A Frontier Mystery Part 4

"That is what some would like to know," I went on. "But they have not found him yet."

I had named, by his native name, a neighbour of mine, who farmed some way down the river. Though in actual fact he was rather too far off to be termed exactly a neighbour. His real and British name was Hensley, and he had disappeared.

Sounds strange, doesn't it, and it certainly was. People don't disappear in Natal like they do in London, or any other large and civilised city, least of all highly respectable and fairly substantial colonists, of which Hensley was one. But this man had, and the strangest part of it was that he had not only disappeared but had done so leaving no trace. Not only that, but no one could be found who could swear to having been the last to see him.

He lived alone, and was an ordinary type of the frontier stock farmer.

He was fairly prosperous and there was no reason on earth why he should have taken himself out of the way. No reason on earth was there either why he should have been put out of the way. He was on good terms with the natives, could always get plenty of servants, and so on. No, there was no reason in the world for his disappearance, yet he had disappeared--how and when n.o.body seemed to have the faintest idea.

The news had reached me through native sources, as a large portion of my news did. Indeed it is hardly credible the quant.i.ty I used to learn about my neighbours in this way; some of whom would have been mightily disconcerted could they have guessed that I, or anybody else, had an inkling of anything of the sort. The Natal Mounted Police had been investigating, but neither they nor their native detectives had been able to lay hand on the slightest clue. The man might have been caught up to heaven at midnight for all there was to show what had become of him.

"Not found him yet?" echoed Tyingoza, when he had absorbed his snuff.

"_Au_! he will find himself. Men are strange, Iqalaqala, especially white men. And this one--if he wants to disappear why should he not?"

"Wants to disappear? But this one has no reason to want anything of the kind. Some men might, but this one not. You know him, Tyingoza, as well as I. What do you think?"

There was a comical twinkle in the chief's eyes. He merely answered:

"Who can think in such a case?"

Obviously there was nothing to be got out of Tyingoza--as yet--so I left the subject. In fact I had a far more interesting subject on my mind just then, for this was the day the Sewins had fixed upon for their visit to me, and so I fell to discussing with the chief the arrangements which were to be made for their entertainment. He had promised that a goodly number of his people should muster, and I had promised them cattle to kill in proportion to the number that would require feasting.

This ought to ensure a very good roll up indeed. The disappearance of Hensley was to me a very secondary matter to-day.

By the way, I was in a state of fidget absolutely unwonted with me; and my "boy" Tom simply gaped with astonishment at the thorough turn-out I made him give my hut; and when I fetched a roll of Salampore cloth to hang around the walls so as to conceal the gra.s.s thatching I could see that he was entertaining considerable doubts as to his master's sanity.

He would have entertained even graver doubts could he have witnessed a still further stage of imbecility into which I lapsed. I found myself looking in the gla.s.s--not for ordinary purposes of toilet, be it noted, and I have set out upon this narrative determined to spare none of my own weaknesses, but because I was anxious to see what sort of fellow I looked--and I don't know that I felt particularly flattered by the result; for, confound it, I was no longer in my first youth, and a face bronzed and roughened by twenty years of knocking about, struck me as nothing particularly attractive to the other s.e.x. Yet it was only the roughness of weather and more or less hard times that had told upon it, for I had always been rather abstemious and had set my face like a flint against the wild roaring sprees that some of my friends in the same line were p.r.o.ne to indulge in. If I had not the "clean run" look of Falkner Sewin, my eye was every whit as clear and I had a trifle the advantage of him in height, and held myself quite as straight. No, it was absurd to try and start comparisons with Sewin, who was quite ten years younger, and had never known any hardening experiences, so I turned from the looking-gla.s.s imprecating one G.o.dfrey Glanton as a silly a.s.s, who had much better trek away right up-country and stay there altogether.

And this idea was the first intimation that I had returned to sanity again.

My guests arrived earlier than I had expected, somewhere in the middle of the afternoon to wit, and the first thing they did was to reproach me for having put myself out for them so as they called it.

"I warned you there was nothing particular to see, didn't I?" I said, as I showed them the inside of the store.

