words we got to blows, and I was a fair boxer – ” here Clare half smiled, in the midst of her vivid interest, as she remembered the tribute her brother-in-law had paid to his powers in that line, even while decrying his courage.
“In the course of the scrimmage I struck him a blow that felled him. He lay motionless, and I and others thought he was dead. We brought him round though, but he had a bad concussion of the brain, and for weeks hovered between life and death. Moreover, he has never been the same man since. If I lived for a thousand years I could never forget what I went through during that time. Well, in the result I made a vow, a most solemn vow, that never again, even under the extremest of provocation, would I lift hand in anger against anybody, except under the most absolute necessity of self-defence – or in defence of others. And I never have.”
Clare’s colour heightened and her eyes shone. Instinctively she put forth her hand to take his, and withdrew it instantly as she remembered that they were in full view of everybody.
“Once, not long ago, up here, I put on the gloves with another man, a first-rate performer, for a friendly spar. But even with gloves on you can do a good deal of grim slogging. Somehow it came upon me – I believe I was getting the best of it, I’m not sure – that the thing was getting too real, and a vivid recollection of that other affair seemed to rise up like a ghost, and then and there I chucked up the sponge. Again they said I had funked.”
“Yes, I heard about that,” she said. “But it didn’t make any difference to me. I knew better all along, and told them so.”
“You told them so?”
“Of course I did. You see, I knew you better than that – even though we hadn’t done very much talking together, had we? And so that was your reason. Well you have adhered to your resolve – yes, grandly.”
“Do you remember that morning up on Ehlatini, you were warning me about Ancram? Well, that story was nearly all true. I did think my life was too good to put in pawn for the sake of that of a peculiarly abominable specimen of the genus gutter-brat – a specimen which was bound to be hung sooner or later – probably sooner. I think so still.”
She shook her head, trying to look solemn.
“All life is sacred,” she began.
“Is it? Mine wasn’t – not much. But I’m pretty sure that the immersed gutter-snipe’s was less so.”
No, there was no keeping up the solemnity line. Clare went off into a rippling peal of laughter.
“I can’t help it,” she exclaimed. “But don’t imagine I approve. It was very wrong indeed to let slip an opportunity of saving life.”
“Oh, for the matter of that, if the wretched little beast had been quite alone the case would have been different. As it was, there were plenty of others to haul him out if they chose, so I let them. Then I was insulted and abused by the last person in the world who should have done so, and that in front of a gang of gaping clodhoppers. I hope Ancram didn’t leave that part of the story out, because then you will know I have been engaged before.”
“Yes, I knew that,” answered Clare, who was secretly admiring the straightforward, unhesitating manner in which he told his tale. No stuttering or beating about the bush. He had something to say, and he said it in the most natural and concise manner possible. And she liked that.
“I’m glad. That makes it easier,” he returned.
“But,” she went on, “are you sure you have no lingering regrets on that score? Not even a little one deep down in your heart?”
“Not the very ghost of one. I am a vindictive animal, I suppose, but that sort of treatment leaves no room for lingering regrets, though it does for lingering resentment. But even of that there is none left now. You will never turn against me, darling?”
“Never,” she answered decisively and without hesitation, although startled by the sudden directness of the question.
“No matter what I did? Even to a repetition of the incident I have been telling you?”
“Not even then. No – nothing could ever make me turn from you,” she repeated, with a sudden burst of passion.
It was a strange contrast, these two walking there, talking, thinking of love. Down by a stagnant water-hole in the nearly dry river-bed, the horses and mules were grazing, under an armed guard, and yonder the gleam of rifles where vedettes were posted. Outside and within the stockade men lounged and chatted, all ready to fly to arms at the first alarm.
So to these two it was as an oasis – this peace of a great happiness. They had found it between the lurid storms of war, and good – very good – was it for them that they had.
Chapter Twenty Five.
The Impi
The vedettes had signalled. Away over the veldt to the westward a pillar of dust was visible; and it was moving, drawing nearer. A group, outside the stockade, was watching it intently.
“What d’you make of it, Grunberger?” said Fullerton impatiently.
“I think dot was someone coming,” answered the storekeeper, who was looking through a pair of field-glasses. This instructive utterance evolved a laugh.
“That’s what we all think, old chap,” said Jim Steele. “What we want to know is who it’s likely to be. White or black, or blue or green, or what?”
“Dot was one white man and one Matabele,” said the storekeeper, still intently scanning the approaching dust. “Ach! und they ride like de devil.”
“Here, let’s have a look in, Grunberger,” cried Fullerton. “I may know who it is.”
The other resigned the glasses, and after a long look, during which the two mounted figures drew rapidly nearer, Fullerton exclaimed —
“By Jove, I do! It’s Driffield – Driffield and a boy.”
The excitement became intense. Nobody would push his horses at that pace on a hot day unless he were a born fool – which Driffield was not. Clearly there must be somebody behind him, from whom he had a strong interest in getting away.
“How about telling the captain?” suggested someone.
