The White Hand and the Black Part 15

"Certainly." Then as the name at the end caught his eyes, a whistle of surprise escaped him. His fun sobered down while he read:

"The Royal Hotel,

"Durban.

"My dear distant Relative,

"We are related, but I believe distantly, at any rate poor mother always gave me to understand so, and latterly she talked a great deal of you. You may or may not have heard that we lost her between five or six months ago; but towards the last, when she was talking about you so often, she made me promise that I would find you out, and renew our acquaintance; though I don't know about the 'renewing' part of it, for I was much too small in those days to remember anything of you now. However she gave me your address, and though it is an address of ever so many years ago it may still hold good, or at any rate be the means of finding you out eventually."

Thornhill paused in his reading, and frowned. The reference to an address of 'ever so many years ago' awoke unpleasant memories. His address at that time was fairly public property, and it was the same one that he owned now.

"I have not been many days here," the letter went on, "but it seems a delightful country, and I should like to see more of it. Can you take me in for a little while, and if so, please write or wire how I can get to you, and when. I have always heard that colonial ways are unconventional, and colonial houses 'elastic,' which sounds perfectly delightful, and emboldens me to sink ceremony. Hoping this will find you,

"Yours very truly,

"Evelyn Carden."

"Read that, and tell me what you think of it, Edala," said Thornhill, handing over the letter.

The girl took it eagerly.

"I don't know," she said, when she was through with it. "It sounds as if she might be nice. I see she writes from the Royal in Durban. But-- when? She gives no date."

"Of course not--being a female. Nor does the postmark help any, as I said before."

"Well, the postmark is neither designed nor executed by 'females',"

retorted Edala.

"True, O Queen. You have me there. Well? What do you think of it?"

"Wire her to come, by all means. I like her free and easy style. She ought to be nice. But what's she like, and who is she, when all's said and done?"

"First for the wire. Gomfu is waiting as it is. Then we can enter into explanations."

He got out a telegraph form and wrote:

"Miss Carden Royal Hotel Durban Train to Telani will meet you there only give a day or two for reply wire very welcome address Care of Elvesdon Kwabulazi: Thornhill."

"Wa Gomfu!" he hailed.

"_Nkose_!"

The boy was round in a moment.

"Here. See that this goes directly you get back. Have they given you coffee in the kitchen, for the night is cold?"

"_Nkose_ is my father. Ramasam is a very induna of the fire. Never have I met such coffee as his."

"Well, here is _gwai_," handing him a span of Boer tobacco. "Now go-- and here is yet a letter to take."

"_Nkose_!"

The boy disappeared and soon the retreating hoofs of his undersized pony could be heard splashing through the sludgy surface of the saturated veldt. The dogs growled again, presumably because having seen the same postboy appear regularly twice a week and go away again those sagacious animals must needs sustain their world-wide reputation for sagacity by doing something, though quite unnecessary--or possibly to vary the monotony of a wet and very dismal day. Anyhow they growled.

"You wanted to know about this new and distant relative," said Thornhill, coming back into the room. "Well, I can't tell you anything about her personally, because, as she says, she was too much of a kid to remember me, and I, for my part, just remember her as an ordinary kid, usually smeared with jam or some other sticky form of nastiness. Just that and nothing more."

"But this mother she talks about--who was she?" went on Edala.

"Poor Mary Carden. Oh, we got rather friendly. She was a bit older than me though. I had something to do with the settling up of her affairs when she was left a widow--not that there was much to settle up, poor thing. By the bye, and yet this girl writes in rather an independent way, and dates from the Royal at Durban. Well, you know, hotels in this country aren't cheap, and the Royal isn't one of the cheapest by any means, although it's good. They may have had a windfall since I knew them; probably have, since she seems to be out here for fun."

"How old would she be, father?"

"Let me think now. Let me think back. She must be some years older than you, child. But it'll be a good thing for you to have a companion for a time, who isn't an old fogey. Of course we are both talking round our hats, as neither of us have the ghost of a notion what she's like, and won't have till we see her."

"Well, we'll chance it," said Edala.

"That's the best way. And now I think I'll get on a horse and take a turn round. Old Patolo may be letting his cattle stray in this mist."

Manamandhla the Zulu strode over the sopping veldt quite indifferent to the rain which beat down upon his bare head, and strove to permeate the thick folds of his green blanket, and while he walked he was thinking out a plan.

The subject of his thoughts was not tragical, not even weighty except as regarded his own immediate wants. He was tired of goat, he wanted beef and plenty of it. How should he get it? He thought he knew.

He could not expect Thornhill to kill a full grown beast, or any kind, even for him. But beef he hankered for, and have it he must. So now he held straight on over the veldt to where he knew he should find the cattle.

The mist was all in his favour, in fact it had suggested his plan, which was an ingenious one. He ascended the nearest ridge of the Sipazi mountain, his ears open. Presently both sound and scent told him he had come upon the object of his quest. In a moment more the forms of grazing cattle all round him, told that he was in the middle of the herd.

Some of the beasts snuffed and started, showing a tendency to canter away; others merely raised their heads and went on grazing as though nothing had happened. But this was not how he proposed to obtain beef.

He had a broad a.s.segai beneath his blanket, but he would not use it--not yet.

He crooned a milking song in a low tone as he went through the herd This had the effect of keeping quiet any of the wilder animals which might have been disposed to panic and stampede at the suddenness of his appearance in their midst. But he kept on edging more and more to the left; with the result that the animals on that side gave way more and more in the same direction, as he intended they should.

The cloud wreaths on this side took the form of spiral twirls, and a fresh, cold draught struck Manamandhla on the left ear. This was as it should be. Here the ground ended and the cliff began.

It was not the great overhanging cliff at the summit of the mountain, but the beginning of the same, and might have meant a sixty or seventy feet drop. But between the apparent brow of the krantz and the actual one was about ten feet of gra.s.s slope--a slope so steep as to be well-nigh precipitous, and in weather like this, deadly slippery. Now, as Manamandhla uttered a quick bark, at the same time flapping his blanket, the suddenly terrified animals between him and the brow, started at a run, plunging wildly, some this way, some that, to gallop off in wild panic. Not all though--all save one--and that a nearly full grown call It, he saw disappear over the brow, instinctively seeking safety upon the precipitous slope.

The Zulu chuckled. Crouching low, he was upon the brink in a moment, and peering over. There stood the poor stupid beast--a white one--its head down, and with difficulty keeping its footing. Manamandhla sprang up suddenly, again uttering a bark and flapping his blanket downwards.

The poor animal, frenzied now with panic, made a wild frantic plunge, lost its footing and slid over the brink of the sheer cliff.

Manamandhla had obtained his beef.

He emitted a chuckle of glee as the dull thud of the fallen carcase came up from below, then turned--to find himself face to face with-- Thornhill.

The latter was standing some twelve or fifteen yards away, his right hand in his right pocket. Ever quick of perception, the Zulu grasped this fact and its significance. Instinctively he dropped into a half crouching att.i.tude--the att.i.tude of a wild beast preparing for its spring--and the grip of the broad a.s.segai beneath his blanket tightened.

"No use, Manamandhla. You would be dead before you had taken five steps."

The Zulu knew this. Even were it otherwise he had no wish for the other's death--not just yet, at any rate. It was more profitable to himself to keep him alive. But for the moment he felt like a cornered animal, quick, desperate, dangerous.