The Witch Doctor and other Rhodesian Studies Part 32

"Of course."

"What will he do?"

"The Chief and you will know what he will do when he does it."

"What are you doing now, honest man?" asked Gonye, and added--"May I come in?"

"Yes, if you don't talk or touch the goods."

The trader got up and let the native in, but returned to his game without ceremony.

Gonye walked round the piled-up counters and inspected the well-filled shelves. Here were goods indeed. Goods worth many head of cattle.

Blankets, coloured print, calico, bra.s.s wire, beads, shirts, hats, coats, sugar, jam, tobacco, pipes, knives, looking-gla.s.ses, mouth organs, and goodness knows what besides.

Seeing all these nice new things created many wants in the headman's heart. But the Chief had closed the store.

Gonye wandered back to where the trader sat and watched him.

With a shout of triumph, self beat self by two kings. Schiller rearranged the board for another contest.

"Is it a game?" asked Gonye.

"Yes, it's a game."

"Is it a very hard game?"

"Very hard."

"Did it take you long to learn?"

"Years and years."

"Could I learn it?"

The trader sat back in his chair and looked fixedly at the native. "You might," he said.

"Will you teach me?"

"I will try to; bring up that chair and sit down."

The rest of the afternoon was spent by Schiller initiating Gonye into the mysteries of draughts.

Next day the native came again.

"I think I can play now, Merchant."

"Do you? Well, you take black and I will play with white."

Schiller won, with a loss of scarcely a man.

"Try again, Gonye."

Schiller played a cunning game, so the native made a slightly better showing next time. The third game he did better still. The fourth game he won.

That was the only game of draughts he ever did win against the trader.

In his triumph the headman persuaded the Chief to declare the store reopened. The merchant was a good man. He was indeed an honest man. His cattle kraal was empty. What would they say to the Commissioner on his return? The trader would of course complain. Moreover, the store was full of very nice goods.

The next morning the store was opened and the natives flocked to it with their cattle. Schiller did a great trade, and bought more cattle in a week than all the other traders combined had done in three months.

Gonye felt rather sore as the merchant declared that he was now too busy trading to play draughts. However, Schiller, who was no fool, made his position of Cattle King secure by presenting the board and men to Gonye.

The last I heard of Schiller was at the outbreak of the Great War. He had joined the Force which set out to take German South-West Africa.

PARTNERS.

Jack Fernie and William Black became partners in the usually pleasant business of seeing something of the world.

What the two men had in common was little enough so far as I could discover. They appeared to meet on the common ground of boots--uncommon boots.

Fernie hated wet feet. He argued that if water got in over the top of the boot, the foot remained damp all day, which was bad for you. So he punched holes through the leather of the uppers, all round, just where it bends in to meet the soles. He explained that since water must find its own level, it will run out of your boots as readily as it will run in, if given a fair chance.

Black went in constant dread of developing an ingrowing toenail, so he wore boots with two compartments inside, one for the big toe and the other for the rest. They were very ugly, clumsy boots, but Black declared that they were a sure preventive and very comfortable.

These two strange creatures were never tired of discussing each other's boots.

Now Fernie had been second officer on board a liner. On the way home from India he had said unrepeatable things to a parson. When he arrived in London his directors sent for him, scolded him severely, and dismissed him from their service.

When I got to know Fernie well, I asked him what all the trouble had been about. He was not very communicative; he merely said that he could no more abide a black coat than he could a black cat. With that he changed the subject, and I had to be content.

Black had slaved as a clerk in the City for thirty-five years and doubtless would have remained one for the rest of his natural life had not an old lady, no relation of his, left him in her will a sum of money which provided him with an income of between six and seven hundred a year. There was no mention of the why and the wherefore in the will, and Black declared that he couldn't imagine why she did him this good turn.

It appears that Fernie and Black first met in Bulawayo. How, exactly, I don't know. They had bought a donkey-waggon and set out for the Zambesi river, which they crossed at a place called Kazungula, some forty-five miles above the Victoria Falls.

Their introduction to me was a curious one. Fernie walked into my camp one day, followed by Black. He said: "Are you the magistrate of these parts?"

"Yes."

"Well, will you sell us up?"

"What do you mean?"

"You see, we're partners, Black and I. We don't get on as such and want to dissolve. Isn't that so, Black?"

"Yes."