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Title: Children of the Wind
Author: Shiel, Matthew Phipps (1865-1947)
Date of first publication: 1923
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Grant Richards, 1923
Date first posted: 13 September 2010
Date last updated: 13 September 2010
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #613

This ebook was produced by:
David Edwards, woodie4
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

This file was produced from images generously made available
by the Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries




  CHILDREN
  OF THE WIND

  BY

  M. P. SHIEL

  _Author of "The Yellow Danger"_

  LONDON
  GRANT RICHARDS LTD.
  ST. MARTIN'S STREET
  1923





                      CONTENTS

   CHAPTER                                   PAGE

        I.  ROLLS                              7

       II.  ROLLS STABBED                     11

      III.  ROLLS LAID LOW                    19

       IV.  THE "CASTLE" LINER                25

        V.  THE VOLUNTEER                     36

       VI.  A QUESTION OF TEETH               43

      VII.  DUELLO                            51

     VIII.  THE SIGODHLO                      61

       IX.  THE ROYAL HUT                     65

        X.  "THE ELEPHANT"                    71

       XI.  DZINIKULU                         77

      XII.  THE QUEEN'S RETURN                84

     XIII.  THE GUEST-HOUSE                   92

      XIV.  IN SUSPENSE                      100

       XV.  DZINIKULU MOVES                  108

      XVI.  THE RENDEZVOUS                   113

     XVII.  IN THE BAOBAB                    122

    XVIII.  WAR-DRUMS                        136

      XIX.  BATTLE                           143

       XX.  COUP D'TAT                      152

      XXI.  SUEELA SPEEDS                    160

     XXII.  SUEELA WASHED WHITE              170

    XXIII.  SUEELA CHANGING SIDES            179

     XXIV.  COBBY'S "BANQUET"                184

      XXV.  THE ENTRE                       188

     XXVI.  SUEELA SCHEMES                   196

    XXVII.  THE CAPTURE IN THE PASS          202

   XXVIII.  SUEELA MARRIED                   210

     XXIX.  SEBINGWE                         220

      XXX.  IN THE CANES                     228

     XXXI.  NIGHT-RIDE                       235

    XXXII.  THE WAGGONS                      242

   XXXIII.  THE BANKNOTES                    250

    XXXIV.  CALAMITY                         257

     XXXV.  CRASH                            262

    XXXVI.  QUEEN SUEELA                     269

   XXXVII.  BELLADONNA                       274

  XXXVIII.  REINSTATEMENT                    280

    XXXIX.  THE SWINGONI                     286

       XL.  EN ROUTE                         292

      XLI.  AFRICA                           297




CHILDREN OF THE WIND




I

ROLLS


Mr. R. Warren Cobby writes in his diary (June 8th):

"Tea in the Carlton tea-room with Jeffson of the F. Office, when in
walks Stead of the Bank, with a man of Greater-British type
--"flash" hat, rather handsome person, black-bearded, blue-eyed,
brown-baked--forty-five, fifty. Stead, on seeing me, throws up a
finger, as who should say 'the very man,' and, coming to my table,
introduced the colonial as 'Mr. R. K. Rolls,' adding: 'By special
request, Cobby.'

"'Mr. Rolls knew of me,' I remarked.

"'That's so, Mr. Cobby: happy to make your acquaintance,' Rolls said,
and we four had tea and talked, or three of us, for the tongue of my
Rolls was still: not so the man's eyes though, I noticed, for I think
that nobody entered, went out, or moved in the place, that he did not
see it--apprehensive, haunted perhaps I might say; and though one gets a
general impression from his air and gait of a laggard and languid
swagger, some of his motions and glances are as sharp as a
panther's--middle-sized man, straight in the legs, his blue eyes broody,
sleepy--sleep of the spinning-top, perhaps--and written all over him
'_Experience_.'

"He interested me--apart from my curiosity as to what the man wanted to
know me for.

"'You know Australia, I think, Mr. Rolls?' I said to him.

"'Oh, yes,' he answered absently, eyeing under his brows a man who stood
up some way off; adding: 'African mainly, Mr. Cobby.'

"Stead put in: 'Explorer, I think we may say, Mr. Rolls?'

"'Well, not quite,' Rolls said, twisting now quickly away to peer at
someone coming in, then adding with a twinkle in his eye: 'never mind,
"explorer" is near enough.'

"Then Jeffson invited the trio of us to Jermyn Street, and thither the
journey was--stupid waste of time and life! Inane people these
super-clerks, and all their kind 'about town.' When they have forgotten
Greek, there is nothing left in them, and before they forget there is
nothing. Then, why associate with them? I won't; not good enough: they
waste life. Fifty of 'em aren't worth one Rolls, I think. Dinner with
them at 'The Troc'; then 'The Empire,' to show girls in tights to Rolls,
who has been in England only two weeks; but Rolls said that he was
accustomed to see 'more elegant' legs than those without any tights on.
Oh, the 'Empire'! What's Empire to me, or I to Empire? No, I was not
amused. Then, walking up Regent Street, Rolls with me, the other two
ahead, says Rolls: 'Do me the honour to dine at my expense to-morrow?'

"'The honour'--'at my expense.' If he had not said 'at my expense,' I
should no doubt have said no, but this naf, and so true, way of putting
it won me, so that I answered: 'Since you wish, Mr. Rolls. Why do you?'

"He looked about and behind before he answered: 'You see, I know you
better than you know me. Quite five years ago I did business with you,
but you've forgotten; seen you several times before to-day. Then I'm a
bit of a thought-reader in my way--"psychometrist," they call it
here--seen enough of that out there'--throwing his hand toward the
Equator: 'I could tell you quite a lot about yourself.'

"'Tell me something,' I said.

"'For one thing,' he began, and then, quick as a wink, he span on his
pins, calling out sharply to a man now close upon us: 'Well, sir! How
can I be of service to _you_?'

"I saw a big man in a cloak, whose collar covered his ears, he standing
now with shoulders shrugged up high, his innocent palms expanded, a
picture of French astonishment, and says he to Rolls: 'Mister addresses
himself to me by chance?'

"Rolls made no answer, peered into his face, looked him up and down,
then said to me: 'Come on'; on which the other laughed, with some
effort, I fancied, and crossed the street, as we moved on.

"And presently Rolls remarked: 'You see, we are of interest to others';
and when I asked him if he really believed that that man had been
eavesdropping upon us, he answered: 'I know.'

"'What for, though?' I asked him.

"This he did not answer, but said: 'I was to tell you something about
yourself: check me, if I go wrong. Age thirty-two. Residence,
Tillington, Sussex. Living alone with a sister. Man of means--no need to
swot at work. Yet you do. Hard worker, energetic, always glancing at the
clock. If I didn't know it otherwise, I could spot it from the roan red
of that hair of yours, from the style it grows upward and backward in a
thicket of wires that curl, or from that fresh flush of your colour, or
from the style your elbows work up and down when you walk, like an
engine on the jig. Stern worker. Proud of your head-piece. Proud of your
Age and Continent. "Nourishing a youth sublime with the fairy-tales of
Science"--quotation from a poet. Now engaged for the Government at
Teddington in discovering the best camber for aeroplane-wings. Fond of
flight, of rush, of getting things over and done. _I_ know you. For
wealth you care nothing----'

"'Don't I, though, by Jove,' I said: 'love wealth--any form of Energy.
Wealth is stored Force, Power, that is, God, and is well named _goods_;
is potential Energy--Power to do good to oneself and others.'

"'Well said,' Rolls muttered: 'yet you have two or three rich relatives,
one of them'--he flung a flying glance behind--'an emperor of wealth--a
cousin--and little you bother about him, because he's not of the
intellectual set. And you have another cousin--female cousin'--now he
put his lips to my ear--'a _Queen_, this one----'

"I could not help laughing out at the earnestness with which he imparted
this absurdity; and I said to him: 'No, there the "thought-reading" is
miscarrying: no female cousin--certainly no queens in the family.'

"He did not answer at once, but then suddenly patted my arm, saying: 'I
may see fit to tell you more when we are better acquainted.'

"Soon after which, having arranged to meet to-morrow at the Hotel Cecil,
we parted; and I walked back home by the Embankment under a black sky
bright with Sirius and the three present planets."




II

ROLLS STABBED


The next night Cobby and Rolls duly dined together; and Cobby writes of
it:

"Such a care about the selection of the table! for Rolls must have one
in a corner, whence to survey all the _salle  manger_.

"When this had been obtained, I showed him the note that had come to me
by the morning's post, on which Rolls produced spectacles, saying, as in
apology: 'I have the best of eyesight in sunlight, Mr. Cobby, but
artificial light bowls me over for reading purposes.' Then he muttered
over the note 'type-written,' and read it half-aloud drawingly: 'The
man, R. K. Rolls, is nothing else than a common jail-bird, well-known in
the Rand as an assassin, a slave-trader, a swindler and thief, a
scoundrel of the deepest dye. To be connected in any shape or form with
this dirty rascal spells certain disaster. Be warned in time, Cobby. A
well-wisher.'

"Looking at Rolls, as he read, I saw his eyes twinkle. 'Oh, well,' he
said, taking off the spectacles, 'you evidently don't reckon me up to be
as black as I'm painted, or you'd not be here.'

"I told him no, that such a communication is without weight for me.

"'Then, we need say no more about it,' he said, and: 'May I keep this
pleasant missive?' and, on my saying yes, put it inside his watch.

"Then I had quite a pleasant evening with him. Though not exquisite in
culture outside, he exhibits considerable shrewdness of wit on things in
general, a sound sense, a trained intelligence, and such a storehouse of
memories and world-lore as render him really an entertaining person, his
lips once unsealed. I found myself liking, admiring, him--so much, that
when he expressed a wish to feel what flight is like, I immediately
offered to take him into the air, he to come to-morrow to the aerodrome.
It is not true that he is a rogue: I know better. Of the anonymous note
he said nothing more until the dinner was over, we then smoking 'long
Toms,' as he called them, cigar-sticks which he produced out of a tube
of leopard-skin, his dress-clothes being constructed with quite a number
of pockets apparently; and now he said to me: 'I suppose you couldn't
reckon up who it was sent you that pleasant missive?'

"I said no, how could I without data? on which he, his voice dropping to
secrecy: 'That comes from a cousin of yours.'

"This had the effect of tickling me, and I said, 'Really! You people the
world with my cousins, Rolls?'

"'I have only mentioned two all told,' he answered--'a male and a
female.'

"'I think I have only one cousin,' I told him--'a
Yankee--millionaire--man named Douglas Macray----'

"'Let's talk low,' he muttered; and added: '_he_ is our man, sir.'

"'Well, but,' I said, 'the man does not know me'; but then, remembering
something, I mentioned that he knew _of_ me, since, some years ago, I
got from him an invitation to a ball, but didn't go; on which Rolls
said: 'Aye, always giving big parties, fond of fal-lals and high jinks,
especially in Paris. You've called him "a Yankee," but he's only half
that, since, as you know, his mother and yours were English sisters, and
he has mostly lived in France. Curious you never chanced to drop across
him. I'll introduce him now to you."

"On this Rolls picked something from a pocket, and, holding it within
his fist, brought his fist into contact with my palm, on which he left a
disc of cardboard, and I saw the photograph of a man of thirty or
so--bearded--something hard-headed, cynical, self-seeking (I
fancied)--man of some draught and horse-power, tearing toward his own
ends--or that was my impression--something flat and flabby about the
upper lip, as though he lacked upper teeth....

"Rolls, taking back the photograph as clandestinely as he had handed it,
said: 'That's Douglas Macray--that's the gentleman. Never saw him in the
flesh myself: but that's he.'

"'Well, what about him?' I asked. 'Why are you and he bad friends?'

"'Because'--he tossed down his 'long Tom' with emphasis--'I refuse to be
bribed by his dirty hand; and because he drops to it why I am in
England, and wants to bottle me up.'

"'Why are you in England?'

"'Mainly to get _you_.'

"'How do you mean "get" me, Rolls,' I demanded.

"'Get you out yonder,--he nodded away toward one of the continents.

"'Get me to go to Africa?' I asked.

"'That's about it.'

"'You won't do that, Rolls,' I told him.

"On which he muttered, with his eyes cast down: 'Leave it at that for
the present. Maybe when I see my way to put my cards down, you won't be
off it. A Red Kaffir _inyanga_--that's a doctoress--predicted that what
I am now on would come off all right, though I might die in the attempt,
said she. Well, you don't believe in _inyangas_, and yet I could tell
you a tale or two----'

"'That's right,' I said, 'tell me tales ... though, of course, _I_ am
trained to believe in white people, not in black.'

"But this as little influenced his conviction as it unfixed the
sculpture of those tough and weather-beaten wrinkles of his face. 'Well,
no doubt,' he answered: 'but it appears, Mr. Cobby, that we are made
with _two_ minds--the conscious mind has talent, and finds things out,
but the subconscious, that's really the cleverer fellow of the two, has
genius, and _knows_, without swotting to find out: this being true, not
only of humans, but of horses, dogs, elephants. I know a little Basuto
pony that foreknew the date of his master's death--he now proceeded to
relate several tales of African occultism, but without presenting any
proof of their truth, while we each smoked another 'long Tom,' he
finishing up with the advice, 'Don't despise the negro, Mr. Cobby,' and
with the statement: 'After all, the savage is ahead of the civilized.'

"This dictum disappointed me in him, as I had thought better of his
intelligence; but even here it turned out that he had a meaning, and he
can be very convincing when he sets himself to prove. He said: 'That, to
you, is all-out nonsense, no doubt. But reflect a bit: what is it that
all are after--all dogs, men, Martians, angels? "Happiness," you'll say,
since nothing else can possibly be of any interest to any life for one
instant. Yonder hangs a Christ on his Cross: what's he there for? The
good of others? Sure thing: but that's what makes _him_ happy, look; and
he bears the nails, that "he may see of the travail of his soul and be
satisfied," or happy. Or look at that man yonder flying from a
prairie-fire--staring he is, crazy for life; then look yonder at that
other holding a revolver at his forehead: both flying from sorrow, both
after happiness. Same with you brooding in your laboratory: for _you_
the discovery of truth spells happiness, and your interest in truth is
an interest in happiness: for why should you care more for truth than
for untruth, for pudding more than for putty, for any one thing more
than for any other thing, but that truth and pudding make for happiness?
Happiness is the aim of the race of life; and, of course, those nearer
the aim are ahead of those not so near.'

"To this I readily agreed, since really it is an axiom; but asked him if
he considered savages happier than I; to which he answered: 'No, not
than you; but such as you aren't Civilized Man: you're an accident of
civilization. Like you are half a million, say, in England--foreigners
looking on at the forty million real English inspanned to the
buck-waggon of England, dragging at the trek-tow, sweating great drops.
Well, of course, that's not practical politics; that's no chop any road:
Unhappy is the name of it. Hence, when the crew of the _Endeavour_ made
acquaintance with Otahito, some of 'em did a bunk, thinking: "No more
England for _us_." But when I say that the savage is "_ahead_," don't
take me for a fool. Here is a river, the river of life'--he drew it in
pencil on the table-cloth--'and here is the sea to the East. Let the sea
represent Happiness, Bliss and no end. Well, the river runs East to A,
and at A is the savage; but then it winds back West toward B, and
between A and B is the civilized: evidently A is nearer the sea, and so
ahead of B, but B is further on nearer bliss, and so ahead of A. At B,
as I pan it out, the river breaks into cataracts and rapids--revolution
there--civilized man grabbing the planet's crust out of the grasp of the
foreign onlookers who now hold it, and thence the course toward
Happiness may be rapid, and the savage soon be nowhere in comparison.
The same may be true of the two minds--the conscious, and the
subconscious. As life in becoming civilized, has lost something for a
time, so, in becoming intelligent, it has lost something: dogs and
horses are more psychic, or "sensitive," as they say, than men, and will
see an apparition quicker, and black men more than white men. But maybe
when the river of Mind turns again toward the sea, men may be more
psychic than any dog for being more intelligent, just as they will be
all the more happy for being civilized. So I pan it out. Don't look
round suddenly: one of the enemy has entered--the man at the table
behind that lady with the diamond spray.'

"I glanced, and saw a young man, who might have been a Neapolitan
count--handsome, but for his loutish, foul mouth. He was in talk with a
garon, and seemed to be thinking of anything but Rolls.

"'One of the enemy,' I said: 'who are they? and--how do you know?'

"'Agents of Macray,' he answered, 'who is out to get me, and it's no
chop when a rascal has power. How I know? By the movement of an eyelid.
Besides, I live here, and so does yonder carrion-crow.'

"All this I found difficult to realize; and, reverting to the previous
question, asked him if he was sure that the savage is the happier.

"'Down to the ground sure!' was his answer: 'your savage is likelier to
die sudden, I admit: but you come with me to Basutoland, that belongs to
the nation like the air, and for every rag and groan in Glasgow or
Bethnal Green you will see a grin of gladsomeness, and a toe that
dances. "Here," the Barotse say, "hunger is not known." Or come with
me---- Yes, I think I may tell you now of another country:
Wo-Ingwanya--but don't pronounce the "I," Ngwanya say; the people are
Wa-Ngwanya; one of them is a Mo-Ngwanya; their language is Se-Ngwanya.
Far up country--South-Central Africa--not far from the Indian
Ocean--"Children of the Elephant," they call themselves, either because
they are Zulu in origin, or because of an enormous rock, bigger than
London, that stands on four low legs; but I in my own mind always call
them "Children of the Wind," because in those uplands the breezes of
heaven don't cease from streaming through their feathery head-dress,
breathing upon their faces health and freshness--at least, they didn't
during the weeks I was there--and sometimes terrific tempests visit
them. It is sixteen years since I first heard of that country, and then
I heard one and another assert that no such country is on earth; ey, but
there _is_ that country, for not nineteen months gone I was in it with a
caravan of negroid Arabs, and saw the men inlay metals--noblest lot of
blacks I've dropped upon. They trekked north, like Umzilikaze; but long
before Chaka's day--before any Zulu King whose name is known to us; yet
are so conservative, that I could still drop to much of their lingo.
Well, those darkies are in Paradise in comparison with St.
Pancras--scream with laughter of heart in the face of sun and moon,
their moochas of ox-tails and plumes of ostrich and saccaboola feathers,
that stream on the breezes, seeming to scream with laughter, too--so
long as they don't get killed, look, by enemies, or by "our
mother"--that's their ruler: for _she's_ a devil of a despot. "Our
mother" owns each inch of Wo-Ngwanya for her people, and is paid rent
for it; no man may say "this acre is _mine_"; and that's where the
laughter comes from, if I am a man that knows anything. Eh, but she's a
hot un, is "our mother"; _I_ ought to know: the beggar sentenced me to
death--ugliest bit of road I've yet got over. If a Mo-Ngwanya girl
slips, without "our mother's" consent, that's a sure case of "off with
her head"--harsh, bloody. And who do you think "our mother" is?'--here
Rolls laid his hand on mine, hard, with the knuckles whitened--'You'd
never guess; hear it _now_: girl of seventeen--eighteen by this time.
_White_ girl. Hear her name: _Spiciewegiehotiu_.'

"His voice had risen and risen, his eyes had brightened, and he uttered
this procession of a name, 'Spiciewegiehotiu,' in such a crescendo of
loudness, that most of the diners glanced our way. It seemed to be
uttered in defiance and challenge, the defiance of one breaking through
long restraint, for at the same time fire shot out of his eyes toward
the Neapolitan-looking man seven yards away. Immediately afterwards he
smiled on me, nodded, rose, and saying: 'Back in two minutes,' walked
away out.

"A minute afterwards I saw the foreigner also saunter out.

"Well, Rolls did not return in 'two minutes'--I wished that he would,
for just then I felt sick at my second 'long Tom'--horridly strong and
raw--and presently I became aware of some commotion in the entrance-hall
west of me--running feet, calls--so, among others, I hurried out to see,
and there by the Office stood a mob, craning to see something in their
midst, the hotel-people fussing about, begging them to stand back.

"I, being taller than most, soon caught sight of a form--'the enemy,'
the Neapolitan--lying unconscious, and one of the diners, probably a
doctor, kneeling near, whom I heard say: 'Only a faint--right arm
broken'; and I understood that the injured must have been on the way to
seek aid for his arm, but had fainted before reaching the portal.

"Some moments afterwards my left eye caught sight of Rolls strolling in
from the inner, south, _salle_, and saw him throw himself upon a lounge
at the inner side of the entrance-hall.

"When I went to him, I saw him rather pallid under his tan, rather scant
of breath, and, showing me a dagger, he told me, 'I went to the
lavatory--thought myself alone--he stabbed me in the back with this--I
cracked his arm.' He showed me some blood on his fingers.

"'Come,' I said, and led him toward the front, where a crowd and two
constables were now watching the foreigner being carried into a cab for
hospital; and Rolls I soon had in a cab for Essex Court, where, after
'phoning Dr. Hammond to come, I undressed Rolls; but the wound, an
island in an ocean of tattooing, I at once saw to be of no importance,
so 'phoned Hammond not to bother, and dressed it myself.

"'But what about the legal aspect?' I then said to Rolls: 'this is
London in Europe.'

"'Oh, the incident is ended,' Rolls said, putting on his vest: 'it's no
chop my charging him, and he, you may bet, won't charge me. May the
stink-cats all catch it as hot, and may the devil get their master, his
son.'

"I gave him to drink, and he stayed with me, telling tale after tale of
venture and escape, funds of lore, till eleven, then went back to the
hotel, saying he'd be at the aerodrome at two, I soon to hear more of
his Spiciewegiehotiu, or 'Hot Spice,' I called that lady, 'our mother.'
Rolls is a man, and not at all a bad sort."




III

ROLLS LAID LOW


The next day Cobby duly flew Rolls over London; after which the relation
between the two became more established. Rolls spending several evenings
at Cobby's chambers, bringing along his own peach-brandy--for himself to
sip, alcohol being not often good enough for Cobby; and it was when
Cobby was one evening expecting Rolls for the fifth of these visits,
that he heard his door-handle wrenched, his door slammed, and on rushing
out to his hall, found Rolls there standing with his back on the door,
short of breath, and blanched.

"Hurt, Rolls?" Cobby cried out.

"Don't think so," Rolls answered on a pant. "They got me on the
stair--rushed me from No. 7 door.... Two I treated with the naked
mauleys--the third chased me up--fired twice--air-gun--tore my sleeve,
see--they wear silent shoes--I hadn't time to draw...."

Indignant blood rushed to Cobby's forehead. "_We_'ll do the attacking!"
he cried, running in, to return with a small Colt's.

"You keep out of it"--Rolls held his sleeve.

"This is intolerable!" Cobby said, with a florid forehead--"come
on--rout 'em out."

But Rolls held him. "_They_ are under cover--it's no chop fighting on
ground chosen by the enemy. Wait--wary's the word. I reckon they'll be
getting me in the end, but let that cost them something.... How would
they have got into No. 7?"

Cobby explained that No. 7 had been unoccupied, and must now have been
taken by, or for, one of the gang; but complaint at the Inn-office the
next day would rid the Temple of them. Meantime the police ...

But these, bespoken over the telephone, failed to find anyone at No. 7;
and Cobby, nervous for Rolls' life, would not let him go; so Rolls, for
the first time, slept that night in the chambers.

That was the night of the 2nd August.

On the night of the 7th, Rolls was "got," as he would have said.

Near nine he was walking up Essex Street--his usual route for
Cobby's--lonely at that hour, obscure at some points--when he was
stabbed in the abdomen--mysteriously, for not a living thing did he see
near him. Any nerve less trained in alertness than he, any adventurer
less veteran in the trick and luck of escape, would doubtless have been
laid dead at once; but something or other caused him suddenly to spring
upward, and, instead of in the breast, he was hit below.

He contrived to rise, to stagger and drag himself to the Temple not far,
to knock at Cobby's "oak," as formally as if nothing had happened. But
as he knocked, he fell; and some moments afterwards, before the door was
opened, Cobby, who had been out, darted up the stair, and there before
the door saw the poor man prostrate in sorry case. Rolls sighed: "I
think I'm done for."

The effect of this upon Cobby, who was hot-headed and full-blooded, was
to cause him to dash into a passion at outrages of this sort done in his
own London; and he vowed vengeance. But for days Rolls could give no
lucid account of what had taken place, the police appeared to be beaten,
and no vengeance was taken. Indeed, during two whole days Rolls was
delirious, the doctors anxious; but he was too tough a catgut to snap at
one tug, and the days of danger passed.

Soon after which he breathed feebly to Cobby: "I've brought no end of a
bobbery upon you, haven't I?--coming here. You were so much nearer--and
I reckoned you'd want me to."

"Good Rolls," Cobby answered, pressing his hand, "that's right: there's
no bobbery."

Cobby, busy as he was by nature, would stay an hour by the bedside, and
himself help in Rolls' nursing, till the evening when Rolls was wheeled
out to the work-room, when he said to Cobby: "Aye, I think I can drop
now to it how they got me. From a motor-car. A rod running in sockets to
push out, and a spike or two on the rod to stab with ... I think I
remember a car passing, and I distinctly remember making a spring: I
must have caught half a glimpse of something in the half-dark--I can't
swear. Well, in the end they'll do me in, no doubt, since they're so
down on it."

"Miscreants!" Cobby muttered, running his fingers through the backwoods
of his hair: "if _we_ could do _them_ in ... But, as we seem unable to,
you cut and run, Rolls. That will be horrible, if, when you get well,
you are again----"

"I have always stood up to my man so far," Rolls said, "and am not for
turning tail now. The worst of my trouble is that I've brought you, too,
into it. Promise me now that you'll not go out unarmed."

"That is foreign to me, Rolls," Cobby answered, looking not unlike the
boy in "Bubbles," robed in a camel-hair dressing-gown, and launching
into the air a bubble bigger than a trunk, a great globe of glories and
glamours, gas-blown, he then experimenting on the surface-tension of
bubbles at a lengthy table littered with a tangle of apparatus under
bright lamplight: "I don't want to go armed in God's good Fleet Street,
nor do I yet understand why these clowns should wish to meddle with me."

Reclined under a rug in a lounge-chair on the other side of the table,
Rolls answered: "You see, they pan it out that I'll never play it a lone
hand, undertaking a trek to that country so far in the interior without
one white companion; and if Douglas Macray once reckons that you are
wiring in with me, his cutthroats will sure be after you, too."

"But am I wiring in with you?" Cobby demanded. "You see that I have
interests here."

With eyes trained sidewards upon him, Rolls watched a little that dainty
handicraft before replying: "The thing's worth doing. Seven millions
sterling: of which I reckon upon one for me, and one for you, if we put
it over."

"How? Tell me now," said Cobby, pausing in the work to stand with his
arms akimbo.

And Rolls, after some hesitancy, remarked: "Nurse will be still asleep
... Very well, we'll talk of that country.... You know that your
mother's two sisters married two brothers. Jane marrying James Macray,
and Ismene marrying Rob Macray. Rob being considerably the elder, his
rascal of a son, Douglas Macray, was nine or ten before James married
your aunt Jane--I know the whole jimbang of it, for about then I was
well in with James in the Witwatersrand, where he laid the foundations
of his fortune. Rob, he never had much wealth--once went bankrupt in
Chicago--and our swell Douglas Macray would be a nobody to-day, if he
wasn't in possession of somebody else's money. Aye, somebody else's,
look--not his own--the money of Spiciewegiehotiu."

"Ah! Hot Spice," went Cobby.

"Hot spice--that's pepper--is what she _is_. Eh, she'd have that
rascal's head off as sweet and clean----"

"But how was it? Tell me."

"You remember the loss of the _Florida_?"

"Let me see--Yes, yes, of course--I was eighteen--she vanished--my aunt
Jane was lost----"

"_And_ your uncle-in-law, James Macray, _and_ his daughter, your cousin,
Flora Macray: the _Florida_ being James Macray's 5,000-ton yacht, in
which, with a party, he was globe-trotting, going to Japan; but after
touching at Somaliland they were caught in one of those easterly Indian
Ocean storms, to which they had to turn tail; and to this day the
timbers of the wreck of that craft remain on the African coast, for I've
seen them."

Cobby lowered himself to sit, saying: "I gather, then, that this Hot
Spice is Flora Macray?"

"That's so. James Macray's dollars, inherited by his brother Rob, and
then by Rob's son, Douglas, whose name, too, should be Rob, for 'tis his
nature too--those dollars now being spent to murder me for knowing too
much--are dollars of Spiciewegiehotiu, every cent, by her father's
will----"

"_He_ was drowned, then--and my aunt?" Cobby asked eagerly.

"No, not drowned, I think. The _Florida_ grounded inside a half-harbour,
and probably all hands were saved. They were received, and not badly
treated for some weeks, by Daisy, King of M'Niami, a man still alive,
for I've done _Konza_ to him, and given the beggar ivory--this Daisy
being the neighbour to the north-east of Spiciewegiehotiu, and now lives
in terror of her sceptre and butting horns, though twelve years ago she
was a kid of six in his hands, and with a wink he could have sent her to
the kingdom of heaven.... Well, sir, after the _Florida_ lot had been
with Daisy some weeks, Daisy suddenly receives a request from the King
of Wo-Ngwanya to hand over to him the white child then in Daisy's
great-place, in exchange for five hundred Wo-Ngwanya cattle. Now, this
was an all-out rum request; and, as at that time Daisy's M'Niami were
considered a more powerful crowd than the Wa-Ngwanya, Daisy scratched
his wool and demurred--couldn't drop to what the bobbery was about! the
real reason being, that a certain woman of the Wa-Ngwanya, named
Mandaganya, had months before had some sort of premonition that a 'lamb
coming up out of the water' would make Wo-Ngwanya great--that being what
'Spiciewegiehotiu' _means_, 'Lamb come up out of water.' This
Mandaganya, too, I know, by the way--a remarkable woman, I assure
you--big, grand being--highly intelligent--and if ever there was a
medium, or 'sensitive,' or 'psychic,' as you call 'em here, it is that
woman. That woman has outraged the moral sense of all Wo-Ngwanya, all
her fifteen children, except two, having different fathers--a capital
offence there--yet her influence in the State remains immense, she
being the chief of the College of Doctors--a triumph of personality. Her
two children by one father are Sueela and a little brisk beast, sharp as
a needle with two points, who is the executioner--a little ink-black
beast whose limbs seem oiled, whose close acquaintance I almost made, by
George. The flash of that falchion of his will have a head pitching away
in one swift swish, and then, his right leg bent before him, his left
leg stiff behind him, he'll glance up sharp, as if asking everybody
'how's that for a wonner?' and then the next, and the next--brisk as a
flea! and his sister Sueela is Spiciewegiehotiu's pet and weakness;
sprig of seventeen, Sueela--ah! you must see Sueela--Venus, my
boy--Venus is the thing's name, not Sueela. Spiciewegiehotiu's fondness
for her is a scandal in Wo-Ngwanya, by the way, for Sueela's mother, the
_inyanga_, comes from the dregs of the people, so----"

"But about the _Florida_ people," Cobby interrupted, glancing at the
clock.

"Aye, that's the point," Rolls said: "pull me up when I get long-winded.
I have a soft spot for that country, and no doubt am apt to gas about my
memories of it--'Children of the Wind' I name 'em, dwelling there in
this twentieth century among the wrecks of a civilization ancient as
Abraham, maybe--relics of pyramid, temple--and, the sweet winds that
sweep them--I might do worse than sleep eternally under the turf of
those uplands, if those that sleep can be hearing the breezes breathe
through the trees at midday and at midnight. But I was telling you--the
King of Wo-Ngwanya, panning it out that the white child at Daisy's
great-place was the 'lamb come up washed out of the water,' demands her
of Daisy; Daisy, for his part----"

But at this point a nurse looked in to claim Rolls, and would not be
disobeyed. "Here's another Spicey," muttered Rolls, moving out with her,
while another moon covered over with Constantinoples of topaz and opal
floated aloft from Cobby's bubble-blower.




IV

THE "CASTLE" LINER


But during the two following nights, Cobby had from Rolls the whole
story--how Daisy, King of M'Niami, refused to send the white child to
Wo-Ngwanya, having been warned by the whites of the _Florida_ that, if
he separated the child from her parents, the white Knulu-knulu
(great-great God) would be down upon him, whereas, if he refused to send
her, all would go well with him. By this advice he was guided:
whereupon, war--Wo-Ngwanya warning Daisy that, if one hair of the white
lamb was harmed, then, the Wo-Ngwanya army, if victorious, would not
fail to raze Daisy's great-place to the ground. And Wo-Ngwanya _was_
victorious: whereupon Daisy, in a passion of anger against the _Florida_
unfortunates for their false prophecy, and for all the disaster it had
brought upon his head, turned round and put them all to death, except
the little one, whom, on capitulating, he handed over to Wo-Ngwanya.

"Eh," said Rolls to Cobby, "but that King of Wo-Ngwanya was cutting
a stick for the back of his own royal house, look. Spiciewegiehotiu
was no lamb come up out of any water--dragon more like --Machiavelli
--Napoleon--and proved one too many for that royal house. The
prophecy of the _inganya_ Mandaganya that 'the lamb' would make
Wo-Ngwanya 'great' has proved abundantly true, for when Spicie
entered it, that country was no bigger than Bucks; now she can put
into the field 180,000 of the bravest warriors--can and does put,
for like a butting goat she has pushed and butted, north and east,
and west, till that country may now make a map broader than Wales.
But her idea was to make Wo-Ngwanya great for herself and her
'children,' the Wa-Ngwanya, not for the reigning house; and she was
not much over sixteen when her scheming and intriguing broke out in
the deuce of a bobbery. She got round the King, who now had cancer,
to proclaim her his President of the Council at a new-moon ceremony;
upon which two of the King's three brothers, and his only son--a lad
of nineteen--took flight by night with a troop of followers from
Eshowe--that's the royal kraal, or capital--in order to bring three
regiments from the North upon Eshowe, seize the power, and get hold
of Spiciewegiehotiu and Mandaganya, whose designs they were quite up
to. Well, your troop of indunas gallop full bat through a night and
day, they reach the regiments, they hold an _indaba_--that's a
debate--of officers in a forest at midnight, decide what to do, and
to do it quick; and, as the _indaba_ is about over, one of the
assembly stands up, points at the princes, and commands, 'arrest the
traitors'--Spiciewegiehotiu, wrapped in an officer's kaross, her
face blackened; and with her her Sueela. She rode back to Eshowe at
the head of one of the regiments, the three princes prisoners in its
midst."

Cobby over his work murmured "efficient," and Rolls dodged one of the
bubble-worlds which Cobby constantly created and launched.

"Aye," Rolls said--"has a sense of the value of seconds, and will always
be a minute ahead of her enemy. She had reached the three regiments only
one half-hour before the princes, within which interval she had done a
world of work and winning. The third of the King's brothers, Dzinikulu,
who related to me all this, told me that Sueela on her knees entreated
Spiciewegiehotiu to kill the three princes there and then, but that
Spicie, who always knows just how far she dares go at any juncture, and
goes to the limit of that, but no farther, would not kill--bided her
time. But she suffered for this: for soon afterwards she was
poisoned--only scraped through by the skill of the doctoress,
Mandaganya--and for two months it was as much as the sick King could do
to keep Spiciewegiehotiu living--plot after plot. Then one midnight the
King dies; Spicie still sick from poison; and quick the four princes
rush, silently invest the sigodhlo--that's the royal enclosure--with
troops that they have waiting ready, so to make sure of
Spiciewegiehotiu. And now they look through the sigodhlo for Spicie,
they ransack it: no Spicie. Spicie has fled, Sueela fled, Mandaganya
fled--gone by a little back-way in the very nick of time. The princes
give chase; scour the country; they cannot drop upon Spiciewegiehotiu. A
rumour comes to them that Spicie has fled north-east to the garrison
brigades on the M'Niami frontier, and is marching against them, with a
force of 12,000 assegais; on which, with overwhelming numbers, they rush
to encounter and crush these regiments. But while butting about, looking
for this force, they come to know that it has given them the slip, and
is now with Spiciewegiehotiu at the great-place, Eshowe, together with
other forces. Back to Eshowe they rush, to crush her there. When they
arrive in sight of Eshowe, at ten in the night, they see it all a sea of
torches; it sends out to them a sound of carousing, of shield-beating,
and drum-beating, dancing and fal-lals. They become aware that
Spiciewegiehotiu has that evening been proclaimed Queen of Wo-Ngwanya:
and they prepare to invest and besiege Eshowe. Meantime, hundreds on
hundreds of emissaries are being sent out from Eshowe to their
regiments, by Spiciewegiehotiu, with messages--let them not besiege
Eshowe--let them march in--are not the gates flung wide for them? Let
them come and kill her, let them come and kill the white lamb washed
come up from the water, let them come and kill Wo-Ngwanya, let them come
and kill the mother and luck of the Wa-Ngwanya--is not her bosom bared?
bared are the young mother-breasts that suckle them--let them come and
pierce it with hundreds of spear-points, that they may feel like sons
and heroes. And the fakement works all right. As _you_ know bubbles and
sub-atoms, so she knows her Wo-Ngwanya, and can move the mass of it
with her finger, as a chit's touch launches a ship. Though she has her
forces posted out of sight about the town to pounce upon the enemy, if
necessary, it isn't necessary, for, as the princes' impi marches upon
Eshowe, the populace of Eshowe swarm out to call and talk to it; it
thaws, dissolves, and walks off like waters; and in a frantic scene of
timbrels and dancing, breast clutched to brother's breast, it enters the
gates of Eshowe to the great square, at the top of which
Spiciewegiehotiu sits throned within a glare and smoke of flambeaux,
tired and sick and pallid, but smiling, seeing prostrate before her feet
the manhood of Wo-Ngwanya, hearing howled to heaven from ten thousand
throats the roar '_Bayet!_--_Sovereign!_' And in the midst of it the
princes--for the second time--her prisoners."

