John Ames, Native Commissioner Part 16

"Oh, don't--don't! Oh, it hurts!"

To her horror, Nidia saw something of the extent of the terrible injuries the poor little fellow had received. Besides a huge b.u.mp on the side of the head he was covered with a.s.segai-stabs. Yet he was still alive. Amid his moans, he looked up suddenly.

"Oh, it's you, Miss Commerell!" he gasped.

"Yes--yes. Oh, my dear little boy, what does it all mean?" she wailed, her voice thrilling with horrified pity.

A gleam came into the boy's eyes, and for the moment he seemed to forget his agony.

"I--plugged two of the devils," he said--"two of them. One was Qota, our boy. He got the charge of buckshot, the other the bullet. Then they hit me on the head with a kerrie. Oh-h!"

He sank back groaning under a renewed spasm of pain. This, then, was the double shot Nidia had heard. She saw now the meaning of the b.l.o.o.d.y trail which she had imagined was that made by the youthful hunter dragging home his quarry. The miscreants had dragged away the bodies of their own dead. Two of them had been sent to their account, red-handed, and that by this mere child, either in defence of those who were all to him, or revengeful in his rage and grief. Bit by bit she got at the truth.

He was returning from an unsuccessful stalk, and had gained the outside of the bush behind the house, when he heard a low prolonged scream proceeding from within. In this he recognised the voice of his mother.

c.o.c.king his gun, he ran hurriedly forward, but before he could gain the front door he was met by several savages armed with axes and k.n.o.bkerries. Two of these he immediately shot--shot them dead, too, he declared--and then, before he could slip in fresh cartridges, they were upon him. The gun was wrenched from his hand, then something seemed to fall upon his head, for after that he knew no more.

All this was told spasmodically between lengthened pauses, and the effort had quite exhausted the poor little fellow. And now some inkling of the situation seemed to rush through Nidia's reeling brain, though even then the idea that this wholesale murder was but one instance of several at that very moment throughout the land, did not occur to her.

She supposed it to be a mere sporadic outbreak of savagery, or l.u.s.t of plunder. It was clear, too, that this poor child was ignorant of all that had actually happened within, and she felt a sort of miserable consolation in realising that physical agony had so confused his mind that he showed no curiosity on the subject. Nor would he allow her to examine the extent of his hurts. If she so much as touched him he screamed aloud; but she knew, as confidently as though a.s.sured by the whole faculty, that his hours were numbered.

"I feel sleepy. How dark it is!" he murmured at length.

Dark! Why, the surroundings were in a very bath of l.u.s.tre--of golden sunlight glow.

"So sleepy. Don't leave me. Promise you won't leave me!"

"Of course I won't leave you, Jimmie darling," sobbed Nidia, bending down and kissing his forehead; for well she knew what this deepening coma portended. Soon again he spoke, but in the feeblest of murmurs.

"You must go. They'll come back and find you; then they'll kill you, the devils. You must go. Hide in the bush, down below the river-bank.

They won't look there. Go--go quick. They'll come back. Hark! I hear them."

"But I won't go, Jimmie; I won't leave you, whether they kill me or not," she sobbed, moved to the heart by the unselfishness of this child-hero, who had first slain with his own hand two of the murderers of his parents, and now was urging her to leave him to the solitude he dreaded, lest she should meet with the same fate. But this heroic injunction was his last utterance. A few minutes, and the head fell back, the eyes opening wide in a gla.s.sy stare. Little Jimmie had joined his murdered kindred.

The sun sank beneath the rim of the world, and the purple shades of the brief twilight deepened over this once peaceful homestead, now a mausoleum for its butchered inmates lying in their blood. And still Nidia sat there holding the head of the dead boy in her lap.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

WHAT HAPPENED AT JEKYLL'S STORE.

Jekyll's Store, near Malengwa, was an inst.i.tution of considerable importance in its way, for there not only did prospectors and travellers and settlers replenish their supplies, but it served as a place of general "roll up," when the monotony of life in camp or on lonely farms began to weigh upon those destined to lead the same.

Its situation was an open slope, fronting a rolling country, more or less thickly grown with wild fig and mahobo-hobo, mimosa and feathery acacia. Behind, some three or four hundred yards, rose a low ridge of rocks, whose dull greyness was relieved by the vivid green of sugar-bush. Strategically its position was bad, but this was a side to which those who planted it there had not given a thought. The Maxims of the Company's forces had done for the natives for ever and a day. There was not a kick left in them.

The building was a fair-sized oblong one, constructed of the usual wattle and "dagga" as to the walls, and with a high-pitched roof of thatch. Internally it was divided into three compartments--a sleeping-room, a living-room, and the store itself, the latter as large as the two first put together. From end to end of this was a long counter, about a third of which was part.i.tioned off as a public bar.