“Not yet,” cut in Peters, who had just joined the group. “Lamont’s sound asleep, and he needs it too, for to my knowledge he hasn’t shut his eyes for four nights. Time enough when we hear what’s in the wind.”
And that was not to be long. Driffield rolled from his horse panting with excitement and hard riding, and his tale was very soon told, and his experience was closely akin to that of Peters. He had been set upon in his camp that morning by three of his boys, but at the same time he had discovered a number of natives making for his camp at no great distance. He killed two assailants with his shot-gun, and the third took to his heels. Meanwhile, with great presence of mind, the other boy, who had remained faithful, had quickly saddled up the ponies, and the two had got away, but only just in time, for the crowd was beginning to fire at them. But on the road they were forced to make a sudden détour to avoid a big impi, which was heading straight in this direction.
“That’s news!” said Peters. “They’re likely coming for this place, expecting only to find Grunberger, all childlike and confiding. Ah!”
Again the vedette was signalling, and all eyes turned instinctively in the same direction as before. There, sure enough, where the first dust column had been sighted, arose another; no narrow thread this time but a very volume.
“That’s them, right enough,” said Driffield, while refreshing. “Let my boy have some skoff, will you, Grunberger. He’s jolly well earned it.”
If the news brought by the Native Commissioner was a source of vivid excitement to all present, no less was theirs to him. He had calculated on warning Grunberger, and if needful giving him a hand in moving his family to Gandela, which he would have had time to do while the Matabele were looting his possessions; instead of which he found the place quite strongly garrisoned, and indeed, considering its defensive facilities, it might be held against very considerable odds. And thus to hold it was the resolve of all there.
“By Jove, but you fellows were in luck,” he said regretfully. “I wish I had been there. And Miss Vidal – why, she’s splendid.”
“I can tell you she saved the whole outfit, by preventing the niggers getting at the mules before we came up,” went on his informant. “I had it from Fullerton she shot three with her own hand.”
“Three mules?”
“No – niggers – don’t be a silly ass, Driffield. Only don’t make any allusion to it when you see her. She wants to forget it.”
“Of course. Any nice girl would. And she – by Jove, she’s splendid!”
“You’re not alone in that opinion,” said the other so significantly as to draw the obvious query —
“Why?”
“Well,” lowering his voice, “Lamont seems to be making powerful running in that quarter. In fact he pretty well gave the show away in his wild eagerness to start after them the moment he heard Fullerton’s crowd was on the road at all.”
Whereby it is manifest that Lamont’s secret was not quite such a secret as he – and the sharer of it – imagined.
He, the while, together with others, was watching the approaching dust-cloud, and a council of war was held. Most were in favour of allowing the raiders to approach quite close, and then surprise them with a raking volley. This followed up quickly by another and another could not fail to demoralise them utterly. Meanwhile the pickets came riding rapidly in.
“Large force of Matabele coming up the road, sir,” reported the first.
“Right. Every man to his post,” ordered Lamont. His expression of countenance grew anxious, as soon the impi swung into view, marching in close formation, and divided into three companies – the largest and central of which kept the road, hence the dust-cloud. For he estimated that it could not be less than a thousand strong, and how was his small force going to hold its own against a determined rush on the part of such overwhelming odds?
The impi, as it drew near, presented an imposing spectacle. The warriors were in their national fighting gear. Quite half of them had been herders or mine boys for the settlers and prospectors – some perchance store-hands in the townships, but all had discarded the tattered shirt and trousers, or ragged hat, and their bronze bodies were bedecked with feather and bead adornments, and cow-tails, and monkey skins, and jackal-teeth necklaces – all of which, from a spectacular point of view, constituted an immense improvement. Then, too, the forest of great tufted shields, white or black, red or variegated, the quivering rattle of assegai hafts, making weird accompaniment to the gong-like roar of the deep voices as they marched, singing – assuredly the sight was a martial and inspiring one; but of those who beheld it their leader was not the only one to think that he might have appreciated it more fully if this enclosure contained not less than a hundred good white men instead of a bare three dozen.
The latter were watching through the chinks in the stockade – these in many places formed natural loopholes, where they did not they were made to. How long would it be before the word was given to fire? was the one thought in possession of each tense, strained mind. Then, suddenly, the advancing host came to a halt.
Clearly the Matabele were not quite satisfied as to the place being so innocent-looking and deserted as they had expected. For one thing, there were no horses or cattle grazing about anywhere within sight, these, of course, having been brought within at the earliest alarm. This looked suspicious.
They were obviously holding a consultation, but had lowered their voices so as not to be heard by whoever might be inside. Then about a score of them, leaving the others, came a little nearer.
“Ho, Gumbega,” called out one, hailing the storekeeper by the nearest approach to his name that the native tongue could roll itself round. “Are you from home that your gate is all barred up and made extra strong?”
“No, I am here,” replied Grunberger, in obedience to a whisper from Lamont. “But that was done by the captain’s orders.”
