A Frontier Mystery Part 25

"Might I, as a matter of curiosity, ask who the 'someone else' may be?"

I said, conscious at the same time of a wholly unaccustomed sinking of the heart.

"Certainly, and I'll tell you. It's myself."

"That's straight anyway," I rejoined, feeling relieved. "Then I am to understand I must congratulate you--both--on an engagement?"

He started at the word "both."

"Er--no. Not exactly that. Hang it, Glanton, don't I put things plain enough? I mean I was first in the field, and it isn't fair--in fact I consider it beastly dishonourable for you, or any other fellow, to come trying to upset my coach. Now--do you see?"

"I think I understand," I said, feeling softened towards him. "But as regards myself, first of all you had better be sure you are not a.s.suming too much, in the next place, you are just in the position of anybody else, and can't set up any such plea as prior rights. See?"

"No, I'll be hanged if I do," he snarled. "I've told you how things stand, so now you're warned."

"I'm not going to quarrel with you," I answered. "We are all alone here, with no chance of anybody overhearing us or at any rate understanding us if they did. Yet I prefer talking 'dark' as the Zulus say. Let's start fair, d'you hear? Let's start fair--and--now you're warned."

He scowled and made no answer. In fact, he sulked for the rest of the evening--and, to antic.i.p.ate--long after that.

I went outside before turning in, leaving Falkner in the sulks. The rain had ceased, and bright patches of stars were shining between the parting clouds. The fire had died low, and the conversation of the boys had dropped too. I can always think best out in the open, and now I set myself hard to think over these last developments. By its date the letter must have been nearly a week on the road. Well, there was not time for much to have happened in between. Then what Falkner had just revealed had come to me as something of an eye-opener. I had at first rather suspected him of resenting me as an interloper, but subsequently as I noted the free and easy terms on which he stood with both his cousins--the one equally with the other--the last thing to enter my mind was that he should think seriously of either of them, and that one Aida.

Why, she used to keep him in order and treat him very much as a boy-- indeed all her references to him when discussing him with me, even as lately as in the letter I had just received, bore the same elder sisterly tone, and I felt sure that while this held good, Falkner, in entertaining the hopes he had revealed to me, was simply twisting for himself a rope of sand. At the same time I felt sorry for him, and my not unnatural resentment of the very dictatorial tone which he had chosen to adopt towards myself cooled entirely. He was young and so boyish that every allowance must be made. At the same time I envied him his youth. As for me, well I hardly knew, but as my meditations ran on in the stillness and silence of the starlit night, cl.u.s.tering ever around one recollection, well I realised, and not for the first time, that life seemed very much to have been wasted in my case.

The one talent man in the parable recurred to my mind, and I will even own, I hope not irreverently, to a sneaking sympathy for that same poor devil. He might have lost his one talent, or fooled it away, instead of which, he at any rate kept it--and, after all there is a saying that it is more difficult to keep money than to make it. Now it seemed to me that I was very much in the same boat with him. I had kept my talent-- so far--and was it even now too late to add to it, but--what the deuce had this got to do with Aida Sewin, who formed the undercurrent of all the riotous meditations in which I was indulging? Well perhaps it had something.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

DOLF NORBURY AGAIN.

When two people, trekking together beyond the confines of civilisation fall out, the situation becomes unpleasant. If each has his own waggon, well and good, they can part company, but if not, and both are bound to stick together it spells friction. For this reason I have always preferred trekking alone.

Even my worst enemy could hardly accuse me of being a bad-tempered man, let alone a quarrelsome one. On the other hand I have never laid claim to an angelic disposition, and if I had the demeanour of my present companion would have taxed it to the uttermost, since we had each been betrayed into showing the other our hand. For my part I can honestly say the fact would have made no difference whatever in our mutual relations, but Falkner Sewin was differently hung. First of all he sulked heavily, but finding that this did not answer and that I was entirely independent of him for companionship, for I would talk to the Zulus by the hour--he threw that off and grew offensive--so much so that I felt certain he was trying to pick a quarrel with me. Had it been any other man in the world this would have concerned me not one atom, indeed he needn't have tried overmuch. But here it was different. There was my promise to his cousin, and further, the consideration that Aida Sewin was his cousin and thus very nearly related indeed. No, on no account must we come to blows, and yet the strain upon my temper became hourly more great.

I had not been able to trek when I had intended, by reason of something beyond the ordinary native delay in bringing in my cattle; in fact in one particular quarter I had some difficulty in getting them brought in at all. In view of the troubled state of the border this looked ominous. In ordinary times Majendwa's people like other Zulus, though hard men of business at a deal, were reliability itself once that deal was concluded. Now they were inclined to be shifty and evasive and not always over civil; and all this had come about suddenly. Could it mean that war had actually broken out? It might have for all we knew, dependent as we were upon those among whom we dwelt for every sc.r.a.p of information that might reach us from outside. Otherwise their behaviour was unaccountable. But if it had, why then we should be lucky to get out of the country with unperforated skins, let alone with a wheel or a hoof to our names.

