The White Hand and the Black Part 16

"One of the beasts has gone over, Inqoto," he said. "I would have prevented it, but when I tried to drive it back I drove it over instead.

It is a pity."

"It is. You were in want of beef, I think, Manamandhla," was the answer, faintly mocking.

"_Whau_! Inqoto has not a very open hand, and I was tired of goat.

There are 'mouths' on this mountain that do not return that which--those whom--they swallow. But there is one which can be got into by men with long lines. And--what would they find? Ah--ah! What would they find?"

The Zulu felt secure now, and yet, had he only known it, he had never stood in more deadly peril in his life. Thornhill had been waiting for some such chance as this and now it had come. For, from the moment he had arrived un.o.bserved upon the scene all its opportunities had flashed upon his mind. The Zulu had deliberately driven one of his cattle over the krantz, and on being detected in the act had rushed upon him with an a.s.segai; for he could pretty shrewdly guess what the other held concealed beneath the blanket. He had shot his a.s.sailant dead, in self defence, as he had no other alternative than to do. Thus he would be rid of this incubus, this blackmailer, and once more would be at peace.

The time and opportunity had come.

Manamandhla must have read his thoughts. Hard and desperately, yet with the quickness of lightning, he was calculating his chances. A sudden zig-zagging spring might cause his enemy to miss, and he would be upon him before he had time to fire again. The two--the white man and the dark man--thus stood fronting each other in the spectral wreaths of the drear mist, each resolved that one or other of them should not leave that spot alive. Thornhill spoke again.

"I am tired of you, Manamandhla. You can leave this place, do you hear?

and it will not be well for you to come near it again. You are of no further use to me. So you may go. _Hamba gahle_."

But these last words of farewell, which the speaker intended should signal Manamandhla's departure in a very different sense, were scarcely uttered. A dark form, the form of a man, immediately behind the Zulu, and in a direct line with him, loomed through the mist; and the voice of old Patolo, the cattle-herd, was raised in greeting to his master. The latter knew that his opportunity had pa.s.sed. He could not shoot Manamandhla in the presence of a witness, and of course the could not shoot old Patolo at all.

"_Nkose_," said the latter. "I fear that the cattle will be difficult to collect in the thickness of this cloud. But those that remain out will not stray far, and we can collect them in the morning."

"One has fallen over this cliff, Patolo," said Manamandhla, as calmly as though no deadly tragedy had been averted by a mere moment of time.

Then to Thornhill: "_Nkose_, had I not better go over to the location and collect some boys to skin and cut up the beef? It may be that there is some of it yet uninjured and good enough for the Great House."

"That you had better do, Manamandhla," answered Thornhill, with equal _sang-froid_. "And lose no time, before it grows dark."

And, turning, he left them, to go back to where he had left his horse.

This was how Manamandhla obtained the beef he hankered after--and plenty of it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

MANAMANDHLA'S STRATEGY.

A week went by, and Thornhill got an answer to his letter. His son could not possibly get away just then. His partner was seriously ill, and as for business--why, if not as brisk as might be wished, there was quite enough of it to keep one man's hands full. He was awfully sorry, but would take a run down as soon as ever he could break away. So wrote Hyland.

Thornhill was bitterly disappointed. He seemed to feel it far more than he had thought it possible for him to do. He would have given much at that juncture to have had the boy at his side, he told himself. He felt very isolated, very much alone. Edala, though now and then she broke out into fits of playfulness--and these, he suspected, were, more often than not, forced--yet kept up a sort of dutiful reserve towards him.

There was no spontaneity in her affection, even when any sign of possession of any such sentiment did appear. Well, ingrat.i.tude was ingrained in the female. No one had better reason to realise that than himself.

And this unknown relative who had written to announce her being--nothing more had been heard of--or from--her. He had expected a wire by return notifying her start, but a week had gone by, ten days, then a fortnight and no wire, not even a letter. Did every member of the feminine persuasion imagine that the universe was built for her sole convenience?

was his comment upon the omission to Edala.

The latter suggested that the telegram might have been twisted into a wrong meaning by some chuckle-headed operator; would it not be as well to send another? But her father was in no mood for doing anything of the kind.

"I don't believe in that theory," he said. "Here's a feminine person who writes to know if I can take her in. I reply post haste that I can and welcome, and I hear no more about it. Well, she can stop away if she prefers it. I'm not going routing around to beseech her to come."

Edala answered that she didn't care either way. As a matter of fact though enthusiastic enough on the arrival of the unknown's letter the thing had hung fire. And then, deep down in her innermost mind lay another reason. She would not have admitted it even to herself, but it was there for all that and--it spelt Elvesdon.

The latter had been a good deal over at Sipazi. He was an excellent and astute official, but somehow, while neglecting none of his duties, he had found time and opportunity to make frequent visits, and he was always welcome. Thornhill and his daughter treated him, in fact, as if they had known him all their lives, which caused him intense satisfaction.

He was interested in this girl--indeed by that time powerfully attracted. The fair refined face, the straight fearless eyes, the smile that would light up the whole expression, the merry peal of spontaneous laughter--all this had an effect upon him that was inexpressibly bewitching. He had never seen anyone like her before--no, not in the least like her. That picture of her, standing erect, wide-eyed and fearless, waiting to be of use in the struggle with the monster serpent, had never even begun to fade in his mind. She was grand.