Now Cobby paused to stare, and suddenly muttered again: "Efficient, that
chit."

"Aye," said Rolls--"and now she saw herself strong enough to strike.
After a trial that lasted ten days, a trial on which the entire nation
hung in a hush of suspense, she sentenced to death three of the four
princes, reprieving only, from some motive of policy, Dzinikulu, the
late King's third brother. After the trial, tears, entreaties, warnings,
were poured out before her by chiefs and headmen to win her to spare the
princes; but Spiciewegiehotiu was deaf to them all, and, as that brisk
little beast, Sandelikatze, Sueela's brother, the executioner, swished
off the three heads, and glanced up sharp, asking 'how's that?'--I've
seen the beast--a howl of dismay went up from Eshowe, seeing that flow
of great-great gore, and like one man Wo-Ngwanya clapped hand to mouth
at it, and stood dumb. The Wa-Ngwanya are pretty fickle, emotional and
touchy; and there were some local insurrections, which Spiciewegiehotiu
did not crush, but, by quickly picking a quarrel with Sebingwe, a King
to the north-west, and quickly declaring war, turned the thoughts of
everybody from the internal bobbery. And ever since it has been drill,
drill, and war, war, with her; nor she don't sit still at Eshowe and
send out her impis: under _her_ eye they fight, with _her_ strategy----"

"Bloody young person," Cobby observed.

"Public-spirited, _I_ call it," Rolls replied. "She don't consider that
she is there for the good of humanity, look, but for her 'children,' who
pay her--is there to make _them_ happy and top-dog; and there's no end
to her public-spiritedness, to her devotion to the Wa-Ngwanya, to the
anxiety of her forehead for them."

"She has quite a hero-worshipper, Rolls," Cobby remarked with a smile.

"Well, no doubt I _am_ a bit shook on the girl, though I ought to hate
the beggar----"

"Why, then, did she sentence you?"

"Only for proposing to her to let me bring her to Europe--nothing more.
She seems, by the way, to have as strong a colour-prejudice against us
whites as her father probably had against niggers--as good as told me so
in four English words--and very strange it was suddenly to hear that
English uttered in Wo-Ngwanya--while I stood before her judgment-seat:
up she cocks one eye, trying to remember English, and then, wrinkling up
her nose, says she: 'Hwhite--mans--is--stink.' The retort leapt to my
mouth, 'And what about white girls? They're worse'--eh, but R. K. Rolls
was too old a fowl, thank God, to give it tongue. Aye, she had me in
chokey six bitter days under sentence of death inside a continent of a
rock that they call 'The Elephant'; and what do you think saved me?
Seven matches--the last I had. An inspiration came to me to send them as
a present, and they so fascinated her, that she let me off, but banished
me, commanding me never more to set foot in Wo-Ngwanya."

"I see--you proposed to bring her to civilization," Cobby said: "you had
discovered that she is Flora Macray. How had you?"

"Oh, everything proved it. She remembered the name of the _Florida_, the
name 'Flora,' though not the name 'Macray.' I told her I had known her
father, and she showed me his photo in a locket--there's no doubt. Of
course, I saw at once that there was big money in it--as well as
justice--if I could get her home: for if I could make her sign to tip me
one million out of seven, that would be fair----"

"But when you offered her the lion's share, she forced upon you the
'Elephant's' portion," Cobby put in.

"Ho! Well put," Rolls cried--"that's how it pans out. However, I was no
sooner out of Wo-Ngwanya, with my head still on, than I was playing to
get her yet, and, when next in the Witwatersrand, I set about getting
together an expedition to kidnap my lady. But I blabbed--a bit. Funds
being low just then, I approached Schartz, the financier--didn't let on
where that country lies, you may bet, but I let out '_Florida_,' let out
'Flora Macray.' Schartz he had vowed to be mum, but I now know that he
was in with the Douglas Macray crowd; and a hint of the fakement
actually got into the _Cape Times_. He suggested to me to _sell_ my
knowledge to the enemy, and lie low ever after, mentioned 20,000, and
when I wouldn't look at it, he steered off, the expedition looked sick,
and, to top it all, I found myself with Douglas Macray's knife in me.
His arm, reaching from Paris, just nearly made me a deader one evening
in the Johannesburg Exchange Bar. It was then that I said to myself:
'_Cobby!_'"

Cobby rushed his fingers through his leonine bush of hair, shook his
head rather irritably. "Leave me out of it, Rolls. I--can't. Beside this
surface-tension of bubbles, I am counting the droplets in vapour-clouds
with Stokes; and, then, the Government--No, no, leave me out."

"Still, you are coming slowly round, I can see," Rolls remarked with a
twinkle.

"I am--_not_, Rolls," said Cobby.

"You don't want me to be assassinated in a London street--that's why."

"No, that's true, I don't, I don't."

"Therefore, you'll come. What's the good of bubbles? This is solid cash,
this proposition--not bubbles. With a million of Spiciewegiehotiu's
money in your bank, you could blow bubbles as big as this building. And,
then, justice, Cobby. Your cousin. Isn't it a duty?"

Bent over his work-table, after a while Cobby replied: "I don't see that
it is a duty to kidnap anyone. The girl is free, and if she doesn't
want---- Moreover, my head is of some value, apparently; I am not
anxious to have it hacked off by the little brisk man who glances up and
asks 'how's that?'"

"_I_'ll look after your head," remarked Rolls.

"What would have become of your own, if you had had no matches?" Cobby
demanded; "I hope they were _safety_ matches: they deserved that name."

"Ho!" broke out of Rolls, in whom laughter was a rare and a volcanic
event.... "Oh, Jimmy! the wound hurts when I laugh."

"I make painful jokes, I see," Cobby remarked, on which yet another
"Ho!" broke out of Rolls in a pain of explosion.

Then Cobby's grandfather's-clock struck eleven; his man bore in a
supper, consisting mostly of bread and cheese--for so Cobby lived--and,
as they sat at table, he asked of Rolls: "But is she--fair at all to
look upon, this minx, my cousin?"

"Spiciewegiehotiu is a beauty," Rolls solemnly asserted. "She is---- Did
your mother's family, by the way, have black hair?"

"Dark. My mother's was black."

"So is Spicie's. Looks Spanish to me rather--staid face--pale,
strong-boned, grave---- I've seen her laugh merrily, but never saw her
smile. Sits leaning sideways, her finger-joints at her cheek--steady
eyes, meditating on you, judging, dark-blue--noble brow, for though you
can't see much of it for the two wings of hair that cover it, there's a
lane between the wings, running up the side of the brow where the
hair-parting is, and at that lane you can spy the noble height and bulge
of the brow; and the hair puffs over the ears, which puff may be what
makes her Spanish-looking. And her sweet lips, boy, neatly fitted
together, a little pressed--rose-leaves may be something like them--not
red ones, pink ones--but I can't tell of the winningness and pull of
'em----"

"Why, Rolls!" Cobby cried, "this is love."

"I wish she'd returned it, then. I shouldn't have been off bussing those
particular lips. But no go: white mans is stink. Maybe for a cousin
she'd feel different, Cobby: for they say that some cousins are more
akin in nature than brother and sister."

"Really? People say that of cousins? I am surprised, because it happens
to be true--scientifically known. But all that does not allure me,
Rolls. You see that I have other pre-occupations than the lips of
ladies."

To which Rolls, sipping his peach-brandy, confidently answered: "You
never felt the sun, old man: wait till you do, before you boast. Here
the sun is a hearsay, as toothache is to one who hasn't it; but the
sun's a Reality, look, and no fun. You've read of the rage of the
vegetation of African forests: well, the same with Master Cupid; a dog
in the sun bites the boy, and the boy goes dog-mad."

"Oh, it is all a question of mental pose and habit," Cobby remarked with
a pout. "The mind cannot think of two things at the same time----"

"Exactly!" cried Rolls. "And the sun insists that you think of _it_, and
quit bubbles. If you say 'No' to it, it says 'Very good; there's no
hurry, to-morrow will do.'"

At which Cobby chuckled, roaring out in his big voice: "And this is what
you propose to me!--to transform myself from a blower of bubbles into a
blower of sighs! Stash the fakement, Rolls, as you say."

But Cobby had been, and was being, more influenced by Rolls than he
admitted to himself, and three nights later was influenced still more by
an event.

That midnight he was walking home from a scientific function at the
Holborn Restaurant, and, after passing through Lincoln's Inn Fields, had
descended some steps behind the Law Courts, going down into the lane of
Clement's Inn, where it was dingy and desolate, when three men, who had
on masks, appeared before him; and cried one, presenting a revolver:
"You were warned, Cobby! Up with the hands!"

Cobby did nothing of the sort. Hot-headed as ever, he sent at the man a
blow that staggered him, and had actually felled the second, before he
was struggling with the third. As this third and he dropped together, he
cut the hand of this one with a lancet, and, reaching out, cut the hand
of the second, too, who was still half-prostrate.

Their object, apparently, had been just to strike terror into him, for
when all were again on their legs, instead of any shooting, there was a
foolish pause, while the two cut ones glanced at their hands, and Cobby
touched a bump on his forehead, until on panting breaths Cobby said:
"Now, look here--just yonder is King's College Hospital: _run_ to it,
you two--tell them you've been cut with a septic lancet, or you are
likely to have your arms off."

The three looked at one another.

"_C'est la blague_," remarked the non-cut to the cut.

"It is NOT _blague_," Cobby said, suddenly walked away, and was not
followed.

All in a flush he reached his chambers, indignant, dominant; and, as he
broke into the room where Rolls under his rug awaited his coming, words
burst from him. "Well, I have decided, Rolls. I go with you...."

"Good talk!" breathed Rolls astare.

"I've been attacked"--he told the story of it.

Rolls snapped finger and thumb. "Good luck! They reckoned to scare you
off, that's it--and have done the other thing! They don't know their
Cobby, the blackguards!"

"Very good, it is settled, we tackle it, we two. How long will it take?"

"Eighteen months."

"Oh, a year, say! We go armed, you know."

"Well, of course, we go----"

"I don't mean with guns--with Science--with civilization--motors,
accumulators, aeroplanes----"

"Oh, I say!" went Rolls, "that's hardly orthodox, to spring aeroplanes
upon Wo-Ngwanya. Still, there's no reason----"

"Oh! we go fully armed, Rolls, to meet every eventuality. Time! Time! In
which case, say a year."

"Let's hope it, anyway. A million a year--not bad for R. K. Rolls!"

Cobby, who now stood pondering, all at once asked what was Douglas
Macray's address.

"Hotel Meurice, rue de Rivoli," said Rolls, "or just 'Paris' will do.
But--why?"

Without answering Cobby sat at his escritoire, and wrote: "Mr. Warren
Cobby is about to start on the quest of his cousin, Flora Macray"--and
at once, having summoned his man, sent it to the post; on which, with a
look of alarm, Rolls suddenly asked: "You haven't written to Macray?"

Cobby told what he had written.

"Well--but----" Rolls said. "Myself, I'd never see fit to forewarn the
enemy."

"Miscreant! The insolent licence---- Well, now he has my challenge."

Rolls shrugged. Challenges, flourishes, moral ebullitions were hardly
his style, but the plain way toward an end; and in the next three weeks,
while preparations were under weigh, and Cobby tearing himself out of
his place in civilization, Rolls' unimaginative sense had enough to do
to check the other's excess of zest and effort. "Our money won't run to
it," he would say: "we don't aim to be an invading army with baggage,
look. There's no chop any road in bringing arc-lamps and gelignite,
telephone-sets and nitro-toluol...."

"To have done it, and be done with it, Rolls," Cobby said: "to be back
here in Fleet Street, doing surface-tension! If we go, we go as white
men, armed with the white man's wit and might--not with seven matches."

Rolls flung his hand. "Well, there may be something in it. Go your own
road."

Hence, on the day of departure, cartfuls of paraphernalia lay stored for
the expedition within that belly of the _Saxon_. To watch all snugly
stored, Rolls, hardly yet quite on his legs, had been aboard some hours,
and Cobby, at the eleventh hour, was walking alone with quick steps
toward the ship along the dockside, pulled askew by a bag, when a voice
said behind him: "Carry your bag, sir?"

"Very good"--he gave it to a tall man, loose-limbed, shaven,
dark-haired, wearing a cloth cap, and rough clothes that looked new.

And, as they walked together along the dock-railway, said Cobby: "Where
have I seen you before?"

On which the man chuckled, saying: "Not at Buckingham Palace, I'm
afraid, sir."

When they reached the bustle of the ship, now shouting "visitors
ashore," Cobby at once lost sight of him; but four evenings later, out
in the Bay of Biscay, on wandering with "The Zulu-Kaffir Language" into
the bow-regions, to watch the bow-foams wash and dash, he beheld the
same man there, leaning over the rail among some steerage-passengers.

Cobby addressed him, with "So _you_ are here."

On which the man touched his cap with a chuckle. "Yours as ever, sir,"
he said.

But there was some difference now about the man somehow, in air, or
face. Cobby, just aware of a difference, could not say in what it
lay--was not interested.




V

THE VOLUNTEER


Before Madeira was passed, Rolls had become an institution in the ship.
He liked winds in his hair, and dismal nights, when he had the vessel
and the universe to himself, and sometimes the saloon-dinner was his
breakfast, he was such a night-fowl, scarcely mixing with the
others--differing from Cobby, who let himself be led into whist-drive,
sweepstake, saloon-ball and nonsense-talk under the quarter-deck awning.
Cobby's name as a scientist having been known to two or three
beforehand, as he saw himself sought after, he lent himself. But he
wrote in his diary: "This is dreadful! This emptiness and waste of days.
But what idle people! and I as idle as any of them. May Spiciewegiehotiu
perish...."

A voyage to the monotony of whose routine the engines' throbbing beat
its monotonous baton, until the eighteenth night, or nineteenth morning
say, when Cobby in his sleep had a feeling that he was not alone, and
woke in a flurry to find the ship pitching, and there on his bedside,
when he switched on the light, Rolls seated, gravely meditating on a
cigar between his fingers, wind from a porthole winnowing within his
bare hair.

"I'm not sorry you've woke up," he said. "Myself, I always sleep with my
state-room locked, and _you_ should ditto. There's an enemy aboard,
look."

A new idea for Cobby. "How do you arrive at that?"

"Just played it on me," Rolls answered--"narrowest escape! I all but
disappeared over the side--'suicide whilst of unsound mind.' On blowy
nights I generally go up the foremosts shrouds, to have things to myself
a bit--was up there a couple of hours--rough stuff--dark--then got
down. When I stepped upon the lowest ratlins, they weren't ratlins any
more--cut through. Feet pitched overboard, dragging off my hand-hold; my
clutches missed one, two, of the upper ratlins--didn't miss the third,
or I should be well astern by now. But if you're born to be hanged, you
never will be drowned."

"Incredible licence!" breathed Cobby. "Who can it be?"

"There you beat me--though I expected he'd not be far, and have been on
the look-out to spot him. Anyway, here he is."

"And are the ratlins of fibre or wire?"

"Wire-rope those foremost ones."

"Then he must have a hack-saw. We will report to the captain, and have a
search----"

Rolls threw his hand. "Of course, the captain will know; but that says
nothing. The bottom of the Atlantic is a fine place to hide a
hack-saw--if he didn't nick it from the ship's chest, to put back after
using...."

This thing sensationalized the last three days of the voyage for
everyone--an eruption in the uninterrupted.

Only one man--a steerage passenger--did not appear in the assembly
before the captain in the saloon: him the doctor reported to be ill--had
pharyngitis--inflammation of the mouth--had to be interviewed separately
in his bunk.

"Which of them would that be?" Rolls asked himself.

Knowing all the faces present, and unable to recall the absent face, he
conceived a curiosity to see it, and the next morning took down a bottle
of "bub" (rum-and-milk), in a neighbourly way to the sick
one--"something to keep the blues out, friend."

He was warmly thanked with nods, but no words, the sick mouth being
covered with a cloth, the brow bound about with a towel, so that, as it
was dim within the bunk, Rolls got only a dim impression of a nose.

Nor was there time to repeat the visit: now loomed on the ocean's brink
that bluff bulk of Table Mountain, with a table-cloth of cloud, and
silver dish-covers of cumulus-mounds, the mass of which, Rolls told
Cobby, recalled to him "The Elephant" of Wo-Ngwanya; and soon, as the
liner warped up, all was an arrival-scene of greetings and luggage, tips
and kisses, pith-helmets with pugarees swinging, sunshades and white
attire fluttering, all in a colonial tone of its own, dotted with
various shades of blackness trotting to and fro, from Hottentot copper
to Madagascar blacking; and here Rolls was sweetly at home, Cobby
following in his wake from quayside through custom's officer to
dock-gates, asking of Rolls in respect of the Malay who drove them to
Cape Town, "Why does the being vociferate so needlessly?" to which Rolls
philosophically answered: "Has a fare--sort of song of joy that he blows
off, look, like the hylobates ape: let him howl away."

And when the sun sank, and sudden darkness invaded Nature, said Cobby,
thinking again of his Malay: "We might have done well to travel in our
cab, which was as breezily speedy as the train is lazy. How long, Rolls,
before the expedition actually starts out?"

Rolls said: "Three weeks, I reckon."

"Ah! three weeks.... Well, provided I am back in Fleet Street in a
year--that is your undertaking."

Rolls' eyes twinkled. "No, not undertaking. You wait--you won't be so
fidgety when Africa once gets its grip on you. Even this Karoo seems to
you now a meaningless reach of plain, doesn't it?--no trees,
nothing--yet it has a meaning of its own--says something, sings
something. Hark! heard that cry? A riet-bok that is, out there in the
vastness and darkness--never saw a train before: I know it from the way
he whistled. He's living still away back in the bottomless pit of the
geologic ages, that chap: all this Africa is. Wait till you see a
geologic river washing solemn along, with the hippo's nostril snorting
out in the choppy mid-channel: he's pretty old and knowing, that cove.
But, of course, we'll be looking as lively as we know how: let's only
hope we're not crossed and balked any road, for the enemy has a long
arm. I'm all-out gallied now about not getting to see that sick man's
face aboard. I wonder what's wrong with his mouth?--'inflamed mouth':
never heard of that disease in man. I looked out at the landing, but no
sign of him."

Snuggled in a corner, his eyes closed to the world, Cobby murmured: "I
think I know who he is--saw him first in England. Some poor man--carried
my bag along the dock."

"And was anything wrong with his mouth then?"

"Let me see--Yes, I fancy now that he spoke with some impediment or
effort."

When Rolls next spoke, he got no answer: Cobby was asleep.

Then by way of the corrugated townlet, past the rock-kopie, the stead of
the Boer alone in the world with his ostrich-kraal, the journey was to
the Gold-town, where at once Rolls threw himself into the work of
getting together map and plan, man and automatic, inspan and biltong,
bead and button, medicine-chest and waggon-box. And all went merrily
well, save at one point--the sweeping-in of at least one other white,
for which he was eager. He got two, indeed, but both failed him.

The first, a transport-rider of Natal, a fellow of grit, though addicted
to "square-face," and now down on his luck, readily agreed, said to
Rolls, "The thing I'm after--a dart into the interior," and a bargain
was struck. But soon afterwards Rolls, on entering Botha's Yard in
Commissioner Street, where the waggons were, spied his transport-rider
head-to-head in a confab with a broker: and the next day the fellow
vanished.

It was the same with the second, a Texan--Kimberley adventurer,
up-country hunter, who dreamed in millions, though to-day broken in
boots--he had all but fixed-up with Rolls, but then cooled off, and
when he suddenly began to throw money about, Rolls understood that this
one, too, had been soaped.

"They're at us again," Rolls said, when Cobby got back from a trip to a
_vlei_ up north, whither two mining-engineers had taken him to shoot
veldt-duck and antelope. "They reckon I'm too wide-awake and chock-full
of six-shooters to be knocked out from a corner over here, where I'm a
cock in my own yard; but they aim now to make us a pair of lone hands
among a crowd of blacks----"

"It doesn't seem to me of great importance," Cobby remarked.

"Blacks do such things as mutiny, don't they?" Rolls demanded.

"Well, there are still three days to try in. If you come across any
possible man, strike hands with him on the spot, then send him out of
the town beyond temptation."

Which was what Cobby himself did on the following evening; for, as he
was smoking on his hotel stoep, the light of day then dying out, a man
appeared before him--the man whom he had seen at the dock in England,
and then on the liner; and said the man: "Here we are again, sir! I got
it from a certain party that you are after a white for up-country
trekking, and I'm in it, if you'll have me--stones, gold, ivory, makes
no matter to me."

"Sit down.... When did you come to Johannesburg?"

"Only yesterday. Been in Cape Town."

"What brought you to South Africa?"

"You should ask what took me to England. I know South Africa--Australia.
Fortune-hunter--I haven't always carried gentlemen's bags for a bob." He
chuckled.

"You can shoot, then, probably."

The man snatched a revolver from his hip-pocket, and negligently shot a
peach from a tree in the yard.

"Good in this half-light"--Cobby presented some vegueras--"have a
cigar."

"Thanks--I'm in misery--can't smoke----"

"Not well yet?"

"Better--not well. You hear how I talk--across a hot potato."

"Yes, I can tell that there is something. Healthy otherwise?"

"Oh, yes, I'm all there." He chuckled.

"Talk Zulu?"

"Some. Can cluck some Hottentot, too."

"Well, come inside: I'll send for my partner, Mr. Rolls, and we'll
discuss details."

But Rolls, sent for, could not be found; and Cobby, apprehensive lest
this one also should be got at, struck a bargain, asking, as he wrote a
contract: "What is your name?"

"Douglas Macray."

Cobby's pen paused in air. Looking at the man, he muttered, "Singular";
and added with a smile: "You are not, I take it, the millionaire of that
name?"

"W-e-ll, I'm afraid not, if there is such a millionaire. But never say
die, sir! I may yet stand in his shoes."

Now, frowning in an effort of memory, Cobby asked: "Where _have_ I seen
you before? _Some where._"

"Dartmoor jail, sir." He chuckled.

"No, I never was there. You?"

"Well, no--not actually inside. I wouldn't say that the traps have never
been after me, but they never yet got me."

Cobby smiled on him--liked a certain hardihood, stoicism, and cheery
frankness which was about him.

"Well, sign," he said, and, this done, wrote a letter to a Boer at whose
stead he had slept during his hunting-trip, a letter of no importance in
itself, only written in order to get Macray, who was to take it, out of
reach of schemers. "We others will perhaps have started before you get
back," he said, "but you will readily pick up our spoor. Here's the
cash; and now I will come with you to the yard."

There Cobby saw him horsed and off, then walked back to his hotel,
wondering what had become of Rolls.

It was not till an hour later that Rolls came in, looking sour, to tell
the tale that, having gone with one of the Square auctioneers to drink a
bottle of fizz, they both had got imprisoned in a room--something gone
wrong with the catch of the door, which in the end had had to be forced.

In view of which odd disease of the door-catch, when Cobby told of the
bargain with the man whose mouth was sore, Rolls' countenance fell.

"My God, Cobby," he said ruefully, "you might have waited for me to crop
up."

"Why, though?" Cobby asked.

Rolls had no answer; but felt ill at ease.

"And what do you think his name is?" asked Cobby.

"Beelzebub--I shouldn't wonder," said Rolls, strolling about.

"Douglas Macray."

"Same thing as Beelzebub," said Rolls.... "But you mean to say he had
the devil's cheek to give you that name?"

"Oh, no cheek, I think; that chances to be the fellow's name: he's all
right."

"Well, you're the newest of new chums, and no mistake! Haven't you
learned yet to mistrust your man, Cobby?"

"The man is all right," Cobby obstinately repeated.

And, as arranged, the expedition duly started the next afternoon; but
not till nine in the night, when it had outspanned twenty miles up in
the interior, did Macray with new hunter's-swag and outfit ride in; on
which Rolls and he, for the first time, looked into each other's eyes.




VI

A QUESTION OF TEETH


The three were eating an evening meal after the afternoon sweat and trek
through leagues of timber, when Cobby remarked: "Here we are within
sight nearly, and the plan of action still undetermined"--a browner
Cobby, upon whom some beard had sprouted, in moleskin trousers now, and
leggings above velschoenen, upon which the bivouac-tire shed beams in a
dimness that was an island of dimness within the dismal Pacific of the
night.

Rolls began to answer: "Well, we have the rough plan"--but paused,
suddenly adding: "Another fight on!--that's the _utshwala_ (millet-grog)
working," and, springing up, he trotted off into a still dimmer dimness,
where a little mob stood watching a Swahili and a Pondo duelling with
two club-sticks in the midst of a bigger mob, who lolled and squatted,
enjoying the day's end, and at that lip the calabash tilted, and that
puffed at the hashish ("dakka") pipe, and that snub-nose sucked up
snuff.

Rolls stamped at the fighters: "Stash that racket!" but still the two
kerries acted, rattling anon like castanets, and the clattering antlers
of antagonist stags rattling together.

Only when Rolls, roaring at them anew, drew his revolver, did the duel
consent to stop, and then the Pondo dropped something at the Swahili's
ear, to which the Swahili consented with nods, so that Rolls understood
that the feud was still to be settled elsewhere.

"Silly brutes," he grumbled, sitting anew to his tin plate: "we can't
afford to have 'em cracking one another's skulls up here"--for just
"here" was cannibal, there had been two pitched laager-battles, flow of
blood, and the sentries standing out in the dark now about the bivouac
were not there for nothing.

"Well, you were saying----" Cobby said, mopping his forehead and a chest
all exposed at the opening of his dirty shirt, the sleeves rolled up.

"It's only details that remain over," Rolls answered, casting an
underglance at Macray, who lay on his elbow, eating with evident effort
and unease: "the dart is to get within the three enclosures one dark
night, chloroform 'our mother,' and bring her off like a sack of
mealies."

"You'll never put that over," Macray observed.

"With _your_ help we will," Rolls answered, with a sullen eye askance on
him.

"Well, no doubt I'm a host in myself," Macray chuckled, ever jocular, in
spite of pain.

Now Cobby irritably loosed his belt with its sheaf-knife and six-shooter
holster, saying: "But are you aware that the administration of
chloroform occasionally ends fatally, and that we have no right----"

"Oh, now for a London sermon!" Rolls muttered intolerantly--tempers here
not being at their best! for God caused a mist to rise up out of the
ground, a steam of miasmas and malarias, good for snakes and the great
venom-insects that came sailing in gay dress out of the tangle of
undergrowth to glare at the flame and dance devil-dances to it, but bad
for man.

"May I not express myself?" Cobby asked, glancing aside at Rolls, who
sat by him, his back propped upon the same mass of banyan-trunk that had
dropped there a century gone, to gather its scab of mosses and rot with
all the rot of the tropic forest, within which, side by side, vied riot
of corruption and riot of life, and the tribes of life thrived on the
festering of the unburied dead.

"How many people die of chloroform, old man?" demanded Rolls. "One in a
million? And what are we here for but to take a thousand bigger risks?"

"Very good," said Cobby. "I concede the chloroform--let that pass. But
there will be sentries round the royal precincts! How about them?"

"We stab the sentries, baas," Macray said, looking at Cobby with one eye
winked.

"There'll be only four or five," Rolls said. "Shoot 'em with
air-guns--or stab."

Now Cobby frowned. "That is," said he, "we become assassins."

"Put it that road," Rolls curtly said.

"Very good," said Cobby hotly, "be an assassin, if that is to your
taste--on the understanding that you never shake my hand after."

Macray chuckled; and Rolls sullenly said: "We'll rub along without much
shaking hands--just do a bow, look," and, doffing his opulent hat, he
bowed elegantly to the forest, to show how elegantly he and Cobby would
bow together.

"I am in earnest, understand," Cobby mentioned, in the act of lighting a
pipe, and Rolls then said, patting his friend's arm: "Hamba gachle (go
soft): nothing is going to be done that you don't cotton to--not likely!
We'll have a regular indaba (debate), and see how it pans out."

He finished eating, drank, lit a cigar, and in that reign of stillness
they two smoked together under a gloom of foliage hung with bugle-blooms
of blue and ruby, with festoons of bindweed, barbarous triumphs of
beard, while anon a baobab-fruit fell with a knell's message, or a
branch crashed, or a monkey rushed with shrieks, a hyena pealed the
laughter of madness afar, a mule smote a hoof, or a laugh sounded from
the crowd of blacks.

And presently Macray emptied his can of utshwala, remarking: "Here's to
sleep for little Douglas of that ilk--dog-tired," and picked himself up.

"How's the mouth?" asked Cobby.

"Bad to-night. Good-night, inkoos." He passed away beyond the dying
fire-light into the dark.

The others sat still, relishing their sense of full stomachs, and the
comfort of smoking.

And presently Rolls: "Those two blacks mean to fight it out."

"Try and stop 'em," Cobby muttered.

And presently again Rolls: "Not bad, to-day's trek, considering the
timber and the axes going."

"Fine," Cobby muttered.

And presently again Rolls: "We have sneezing-gas, tear-gas, chloroform,
to deal with the sentries."

But Cobby did not answer, the pipe had dropped out of his mouth, his
forehead nodded; and now Rolls raised him, saying, "Come on, we're done
up," and led him away--they two, by a rule of Rolls, sleeping always
together in a spot selected by Rolls, never in the waggon-cartels, now
occupied by some wounded blacks, the two this evening sleeping between a
rock and a screen of creepers that dropped like a drapery from the
rock's top. On the opposite side of the bivouac-glade Macray lay.

But Rolls, who slept like a bush-cat, with one ear awake, was soon
sitting up, listening to footsteps that stole near; and he was quickly
away, tracking the two duellers, who, carrying their kerries, went
prying for some starlit spot to fight out their quarrel.

Rolls, intending to catch them red-handed, and impress them with his
omnipresence, shadowed them some hundred yards, then, becoming sick of
it, was now about to call and order them back, when his prowling foot
encountered some soft obstacle, upon which he switched on the
torchlight, to see it.

It was Macray there--asleep.

Till now Rolls had never seen him asleep; and now saw a difference of
expression in the face, sufficient to arrest him--the same difference
which Cobby, too, had noticed between the Macray of the dockside, and
the Macray seen on the steamer.

And though Cobby had not fixed in what the difference lay, Rolls at once
did, on catching sight of a plate of top-teeth, lying near the
sleeper--though the lightbeam had not been on Macray one second, when
up he started, his palm for a moment covering his mouth in an
instinctive impulse; and now his eyes and Rolls' met and lingered
together a little--both faces pale. Then Macray chuckled; and Rolls said
carelessly: "Those two silly niggers--sorry to disturb you," and halloed
after the two.

Within ten minutes Rolls was back in his sleeping bag: but in that
interval he had seen much.

He did not lie down: sat thinking and thinking. "That's where the sore
mouth comes from," he muttered: "some mouths can't stand plates of
teeth; this plate may be ill-fitting--perhaps hurriedly made in London
for the occasion. Never has had the time to get a new set, nor never has
given the mouth time to get used to this set--takes 'em out every minute
he's alone, I reckon, they worry so; claps 'em in when needful: never
seen without 'em. I see. Always shaved like a dandy in the primeval
forest. I see. 'Douglas Macray'--he gave that name: devil's cheek--and
cunning. I _knew_ that I'd seen that face somewhere; couldn't drop to
where--photo--witless. Otherwise, thank God, I've had all my wits in
camp, or there'd be no Cobby now, and no R. K. Rolls now.... Well, the
fittest will survive."

Tired as he was, Rolls hardly slept that night, there in the reign of
rayless darkness between the creepers and the hollow of the rock, noting
when the man-eater roared afar, when the mouth of the ounce yowled to
the universe for food, when sentries went out, came in....

The question was--to tell Cobby, or not to tell? and toward morning
Rolls answered, "No--not now; after the happening of what has to
happen." Cobby would command: "No killing!" and Rolls would obey, but
Macray, who was out for killing, would not obey. Rolls, too, now, was
all for killing. There are venoms, there are wrongs, which only blood
can wash out, which only death can solve.

"One attempt on my life in that Exchange Bar at Johannesburg ... two in
London ... one on the steamer. Low-down thug-work. If I forget, may God
forget me."

At dawn he shook Cobby with a rollic, "Out of it, lazy bones"--rollic
and tender, for where he loved he loved, and hated where he hated.

And at breakfast all was as usual, save that both Rolls and Macray
tended to more than usual merriment, which, in the case of Macray, may
have been due to the absence, for the first time, of the plate in his
mouth; _ propos_ of which Cobby asked: "What is different about you,
Macray? You are like a man who has shaved off a moustache."

Macray answered with a chuckle. "Top teeth gone--gorilla knocked 'em out
with a club in the night."

This was a jest--like Macray's jests in general: cheery, merrily meant:
but pointless, clownish.

"Is it a question of teeth?" Cobby said: "yes, that _is_ it. So what has
really happened?"

"Only this--for seven years, off and on, I've been trying to wear false
teeth, and last night I chucked them for ever off me into the bush.
Bravo! the eaters will be eaten by an ostrich. Now I can dine with my
gums and defy the world. That was what made my mouth sore, baas."

"I see. Why didn't you ever mention it?"

"Oh, he was shy before the ladies," Rolls flung off from over a bowl of
meal and "amasi"-curds, which he was earnestly eating.

"Still, the teeth did rather heighten your beauty," Cobby remarked to
Macray: "and as you look now I seem to remember seeing you in some
dream--somewhere--where _was_ it?"

Macray chuckled. "You remember, inkoos, the night you caught your sister
under the oak with a man? _I_ was that man."

At which Cobby lowered his lids, silent, many of Macray's jests not
being quite to the scientist's liking.

And now the forenoon trek, to the singing of the blacks; and the
noontide rest; and the sun's altitude taken; and now the afternoon
trek, which revealed that the forest was not really infinite, but had a
limit where open country basked in the sun, and a river rolled between
rows of crocodile-snouts, where flamingos in their crimson uniforms
stood like sentinels who all have lost a leg in the wars; up which river
the trek went three miles to find a drift, christened "Crocodile Drift"
by Rolls over two years gone; and, crossing the river, they came upon
the ashes and charred remains of a cannibal kraal, which, Rolls said,
was but one of many of which the Wa-Ngwanya had cleared that region; and
now the field-glass, scanning northward, could see a mirage of the
mountain-range which bounds Wo-Ngwanya on the south.

And that evening the three men held their _indaba_ on the plan of
action, seated on a hillock in the shade of a yellow-wood tree, whence
they could see eastward the reeds of a lagoon on a plain peopled with
game, deer in thousands, giraffe and buffalo, crane and egret, the three
smoking together like friends, with a jest anon; and no one could have
guessed the suspense and tension that was between two of them.

Rolls said: "Understand that failure spells _final_ failure for the
failer. I know the girl: if you attack her, she fights; and if, as
usual, she wins, she gives you time to sigh one last prayer: it's woe to
the conquered there, look. What follows? That we shouldn't stake all
upon one throw. And we shouldn't try it on without experiment first.
Let's rehearse the whole fakement."

"And if the rehearsal fails," Cobby said, "the play never comes off."

"Yes," answered Rolls, "if we are not all in the rehearsal. So let
Macray and me go forward alone, get into the sigodhlo, ascertain what's
what, and come back to you before we all pitch into it together. If we
two come to grief, there'll be still you left."

Rolls' and Macray's glances lingered together, while Cobby flushed a
little, saying: "But why am I being put up in cotton wool?"

"Because yours is the most valuable life," Rolls quietly answered.

"Yes"--from Cobby--"but I am deliberately on an adventure, risking that
life: I cannot permit you and Macray to incur greater----"

"It must be so, isinduna," Macray said, weighing his Colt's meditatively
on his palm. "Rolls knows the road: _he_ must go; you or I must go with
him; and he and I both vote you out."

"You're outvoted, Cobby," Rolls remarked.

On which Cobby: "Oh, very well, since you see fit. If you two fail to
come back, I shall go after you at all costs."

And Rolls, stretched on the grass, gazing up into the yellow-wood: "Oh,
one of us is sure to scrape through."