“The captain! What captain?”
“The captain of about a hundred men who arrived here yesterday. Look at all the rifles.”
There was no mistake as to this. Rifle barrels protruded through the chinks so that the whole of that side of the stockade seemed to glisten with them. The savages were obviously nonplussed. A strongly defended place containing a hundred well-armed whites – or even half that number – constituted a nut which, large as their own force was, they did not care to crack – at any rate not just then. So without a word those who had come forward returned to the main body, and the whole impi resumed its way, taking care to let them see, however, that it had no intention of drawing any nearer to the place.
“Come out and look, Lucy,” said Clare, who had been dividing her attention between watching what was going on and trying to reassure her terrified sister. “It’s a splendid sight, and we don’t get an opportunity of seeing a big Matabele regiment on the march every day, and in full war-paint too.”
“A splendid sight! Ugh, the horrible wretches! I never want to set eyes on them again.”
And the speaker shuddered, and stopped her ears as though to shut out the receding thunder of the marching song.
“But, Mrs Fullerton, there’s nothing to be frightened of,” urged the storekeeper’s wife. “They’re going right away.”
An idea struck Clare. Going outside, the first person she ran against was Lamont.
“Piers,” she said in a low tone, “where are they going?”
“I suspect they are making straight for Gandela.”
“Will they – take it?”
“No reason why they should, if only Orwell and Isard have condescended to act on my repeated warning, and put the place into a state of defence.”
“And if not – ?”
He looked at her for a moment without answering. Then he said —
“In that case these will have things all their own way.”
“How awful!”
“Well, we must hope for the best.”
“What if we had started to return there to-day?” she said suddenly, “We should have had to reckon with these. The mules are in no condition to travel out properly, and they could soon have overhauled us.”
“Ah!”
Then she subsided into silence. Even her courageous spirit had fallen upon a kind of reaction. The morning had been so bright and happy, and now a shadow of horror and gloom seemed to have darkened upon the land. Bloodshed, massacre everywhere, would it never pass? The other seemed to read her thoughts.
“Do not give way to depression, my Clare,” he said. “Keep up your own brave heart. We are quite safe here, with ordinary precaution, and you may be sure that nothing of that will be wanting. This cloud will pass, and all will be brighter than ever.”
“I seem to have a presentiment. Oh, it is horrible! And there is bloodshed on my hands too.”
“There is none,” he replied emphatically. “No, none. What you were forced to do to defend the life of your helpless sister does not count for one single moment. Darling, did we not settle all that last evening?”
“Yes, we did. You are a born comforter, dearest. But I believe it is my love for you that is making a coward of me. What if – if I lost you before this horrible war is over?”
“Now – now – now!” adopting a rallying tone, although thrilled to the heart by her words. “You must not indulge in these fancies or my bright and winsome Clare will be quite somebody else. I shall have to call Peters to cheer you up. See how he is keeping those jokers in a roar over there.”
This was a fact, but not an accident. Peters, ever watchful where his idolised friend was concerned, had gathered together quite a crowd, a little way apart, and was clearly regaling it with abundant humour – which he possessed – and this with the sole intent that these two should have a little time together uninterrupted.
“Yes, he can be very entertaining,” said Clare. “And I like him so much. Do you know, darling, he simply adores you.”
“I know he does his level best to make me beastly conceited.”
“He told me how you risked your life to save his during the retreat on the Shangani.”
“Did he, confound him! Then it was a distinct act of mutiny, for he’s under strict orders to let that well-worn chestnut be forgotten. I’ll have him put under arrest for disobedience to orders, since by popular vote I seem to have been put in command here.”
“But you weren’t in command here when he told me, so you can’t come down upon him. How’s that?” and she laughed brightly.
“In that case I suppose I can’t,” he allowed, rejoicing greatly that she had shaken off her vein of depression. “But you know, dearest, that sort of thing was done over and over again during that very Shangani business, for one, by other men, and nobody thought of making a fuss about it. It was taken quite as a matter of course, and naturally it genuinely annoys me when Peters tries to make a sort of scissors and paste-pot hero of me.”
“I shall claim the right to reserve my own opinion, all the same,” she declared with mock loftiness. “By the way, who is Mr Peters? He seems something of a mystery.”
“Yes. He delights in humbugging the curious. Nobody is ever an atom the wiser concerning him.”
“But – you know.”
“Yes, I know all about him.”
“And – you won’t tell me?”
“No.”
It came out quite naturally but quite decisively.
“Then you will have secrets from me?”
“Other people’s secrets – certainly.”
“And – your own?”
“I haven’t got any.”
During this apparent skirmish they had been looking each other straight in the eyes. But the skirmish was only apparent. “Oh, I do love a man who knows his own mind,” said the girl delightedly. “Why, I was not even trying you, for I knew beforehand what your answer would be.”
“I know you were not. Well, if you really want to know anything about Peters, the only possible way of doing so is to – ask Peters.”
Then they both laughed – laughed long and heartily.