The Claw Part 4

"That is a matter that does not interest me. I do not even know your name, and probably never shall."

But do you think that crushed him? No! "Oh, you will hear it," he said with his careless smile, "'blown back upon the breeze of fame,'

perhaps--of a kind. In any case we are bound to meet again."

"Oh, will it be necessary?" I said, driven to open rudeness by his imperturbability, which I considered very much like insolence. "Will it really be necessary if I thank you _now_ for--for the services you have been so extremely kind as to render me?" His withers remained unwrung.

"You cannot escape meeting even your open enemies in this country. And it will indeed be necessary to _me_, even if I thank you now for the most wonderful night of my life."

Without waiting for any newly-barbed darts I might or might not have had ready, he swiftly departed, leaving one last hardy blue smile in my eyes. A moment later he was slithering across the river on the screeching, wriggling wire.

We had left the bare, bleak kops and tall strange trees of Bechua.n.a.land far behind now, and had crossed the last of its wild and fearful rivers.

Everywhere about us stretched level country, which gave a curious impression of the sea, for the thick, hay-like gra.s.s, bleached almost to whiteness and as high as a man's waist, swayed perpetually like pale waves. Even when the land seems a heated brazen bowl and the upper air is faint and heavy with breathlessness the veldt gra.s.s has some hidden air, some "wind from a lost country," flitting amongst it making it sway and gently whisper.

Patches of trees grew against the horizon, but they were short and scrubby and in the nature of "bush," though occasionally one was to be seen by itself, sprayed like an ostrich feather upon the skyline.

Others, of a singularly gnarled squat type, sent all their branches up to a certain height and then flattened them out and wove them together so that the top of the tree presented the appearance of a strong, but rather stubbly, spring-mattress.

Far away on the edge of the landscape, never seeming to come nearer or recede farther, was the usual line of amethyst hills. Nearer hills were saffron coloured, and some turning pale pink in the evening light.

Everywhere the eye was feasted with colour. Sard-green bushes stretched branches like candelabra high above the pale gra.s.s, and from each branch sprouted forth flowers that were like leaping scarlet and yellow flames.

Creepers that had great black-pupilled crimson eyes hung from trees; and purple clematis, tangled with "old man's beard" and some waxen white flower that gave forth an odour like opopanax, dripped and clung from huge rocks that, standing alone, looked as though they had jerked themselves loose from some mighty mountain of the moon, and dropped abruptly into the silence and solitude of this wild place. Sometimes an enormous boulder with a ma.s.sive flat top would be balanced on a single narrow point, showing like a miniature Table Mountain set amongst seas of swaying gra.s.s. I imagined it would be very pleasant to sit on one of them, high above the dust and the unfragrant odour of the mules, but the rocky sides looked steep and inaccessible; and my fate was still to swaggle wearily across the landscape.

I was so tired that even the glorious hues of sunset could not comfort my soul. I drank them in, it is true, but I would rather at that time have had a cup of tea. My skin was parched with heat and dust, and I was wearied to death of being b.u.mped and banged and sitting crumpled up in a ball.

The driver had put back the hood of the cart so that we might get what air was going, but when suddenly some large, drops of rain began to fall on me I felt, like Job, that my sorrows were too many.

"Driver!" I cried, "you don't mean to tell me that it is now going to rain!"

"Ach! That's nixney," he replied. "We'll be in Fort George before ten minutes. See the lights? _Vacht_ till I wake them up."

He produced the post-horn, and I hastily stopped my ears, but that did not prevent me from hearing the series of frightful blares that he gave forth. The noise cheered the mules, and they took heart of grace and threw themselves into a last desperate run. The road became smoother and the barking of dogs could be heard. I slipped on my coat and tied the ends of my veil under my chin into a big enough bow to hide behind, for I had learnt with diminishing enthusiasm what it meant to be an occupant of the mail-coach, arriving in a small township in the African wilds. I well knew that every man, woman, and dog in the place would be there to meet and examine me with curiosity. I rather liked it at first, when I could still contrive to be fresh and uncrumpled after a day amongst the mail-bags. But after a fortnight in one gown, my face decorated with tan and mosquito bites, and absolutely a _crack_ in my best lip (the top one, of course, though the other one is charming, too) I naturally did not feel ardent about meeting a lot of people. I held a hasty consultation with the driver between his yells at the mules.

"You say there is a good hotel here, Hendricks?"

"Yah, Miss... there's the Queen's... and Swears's Hotel... Mr Swears is a very good Baas... keeps a very nice bar, and a good brand of dop."

Upon this warm recommendation of the man with the profane name I instantly decided to go to the Queen's, and ordered him to drive me there as soon as we got into the town. But he argued that he must go to the post-office and discharge the mails, so then I knew there was no hope for me. The only thing to do was to bless Heaven for such small mercies as chiffon-veiling, darkness, and a drizzle of hot rain that might keep the curious away. But, regardless of such trifles, there was the expectant crowd arranged before the post-office. Dimly I descried about fifty people, most of them men, as usual, but I could hear women's voices and laughter. I tried to hide behind the mail-bags, but Hendricks began to seize them and fling them forth with a splendid _sang-froid_ into the road. Suddenly I heard my name spoken in a woman's voice--a very languid, weary voice.

"Where is your pa.s.senger, Hendricks--Miss Saurin? Didn't she come?"

I knew then it was no use hiding any longer. d.i.c.k had evidently been kind enough to ask some one to meet me. Bother his kindness! I leaned out, swathed in chiffon, and said more sweetly than I felt:

"I am Miss Saurin."

A woman mounted on the cart step and peered in at me, and to my astonishment I recognised my sister-in-law.

