John Ames, Native Commissioner Part 10

Nidia, for her part, was conscious of mingled feelings. She did not know whether to be glad or not that they had been summarily interrupted; on the whole, she thought she was glad. On the other hand, she had not exaggerated in saying she would miss him dreadfully, and already she had some idea as to how she would miss him. Here was a man who was outside her experience, who represented an entirely new phase of character.

With her, too, this time that they had spent so much together stood forth.

But although no more was said during their homeward ride of a nature to trench on grave matters, the tone between both of them was one that seemed unconsciously to breathe of confidence and rest. The deep murmur of the ocean swell had sunk its hoa.r.s.e raving as it lapped the rocks below the skirting road; the golden glory of the heaving waters had turned to a deeper sapphire blue suffused with pink as the sun sank behind the rampart crags, and already two or three stars, twinkling forth, seemed to rest upon, then hover over, the rock crest of the great Lion Mountain, heaving up, a majestic sentinel, over the liquid plain.

Yes; both were content, for in the hearts of both still rang the gladness and the quietude of a very conscious refrain:--"We shall meet again, soon."

Thus the parting of the ways. But before they should meet again--what?

In that surrounding of peace and evening calm, small wonder that no suggestion should find place as to a very different surrounding, where, far to the north, from the drear mountain wilderness, even at that moment, thundered forth--as another Voice from Sinai of old--a dire and terrible voice telling of scourge and of war--a voice, indeed, of woe and of wrath, sounding its dread tocsin o'er an entire land.

"Burned is the earth, Gloom in the skies Nation's new birth--Manhood arise!"

CHAPTER NINE.

THE SCOURGE--AND AFTER.

Madula's kraal, in the Sik.u.mbutana, was again in a state of profound malcontentment and unrest, and again for much the same reason as before.

Then that reason had been the imminent loss of its cattle, now that loss had become a certainty. The dread scourge had swept over the land, in all its dire unsparingness, and now Madula and his people were convened to witness the destruction of their worldly wealth.

For the edict of the ruling power had gone forth. The animals were to be destroyed, and that wholesale. Segregated into small herds, they were carefully watched. With the first case of sickness becoming apparent the whole herd containing it was doomed. And now nearly the whole of Madula's herds had been declared infected.

The place appointed for this wholesale slaughter was an open plain some little distance from the kraal. About threescore dead oxen lay where they had fallen, the nostrils of a few still frothy with the fatal running which denoted the fell pestilence. John Ames, grounding his smoking rifle, turned to talk with Inglefield and another white man, the latter being one of the Government cattle inspectors. Both these carried rifles, too, and behind them was drawn up a troop of native police. In a great semicircle Madula's people squatted around, their countenances heavy with sullen rankling, their hearts bitter and vengeful. In the mind of the chief the dexterous venom of Shiminya was taking full effect. The fact of a few cattle being sick was seized upon by their rulers as a pretext for the destruction of all; and what would become of the people then? In the minds of the people the predictions of Umlimo were being fulfilled to the letter. Now, however, they could afford to wait. Soon there would be no more cattle; soon--very soon-- there would be no more whites.

John Ames, laying down his weapon, addressed the muttering, brooding savages. It was a most revolting task that which had been put upon him, he explained; not one that he would have undertaken of his own free will. To shoot down miserable unresisting animals in cold blood, one after another, could not be otherwise. It would seem to the people that to destroy the whole as well as the sick was an act of sheer wanton tyranny, but they must not look at it in that light. The Government was their father, and had their interests at heart; and although it was found necessary to reduce them to seeming poverty for the time being, yet they would not be losers in the long run. Then, again, they were in no worse case than the white men themselves, whose cattle was destroyed in the same way if disease broke out; but, above all, they must be patient, and bear in mind that by right of conquest all the cattle in the land belonged to the Government, and what they had was only allowed them by favour. This disease was a cloud they were all pa.s.sing through, white and black alike. It would pa.s.s, and the sun would shine forth again. Let them be patient.

John Ames, in the plenitude of his experience, noted the sullen apathy wherewith his words were received, yet he attached no greater importance to it than he reckoned it deserved; he could appreciate the outrage on their feelings which this wholesale destruction of their most cherished possessions must involve. Then Madula spoke.

"What Jonemi had told them must be true, since Jonemi said it. But what the people could not understand was why Government should have restored them their cattle, if only to destroy it all before their eyes; should give it back with one hand to take it away with the other. That did not seem like the fatherly act of a fatherly Government. Nor could they understand why the beasts that were not sick should be shot just the same as those that were. Let them be spared until the signs of sickness showed, then shoot them. Those signs might never show themselves." And more to the same effect.

With infinite patience John Ames laid himself out to explain, for the twentieth time, all he had said before. It was like reasoning with a wall. "Let the people only have patience," he concluded. "Let the people have patience."

"M--m!" hummed his auditors, a.s.senting. "Let the people have patience."

But there was a significance in their tone which was lost on him then, though afterwards he was destined to grasp it.

"It's a disgusting business all this butchery," he observed, as he and the other two white men were riding homeward together. "I don't wonder the people are exasperated. As Madula says, they'll never understand how the Government can give them back the cattle with one hand only to take it all away with the other."