Towards himself Edala for her part was undoubtedly attracted. She looked forward to his visits, and greeted him with unfeigned pleasure when he appeared. He talked so well, and never failed to interest and amuse her. He had been about and had seen so much, and moreover there was a subtle suggestion of strength about him that appealed to her vividly. To most of her male acquaintance Edala a.s.sumed a sort of unconscious att.i.tude of stiffening up. The youthful side of it represented to her so many puppies whose eyes had yet to open; the more mature side so many prigs who bored or patronised her. This man did neither. He neither talked up to her, nor down--she would have despised him for the first and resented him for the second. He simply treated her as a rational being with a full share of intelligence and ideas--and no surer road could he have taken towards her approval.

Having said so much it is not surprising that Edala's feelings as regarded her new relative's proposed visit should, by this time, have undergone some degree of modification. This stranger--of whose very outward appearance she was entirely ignorant--might conceivably prove one too many, the more so that the stranger was what her father had just described as "a member of the feminine persuasion." She was not in the least in love with Elvesdon; she was far too evenly balanced to let herself go like that at such short notice. But she felt a strong proprietary interest in him as a friend worth having; wherefore in the background lurked that cloud of half unconscious jealousy. Yet that very jealousy itself ought to have warned her.

Thornhill, watching developments, was anything but displeased. As a Civil servant Elvesdon was not likely to ama.s.s wealth, but he was a good official and likely to get on. His personal opinion of the man we have already set forth, and it he had seen no reason to modify. If the present excellent understanding between him and Edala came to anything more permanent, why so much the better.

A fortnight had gone by since Manamandhla's craving for beef had so nearly brought that enterprising savage to an untimely end: and the Zulu had been comfortably dwelling on the place ever since and showed not the smallest symptom of moving. He made a show of helping here and there, as an excuse for drawing his--plentiful--rations, nor was he ever out of snuff, and he frequently enjoyed other luxuries. But for all this he knew he was living on a volcano.

Thornhill was getting desperate. For hours he would lie awake at night devising some scheme for ridding himself of his oppressor. If only that plan had been carried out on the mountain that day! If only old Patolo had arrived upon the scene half a minute later! It was no murder, he decided. A blackmailer was a pest to the human race. Extermination was only the just fate of such. This one was robbing him of his peace, therefore his destruction was as nothing to the price he had paid to purchase that peace. One day Manamandhla said:

"_Nkose_, my brother's son is paying _lobola_ for a girl, over there, in Zululand. He still needs two cows to complete the price, but the son of a richer man has offered one cow and a goat beyond the price he can pay.

Shall he not therefore have the two cows--as _Nkose_ has known me so long and is as our father?"

The outrageous impudence of this demand hardly surprised Thornhill, who, of course, was fully aware that the needs of the 'brother's son' did not exist. He gazed fixedly at the Zulu for some moments and the faces of both men were like stone.

"I think I will give you the two cows, Manamandhla, but you can take them away yourself and--not come back. Do you hear--not come back?"

The speaker's expression was savage and threatening. He felt cornered.

"_Au_! Not come back?" repeated the Zulu, softly.

"Not come back. Go all over the world, but this place is the most deadly dangerous spot in it--for you. I solemnly advise you not to return to it. This evening I will give you the two cows--for your brother's son's _lobola_"--he interpolated with a sneer, "and you can go back to Zululand and stay there."

"_Nkose_!"

This conversation took place at the back of the house and the concluding remarks were overheard by Edala. She had never heard her father's voice raised in that tone for many years, and now as she connected the circ.u.mstance a dreadful suspicion came into her mind. This Zulu knew too much, and now he was being bribed and threatened in about equal proportions in order in induce him to make himself scarce. Her father's reply that the man was useful, had struck her as hollow and half-hearted at the time it was made.

"I have a bit of good news for you, child," said Thornhill that evening.

"Your aversion, Manamandhla, is going--if he hasn't already gone."

"A good thing too," answered the girl, to whom it was no news. "I hope you won't let him come back."

"I think not," said Thornhill, with a dry laugh. "We have had enough of each other."

Edala had been observing the change in her father of late, and now she studied him more closely than ever. The hara.s.sed, worried look that had been upon him had suddenly dropped off; simultaneously with the departure of Manamandhla--she did not fail to observe. He became his old calm, even-minded self. But a week later the Zulu returned.

"I would like to serve _Nkose_ a little longer," was his tranquil explanation, when tackled by Thornhill. The latter looked at him in silence for a few minutes. To the Zulu this deliberation gave no anxiety.

"You can stay then," was the reply, uttered grimly.

"_Nkose_ is my father. He will care for me. Were I dead there are two others, two of my own blood, who know that there are 'mouths' on Sipazi which swallow up men--who know which one it is that gives not back that which it swallows--but yet that which it swallows could be brought back with long lines. And I--_whau_, I know of one of these 'mouths' which gives back that which it swallows, but gives them back lame for the rest of life."

Here was a contingency that had clean escaped Thornhill's calculations.

However, he showed no sign of being perturbed by the statement. Was it true? A little reflection convinced him that in all probability it was not. Manamandhla would never be such a fool as to share a momentous secret--a, to him, valuable secret--with another, let alone with two others. But he would pretend to believe it, all the same; so would the blackmailer be thrown the more off his guard.

"Did your brother's son succeed with the additional two cows, Manamandhla?" he said, airily, taking no notice of the Zulu's last remark.