"Sure," echoed Macray, throwing up and catching his automatic, these
both knowing that, if either came back, he would come alone, each
knowing that the other knew.




VII

DUELLO


Later in the night when the outspan lay asleep, Rolls, lying near Cobby,
scribbled on a pocket-book leaf, under the beam of an electric torch:
"Cobby, I reckon to come back, but no knowing. If not, know that this
Macray is _the enemy_. _Without_ me, and _with_ him, I figure it up that
your best course would be to throw over the whole fakement, and get back
home. Good luck to you and me, Cobby.--R. K. R."

This he put into Cobby's tobacco-pouch, knowing that Cobby, who smoked
only in the evening, would not see it till the next evening, when Rolls
and Macray would be well away.

Macray, on his side, knew that Rolls would warn Cobby; but when at
breakfast Cobby's manner toward him was as usual, he concluded that
Rolls would only let Cobby know after the departure from camp, and he
saw why. Rolls, then, would _write_ it, and place the writing where
Cobby would be sure to find it: and Macray spent an hour after breakfast
in thinking where that would be; till, in opening his own pouch, he
thought of Cobby's, of Cobby's smoking only in the evening....

He then watched till he saw Rolls away at the waggons, and, going
promptly to Cobby, said: "Give me a pipeful of that Boer 'baccie."

In a minute he had Rolls' note out of Cobby's pouch, and presently was
reading and destroying it.

Before noon, with elaborate secrecies, he had buried a packet--a
cardboard-box in oilskin, of which he had a jealous care--at the roots
of a particular tree; and soon afterwards he and Rolls started out
together.

And that night they two were plodding northward afoot forty miles from
the camp, two lorn forms lost in a vastness of broken and rolling
country, pathless, manless, plodding in the misty twilight of the sickle
of a moon quite new, now sinking, and about four miles before them the
mighty fact of mountains towering, brooding in their citadel of
obscurity, mystery and muteness.

The two horses had lately been left knee-haltered; and Rolls remarked:
"We might safely have ridden on: not much light from that moon; and
those outlook posts of savages are only efficient for spotting troops,
not small bodies."

"Aha," Macray went.

Few had been their words, and no word so far of enmity, of quarrel. Two
strangers travelling together by chance in a desert would speak as these
spoke; but ever _these_ moved shoulder to shoulder, one never an inch
behind the other, as their horses had moved shoulder to shoulder--a long
strain on the alertness of nerve and brain and eye and hand. Both wished
to God that it was over.

As over open sward they walked, through belt of timber, toiling up
hillside, moving by the lonesome pool and the bitter bittern brooding,
sending atrot the troop of little duiker-bok, hearing the wild cat
whine, there were long silences between them. Their throats dry at that
tension, each hoped for, yet dreaded, the setting of the moon, with
whose setting his life might set.

"Cobby's not a bad old sort," Macray suddenly remarked: "nobody would
hurt Cobby, except in defence of Number One. What made him take on this
job? Just the money in it?"

"Not much"--from Rolls: "that's what made _me_. Cobby's after seeing
justice done."

"Aha."

Then again that silent plod of hide-shoes over grass and dust and rock;
and presently Rolls: "We're climbing all along, even when it looks as if
we weren't."

"Oh, aye"--from Macray.

"I know where we are now. One of their outpost vedettes will not be two
miles from here."

"Aha."

Five minutes more, and they stood confronted with cliff-wall some thirty
feet high, which seemed to stretch interminably to east and west,
dropping here or there a waterfall; as to which Rolls remarked: "Yes, I
remember this bit now; there are some passes going up--we'll try this
way"--turning westward to the left; and over sickly sward they walked
close before the cliff, until they came to an opening in its face.

The natural rock-path that ran up here being steep, strewn with stones,
narrow as a man, here one of the two had to have his back to the other,
and in a flash both understood that the moment of action had come: and
the quicker lived.

"Hands up!" cried Rolls like thunderclap, in the same second that
Macray, without a word, fired at him.

But Rolls had been by the hundredth of a second the more thunder-prompt,
and Macray, when he fired, was two Macrays, one firing, the other
throwing his hands up, conscious of a muzzle already at his breast, so
that his bullet shot upward....

"Drop your revolver," ordered Rolls.

The revolver dropped: and Rolls, keeping eye and muzzle on the foe,
stooped to pick it up; but his hand not chancing to encounter the gun,
he glanced down to see it; and in the wink of that instant Macray was
upon him, grabbing Rolls' revolver-wrist, tumbling Rolls over to the
ground, dropping upon Rolls.

There they struggled together--a struggle that could not long continue
for lack of wind, it was so cat-o'-mountain in the franticness of its
activity, life the victor's prize. Twice while it lasted those solitudes
heard reports of gun-fire--Rolls firing; but without hurt to the other,
who had the advantage of being much the younger, of being considerably
the bigger, of being uppermost to begin with: advantages over which that
inveterate toughness of Rolls might not have prevailed, if Macray had
not let go Rolls' left hand to snatch his sheath-knife, and finish it.
In that same second Rolls had him overthrown, undone, and under....

His knee on Macray's arm, his grip at Macray's throat, Rolls glared
close into his foe's face, grinning at him, his throat rasping as hoarse
as Macray's rasped.

Then he sprang up, picked up the two revolvers, dropped his own into its
holster, dropped Macray's and Macray's knife into his knapsack, took
from the knapsack a skein of window-cord, cut off a bit, and said: "Get
up."

Then, Macray up, he said: "Hands behind your back."

On which Macray, as he obeyed, chuckled, or attempted to chuckle,
uttering: "Anything to oblige!"

Rolls then went to bind Macray, saying: "One movement, and you're a dead
man."

"Wonder I'm not that already"--from Macray.

"Well, and whom do you owe your life to--for the time being?"

"To the best of all possible R. K. Rollses apparently," said the
unconquerable Macray.

Rolls laughed. "Not much! Not likely! Bad shot! You would be in hell now
all right, if it had been only me. But Cobby don't cotton to
'assassinations': and I want to go back able to shake his hand and make
him a truthful report of what took place."

"Here's to old Cobby, then, and to whatever gods may be. Life's damned
sweet; and I'd sooner be a crossing-sweeper at Charing Cross than a Lord
Mayor in the realms below."

"Prize to-night, then, since you like life"--Rolls tied the last knot on
the wrists--"as I do. To-morrow night that moon will be a bit fatter and
higher at this hour, but one of us two won't be knowing about it. We'll
fight it out in the morning light, look. Come on."

He moved now up the rock-path, and Macray followed, relieved and
frivolous in a reaction from the long strain, anon making a remark
meant to be jocular and mocking, though he did not fail, as bidden, to
look at the moon with a new interest and wistfulness; and on they
plodded over country that still increased in steepness, until the moon
was down, soon after which another moon--at its full, this one--came
into their view, this being the light of a fire shining in the circular
doorway of a hut perched some seventy feet up in cliff-side bush--one of
the outlook posts of Wo-Ngwanya.

This point being only eight or nine miles from the capital kraal beyond
the mountains, Rolls meant, if again victorious the next day, to visit
the kraal alone the next midnight, and investigate the possibilities, in
order to report to Cobby, he having with him cord-ladder, air-gun, and
every essential for "the rehearsal"; nor did the first step to this
end--the slipping-in past the vedettes--present any difficulty: on such
a night, in the absence of searchlights, a company of soldiers could
have prowled into the pass unnoticed.

Here Macray crept foremost, with Rolls' muzzle at his back, lest he
should deliberately rouse the outlook by any sound; and now the way was
up and up the endless stair of that tower of mountain-rock, that looked
a suitable boundary for a land, not of Wa-Ngwanya, but of titans and
archangels, and now they were crawling north-west through some gross
grove of wood, the dwelling-place of gloom, and now were moving
north-east along dizzy cliff-brinks within theatres of crags, trackless
grandeurs, with organ-voices of waters raving everywhere, and always a
noisy north-wind thwarting them, so that toward midnight they halted
exhausted on a ledge where the rock above rather overhung them, and had
a bluff which a little protected them from the wind; and here Rolls,
having produced from his knapsack biltong, biscuits, Johnny Walker, tied
up Macray's legs, untied his hands behind, tied them before; and there,
seated, they ate and drank together.

"Here we sleep," Rolls remarked between bottle and lip.

"Or pretend to," said Macray, feeding his mouth two-handed.

"_I_'ll be sleeping all right," Rolls muttered.

"Maybe I can roll you down the precipice during the night--good idea:
the rolling of Rolls. Or knock out your brains with one of those
stones."

"No, you won't be doing much stirring," Rolls answered. "I respect you
some, Macray: an unscrupulous brute, born without a God or a conscience;
but you have brains."

Macray reflected on this, and then, deciding, said: "Yes, all that's
true. You're a man who can see, Rolls."

Rolls was now trying to light a cigar within his hat, but, after several
failures, muttered: "Oh, well, here's to bed," and lay close under the
crag.

Macray, too, lay, and both looked up with that pang of a look that may
be the last at clouds that scudded southward over the vault, and,
sailing northward, all the swarm of the constellations, steadily sailing
together, like a navy that steadily sails and sails.

But, though the winds were touched with chill up there, within some
minutes Rolls was asleep but for an ear: only Macray lay wakeful. And
see him at one time, tied as he was, drawing himself softly a little to
peer over the edge of the ledge, and ponder upon what he saw.... Then he
lay anew under the rock-shadow, wooing sleep; but had just succeeded in
drowsing, when he was roused by a shout ... a shout of horror.

He started up, staring at Rolls, whom he saw staring also.

"Bad dreams?" Macray asked suddenly.

Rolls did not answer.

Macray chuckled: "Conscience, Rolls...."

Rolls dropped again upon the rock, terribly trembling. He had dreamed
that he was careering headlong down the ravine--a dream so _real_, and
so dismal in mood, that it was hours before he could sleep anew--in fits
and starts.

Hence the dawn of morning came upon him rather shaken, rather out of
sorts. But showing no sign of it, save a slight pallor, he sprang
up--summoned Macray--muttering: "Come, let's have it over"--set free
Macray's legs.

"Well, what's the rules of the game?" Macray asked, smiling--pale now,
his eyelids twitching--but steadily smiling.

Rolls looked along the ledge--some sixty feet long, some four broad,
rather concave in form, bluffing out at the north and south ends; and
glancing over the edge in that grey of dawn, one saw only jags and crags
and small trees, and no bottom but mists steaming; and on the opposite
side of the ravine, fifteen feet to the east, a like scene of rock and
tree.

"You will stand at that north end," Rolls said. "I at that south. You
will hold one end of this cord low, and I'll slide your revolver down it
to you. When I see it reach your hand, I fire."

"Bah!" broke bitterly from the other's lips: "and you talk of wanting
fair-play to please Master Cobby! What's this but assassination? While
I'm getting my revolver from the cord I drop dead--of course."

Rolls saw this--moved some steps away, reflecting, and came back saying:
"Well, I'm game to meet you, if you have any better plan."

Macray had a twitching of the eyelids, as in all his instants of
high-pitched egoism. He said: "You want fair-play. Well, you bind my
revolver to my right wrist, muzzle-backward; and I bind yours to yours
with the same knots and length of cord. Then you tie a long cord to the
two bindings, and retire till the cord is taut, which will be the signal
to start unbinding with tooth and nail, and the quickest wins. Not quite
fair to me, since I have more gum than tooth: but I'm game ... you want
fair-play...." His eyelids twitched.

"What's that--Mexican?"

"Yes; Mexican."

Rolls anew moved some paces away, weighing it with a wary eye, and came
back, saying: "Well, maybe we'll make it that road: I'll figure it up;
we'll have some breakfast."

"God, man, get it over!" cried out Macray, staring at him.

On which Rolls, suddenly pallid with passion, flashing fire from his
eyes, said sharply: "Damn it, yes, get it over it is. No doubt I'm as
smart a man as you at any game. Sit down."

And, as Macray sat with that pallid smile of his, Rolls in a flurry of
action again tied his legs together, then searched him from hat to
shoes, found a penknife and a flint-stone, tossed them away. He then
drew out the magazines from both the Colt's, and proceeded to free
Macray's wrists; then cut two equal lengths of cord, with one of which
he bound one of the Colt's to Macray's right wrist, muzzle backward,
tieing up the trigger, making the knots with all his strength; and now,
presenting the other Colt's to Macray, permitted it to be similarly
bound to his own wrist. Which done, he tied the ends of a cord nearly
equal in length to the ledge's length to the two bindings.

"That fair now, Douglas Macray?" says he.

"All serene, Rolls," says Macray.

With a slash of his knife Rolls now freed the other's feet.

"_I_ will go south, if you like," said Macray, rising upright.

"What's that for?" asked Rolls.

"It is lower, and I am the taller--not that it matters." His eyelids
twitched.

"Makes no matter to me either road," said Rolls.

On which Macray stepped backward southward, as Rolls replaced one of the
magazines in his own Colt's, and, stepping backward northward, tossed
the other to Macray.

With their eyes fixed on each other, they increased the distance between
them, until the cord was taut; then instantly bent to the untying.

Macray, however, made no actual attempt to untie, but, while pretending
to untie, stepped two paces forward, and, bending sideways, picked up
with his left hand a flint-stone, of which there were many scattered
about the ledge.

Of this act of treachery Rolls, with one watchful eye aside, was
conscious; but though flints can be rather sharp, he felt no keen fear
that the edge of a flint, picked up haphazard, would chance to get
through the several thicknesses of cord that entangled the triggers,
before he could rend away and loose his own entanglements with tooth and
nail--a task well in progress already.

But Macray had no intention of cutting his entanglements.... The instant
the flint was in his fingers, a shout hopped out of his mouth, as he
leapt from off the ledge, and a shout hopped out of Rolls' mouth, as he
found himself tugged forward askew, and falling down the gulf.

Macray alighted upon another ledge which he had observed quite thirty
feet below, a ledge twenty feet long and half as broad, where a dwarf
mohnono-tree, with leaves of silver, sprang out of the cliff-side: to
which tree he clung with an arm wrenched to dislocation by the arrest of
Rolls' descent, clung during several seconds of frenzy, while with the
flint in his left fingers he sawed to sever the cord that connected him
with the dead; and still when the cord was cut he clung on dizzied,
drunk, distraught, watching the history and incidents of the body's
voyage during ten seconds which seemed as many minutes, saw it wheel and
vault from point to point of rock, saw it hurled by the earth's reeling
upon the opposite wall of the ravine, and disappear into the sea of
mists.

Macray fell upon his face, and lay there trembling. "_My God!_" he said.

But within fifteen minutes he chuckled in his gullet: it lived, that
dear ego of his, that Number One that he had a fancy for; and "damn you
deep!" he muttered to the dead.

However, he was a prisoner there on the ledge, he and a chough's
chicks; and it was only after hours of efforts and very perilous
failures that, by ramming fragments of his tree into crannies of the
crag, he managed to regain the ledge from which he had leapt.

There he ate and rested; then, taking Rolls' knapsack, plodded on
northward for the capital of Wo-Ngwanya, to tell a tale there.




VIII

THE SIGODHLO


Two mornings afterwards Cobby wrote in his journal: "My sentiment toward
Rolls would better be named affection than liking: an affection based on
respect. I have known no intelligence whose judgments in general were
more trustworthy; and though his moral sense was not dainty, being as
rough-and-ready as the whole Rolls, his substance was sound as a nut.
Innate, moreover, in the man, strange to say, was a soul of poetry, a
relation with the soul of Nature--a thing without song, or voice, or, I
think, much emotion--hidden behind hides of commonness, but really
there, and rare. My friend; my dear friend. Never shall I forget the
sense of loss, of solitude, the pang of heart, when, near seven last
night, I saw Macray riding in alone over the plain in the moon's light,
leading Rolls' mare by the rein, and I knew that the moving Finger had
written and moved on, as when the funeral is over now and done, and man
has gone to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.

"And so perplexing the way of it! It appears that the two abandoned
their horses too soon, walked a long way toward the mountains, and
stopped to rest in a forest, where Rolls desired to sleep, but was
disturbed by a roaring, which Macray said was a lion's, but Rolls
maintained that it was an ostrich's; and at last, exclaiming 'Oh, stash
it!' Rolls dashed away to shoot the (supposed) ostrich. Macray heard
Rolls' revolver pop, then an outcry, and ran to Rolls' assistance, to
find him dead under a lion and lioness, which Macray contrived to kill,
after dislocating his arm in climbing a tree.

"Such is Macray's account of things. But who could ever have predicted
that Ulysses would die in that silly way--by a lion. He himself would
have derided the prediction, I think; and there is something in it which
the brain will not realize. Moreover, I remember hearing my friend say
that he at least could always distinguish between the roarings of lion
and ostrich; nor do ostriches usually roar at so late an hour. Very
strange: I do not understand; must only accept.

"Well, farewell, you brave R. K. R.: gone; but not to be forgotten.

"Then, alone, Macray walked on northward, following directions that had
dropped from Rolls; passed over the mountains; and at two in the morning
actually effected an entry into the town, into the royal enclosure, and
on to the grounds of the royal hut. So he reports. And his report is
anything but heartening. 'We will never make her, baas,' is his comment,
this _her_ not referring to a lady, but to an enterprise. Three
sentries, it appears, at the royal gates, each a giant. So--'take my
advice'--I am now to throw away so many months of effort, to turn tail
at the very gates of the enterprise, and to 'be quick about it,' ere the
Wa-Ngwanya get wind of our presence here, for then 'all will be up with
all of us.'

"This irritated me, and I said to Macray: 'By no means up with us.
Understand, Macray, that one white man armed with the science of Europe
is mightier than all the Wa-Ngwanya, backed by all the blacks of
Africa--given the opportunity to use the tools of his science. Am I to
take it, then, that you are losing nerve?'

"'Not a bit, inkoos,' was his nonchalant answer: 'if you are for seeing
it through without Rolls, here am I. But I'll cry to see a head like
yours chopped off. You should be killed by electricity--something
scientific--not by a nigger's bill. Turn back, isinduna--take my tip.'

"'On the contrary,' I answered, 'I will go on.'

"'Good egg,' he said: 'I admire your spirit, if not your cunning.'

"I wonder why he chose this word 'cunning'--a quality which he himself
may not lack, perhaps. Certainly, I have a sense of some unknown
quantity in Macray, an X, a mask--my fancy perhaps. Throughout the trek
he has shown himself ever jovial, cheerily enduring, cool in danger,
quick to learn, versatile, serviceable, exhibiting no little initiative
and efficiency as hunter, soldier, and traveller, so that I have
congratulated myself on the bargain I made with him at Johannesburg. But
there has never been any love lost between him and Rolls, I could see;
and, as for me, something in him undoubtedly repels something in me.
However, we are now bound together for good or evil. A week hence will
test his mettle.... Meantime, hunting, improving the food-stock, and
maturing a scheme for making the attempt when the moonlight is over, I
cautiously excogitating each detail. I have determined to move the
expedition no further northward, since it appears that many of the
blacks feel nervous of advancing nearer the Wa-Ngwanya, whose reputation
has bred terror in their breasts. And now, thou Pallas of Good Counsel,
be my goddess...."

But on the seventh day thence, when the venture was to have been made,
Macray stated that he was "seedy" from his sick arm, so it was not till
the ninth night that, all being at last ready, the attempt was made,
Cobby taking with him Macray, two Zulus, and a mule, which, like the
men, was shod with rubber. Overcast and dark as the night was, they
contrived, soon after abandoning their animals, to find that same pass
up which Rolls and Macray had travelled, and, not without the aid of
electric torches, crossed the maze of mountain shortly after one in the
morning.

Macray acting as guide, they found out a town that lay drowned in
darkness, and by an hour's prowl round its outer stockade, came to its
back part, Cobby estimating that the place, though more compact and
peopled, was hardly bigger than Midhurst or Petersfield; and Macray
whispered that from that back part to the sigodhlo, or royal kraal, was
hardly a quarter-hour's walk.

When, from the mule's back, Macray had cast a rope-ladder, its grapples
wrapped in rubber, the four were speedily in the outermost round of
street, and thence prowled down a street that led pretty steeply
centreward. No sentinel in all this part--a fact which astonished both
Cobby and his blacks; and not a sound in all that gloom, only remotely
somewhere the dumb boom of a drum going, and far off a baby clamouring,
and presently far off the exclamations of a dog barking at the arising
of some event in the reign of nothingness, and presently the shine of a
fire in the round doorway of a round hut, and in there, suckling a
child, a woman seated, quite close to whom they moved unseen.

Then an enclosure, woven of fine tambuti grass, over which they climbed,
without needing to fall upon, chloroform, bind, gag or gas any
guardsman, for none appeared. Inside--a village within a city--stood
residences of royal son or cousin, of the late King's ladies, of
Court-officials, roomy intervals separating the residences, every
residence being a group of huts slumbering within its own enclosure,
grossly embowered within its own grove of equatorial foliage and flower,
which breathed out a sigh to the night-breeze, so that here the darkness
was even deeper, because of all these arbours of large-leaved boscage,
palm and sarsaparilla, banana, tree-fern; and it was beneath a big
fig-tree near the middle of the ring that the marauders paused to take
their bearings.

Here Cobby whispered at Macray's ear: "No sentries?"--for at this
oddity, although it had an aspect of luck, he felt nevertheless a vague
apprehension.

"Funny thing," Macray whispered him; and one of the Zulus whispered:
"Something wrong! Take care!"

At the same time Macray was whispering: "See that junk of bush straight
ahead? In there she should be."

"_Come_," Cobby now whispered, and went headlong, bent, prowling keen
and quick.




IX

THE ROYAL HUT


Prowling close outside the enclosure of the sovereign's domicile under
gross shadow of foliage which overgrew, the four slowly approached the
south portion of the enclosure. Now, however, there was alarm--a dog
starting to bark.

On finding out the dog, a small thing tied near the stockade--_why_ tied
there was not clear--one of the two Zulus tossed it biltong, and Cobby
then, in his zest for chloroform that morning, pressed a cloth over its
nose, and shut it up.

In two minutes more they came to the gate of the stockade....

Here three at least of the four were quite certain of finding sentries,
but there was none.

"What does it _mean_?" Cobby whispered to Macray.

"Very rum!" Macray whispered back. "Shall we turn tail?"

Both the Zulus already had revolvers in hand, _expecting_ now an ambush.

Now Cobby, raising himself on the stockade, peered over, to see before
him, a long way off at the bottom of an avenue, the round doorway of a
hut, filled with fire-light, like a dim full-moon.

And with a heart now fast beating he dropped back to his feet,
whispering keenly, "Come, try the gate ... this may be luck...."

His torch-ray, switched upon the gate's edge, showed two thongs for
raising two latches of wood within: this was all the fastening; the gate
opened easily outward; and they passed up a little ascent that had rows
of stones imbedded in the earth to serve as steps, then on along an
avenue all ambushed in blackness of darkness, having among the bush, on
each side, five idols, mighty forms, of which the marauders were just
conscious in moving close under them, these being the only sentinels
visible; and in the distance ahead the steady disc of light, a dim eye,
soundless, mysterious, that seemed to drowse and dream.

Cobby and Macray crawled foremost, and near behind them the two furtive
Zulus, all eye and ear, all nerves and alertness.

Then, to the scandalizing of everyone, Macray dropped his revolver ...
and loud it sounded, an outrage on that hush.... Some moments more, and
it was as if someone muttered somewhere in the night.... The men stood
arrested by it: but it was so low, and so momentary, a rumour from
nowhere, that none was certain that it was not some birth from the
night's disquiet, from the stirring of wind and tree. Cobby moved on,
and soon, lying on his face, was spying into the lighted opening....

He saw a round room, big as his own drawing-room at home, with a vaulted
roof supported toward its centre by two roof-trees of red-wood (mopane),
ten feet apart, quite nicely fashioned and polished, between them in the
roof being a smoke-hole, and under this a dying fire of logs; hanging
from the roof a few charms--snake-skins, ivory elephants; over the floor
a profusion of rugs, with some gourds and stools well polished; and
round the walls swaths of tapestry of fawn-skin soft-tanned, all
embroidered with elephants in beads of "gold-stone," hanging from the
ends of pegs; and between them on the wall shields, and sheaves of
spears. But not all this did Cobby see, his gaze being riveted on two
girls who lay on beds of rugs at the foot of the roof-trees, one on each
side of the fire, their feet toward him, their faces as yet very vague
to him, though it was evident that the one to his right with the ivory
anklet was white, that the one to his left with the brass bangles was
black: and motionless they lay.

Here, then, was the instant, and here a case for the judicious
application of chloroform: so Cobby whispered "_the black_" into the
tympanum of Macray, handing bottle and cloth, he having carefully
trained Macray to apply ansthetics, while he himself held bottle and
cloth for the white.

And now he was impetuously in.

As little light came from the fire, he, on finding himself over the
white, switched on the little ray of his torch, and saw her well, lying
half on her side, with one arm cast naked above her head as in careless
slumber, the rest of her wrapped in a kaross of yellow cloth embroidered
everywhere with black elephants; and there, just as Rolls had once
described her, was the lane running up the side of her high brow betwixt
the wings of her hair.

Cobby, breathing "By heaven!" started, as a dart of admiration pierced
his nature.

In that same moment there arose a sound--behind him--something like a
snigger, like half a snigger smothered, which, as it slipped out, was
finished. Cobby glanced alertly round at the negro girl, who, however,
seemed asleep, then again at the white, whose lips, as if in sympathy
with that snigger, had now moved into a smile, the vaguest ghost of a
smile--but still visible.

The truth now pierced Cobby's consciousness that these people were not
really asleep--a fact chilling enough to the heart. There he stood
pallor-struck--saw all lost, his party trapped; but, as he was not sure,
and as retreat was hardly his way, he was still about to venture upon
doing what he was there to do, when, as he stooped to her, the Queen's
lips opened a little to say "now."

"_Hands up!_" shouted Cobby in Zulu, spinning to the four winds with his
revolver pointed at a circle of nine giants who spurted out upon him
from behind all the swaths of wall-curtain; but no hand was put "up,"
and he did not shoot, understanding in a flash that that would be
useless bloodshed, since, whichever way he span, some were at his back,
while Macray seemed seized with paralysis.

One shot, however, _was_ fired--outside the hut--by one of the two
Zulus, who were pounced upon by an ambuscade outside; and this man,
after shooting another in the abdomen, made his escape through the bush
of the close. But when that shot sounded outside, Cobby was already on
his back, panting under a foot on his breast and another on his neck,
his arms bound to his sides with many rounds of hide, his poor cloth and
bottle of science lying scattered from his hand, exhaling a smell of
carbohydrates; two stood by Macray, holding his arms; while the Queen
and Sueela, seated on their beds, Sueela with big ox-eyes, her head all
kid's-horns of hair sticking out as in curling-pins, inspected the
activities of the men, three of whom had kindled at the logs torches
which illumined the room with a smoky glow.

But now one from outside entered the opening, and, on hands and knees,
uttered the report: "_Bayet!_ Kindayana shot in the belly; the one that
shot him gone off; another one captured"--and instantly the Queen's
countenance changed. Springing to her feet, she went ranging about the
chamber, resentment on her brow; but stopped to say over her shoulder to
the messenger: "Carry Kindayana to Mandaganya" (a doctoress); on which
the messenger went running out, bent so headlong down, as to suggest one
tumbling on his face, or seeking in haste a flea on the floor, while
Spiciewegiehotiu again ranged the room, and Sueela, expecting squalls,
followed her goings with ogling ox-eyes, with her fingers expanded like
a goose's toes, with a pantomime pull of face, as when a baby does "Oh!
bogies!"

When the Queen next stopped, it was to point a bton of ivory at one of
the nine giants, and say: "You run and tell his highness the Commander
to send a mounted messenger to the captain who has gone to destroy their
camp: if they point out the one who shot Kindayana, the captain let ten
of them live; if not, he kill them all"--and, bent headlong, seeking a
flea, this messenger went running, while Spiciewegiehotiu stood with a
shoulder propped upon a roof-tree, her feet crossed, a palm on her upper
haunch, like a birch formed of long curves perfectly outlined by a
kaross bound in by a simple string at the waist, and falling to the
ankles, a flimsy thing, accumulation of raiment not being the mode among
the ladies of this community; and she pointed her sceptre, saying to
another: "These two and the one outside to 'The Elephant' for now"--but
at the same time made a silent sign that this was not meant as to
Macray.

The feet that had been on Cobby then lifted, stirred him to stand up,
and he, scrambling upright, faced Spiciewegiehotiu, though, as he was in
a half-dark, with no torch near him, she hardly saw his face.

"What you want here, you?" she called to him.

Guessing her meaning, he answered in Zulu with a monarch's head and
offended lids: "I am here, not for my own good, but for yours. It
appears that I am your cousin, and your rightful guide and guardian. You
will have to do what I tell you--if I live. Soon I shall learn to gabble
your jargon, then I will tell you."

She, apparently, understood at any rate some of it, for with a nose of
deadly disdain pulled at him, with her sceptre uplifted to hit him, she
stepped promptly upon him, crying out with the flying tongue of a scold:
"You think you have time to learn Se-Ngwanya jargon? You think so?
Vultures know how black man taste; now they want to know how white man
taste. If the man your man shot die, Ah! you watch vultures eat your
tongue before they eat your lungs."

And down the bton of ivory came, or was coming, for his head, when it
halted suspended: now she saw his face, that rock of his sovereignty,
upon which the waves of defeat and danger seethed in vain.

But it was not respect that stayed her blow, but something else--Memory.
For quite a minute of silence she eyed him; then a left finger summoned
one of the torch-bearers, and for quite another minute of silence in
the light of that torch her eyes pondered upon him, while Sueela,
leaning forward, stared with wonderment at her.

In those moments it seemed to the Queen that in some dream somewhere she
had seen that countenance, known its meaning, and within what household
and home of mood it lived and moved--Cobby, in fact, having a very
strong resemblance to his Aunt Jane, Spiciewegiehotiu's mother, a
stronger resemblance than to his own mother, as Spiciewegiehotiu more
resembled his mother than her own.

Spiciewegiehotiu turned away without a word; stood again against the
roof-tree, with lowered lids.

"If you care anything for Reason----" Cobby now began to say, when she,
with sudden fretfulness, shook her face intolerantly, saying: "Take
these men out of my sight!" And at once this was done.




X

"THE ELEPHANT"


Cobby, Macray and their Zulu, after being taken by a guard of seven
through the gate of the Queen's park, walked southward down a slope,
till they came to a palisade half a mile long that ran east and west,
where a wicket was opened to them by a picket posted there.

Now they were at the top of "the Square," a place (called "awna," or
"kotla") enclosed with palisades, long as Tottenham Court Road, with a
river running along its east side, an area big enough to contain the
live-stock of that district in case of invasion, an expanse of emptiness
containing scarcely anything save, here or there, some tremendous old
tree gone hollow, and rags of grass. But after stepping through that
wicket, the party passed by a platform of earth, hard-trodden, three
feet high, on which were pillars of wood supporting a roof of reeds some
fifty feet long, under which canopy were three steps of stone, leading
up to an arm-chair of stone, and before this throne two semi-circles of
stools, concentric--this being the judgment-seat and council-police of
the Queen, as shown in the drawing of the town by Cobby.

Then, south of that platform, they passed by another object--a cube of
earth three feet big--very red then in the torchlight, for here heads
fell. And then another platform with pillars and a roof--the market; and
thence the tramp was past the guards of the great gate, and along
country-road to the right.

Without pause the seven giants chuckled and chatted, as they sauntered
on, and anon differed in opinion and waxed warm, full of other interests
than their prisoners; but Cobby walked silent, and when Macray said in
his light way, "Well, we seem to be in a bad old way, baas," and
received no answer, he, too, walked silent with his thoughts.

Cobby was offended that Macray had not joined him in holding up the nine
with his revolver in the royal hut; nor could he understand why his and
the Zulu's arms were bound, and not Macray's.

But what was heavy now upon him was not his own fate, nor yet Macray's,
but his camp's--those forty-seven whom he had led to death, for he had
gathered in the hut that they were to be wiped out. But how possibly
could Spiciewegiehotiu know where his camp lay in the vast of Africa?
How, too, had she foreknown--with so much preciseness!--his attempt upon
her that night? By nature slow to suspicion, he did not conceive the
idea that Macray, after the death of Rolls, might have come to
Spiciewegiehotiu, and told her all.

Down a slope westward the way was, with here or there a private kraal or
farmstead that the eye could divine in the dark, where a cow lowed, a
bull highed, or shrilled, and, outlined southward on the sky, the
mountains, that were no more mountains now, but only hills; down, then
up, and down, till they came to a lake, in which Cobby suddenly found
himself wading knee-deep, and close before him cliff-wall, sixty feet
high, passing away into darkness north and south. Imagining that this
cliff was washed by the water, he wondered whither they were going,
until, on coming to the cliff-face, his captor pressed down his nape to
make him stoop, and, as he entered under the cliff, he understood that
this must be the "Elephant" rock, supported on "legs," of which Rolls
had told him.

Twice, as he walked on, wading, he happened to let his head lift a
little from the awkward stoop, and twice bumped it; but after some
minutes of it, the roof of rock rose somewhat, and thenceforth became a
dead level a foot above his head, though still his jailer moved with a
little stoop, just shaving the rock with his ostrich plumes.

On and on the walk was, the water quite warm, as if having a volcanic
warmth, nowhere rising higher than the thigh, the bottom a bottom of
rock; and here, where no breath of breeze seemed to stray, the torch
burned steady, shedding a blood of slaughter over the jet-black surface
of the water, showing anon patches of lotus and anon reaches of
lichen--only one torch now, for after some time Cobby realized with a
start that the party of ten had become a party of five, Macray and four
of the guard being no longer in it; he had been all preoccupied with the
strangeness of the place in which he now found himself straying--could
not rid his brain of the impression that the place lay profoundly buried
in subterranean depths, the abode of gnomes ruminating in there the
opium of a reverie that never ended, brooding for ever in the bosom of
that home of muteness, into whose gloom no glim of the sun or of the
moon ever entered; and he understood that farther than the flight of
fancy that roof of rock ran on and on, and under it always that night of
water, farther than fancy flies: so he had had no notion at what moment
Macray had ceased to be near behind him; it had been silently done...!

A mile of that drowsy water went coiling away in waves like waves of oil
round his wading thighs, a thousand times, and again a thousand times,
in a silence not now broken by the blacks, because of the babble of
echoes from the rock-roof that mocked all attempts at talking; only
Cobby, twice turning to his Zulu, said: "Courage, Panda!" and was
answered with the smile of a dauntless man.

And now the monotony of that wading and wading in a drowsy air saturated
with water-vapour made Cobby drowsy in a reaction after his late
agitations; he longed, as if he had drunk a drug, to stop and drop, to
squat in that gloom of the lukewarm lagoon, and nod under the load of
the roof of rock--did, in fact, begin to nod, when his head again struck
the roof, which again came down a little for a hundred yards; at the end
of which an area of radiance on the water came into sight, and then two
stone steps rising out of the water at a place where the monotony of
roof was broken by a vaulted room, in this room being a doorway shaped
like a bow, and at the bow-string the two steps, the radiance on the
water being shed from two torches at the doorway: and up the two steps,
green-grown and slimy, the five stepped, stooped into the doorway, and
went stooping up a rock-corridor to a rock-hall, in the middle of which,
surrounded by nut-torches (oil-nuts stuck on skewers) twelve men lolled,
smoking, snuff-taking, playing toss-and-pick-up with marbles.

All about this hall were piles of logs, and there was a fire under a
pot, the smoke going up a hole tunnelled through the rock--chimney and
ventilator to the whole. Those outer steps also were obviously
artificial, "The Elephant" having been more or less modified by man into
a prison and fortress: Cobby called it "the Elephant and Castle."

Up leapt the twelve to crowd round the umlungo (white)--a colour
respected here, because of "the white lamb washed," but _she_ was much
less chromatic than Cobby, nor had they been at such close quarters
before with that colour. One fellow just touched Cobby's chest, then
glanced at his finger-tip; one said: "Many of them--somewhere"; and
another said: "Eheh (Yes), there's all sorts of things somewhere; me
hear somebody say there's people with three eyes"; a third, agaze with
hands on knees, observed: "Na! there is blue in his eyes, there is red
in his hair, his lip is pink: me wish his nose was only green, he'd be
pretty like the rainbow"; "Poh! let me alone, he is best as he is,"
answered another. "He is no umfagosan (base-born)," one said: "see how
he look"; and one asked: "Where he spring from? What he come for?" but
the prisoners' conductors were not careful to explain, one of them now
ordering: "Untie their arms, and put them in the big prison to the
right."

"May I not have my torch?" Cobby asked of this one, who had Cobby's
torch, revolver, knife, bag, hat.

The giant shook No from his head.

"It is not a gun, just a torch," Cobby said, then with a sudden movement
switched on the light in the giant's hand; upon which the giant dropped
the thing like hot iron, springing backward.

Cobby then picked it up, and, switching off the light, presented it to
him, saying: "It is harmless."

