A Frontier Mystery Part 31

"I am, but not here."

"Not here?"

"No. I am going to leave trading, and raise cattle instead."

"The people will be sorry, Iqalaqala, for we have been friends. _Au_!

is it not ever so in life? You hold a man by the hand, and lo, a woman takes hold of his other hand, and--he holds yours no more."

"But in this case we still hold each other by the hand, Tyingoza," I said. "For I am not going into another country nor does the whole world lie between Isipanga and where I shall be."

"The people will be sorry," he repeated.

It was not long before Kendrew found his way over.

"Heard you were back, Glanton," he said. "Well and how did you get on with Sewin up-country?"

"Middling. He has his uses, and--he hasn't."

"Well, I shouldn't find any use for him for long. It's all I can do to stand that dashed commandeering way of his, and 'haw-haw' swagger, as it is. Been down there since you got back? But of course you have," he added with a knowing laugh. "I say though, but doesn't it seem a sin to bury two splendid looking girls in an out-of-the-way place like this?"

"Don't know about that. At any rate I propose to bury one of them in just such an out-of-the-way place," I answered. "I believe it's the thing to offer congratulations on these occasions, so congratulate away, Kendrew. I'll try and take it calmly."

"Eh--what the dev--Oh I say, Glanton--You don't mean--?"

"Yes, I do mean. Compose yourself, Kendrew. You look kind of startled."

"Which of them is it?"

"Guess," I said, on mischief intent, for I detected a note of eagerness in his tone and drew my own conclusions.

"The eldest of course?"

"Right," I answered after a moment of hesitation intended to tease him a little longer.

"Why then, I do congratulate you, old chap," he said with a heartiness in which I thought his own relief found vent. "I say though. You haven't lost much time about it."

"No? Well you must allow for the hastiness of youth."

And then he fired off a lot more good wishes, and soon suggested we should ride over to the Sewins together as he was so near. And reading his motive I sympathised with him and agreed.

Two months had gone by since my engagement to Aida Sewin and they had gone by without a cloud. If I were to say that a larger proportion of them was spent by me at her father's place than at my own, decidedly I should not be exaggerating. But we learnt to know each other very thoroughly in that time, and the more I learnt to know her the more did I marvel what I had done to deserve one hundredth part of the happiness that henceforth was to irradiate my life. Truly our sky was without a cloud.

I had found a farm that seemed likely to suit me. It was now only a question of price, and the owner was more than likely to come down to mine. The place was distant by only a few hours' easy ride, and that was a consideration.

"Everything seems to favour us," Aida said. "You know, dear, it is such a relief to me to know that we need not be far away from the old people after all. I would of course go to the other ends of the earth with you if necessity required it, but at the same time I am deeply thankful it does not. And then, you know, you needn't be afraid of any of the 'relations-in-law' bugbear; because they look up to you so. In fact we have come to look upon you as a sort of Providence. While you were away, if anything went wrong, father would fume a bit and always end by saying: 'I wish to Heaven Glanton was back. It would be all right if Glanton were here!' mother, too, would say much the same. So you see you will have very amenable relations-in-law after all."

"Oh, I'm not afraid of that in the least," I answered. "As a matter of fact, as you know, I don't think your father was at all well advised in coming out here to set up farming at his age and with his temperament.

But now he is here we must pull him through, and we'll do it all right, never fear. But Aida, if it was a wrong move on his part think what it has resulted in for me."

"And for me," she said softly.

I have set out in this narrative deliberately to spare the reader detailed accounts of love pa.s.sages between myself and this beautiful and peerless woman whose love I had so strangely won; for I hold that such are very far too sacred to be imparted to a third person, or put down in black and white for the benefit of the world at large. Suffice it that the most exacting under the circ.u.mstances could have had no reason to complain of any lack of tenderness on her part--ah, no indeed!

This conversation took place during a long walk which we had been taking. Aida was fond of walking, and, except for long distances, preferred it to riding; wherein again our tastes coincided. She was observant too and keenly fond of Nature; plants, insects, birds, everything interested her; and if she saw anything she wanted to look at she could do it far better, she said, on foot than on horseback. So we had taken to walking a good deal. This afternoon we had been to a certain point on the river which she had wanted to sketch, and now were returning leisurely through the bush, picking our way along cattle or game paths. Arlo, for once, was not with us. Falkner had taken him in the other direction. He wanted to train him as a hunting dog, he said, and now he had gone after a bush-buck.

The glory of the slanting sun rays swept wide and golden over the broad river valley as the sinking disc touched the green gold line of the further ridge, then sank beneath it, leaving the sweep of bush-clad mound and lower lying level first lividly clear, then indistinct in the purple afterglow. Birds had ceased to pipe farewell to the last light of falling day, and here and there along the river bank a jackal was shrilly baying. But if the light of day had failed, with it another lamp had been lighted in the shape of a broad moon approaching its full, its globe reddening into an increasing glow with the twilight darkening of the sky.

