The Second Class Passenger Part 7

At one point the crowd was thick about the gate of a walled courtyard, thundering on it with crowbars and axes; here, again, the Prince paused to look sharply among them, lest somewhere there might be a brown head and a pale clear-cut face that he sought. Even as he tightened his bridle, the gate gave rendingly; he turned his head as the mob, roaring, poured in. For the s.p.a.ce of perhaps a second he sat motionless and stricken, but it was long enough to see what he never forgot--a woman, composed, serene, bright against her dark background in the shifting light of the burning house, gay in saffron and white.

Then the mob surged before her and hid her, and his voice returned to him.

"Charge!" he roared, and tore his sword out.

The dragoons, eager enough, followed him; the courtyard overflowed with them as their great horses thundered in at the gate, and the long swords got to their work on that packed and cornered throng.

There were swift bitter pa.s.sages as the troopers cleared the place-- episodes such as only Jews knew till then, ghastly killings of men who crawled among the horses' feet and were hunted out to be slaughtered. And in the middle of it, the Prince was on his knees, holding up a brown head in the crook of his arm, seeing nothing of the butchery at his elbow.

It was when the killing was done, and the dragoons were clearing the street, that there arrived on tiptoe Monsieur Vaucher, searching through tears for Madame. When he saw her he ceased to weep, but stood looking down, with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Dead?" he asked abruptly.

The Prince glanced up. "Yes," he answered.

"Ah!" Monsieur Vaucher pondered. "Who killed her?" he asked presently.

"Look!" said the Prince, and motioned with one hand to the dragoons'

leavings, the very silent citizens who lay about on the flagstones.

"Ah!" said Vaucher again. "And to-morrow the world will ask for an account. It is not wise to destroy a great genius like this, here in a corner of your dirty town. That is what you have to learn."

"Yes," said the Prince. "We shall learn something now. She gave her life to teach it. There will be no more Judenhetze in this city."

"Her life to teach it," repeated Monsieur Vaucher. "She gave her life." His composure failed him suddenly, and he fell on his knees on the other side of what had been Truda Schottelius, weeping openly.

"She never failed," he said. "She never failed. A great artist, Monsieur, the Schottelius! She--she had the sense of climax!"

From the windows of the houses above them, scared curious Jews looked down uncomprehendingly.

III

THE TRADER OF LAST NOTCH

In Manicaland, summer wears the livery of the tropics. At the foot of the hills north of Macequece every yard of earth is vocal with life, and the bush is brave with color. Where the earth shows it is red, as though a wound bled. The mimosas have not yet come to flower, but amid their delicate green--the long thorns, straight or curved like claws, gleam with the flash of silver. Palms poise aloft, brilliant and delicate, and under foot, flowers are abroad. The flame-blossom blazes in scarlet. The sangdieu burns in sullen vermilion. Insects fill the world with the noise of their business--spiders, b.u.t.terflies, and centipedes, ants, beetles, and flies, and mysterious ent.i.ties that crawl nameless under foot. A pea-hen shrieks in the gra.s.s, and a kite whistles aloft. A remote speck in the sky denotes a watchful vulture, alert for any mishap to the citizens of the woods, and a crash of twigs may mean anything from a buck to a rhinoceros.

There is a hectic on the face of nature.

The trader of Last Notch went homewards to his store through such a maze of urgent life, and panted in the heat. He had been out to shoot guinea-fowl, had shot none and expended all his cartridges, and his gun, glinting in the strong light as he walked, was heavy to his shoulder and hot to his hand. His mood was one of patient protest, for the sun found him an easy prey and he had yet some miles to go.

Where another man would have said: "d.a.m.n the heat," and done with it, John Mills, the trader, tasted the word on his lips, forbore to slip it, and counted it to himself for virtue. He set a large value on restraint, which, in view of his strength and resolute daring, was perhaps not wholly false. He was a large man, more noticeable for a st.u.r.dy solidness of proportion than for height, and his strong face was won to pleasantness by a brown beard, which he wore "navy fash."