But the man now shrank from it. "Can you make it shine again?" he
demanded.

Cobby switched it on.

"Na!" and "Na!" now sounded, all crowding round to see this thing under
heaven.

"Now make it stop!"

"Now make it shine again!"

"_You_ make it," Cobby said, showing him how, and when he rightly pulled
the switch, the light shone even for him.

Then he knew joy all over his face; and round now the torch went among
them, their heads crowding upon it, crying out "me next!" everyone
having a try, until it went back to the original holder, who stuck it
with decision within the band of his moocha, as who should say: "this
thing is _mine_."

He got from Cobby an underglance of reproach....

And as Cobby was being led away, the man ran, put the torch and Cobby's
hat with haste and stealth into Cobby's hand, and walked away out, poor
but honest.

Cobby and the Zulu were then led along one of several corridors that
rayed from that central room--a long corridor upon which rock-rooms
opened, out of whose moody vaults floated voices in talk, moans, calls
to the warders passing, voices of man and of woman, until the echoing
steps bent into a second corridor to the left, where Cobby and the Zulu
were soon made to stoop into a room, and the warders fastened across the
door a bar, over or under which a body could not pass.

Cobby then examined the room with his torch, saw that it was circular
and lofty, thirty feet across, and in it three men asleep on the
rock-floor; in the centre of the floor a hole a foot across, into which
when he put the torch its beam burned upon the surface of water beneath.

The air was heavy and hot, moist, noisome, an offensive smell pervading
the place; but, tired of their night's effort and failure, the two fell
down and slept soundly.




XI

DZINIKULU


What fate now awaited him, awaited his camp, Macray, Panda (the Zulu
with him), Cobby asked himself many times a day--though between day and
midnight was not the least difference in that place, where the eyes
strained in vain to descry the hand, however crazily nigh they stared;
so that, just to see light, Cobby would switch on his torchlight anon,
always with a miserly economy, like one who sips liqueur, lest the
little dry-cell, running down, should leave his eyeballs quite bereaved
of light.

How the prison-people measured time he did not know--in that room of his
time was abolished, but for the clock which the stomach automatically
became, the prisoners all acquiring a pretty precise consciousness of
meal-times--two meals a day, as it seemed, being given, when three men
brought a board supporting calabashes, and a torch, the prisoners
peering for them at the bar across the low-arched opening; and always
the same food in the calabash--a mass called "poospoos," but much of it,
and described as "very nice" by Cobby, who in his diary writes a
detailed account of its preparation--corn-meal being put into a pot
pierced with holes, and this pot hung inside another in which meat is
stewed: so the steam from the meat penetrates and cooks the meal, which
then, as poospoos, is eaten.

But weeks of it: how many Cobby had no idea; and in white light now he
saw his fault--hot-headedness, failure of restraint, he having talked
too hotly and haughtily to a sovereign, in the hollow of whose hand his
life and his followers' lives were--a sovereign who was also a savage.
Reflecting on it now, he wondered that he still lived even that
death-in-life there, with his back against the wall, his legs out before
him, his hung head staring at nothing. Here one did not determine the
surface-tension of bubbles, nor count the droplets in a cubic centimetre
of the water-vapour that one breathed and breathed. Europe was a dream
now.

And for how long? for years? for life? till madness came? He had hoped
that he would be "tried," as Rolls had been, would be given a chance to
speak, to plead, to appeal to human reason; but in the course of weeks
this hope forsook him.

Meantime, however, his situation was not like "solitary confinement,"
for here was much fellowship: he spoke with his Zulu; the three
Wa-Ngwanya conversed together; and one of these, an elderly man of rank,
whose name was Esingwe, imprisoned for agitation against a law, adopted
Cobby as a listener, and, finding out Cobby whenever Cobby flashed the
torchlight, would scramble to sit near, and give once more at great
length the tale of his sorrows and wrongs. In vain Cobby again and again
protested that he understood scarcely anything of it; the speaker did
not realize this; and still the machine that spoke spoke on, speaking
not so much to be understood as just to speak. Moreover, the speaker had
found out that the Zulu at least understood much, as a Spaniard
understands some Italian, and at special points he would insist that the
Zulu should explain to Cobby, he waiting, nodding, until the explanation
was made, and then continuing the endless tale. "What a fate, this
tongue and this tale!" thought Cobby when it had long gone on; and
then--suddenly--one day--it came like a revelation--he found himself
understanding it all!

"Now I am understanding him!" Cobby cried gladly in Se-Ngwanya to Panda:
"curious! the power comes, not gradually, but suddenly."

"You understand me now?" said the gossip. "Na! now me tell you all, all;
and now you send messages to the Sinder-ngabya: maybe he let you
out"--this Sinder-ngabya (or "Guardian of the Sad") being a dignitary to
whom prisoners had the privilege of sending messages by an official who
came at intervals to collect messages; and thenceforth Cobby did send
messages, saying that he had come with a good motive, that, anyway,
Panda, who had only obeyed his commands, might well be pardoned, while,
as to the men of his camp, their innocence was complete.

But he never had any answer; and that baleful air began to sap his
vitality.

However, soon after the fourth of his messages, an event arose for
him--a visitor.

This was Dzinikulu, one of the late King's three brothers, of whom
Spiciewegiehotiu had beheaded two.

Mooning as usual against his wall, Cobby saw an invasion of light, and
one of his warders peered in, calling eagerly: "Umlungo! come!" and he
whispered in a flurry: "Prince Dzinikulu to see you--na! You ukukonza
(do obeisance): maybe he do good for you"; and, drawing Cobby out to
stand in the corridor, he ran off.

Then all in torchlight the royalty came, brow-bound with ivory, beplumed
in crimson with the egret's tuft, "and saluted me with no little dignity
in quite a Zulu style" (Cobby writes). "His mantle not being wetted, I
divined that he must have come under 'The Elephant' in some kind of boat
rather than on a man's back, for Dzinikulu is a very big being, man of
forty-eight, say, with a mass of full-face, and eyes from whose corners
peer intrigue and experienced caution. He stood with one leg cocked
forward, and said to me: 'You send messages to the Sinder-ngabya; the
Sinder-ngabya report them to me, as the Great-great gone away from
Eshowe on a tour to visit other towns: so me come to hear your
complaint.' Now he waved away the torch-bearers, saying to them: 'Count
six-three (_i.e._ nine) six hundred times (_i.e._ 216 times), then come
back'; and as soon as he and I were alone in darkness, he said in a
lower tone: 'Trust in me: maybe you and me think the same things.'

"(My translation of their words, by the way, is not, in one sense,
exact; but since it is based upon my knowledge of the genius of their
speech, upon my knowledge of how an English language invented by them
would be spoken, it _is_, in another sense, exact: for whoever has
translated a tone, has translated everything. What is amusing is that
some writers on Africa make negroes speak in a lofty sort of tone like
Ezekiel, with verbs ending in 'eth,' rather confirming what I often
think that untrained intellects have a kind of liking, a preference, for
untruth.)

"He then wanted to know of me exactly with what objects and hopes I had
come to Wo-Ngwanya, and I told him frankly all, explaining how my object
was the Queen's good; on which he, compressing my arm with his fingers,
stood silent, until he said: 'So you say: how she to know that it true?'

"'From the fact that I have taken so much trouble to come to her,' I
answered.

"On this I could hear him chuckle in his gruff way, and mutter to
himself: 'Maybe, if she believe all that, she go!' and I understood then
that I have an ally in Dzinikulu, who hankers to see the back of his
Queen, that he may reign in her stead.

"'You will tell her all that!' he said close and low, compressing my
arm: 'maybe she believe! Anyway, me and you bake bread together against
Mandaganya and Sueela: me and you together beat everybody.'

"'Who is Mandaganya?' I asked him.

"'Witch-doctoress--mother of Sueela. Spiciewegiehotiu foolish with love
for Sueela: so Mandaganya powerful. Two months ago Spiciewegiehotiu say
publicly she will take for her husband Sandelikatze, Sueela's brother,
the executioner. Everybody clap their hand on their mouth; everybody say
Spiciewegiehotiu go too far, too far, too far. Next full moon she marry
Sandelikatze. Sandelikatze is dirt! Sueela is dirt! Mandaganya is dirt!
Everybody say Spiciewegiehotiu must be mad! She care nothing for
Sandelikatze--Sandelikatze is dirt! but she in love with Sueela--na! she
marry Sueela's brother to please Sueela. When she do, all Wo-Ngwanya go
against her. Then me and you bake bread together--wait, wait. Sueela and
Mandaganya will fight hard, for if Spiciewegiehotiu go down, or go away,
what will such dirt be? Corpses without heads. But me and you fight
hard, too; me and you beat everybody.'

"I then said to him: 'Yes, but when? Can you set me free? I am becoming
ill, my teeth may decay, my clothes are filthy.... How long have I been
here?'

"He said 'a month,' adding: '_Me_ can't set you free, but me think you
go free. If Spiciewegiehotiu was going to kill you, she kill you long
ago: she have some reason in her head not to kill you, me not know what
it is. Soon she come back from The North; you send her message; beg her
pardon----'

"This I cut short, telling him that that I should never, never do.

"'Proud man--na! induna,' he went. 'Still, you get free--me think so.
Before the Queen went away, the old guest-house in the sigodhlo was
pulled down, now a new one is put up, and a certain person said in my
ear that Sueela said in his ear that she have reason to believe that
this is done for you--not likely, but maybe so. When the Queen come
back, me going to counsel her to cut your head off, and be done; then,
maybe, she set you free.'

"All this, insubstantial as it all was, comforted my misery not a
little; and I then proceeded to sound him about the prospects of Panda,
about the camp, about Macray. And now a terrible blow was in store for
me: for he answered unconcernedly: 'No trouble about your camp: they all
killed, except six-four (ten). Your Zulu who shot the Mo-Ngwanya that
night had his right arm broken, then his right eye burnt out, then his
head torn off.'

"It made me sick. Enfeebled as I was, I had to cling a little to the
savage. To think that Woman can be so hard and heartless...!

"I asked him if the shot Mo-Ngwanya had died, and he answered: 'Eheh
(Yes), he died. Belly went rotten.'

"'But I, too, was threatened, if he should die!' I cried: 'I shall not
be set free! And all my men, but ten, ruthlessly massacred for nothing!
How unreasonable! How brutishly unmanlike!'

"To this he answered, patting my arm: 'No, you wrong. Strong mind,
Spiciewegiehotiu. When she have reason, she kill, kill, kill; but she
not kill a fly without reason. She and me not friends, but--strong mind,
eheh! clear, not brutish. You come to take her away; she capture you.
Suppose she have reason not to kill you: you think she going to leave
forty of your men round you to help you take her away? No, she kill
them. She spare ten; sell them as slaves; take the price of them for
herself.'

"'But my waggons!' I cried, 'all my implements and baggage----!'

"'Oh, they all there in the royal park,' he answered, 'you never get
them again. She love wealth--cattle and cattle's worth; grasping;
close-fisted--na!'

"'She will not know how to use them!' I cried. 'And Panda! Can you not
set Panda free? _He_ has done nothing! And Macray--how about Macray?'

"'Sir Caray?--"Caray" we call him---- You trouble about him?'

"'Why not?' I asked him--'my servant and comrade?'

"'Comrade?' said he in a tone of irony, very surprising to me; nor, when
I demanded of him why he questioned that Macray is my comrade, did he at
once answer, but presently said: 'Councillors and princes cannot gabble
everything like gossips before a hut-door: a string pull them here, and
a string pull them there. Maybe when me and you know one another better,
me tell you something. For now, you no trouble about Sir Caray. You in
prison, Caray living like a headman. Spiciewegiehotiu give him a kraal
in Sitiwe (a west district of Eshowe), five huts in his park, seven
_incekus_ (Queen's-servants), she give him twelve bags of money, a
horse, two cows, goats, rugs, wood, guns, cloth, from her store-huts. He
go to speak with her, and she receive him: but they say it is Sueela he
go to see. He go hunting down the river; he lounge about the town; he
get a lot of girls round him, he make them all cry out laughing, and
hide their eyes, he give feasts at night, me hear he drink a lot of
_tivala_ (liquor), and they say two girls gone wrong after him. But it
is Sueela he want: he glance at Sueela, Sueela glance at him. Sueela no
good--loose like her mother before her. She look aside upon a man with a
mocking eye that make a man fancy she scorn him: if he not daring, he
not get her; but, if he daring, he get her. Not yet eighteen--five
lovers: me could give you their names--na! count them off on my
fingers--one, two, three, four, five. You tell Spiciewegiehotiu that,
she fly into a passion, she call you liar; but everybody know it, except
Spiciewegiehotiu, and Spiciewegiehotiu know it, too, inside her nose. A
certain person said in my ear---- They come for me! You wait--you get
free; me and you bake bread together; me work for you.' He added louder,
as the torches approached: 'Me report your case to the Great-great,'
and, mutually saluting, we parted."




XII

THE QUEEN'S RETURN


After this a stretch of time that seemed like five or six days passed
for Cobby, and then again an unexpected torch invaded his darkness. In
its light he saw a white face--Douglas Macray's, and with Macray and the
warder a servant of Macray's burdened with a buck-skin bag, which was
pushed into the prisoner's room, while Macray, stooping in, cried out
merrily: "Well, baas, here we are!--in the stations of life to which it
has pleased God to call us. I prefer Bond Street myself, but this ain't
bad for a month or two."

The torch being now gone, Cobby switched on his flash-light a little to
see his "servant and comrade," who, smoking a cigar, had flung himself
on the floor by the bag.

"Not bad for _you_, apparently," Cobby said, sitting before him.

"That's what I meant, inkoos. Oh, well, fortune of war, you know. Fact
is, old Spicie of the throne has fallen head and ears in love with
me----"

"Absurd!" cried Cobby high, with a laugh.

"Why so, baas? Girls in Europe say that I'm rather a good-looking boy."

"Oh, quite; but you misconceive the quality of mind of the lady----"

"What do _you_ know about her, isinduna? She hates you like poison."

"Well, and I hate her like poison!" leapt from Cobby's mouth, and then
he felt that this was childish.

"That's all right, then," said Macray.... "No, she ain't in love with me
really, nor yet I with her. Handsome thing--but lives in an enchanted
castle, too much trouble to get at, let her go to the devil: it's the
Sueela gazelle I've got my gun on. Spicie's coming back from the
country to-day, couriers have come in screaming that she is near, so I
went to a nigger that they call the Sinder-ngabya, and managed to get
permission to go to the waggons, now in her park, to get you some
cigars--here they are in this bag, with a mass of fruit and things...."

"Good, good," muttered Cobby, "and another torch, I hope, you have
brought, and clothes, and matches----"

"Oh, Gee, I forgot about matches and things----"

"Then, how, Macray, am I to light----?"

"Here--I've got matches: take these."

"And a toothbrush, I hope----"

"Oh, Gee, I never thought of toothbrushes. You don't need a toothbrush
in Wo-Ngwanya, baas: the niggers clean their teeth by eating nuts and
hard foods. Look at me--_I_'ve got no top teeth, and get along all
right."

"I see. So I in all things am to become a copy of you--is this what you
so calmly contemplate?"

Macray chuckled. "You might do worse, inkoos: here am I living like a
nigger prince--Edward, the black prince, say, and you like Jonah in the
'Elephant's' belly, with no chance, I think, of being vomited out."

"How, though, has this come to pass?" Cobby asked, peering without
seeing: "I don't understand. Or, if it is understandable that I, the
chief, am punished, and you, a secondary, pardoned, why is Panda in
prison, and you free?"

"Ask me another--a woman's whim: I was born lucky, thanks to the
immortal little star that winked and worked over my birth-hour. Besides,
the girl by habit is down on foreign blacks who attack her: I must tell
you that the Zulu voorlooper who shot her bodyguard was tortured, all
our lot, but ten, killed, and----"

"I know," Cobby said with a bent head.

And at once Macray sat up in the dark, full of interest. "Oh, you know,"
said he: "how do you?"

"I was told."

"By one of the warders, no doubt."

This Cobby did not answer, understanding that Dzinikulu's visit was
secret; but this silence gave the secret to Macray, who had come mainly
to learn it; and he now bluntly said: "You have had a visit from
Dzinikulu, baas. Now, haven't you?"

At the indelicacy of which insistence Cobby answered with a puckered
brow of protest: "Don't you gather that I do not desire to speak of
this?"

"That means that you _have_," said Macray; "and now I want to warn you.
Let old Spicie once learn of this visit, and all's up with you, and
perhaps with Master Dzinikulu, too. I may tell you that this man was
_seen_ to leave Eshowe in the dead of night and come toward 'The
Elephant,' for, of course, there are eyes that spy for Mandaganya and
Sueela: so they suspect that he came to visit you, in which case his
motive is known--to ally himself with you in any plot to carry off
Spicie. Now, any such plot is foredoomed to failure--I tell you so. It
is true that Dzinikulu leads a powerful faction hankering to see the old
royal house restored, but Spicie is going to whip him easy every time.
Don't you be drawn into anything with that princely nigger. If we had a
man with the experience of Rolls, something might be done; but Master
Rolls is now at the antipodes of heaven where pitchforks are all the
rage----"

At which Cobby with a shaken head, shaking the offence off him, sighed:
"How offensive you can be, Macray! Dzinikulu, too, is crass, but not
with that merry excess of yours."

Macray meditated on this in the dark--did not like! but only said:
"Right you are, baas--I forgive you. I think in some former existence I
was a millionaire like my namesake, the millionaire, and so much fine
gold made me a coarse brute, like the famous King Midas. Yet I seem to
get along all right like that.... Anyway, have no truck with Master
Dzinikulu! death's the consequence. As it is, nobody seems to understand
why you aren't dead already. Is Spicie keeping you alive here as a sort
of torture before she kills you? Lord knows! Twice I've approached her
to ask what she means to do about you, and each time the same reply:
'You will see'--nothing more. _I_ believe that she means to keep you
here to tempt Dzinikulu into putting his foot into it, and then do for
you and him together. Sueela, before going away, told her mother
Mandaganya----"

"You seem to be quite in the counsels of Sueela and Mandaganya!" Cobby
exclaimed.

In his chuckling way Macray answered: "Sueela is destined to be near and
dear to me, baas. I never thought a nigger girl could so poison the
liver of men with longing and yearning. And Sueela's a true nigger. Most
of these Wa-Ngwanya show traces of an Arab origin, as the Zulus
do--handsome some of 'em; but Sueela is your distilled attar of nigger:
ink-black, slant forehead, flat-nose--sounds ugly, and yet, by some
miracle of Spring, old Sue ain't ugly. We didn't see her well that night
in the hut: if ever you do, see if that skipping kid on the hills don't
captivate your kidneys. Great big head, bulging out at the temples,
bulging behind, bulging everywhere--beautiful--bursting with brains; and
her great ogling eyes, alluring and raining raillery upon the universe
of boys; and then her figure--her neck straighter than a straight
line--taller still than Spicie, and lither: from the tip of her breast
to the tip of her projected toe is the long concave of one perfect
curve--she seems stretched to pirouette. And see her dance!--for every
caper she cuts you cut one, too, or wish to, as if your nervous system
was switched on to her activity. And the health of her youth--the
crimson of her tongue and gums--her row of little teeth--you know before
you smell her that her mouth is sweet like south-winds of these
mountains, and the sweet whisp of slime that flies from a heifer's lips.
Aye, and something very venereal in the beast--Eve in excess--gross
rats-bane--the Black Plague I call her. And she ain't no prude, now;
it's a case of 'all right' between her and me. Not that she's a bit in
love with me: _I_ know what's working in her--curiosity: wants to find
out what a white sweetheart is like; but when I once win her, I shall
know how to hold her. The difficulty is to win her outside the town,
for, if she's caught, decapitation may result. But there's a field of
sugar-cane half a mile out that I have in my eye. Whatever gods may be
specially made sugar-cane to grow for happy lovers--a regiment of
ferrets couldn't discover the cooing two in there. Unfortunately, the
edges of the leaves scratch one, and if----"

But here the lover's effusion, to which Cobby sat listening with cynical
eyebrows, was interrupted by the arrival of a torch, and by an eager
warder beckoning, saying: "Come! You free!"

Cobby and Macray sprang upright, both pale, Macray staring from the
warder to Cobby, and back again.

"The Great-great come?" he asked.

"Eheh! She just come. She set him free."

"And Panda?" asked Cobby.

"No! only you. Come! Come!"

Cobby, his heart thumping in him, hurried to Panda to say quick and low:
"Keep heart--I shall refuse to be free without you. There are some
comforts in that bag--here are matches...."

Then out, and along two corridors, to a central room, Macray all at a
loss, saying: "Oh, woman, in our hours of ease ..."

Then down a rock-passage to two steps, where two _sanjwes_ (sort of
punt) lay torchlit on the water, in one of which two household officers,
braves brow-bound with spotted cat skin over their black plumes, awaited
Cobby; and Macray, in the _sanjwe_ that had brought him, followed the
paddles and torches of the other through a league of gloom between the
lagoon and the roof of rock. Anon his eyes moved from side to side, full
of interest, of meditation....

It was about four in the afternoon when they shot out from under the
rock to the shore, Cobby's eyes now blinded with excess of light, and
when he saw the breadth of heaven, the freedom and holiday of the
clouds, and breathed the bounty of the breezes, he was like one born out
of nothingness into all: tears stung his lids; he wished to kneel. But
his two companions, titanic with their black plumes, and gallant with
the black ox-tails in their kilts, on their legs, at their elbows, all
wafted backward by the wind, stalked steadily on a thousand yards to the
great gate of the town, and on into the awna, or square.

This now presented a thronged appearance, all the top quarter of it
being packed with phalanxes of warriors in their various war-dress,
making there a region of spears sheening in the sun, then the populace
packed, then looser throngs, among whom Cobby's conductors paused, one
of them remarking to him: "The Queen salute the people: we wait here."

And twenty minutes they waited, until a group entered the square through
the sigodhlo gate, and stepped on to the platform. The Wa-Ngwanya being
tall, Cobby could hardly see, until, to his astonishment, one of his
conductors, without saying anything, lifted him bodily like a child, to
see: and now he saw Spiciewegiehotiu seated in the arm-chair of stone,
meditating with her fingers at her face; standing about her two
semi-circles of men, at her left Sueela, and at her right a shining
being--Mandaganya--tall--shining in a mantle of snake-skin: but whoever
has not seen how like silver this filmy substance beams in sunlight will
hardly imagine the show and majesty of the witch's aspect.

She, stepping to the front, went down on hands and knees, and set to
uttering the Queen's _sibonga_, or list of names; on which Cobby's
lifter deposited him quickly, pushing him to his hands and knees: for on
hands and knees the square was now uttering _sibonga_ with the
doctoress. As when in a church the clergyman turns toward Jerusalem and
Mecca to murmur: "I believe in god, the father, who has a son ... I
believe in the holy church at Jerusalem ... in the resurrection of the
body ..." and, with heads of docility bent, the worshippers murmur it an
instant late, chasing his lips, and the monotone of the murmur solemnly
fills the church, so these solemnly murmured with docility after
Mandaganya the _sibonga_ of Spiciewegiehotiu: "White Lamb Washed Come up
out of the Water, Cow that Toss the Nations, Owl that Startle the Dark
with Sinister Singings, Dark Cantatas, Deer that Speed Fleeter than the
Breeze ..." and so on. After which there were some movements and
manoeuvrings of the regiments for several minutes; and then
Spiciewegiehotiu sprang up, stepped to the platform's very edge,
stretched her mouth, and in a dead soundlessness shouted loud, with a
laughing suggestion of countenance. But though Cobby was now once more
upraised in his conductor's arms, only a phrase here or there was
brought down out of the hollow hall of the air by some breeze to his
ear. "Me come back to you! hum, hum, hum. Me see all Wo-Ngwanya, hum,
hum. Wo-Ngwanya broad like the vault of heaven, hum, hum. Everywhere
doves cooing, everywhere winds blowing.... Winds in the hills cooing
like doves; doves cooing like winds in the hills, hum, hum. Me laugh to
see it! me cry to see it, hum, hum, hum. Me want to make Wo-Ngwanya
broader still for you; broader still, and happier, hum, hum. Now me
salute you--my sons--my brothers--my sisters--my own ..." now, overcome
with emotion, she threw her arm, turning away her face, then turned
again girl-like in the grip of a graceful indecision, but, failing to
say anything, gave up, and tripped back, crying and laughing at herself,
to recline in the throne.

Cobby's face was distorted into a sort of grin--of interest, of
greed....

Meanwhile, he was full of question as to whether his release had been
timed, with design, that he might witness all this? If so, with what
object? To impress him with a sense of her mass and majesty, that he
might refrain thenceforth from machinations? Or just in coquetry to
show herself dressed in her royalty?--a fancy which so flattered him,
that he even found himself wondering whether his conductor had held him
uplifted out of pure courtesy, or--by instructions? Flattering fancies,
clouded with doubts and bodings. There he stood released: but for how
long? and for what reason? "You will see," she had said to Macray: and
there is the frying-pan, and there is the fire....




XIII

THE GUEST-HOUSE


As soon as the function of the royal salute was over, and the regiments
had been marched away through the various gates of the square, Cobby's
two conductors led him up the square through the now looser crowd, in
which was now some group-dancing and much curiosity and swarming after
the new face, until the three came to the north (sigodhlo) gate of the
square, where, when an ivory ring had been presented to the sentry
there, the three were permitted to enter the sigodhlo.

The black who had the ring then handed it to Cobby, saying: "With this
you can pass out and in."

Cobby's heart started....

Straight before them northward stood the gate of the royal park, and
after walking upward to this, and passing half-round the royal park,
they passed, still northward, up an avenue dim beneath enormous
yellow-wood trees, which led them to the gate of another park: and this
they entered.

Here the first thing that Cobby saw through fronds of date-palm on his
right was an aeroplane-wing, nor in the gush of his gladness could he
refrain from rushing to it, and there in a glade surrounded by
large-leaved bush stood his waggons buried in long-grass, with all his
goods, given back to him.

In his incredulity at luck so good, he ran back to ask a flood of
questions, to which the giants, smiling down upon him, replied that they
thought the things were to be his thenceforth; the waggons had been
taken there that day from the Queen's park.

They then led him through a grove of greenery, out of which peeped here
or there a hut, to a big hut, evidently brand-new--which, indeed, was
the new-built "guest-house" of which Dzinikulu had told him. He had
become aware of sounds of music, and in front of the hut found with
flute and drum six men and three women, who received him with
prostrations--his household-attendants.

Out of the hut floated an odour of food, and in its roomy interior he
found a meal of lamb, with yam pounded with butter, and eggs,
water-melon, honey, and gaudy tarts made of grated cocoa-nut tinted
pink, ultramarine and morinda-yellow, and gourds of spirit, to share in
all which Cobby invited his conductors. "Nor from that moment," he wrote
later, "have I lacked any comfort."

He expected now a summons to the royal presence, to be told the reason
of his release and of this free-handed treatment, but when two weeks
passed, and no summons came, he was torn with indecision as to seeking
an interview, that he might see her face, and plead for his Panda. "Near
as I am to her," he writes at this time, "my park the nearest to hers,
sleeping within a few stone-throws of her, breathing the air she
breathes, I might be at Cape Town for all the sign I have that she is
alive, save a sight of her twice in the square, the sight of her
sentinels at her gate, who salute me when I go by. I can't stand it
long: somehow to be in touch with her, or go mad, I think.

"Yesterday afternoon I sent her Rolls' American clock, expecting that
she would, at any rate, acknowledge it and thank me; but no answer at
all. Silly of me to send her that thing! whose silly insistence on
ticking must have made her laugh at it and me. She will think that I am
pursuing her! seeking to force myself like a hungry dog upon her
notice--which Almighty God forbid. I think that what made me send the
clock was the fact, of which I first heard from my Sansiwana, that she
'goes to White River to bathe'--'White River' being the name of the
upper part of the river which, in the part flowing through the town, is
called 'The Gut,' and below the town is called 'Black River.' But
savages have such a slovenly habit in marking the hours of the day, that
I could not learn from my servants at what hour she passes here
northward for the sigodhlo-postern, and this may have put into my mind
the sending her of a timepiece, with the idea that, if she learned to
read it, and I learned the hour of her outing, I might spy upon her
steps without much loss of time. I intend to-morrow to spend the
forenoon in ambush watching for her."

This manoeuvre proving successful, he saw her from his lurking-place
go past his park in a gay troop of twelve or thirteen girls, with two
bodyguards bearing cloths; and thenceforth some portion of his forenoons
was devoted to this singular species of research-work. Meanwhile, we see
him full of self-reproaches for his neglect of Panda's interests, a
neglect due to his shrinkings from seeming to "force himself upon the
notice" of the Queen; he, meantime, doing much roaming about the
country, collecting and making drawings and photographs of specimens,
investigating its geology, especially that of "The Elephant," whose
configuration, he says, "is entirely due to water-action, as in the
Giant's Causeway, Fingal's Cave, etc., the bed of the lake having
undergone some subsidence since the age of the water's action upon the
rock-roof. The water, though so stagnant-looking, is in motion, being
discharged southward by a stream which flows into 'Black River,' as 'The
Gut' is called when, after leaving Eshowe, it bends eastward for the
sea. 'The Elephant's' area is about a hundred and eighteen square miles,
the 'legs' (I have seen seven) consisting of columns of black basalt,
all hexagonal, in clusters two to seven hundred yards in diameter, and
from five to twelve feet high. I have twice ridden out to its west
extremity, once with Macray, and made notes in No. III. One can climb to
its top by an artificial stairway five miles out; but from no point of
view have I been able to notice any resemblance to an elephant. It is
said to contain several hollows other than that prison within which I
have passed so many dark hours: these I shall examine later, as I have
already examined (with what little technical training I have in this
direction) a singular structure in the plain out at 'The Elephant's'
extremity, the relics of a pyramid, nearly half as big as the pyramid of
Shafra, and much more ancient (v. III.). This plain, being a haunt of a
little deer like duiker-bok, easily portable, is also a huntsman's
paradise, and daily tempts me out there, my stallion, Ali, being a good
goer, a broad-breasted roan, obviously Arab in breed, with a ponderous
battery of the feet in cantering like a war-horse; one, I hear, of a
very small stud, of which the Queen and Sueela own the two fleetest
specimens, 'Selim' and 'Mustapha.' My possession of him, I find, has
caused quite a jealousy in Macray! to whom has been accorded one of the
small native horses, many of which show traces of zebra blood. Ali thus,
at any rate, contributes a little to my self-support, but still leaves
me all too much the parasite of a throne, the louse of a savage's
bounty. Every third morning, it appears, my Sansiwana repairs with a
list of my needs in his head to a species of major-domo, over yonder
within the sigodhlo, and in the afternoon the baskets, in due process,
come in. It will not long do for me! She must submit herself. I have to
be her master, not her pussy-cat, fed with milk. First of all, Panda:
_he_ must and shall be free...."

Meantime, we find scattered about the diary some very heated references
to the "full of the moon"--the reported date of the Queen's marriage
with Sandelikatze, Sueela's brother, the executioner--outbursts of
laughter which can be called mad at the idea of this marriage--threats
of intervention even at the cost of life--frettings at the vagueness of
the rumours that he can gather on the subject--all this subsiding when
he hears that "nobody know anything but that the marriage is put off,"
and when the full moon passes, and no marriage takes place.

Then there is a sight of Sandelikatze himself: "I was walking
home--about four p.m.... with a bagful of flora.... Paused in the market
to watch the traffic ... the Bon March of Eshowe ... from mica-schist
(ground to sprinkle the hair with a blue glitter) to twine of
hebiscus-fibre and rope of if, and soap boiled from salsola-ashes, from
guinea-fowls in great numbers to frogs (pyxicephalus), and locust-powder
(eaten here with honey as by John the Baptist), fish predominating, a
considerable trade in this being carried on with the dominions of Daisy,
mullet from the rivers, ready cooked for sale, gaudy with coloured
condiments, in big basins, barracouta and kingfish from the sea--this
barracouta being known by them to be sometimes poisonous, anon all a
family will die of it, yet, it is so nice, they still venture. Then I
heard a herald or town-cryer calling something farther up, and remarked
up there a drum beating and a knot of people, whom I found to be looking
on at three executions. There were five armed men, three wizards,
and--may I say 'my rival'? my ineffable competitor? already before whom
lay the headless body of a woman; and of the two men awaiting his
handicraft, what was my dismay to find that one was Esingwe, my
fellow-prisoner, the teller of that endless tale in the dark! After his
handiwork on the woman, Sandelikatze, axe in hand, his legs apart, was
in the act of glancing up with darting eyes that asked 'how's that?'
quite as Rolls had once described him to me; but the lightness and
litheness and live-wire briskness of the picture cannot be described. He
was nude, but for a few strings of leather: and never saw I the human
body so beautified and elevated to the plane of the ideal--I thought of
the Discobolus in black marble--the clean-cut creation of the hills and
dales of the legs, the levity and enfranchisement of the figure. ... Has
_she_ not seen this, I asked myself? and has he been selected as a
husband only for Sueela's sake, and not in the least for his own? I
abhor a wanton. Let me go back to civilization, and forget that there
are savages.... And yet here, I know, is the Reality of the world: not
Sussex, but the Limpopo; man being a dark animal, with a few whites by a
local freak, like white horses, white mice; nor are meadow-cows and
polo-ponies the reality of the animal kingdom, but gnus and crocodiles
and the black ant. But what dismayed me in this scene was, firstly, the
nonchalance of those market-people, trafficking there while, three
hundred yards away, three human beings were losing their heads; and then
my Esingwe ... I had not gathered that he was to die! It seems, then,
that one may be kept months in prison, and then be led out to death! In
which case, what of my Panda? How I have delayed and delayed!--he must
think himself forgotten. No more delay.... When my Esingwe smiled with
me, I pressed forward to shake his hand. He showed no pallor; said to
me: 'Happiness to you: me go to spear other deer,' on which a woman near
to him bit her lip to repress her tears, for the women consider it
ignominious to weep for grief or pain. Meantime, the Queen's elect
looked askance at me, with, I think, an eye that implied: 'I will not be
found unwilling when you are sent to me.' And then I hurried away...."

The next afternoon he presented himself at the Queen's gate in a clean
shirt buttoned up, bearing as a present for her Majesty three boxes of
matches, a little mirror, and a golden-syrup tin--a little object of
which he knew that a billion savages, among them Csar and Plato and
Shakespear, bending to it all the brain-power of the "sages" and the
ages, could not have come near to creating. But he was told that the
Queen was in the square, and would be for four afternoons, as usual
monthly, in her function as a judge.

He then went down to the square, and, standing somewhat back of the
platform, saw her for hours.

"The whole," he says, "is conducted with as much formality as with us.
In fact, lawyers, juries, 'judges' law-courts, seem to be an African
idea (see Mungo Park); but here the jury, who consist of twenty, all
elderly, and sit on stools before her, only function when she consults
them, she otherwise being the sole judge, and wore, I think, an official
vestment, a kaross of golden-jackal, soft-flowing, and three golden
eagle feathers, _ la_ Prince of Wales, beneath a brow-band of gold.

"I witnessed eleven cases that afternoon, civil and criminal, the
parties with their barristers standing on the platform between Queen and
jury, a knot of law-officers about the throne, while a small crowd stood
before the platform.

"No little logic-chopping and fluency of tongue was exhibited in the
arguments; and only in one case did I disagree with the sentence. When
they took oath it was by 'the White Lamb Washed,' of whose face I again
and again got a good view, and saw her brow always grave with care, or
perplexed with doubt.

"All the defendants assumed an amusing air of
indifference--ostentatiously yawning, and so on; but at one she stamped,
suddenly crying out: 'You are a fool!' upon which he dropped, as if
shot; and another was borne from her unable to repress his sobs, when,
after sentencing him, she took and pressed his hand. Two were women, to
one of whom the husband of both, now dead, had given a costly kaross all
embroidered in blue, and both volubly claimed it. When the discussion
had lasted long, the Queen appealed to the jury. The jury disagreed. On
which she covered her eyes with her hand, and presently said: 'Me cannot
tell which of you is such an artful liar; but me artful, too: so me take
the kaross for myself, you see'; on which an official beside her took it
from the woman to her left. 'A too facile way out, mother dear!' I
thought. But that was not the end: her eyes were still covered; I now
understand that she was spying at the women through her fingers; and she
saw that the one on her right pushed her lips far out, as they do when
resentful, while the other smiled at the confiscation: and now suddenly
the Queen laughed, tossed the kaross to the one on her right, and said
to the smiler: 'You think me not see into you? You wear "The Elephant"
for a month instead.' The crowd stood open-mouthed at it....

"When the next case commenced, I strolled past the platform and down the
square, without once bothering to glance backward to see if she saw
me."