"Judy!" I cried in astonishment.

"Oh Deirdre! how could you come? d.i.c.k has been almost out of his mind with worry about you, wiring to me all day long for news. What makes you think you will be amused up here?"

This was not the kind of welcome I had expected after travelling five or six thousand miles to make a visit!

"I thought you lived in Salisbury," I said rather flatly.

"So we do. But several of us came down here for a change of air, and now the Company won't let us go back because of the threatened trouble with Lobengula."

"Is d.i.c.k all right?"

"Oh, quite; but he couldn't get away. I'll tell you all about it presently. Are you going to get down here, or let Hendricks drive you to my hut?"

"Oh, do you live in a hut, Judy? How delightful! I'm longing to live in one. No, I'd rather not get down here. You direct the driver where to go."

She dropped from the step, and I heard her talking in her languid voice to the people all round and giving directions to the driver, who was still slinging mail-bags and handing out packages to people who all peered in and tried to get glimpses of me. There was an enormous amount of chatter and laughing, and a man, presumably the postmaster, was making a terrible scene with Hendricks because a mail-bag was missing.

But Hendricks was impervious to insult. He merely replied:

"I drive Zeederberg's mules, don't I? Well! What you asking me about the scarlet mail-bag for? _Allemagte_!"

A stream of wicked words flowed eloquently from his lips, English and Dutch all mixed up together and sounding like successive explosions of bombsh.e.l.ls. However, there was some one in the crowd who did not approve of Hendricks's vocabulary at all:

"Stop that, Hendricks. What do you mean?" a voice demanded.

Hendricks was instantly silent, and having at last emptied his cart of all but me and my luggage, he grabbed the reins sullenly and drove off muttering to himself:

"I drive Zeederberg's mules, don't I?" with some phrases appended which startled even the mules. Judy had told him to drive straight to her hut, but he pulled up first at Swears's and got a drink of soup in a gla.s.s; at least he called it a "soopie," though the aroma that reached me was not of soup at all, but the same old black-bottle, cold-tea aroma that I had known all the way up, and that would for ever be a.s.sociated in my mind with South African scenery.

Judy's hut was made of mud and thatch, like the rest of those I had seen in all the other townships, only to my disappointment it was not round like a beehive, but low and long--rather like a thatched barn with a verandah to it. But the front door stood open and I could see into a sitting-room that looked homelike and cosy under the rays of a rose-red lamp.

Judy came out at once, and three natives appeared behind her, eyeing me curiously and shyly.

"The boys will bring in your things, dear. How tired you must be! Do come in. I have ordered something for you to eat at once, and Mrs Skeffington-Smythe and Mrs Brand and Miss Cleeve and Mrs Valetta have all come to welcome you, too. They're all Salisburyites."

"How sweet of them," I said crossly. I thought they might very well have postponed their welcome until the next day. Neither did they look particularly ardent as Judy introduced them. They touched hands languorously and sank back into their chairs, fanning themselves with palm-leaf fans and gazing piercingly at me. I blessed the G.o.d of chiffons once more and retired into the dimmest corner I could find. It was quite a big room, pretty and odd, and had been furnished and arranged (as I afterwards learned) by the Native Commissioner for his wife who was coming from England very shortly. He had lent it in the meanwhile to Judy and the lady I had last been introduced to--Mrs Valetta. All the panoply of native warfare was displayed upon the walls: shields, knives, a.s.segais, head-plumes, and bracelets; besides much-coloured bead-work, snuff-boxes, and curious gourds. The chairs were covered with beautiful fur rugs, called _karrosses_, and lion and wild-cat skins lay upon the floor.

I longed and prayed that Judy would take me away at once to bed, or, failing that, would let me at least go and remove one of my many coats of dust, but she pushed me into a chair, saying:

"Here is your tray, dear. Now do take off your veil and eat something."

I was obliged to do as she asked with as much grace as I could summon: but the dormant cat which is in every woman began to wake up in me and sharpen its claws; for all round about me in the room I began to hear the soft and gentle purring of other felines, and in eyes that raked my sun-flushed face and disarranged hair (grey eyes and brown, Persian blue and an odd shade of green) I recognised the same expression I had often seen in the eyes of our big tortoise-sh.e.l.l cat, Elaine, when she was stalking a bird in the garden.

There was antagonism in the air. As I sat amongst the kaffir curios before an amazing tea-tray I felt it. For some reason these women who had come to welcome me resented my advent and were maliciously inclined towards me. I am peculiarly sensitive to the mental atmosphere and I felt it. Even Judy was not really friendly. She had changed very much since I had last seen her. A peevish look hovered round her mouth and all her brightness and dash seemed to have been swallowed up in a great languor.

Mrs Skeffington-Smythe, a little, soft kitten of a woman with striped grey eyes and the softest, whitest paws in the world, peached out and gave me the first scratch.

"Your complexion is spoiled for ever, Miss Saurin. When any one with your peculiar shade of mahogany-coloured hair gets so badly sunburnt as that the skin never recovers. I am awfully sorry for you." She looked perfectly delighted.

"And your nose will always be subject to sun-blisters after this.

Wretched, isn't it?" Miss Cleeve said this.

I stared at them both, in surprise and indignation. My hair is not mahogany-coloured at all, but exactly like a ma.s.s of crushed wallflowers, and I am extremely fond of my nose, which is small and pale and distinguished. It may at that time have been faintly sunburnt, but certainly there was no _slightest_ sign of a blister on it. Miss Cleeve herself had one of those wide-nostrilled noses that are called by their owners artistic, but which _I_ consider degenerate.