His store, five big huts above the kloof known as Last Notch, was at the heart of a large Kafir population; and the natives, agriculturists by convention and warriors between whiles, patronized him very liberally. The Englishmen and Portuguese of the country held him in favor, and he enjoyed that esteem which a strong quiet man, who has proved himself to have reserves of violence, commonly wins from turbulent neighbors.

He was trying for a short cut home, and purposed to wade the Revue river wherever he should strike it. Over the low bush about him he could see his hills yet a couple of hours off, and he sighed for thirst and extreme discomfort. No one, he knew, lived thereabouts--no one, at least, who was likely to have whisky at hand, though, for the matter of that, he would have welcomed a hut and a draught of Kafir itywala. His surprise was the greater, then, when there appeared from the growth beside his path as white a man as himself, a tall, somewhat ragged figure--but rags tell no news at all in Manicaland-- who wore a large black moustache and smiled affably on him.

He noted that the stranger was a fine figure of a man, tall and slim, with clear dark eyes and tanned face, and he saw, too, that he wore a heavy Webley on his right hip. The newcomer continued to smile as Mills scanned him over, and waited for the trader to speak first.

"Hullo!" said Mills at length.

"'Ullo!" replied the stranger, smiling still. He had a capital smile, and Mills was captivated into smiling in sympathy.

"Who may you be?" he asked agreeably; "didn't expect to meet no white men about here. Where's your boys?"

The tall man waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the coast, as though to imply that he had carriers somewhere in that part of the world.

"Yais," he said pleasantly. "An' you are Jone Mills, eh?"

"That's me," said Mills promptly, lowering the b.u.t.t of his gun to the ground and resting both hands on the muzzle. The stranger started slightly, but did not cease to smile.

"I don't seem to know you," pondered Mills. "I can't fix you at all."

"Ah, but you will. Le' me see. Was it Beira, eh?"

Mills shook his head decidedly. "I never was in Beira," he said.

"Not Beira?" queried the stranger. "Oh, but surelee. No? Well, Mandega's, per'aps?"

"Mandega's? Yes, I was there for a bit. I had a block of claims on the ditch, next to old Jimmy Ryan's."

"Ah yais," said the tall man eagerly. "I know 'im. An' there you shoot the Intendente, not? That was ver' fine. I see you coom down all quiet, an' shoot 'im in the 'ead. It was done ver' naice, eh!"

Mills's face darkened. "He was robbin' me, the swine," he answered.

"He'd been robbin' me for six months. But that's n.o.body's business but mine, and anyhow I didn't shoot him in the head. It was in the chest. An' now, who the blazes are you?"

"You do' know me?" smiled the stranger; "but I know you. Oh, ver'

well. I see you ver' often. You see. My name is Jacques."

"Jack what?" demanded Mills.

"Not Jack--Jacques. Tha's all. All the people call me Frenchy, eh?

You don' remember?"

"No," said Mills thoughtfully; "but then I seen a good many chaps, and I'd be like to forget some o' them. You doin' anything round here?"

The man who called himself Jacques held up a finger. "Ah, you wan' to know, eh? Well, I don' tell you. I fin' anything, I don' tell all the people; I don' blow the gaff. I sit still, eh? I lie low, eh? I keep 'im all for me, eh? You see?"

"Well, of course," agreed Mills; "struck a pocket, I suppose. I shouldn't have thought you'd have found much here. But then, of course, you're not going to give your game away. Where's your camp? I could do with a drink."

"Back there," said the Frenchman, pointing in the direction whence Mills had come. "'Bout five miles. You don' wan' to come, eh? Too far, eh?"

"Yes, I reckon it's too far," replied Mills. "I'm not more than four miles from my own kia now. You goin' on?"

"Yais," agreed the Frenchman. "I go a leetle bit. Not too far, eh!"

They moved on through the bush. Mills shifted his; gun from shoulder to shoulder, and suffered still from heat and sweat. His taller companion went more easily, striding along as Mills thought, glancing at him, "like a fox." The warmth appeared not to distress him in the least.

"By Jove," exclaimed the trader. "You're the build of man for this blooming country. You travel as if you was born to it. Don't the heat trouble you at all?"

"Oh no," answered the Frenchman carelessly. "You see, I come from a 'ot country. In France it is ver' often 'ot. But you don' like it, eh?"