XIV

IN SUSPENSE


As soon as the Queen had moved homeward within her troop of damsels from
her "White River" bath the next forenoon. Cobby made haste to present
himself at the royal gate; but was told there that "the Great-great" was
about to dine, that he should try in the afternoon, and then only after
seven days, when the _mopato_ rites would be ended.

This fretted and offended Cobby. "These empty, restless days," he wrote;
and: "henceforth I shun the sight of her as she shuns mine--insolent
little white nigger."

Yet for three afternoons more we find him standing a witness of
court-cases, one afternoon even standing in front of the throne, to see
in what mood the Queen would look at him: but she did not seem to see
him. Then for some afternoons more he stood witnessing _mopato_
functions, of which he says: "Forty boys of fourteen to fifteen stood in
a row before the throne, their nudity revealing the weals from the cuts
of whips which covered them, these pains and circumcision being the
initiation into citizenship: indeed, society here is _organized_ on a
_mopato_, or sort of Boy Scout, basis, one describing oneself by
mentioning one's _mopato_, counting one's age by the number of _mopato_
functions which one has witnessed....

"The Queen in another garb of ceremony, a garment of yellow baize
painted with black elephants, on her head a helmet from which a pair of
horns vaulted off, and in her right hand a javelin having a haft of
ivory, seemed in very vivacious vein, and was frequently laughing,
having now near her her Sueela in gay attire, also Mandaganya glittering
in the sun's light, a crowd round her, and in front of her a
considerable crowd of militia and public, while of each boy in turn she
asked: 'What my name is?' and when he had rattled off her string of
names, she asked: 'What the name of the headman of your _mopato_ is?'
and, that string rattled off, she asked lastly: 'What your name is?' on
which he rattled off the names which he had invented for himself--'Snake
that Bite the Lion,' 'Ichneumon that Eat the Crocodile's
Eggs'--swaggering egoisms just in the mood of the scutcheons invented
for themselves by our own fantastic Kaffirs who 'came over with the
Conqueror,' as 'Cave, Adsum' ('Look out for yourself, me am about'),
'Dieu et Mon Droit' ('God and _my_ Right'), and so on. It lasted some
time, but no one, save me, seemed to have enough of it, she, all
fluttered with gaiety, laughing out anon at the names invented.

"After which each boy took up a ball of quartz (mill-stone) that lay at
his feet; the crowd ran asunder; and she, at the platform's edge, cried
aloud: 'Now, _hamba_--go!' and clapped hands; upon which the boys
started into racing. Then was agitation! vociferation! while the boys,
handicapped with the rocks, ran in long files all round the _awna_,
perhaps two miles--a cruel trial; and since they came home in a bunch,
none well left, each resolved to win or drop dead, the excitement toward
the end became ecstasy, the mob went mad. The winner, a tall fellow, all
rib and leg, dropping his rock, darted upon the platform to fling his
panting heart into her arms, she with shut lids, grave now, rubbing her
face against his, our too motherly mother; then, patting his face, held
to his lips a wine-cup, finally presenting him with spear and shield;
and to the others she announced: 'Well, you are men now; kill a lion,
and quell a wife.'"

Afterwards there was a _mopato_ function of young girls, burned and
wealed, whose ordeal consisted in bearing burdens of great weight; then
of lads and older girls; and so on, for four days. Early on the fifth
afternoon Cobby, in a spotless shirt, made for the royal gate.

But again to be disappointed: for he met at the gate, entering, a group
of State-officials, among them Dzinikulu, who pretended not to see him:
and understanding that a council was about to be held, he went back to
his park, to wait.

Lying on the ground in a grove, he was glancing at his thermometer at
89--a heat so rare in the shade up there, that the doves in the
banana-bush had rather ceased to roll that rles of their throat, and
the canaries, subdued by the heat, had hushed their craze of jubilee
till the evening cool--when he was aware of Macray, conducted to him by
a sigodhlo-officer: "Hallo, baas! not laid eyes on you for five days";
and, throwing himself down in the grove: "Hot to-day--offer us some
tyvala."

As his face was already flushed, Cobby answered: "I understand that you
drink quite a lot of tyvala! In a climate like this you will acquire
cirosis."

"What the devil's that?--sounds like a liqueur. Leave me to my fate,
inkoos--give a guest to drink," he dropped at his length upon his back:
"this ain't bad here--for a time; on such a day, when the marrow of
one's back runs like butter, a young man's fancy heavily turns to
thoughts of love, to say nothing of a young woman's, Mr.
Tennyson--_Souvent la chaleur d'un beau jour fait fillette rver 
l'amour_...."

Cobby's eyebrows lifted. "You speak French, Macray...?"

"You may bet, baas--been all over the place. But funny existence this of
yours and mine here! What's the idea? What are we waiting for? I
expected that by now the ravens of the valley would have picked out your
eyes; but not a bit of it: we eat the lotus of ease, we live like lords
at a lady's expense--what's her game? Are you being fattened to be
eaten--or what? Had an interview yet?"

Cobby answered: "_I_ am waiting to see Panda free, and then at once I
set about returning to civilization."

"Right you are! We two--and Sueela."

"_Who?_ You jest."

"No, really, we take old Sue with us--Sue I call her, Susie-Susie.
Seriously, baas, I seem to be gone on that nigger. Me can't think of
nothing else but you, Sue-Sue! And I see my way to abduct her all right.
This is the very night of the plighting of our vows: we little two meet
outside the town about eleven o'clock, and----"

"What right----? Better be careful! You break the law of the land,"
Cobby said with a warning eye.

"Law of the land don't trouble Douglas of that ilk, inkoos. And no one's
going to know, you know--Sueela's too deep and fleet a Venus for that. I
met her night-before-last in her mother's grounds, and----" he related
the story of the arranging of the rendezvous, Cobby listening with a
shade of displeasure on his face; and presently Macray, reverting ever
to the subject of his success in love, became irksome, Cobby now wishing
him away, that he himself might return to seek the Queen's face.
Finally, he bid Macray come some other day, and, on finding himself
free, at once set off, once more to try his luck at an interview, the
sun still high among clouds like pools of silver shuddering cooler in
the middle, like suns with sun-spots shuddering cooler--clouds moving
southward before a breeze that blew the troops of trees into choruses of
commotion, cooling the afternoon with a wafture as of fans, and, far
astray in a heaven vaster than the heaven of Europe, a moon that looked
a cloud of the heaven of heavens.

After passing out of his gate, and southward down an avenue to the back
of the Queen's park, he was met by sounds of music, of singing, of
outcries of girl-laughter, and he paused, again disappointed, for he
thought that he recognized her voice.

On creeping near to listen, he saw a little orifice in the woof of reeds
that filled the interspaces between the poles of the enclosure, and,
lying on his face, he applied his eye to it, to spy if she was there.

He saw a glade in a thicket "rankly sylvan," he writes, "with frond and
fern, palmyra and wild date, wild coffee and orange, banana,
castor-oil, all involved in whorls of convolvulus, of wild vine and the
flamboyant blooms of numerous climbers, she on her face in grass, not
far from a frog-pond covered over with areas of lotus and arum, and
before her, alone with her, a bacchant dancing--Sueela; and Selim, the
Queen's steed, with them, to which now and again she gave a nut.

"I was spying at them some time. Until I was driven, or rather _washed_,
away, I could not get myself to go.

"Sueela wore a moocha of cotton cloth, close-clinging like the Egyptian
kilt, without any mantle, while the Queen wore a mantle of cotton
without any moocha, her calves swinging upright as she lay, and here
evidently was _neglig_ and sweet-do-nothing--that day, indeed, being
their monthly Sunday and nominal holiday, if all their days are not
holidays. I think, though, that that might be a public good, if they
dressed with a little greater elaboration--though I, on my side, had no
right to be spying upon their privacy. Happily, the royal-motherly feet
were clean and soft, and she obviously pays some attention to her
toe-nails. The whole being of her is a thing good to eat with one's
teeth, fruit good for food, by heaven, and there I lay with her on the
ground, near, near, yet hungry. She was smoking that long pipe of
theirs, then from a bowl full of blue fruit (_mawa_) took one languidly
to bruise it with her front teeth, then was gnawing nuts with wanton
molars, half alaugh, casting the husks at an ibis, that anon by the pond
cried out '_Wal-wal-wal_' at her, while swallows swung down about her,
magnetized like moths by her light and fire, and a lark, black and
saffron, carolled above, and the green dove greeted her, in love with
her and with lullaby, and it seemed to be in the greed of their heat for
her that the monkeys rushed about the bush.

"Meantime, Sueela danced to song after song, some of which I recognized
as songs hummed about the town--the up-to-date creations of the
community, as in Europe they sing the latest things from the
music-halls: and very characteristic, ethnographically, most of them
are--the so-called 'python-song,' for example, which Sueela twice sang:

    Touch me?
    Touch me?
    If me let you touch me,
    You'll always be wanting to touch me.
    Taste me?
    Taste me?
    If me let you taste me,
    You'll often be wanting to taste me.
    See me?
    See me?
    If me let you see me,
    You'll run! and then you'll run back.
    Smell me?
    Smell me?
    If me let you smell me,
    You'll run and you'll never come back.

"Then outcries of laughter! (The python is highly prized as a dish, here
as elsewhere, but its taste, as in the case of the bloater, excels its
odour: and always after the list of its effects on the senses, the same
outcries of laughter.) Sueela's instrument was attached to her body, a
species of _merimba_ (two parallel rods, connected by laths across,
under the laths being calabashes to act as sound-boards), she thrumming
the laths with drumsticks with a fluency of Paderewski, and certainly
she dances like a grace this girl, though with a certain aggressiveness
and fierceness of heat not native to the Graces. In figure she is the
female of her brother, the executioner, as perfectly turned out, though
taller (for a girl)--a being essentially special and herself--excellent
in some way or other, thoroughbred--big-headed, big-faced, big-eyed,
everything rounded and smoothed to beauty as in good sculpture, her head
all horned, a broad parting disparting it at the back to the nape, and
nothing can portray the raillery and roguery of her ogling, her
sauciness and scorn, her feminine message. Magdalen is the name of her!
or will be when she comes to repent of the sun and of her youth. Yet, I
was pleased to see, all her motions were modest, save for some moments
when her sovereign danced with her, they holding each other,
Zulu-fashion, round the haunch, and then their bodies, challenging each
other, jostled and jazzed a little, to the popular

    Oh, rain, don't keep him back,
    Oh, wind, don't keep him long,
    Oh, rain, don't keep him back,
    For me feel like a breezy tree.
    Me _feel_, me _feel_, me _feel_,
    Me feel like a breezy tree,
    Me _feel_, me _feel_, me _feel_,
    Me feel like a breezy tree,

they, in their feelings, moving their shoulders sensitively, as when a
flea is on the nerve of one's back, and one works the shoulders
uneasily. After which Sueela 'cut rattang,' as they say--though exactly
what 'rattang' means I have been unable to discover: she jumps, coming
down bent to the right, the right foot projected, with a lovely long
concave from right toe to breast, left toes on the ground behind, wrists
at ribs; then she jumps, coming down bent to the left, left foot
projected, and so on, each jump very brisk and strict, definitely
commenced, definitely ended, and at each jump she clucks the tongue. And
now the song was:

    Me wish my finger was a gun,
    Me'd shoot Mpanga as she run....

"I could not but reflect," Cobby adds in his somewhat heavy way
sometimes, "upon the heartlessness of this utterance: for I happen to
know this Mpanga, a poor cripple who goes selling _nju_ beans and oil of
cucumber-seeds for salads, who with every step of her right foot stoops
sharp to the right. She never 'run,' poor girl, and if _my_ finger was a
gun, I'd cut it off, sooner than do her hurt. But such are the
Wa-Ngwanya--a certain callousness of heart. I call them 'the black
French'--intelligent, gay, gallant, _bon ami_, but hard _au fond_,
lacking in compunction.

"The Queen, having danced a little, sat again; but presently rose again,
now taking up a bowl, and, in moving toward the pond, muttered something
close at Sueela's ear; then at the pond filled the bowl. When I saw her
lift it to her lips, I wondered that she should drink such water: I now
know that the gesture was a pretence: for, pretending to drink, she
stepped backward toward my chink, and, suddenly spinning, slung the
water at my eye. Then fits of giggling!

"The chink was so little, that it must have required no little quickness
of eye to descry the shine of mine; but, as I could not imagine that the
_colour_ had been detected, I was hardly offended, though much abashed.
I ran a little away; then, making my way round to the gate, sent in a
request for an interview.

"Quite fifteen minutes I had to wait in a very trying suspense; then
came the answer: Not to-day, but to-morrow, I might see the Queen....

"I felt a species of relief at the delay!--strange. I crave and shrink;
and no more know myself."




XV

DZINIKULU MOVES


Cobby continues: "I then went back to my hut till the evening, when I
set out for the funeral-wake of the sister of my friend Seshik, the
blacksmith, to whom, in wandering about town one day, I showed how to
upset iron; for, though they have considerable skill in forging, they
could not, till now, bend a rod in a sharp angle, not knowing upsetting.
Now the tidings of it has flown like fire, even reaching to the Queen's
ear, I hear, and Seshik, Rambya, and their fellow-smiths have
overwhelmed me with presents.

"It is remarkable how their culture advances to a given point, and then
abruptly falls short. The average Mo-Ngwanya is 'better educated,' as
Spencer would say, than a Lord Chief Justice or a Chinese 'scholar,' has
more (_re_ al) knowledge--knowledge of _things_, as distinct from
opinions--of geology, of the phenomena of soils, and crops, and stock,
and metals: yet they could not upset iron! cannot make a screw-thread!
cannot make sugar! Neither can a Chief Justice; but he soon would, if he
was as educated as they; and many men can. Their sugar-canes they just
suck; but have abundance of honey, which they hive in hollowed blocks
within the woods, where one is pestered by the persistence of
honey-guide birds wooing one to follow them to the hives.

"I made my way in moonlight down the awna, now solitary, and across the
second bridge toward the East End, three different dogs fleeing from my
ghost-face with growls--still: not flattering. Dogs, women, children: a
woman may brave me till I am close, then, if alone, may suddenly take
fright, thinking, 'Oh, no, I'm off,' and is gone flying, while the
children, on seeing me, stand paralyzed, bawling out, or flee with
screams.

"Eshowe being a garden-city, I found crowds of them spending the evening
in front of their grounds, shouting banter, laughter, gossip across long
distances at one another, and, as throngs of brats were everywhere, and
dancings going on to drums and hand-clapping, there was no lack of
clatter and action: and still after eleven when I moved homeward the
dancings were going on in the moonlight. I saw two women quarrelling,
who confronted each other in formal conflict, leaning far forward, with
their palms planted on their haunches, and rapid as the hoofs of a troop
of horses pattering their tongues acted together, like a pair of
pennants waving away together in a gale. I still feel amid them the
species of surprise which, on visiting France in my teens, I experienced
at hearing everybody reeling-off French, and being as old and at home in
their world as my mother in hers.

"At Seshik's, too, there was clatter and dance enough, complicated here
with some drunkenness and a mood of moral laxity, to the accompaniment
of that beat, beat, of the drum's monotony, which, day or night, will
not cease till the body is buried--this to scare away her 'spirit,'
which is considered to be envious of, and unfriendly to, the living: and
here it is that advanced Europeans are perhaps most in advance of the
savage, _he_, like the ancients and our Puritan parents, living in
apprehension of the cosmos--a very genuine jumpiness, and no fun--while
we others have attained to serenity in the face of sun and thunder,
death and hell and volcano--or, when we fear, it is another _species_ of
fear. Later we may be free of fear, and only love. But this sound of
drums is of the essence of this town--everywhere, at every hour, one
hears it going on somewhere, dumbly remote or booming near, like the
beat of the bosom of the community.

"On arriving at Seshik's, I found, to my surprise, Sueela there,
'scattering roses with the throng'; but very soon after I came she
ceased to share in the revel, and became subdued; Seshik, meantime, who
was tipsy, celebrating my coming with endless fuss and gesture, I having
to pretend to drink mead, and to touch the left shoulder of the dead,
who lay within the hut with a ring of ashes on her brow, drink at her
hand, an oval of candles about her, and three women who clapped their
palms, and now and again gave vent to ululations, with their hands
clasped on their heads.

"Then I sat on a stool before the hut, on the other side of the door
being Sueela seated; beside the hut beat the drum; and before it two
flutes tooting to perhaps thirty persons lewdly dancing and making
merry.

"What made me stay was an inquisitiveness to see whether Sueela left
'about eleven,' the hour, as Macray had alleged, of her rendezvous with
him.

"She, meantime, every few minutes was approached by Seshik and others
with flourishes of courtesy, was reproached for being sad, and was
pressed to partake of palm-toddy, of groundnuts fried in cream, of
masuka fruit in honey. She would not, however; and every time I glanced
at her I caught the corner of her eye on me; so at last I said to her:
"You are Sueela. I take it that you know me."

"Her answer was: 'Me not see you close before. You something like
Spiciewegiehotiu!'

"With her eyebrows on high, the girl's eyes widely ogle, and she spreads
her unanimous ten fingers like duck's toes, with a certain shrinking of
awe, mock-babyish, as who should say: 'Oh-h-h my!' But her extraordinary
eyes have many expressions.

"'_I_ like the Queen?' said I. 'Really? Not so pretty!'

"'Oh, well,' says she, 'men are ugly things.'

"'Don't like them? Not at all?'

"She cut an eye of disdain, shrugging, and then she shrugged again, and
shrugged again, seized in a disease of shrugging.

"I then asked her why she was there, to which she answered that the dead
was her cousin; and I asked her why she was quiet, to which she
answered: 'Me not know. Girls such _silly_ things.'

"'In what sense, though?' I asked her.

"'They not know their own mind,' she informed me. 'They want, and they
not want. Then they want something else. They toss in their sleep, they
scratch themselves. The tsetse-fly sting them'--a piece of natural
history so _indefinite_, that I fled from my mental indeterminateness to
the irrelevant question: 'What are there tsetse in Wo-Ngwanya?' to which
she answered yes, at one spot in 'The North.'

"I next said to her: 'Well, you had better come home now with me'--for I
wished to shield her from any mischief into which she might put her foot
with that absurd Macray; but she glanced sharply at me, asking: 'Why
"better"?' and I understood that my phrase had scared her into a
suspicion that Macray may have revealed to me something of her intrigue,
so, in honour, I merely answered that it seemed late for a young girl to
be alone so far from home. But her stillness and the reverie of her
lowered lids showed that she was still suspicious.

"When I presently asked her if we should set out, she looked down,
evidently meditating, at her beautiful fingers, like the fingers of the
Venus dei Medici, but bigger; but then answered: 'Me have to go first to
my mother's'--and this I understood to be an untruth.

"She then asked me: 'You see Spiciewegiehotiu to-morrow, no?' and, on my
answering 'yes,' she asked: 'You done wanting to carry her off?'

"'Not done wanting,' I replied, 'but done attempting, I think.'

"'Yes,' she said, 'then we all be friends.'

"'We, who?'

"'You and me,' she said in a low tone--I don't know why she said it so
low!

"'That will be charming,' I answered, rather too low, perhaps.

"I then saw her glance at the moon, and soon afterwards, suddenly
rising, she said: 'We meet again: me must go see ...' and was gone
behind the hut. 'See' what, Sueela? You did not say....

"I peered round the other side of the hut, and spied her feet fleeing
through the back grounds, saw her pause to pry about, reconnoitring for
spies, then saw her dart off with balancing palms across a narrow board
over a brook that flows through the bush, and vanish in bush.

"But some moments afterwards I saw a shadow dash over the grass,
gathered that she was being tracked, and ran to catch and warn her. But
when I came to the stockade of the grounds, she had already scaled it,
for, looking over, I saw her running along an alley toward Mustapha, her
stallion, which was being held by a lad, and neighed as she came.

"Even as she reached him the horse was off, she vaulting upon him as
lightly as a girl steps upon her bicycle and glides away; and, as I
heard his gallop die away into silence, I saw a young man, all but
naked, scale the stockade twenty yards from me, and pelt away after
her."




XVI

THE RENDEZVOUS


Dzinikulu was standing under the shadow of a motsuri, a gloomy tree like
cypress, in a field of dourrha at the north-east corner of that water
which lies under "The Elephant," and he was eyeing a stretch of
sugar-cane eighty yards north of him, when up there started to him out
of the dourrha a snake panting with news: "She just gone into the canes.
Sir Caray waited for her by the bamboo. She tie Mustapha to it. They in
the canes."

This was hardly said when another herald started up to pant the same
news; and soon afterwards another.

Dzinikulu said to them: "Run back now. Watch all round the canes till
she come out: then wait till she and Sir Caray separate, then tell her
me waiting here to see her, and she better come."

They ran variously away; and after waiting half an hour, Dzinikulu at
last grunted: "Eheh, she come."

Pelting Sueela came, paled, conscious of being all too late; scare and
dismay in her!

"See me here, Dzinikulu," says she standoffishly, panting, with expanded
nostrils: "me can't stop--me very late--Spiciewegiehotiu----"

"Sueela, you love too much," Dzinikulu remarked.

"Who? Me? Oh, my mother, you got it wrong! Me meet Sir Caray to talk
some politics--Spiciewegiehotiu tell me go--my mother tell me go. After
the politics Sir Caray say 'Kiss me'; me say, 'No, your top teeth come
out.' Me not like him; me--hate him."

She visibly shuddered, and Dzinikulu said: "Maybe you hate him now, but
you like him well enough just now, Sueela, when you follow him into the
canes. No good saying no--six eyes see you. Suppose me tell
Spiciewegiehotiu?"

This struck her silent. His leer of guile, dwelling on her, could see
her eyes dilated, her fingers stretched, her tall-looking form looking
stretched in apprehension; till, lowering her lids, she just muttered:
"You think me care?"

Now he gripped her shoulder, speaking close and pressingly: "No need to
be frightened: nobody going to know. You and me friends from now--you in
my power, me in yours--me to make you my head-wife when me sit on my
father's throne--you to help me and Sir Cobby carry off
Spiciewegiehotiu."

At which a fire of wrath and scorn shot from her eyes, but in so
lightning a flash, that he did not see it; in the next moment she was
smiling a tiny smile of guile, with downcast eyes, asking: "When Sir
Cobby carry her off?"

"Me not know yet--me have plans--and me not fail, if you with us. So
what you say? Me make your mother Chief Councillor--me make you
Queen--hug you every day--make much of you."

"You getting o-o-old!" she answered, ogling, with stretched fingers, in
her shrinking way.

"Nonsense, not getting old: young man; wait and see."

"How me know you make me Queen?"

He touched the ground with his palms, saying, "Me swear by 'The
Elephant.'"

"Swear you not let anybody know about me and Caray."

"Me swear that, too."

"By 'The Elephant.'"

"You swear first you not tell Spiciewegiehotiu what pass between you and
me."

"Me swear," she said.

"By The White Lamb Washed."

She had one moment's hesitation; then, touching the ground, swore.

"Now," said she, "you swear about me and Caray."

On which he, touching the ground, swore by "The Elephant," and did not
see the slyness of her smile--sly in her knowledge that _his_ intellect
was much more servile to sanctities and oaths than was _hers_; that he,
afraid to break, would keep, and she, afraid to break, would break.

"So we friends now," he said: "you with me and Sir Cobby: you say yes."

"You think me can decide so soon?" she asked. "To-morrow night, if me
send you a basket of mawas, me say yes; if me not send, me say no. Now
let me go--Oh, my mother, me late, late, this night...."

They waved arms, as away she went darting through the dourrha, and
presently to him, and to Macray, moving homeward, rang from afar the
clatter of her stallion's tramp.

At full bat she galloped all up the awna, and, as she sprang from her
horse, tossed her rein at a groom, immediately to start into running up
the avenue toward the Queen's hut.

But the closer she approached it, the slower she moved--saw the opening
closed; and only after several minutes of hesitation did she timidly
rap.

There was no answer; and there now she stood in misery, suspended,
wringing her palms, heaving the appeal of her eyes to the skies,
breathing: "Oh, my mother, what a fool, what a fool, live in me!" All
was still but that beating in her bosom, and the breeze's innumerable
footstep trooping through the trees; and presently, still more
timorously, she rapped afresh. But no answer: and after waiting through
minute added to minute on the sharp edge and tiptoe of suspense, now she
clasps her head distractedly, staring, saying: "My mother! this is Caray
this night! no more Caray! me done, done, done with boys and men!" And
now, crouching, her mouth at the round of door, she calls: "Oh, let me
in, dear! Me love you."

No response followed at once, but some minutes afterwards there was
movement within, the bar of the door was removed, the Queen appeared,
stooped outward to look at the moon's position, and went back to sit on
her bed, while Sueela, entering, stood near the doorway.

Nothing was said--Spiciewegiehotiu seated with her finger-joints at her
cheek, looking judicial. But after some time she quietly asked: "Where
you been?"

"You know me been to my cousin's wake."

"You straight from there now?"

"No. Me meet Prince Dzinikulu. He and me talk together. Me have things
to tell you."

"You seen Caray to-night?"

"Me? No."

"Not laid eyes on him?"

"Caray? No."

"Swear."

"My goodness! me--swear."

Spiciewegiehotiu sprang sharply up, caught up a nut-candle, and went to
hold it close to the culprit's face.

"What scratch your face like that? One, two, three--You been in the
canes, girl?"

"Oh, my mother, which canes? Me? Oh, don't think such things of me,
dear." Sueela's voice of reproach broke, she covered her face, shed a
tear.

"Well, then, tell me--_what_ scratch your face?"

"Maybe it was that long-grass in Seshik's grounds. Me was sitting in
the grass----"

"Lie. If you lie to me, me kill you!" Up went her palm to slap, while
the culprit buried away her face, presenting the elbow to whatever might
come.

"Now the truth!"

"Haven't me told you? Think as you like now. You only jealous, my girl."

"What me have to be jealous for? You been with a man?"

"Yes, that's it--think so, if you like!"

"They say you bad! They say you're a strumpet! Are you? Tell me!" She
stamped.

"Yes, me bad, me black--anything you like, my girl!"

"Trollop! They say Spiciewegiehotiu's friendship not enough for you!
They say you want man! Is that what you are? Answer!"

Sueela laughed out from under her elbow. "You only jealous! But that is
foolishness. You think you love me more than me love you,
Spiciewegiehotiu? You think so? Maybe me show you some day"--words which
Spiciewegiehotiu afterwards recalled, and ever remembered.

She turned away, and presently in a changed voice asked: "You not even
seen Caray?"

"Me tell you no," sullenly the other muttered.

Spiciewegiehotiu drew her forefinger across her throat, saying: "Good
thing for Caray. Me cut his head short off, if he touch you."

Some moments more, and she said appealingly to Sueela: "You sure, dear?"

The other muttered something, and Spiciewegiehotiu now said: "People
believe what they want to believe; maybe that's why me believe you: but
that not make it true. Next time me see you and Caray together, me know
with one glance what's what between you and him. If you not see him,
what make you so late--long after midnight?"

"Me tell you me meet Prince Dzinikulu!"

Pause.

"Come on, kiss me."

And, ogling, with outspread fingers, Sueela stepped stately; and cheek
rubbed cheek.

"Who my friend?" asked Spiciewegiehotiu, asmile.

"You tell me first who love you?"

"You love me. Now you tell me who my friend."

"You know." And cheek rubbed cheek.

Then Sueela dropped upon her rugs, and sighed, while the Queen paced
silent, wrapped in herself, with rather pressing steps.

"Me see Sir Cobby at Seshik's," Sueela remarked presently, undoing her
moocha.

Spiciewegiehotiu halted one instant, then, without saying anything,
continued to pace.

And presently again Sueela: "What you thinking of now? You not curious
to hear about me and Dzinikulu?"

"Tell me," the Queen muttered, pacing still.

"Dzinikulu in with Cobby. Me say to Cobby at Seshik's, 'you done trying
to carry off the Queen?' Cobby answer 'yes.' But that not true: for
Dzinikulu offer to-night to make me his queen, if me help him and
Cobby----"

Now Spiciewegiehotiu halted. And at once her intellect seized, not upon
what, to Sueela, was the main point--Dzinikulu's treason--but upon a
by-point very embarrassing for Sueela. "And how come Dzinikulu to
believe that you would not tell me this?"

"He make me swaaare not to tell: so he think me not tell!"

"How he _make_ you?"

"My mother! it was in a dark alley--he and three men--they drag me off
Mustapha--and Dzinikulu say, if me not swear, they hatch up a tale that
they catch me with a boy. So me swooore!"

"What you swear by?"

"By--'The Elephant.'"

The royal toe tapped the ground. "You lying. You think me not know when
you _lying_?" Then with tenderness: "Oh, why you lie to me, dear?"

On which Sueela, leaning forward, her face beaming affection, cried out
in a distress of conscience: "Me love you!"

"You think me not know that? But you lying somewhere. Me think you meet
Caray, Dzinikulu see you, and so could make you swear; nor he wouldn't
make you swear by 'The Elephant,' he make you swear by The White Lamb
Washed: and now you break an oath that you swore by me."

"My mother!" breathed Sueela, staring at her.

"Tell me now if that was it," said the Queen.

Sueela covered her face, shaking her head, crying out in distress: "Me
tell you no! Me not see any Caray this night! Me wish Caray was dead!"

At which the Queen smiled, saying: "Never mind; maybe he die. As for
Dzinikulu"--she paced again--"he tired of life, that man, he want to
die: he must wait till me see my way to give him what he want. But me
think he lie about Cobby: if Cobby tell you he done trying, he done. Me
know Cobby."

Sueela looked at her with a perplexed speculation! "How you know Cobby?
You only speak six words with him one night!"

No answer was made; the Queen paced afresh, wrapped in her cogitations.
And presently Sueela: "When you going to marry Sandelikatze?"

"Never."

"Me thought not. So what changed you so sudden?"

Spiciewegiehotiu laughed to herself. "That was foolishness! Oh, that
_was_! Me only said it to please you and Mandaganya. Everybody laugh!
You think the people stand such a thing?"

"You not care about that when you want anything!"

"Yes, me care. And me not want this."

"So when you going to get married and know what a man is?"

"In six months."

"Who you going to marry?"

"A king."

"Which king?"

"Some king"--she shrugged.

"You not tell me everything you think about in your head!"

"What you mean?"

"Nothing."

Spiciewegiehotiu paced on.

And presently again Sueela: "Cobby something like you."

"Like _me_?"

"Eheh. Me see him close to-night. He very pretty."

"You think so?"

"Eheh. You not think so?"

"He know a lot of things: me know that."

"But nobody understand why you not kill Cobby! why you let him free, and
have him here in the sigodhlo!"

"Oh, you too foolish. You not see all those things in Cobby's waggons?
Me could not even guess what they good for. Cobby will tell me."

"How you know he tell you?"

"Me know. Some of them useful, maybe, like guns. It appears that white
man know a lot. Already Cobby teach the blacksmiths how to make a rod
thicker in the middle than at the ends. Cobby do us good--help in war.
Me going to fight."

"Oh, my mother. Who you going to fight with now?"

"Me not sure yet. Maybe with Sebingwe, but me think with Daisy. Me pick
a quarrel with Daisy."

"Poor Daisy. When?"

"Soon. This month."

"But what you want more war for already?... Me think me know, though."

"What me want it for?"

"Me think me knooow!"

"Foolish thing. War good. Only, so many wives to one man!--that what
spoil it. Listen: me tell you now something me been thinking. Suppose me
make a law--one man, one wife, no more. Then suppose me make war: three
thousand boys fall in battle. So now three thousand girls will get no
boy. But _which_ three thousand? If a boy can only have one wife, he
going to choose the prettiest, strongest, cleverest girl his _lobola_
can buy. So three thousand of the least strong and clever girls will go
childless. Then the average of the next generation will be so much
stronger and cleverer: and in fifty years, with one wife, and a lot of
war, the Wa-Ngwanya will become a nation of kings and queens."

Sueela meditated on it. "Me see," she said: "your _eylosah_ (attendant
spirit) always speaking things in your ear. But you think the people
stand that law? My mother! one wife? And who to hoe the man's fields,
and weave his mantles? A man not like to pat every night on the same old
pair of paps!"

"How _you_ know what man like? Let the man hoe his own fields!--why not?
Wo-Ngwanya man too lazy. You wait: me going to do it--when me see my
way. If they say no, me say yes."

"Isn't that what me said just now? When you want anything, you not care
what they say."

"Yes, me care, if me not strong enough; if me strong enough, me not
care."

"And what going to make you strong enough?"

Spiciewegiehotiu tossed out her arm. "Victory! Victory on top of
victory. The conqueror can do what he like."

"Poor Daisy!" went Sueela, ogling with spread fingers, "and poor
Sandelikatze! Then when you feel yourself strong enough to force the
people to stand a white king, you make somebody king! And everybody to
have only one wife, because _he_ to have only one."

"Oh, you fool," muttered Spiciewegiehotiu, standing still, with an
underlook.

"You think me not see into you? You say that they say me want man: you
want man, too; and you going to kill thousands of men to get one man."

Spiciewegiehotiu stood a minute looking at her, then on a sudden
remarked: "Look here, me not answer you, you too foolish"; and paced
anew.

And presently Sueela yawned vast, complaining: "Me sleepy!"

"Yes, poor thing," said Spiciewegiehotiu, "go to sleep, you done up,
Caray wear you out."

"Eheh, white man rough," answered Sueela, stretching--"think as you
like, my girl!"

In another minute she was felled and slept, the Queen still pacing until
the lights went out, the moon went out, then, lying, put out her hand,
drew and took her companion's, and so slept, and dreamt.




XVII

IN THE BAOBAB


The following afternoon Cobby presented himself at the royal entrance,
nicely belted and combed, bringing a little looking-glass and a
half-pound packet of sugar, to gain the good graces of the sovereign.

He was at once admitted, after depositing knife and revolver, according
to etiquette, passed up the avenue, and, though his hands were clammy,
to convince himself that he was not fluttered, paused to note that the
avenue-statues were Egyptian in type; then on to the royal hut; but now
heard to his right a voice that called out: "Me here."

On each side of the hut-door stood a baobab, and in the hollow of the
one to the right, large as a hall in which forty people may sleep, he
found the Queen seated, all among cushions and leopard-skins, in yellow,
blackened with elephants, and in the black of her hair yellow flowers of
_ngotuane_, a parrot on her lap, a stool before her.

Profoundly Cobby bowed, while she, cocking up an eye sideward at him,
asked: "What you want?"

"First," answered Cobby formally, "to thank you for the favours I have
of your hand; secondly, to present to you as a petty return, these
little things; thirdly, to intercede with you for my man, Panda, still
interned in 'The Elephant'; and lastly to announce the early departure
of me and my men from your hospitable and charming country."

He then presented the things, and she regarded herself in the glass,
meditating very gravely upon what she beheld there. "Eheh, this good,"
she muttered. And she asked him: "This made of tin--or of silver?"

"Of neither," he answered: "_quicksilver_ is the English for it--a
liquid metal. This is spread on _glass_, which is made by melting sand
in the presence of soda and lime, and permits light to pass through it."

"Permits light," she repeated musingly.... "Yes, but what light _is_?
You can't see it, you can't touch it"--a question at which Cobby stood
surprised, highly admiring the mind that so enquired.

"No," he answered--"can't see it: light is a force, and force is
invisible. You must understand that the space between the sun and us is
not empty, but is filled with a substance, which the force of the sun
sets all atremble in waves or rays, like a pool when a stone is thrown
in. Some of which rays are light-rays: and these, striking on the myriad
bits of your face, fly off to the _glass_, fly through to the shiny
metal behind, and fly off that through the glass again to strike into
your eye: then you see as one whole the myriad bits of that face of
yours."

He smiled, but grave, grave, was she, her finger-joints at her cheek,
the image of meditation. Silence. Then she asked: "And what that round
thing is that you sent me?" on which he explained what a clock is,
making her still graver. Then suddenly she looked down at the packet of
sugar, asking: "What this is?"

"Taste it," said he.

She put some on her tongue.

"Eheh," she muttered with a nod: "it good."

"That in English is called _shoo-gah_: not so nice as honey, but
preferable, because it can be procured in far greater quantity--from
cane."

"Cane? How from cane?"

"The cane-juice is crushed out by a machine, then is boiled in large
basins of copper; when it cools it is _shoo-gah_."

"Machine? How you get the machine?"

"Oh, that is easily made." And, imprudently, he added: "If I was going
to stay longer, I should show your people how to make the machine, and
how to cast the basins."

All meditation was she, and suddenly, after a silence, she muttered:
"Sit down."

On which he sat on the stool, drawing it aside, for the light in there
was subdued, the doorway into the tree-trunk not being wide. And now a
kodak in his hand clicked.

"What _that_ is?" she asked.

"A thing that makes a picture of anything in the twinkling of an eye--or
any number of pictures. The picture which it has just made of you I will
send you to-morrow."

Her quick eyes reflected. "A picture like this?"--pressing open a locket
hung about her neck, she held it toward him, adding: "A picture of my
father."

But Cobby said with surprise: "There is no picture!"

