John Ames, Native Commissioner Part 13

"Faugh! Hate kids. Always a nuisance. Always yelling. Yell when they're not happy; yell ten times more when they are. Besides, they smudge their faces with jam. d.a.m.n Hollingworth! I won't go there."

This statement was received by the other with all serenity and without reply. He knew his chum's little weakness, therefore knew that the bait thrown out would be not merely nibbled at but swallowed, the objectionable progeny notwithstanding. So he continued pulling on his long boots and otherwise completing his not extravagant toilet with complete equanimity. And then Mafuta, who at length had got the fire to burn, came along with some steaming coffee.

"That's better," p.r.o.nounced Tarrant, having got outside the invigorating brew. "Wonder if there are any crocs in these water puddles, Moseley?

I'm going to tub."

"Tub? Man alive, we're just ready to start. What on earth do you want to tub now for?"

"I thought you said Hollingworth had a pretty wife," tranquilly rejoined the other, digging into his kitbag for a towel. "You can't make acquaintance with a pretty woman when you're in an untubbed state, you know."

Moseley roared.

"Oh, skittles!" he said. "You can tub when you get there."

"I believe you're right; and the water looks dashed cold at this time of day."

"And I thought you said you wouldn't go there."

"Did I? Oh, well, I suppose I must if you do. It wouldn't look well, would it?"

"Why, of course not. Hurry up now. The boys want to load up your kit."

The pack-donkeys had been driven up, and the horses stood ready saddled.

In an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time all personal baggage and camp impedimenta had been removed and stowed upon the backs of the patient little Neddies--in the long run and the land of horse-sickness and "fly," perhaps more serviceable all round than that n.o.ble animal the horse. And then, as the first arrowy gleams of the sun began to warm the world, they started from their night's camp.

It was pleasant country that through which they now rode. Dewdrops still hung from the sprays of the feathery acacias, gleaming like diamonds in the rising sunlight; and the thorn-brake was musical with bird voices, or the clucking of bush-pheasants scuttling alarmed amid the long gra.s.s and undergrowth; and here and there a troop of guinea-fowl darting away with the rapidity of spiders at the sound of hoofstrokes, as the wayfarers wended their way along the edge of a native "land." Kraals, too, the conical roofs of the huts shining yellow in the sunlight; but from these no reek of blue smoke mounted to the heavens. Of cattle, either, was there no sign, nor indeed of human occupancy. The land seemed deserted--dead. What did it mean? Turning back, Moseley called to the boy to find out what he thought about it.

Mafuta came trotting up. Where were all the cattle? There were no cattle. They were all dead of the disease. Where were all the people?

They had moved to other parts of the country, or possibly some were still lying asleep as there were no cattle to tend. He, Mafuta, did not know. This was not his part. He came from a kraal a long way off--away beyond the Gwai.

This Mafuta was a young Matabele, who had served in the Ingubo regiment when Lo Bengula was king, and had entered the white man's service to earn money in order to buy a wife. He was an intelligent and warrior-looking youth, but with an expression of countenance as of one who had gazed on--perhaps taken part in--scenes of cruelty and bloodshed, and would not in the least object to doing so again. He was carrying Tarrant's Martini rifle and cartridge-belt, and looked thoroughly at home with them, as in fact he was, for his masters would often send him out to shoot game for camp consumption, when the heat disinclined them for needless activity. Moseley had a shot-gun, which he preferred to carry himself.

Now, however, they were not on sport intent, but held steadily on their way; and, after about two hours' riding, a thread of blue smoke appeared. A little further and they made out a homestead, standing on a slope beyond the high precipitous banks of a dry river.

"It'll be something to get our heels under a table again," remarked Tarrant, as they urged their horses up the steep path of the drift.

"Eating your 'skoff' in a sort of tied-in-a-knot att.i.tude, with your plate tobogganing away from you on the very slightest provocation, may be romantic enough on paper, but it's a beastly bore in actual practice.

Is that Hollingworth?"

"Yes."

A tall man was advancing towards them from the house. He wore a large beard, and his attire was the same as theirs--a silk shirt, and riding-trousers tucked into long boots, leather belt, and broad-brimmed hat.

"Hallo, Moseley!" he sung out. "Back again, eh? What's the news?"

"Oh, rinderpest--always rinderpest. Here, I say, d'you know Tarrant?

No? Well, here he is. Not a bad chap at bottom, but you've got to keep him at it."

The usual hand-shake followed, and then Hollingworth, farmer-like, began to growl.

"Rinderpest? I should think so. Why, I've hardly a hoof left. No fear. I'm going to chuck farming and go prospecting again. But come along in and have a drop of something after your ride. It'll be breakfast-time directly."

"Er--could one have a tub--among other things?" said Tarrant.

"Tub? Why, of course. Here--this way." And their host piloted them behind the scenes.