Rows of shelves lined the walls, and every conceivable article seemed represented--blankets and rugs; tinned food and candles; soap and cheese; frying-pans and camp-kettles; cooking-pots and high boots; straps and halters; Boer tobacco and Manila cheroots; all jostling each other, down even to accordions and concertinas, seemed only to begin the list of general "notions" which, either stacked on shelves or hanging from the beam which ran along the building parallel with the spring of the roof, filled every available s.p.a.ce. Bags of mealies, too, and flour stood against the further wall; and the shelves backing the bar department were lined with a plentiful and varied a.s.sortment of bottles.

Not much less varied was the type of customer who was p.r.o.ne to sample their contents. Miners working for a wage, independent prospectors, transport riders, now and then a company promoter or a mining engineer or surveyor, settlers on farms, an occasional brace of troopers of the Matabeleland Mounted Police--would all roll up at Jekyll's in turn; but by reason of the wide distances over which the spa.r.s.e population was scattered, there were seldom more than a dozen gathered together there at once--usually less. But even there the characteristics of the gathering were much akin to those pervading similar groups as seen in older civilisation--the bore simple and the bore reiterative, the local Ananias, usually triplicated; the a.s.sumptive bore; the literary critic-- the last especially in full bloom after a few rounds of "squareface" or John Dewar--and other varieties. Such characteristics, however, were well known to the sound residue of the a.s.semblage, who would delight to "draw" the individual owners thereof--after the few rounds aforesaid.

Within the store and canteen part of the building about a dozen men were gathered when Moseley and Tarrant rode up. All were attired in the usual light marching order of the country--shirt and trousers, high boots and wide-brimmed hat. Some were lounging against the counter, others squatting on sacks or packing-cases, and all were smoking.

Jekyll, himself, a tall man with a grizzled beard, and who had been a good many years in the country before the entry of the first Pioneer force, was dispensing drinks, with the help of his a.s.sistant, a young Englishman who had been ploughed for his degree at Oxford. To several of these the new arrivals were known, and forthwith there was a fresh call on the resources of the bar department.

"News?" said Jekyll, in reply to a question from Moseley. "Thought maybe you'd have brought some. There's talk of a rising among the n.i.g.g.e.rs down beyond Sik.u.mbutana. Heard anything of it?"

"Not a word."

"Gah on. There won't be no bloomin' rahsin'," cut in a prospector, a c.o.c.kney ex-ship-steward. "Nothink but a lot o' gas. The wy to treat n.i.g.g.e.rs is my wy."

"And what might that be?" said another prospector, a tall, bronzed, fine-looking man, who _had_ taken _his_ degree at Oxford.

"Why, one o' my boys cheeked me yesterday, so I ups with a bloomin'

pick-'andle and jes lets 'im 'ave it over the bloomin' boko. That's my wy with 'em."

And the speaker c.o.c.ked his head and looked around with the defiant bounce of a cad with a couple of drinks too many on board.

"H'm!" rejoined the other man, drily.

"By-the-by," said Tarrant, "I wonder what Mafuta did with my rifle and cartridges."

Jekyll p.r.i.c.ked up his ears.

"Is that one of your boys?" he said.

"Yes. He was carrying my gun and cartridges."

"Well, there was no gun and cartridges with your donkeys when they turned up."

"The devil there wasn't!" said Tarrant. "Let's go and look into it."

They went outside, Jekyll and two or three others accompanying them.

The three boys in charge of the donkeys were there. They had off-loaded the packs and taken them inside. Where was Mafuta? They did not know.

They had last seen him about half way; after that no more. They thought perhaps he had been ordered to try and shoot some game on the way.

Tarrant looked blue.

"Oh, he'll turn up," he said, in a tone which conveyed the idea that such a contingency was remote.

"Pity you trusted him with a gun in these times," said Jekyll. "I'm afraid he'll clear with it."

"Wot'll yer tike for the chawnce?" said the c.o.c.kney, who was one of those who had accompanied them outside.

"Oh, he'll roll up directly," said Tarrant, ignoring this specimen; "Mafuta's a reliable boy. I've had him a long while."

Returning from the huts, they became aware of a certain amount of excitement in front of the store. A trooper of the Matabeleland Mounted Police had just ridden up. The rising was a fact, and he had been sent round to warn everybody to come in to Bulawayo if possible; if not, to collect together and form laagers. Several prospectors and miners had been murdered in the Sik.u.mbutana district, but how far the outbreak had spread could not as yet be determined. He was on his way to warn Hollingworth; after that, if he could manage it, he must get through to John Ames'.

The excitement produced by this news was mingled with consternation.

Half of those there collected were unarmed. Those who had weapons had left them behind at their camps; while some, with the habitual British carelessness which pa.s.ses for intrepidity, had not even got any there.

The police trooper's horse was offsaddled and put into one of the huts which did duty for stable for a feed and a brief rest, and then the whole party re-entered the store to discuss the situation and a fresh round of drinks. While this was in progress some one reported a party of natives approaching from the open side in front of the house.

Quickly Jekyll got out a powerful binocular.