And now she glanced at the locket--the photograph was gone.

Her astonishment gave place to a paleness--of anger.

After a little she muttered: "Caray steal it!"

"Macray? No, there you are wrong, I assure you," Cobby said: "such
pictures are quite common and cheap among white men: Macray would never
dream of stealing one."

"Caray steal it," she repeated, speaking rather to herself. "Me show it
to him one night--he ask me to. Since then me not open the locket. He
steal it. Maybe he tired of life. Or--why he steal it?"

Cobby, apprehensive now for Macray's safety, earnestly answered: "Oh,
take my word, he never did!"

"Maybe me know Caray better than you know him." She smiled a little,
scratching the parrot's head. "Tell me now about why you come, and why
you bring Caray."

He leaned keenly to tell her. "It was for your own sake that I came to
take you away, because in Europe you would be a far greater queen than
here--with fewer subjects indeed, but far more skilled, and slaving for
your pleasures far harder than any Mo-Ngwanya ever thinks of labouring
for his own pleasures; indeed someone who is enjoying the wealth which
is yours by law is at this moment a more powerful sort of monarch in
Europe than you are here, or than monarchs are there; and I, being your
cousin, and your natural guardian----"

In a grave, low voice she mentioned: "Me your guardian, Cobby, not you
mine"; at which Cobby flushed, and shut up.

"How you come to be my cousin?" she demanded.

"Son of your mother's sister. We two have the same blood and heart-beat.
Does something in you not know it?"

To this she made no answer, nor looked at the light in his eyes: but
presently asked: "What the name of that someone is who enjoy this wealth
which is mine by law?"

"He, too, is your cousin: his name is Douglas Macray."

Now she started. "Same name as Caray?"

"Yes--just a chance. _Your_ name, too, is Macray: Flora Macray: 'Flora'
meaning goddess of flowers--queen of all the roses and lilies--queen of
girls and of queens...."

He had her ear, but not her eyes, which were turned aside from him. She
presently asked: "You know this cousin of mine?"

"I never chanced to meet him--no."

"What Caray's other names?" she next asked.

"Just Douglas Macray, I think."

"Short...! And what the names of the other Douglas Macray?"

"Just Douglas Macray, I fancy. We _have_ short names in Europe, except
among some aristocrat families, whose children have strings of names
like Africans, their whole tone being rather African."

"Me think me see something," she muttered. "And what make you bring
Caray with you?"

"I wanted a white man, and he offered himself."

"So. Me see. That why he steal my father's picture. But how you know me
was here in Wo-Ngwanya?"

"Do you remember a man named Rolls? He told me of you, and come with me
nearly to Wo-Ngwanya; but, sent with Macray in advance over the
mountains, Rolls was killed by a lion."

"Caray kill him," she muttered at once to herself.

She then asked: "And it very far that country you come from?" and when
he answered: "Thousands on thousands of miles," musingly she said: "The
world broad--na! and so many sorts of men and of beasts it breed and
feed. Under the sunrise men and women busy living, and under the sunset.
Some not eat python-meat, some not circumcised, some file their teeth
away, some knock out their top teeth to be like oxen, some drop upon
their back and waggle their legs together to say 'how-d'you-do.' Babisa
traders come to me every year from Mozambique, Arabs from Zanzibar, and
Pombeiros from where the sea beat that beach which is nearest to the
sun's going down: there Portuguese spend their days. They all different,
and think different thoughts. Some bring calico, some cowrie-shells,
horses, guns, seeds; we give them indigo, ivory of elephant and
hippopotamus tusks, oil, dust of dalama (gold), which women wash from
river-sands, with agates and garnets out of gneiss-rock. Me want more
trade--far more: that will be part of _your_ work, to make us large like
the world, liberal and rich like the world. The world so rich, so
strange! If a brook flow, it flow with music; if a breeze blow, it feel
sweet, it blow with music; if the moon droop down, it droop in beauty.
One evening me hear a little stream whisper so sweet, something seem to
say to me: 'Me-and-you: can the seven North-stars alter their form?
maybe they alter some day: but you in me for ever.' But all not good:
corpses smell bad; old lions get toothache; old men get wrinkles. They
say love tweaking sweet: but, if the girl get a child, it hurt her,
unless she under fourteen. She not do any harm, perhaps; yet she rue,
pangs trap her. Then she have joy again: the child smell good; she love
it. But now and again it smell bad: she not love it for a minute; then
it smell good again, she pardon and love it again, she gallop it between
her palms, she laugh. So the world is. On the whole, it good."

"Oh, yes," said Cobby: "that is proved by the continued existence of the
human race: for anon it is, on the whole, bad for an individual, and
then the individual at once kills himself. Whether it ever is, on the
whole, bad for any lower animal I don't know; if ever it is, and the
animal has no means of escape by suicide, then a deep wrong is in the
world."

"Yes," she answered, "but it not argue with anybody--dumb! no tongue but
the wind dumb, the sea mumbling, the thunder bumping. If you bless it,
it answer, it babble 'yes, me-and-you,' but, if you blame it, it not
care what you say, it go on rolling in its glories. When it want to
rain, it rain: if you say 'damn the rain,' it wet you the same, no less,
no more; when it not want it not rain, the rain-makers cannot make it.
What kind of thing it all is? What kind of thing make it? White man
know?" She peered suddenly into his face.

"No, of course," Cobby answered: "only what you, and jackals, and
archangels know--that there is Eternal Power, which shows some of its
workings to our senses. To Power we English give the names 'Energy,'
'God,' 'Force'; but these are mere names for convenience; what kind of
being Force or Power is no life can ever divine: for when by God's help
we wink, or plough, or pick a flower, using Power, we have no notion
_how_ we do it--it is boundlessly too profound for us, in trillions of
eras no living thing can ever come near to dreaming, for God is past
finding out. We know something _about_ Power, however--know that it is
_very_ powerful: it may be powerful without end; and we know that it is
most adorable--our gaze can hardly bear the glory of the hem of the
garments of the sun. Moreover, white men now have reason to believe that
in time Power will be wholly good. You must understand that the bad
smell of corpses, wrinkles, and so on, is very likely just a temporary
state of things: for the high types of life, like lions and men, have
not been long on the earth--_men_ but for the twinkling of an eye, so to
say--and are not yet adapted to the earth. Already men are so adapted,
that they have got to like the smell of flowers, which dogs seem to
dislike. In Europe pain in child-birth is abolished by a vapour which
mothers inhale; so with toothache; wrinkles can be prevented by facial
exercises, or cured by a simple operation of the knife. In Europe the
principal cause of sorrow is now not wrinkles nor toothache, but
poverty; but already our priests, or 'scientists,' as priests are called
there, have proved that the cause of poverty is the fact that certain
persons are considered by Governments to 'own' the countries of nations,
out of which wealth comes: so our poverty may now soon be abolished. And
so on. And this process of adaptation to the earth will no doubt work on
interminably, for the earth is a bird of Eternity. You say that you hear
that already love is very, very sweet: well, yes; and it will become
ever more and more sweet--tweaking sweet, you said, like an eel
twitching, and each instant of life twitching sweet, when the host of
Life shall arrive at home, and God shall have wiped all tears from the
eyes of Life."

Leaning keenly toward her, he was looking at her with eyes which seemed
to yearn to eat her, while she, like the ostrich, kept her eyes averted
from that menace of being eaten; till, chancing to catch sight of a
moisture of piety in his eyes, she looked kindly at him, their eyes met,
and she then said: "You know a lot of things. You will tell me: and what
all those things in your waggons good for."

"Very good," he answered; adding: "Let it be soon."

"Why soon?" she wished to know: "that true that you want to go from me?"

"Oh, not from--_with_ you," he said. "But, anyway, I must go."

"Why?"

"Well--but--I cannot spend my life in Wo-Ngwanya; have work to do; I
being a priest in my country--priest meaning '_elder_,' one who _knows
more_ than children, our priests (the real ones) devoting their lives to
finding out new truths about the workings of Eternal Power. So I have to
go to do this."

At which she smiled faintly, saying: "Yes, you know more than children;
but you something like a child, Cobby."

"In what way?" he sharply asked.

"You soon see. You would not go, if you could."

Words at which Cobby turned very pale, and half rose, crying out: "And
could I not, if I would?"

With a forehead of rock, not looking at him, she answered: "What you
expect? You come to take me; me take you."

"_My God_," he breathed in English.

"Yes, 'my God,'" she grimly said in English.

Red rushed impetuously up his face. "Oh, this is tyranny, Flora Macray!"

"My name is Spiciewegiehotiu," she mentioned with a flush.

"Is it not tyranny?"

"Of course. Me a tyrant."

"Yes, over your own people! but I am the free subject of another
sovereign----"

"Ah! me laugh at the other sovereign. Let him come and fetch you, me
chuck his chitterlings to the choughs. You have only one sovereign,
Cobby."

"_I_ am _yours_!" he cried aloud in a heat of imperiousness.

"What! You talk to me like that?" she called with a shrewish tongue,
stooping forward to stare into his face.

And back he stared at her. "Yes, I talk to you like that. Now, what will
you do? Bite off my head?"

She reflected on this, her eyelids dropped, and quietly she said: "Me
not take off heads with my teeth, Cobby; and yours too big and red, and
know too much, it give me belly-ache if me swallow it. But you not mean
it! You not want to go! Cobby want to be priest to me. So stay--me treat
you well--make you a great man when me see my way, you teaching us to
make _shoo-gah_ and other things, and helping us fight. Me just going to
fight Daisy, and me want you to train a regiment of sharpshooters in
rifle-firing, and be their captain. Our rifles not very good, but every
day now we expecting a caravan of Arabs, and me have five hundred tusks
of ivory to buy rifles: me and you stun Daisy deaf and dumb with sudden
thunder."

But Cobby was not won. "I don't want to stun Daisy," he said: "I was led
to consider myself set free, and now I find myself still a prisoner. I
cannot stand it! I am free, free, free, and your master! By heaven, if
you treat me with indignity, I shall manage somehow to throw off this
ignominy of soul that has me in the gutter. You say I don't want to go,
and unfortunately--unfortunately!--that is somewhat so--I am become your
little dog, pitiably grovelling and sneaking to see your feet go by ...
I like the walk, so rich in energy, in freedom and intolerance--the hips
swing, the shoulders swing in counter-tune and antiphony--sister
dear---- But no, I won't stand it!--I'd rather die--I divine the
hardness and artfulness of your heart, and _I_ am quite the
wrong--_Why_, may I ask, is this war with Daisy to take place?"

He was now standing, and she, cocking her eye upward at him quietly
replied: "Me have reasons, Cobby!"

"Well, I wait: tell me the reasons."

She smiled. "No; if me tell you, you think too much of yourself."

But he, not divining that part of her war-aims was to advance him in the
State, misunderstood her meaning, and answered: "You see, you treat me
with indignity. That will make a white priest vain to be admitted into
the counsels of a negro Queen! But do you imagine for a moment that I
would take part in the slaughter of many men without so much as knowing
the right and wrong of the quarrel?"

Still she smiled. "There is no 'quarrel'; the quarrel coming; then me
fight."

"Meaning that _you_ will make the quarrel?" he cried out: "do you mean
to say that a girl--so young--so fair--can bear to wash her hands in the
blood of thousands----?"

Her forehead puzzled at him. "Men grow like grass," she remarked: "if
you kill two, soon four spring in their place, and, if they have a ruler
with eyes, the new ones better than the old."

Now, this truth was all in tune with his own mental habit, though all
contrary to his moral habit, and at the contradiction _in himself_, he
stood still more hot and cross with _her_ simple vision.

"Grow like grass? Yes! True! But for a young girl--you will be a dear
mother some day--you will rock a babe in your dear arms----"

"Well, maybe, why not? When it smell good, me rock it."

"Oh, fie--cynical. But there will be no rifle-firing, understand, by
_my_ training----"

"Oh, Cobby," she muttered with reproach, "you try my patience."

"And you try mine!"

At which she laughed, asking: "We always going to quarrel like this?"

"Always! Always!--unless you do what I _tell_ you."

"Cobby, listen: if you think you mine, you live happy; if you think me
yours, you get into trouble."

"More threats! more indignity!"

"Me not threatened you before! Sometimes you talk wild." Now she smiled.
"Me think Sir Cobby in love. A lion worry him."

"In love with whom?" he eagerly asked.

She shrugged. "Maybe with Sueela."

"No, say it--you shall."

"Sueela," she said, smiling up into his face. "Maybe some day, if you
very good, me give you Sueela. _Me_ going to marry her brother,
Sandelikatze. Perhaps you heard."

"Ha! ha! ha! My sublime rival! My lily competitor!"

"But suppose me like him! Nice firm boy."

"Ha! ha! ha!"

Now she flung her face frankly to him. "Oh, Cobby, you mad in love--a
forest on fire----"

"And _you_?" he whispered near: "you?"

Askance she eyed him, up and down, and down and up, with supercilious
inspection.

"Well, now I am all surveyed," he testily said: "what is my doom?"

"You think me weak in the head?" she demanded.

"No, I don't think so----"

"Cobby, a Queen know how to plan and work: if she not know, she not a
Queen--she _dirt_." With endless disdain her lips curled. "You go where
my finger point, give up all thought of going away, with me or without
me, and maybe some day you wash in joy, your belly go 'Oh' for fulness
of the food of the gods. If you not do what me tell you, me say you get
into trouble, maybe you die. No, me not think you die; no, not that.
But, if temptation come to you, and you plot with anybody against me,
you get into trouble, you taste the rage of my jealousy. Meantime, till
the rifles arrive, you have all you want; live happy; play with the
girls like Caray----"

"You are to understand," Cobby haughtily interrupted, "that there is no
resemblance between Macray and me, except in skin."

"You think me not know?" she muttered. "And, talking of Caray, me want
you to tell Caray something from me: say me not want to kill him,
because me see that he may be useful to me some day; and he can play
with all the girls, say: but, if any Mo-Ngwanya girl ever shed a tear
because of him, and me get to know, he finished, he done for. Let him
know. Me give him plenty of goods to buy a wife or two, if he want
wife. And now you and me have talked together: me give you snuff, and
something to drink." She clapped her palms. "Later we discuss more. When
you want to see me, me let you. That please you?"

This she said in a confidence at which Cobby groaned "sweet," but then
at once broke out: "But the whole interview is unsatisfactory!--and not
one word about Panda! When, pray, is Panda to be set free?"

She shook her head. "Never, Cobby."

"What!... my God...."

"Or--yes--maybe some day, when me see my way. But not for a long time."

"But why? _Why?_ The man has done nothing---- Look here, I refuse to be
free, I will go back to 'The Elephant----'"

"Cobby, you can't, unless me send you. Think why me keep him
prisoner--it is easy to see----"

"No, I _don't_ see----" he span to see Sueela enter asmile, looking
mockery under her eyes at him, bearing a vessel and three mugs, the
vessel bound round with strings to keep down a bung in it, which, when
the strings were cut, rushed out, foam showering out of the vessel's
mouth.

But Cobby crossly refused the proffered cup. "No, I won't," he
protested: "I am very offended,"--whereat Sueela pulled a long face and
goggles of mock-awe at the dreadfulness of the etiquette, while the
Queen, slinging a knee, looked keenly up into his face, saying: "Cobby,
drink--me command."

"Command away--it's no good!" cried Cobby.

She reflected on the situation; then held out her hand. "Cobby can kiss
my hand."

And immediately he was at it, down on his knees like the Brahmin
muttering prayer, pressing kisses on it here and there, on palm and
back.

"Now drink," she suggested.

And he stood up, grumbling, "Oh, well, I suppose----" and took the mug.

And bows of ritual betwixt cup and lip were cut between the three
drinkers.

As to the drink, "Never," Cobby wrote afterwards, "have I tasted
anything half so nice--nor, indeed, conceived that any flavour _can_ be
so delightful, the best champagne being very far inferior to this
spiritual thing. Cross and preoccupied as I was, I felt impelled to ask
the name of it, and was told 'sorrel drink.' I now have it in abundance,
for the next morning an area of jars came to me. She is rich and
liberal; but she shall find that I am not to be petted and bought...."

No sooner had he drunk than he saw two gigantic bodyguards at the
tree-entrance, and the Queen said: "They conduct you to the gate. Good
health."

Half going, half lingering, he put out arms of appeal, pleading: "Will
you have pity upon Panda?"

"Good health," she repeated, bowing him out; and headlong he went.

She then let herself lie on her face; and Sueela, looking down on her,
presently remarked: "My goodness, he nearly eat your hand"; on which
Spiciewegiehotiu's shoulder suddenly shuddered with chuckling, and she
sat up, saying: "A miss is as good as a mile!"

Sueela then wished to know: "What you tell him about Panda to make him
so cross?"

"Me tell him me keep the man in prison. What he can expect? He think me
let him have a servant of his own to help him carry me off, or escape
without me? But he won't want to run away and leave Panda behind, so
that's another reason why me keep his Panda in prison. His Caray would
be in prison, too, only---- Look here"--she showed the locket--"Caray
steal the picture."

"My mother, why he steal it?" Sueela breathed, all in awe.

"It appears now," the Queen answered, "that the reason Caray not want
Cobby to carry me to that country is that it is Caray himself has my
father's goods, so Caray not want me to go to get the goods from him,
and he steal the picture, which would prove that me my father's
daughter. Eheh, that is it." "Well!" went Sueela, scandalized: "me kill
the thief, if me was you."

"Not me," said the Queen: "till the day Cobby forget his country, Caray
one of my spies and bodyguards against Cobby and Dzinikulu."

"But a thief----! Me wouldn't have believed.... If you not want to cut
off his head, circumcise the rascal! then he won't be quite so cheeky."

The Queen eyed her coldly aside. "How you know he not circumcised
already?"

"My goodness! somebody tell me."

"Who tell you? Maybe the sorrel drink get into your head, and now the
truth coming out."

"All right, keep on about that, my girl!"

Spiciewegiehotiu, suddenly lost in a reverie, did not answer; and
presently Sueela, musing: "Cobby pretty. My God, he very pretty."

The Queen said nothing, and presently again Sueela, musing: "Me wonder
if Cobby circumcised?"

Now the Queen started out of reverie. "You better go and ask him! Maybe
he give you a present you not soon forget."

Sueela shook her face slowly. "No, not Cobby. Cobby a god. But tell me
all he say to you, and you say to him."

"Come, let us walk." She sprang up, they passed out, and, with arms
round waists, paced long the avenue's moss in step, tall daughters of
the gods together, walking with that length of ankle and lordly leg of
Man, predominantly walking his planet at last.




XVIII

WAR-DRUMS


"The whole place is now transformed," Cobby presently wrote: "ordinary
industry is cast to the winds, almost all work having become war-work,
and something extremely like fever seems to have seized upon all the
people, equally on fire being the eyes of the lad of fifteen and the man
of sixty, equally they dance and stare and wave their arms: I call it
'the dancing-sickness'--all wheels in dance, a wicked and mad dancing,
which means 'Kill! Kill!' Every day dreadful kerry-battles take place in
the Square between regiment and regiment, with the Queen as spectator of
cracked skulls, fractured bones, disablements and deaths, as in the
actual battle-field; and from morning to night athletic exercises are
the order of the day. This afternoon in the east of the town I found
within one hour three different priests rousing crowds to frenzies of
venom: Daisy was the enemy of Man! Daisy was the stink-cat, the man of
sin, the ripper of women and children! At the name Daisy the lip spits.
I saw two women quarrelling, and with a scorn which shrieked each hurled
at the other the taunt of having some M'Niami blood, and being a dirty
pro-Daisy. And in every direction the thud of drums dumbly thumping,
thumping, and the tramp of marchers marching somewhither under some
motive."

The trouble (as understood by Cobby and the public) was as follows:--

Daisy had sent to Spiciewegiehotiu an embassy to request the hand of
Sueela in marriage.

Spiciewegiehotiu had replied: "Very good. How much for her?"

Daisy had then replied: "Thirty head of cattle."

This was wanton; this was picking a quarrel; this was war. Daisy was out
to waste Wo-Ngwanya....

Now, about this time Spiciewegiehotiu had bought largely in rifles from
a caravan, and when the quarrel broke out she had summoned Cobby to lay
the case of Daisy before him.

On which Cobby, little suspicious as he was, had cried out: "It is hard
to believe! You have as good as told me yourself that you meant to pick
a quarrel with Daisy."

"Yes," she had said, "but Daisy not give me time: _he_ pick the
quarrel--you _see_, no?"

"Yes, I see--since you say so."

"So now you train the regiment, no? When we beat Daisy, everybody say
_you_ beat him, _you_ bring luck."

"I don't care at all what everybody will say," he had answered, not
fathoming her aims in respect of himself; on which she had shut up her
lips with a resentful pressure.

But in the end he had undertaken to captain the regiment, nor was it
until afterwards that it began to be whispered that Daisy's request for
Sueela's hand had not been spontaneous, but had been _suggested_ to him
by an agent of Spiciewegiehotiu, on the ground that that marriage would
cement the friendly relations between Spiciewegiehotiu and Daisy; also
that Daisy had really meant to offer, not thirty, but _three thousand_,
cattle as _lobola_ for Sueela, but that on the night of the arrival of
the M'Niami embassy, who were lodged in the sigodhlo, a pair of
Spiciewegiehotiu's officers had given the embassy the diplomatic hint
that wealth was no object in this matter with the Queen, who had other
objects; that the embassy would receive in the morning from the Queen a
basket of peaches--let them offer just so many cattle as there were
peaches in the basket, and this would please the Queen. The peaches had
duly come, as foretold--thirty peaches; but when at the Queen's council
the same day the ambassadors had offered thirty cattle,
Spiciewegiehotiu in sorrowful majesty had turned her back upon them, and
without a word walked out.

And now much ado. The embassy had been sent back without an answer. Then
ambassador after ambassador from Daisy, protesting that the three heads
of the original embassy had been cut off for thus insulting Wo-Ngwanya,
that he was willing to pay a double _lobola_.... But Spiciewegiehotiu's
wound was too profound for forgiveness or listening. How could she now
trust Daisy? Let Daisy draw his sword: her sword was drawn.

Thus fell out what the Wa-Ngwanya call "The Third M'Niami War": and all
the drums rumbled.

Now, Cobby had a servant called Sansiwana who, while Cobby was eating a
meal, often conversed with him; Sansiwana had a niece married to a
M'Niami man; and one forenoon when Cobby came home from Black River,
where he had set up bulls'-eyes for rifle-practice, he first heard from
Sansiwana the version of the quarrel as commonly understood among the
M'Niami: on which his face flushed with indignation at the consciousness
that he had been gulled like Tom, Dick and Harry, and, instantly
resolving to wash his hands of that war, he hurried away to see the
Queen, at that hour at White River: and that way he went to intercept
her.

As he passed out of his gate, he found waiting there an army-officer,
who, profoundly bowing, placed in his hand a little square of wood, and
went away without saying anything. Cobby knew him as an officer of
Dzinikulu's brigade, and, on seeing an elephant, a boat, and the sun
behind a hill, carved on the wood, he understood that Dzinikulu desired
an interview with him at "The Elephant" after sunset.

He then went on out of the town and through the very sylvan scene within
which White River winds, of which he writes: "It is not the name only
that is a poem, but the river itself, tearing lacerated along through
rocks, transacting its odyssey in long hexameter lines of froth and
song betwixt forested cliffs and fairylands of frondage, spray of lofty
palmyra-leafage, light-green of date-palm, gloomy motsuri, festoons of
orchilla-weed, homes of flamingos, black geese, parrots, here or there a
hut peering through. Not all Wo-Ngwanya huts are round, some being
oblong, built upon piles, looking within their secret places of greenery
so at home and old in the universe, that they produce a swooning sense
of beauty and fitness which not all the buildings of Greece and Italy,
placed there, could give: and I suddenly remember them, feeling that I
have beheld them in sceneries of Heaven in the eras before I left my
home to tour the suns.

"When I came to that spot where the river falls three feet in two falls
between three rocks, I paused, taking my station under the shade of a
mopane, the sun being pretty hot in spite of strong breeze. I could see
no one, but, knowing that the bathing is under the two falls, I waited,
till, after some minutes, I saw Sueela come out of bush on the opposite
shore, and make across the water, anon skipping the rocks, anon wetting
the bottom of her Egyptian kilt.

"All eyes and smiles she came, and when I stepped to meet her, says she:
'Spiciewegiehotiu say What you want? She say Her hair wet, and she not
want anybody to see her.'

"I answered that I wanted to announce at once something in respect of
the war, and was not thinking of her hair, which I should not look at at
all.

"'Me tell her,' says she, and back she walked through the forty yards of
brawling water to vanish into bush.

"Then again she emerged, again journeyed across, and, spluttering
sniggerings, says she: 'Spiciewegiehotiu say You like giiirrrls! That
why you come to see them bathe. But that very bad for you.'

"To this I answered: 'Be good enough to tell that lady that there is no
truth at all in this, since my only motive was to talk of the war.'

"So back she waded in formal embassy, a black Aphrodite through frothing
white, and again presently in formal embassy wades back to say with
spluttering of laughter: 'Spiciewegiehotiu say Your hair raaad!'

"'Really?... But in what connection is this announcement made?' I
demanded. 'Do you mean to say she sent you all this way just to tell me
that? Tell her I say I knew. Tell her I say hers is black.'

"With bogey-eyes aside on me, she answered: 'Black hair not hot like
raaad!'

"'Hot,?... You're a goose,' I said: 'you're a black goose.' But this is
an English idiom, and, 'Why me like a goose?' she wished to know; to
which I answered: 'Because you spread out your fingers like a goose, and
quack nonsense-announcements.'

"'They good to eat, geese,' she remarks, her eyes cast down.

"'Yes, and you, too,' I absurdly said. 'But ask that lady if I may see
her.'

"'Me tell her, and that her hair black'--and back she paced.

"Then again she came, this time to say: 'Spiciewegiehotiu say How long
you going to keep her hiding in there? She say Go way, and she send for
you when she want to talk about the war.'

"'Well, I suppose I must obey,' I said, 'good-bye'; and in a habitual
way I put out my hand, which she took with her face averted, and never
was my hand pressed in such a spasm--she hurt me! I don't understand
why; then ran, as if chased.

"I did not at the time suspect that all this about 'hair' and 'girls
bathing' might be deliberate chicanery; but the suspicion has since
visited me that what I was there to say may have been conjectured, and
an interview with me shunned, that I might have no chance of saying it.

"I went away, but not far, and from under a hut in jungle watched her go
past with her enterprising gait within her circle of girls who giddily
whispered together and giggled; then, returning to the falls and
water-pool, I bathed there, wallowing with enjoyment in the warmth of
the water in which she had washed, till I laughed at my nonsense, _that_
water being then well on its way to the sea--a nonsense like the good
Tennyson's, 'men may come, and men may go, but _I_ go on for ever.' 'I'
_what_? Crude Victorian person, now--so muddle-headed, unsceptical, is
the habit of the uneducated mind, unclarified and unhardened by the
habit of science. Any individual drop of 'the brook' does not 'go on for
ever,' but 'comes and goes,' exactly like the individual man, and the
race, the brook, of men 'goes on for ever,' exactly like the brook of
drops. So that we have contrast insisted upon where simile is complete.

"Pressed to do something, to say my say, at four in the afternoon I
called at the royal entrance, knowing that her review of the
manoeuvres was then over: but I 'could not' be seen. She had promised
to see me whenever I wished, and the suspicion visited me then that
there is a motive for this invisibility, that I am being fooled, and
used as a tool. But I _will not_ be so used; I _will not_ take part in a
butchery on the unjust side. Until then I had been doubtful about going
to meet Dzinikulu, but now decided to go; for if by any means I can get
out of this imprisonment, this tutelage and servitude, and get her, not
over me, but under me, as is right, I grasp those means. And they may be
nearer than I have imagined. When, on passing after dark through the
thronged awna and out to 'The Elephant,' I met Dzinikulu, he represented
his plans as far advanced, and his hopes in bloom. Our discussion was in
a punt in the dense dark under 'The Elephant,' and I felt myself
something of a conspirator, but see no other way out, except the
impossible way of spending my existence in this place. Dzinikulu says he
can depend upon half the elderly men in the army, and upon all his own
officers; thinks the war our luck, since some chance is sure to present
itself when the Queen takes the field; and advises me on no account to
withdraw from captaining the rifles, since my presence at the front in a
natural way is so desirable. I found that he, too, quite knows that
Daisy is not the provoker, but the provoked; and I told him that, this
being so; even if I go to the front with the rifles, nothing will induce
me to captain them in battle. He also informed me, what I can hardly
credit, that _Sueela_, too, is now on our side! he being in possession
of some secret of hers, and she having sent him 'a basket of mawas' as
pledge of her adherence: in spite of which he is chary of trusting her
with the secret of any plan, unless it be necessary.

"It was after ten when we parted, and, on coming home, I found awaiting
me a visitor, my Macray, distinctly tipsy, but still inquisitive as to
my movements, as to the nature of my interviews with 'Spicey,' as to why
_I_ was put to drill the riflemen when _he_ is the better shot--as he
said--and when last I had seen 'his' Sue, who, he says, is lately
shunning him. 'You have no Sue,' I told him, and then told him what the
Queen had bid me tell as to his bringing calamity upon any Mo-Ngwanya
girl, also of her notion that he had stolen the photograph, and I bid
him beware; to which he answered: 'Let _her_ beware--who is _she_? I am
getting fed up with this--my cigars are giving out--and if there is no
solution soon, I'll force one'--I don't know what he meant, if anything.
He becomes insolent and intolerable; and soon I got rid of him...."




XIX

BATTLE


The following morning Cobby again presented himself at the royal
gate--surprised to find only one guardsman, who in turn was surprised at
his request to see the Queen. "You not know the Queen gone?" he was
asked; and discovered that she had left Eshowe at break of day.

Feeling slighted and tricked, sore and bitter, he was off straightway to
find Ngdeiho, the commander of the army, passing in the awna through a
teeming scene of war-business, swarms of horses, of oxen lowing, parks
of carts, brigades at bivouac, regiments at breakfast; for the last
contingents of the northern and western army divisions had come in
over-night; and, in passing through it all, he saw marching southward
and outward two regiments, whose movement represented the initial
flowing of the host toward the front.

He was coldly received by Ngdeiho pacing in his park west of the awna,
and when the announcement was made that Cobby, for his part, did not
intend to captain his men in any actual battle, white teeth of all the
warriors who surrounded the old general showed themselves in a sneer,
the general himself languidly drawing his finger across his throat,
hinting of danger there for someone. For the favours shown to Cobby, his
elevation to an army command, were curious, perplexing and _mal vus_,
especially in army circles. Of his own riflemen, though he had the
admiration of some, the manners of others exhibited hostility in actual
insolence: for the novelty of the _umlungos_ (whites) had worn thin, and
familiarity, owing mainly to Macray, had bred contempt, they little
knowing what lightning and thunder is up the white man's sleeve, and the
manners of the Almighty.

"You should tell a thing like that to the Queen herself," the old
Ngdeiho said, frowning.

"I have failed to get a chance," Cobby answered.

"Her Majesty will now judge the courage of the men of your colour," the
general remarked.

"You are not to be cheeky!" Cobby promptly responded with a cocked chin.

On which general and staff eyed him up and down, with scowling, till
Ngdeiho pointed. "Be gone in time!" and Cobby went away, saying: "Let
the Queen know quickly."

Scout after scout, meantime, was coming in: Daisy had taken the
initiative! was being helped by Sebingwe! had invaded Wo-Ngwanya! was in
greater force by some four thousand assegais! and fleeing before his
dancing imps and impis were the inhabitants of the land. By three in the
afternoon the great square of Eshowe was emptied, but for two regiments
and Cobby's riflemen, who also were called "a regiment," though but
seven hundred strong, most of the Wo-Ngwanya stock of firearms having
proved to be old carbines, which, as they had lowered his average of
smartness, he had cut out. And soon after three he, too, on receiving
marching-orders, started out, Macray looking like Sancho Panza on a nag
under his Ali's flank, group after group of damsels dancing mad darting
out from the multitude to dance before the advance of his drums and
standard, and clap their frantic palms; and down the course of Black
River eastward the way was, he keeping in touch with a regiment which
preceded him.

Meantime, somewhere in the eastern blue and infinity of the day, the
Queen, within a group of ten riders, held at her eyes a field-glass with
which Macray had presented her, and anon was fleeing out of the way of
advance patrols of the enemy.

And so for three days. When, during the forenoon of the fourth, Cobby's
battalion, singing the war-song, came up with the war-host, it was to
witness war-dancing, and conflict imminent, the armies being ranked on
a plain, with a horizon of hills which on the south were mountains, a
river flowing southward through it, to tumble with a roaring and smoking
into precipice that bounded the plain on the south; and on its west bank
the Wa-Ngwanya had set up at intervals five miles of stockade.

Far to the east Cobby's glass could make out two villages, and, standing
apparently in fields of millet before an edge of forest the front of the
M'Niami army long drawn out; and while he looked, the old Wo-Ngwanya
general, Ngdeiho, came cantering down the slope from the western hills
to the host west of the water, to send out orders for the advance, on
which his army began a barking of the throat and thorax that gruffed Ho!
and Ho! like hundred-ton guns going off, tremendous, terrorizing.

Cobby, meantime, imagined that his decision to take no part in the
battle had been duly communicated to the Queen; but, in truth, the old
Ngdeiho, for reasons of his own unfriendly to Cobby, had said not a word
to her; being, moreover, of an old school, and having a conservative
dislike of rifles, he had determined to win the fight without them,
since Cobby's revolt offered him the opportunity.

But, in fact, the rifles were a main part of the Queen's plan of battle;
and, on spying from the hills the arrival of Cobby's riflemen, she had
let fall the remark: "Daisy ought to have attacked two hours ago: now me
have him."

The enemy being in greater force, she meant to surprise them at the
height of the fighting with more frightfulness of rifle-fire uproar than
they had ever dreamt of, and, their morale thus shattered, meant to
launch among them a second astonishment of cavalry, which she had well
hidden in forest.

The Wa-Ngwanya crossed the river at a trot, gruffing their rough grunts
in rhythm with their trotting footfalls, and "not all the Uhlans and
Gardes Cavalleries galloping with sabres waving into battle," Cobby
writes, "could offer a sight more gallant than that host of negroes
careering with streaming head-gears, trailing kilts of tails, knee
tails, elbow tails, with tufted shields, sheaves of spears sheening,
many of them patterns of athlete manhood. And about a mile east of the
river the armies crashed with a row which clearly reached us, which at
closer quarters must have been, as old Marco Polo says, 'like heaven's
thunder.'"

But it was not long before Daisy's weight of numbers commenced to make
itself felt; not long before, southward, he was attempting with some
success a flanking movement; and just then a messenger from the western
hills came racing down to Cobby.

He, lying in a little wood of wild coffee behind his battalion, who,
too, lay about the ground, gazing at the battle, was suddenly conscious
of a despatch-rider drawing up on his haunches to throw off the message:
"Captain, the Queen say Attack now half-way between the centre and the
south."

Cobby sprang up appalled.

"Has the Queen not been told that I am not going to lead the rifles?" he
demanded.

"No, she say Go now! Not stop to talk!" the messenger urgently shouted.

Meantime, many of the riflemen were crowding round to stare, while Cobby
stamped a little about, pestered with weight of responsibility, at his
wits' end, until he said sharply to the messenger, "Fly, now! Say that I
sent to tell the Queen days ago--ask if I shall send them forward under
a lieutenant--fly!"

Amid a groaning of the men who heard it, the messenger turned and
galloped, flogging his nag; and those round Spiciewegiehotiu asserted
later that when she saw him returning, and waited, and the guns did not
stir, she slowly turned pale to death, went faint, let her forehead drop
down upon her horse's neck.

Meantime, with every minute the Wa-Ngwanya were being involved in deeper
distress and loss of blood, and the M'Niami, pressing forward, were
presently treading upon enemy dead; rueing to see which, Cobby was
keenly on the look out for an answer to his message, and when he saw
two horsemen galloping down the hills, he, imagining that they were for
him, called his men to 'tention; but the horsemen did not come near him,
steering their race for the forest in which the cavalry waited; and
presently out of the forest in column of sections came tearing a storm
of horses in staring haste, swept away between two lengths of the
stockade, crossed the stream, and after darting past their own army,
pounced howling among the host of foemen.

But though no little disarray and death resulted, the disarray was
transitory--cavalry combat being, in fact, foreign to black armies. The
old Ngdeiho had a prejudice against it, as had Daisy, nor had there been
cavalry in Wo-Ngwanya before Spiciewegiehotiu, who herself employed it
rather to awe than to slaughter. In general, the mass of riders could
not contrive to cohere in the _mle_, and when his animal was speared,
the man, finding himself isolated in a grove of iron, gave up the ghost.