Even Majendwa's demeanour towards me had undergone a change, and that was the worst sign of all; for we had always been good friends. All his wonted geniality had vanished and he had become curt and morose of manner. I resolved now to take the bull by the horns, and put the question to Majendwa point-blank. Accordingly I betook myself to his hut, with that object. But the answer to my inquiries for him was prompt. The chief was in his _isiG.o.dhlo_, and could not be disturbed.

This sort of "not at home" was unmistakable. I returned to the waggons.

Now an idea struck me. Was there more in that gruesome discovery of mine--and Falkner's--than met the eye? Was the fact that we had made it, first one of us and then the other, at the bottom of the chief's displeasure? It might have been so. At any rate the sooner we took the road again the better, and so I announced to Falkner that we would inspan at sunrise. His reply was, in his then mood, characteristic.

"But we haven't traded off the stuff yet," he objected. "I say. You're not in a funk of anything, are you, Glanton? I ask because I rather wanted to stay on here a little longer."

I turned away. His tone was abominably provoking, moreover I knew that he would be glad enough to return, and had only said the foregoing out of sheer cussedness.

"You have your horse," I said. "If you like to remain I'll leave Jan Boom with you, and you can easily find your way back."

"Want to get rid of me, do you?" he rapped out. "Well you won't. Not so easily as that. No--you won't."

To this I made no answer. At sunrise the waggons were inspanned. Then another difficulty cropped up. The boys who were to have driven the herd of trade cattle, at any rate as far as the border, did not turn up.

In disgust I was prepared to take them on myself with the help of Mfutela. Falkner had learnt to drive a waggon by this time and now he must do it. His reply however when I propounded this to him was again characteristic. He was d.a.m.ned if he would.

The knot of the difficulty was cut and that unexpectedly, by the appearance of the chief's son, and with him some boys.

"These will drive your cattle, Iqalaqala," he said.

"That is well, Muntisi," I answered. "And now son of Majendwa, what has come between me and the chief that he holds my hand no more? Is there now war?"

We were a little apart from the others, and talk in a low slurred tone that natives use when they don't want to be understood.

"Not war," he answered; "at any rate not yet. But, Iqalaqala, those who come into a chief's country should not come into it with too many eyes."

"Ha!" I said, taking in the quick glance which he shot in Falkner's direction, and with it the situation. "Too many eyes there may be, but a shut mouth more than makes up for that. A shut mouth, _impela_!"

"A shut mouth? _Au_! Is the mouth of Umsindo ever shut?"

This, it will be remembered, was Falkner's native name, meaning noise, or bounce, and the chief's son was perpetrating a sort of pun in the vernacular.

"But it will be this time, never fear," I answered. "Farewell now, son of Majendwa. I, who have seen more than men think, know how not to talk."

I felt really grateful to Muntisi, and made him a final present which he appreciated.

"You need not mistrust those I have brought you," he said. "Only for others you cannot have too many eyes now until you reach Inncome," he added meaningly.

Nothing of note happened and we trekked on unmolested in any way, travelling slow, for the trade cattle were fat and in excellent condition, which of course I didn't want to spoil. Then befel an incident which was destined to give us trouble with a vengeance.

We had got into spa.r.s.ely inhabited country now, and were nearing the border. One afternoon Falkner and I had struck off from the track a little to shoot a few birds for the pot--by the way Falkner had in some degree condescended to relax his sulks, being presumably tired of his own company. We had rejoined the track and had just put our horses into a canter to overtake the waggons when Falkner threw a glance over his shoulder and said:

"What sort of beast is that?"

I turned and looked back. It was a dark afternoon and inclining moreover to dusk, but I could make out something white glinting through the bush, rather behind us, but as if running parallel to our way. The bush grew in patches, and the thing would be alternately hidden or in the open again.

"Here goes for a shot, anyway," said Falkner, slipping from his horse.

He carried a rifle and smooth-bore combination gun, and before I could prevent him or perhaps because I tried to, he had loosed off a bullet at the strange beast. A splash of dust, a good deal short of the mark, leaped up where it struck.

"The line was good but not the distance," he grumbled. "I'll get him this time," slipping in a fresh cartridge.

"Much better not," I urged. "We don't want to get into any more bother with the people by shooting their dogs."

He made no answer, and I was glad that the bush thickened where the animal had now disappeared.

"Let's get on," I said. "It's nearly dark."

He mounted and we had just resumed our way, when not twenty yards distant, the creature came bounding forth, frightening our horses by the suddenness of his appearance. There was nothing hostile, however, in his att.i.tude. He was wagging his tail, and squirming and whimpering in delight, as a dog will do when he has found a long-lost master, or at best a well-known friend. I stared, hardly able to believe my own eyesight. The large, wolf-like form, the bushy tail--why there could be no duplicate of this ever whelped at a Zulu kraal, that was certain.

"Arlo," I cried. "Arlo, old chap. What are you doing in these parts, eh?"

The dog whined with delight, squirming up to us, his brush going like a flail. In a moment we were both off our horses.