When the two men re-appeared, refreshed both inwardly and out, the residue of the household were gathered. Tarrant, already appraising his hostess, decided that Moseley's judgment was not at fault. She was a pretty little woman, dark-eyed and sparkling, albeit somewhat overtanned by sun and air; but it took him just two minutes to determine that she had not an idea or thought outside her very restive progeny, which, in proportion of one to the other, were even as a row of organ-pipes. Then a diversion occurred--a diversion strange and startling. The door behind him opened, and there entered somebody; yet was that any reason why Moseley should suddenly jump up from his seat like a lunatic, at the risk of upsetting no end of things, and vociferate--"Great Heavens!

Miss Commerell, who'd have thought of meeting _you_ here? When on earth did you get here? Well, I _am_ glad!" No; there was no need for Moseley to kick up such a fuss. It was beastly bad form; but then, Moseley always was such an impulsive chap.

"So you've met before?" cried Mrs Hollingworth, who had been about to introduce them.

"Rather. I should rather think we had met before," sung out Moseley, in what his travelling chum was wont to call his "hail-the-maintop"

voice. "Why, we were fellow-pa.s.sengers, fellow-actors, fellow-all-sorts-of-things, weren't we, Miss Commerell? But how did you find your way up here, and when?"

"You've asked me about four questions at once, Mr Moseley," said Nidia, in her bright, laughing way, "but I'll only ask you one--How am I going to answer them all at once?"

Tarrant, the while, was murmuring to himself, "Oh, never mind me.

Perhaps in half an hour or so he may remember that we are pards, and that I'm ent.i.tled to share his acquaintance with the young lady." And indeed at that moment the same idea occurred to Moseley himself, and he proceeded to introduce them.

Nidia was looking her very best. Here, in a settler's homestead, perforce rough, in the hot steamy wilds of Matabeleland, she looked as cool and fresh as with all the appliances of comfort and civilisation ready to hand. Tarrant, who rather fancied himself as a connoisseur in that line, was struck. Here was something quite out of the common, he thought to himself, as his glance took in the animated, expressive face, the lighting up of the blue eyes, the readiness wherewith the lips would curve into the most captivating of smiles, the dainty figure, and the cool, neat, tasteful attire. Mrs Hollingworth was a pretty woman, Moseley had declared, and rightly; but his chum had never prepared him for anything like this.

The while Nidia herself was replying to the questions volubly fired into her by Moseley. They had come up to Bulawayo in due course. Fatiguing!

No; on the whole she had rather enjoyed the journey--the novelty and so on--and everybody they met had been very kind to them, and had done all they knew to make things easy. How was Mrs Bateman? Oh, flourishing.

In fact, when Mr Bateman returned she herself had, of course, felt _de trop_, and so had come to inflict herself on Mrs Hollingworth, and see some of the real wild side of the country.

The last in her most arch and quizzical manner.

"It's a poor time you've chosen to look at it in, Miss Commerell,"

remarked Hollingworth. "Rinderpest has about done for us all, and bar that the whole show has been as dry as chips."

"Yet, it's all very interesting to me, at any rate," she returned. "And the savages. I can hardly believe they are the wicked ferocious beings you all make out, poor, patient, put-upon looking mortals! Some of the old men have such really fine faces, and their voices are so soft and kindly--though, of course, I can't understand a word they say," she broke off, with a whimsical candour that made everybody laugh.

Hollingworth whistled.

"'Soft and kindly!' Why, they are just about as sulky and discontented as they can well be--though, poor devils, one can hardly blame them. It must be hard, rough luck to see their cattle shot down by hundreds--by thousands--under their very noses. Of course they abuse the Government for giving them back the cattle with one hand only to take it away with the other. It's only what we should do ourselves."

"I should think so. Poor things! Really, Mr Hollingworth, I think you seem to have treated them all very badly."

Such a sentiment was not popular in Matabeleland then, nor, for the matter of that, has it ever been. In fact, it is about as heterodox an utterance as though some rash wight were to p.r.o.nounce the former realm of Lo Bengula a non-gold-producing country. But it was impossible to be angry with the owner of the voice that now made it.

"I don't know that we have, Miss Commerell," replied Hollingworth.

"Indeed, I think, on the whole, we haven't. Now, I can always get boys enough--so can my neighbours--and that's the best test. A n.i.g.g.e.r won't stop a week with anybody who treats him badly."

"Oh, I didn't mean that way, Mr Hollingworth. I meant as a nation."

"Even there, Lo Bengula and the old chiefs didn't rule them with sugar and honey, let me tell you. But, squarely, I believe they did prefer the kicks of Lo Ben to the halfpence of the Chartered Company; and I suppose it's natural. A n.i.g.g.e.r's ways are not a white man's ways, and never will be."

And then as the shrill yells and other vociferations raised by the Hollingworth posterity in fierce debate over the limit of its jam allowance rendered further conversation impossible, an adjournment was made outside.

"Were you all the time at the Cape before coming up here, Miss Commerell?" began Moseley, as they found seats beneath the shade of a large fig-tree.