All which Cobby saw with his heart in his mouth, feeling that, if she
was defeated through him, that would be more than was good for his
compunction; and seeing the sidling eyes of his men on him, and no
answer coming to his message, he was thinking of repeating the message,
when he became aware of the Queen herself sweeping down on her Selim
well ahead of half a dozen chargers which rushed after her, she rushing
down like a sharp shower to her army, to gallop past not twenty yards
from him, with never a glance his way, her Selim's eyes wide, his ears
lying flat back like a cat's, the battery of his hoofs thrumming the sod
with a strong rolling of drums, she like a jockey wedded head-down to
his neck, and, because of the horns that vaulted from her helmet,
resembling a bull bounding head-down along, to butt and toss. And across
the river-rocks she crashed, across the savannah, to vanish in the
throng of champions.

Cobby in a sort of rapture, went red in the face, shouting after her
"_Coeur de Lion!_"

But Spiciewegeihotiu was of another type: not lion's heart, but man's
head, nor valour, but discretion, being her trait; and though a rally
did follow her advent in the battle-ranks, her object was not to rally,
but rapidly to withdraw: for her eye, ever quick, simple-seeing, and
sure of itself, had spied that the day was lost for her. She rode
straight for the old Ngdeiho, screaming at him: "Why you not retreat?"
and ere long the tom-toms were beating it.

Then she showed some lion's heart: for to the river itself she remained
with her men in the thick of the retreat, sometimes hustled, harassed,
prancing, an arrow sticking out of Selim's bosom like a bowsprit riding
a rough sea. And in Parthian order the Wa-Ngwanya stepped backward and
back, streaming with sweat of afternoon heat, white as black can be,
with wide and snorting nostril, but still--in good order. And now they
were at the river, soon to find themselves behind their miles of
stockade and wire-entanglements of spiked mimosa; and then it was Daisy
who pretty quickly was thinking of retreat.

Cobby saw the sovereign, looking very haggard, canter back up past his
battalion, without glancing his way; and it was with a disquietude
within him that he went out with the carts and stretchers of rimpi,
whose Red Cross was crimson branches of (young) matchebela, he taking
surgical instruments and ansthetics, to stoop among the wounded on the
stricken field, where he saw a scene of slaughter even now not over, for
the hopelessly wounded of both peoples were speared by their own
comrades, a scene that made Cobby so sick, that often he was hissing
words like "that murderess!" "that cursed girl!"

He went back pallid, and there again before him near the river was the
Queen on horseback in front of what was left of the cavalry; and though
she addressed them rather in sorrow than in wrath, every head was bent
before her. "Go back home," Cobby could just hear her say: "me win
without you; me not give you a chance to fail again: go back home." As
he drew near, she cantered away westward.

He now saw himself an object of scorn among all the Wa-Ngwanya: for the
news of his refusal to fight had flown, his death was being foretold,
and the man who bore him his evening meal threw it before him; nor could
he explain the _motif_ of his revolt, for that would have been very
indecorous, militarily, politically; and alone--Macray having taken
himself off somewhither to prowl after Sueela--he sat till late,
watching a swarming army scene of flames and men, messages, hastes,
neighings, lowings, drummings, a great going to and fro and malstrom of
utterance; then went to climb into a hut on piles within a spinny of
palmyras nigh under the hills, a lonesome old room covered with a roof
broken and bent by its own weight, on whose bumpy floor for a bed he
flung himself.

But just before he slept, he started up, conscious, dark as it was in
there, of some presence with him, and, snatching his revolver, he
sharply asked: "Who are you?"

"Cobby, my heart broken," muttered the dejected voice of one seated near
him.

"_You!_"

"Cobby, why you treat me so to-day?"

"By heaven! You? But did I not send to tell you----? If you have been
shocked, whose fault? You have shunned me---- Yes, you suspected that I
now know by whom all this slaughter was wantonly brought about, and, so
that I might have no chance of resigning my command, you shunned me,
imagining that when actually on the battle-field I should be impelled to
obey the command to advance---- You little know me----"

"But to-morrow you will, for me, no?"

"No, I will--_not_."

Now she put her hand on his: and now there was stillness, he sitting
there thrilled through and through.

And on a sudden he roughly had her hand to possess himself of her, on
which she sprang sharp up, he after; she ran, he after; she dodging him
to and fro, twisting like a swift, no word uttered, he working in an
earnest dumbness but once to clap hand on her and rumple her by
supremacy of muscle and summary pre-eminence of strength, and like dog
and fox "at the death" they spurted, like a whirl of serpents doubling
upon themselves, till for some moments he lost her, but then, alert of
ear, heard her feet stealing, rushed upon her, and had her crushed soft
to his body like a doll of rubber, teeth to teeth.

"Oh, Cobby," she panted at him, "don't--kiss me like that, me--tear you
to pieces."

He, handling her roughly, with sudden movements like convulsions of
epilepsy, panted between feasts of kisses: "Murderess--gory hag--sweet
as hell--well-beloved, by God--but cruel as the grave...."

And she, amid mixed half-pants, ranting half-words: "Oh, Cobby, you
eat----"

"Yes--food----"

"Who you love, you madman?"

"You!"

"Oh, Cobby, a dog bite us.... Me he bite, then his red teeth poison
you.... Cobby ... Cousin Cobby ... me show you own flesh and blood....
So, Cobby, now you fight, no?"

Like ice upon white-hot this fell upon him; and in the same instant they
stood separated, his soul wounded with the pernicious suspicion that
even her kisses were political, even her gales calculated, that she gave
nothing, but bartered everything, her brain ever half an inch ahead of
her heart.

"Would I not fight and die a thousand times----!" he cried out. "If your
quarrel was just, there would be no need for me to _fight_: I can
shatter and abolish a hundred African armies, just so lightly as you
brush off a fly! As it is, I will--_not_----"

Now, to _her_ mental habit both his boast and his moral motive were, of
course, equally unreal and foreign, and "What!" she shrilly cried out
with a stamp, "you say that after daring to kiss me?"

And in an instant, as in "the transformation of forces," all that
electromotive force of love changed into heat of quarrel.

"You put your hand on me!" he cried: "I did not divine that I was being
tempted, in order to be bought. I will--_not_. There are under-officers
who can command the rifles----"

"Pooh, you must be silly," she said bitterly, "if you not see that me
want _you_ to command them, and why me want."

"No, I don't see.... Why?"

"Oh, me go," she muttered disgustedly, moving toward the doorway: "me
done with you. Everybody cry out on me to kill you, but you go back
where you come from--me let you when you want."

"Good! Good! _I_ am done with you, too. I am off home--I shall forget
your long name."

"That's it!" she cried in a flush of quarrel, "you soon forget! and me
forget even your short name! You go--no good staying now--Wo-Ngwanya
turn you out--everybody say you 'fraid to fight! Our men can't stand
that."

"Ha! ha! ha!" he redly laughed, "how can you think it possible that I
could get myself to care a little what 'everybody says'? And how
insolent of you to mention----"

"You go! Me done," she called over her shoulder just at the door.

"_Come back!_" he commanded in a rush and flush of mastery, and dashed
after her.

Ten feet down she jumped, for some of those old ladder-rungs were
missing; he jumped after her; she ran, he hard after. But, as there was
no moon, and she flew straighter toward an end, he only came upon her
when she had scrambled upon a horse, whose hoofs, as she galloped off,
spattered grit into his face.

He then walked back through the palmyras with his forehead on his palm,
and, as he arrived at the ladder, someone sprang up out of the ground
and touched his shoulder--Dzinikulu.




XX

COUP D'TAT


Dzinikulu could not conceal his elation at the event of the day's
battle--Spiciewegiehotiu's prestige for unfailing victory gone--or
shaken. The fact was, he told Cobby, that a large number of Sebingwe's
men (north-west) had voluntarily flocked to join Daisy (north-east),
thus swelling the M'Niami ranks, and Spiciewegiehotiu had bitten off
more than she could chew! If the next day's engagement went against her,
her star was in disaster. Anyway, everything was ready for the carrying
off--Dzinikulu's all was staked upon it; let Cobby never be far from
Dzinikulu during the next days.

"Good!" said Cobby, sore and hot against Spiciewegiehotiu, and again
"good!" led headlong by the lust of going out of captivity, not alone,
but having his captor captive....

"But not a word of anything to Caray," Dzinikulu said. "Leave Caray
behind; me soon send him home."

"No, I am not going without Macray and Panda," Cobby answered: "I don't
understand why----"

"Well, then, we only tell Caray at the last moment--promise me that."

"Well, since you wish that. And I will wait south of the mountains till
you send me my Panda."

"You wait long, then. The man dead."

Cobby stood dumb; Dzinikulu adding: "Last thing I hear before I leave
Eshowe. Got belly-disease. Foul air. He dead at last."

"Oh, my friend!" Cobby cried out, "you died upbraiding me! Oh, how hard
of heart!"

"Eheh, she hard," Dzinikulu agreed: "but wait--maybe her sun setting.
Her day of doom dawn to-morrow."

At the hour when this was said of her she, four miles southward, was
pacing alone by the ravine's brink, leading her horse, anon peering down
into the abyss, deeply pondering; and four miles westward on higher
ground Macray was lying in bush, gazing through an Egyptian doorway into
the ruins of a temple never built by Wa-Ngwanya hands, at the far end of
which was a fire under a pot which a girl tended, and dim beyond the
fire Sueela seated on a tooled stone of the ruins before her mother
Mandaganya, who sat higher on a heap of stones, at Mandaganya's feet a
little dog, shaggy like a terrier, called "Ronja," which was always near
her, and was believed to be "a sensitive," gifted with intuitions still
quicker than the witch's.

Macray could not hear the words of their dejected speech, only its
murmur. "She very grum and angry," Sueela said: "me go to her, she not
speak to me--she not speak to anybody. She say Go away."

Mandaganya's quiet eyes that interned within them a certain slumber and
musing, rested on her daughter, as she remarked with some satisfaction:
"Now she know white man frightened to fight, now she can't help killing
him, for to-day he show himself the enemy of Wo-Ngwanya."

"No! you got it wrong," Sueela protested: "Sir Cobby not frightened to
fight--not _he_; he have some other reason."

"She love him, no?" the witch asked, peering forward.

"Eheh."

"She love him much?"

"Eheh, me think so. They in love with one another like cats fighting."

"Danger in that man," the witch said, with one eye shrinking from the
licks of a snake that lay round her brows, a band of freckles black and
red: "something hanging over her, and that man in it." Now the dog
growled a little, and uttered a _woof_--so to say; on which the
doctoress looked round, and suddenly asked: "Where Sanja?" meaning the
cook-girl, who, having gone to gather fuel, had been pounced upon by
Macray as a messenger, and now reappeared to say low to Sueela that
somebody wanted her.

"Which somebody?" demanded Mandaganya--"Caray?" and when the cook-girl
looked confused, "Better mind how you go," the doctoress said to her
daughter with a nod and eye quiet yet weighty: "me show you white man,
if it's white man you want. Spiciewegiehotiu tear out your liver, if you
go a step too far, and if she not tear it out, me tear it out."

On which Sueela, standing up, cut an eye, saying: "Oh, me not care for
_him_: me know a god; me done with men"--and, having walked away into
the darkness, said to Macray, her back on the ruin: "What you want?"

"Susie-Susie," said Macray: "_my_ Sue. What the devil has become of you?
Come on, let's get into the bush."

"No, me not going." she said, bending toward him, brushing him from each
palm with the other: "me done, done, done. Me not like vicious men."

"No? Sure, Sue-Sue? Well, but _me_ like vicious girls, you see, that's
why me dote on Sue. Look here, none of that!"--he gripped her bare arm,
hurting her--"If you fancy you're going to use me once for a lark, and
then cast me off as you've been doing, you'll find yourself up against
the wrong man. I happen to want you, and I always have what I want. You
dare try it on, and see if I don't go straight to Spiciewegiehotiu and
your mother, and tell them everything."

A menace at which heart quailed, and laid down arms. At his raised voice
the girl glanced nervously toward her mother, who, much more visible now
than previously, stood Athene-big within the sheen of a fume, greenish,
luminous, she then burning herbs and bdelliums to inhale the incense,
and enwrap herself in a state of "trance"; seeing which preoccupation,
Sueela took quietly enough the marital domineering of Macray, though in
the expression of her eyes a dangerous something smouldered.

"You hurting me," she mentioned. "How me to go with you when you see my
mother there? To-morrow after sunset you see me down the hill there."

Surrender--for the present.

"Very well.... Is that a bargain?"

"Yes." At once she walked away inward, and, as she went, her lips met
vehemently to spit out disgust and gall.

When she came again to her mother, Mandaganya stood astare with
muttering lips, the little dog whimpering piteously at her feet; and,
leaning an ear near, Sueela could hear the sybil breathe: "She
conquer--she chuckle at their rout--Cow that toss the nations.... But
beware of a tree--trouble, trouble--the heart cease beating ..." upon
which the pillar that she was staggered, to collapse sideward upon the
pile of stones, and lie quiet over the little Ronja, which huddled with
shudderings under her.

Sueela then spread rugs for her mother, then picked a little supper with
the little finger cocked aloft (this being considered _chic_!), then the
long pipe, she clasping her knees, meditation in her eyes, then to sleep
in fits; and before the sun rose was carrying out of the ruin her saddle
of lamb-skin, to mount her Mustapha, and gallop a league nearer the
front.

At the hut chosen by the Queen for herself Sueela was told that the
Queen had gone abroad long before, and, riding on toward the river, she
presently spied Spiciewegiehotiu among a number of men near the ravine;
stopping to watch, she saw that a branch had been hacked from a tamarind
tree and lashed to the tree's bottom, with one end projecting over the
ravine's edge; and presently when an officer crawled along to that
projecting end, the watcher's heart started to see him dash himself
apparently down the precipice, the little crowd peering to see his
ruin.

Then another went, and it was the same--he vanished; then
Spiciewegiehotiu went--and vanished; and now Sueela, with a catch of the
breath that laughed, said: "Oh, there must be a rope"; but, even so,
when she peered over the edge, her toes went cold, the scene of
steepness and granite crag was so colossal, grand, and cosmic, on so
solemn a scale, making men seem mosquitos. Till then no mortal had ever
thought of going down that gulf.

Sueela ran nearer until she could actually see the rope of if, but
since bush here and there lay on the cliff-wall, she could not see
Spiciewegiehotiu, who, going down with her toes on the rock anon, was
now not forty feet from the bottom, when she halted to look down and
call crossly to the two men already down: "Why you not move away from
there?" for they, just below, like astrologers watching the ruin of the
moon, were musing on the athletics of her descent, but now, at her
outcry of protest, strolled with a sullen reluctance away; and "come,"
she said breathlessly the moment her foot touched bottom, and ran toward
the sun--a rough voyage, all rocks and jumps and bush; on to where the
river above came down, and changed to smokes that intoned, out of which
they emerged drenched, to spurt on earnest, urgent, she ever ahead,
losing never a moment, along the torrent's course, through a caon anon
so narrow, that there was scarcely space to step without wading through
wet.

The sun grew hot, the going was hot, the two officers threw off
karosses, anon tossed sweat from the forehead, but Spiciewegiehotiu was
so constituted, that she could toil gaily along without heat or fatigue;
and when three zebras broke from brake, and galloped away before them,
her gaiety of gait grew yet gayer, her legs got wings, and "Na! my
children," she sang out to them, "we coming to something--me feel the
breeze of my luck on me," for the zebras meant an exit, which was what
she was reconnoitring to find; and, as she went, she kept an eye on
their spoor.

After two hours of it she was walking up a ledge with the river left
well below on her right; and before long was peering out across the
plain at Daisy's army all to the west of her, and no sentries anywhere
near the ravine, believed to be inaccessible.

This was what she had scented and sought: and back she started, making
such haste, that long before noon she was back at the rope; and, on
being drawn up, saw accomplished what she had commanded--an impi posted
with its right on the ravine, and a large number of branches lashed to
trees, carrying ropes that hung into the abyss.

As soon as she arrived she ordered an attack by all the army, except the
rifles and the impi at the ravine--a feint attack meant to keep the
enemy busy. By one o'clock Daisy had flung it back to its stockades,
then himself retreated, himself seriously bleeding, for the Wa-Ngwanya
had battled like devils. And again soon after two Spiciewegiehotiu
launched an attack with the same orders, which had the same result; but
now, in that hour of repeated defeat, to each regiment, as it rested,
she sent out strychnia (orange-cider) and a message: "Spiciewegiehotiu
say Daisy done. Still one struggle for you before sunset, and then you
drink victory like strychnia."

Meantime, even her own troops supposed that the impi posted near the
ravine was still there; but all these hours the three rear-ranks of its
four ranks had, squad by squad, been descending into the ravine with
ration and weapon; of them two men only, having lost nerve, hurtled to
death at the bottom; the others, fourteen thousand, having passed down
the caon, cast themselves upon the back of the M'Niami army in a moment
when the sunset battle was at its hottest: there they suddenly came
hurtling, like hosts of spectres hurled up howling out of the hole of
hell; and never was surprise more wild, or fright more wide-eyed. The
M'Niami army ran a rabble north-westward, like cataract-waters along the
only path open to them, and cast no eye behind: the Wa-Ngwanya in the
half-dark darted after.

Among the last of the pursuers, cantering in a troop of six horsemen,
was Spiciewegiehotiu, who suddenly drew rein, laughed, and remarked: "Me
weary," for since daybreak, toiling constantly with brain and body, she
had tasted nothing; and, as one of her six, a household-officer, carried
a basket stuffed with foods and drink, soon the group was within the
cave of a tree, where one M'Niami lay dead on his face with them, they
seated round platters of wood on a skin, she carousing _en bon camarade_
with her guests like a man-of-the-world among men, quaffing her liquor
in a flush of spirits, all gossip and comment on the day's events; ever
she said: "Na! my children"; and when one fellow said, "Yesterday me
'fraid the Queen get speared," she winked, and snapped her fingers,
remarking: "Na! my children, the iron that is to pierce Spiciewegiehotiu
not yet smelted!"--till all at once all were on their feet, pierced with
the iron of the spear of fear, the tree surrounded, Dzinikulu filling
the opening that looked southward, saying dryly, with a leg cocked:
"Spiciewegiehotiu, you mine: me send you back to your own country."

Spiciewegiehotiu stood quite white, while half a chuckle, silly,
hysteric, escaped her.

The brief twilight was done, but nut-tapers within the tree revealed
her.

As Dzinikulu spoke, a clatter of hoofs was heard, and Cobby turned up in
the same instant that two of the Queen's six, having recovered their
wits, made a dash to use their short-spears (stabbers), and die; and
even as the Queen called to them "Stop!" one dropped dead in the
tree-entrance.

On which Dzinikulu, pale, but master of himself, said: "Come,
lady--nothing to fear--everybody treat you well. You come, no?"

She bent her head in consent; whereupon Cobby, outside the tree, bid
Dzinikulu send now for Macray.

"Where Caray is?" Dzinikulu asked, and when Cobby answered: "Other side
of the river somewhere," Dzinikulu shrugged, muttering, "Big space,
'somewhere,'" while Spiciewegiehotiu, with a conjurer-quickness,
whispered to the nearest of her five: "_Caray with Sueela_"--which
chanced to be true, though she did not suppose it true; but she hoped
that, if one seeking Macray went to Sueela, Sueela might scent out what
had happened.

At the same time Cobby said to Dzinikulu: "He won't be far--let him know
now."

On which the fellow to whom the Queen had whispered volunteered
information: "Me see Sir Caray go out to the ruin to see the lady
Sueela, if you want Sir Caray."

And now Dzinikulu beckoned to an officer of his to say to him: "Go, find
Sir Caray. Say Come to Sir Cobby. If he ask why, say you not know. If he
talking to anybody, wait till he done. If he with the lady Sueela, she
on our side, but if she ask where the Queen is, better say you not know.
You not know anything yet."

And off the officer galloped.




XXI

SUEELA SPEEDS


Beyond the river the officer discovered a servant of Macray who told him
that Macray had ridden westward: and off for the hills he galloped.

The back of the ruin, whose front looked down on the cliff, presently
appearing on the night-sky, he cantered up a bush-path toward it,
hearing before him a man singing--Macray, who on his sauntering horse
was singing aloud, "We shall meet in the sweet by and by"; and soon the
messenger was saying to him: "Sir Caray, Sir Cobby say Come at once."

To which Macray, "in drink," answered: "What's it all about? Not I. Let
Mahomet come to the mountain, my boy. Tell him Sir Caray going to meet
the sweetest lady in the land. Tell him----" But now at a bend Sueela
appeared before him.

She started at the presence of another with him, and started afresh when
she heard the known voice of a Dzinikulu officer say: "Oh, you better:
Sir Cobby say Come quick."

"Sue," Macray remarked, "they want to drag me away--not likely!"

"You come to see my mother, no?" Sueela said, for reputation's sake,
adding: "But, if Sir Cobby want you ..."

"Let Sir Cobby hang himself."

"So where Sir Cobby is?" Sueela now asked the messenger; and when he
answered: "Beyond the river," her heart started, her wits quickened,
and, standing at the shoulder of Macray's horse, she asked: "And the
Queen--where she now, Sintowe?"

"Me not know," was the answer: "maybe chasing the enemy."

But "not know" and "maybe" rang untrue; and in a moment more Sueela
cried out "Oh!" in a tone of pain, and fell.

"Why, what's wrong?" cried Macray.

"Oh! the horse stamp on my foot," Sueela mourned.

"Oh, my Sue!" rued Macray, dismounting, "damn the half a horse," and, as
he bent over her, she whispered him quick: "Tell him to send Sanja to
me."

On which Macray said to the messenger: "You gallop on up and tell her
servant Sanja to come with a bandage," and, as the officer galloped off,
Sueela eagerly said, "My foot not hurt, but me think maybe the Queen
captured."

At once Macray was sober and alert. "You think that?"

"Eheh. How Sir Cobby come to send a Dzinikulu man? Maybe when Daisy fly,
she follow with only a few men, and Dzinikulu take her--my mother say
she in danger. You go with this man across the river, then try to find
out where she is, and which way they taking her; then gallop back to me:
me wait for you near the river."

"Right!"

"Now me go on up: you wait here for Sintowe. Maybe when he call Sanja,
my mother hear, and, if she find me with you, she kill me."

At once she ran, then when the messenger reappeared, went limping,
seeing with him, not only Sanja, but, to her horror, her mother coming,
a tower trotting, a board of a box in her hand.

As they met, Sueela, braving the peril from her mother, mentioned to the
messenger: "He down there waiting for you"; on which the messenger
cantered on down, and in the same moment the board descended on her
head.

She collapsed upon the path, and like one chopping wood with a measured
process, Mandaganya steadily banged the bent head, with _humphs_ of the
bosom that ever uttered "_white man_." Up the doctoress heaved, and, as
down she brought the board, out of her bosom sounded "_white man_"; and
up it went, and down came, with "_white man_"--like a mechanism acting,
until at last the excellent girl's skull proved harder than the board,
which split.

Such was the consolation which Mandaganya gave to an instep supposed to
be crushed....

But now it was Sueela's turn to strike; and, picking herself up with dry
eyes, dryly she remarked: "You done? Well, listen to this: me think
Spiciewegiehotiu kidnapped"--making Mandaganya faint.

Meantime, Macray was cantering eastward, his wits on the _qui vive_, but
seeming easy and careless; anon he hummed; anon offered drink from a
flask to the officer; and, east of the river, asked: "What Sir Cobby
want me for?"

"He going from Wo-Ngwanya," the other answered, seeing no reason to be
secret now.

"I guessed as much," Macray said. "He has got the Queen, then, has he?"

"You soon see."

"I see already. Well, good job--I'm glad enough to be getting home. So
how many men has Dzinikulu with him?"

"About seventy."

"All mounted?"

"Eheh: they officers."

"And which way are we going out of Wo-Ngwanya?"

"Along the foot-hills near the sea."

"Sea" was his last word on earth, he dropping shot by Macray's revolver,
then his horse dropping; and Macray was racing back westward.

A little east of the river he met Sueela on her Mustapha speeding to
meet him; and "They have her," he said: "seventy horses ... taking her
the sea way ..."

Her hands met wringing on her rein. "Oh, Caray, you do what me tell you,
no?" she pleaded--"me give you all--if they take her, me dead, dead,
dead. So you fly to Eshowe, no? The cavalry that she sent home--tell
them to ride through the Lion's Pass: maybe you catch them up half-way
to Eshowe. Show them this ring from me: say Spiciewegiehotiu gone, gone,
say fly! You change horses at Bundhlwana's Kraal--come, me give you a
guide"--and westward across the river they galloped together to the
rifles, who alone of the fighting army were not out after the flying
M'Niami; and, even while her stallion ran, Sueela was leaping down to a
rifle-lieutenant named M'Pandiu, to pant at him her passion of tidings.

"But me have no orders--me daren't move," M'Pandiu in a torment of
perplexity informed her, upon which, this M'Pandiu having been her lover
in her twelfth year, she took him by the shoulders, half-kneeling,
beseeching him: "Me good to you--me give you all--M'Pandiu--you _will_,
no?--for me--" by which she achieved that within five minutes Macray was
off, galloping westward with one of the riflemen as guide, and within
ten she herself in the midst of a squad of fifteen riflemen--all who
could get horses quickly--was galloping south-westward for the pass
called Molimo's (God's) Pass.

Eastward, meantime, cantered the troop of seventy with Spiciewegiehotiu
and her five, she on a horse not her own in the van with Dzinikulu, to
escape the dust of the hoofs, for it was late September, final end of
the dry season, and turbulent breezes from the sea turned the herd of
hoof-beats into a whirl of dust which journeyed and journeyed; and with
Spiciewegiehotiu and Dzinikulu ahead rode a little troop of officers,
behind them Cobby on his Ali.

She had uttered no word to anyone, nor Cobby a word to her, in his
nerves a shrinking of compunction for her, a prick of contrition. But,
as on she travelled, the hilarity of the gale and of the flight overcame
her grumness of pride, she threw away her helmet, taking the gale in her
face and hair, and, touched with gaiety, occasionally made a
good-tempered remark to Dzinikulu--always some comment on his conduct of
the _coup_. "Why you not do it yesterday when Daisy beat me, Prince?"
she demanded: "to-day when me victorious, and the people full of me, me
think you run too much risk"--her intellect always preoccupied with
strategy, with conduct, with the God's truth as to what one should best
do to gain one's ends in any given group of events. And presently again
she remarked: "Why you have all these men with you? Me shouldn't have
had half so many, if it had been me, or me should have had ten times
more. They too many for some reasons, and too few for others." And
presently again: "That man you sent to bring Sir Caray ought to have
caught us up before this. Me think Caray kill him, and then tell Sueela
me captured. _Why_ you sent for Caray? Me see six risks for you in that!
If Sueela know to-night, me think you fail."

"Sueela on my side!" cried out Dzinikulu.

At which she cast back her head, and laughed with the winds. "The trees
pink, you think?" she asked: "people who reckon wrong die young,
Prince."

Some minutes afterwards the cavalcade stopped at a village called
Masinka's Kraal, where some provisions and forage awaited it on
sumpter-mules; and soon was off anew through Daisy-territory, a granite
country with reefs of quartz anon, and granite kopies, and frequent
forests, and mountain on the right, a ride of gloom, until at two the
moon rose, they now going south among hills of porphyritic granite, rich
in copper, whence at one spot a sheet of sea appeared tossing in sleep
under sheen of the moon, and Spiciewegiehotiu, peering at the scenery of
it and the _Florida_ on its rocks, drew up, and would not move on.

Presently after which the cavalcade was making westward over plain south
of the mountains; while away to the west Sueela and her fifteen were
finishing the descent of the mountains through a chasm formed by a vast
dyke of trap, whence, as dawn broke, they spied the southern gateway of
the gorge; and there, sending out a scout, paused. Almost without food,
the men shared with Sueela a bag of groundnuts which she had snatched,
giving tree-leaves to their nags.

It was broad day when their scout came tearing back, chased up the
foot-hills before the gorge by three riders; upon which rifle-fire broke
out of bush at the gorge's mouth, causing the three pursuing riders to
bite the dust. But the news brought by the scout was already known--that
Dzinikulu was on a kopie a league to the east and south, apparently
waiting for something.

"Waiting, maybe, for Sir Cobby's waggons from Eshowe," Sueela said.

Her plan now was (1) to strike terror, and (2) to gain time: so soon she
had out an envoy, bearing a branch of embassy; and he, a hundred yards
from the kopie, where he was met by Dzinikulu, Cobby and some others,
uttered his message: "The lady Sueela say Why the Prince carry off the
Queen like this? That was foolishness. The lady Sueela has 150 rifles
with her, and Wo-Ngwanya rushing like a river to interview the prince.
Let the prince send the Queen back quick, then the lady Sueela guarantee
the safety of the rebels."

Here for Dzinikulu was set-back in business. He swept his palm down his
beard, glancing back at the Queen, who was walking round and round the
kopie's top, her hands behind her, eyeing the flight of the clouds.

"Sueela lie," he said: "she only have a few with her: we soon kill
them."

But now Cobby spoke: he was not there to kill; and there was dissension.

In the end the envoy was sent back with the _threat_ that Sueela's
handful would be killed.

And presently there came to the kopie another envoy with threats, and
was sent back with threats; and then another. Meanwhile the sun was
mounting for Sueela toward noon.

And now arose dust-cloud in the west--cavalry sent by Macray; and
Spiciewegiehotiu, peering at it through her field-glass over one of the
boulders that formed a parapet to the kopie, remarked to the Prince with
her detached and disinterested interest in strategy: "It was too risky,
Prince!"

And now on the kopie were speculative brows perplexed with crosses
prospecting over the plain, and now bloodshed for Cobby, whether he
liked it or not, life at stake for all, and woe to the conquered. Came
and came the dust-cloud; out dashed Sueela and her handful, galloping,
to meet it; and it was still forenoon when the kopie was within a ring
of horses; spear, arrow and bullet going; man and beast feasting
together on the taste of death.

The defenders, though they had some cover, were crowded together in
comparison with the attackers, and, since on the kopie were but five
firearms, of which Cobby's rifle was idle, the knot of kopie horses
dropped fast: seeing which, Dzinikulu was for seating the Queen on a
horse, and leading it round the kopie, so that the besiegers, fearing to
pierce her, might leave off; but here again was veto from Cobby, and
dissension.

"We all going to be killed!" exclaimed Dzinikulu in an epilepsy of
debate: "you say no to everything!"

And Cobby, all blanched, answered, "She will refuse to be made a target,
unless you bind her.... Would you bind her?"

"Yes! Why not?" cried Dzinikulu.

"Well, if anyone touches her, I fell him," said Cobby.

She, seated in leafage under cover of a rock at the kopie's
circumference, could not hear what was said, but could see dissension,
could see the slaughter going on among some of the horses, and the
growing revolt of the others, and greyness of terror in every face.

During all which Cobby's waggons turned up westward, halting some
hundreds of yards outside the circle of attackers, to be abandoned by
the Dzinikulu men with them, who, on seeing how things were, at once
fled.

Upon those waggons dwelt Cobby's glass: there was that within them which
could compel and shatter Africa allied with Asia....

But the attackers were much the more numerous, were closing in, throwing
surer: and disarray ensued, some of the mob of kopie horses going
dog-mad, rearing loose to scoot down the steep, and range the plain in a
lunacy of mutiny and freedom; in the midst of which Dzinikulu and two
others in debate came to a decision without Cobby--to fly, taking
Spiciewegiehotiu, through Daisy-territory, to the kingdom of Sabingwe
(Wo-Mashenya), who had for the Queen an evil will. To do her then and
there to death they feared--feared Cobby's repeater, feared the frenzy
of the people.

The Prince then trotted all breathless to Cobby to pant asthmatic: "The
day lost! We fly with her--to Sebingwe--he treat her well--from there
you take her to your country."

Upon which Cobby, flying away to Spiciewegiehotiu with a wild white
face, the Prince's rasping breast trotting ponderously after, panted at
her: "We make a rush-through with you--We can force you to come,
remember, by Heaven ... Do you come?"

She did not answer, did not see, him. To Dzinikulu, looking up, she
said: "Me come," and sprang from the ground.

And in some minutes she, with the Prince and two, and Cobby on his Ali,
were clattering down the rock-side, a cataract of hoofs, whose impetus
easily broke a road eastward through the streams of spears speeding to
intercept, the presence of the Queen, whose rein the Prince himself
held, acting as a shield to the fugitives on one side, the pursuers
fearing to strike her; and as all the fugitives were much better horsed,
they had won well ahead of the foremost of the pursuers, when they
became conscious of a solitary horse, stretched and staring, hunting
them, Sueela's Mustapha, Sueela like a monkey on its mane.

She had raced from the west region of the ring of attackers, passing not
far south of the kopie eastward, braving the rain of spear and arrow
that the kopie spat out at her, she pleading to her animal's ear, and
soon was within a stone's-throw of the fugitives; upon which
Spiciewegiehotiu, having spied that she had a rifle, shouted aloud:
"Stop, Prince, or you all get shot!"

At the same time one of the two blacks with Dzinikulu, who had a
carbine, fired behind, but wide; and in the next second Sueela fired,
not at the Prince, whom she flinched from injuring, but at his horse,
which faltered, pitched, and knelt wrecked, pitching the Prince forward
among thorns of mimosa bush.

His two blacks galloped on, and got away eastward, Cobby was off
southward; but ere the Prince could pick himself up, he was a prisoner
within a ring of spears, while the Queen and Sueela, on foot, on each
other's bosom, were looking, not at each other, but dumbly away at the
sheet of spears aimed at Cobby by his chasers. "Me go stop them," Sueela
suddenly muttered, on which the Queen pushed her a little toward her
Mustapha, and she was off.

But Cobby was well ahead of all, and well horsed. He, in a redness of
resentment at fate and the black man, had started out to get at his
waggons--instinctively, to be in his citadel; and after making a large
detour southward, then westward, a wound in his right calf, he lighted
from his Ali upon one of the waggons well in time to get his little
Vickers belted and pointed upon the oncoming mob of horsemen. Now he was
lord of continents. He had thumbs on thumb-pieces to play them a
piano-tune of quaver and semi-quaver, zip and zip-zip, but--did not; did
not will to kill; and within three minutes stood a prisoner in the midst
of a pretty furious troop of them.

Presently after which the kopie surrendered ...

And near three in the afternoon the Queen, making northward through
Molimo's Pass with her tail of prisoners, was met by half her army
darting to her rescue, bearing, too, the news that Daisy's great-place
had been taken; and when, in the gloaming, she approached her capital,
she was like a mote floating on an Atlantic of humanity madly dancing,
howling hozannas, all the town of Eshowe with her war-host now swarming
like many waters sounding about her, she seated uplifted on a waggon in
the seat of Cobby's monoplane, little dreaming that the thing might fly
away with her; and, riding beside her, Sueela, at whom she ever pointed,
animated, laughing, as who should say: "_She_ did it! dance to _her_!"
and on foot behind her, tired to death, tied together, Dzinikulu and
Cobby.




XXII

SUEELA WASHED WHITE


For Dzinikulu now was solitude in his guarded hut, till, five days after
the fiasco of the kidnapping, he began to undergo due trial in the
_kotla_, or square, the Queen keeping out of it in her hut, not herself
sitting a judge. But by _her_ the judges had been chosen.

Day after day half the square was packed, hanging upon the witnesses, a
wide swing-round of feeling in favour of the Prince having arisen and
spread, a wild hope that he might survive. _He_ was Wo-Ngwanya;
Spiciewegiehotiu, after all, a novelty out of the sea and the clouds, a
being full of lucks and glories, but not the rank old Africa of God.

Men said now that the Prince had been tempted and led astray by the
white man. And the question was, why was this white man, who, though so
strangely favoured, had shrunk from going forward against Daisy, and had
almost caused the loss of the war, why was _he_ not there on his trial
with the Prince and the rest, but kept smuggled away in "The Elephant"?
Was the Prince by chance to die, and not he, the cause of all? That
would be Justice! This was a sore and jealous point with Wo-Ngwanya, and
the name of Cobby, though it stank, was in every mouth.

Then a rumour flew--none knew its source--that Cobby was about to be
banished, but not killed, lest the king of his country, who was known to
rule over huge hosts in the blue of the sea, should bring trouble upon
Wo-Ngwanya: and the sowing of this rumour produced some diminution in
the tumult of tongues.

But when, in the fifth twilight of the trial, the Prince and many others
were condemned to death, a dumbness of awe and sorrow fell upon the
populace, and a sense of resentment.

That night Dzinikulu in his hut attempted suicide; but failed to die.

And this only enhanced the emotion of tragic pity and shrinking now
associated with the Prince. Some of the wizards, braving the resentment
of Mandaganya, now afresh insisted that his death would be unholy,
passionately a filth, a shudder, and spat out the notion; and to
Spiciewegiehotiu came deputations--chieftain and headman from afar,
General and Chief-of-the-tax, in twos, threes, tens: let her slay the
rest, before all the white firebrand, but reprieve the Prince, last of
the old Race. The first of these the Queen received quietly, heard
silently; with the third she flew into a passion; the rest she heard
with respect, weighing their words, without saying anything.