"It strikes me that Mr Madula says a great deal too much," said Inglefield, dropping the bridle on his horse's neck, while shielding a match with both hands so as to light his pipe. "A little experience of the inside of Bulawayo gaol would do him all the good in the world, in my opinion."

"You can't work these people that way, Inglefield, as I'm always telling you," rejoined John Ames. "You've got to remember that a man like Madula wants some humouring. He was a bigwig here before either you or I held our commissions in this country, possibly before we had, practically, ever heard of it. Now, for my part, I always try and bear that in mind when dealing with the old-time indunas, and I'm confident it pays."

"Oh, you go on the coddling plan," was the thoughtless retort. "For my part--well--a n.i.g.g.e.r's a n.i.g.g.e.r, whether he's an induna or whether he isn't, and he ought to be taught to respect white men. I wouldn't make any difference whatever he was. An induna! Faugh! A dirty snuffy n.i.g.g.e.r with a greasy black curtain ring stuck on top of his head. Pooh!

Fancy treating such a brute as that with respect!"

"All right, Inglefield. I don't in the least agree with you. Perhaps when you've had a little experience you may be in a position to form an opinion as to which of our lines is the most workable one."

"Oh, draw it mild, Ames," retorted the police officer, ill-humouredly.

"It doesn't follow that because a fellow can patter by the hour to a lot of n.i.g.g.e.rs that he knows everything. I say, old chap, why don't you chip in for some of old Madula's daughters--marry 'em, don't you know?

He has some spanking fine ones, anyway."

The tone was ill-tempered and sneering to the last degree. Inglefield could be b.u.mptious and quarrelsome at times, but he had a poor life of it, with a detestable wife, and an appointment of no great emolument, nor holding out any particular prospect of advancement. All of which bearing in mind, John Ames controlled his not unnatural resentment, and answered equably:--

"Because I hope to make a better thing of life, Inglefield. But that sort of thing is rather apt to stick to a man, and crop up just when least convenient. I'm no prig or puritan, so putting it on that ground alone, it's better not touched."

"Oh, all right, old chap; only don't be so beastly satirical. I can't help grousing like the devil at times when I think how I'm stuck away here in this infernal G.o.d-forsaken hole. Wish I could fall into a bunk at Bulawayo or Salisbury or anywhere. Even Crosse here has a better time of it going around sniffing out rinderpest."

"Don't know about that," said the cattle inspector. "I'll swap you bunks, anyway, Inglefield."

"Wish we could, that's all," replied the police officer, who was in a decidedly "grousy" vein, as he owned himself, half petulantly, half laughingly, when presently the conical huts of Sik.u.mbutana hove in sight over the brow of the rise. "Well, now, Ames, you'll roll up to 'skoff'

at seven, won't you, unless you'll change your mind and come in now?"

"I'll roll up all right. But not now, I've got some work on hand, and it's early yet."

"Very well. Seven, then. Don't go sending over some tinpot excuse, you unreliable beggar."

"No; I'll be there. So long. So long, Crosse." And he turned his horse's head into the track that led to his own compound. "Rum chap that fellow Ames," said Inglefield, when he and the cattle inspector were alone together. "He's a rattling good chap at bottom, and we are really great pals, but we fight like the devil whenever we have to do with each other officially."

"How's that?" said Crosse, a quiet, self-contained man, with a large sandy beard and steady, reliable eyes.

"Oh, I don't know. He's so beastly officious--he calls it conscientious. Always prating about 'conscientious discharge of his duties'--'can't conscientiously do it'--and so on. You know. Now, only the other day--or, rather, just before he went on leave--he must needs get my pet sergeant reduced--a fellow worth his weight in gold to me as a hunter. Now, of course, the chap has turned sulky, and swears he's no good--can't tell where game is or is likely to be, or anything."

"So. How did he get him reduced?"

"Oh, some rotten bother with that old n.i.g.g.e.r who was out to-day, Madula.

Nanzicele--Oh, blazes! I can't manage these infernal clicks."

"Never mind; you'll learn some day," said Crosse. "Well, what did Nanzicele do?"

"Nothing. That's the point of the whole joke. He was sent to collar some cattle from Madula, and he--didn't collar it."

"And is that why he was reduced?"

"No fear. It was for _trying_ to collar it. The n.i.g.g.e.rs came in and complained to Ames, and Ames insisted on an inquiry. He took two mortal days over it, too; a rotten trumpery affair that ought to have been let rip. Then a lot of darn red tape, and my sergeant was reduced. No; Ames always pampers the n.i.g.g.e.rs, and some day he'll find out his mistake. If they come around--especially these indunas--he talks to them as if they were somebody. _I'd_ sjambok them out of the compound."

Crosse, listening, was chuckling to himself, for he knew whose judgment was likely to be the soundest, that of the speaker or that of Ames.

Then he said:--

"And this Nanzicele--is he that big tall Kafir who was nearest us, on the outside of the line, during the cattle-shooting?"

"Yes; that's the chap. By George! he's a splendid chap, as plucky as the very devil. Many a time I've had him out with me, and he'd go through anything. He was with me once when I missed a charging lion out beyond Inyati. _He_ didn't miss him, though--not much. I'd trust my life to that fellow any day in the week."

"Trust your life to him, would you?"

"Yes. Rather."

"M--m!"

"Yes, I would. You don't know the chap, Crosse. I do. See?"