"We shall pa.s.s by the waterhole," I said. "You are not afraid."

"Afraid? With you? But it is an uncanny place. We have rather avoided it since that time we first saw that weird thing in it. But we have been there since in the daytime with Falkner, and father, and whatever the thing may have been we have never seen it since."

"Well, we'll have a look at it in this grand moonlight. Perhaps the bogey may condescend to appear again."

"Hark!" exclaimed Aida suddenly. "What is that?" Then listening--"Why, it's a lamb or a kid that must have strayed or been left out."

A shrill bleat came to our ears--came from the bush on the further side of the hole to us, but still a little way beyond it.

"Couldn't we manage to catch it?" she went on. "It'll be eaten by the jackals, poor little thing."

"Instead of by us," I laughed. "Well, it doesn't make much difference to it though it does to its owner. Wait--Don't speak," I added in a whisper, for my ears had caught a sound which hers had missed.

We stood motionless. We were on high ground not much more than twenty yards above the pool, every part of which we could see as it lay, its placid surface showing like a dull, lack-l.u.s.tre eye in the moonlight.

In the gloom of the bush we were completely hidden, but through the sprays we could see everything that might take place.

Again the bleat went forth shrilly, this time much nearer. But--it ceased suddenly, as if it had been choked off in the middle.

A dark figure stood beside the pool, on the very brink, the figure of a man--a native--and in his hands he held something white--something that struggled. It was a half-bred Angora kid--the little animal whose bleat we had heard. I could see the glint of the man's head-ring in the moonlight; then for a moment, as he turned it upward, I could see his face, and it was that of Ukozi, the one-eyed witch doctor. An increased pressure on my arm told that my companion had seen it too. I dared not speak, for I was curious to see what he was about to do. I could only motion her to preserve the strictest silence.

The witch doctor stood waving the kid--held in both hands by the fore and hind feet--high over his head, and chanting a deep-toned incantation; yet in such "dark" phraseology was this couched that even I couldn't make head or tail of it. It seemed to call upon some "Spirit of the Dew" whatever that might be, and was so wrapped up in "dark" talk as to be unintelligible failing a key. Then, as we looked, there arose a splashing sound. The surface of the pool was disturbed. A sinuous undulation ran through it in a wavy line, right across the pool, and then--and then--a mighty length rose glistening from the water, culminating in a hideous head whose grisly snout and sunken eye were those of the python species. This horror glided straight across to where the witch doctor stood, and as it reached him its widely-opened jaws seemed to champ down upon his head. Not upon it, however, did they close, but upon the body of the white kid which he had deftly placed there, quickly springing back at the same time. Then it turned, and as it glided back, the wretched little animal kicking and bleating frantically in its jaws, it seemed as if the hideous brute were rushing straight for us. Aida's face was white as death, and I had to repress in her a panic longing to turn and fly. My firm touch however sufficed to calm her, and we crouched motionless, watching Ukozi on the further side. The serpent had disappeared from our view.

The whole thing was horrible and eerie to a degree. The witch doctor now was in a species of frenzy, walking up and down, with a half-dancing movement, as he called out, thick and fast, the _sibongo_ of the serpent. It was a nasty, uncanny, heathenish performance, and revolted me; although through it there shone one redeeming--even humorous--side.

We had sat and watched it while Ukozi was blissfully ignorant of our presence. He, the great witch doctor, had no inspiration or inkling that he was being watched! One day I would twit him with it.

Not long, however, did he stay there, and on Aida's account I was glad to see the last of him. Had I been alone I might have gone after him and asked the meaning of the performance. As it was, she had better forget it. For a time we sat there in the dead silence of the moonlight.

"What does it mean?" she whispered, when we had allowed Ukozi sufficient time to make himself scarce.

"Oh, some Mumbo Jumbo arrangement all his own," I answered. "Well that certainly is a whacking big python--the very biggest I've ever seen. If I had anything in the shape of a gun I'd be inclined to try and sneak the brute wherever he's lying."

"Wouldn't it be in the water then?"

"No. Lying up somewhere under the banks. In hot weather they're fond of lying in a waterhole, but on a cool night like this--not. I must come and stalk the brute another night though; and yet, do you know, it seems strange, but I don't like interfering with anything that bears a sort of religious significance to anybody. And the snake does come in that way with Zulus."

She thought a moment. Then:

"You remember, dear, how I told you that one of the things this man was going to show father was the mystery of the waterhole. Now supposing that horror had suddenly seized him?"