"But I think there is," declared Miss Sewin, gazing around at the various "notions" disposed along the shelves or hanging about from the beams. "And how tidy you keep it all. Ah--" as an idea struck her, "I believe you have had it all put ship-shape for the occasion. Confess now, Mr Glanton, haven't you?"

"Well, you know, it's a sort of general holiday, so of course things are a little more ship-shape than usual," I answered.

"Ah, but the fun would have been to have taken you by surprise, when you were in the thick of it. How is it there are no natives here to-day?"

"They'll roll up directly for the fun this evening. I expect quite a lot of them."

"Are they hard at a deal?" she went on, still gazing with interest at the trade goods. "Do they haggle much?"

"Haggle? Rather! Haggle like any Italian. Only they're much more difficult to bring down. But, won't you come round now and have tea?

I've had a waggon sail rigged up for shade because I thought you'd prefer it outside."

The ladies were delighted, and I will own in candour that there didn't seem to be anything wanting, if about four kinds of biscuits; and rolls, white and fresh, done on a gridiron; some very excellent tinned jam; b.u.t.ter and potted meats; tea and coffee, and for us men a decanter of first-rate Boer brandy--contributed a sufficient afternoon tea.

"So this is the 'roughing it' you warned us against, Mr Glanton?"

laughed Mrs Sewin, who was pouring out. "Why, it is luxury, positive luxury."

"But it's a great occasion," I answered. "Major, have a gla.s.s of grog after your ride."

"Well, that's no bad idea. Capital stuff this," holding up his gla.s.s.

"So it is," p.r.o.nounced Falkner, tossing off his. "Here's luck, Glanton.

By Jove, you've got an uncommonly snug crib up here. Hanged if it don't feel like turning Zulu trader myself."

"And if Tyingoza came here rather often, and stuck here a little longer than you wanted, how long would it be before you started to kick him off the place?"

"Oh, not long, I expect," answered Falkner equably, amid the general laugh at his expense.

"Quite so. Then from that, moment you might as well shut up shop."

"Isn't this Tyingoza the chief of the location?" asked Miss Sewin.

"Yes. He was here this morning."

"Oh, I should like to see him."

"You shall," I answered. "He's sure to be here to-night. If not I'll send over for him the first thing in the morning. He's a great friend of mine."

Falkner guffawed. "Friend of yours! Oh, I say now, Glanton. A n.i.g.g.e.r!"

"All serene, Sewin. I've known quite as fine fellows in their way among 'n.i.g.g.e.rs' as you call them--as among white men. Strange, isn't it?

But, fact, for all that."

"Now I come to think of it," said the Major, "I've noticed that the men I've met over here, who have large experience of natives, invariably speak well of them."

I rejoiced that the old man was coming to his senses on that point, because there was less likelihood of him getting disgusted with and leaving the neighbourhood.

"You have a perfectly lovely view from here, at any rate," said Miss Sewin, when he had debated the oft-threshed-out question a little further. "How black and jagged the Drakensberg peaks look over there.

And so that is Zululand?" turning to the expanse beyond the Tugela.

"By Jove!" said the Major. "It strikes me we are pretty much at Cetywayo's mercy, right on the border as we are."

"If you're never at the mercy of anybody worse, you won't have cause for uneasiness, Major," I said. "As long as he's let alone he'll let us alone. There isn't a native chief in the whole of Africa who is less likely to molest us in any way."

"And are these people round you Zulus, Mr Glanton?" went on Miss Sewin, her beautiful eyes wide open as she gazed forth upon the country that had awakened her interest.

"Yes. Those on the immediate border here, Tyingoza's people, and two or three more of the large locations along the river. Further in they are made up of all sorts of the tribes originally inhabiting what is now Natal. Ah! Do you hear that? Here come some of them at any rate."

"Yes. They are singing, and quite well too."

I looked at her as she stood listening; her beautiful face lit up with animation, and, I must admit, I was enjoying the position of host and entertainer to her.

"But now, if there was a war with Cetywayo," struck in the Major, "would these people go over to him or stand by us?"

"Well that would depend on how our forces behaved at first.

Sentimentally their sympathies would be with him, but then a savage is pre-eminently a practical animal, Major, with a hard keen eye to the side on which his bread is b.u.t.tered, and that would tell. Look now, here they come."