On the fourth day after his condemnation, at an hour when the dusks of
sundown were already come, the death-drum sounded for Dzinikulu in the
Square. Many people were then hoping for his reprieve; few were present.
He was carried in a cart, so that it might not be seen that he could not
now stand without support; and he was borne bodily to the block, moaning
in pain, but quite composed to die. As his greying head fell, those
present covered their faces, gave out a groan, and suddenly fled away in
every direction to utter the story of his cutting off.

But he was no sooner dead than the rumour was being busily bruited that
the Prince had been arm-in-arm with Daisy, and had meant to betray the
army--a baseless rumour, doubtless; and his death had been so timed,
that on the very day following arrived the war-indemnity from Daisy,
multitudes of cattle lowing in the _kotla_, crass souls spattering
cataracts of droppings, with profligacies of slaughter, and free feeding
to render the populace gay and forgetful.

And in the following days they saw the beheadal of all the Prince's
known confederates--a hecatomb of blood. No pleading could rescue, no
plea prevail, Fate not deafer than the ear of the Queen. "Only the
white man survive," Wo-Ngwanya said.

He, meanwhile, lay dark--and sick: fever!--perhaps from the arrow-wound
in his calf, or from that sightless air, or from his mind.

This time he was alone in his room--that he might the better reflect
perhaps; this time had no electric hand-lamp; when he was delirious,
within and without darkness reigned for him, and his home was in the
realm of the old Anarch Chaos.

Always his warders asked him why he did not send a message to the
Sinder-ngabya (Guardian of the Sad): but he would do nothing but suffer.

However, it became known outside that he was sick. Sueela one night
heard it at her mother's, and flew home with the news.

Yet it was some time before, lying in a vine-arbour, looking out at
moonlight, she uttered: "Cobby sick."

Spiciewegiehotiu did not answer.

And presently again Sueela, restively: "How long he got to be in that
place?"

Spiciewegiehotiu glanced coldly aside at her. "Why you ask?"

"You only hurting yourself, my girl!" cried out Sueela.

"No, me pleasing myself. Me warned him! Now let him suffer, and think.
When me hit me hurt. It is cruel to punish and not punish enough."

"So you keep him in that filthy hole whether he sick or well,
Spiciewegiehotiu?"

"Yes. You sorry?"

"And if he die?"

Spiciewegiehotiu shrugged.

At which shrug Sueela started, shrinking, breathing "My God!" and again
the Queen's glance dwelt with high eyebrows and icy eye-corners on her.

So the next day Sueela went to Mandaganya, and knelt saying: "Ma-Sueela,
go to him! You go, no? Maybe you do him good."

Upon which the doctoress studied her under a puzzled frown. "Why you
care like this?"

"You think me not love him to my heart?" the daughter frankly answered
with a sob: "but not like another man--you not understand--Cobby a
god--he very good, he very great--you hear how he cut off those three
soldiers' legs, and they not know! they not feel any pain! and now they
hop about.... You go, no?"

And presently the mother said: "Eheh, me go, me go": and the next day
went.

To her no permission to visit was necessary: the doors flew open, the
prison-men prostrating themselves before her presence; and, sitting with
her little dog by Cobby's bed, gorgeous reds of torchlight on her
visage, she said to him: "You my enemy: you want to carry off my Queen;
but you sick, me come to see you, me bring you medicine."

Water sprang to Cobby's eyes; he caught and kissed her hand.

"Why you not send a message to Spiciewegiehotiu?" the sybil asked, her
hand on his forehead: "say Me burning with fever; say Let me out."

He tossed for ease, moaning: "Never that--never that."

"Spiciewegiehotiu good-hearted," she told him: "but, if she let you out,
everybody say: See! Dzinikulu dead, but the white man free, and----"

"Is Dzinikulu dead?"

"Eheh, he well dead; no more Dzinikulu. They say you tempt him, but _he_
tempt _you_: he _well_ dead: me dance naked on his grave.... But tell me
something me can do for you."

He clung to her hand. "Oh, some light--quinine--my medicine-chest----"

She asked, and he told her, how to discover the medicine-box, which two
days later came to him; nor after that was he ever long without the
solace of the shine of a torch in his night; and while Mandaganya was
being rowed homeward through the gloom under "The Elephant's" rock-roof
she performed a spell with snake-bones for his benefit.

On reaching her home, where she found Sueela awaiting her, she reported
that Cobby was truly ill: on which Sueela went back to the sigodhlo with
a fixed lip, and in the deep night-time, seated naked on her bed with
hugged knees, while the Queen paced the hut in a glum light, she
ventured to break a silence with the statement: "Cobby very sick."

"How you know?" asked Spiciewegiehotiu, half-halting in her walking.

"My mother been to see him."

Spiciewegiehotiu span sharply to say: "What for? Tell Mandaganya mind
her own business!"

"My goodness! he sick! You not care?"

"No! Me not care! Tell everybody mind their own business!"

"All right. But if a cow sick, they give it medicine. Sometimes of a
morning ten or twelve people used to wait for him at the sigodhlo gate,
and he give them medicine; but when he sick, in prison, nobody give him
medicine.... Suppose he--die----"

"Let him die," said the Queen, with a vixen vindictiveness and fixity of
lip.

Sueela cut a nod of menace. "Maybe he do; you better be careful!"

"Oh, he not going to die!"--Spiciewegiehotiu laughed a little.

"How you know? The Zulu, Panda, die there. Maybe he die, then--what? No
more Cobby: the doves stop cooing, the winds stop blowing: you know you
love him to your heart, Spiciewegiehotiu. And why you keep him there?
Dzinikulu gone now: Cobby never again can attempt to take you away--he
got no friends, no help. You say you always have reasons: so why you
keep him there? You bring him out to-morrow, no?"

At which Spiciewegiehotiu flew into a passion, crying out: "Now, isn't
this too much? Don't ask me again!--never. You think me going to give
_reasons_?"

"Me done," Sueela sullenly muttered, and shut up with resentment.

But the next day Cobby's medicine-chest was sought for; on the next he
got it; close upon which followed fruit brought him by Macray, who
stooped into the room, saying: "What, baas, in again, you jail-bird? How
long you in for this stretch?"

At once Cobby wished to know how it was that Macray, when sent for after
the kidnapping, had failed to join Dzinikulu and him! To which Macray
answered: "Didn't know I was sent for--nobody came. If anyone had, I
shouldn't have gone. No 'Elephantiasis' for me, baas, thanks. I warned
that fool of a Dzinikulu that he'd get his head off sure, and I warned
you. I think you might follow my advice a little, inkoos: I know my way
about.... I hear you got wounded?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's all to the good--the whole incident. You now see definitely
that you can't carry off the girl, and she sees that she had better send
you away. We are to be 'banished,' as they say, though--why is the girl
waiting? For you to get better, or what? I went to ask her, and she
wouldn't see me--damn her! I hate the white nigger like poison. She had
better be quick, for my cigars are nearly done, and when they are, I
start kicking, I make some sort of a bust-up somehow. I can't smoke this
Wo-Ngwanya tobacco, and I'm not going to be done out of smoking for
anybody. When I'm really hurt, I kick--I tell you frankly--I make a
bust-up. So hurry up, baas! get well. Then we do a dart, you and I, and
old Sue, and the waggons. Sue's mine now, you know, though she don't
quite realize it yet. She and I plighted our troth in the canes one
night----"

Cobby moaned, Macray's presence proving an added arrow in the quiverful
of quinine-and-fever arrows whizzing here and there within his brain.
Great, however, is quinine; so that a week later he was on his legs,
weak and wrecked, but pacing; and that day yet a visitor stooped for him
into the room--a very young officer apparently, erect and gallant as a
masquerade in cock's-tail and ox-tail and kaross of ocelot-pelt,
carrying the long assegai and shield, whom Cobby did not recognize in
that vague sheen of his torch.

"Well?" he asked when they were alone: "who----?"

She shrank aghast at his haggardness, breathing: "My goodness! you so
sick?"

"Sueela?"

"Eheh. Why you not lying down? My God, you very sick."

"Only very weak now. You come to see me! Secretly?"

"Eheh. Me dead, if anybody know. Me can't help---- Oh, _why_ you so
sick?" Now her face muscles convulsed towards tears.

"You dear!" said Cobby, with water in his eyes: "come to see me? You
dear!"

"You think me could help?"--in a hoarse tone in her throat, her face
averted: "you think me not love you?"

Swaying with weakness, he went to take her hand, and gaze
contemplatively down upon her, saying: "Sueela, do you love me?"

On which she was passionately on her knees to him, smoothing his hands
down and down, her fingers stretched tense, saying: "Oh, me love you too
much--only _me_ know.... Me going to beg you to give me three
kisses--not now--some time--me steal them from Spiciewegiehotiu---- You
will, no?"

"Poor dear. Yes, yes, of course."

"You so good, so great. Only three--then all my life me not care what
happen to me, me say 'he kiss me three times.' Not all the same day--one
one day--then the next another day--then the last, last one another day.
Spiciewegiehotiu not know: when me dying--my mother say me born to die
young--when me dying me tell Spiciewegiehotiu 'he kiss me three times,'
and she forgive me. But before you kiss me, me tell you something--who
me to tell it to but you? me not good--me go somewhere with Caray, once,
and with others before: me _shamed_! Now me done, done: that never
happen to me any more. So you forgive me, no?"

"Yes! Yes!" Cobby answered with nods, "till seventy times, dear," and
lifting her up, kissed her cheek.

"That not one of the three!" she cried out, pleased, all shy
eye-corners, leering.

"No, no, that's not one," he consented.

Then she said: "Now me make you lie down, and give you
sorrel-drink"--she had gourd and cup--"and me get you out of this
stinking den this day; if me not get you out, me tear myself to
pieces"--an undertaking which, by an exhibition of no little cunning and
skill, she fulfilled: for, on going from "The Elephant," and on changing
into her girl's dress in the grounds of a girl friend, she hurried to
Mandaganya, into whose presence she burst with a theatrical abandonment
of despair, crying out: "Cobby dying!"

"How you know?" breathed the sybil.

Sueela poured out the falsehood that one of the warders had informed his
daughter of it, and, "Oh, Ma-Sueela, quick!" she pleaded: "you go to
Spiciewegiehotiu, no? Say He die! Say The dog yowl! Say Bring him out
this day!"

Meditatively the doctoress eyed her, remarking: "Me think you lying."

"Oh, Ma-Sueela, you stop to think?" asked the excellent girl with
reproach: "go! go _now_!"--and before long the doctoress was off to do
it.

Through which it happened that before sunset Cobby lay stretched in his
lounge-chair in his old "guest-hut" in the sigodhlo, his old attendants
about him. His enfeeblement being extreme, anon he dozed, and anon tore
his eyes open to see the lights flicker at wind, and listen awhile to
raids of rain on the door, and doze anew; until a little sound like an
"_Oh!_" of shock roused him, and he saw Spiciewegiehotiu within the
doorway shrinking with astonishment and shock at the sight of him lying
there so washed-out, so languid, exsanguined; then she ran to him, and
knelt with her arm round him, speechless, her cheek on his; and when he
felt the streaming of her tears that wet his cheek, he himself wept
plenteously, and, without saying anything, they wept so together, till
she got out on the sound of a sob in a broken voice: "So you get well,
no? now me near you. And now you do everything me tell you, no?"

"Yes," he answered on a sob, "and you everything that I tell you."




XXIII

SUEELA CHANGING SIDES


Now, the liberation of Cobby and his reinstatement in the sigodhlo
astonished everybody: but upon Macray it had a profound effect, the
bitter suspicion now visiting him that there must be something sweet
between Cobby and the Queen: in which case--what? Cobby might yet get
her to Europe! and all Macray's fat be in the fire. If Cobby did not get
_her_, she would keep _Cobby_, and, with Cobby, Macray. But Macray's
cigars were smoked--an important fact; and weary now in general of
Wo-Ngwanya, especially since Sueela had "turned good," he was urgent to
return to Europe.

Three evenings after Cobby's release he went to visit Cobby, to discover
what was what, and come to some decision.

But outside Cobby's door he heard a murmur of voices in the hut, and,
peeping at a seam between the door-boards, could see Cobby in
candle-light on his lounge-chair, and, kneeling near Cobby, a young
officer, whose posture of body and mind, whose face of affection, whose
play of eye and hand, were hardly those of a young officer; and before
long Macray was saying to himself: "Oh, it's _she_--the two beasts."

This scene had the effect of a profound upheaval in the soul of Macray:
accustomed to be deified and preferred, to consider the sun and the
earth his, he was churned in his depths to a turgidness of jealousy, a
venom of enmity.

Not a word of the murmuring could he make out, but there he remained,
smiling over a viper's-nest of emotions.

Sueela had started at a little sound of his step on the moss outside,
had sharply breathed "What that?" and, though Cobby had heard nothing,
she had continued to hearken, hushed, eyeing the silence, then had
remarked: "Oh, it very dangerous! Suppose----!"

"Better not come again, then," he said. "But I am glad you came, for I
wanted to put to you this that I have been saying. Spiciewegiehotiu has
afresh betrayed to me, not only that she will never go with me, but that
she has no intention that _I_ shall ever go, this talk of 'banishing' me
being mere talk for some reason of her own. So here am I condemned to
lifelong idleness and ripening. Of course, I can escape to-morrow: I can
go through the air; but then I should be leaving Macray behind, and that
I mustn't do."

Sueela's expression was all perplexity. "How you mean--'go through the
air'?"

"I can fly."

"Fly.... Up in the air? Like a devil?"

"Or like an angel. But whatever I do, whether I stay, or whether I go, I
shall be in equal misery, if I go without Spiciewegiehotiu, who is half
of me, and where she is not I am a fish out of water. And what I do not
understand is that _you_, who love her so much, and love me, too, should
be opposed to her going with me. I can only suppose that you don't
conceive how much this would be for her good---- What are you staring
at, black goose?"

"How you mean 'fly'? Not up in the--air?"

"Yes, I tell you. You must understand that animals with two legs, men
and birds, are meant, not only to fly, but, sooner or later, to spend
their life in the air, spurning the earth. And when I tell you that
Europeans can already fly, and when you see how very far Africans are
from doing any such thing, do you not see, too, that that is not true
friendship to Spiciewegiehotiu to be on her side in her refusal to come
to Europe, where, being opulent, she would enjoy far vaster powers and
delights, and be like a lark let out of a cage?"

She stared at him. "What you want me to do?"

"Nothing, dear," he said: "only to be on my side in sympathy, so you
should be, for her sake, and mine, too."

"My mother!" she suddenly breathed, astare; then shut her eyes, shook
her face: "if she go, me dead, me done. Without Spiciewegiehotiu me a
rotting dog on the ground."

"You would come, too," he muttered.

"Me?"

"Why, yes."

Her mouth half-opened in a sort of laugh like one astonished with
happiness; but then, recovering herself, she shook her head, saying,
"No, you not want me then. No. Me not go. Me stay and die."

"Perhaps I should not now go without you," he mentioned.

"No? Oh, you good!"--she drew her stretched fingers down his cheek; and
outside Macray hissed at her.

"But," she said presently, "why you not tell Spiciewegiehotiu that, if
she go with you, she like a lark let out of a cage? Maybe ..."

"Haven't I told her?" Cobby answered: "the girl's deafer than the deaf
adder."

"She not realize.... Even me who believe everything you say---- Why you
not show her the different things you can do, then, when she see for
herself, maybe----"

This struck Cobby. "Well, there may be something in that. Yes, I will
think of that."

She then, after gazing a little at his face in a stillness, stood up
from her knees, saying: "Now me go. You soon get well, no?"

He promised "Yes," with nods, looking up at her.

"If ever you want to see me, tell Sansiwana to whistle twice at noon at
the back part of the park."

"Very good."

"So good health. Who love you?"

"You. Think over what I've said."

"Eheh, me think." She pressed his hand in a vice. "Good health."

She still did not go, but stood averted, a pallor now under her skin;
and then ventured upon the murmur in a tone of huff and offence: "Me
have the first of the three kisses now, no?"

"Come, dear, come," he said, his face uplifted to her.

In a moment she was down to him, and, her palms holding his face, her
lids closed, laid her lips on his brow, led them muttering down, found
out his mouth with a pounce of passion bound back by chastity, and
suddenly sprang and ran to the door to vanish.

Headlong she went, seeing nothing, though Macray had only a little
withdrawn himself from the door; but soon she paused, stood a stone,
hearing rather than seeing him pursuing her down the gross gloom under
the meeting of the trees of the avenue.

He gripped her wrist. "Got you! You obscene little beast." His eyes
blazed outrageous fire upon her; he deluged her in a fury of abuse. "You
dugout, you gluttonous gutter, you ogling lewd goat! How many different
men a day for you, eh? Your blackness is the blackness of sin, they say
you were black with sin at seven, you deep-dyed----"

"What me done?" she asked pallid, yet with a quiet dignity.

He let go her wrist to box her staggering. "Think I didn't see? You
filthy---- Come on, into the bush."

Again he gripped her wrist, and her face had a momentary horror of
repulsion, till she quietly announced: "Me not going."

"Ah!--you dare. Resist one little bit, and to-morrow Spiciewegiehotiu
hears all."

A heat of enmity, as of braziers dully smouldering, reddened the veins
of her eyeballs. "Yes, you get me into trouble if you tell," she said,
"but you never get anybody else: the same day Spiciewegiehotiu have you
dead. She not have any fear of Cobby carrying her off now Dzinikulu
dead: so she not need you any longer."

"I see: I'll remember," he said to himself with a sinister meaning,
adding: "Come on"--and dragged her stumbling.

"Where you taking me to?" she asked.

"Up here"--at the entrance to an alley.

"No, not there," she said: "a hut up there--somebody come out and see.
That other side."

Now she led his hold on her wrist obliquely across the avenue toward a
spot where she was conscious that a tree-stump stood half-buried in the
moss; and since it was dark all there, his foot stumbled upon the stump;
and, as he stumbled, Sueela by a feat of nimbleness was running free.

After her he dashed in a passion of action--down the avenue, then a dart
to the left round the royal park over noiseless moss under darkness of
foliage, through which anon the moon threw moving pictures that winced
and wandered. But though his legs were longer, Sueela's were fleeter,
and she had left him well behind by the time she dashed to the park gate
to gasp with wild eyes to the guard, "Me--Sueela"--she had snatched off
her officer's head-dress--"kill that wild beast--he chase me."

On which two of them went headlong, with spears held ready, to meet
Macray, while he, seeing them, whipped out his pistol to lay them dead.
But his angel whispered him of danger there: and since there was still
time for flight, he fled, was soon in hiding in bush, spied them dash
past him, and before long got to harbour in Cobby's hut.

Sueela, meantime, was modifying her dress in an empty hut within the
royal grounds; and, on going home, told Spiciewegiehotiu that Macray had
met and chased her.

And Spiciewegiehotiu said: "So?"




XXIV

COBBY'S "BANQUET"


Sueela had no sooner left Cobby's hut, than Cobby, pondering upon her
suggestion to _show_ to Spiciewegiehotiu "the different things he could
do," conceived the scheme of giving a big dinner, to exhibit to the
Queen in what style she would dine at the Ritz and in the Riviera.

And when Macray, after being pursued by the two guardsmen, came in to
him, Cobby asked what Macray thought of this concept.

"Splendid!" went Macray with an evil sneer: "but--I thought we were to
be 'banished'?"

"No, it won't be done," Cobby answered.

"How do you know?"

Cobby shrugged. "Somehow."

"Then, let's do a bunk."

"We can't cross nine hundred miles of Africa without bag or baggage;
and, if we have impedimenta, pursuit must mean capture."

"Why, though, should we be pursued?"

Again Cobby shrugged. "We should be."

On which Macray said to himself, "There _is_ something sweet, then,
between her and him"; and very irritably he demanded: "But when is this
to end? Look here, _j'ai soup_--or 'fed up,' you say in England--I'm
fed up, I tell you frankly. I have nothing to smoke, man--I'm like a
beggar that says 'can you give me a pipe of baccie, mister?'"

"Well, one must bear the inevitable," Cobby mentioned.

"Or blast it sky-high out of one's way," Macray muttered.

"No, not the inevitable," Cobby said: "you can damn it, but you can't
blast it."

"No laughing matter to me!"

"Nor to me."

"Well, I'll think it all out," Macray said, strolling out.

And he proceeded to think in no good easy mood, but with his usual
intolerance of obstacles to his wants.

"Thinking it out," he was lying the next forenoon within thicket up
White River on an ant-heap where he had acquired the habit of hiding
himself away, to lie in wait and eye the bathing of the Queen and her
bevy, the ant-heap, as usual, being an even lusher jungle of fan-palms,
mimosas, proteas white-flowering, than the wild round it. He was feeling
a need to see Sueela, who, now that he hissed at her, the more teasingly
allured him; and there, deeply concealed, he lay when the Queen's ladies
appeared.

They ran, they prattled, they laughed, they splashed, they took the
douche under the waterfalls; then were back, drying, dressing; then
Sueela was climbing a marula-tree, with Spiciewegiehotiu underneath
looking up, a marula some way from the troop of damsels, and hardly ten
yards from the ant-heap.

Sueela picked and dropped peaches to Spiciewegiehotiu, then, seated on a
low branch of the marula, chewing its peaches, spoke downward in a
raised tone, continuing a previous conversation--about Macray. "You not
need him any more. Why you bear with that man?"

Dreading the opening of Macray's mouth any day, dreading lest his
violence should contrive to coerce her converted nerves into a sin
against her nobler love, she did not now wish well to the continuance of
his existence, and was bitter, too, against him for his hooligan usage
of her. "He steal your father's picture, he use your father's goods, he
hate you, he Cobby's enemy, he lead three girls astray, he want to lead
me, he chase me---- Why you not cut him short? Me hate that man."

Spiciewegiehotiu shrugged. "If you like ... maybe ... But look at those
clouds scudding--the sky wide--water sweet, wind sweet--hear the river
and the trees streaming--me like everybody to see and hear them, unless
somebody's death do good to other people. Me have a score to settle with
Caray, but there is something to his credit in it; maybe, but for him,
Cobby and Dzinikulu----"

"He do it for his own good, not for yours!"--Sueela was leaping down.

"Me know. Well, maybe ..." They were walking away: Macray lost the rest.

They left him there a devil, with a thought in him of Cobby's feast, and
of how he might make a clean sweep then of all that impeded and hated
him, to be off for civilization. He had not interfered with anybody, he
said to himself--had been interfered with in his peaceable routine,
first by that Master R. K. Rolls, who was well in hell, and then by that
Master Cobby, and now by this black beast whom he had deigned to feel
tender to, and this white nigger who so lightly doomed him to death for
doing nothing. Or not for doing nothing? The theft of the photograph ...
she knew of that ... knew the motive.... "All right," he said, "war it
is: the quickest lives. _I_ do the killing, I think: no one wounds me
with impunity...."

Three days later he received a summons to go to Cobby, _ propos_ of the
preparations for the feast, Cobby having already sent out cards of
invitation to the elect--the bearer of the card telling what the card
intended to say: for everything was to be in high style! and no little
sensation and expectation was in the air at this event--a feast in "The
Elephant"! one had never heard the like.

One there was who eyed the thing askance--Mandaganya; and she went to
Spiciewegiehotiu to say: "What this 'feast' for? You go?"

"Eheh."

Mandaganya laid her hand on the Queen's. "Don't go."

"Oh, Ma-Sueela," pouted Sueela, who was there within the baobab, "this
is too much!"

To which the doctoress quietly replied: "If you talk when me talking, me
knock you down." And to Spiciewegiehotiu: "Don't go. Something bad going
to happen. Me not hate Sir Cobby, but me dread him. He very wise; he
make people sleep so deep, he cut off their leg, and they not know.
Suppose he poison us all at the feast, or maybe carry you off asleep?"

Spiciewegiehotiu started!

"He not do that," Sueela remarked.

"Shut your box," the sybil answered; and, smoothing the Queen's hand:
"Don't go. Listen, me tell you something: this morning me was picking
herbs in the hills, and all at once this little dog run back to me with
his tail between his legs. Me say to him: 'What the matter with you,
Ronja?' He not make any answer, but when me say to him 'Come on,' he not
come. '_Why_ you not come?' me ask him. No answer. There he sit; twice
me see a shiver twitch him. And all at once a rock come clattering down
from the cliff upon the path ahead: if we had gone on, we get killed,
maybe; then when the rock drop, he come on. So me think to myself:
'these must be days of danger, this month-end,' and when we get home, me
show him the card Sir Cobby send when he send the invitation. Ronja look
at the card, he not say anything for a minute, then he sniff at it, then
he back from it, and snarl. Don't go."

The two girls sat rather aghast.

"You go?" asked Mandaganya.

"_Me_ go," said Sueela.

"And me," said Spiciewegiehotiu.

"Then, me, too"--the sybil rose, a grand being, to go backwards out,
grovelling to the ground.




XXV

THE ENTRE


About that same evening hour Macray, summoned, was in the sigodhlo, all
in good-temper now outside, saying: "Well, baas, what about this
precious banquet of Belshazzar? Who's to be the _chef_?"

Cobby answered: "You and I mainly. But the point is not the feast
itself--these people here eat nicer things than rich Englishmen, and
have those things much more lavishly than non-rich Englishmen--the point
is the scientific accompaniments of the feast, the elegance and dignity
which Science gives to life--the blaze of light--the music----"

"But stop--where this blaze of light coming from?"

"Well, but, isn't there the oil-engine, the dynamo, and our forty
accumulators? Only I'm not sure how the rock holds nails!--we must drive
in plugs of hardwood, I think. I'm having two arc-lamps in parallel,
getting our six hundred watts from thirty accumulators, and the
glow-lamps we'll rig in a series system with the dynamo and ten
accumulators, using every watt of our power. The lamp-glasses are mostly
coloured--I got them so with this very object, to dazzle in case of
necessity: it will be useless if we do not look elfin and superhuman."

"I see, I see. Oh, we are being vain, baas of me! we are out to capture
the ladies' eyes. But why 'The Elephant'----?"

"Well, but," Cobby said, "we can't put the Ritz into a hut. That
'Elephant' rock-hall a mile beyond the prison--that's the one I've
selected: it has an alcove in which we can put our Primus and two
stoves. The main bother is the table! and a _chic_ table-cloth--and we
have only ten days: must start making trestles----"

"And as to chairs?" Macray suggested.

"Oh, well, we must use stools."

"They don't have stools in the Ritz, isinduna--only footstools. These
varnished stools here--when you get up off them they, too, get up a
little, until they decide to part from you, and drop with a crash."

"We'll dry-dust ours."

"And plates of unglazed earthenware----"

"Oh, we have plates enough of our own--only eight guests."

"Not enough forks, though."

"Eat with fingers. It is only lately that the kings of England have
forks: the Stuarts ate with their fingers."

Macray rose to stroll out, saying: "Oh, well, God's will be done, boys."

"Come early to-morrow!" Cobby called.

"Damn you," Macray muttered, stooping out through the hut-opening into
darkness.

From the avenue he walked aside to the waggons to shed electric
torchlight upon the medicine-chest, from which he took strychnine; and
he had that day pressed out some milk-juice of euphorbia, a baleful
bane, to mix with strychnine, in order to complicate and obscure the
symptoms of both.

The next days were spent in pretty strenuous labour by him and Cobby and
some blacks who aided them, for it was a long row or wade to the
rock-hall, whichever way one approached it; and in the end the feast had
to be put off three days.

On the last afternoon Cobby's home-coming was watched for at the
sigodhlo gate, whence he was conducted into the Queen's hut, who, seated
on the floor with Sueela, said to him: "They say you going to poison me,
or put me to sleep."

"Do they?" says he: "but is this what you had to say? I am occupied!"

"Me been poisoned once," she said: "me not go: me 'fraid."

"As you please."

On which Sueela, shaking her head earnestly upward at him, said: "She
not mean it, she not 'fraid."

"Yes, me 'fraid," repeated the Queen: "Mandaganya's little dog snarl at
that card you send."

"Ha! ha! ha!"

"Oh, Spiciewegiehotiu," muttered Sueela with reproach in a pain of
shamefacedness; and to Cobby: "She not mean it, me tell you! Go: you
busy. We come to-night."

"May I go?" demanded Cobby.

"If you poison me, me haunt you," answered Spiciewegiehotiu.

"You haunt me now."

"Cousin Cobby. Red-head."

"Good-bye. Good-bye, Sueela. Start just at sunset." He was gone.

An hour later came from him to them garlands: and, garlanded, with
Mandaganya and the Queen-dowager garlanded, and half a battalion of
_gardes cavaleries_, they started out, cantering down a Square where,
though it was raining, crowds had foregathered to gape and gaze.

Then at the "Elephant's" edge they found a punt all _en fte_ with
flowers, surmounted with an arch, out of whose leafage shot the sheen of
three electric torches; this with the ladies in it was drawn forward by
men wading; and, wading in the rear, stooping anon under the rock-roof,
came the troop of soldiers, whom, with her usual prudence,
Spiciewegiehotiu took with her.

But it was no short voyage under there in the dark, and Mandaganya
muttered to the Queen-dowager: "Never in my life me go so far to get
something to eat." If anyone spoke, it was in a mutter, for there was
that in the mood of the place that disposed the soul to a musing in
unison with that moodiness of the lagoon, which the waders' progress
noiselessly wrinkled in coils of ripples sluggish like oil-waves waving
loth, only less loth than the areas of lotus, arum, mosses, whose old
opium repose the roamers' motion anon broke or troubled; and languidly
the back gave way as beneath the weight of the leagues of incubus, and
into the gaze came a dreaming; until, after passing the region of the
prison, they began to encounter anon a glow-lamp or two, hung from the
rock-roof, gloating upon the water's gloom, mute warders, unaccountable,
like outposts of gnomeland: and now they were roused to outlook.

Then an opening in the rock-roof lit up: and they made their way up a
tunnel rugged under the glare of rare glow-lamps. Here the Queen posted
her guard; and the four ladies and the dog clambered on, till they got
to a great rock-portal: and there at once an "Oh!" of astonishment, of
awe, broke from their breasts at a scene of majesty which would have
abashed Csar--nay, Hume, Cuvier.

There at the portal stood Cobby and Macray, excellently dressed in
jackets and cravats, to shake hands with bows of state; and down under
two triumphal arches gala with flowers and coloured glamours of
glow-lamps, to the accompaniment of a most glorious music going on
somewhere, they moved in a mood of Aladdin to a table gala with flowers
and coloured glamours; and flowers in showers, and festoons of coloured
glamours, were looped all about the walls of the hall, and above,
shimmering, showering a chattering as of ravishment, the richer flush of
arc-lamps.

It was a night of lights and sights. Cobby, seeing the depth of the
effect created, sat pleased at the right hand of the Queen, she seated
at the table-head, her back to the alcove, behind the curtain of which
could be heard the dynamo's murmur, the oil-engine noising. The only
failure was conversation, all sat so lost in stillness and stiffness.
When soup was being eaten, Spiciewegiehotiu whispered low to Sueela: "It
good--but he not give much!" and low Sueela whispered back: "Me think
more coming." And this was so: many mickles making a muckle, the
liquors, too, being numerous, port, sherry, cherry-brandy, each in its
season for a reason: at which warmth the ice thawed in time, and there
was talk and lightness of mind, at the Queen's left being seated Sueela,
Mandaganya, then on his own stool the dog Ronja, paw on table, feasting,
then the Queen-dowager; and on the Queen's right the General, the
Chief-of-the-tax, and two quite humble men, smiths, whom Cobby liked
(and of one of them, named Rambya, had an even extremely high opinion),
beside Cobby and Macray, one or other of whom anon sped away into the
alcove to see to this or that.

In the midst of which Cobby extended his hand to a box on the table, and
immediately all the genii of astonishment were called and flocked.
Behold now: a disc on top of the box begins to spin, and--by the grace
of God!--out of it sounds "Woman is Fickle" from Rigoletto. Then those
there knew music more teeming with some mood and meaning of the spheres
than the strains of canaries, as much more teeming as the smart and
burden of the psalm which may one day burst from earth to star will be
vaster than our sonatas. And--Oh, joy!--see now how they move to the
news that the Soul of Being is bliss and emotion of gavotte, jig, jazz,
finger wagging, hand clapping, head wagging, body going, He dancing,
they dancing, sons of His soul, remembering how that same melody and
meaning was inherent in the Nebula in the era when He and they reeled
red, the little hound, too, with yowling mouth, snout up, hailing Him
that moves and makes.

"It come out of that box!" Spiciewegiehotiu definitely discovered.

"Something inside the box!" sang out Sueela.

And this was so....

After which yet another lunacy of astonishment ensued when, by just a
touch of two switches, Cobby extinguished all that effulgence at once,
causing all to jump up, then summoned it afresh with a touch: and it
came.

But this was just before an _entre_ of stewed koodoo-kid: and with that
_entre_ the banquet came upon wreck.

The attendants placed the ten plates in their places on the table: but
Macray was away in the alcove.

Now, Mandaganya had arranged with Spiciewegiehotiu, and with all the
blacks, except the two smiths, that nothing was to be tasted until
tasted by her Ronja and by her; and at the _entre_ the little dog
growled, and bristled, and would not taste: upon which the doctoress
sprang upright, and, striking the table with her fist, glared close
across into Cobby's face, crying aloud: "Me say this food poisoned!"

White sprang Spiciewegiehotiu, staring at Cobby; all went pale: only
Cobby looked calm--glanced up to say to Mandaganya: "You might calm
yourself: your statement is fantastic"--and went on eating.

A muteness of the tomb now: broken only by that chattering of the
arc-lamps' flush, the armature's mutter and meditation spinning in the
inner apartment. Cobby ate on, offended--no one else: for the smiths,
who had commenced to eat, had ceased. And suddenly, after perhaps half a
minute, Spiciewegiehotiu dashed Cobby's plate off the table.

"Now, how absurd!" Cobby murmured, starting up.

At the same time the Queen on her feet said to a waiter: "Tell Sir Caray
come to me."

But Macray was already outside the alcove, and in a moment was at her
right hand beside Cobby.

"What you doing in there?" she asked him.

Smiling, just touched with pallor, he answered: "Seeing to things."

"But your food getting cold." She indicated his plate. "Sit and eat."

Their eyes met and lingered a little together, until, with a chuckle, he
said: "What, does the Great-great want me to be poisoned? I heard an
outcry about poison.... You eaten any, baas?"

Cobby nodded.

"Is it all right?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then, what caused the outcry?"

"The dog, apparently, didn't approve----"

"The dog! Oh, I see.... Yes, that little beast, I know him--greatest
charlatan and liar on earth--pretends he can see through a
stone-wall...."

"So you see," Spiciewegiehotiu now said, "it not poisoned. You sit and
eat, no?"

"Yes," said Macray, "let us all eat."

And again her eyes and his lingered together.

She said: "Me done; me not want any more."

"Nor I, for that matter," he mentioned.

"No? Oh, well. Go back to what you were doing."

On which, uttering a breath of laughter, he walked away back into the
alcove, and she, as he vanished, took up a little goblet, threw some
flowers out of it, put into it with a spoon all the stew that was on her
plate, and placed it under the table.

There the feast, as a feast, came to an end: nothing that Cobby could
say could induce to any more eating--he grieving at no sweets, no
coffee, liqueur; but cigarettes were smoked; the _conversazione_ went
on; telephone-sets had been installed at opposite ends of the hall, and
all spoke in hushed tones to one another across all that stretch; they
sat amazed at a display of coloured flames, Roman candles, squibs,
catherine-wheels, fickle crackers frisking; and it was late when, laden
with presents, the Queen went away, taking secretly with her beneath her
kaross the goblet of _entre_.

All in a dream of midsummer night their minds reeled, and "There is only
Cobby," Spiciewegiehotiu muttered, moving homeward in the punt under the
rock-roof. As when a young girl goes home dumb from her first opera,
agaze at apocalypses of fairyland through all the organs of her fancy,
and all is trance of novelty, of freshness and strangeness, and in all
her posture and prospect revolution ensues: so were they; or as when
America was discovered, a "new world," and away in a whirl the
imaginations of men went ranging in revels of reverie through realms of
refreshment and festival, and a revolution ensued; or as when one dared
to bore the aerial blue in a balloon, fairily rose and soared, ascending
up into heaven, at last, in reality, the son of man before the beholding
host of man, and all was renewed and broader and tall, and a revolution
ensued; or as when one flew, and a revolution has ensued, and will soon
ensue, behind every revolution a scientist, the breadth and boldness of
some lone brow becrowned with thorns of thought: so with these moving
bemused beneath that roof through dreamland. But by then the revealer of
the dreamland, though he said nothing, was convulsed, in dreadful pain.




XXVI

SUEELA SCHEMES


The sickness of Cobby and of one of the smiths (Rambya) could not be
concealed. They were poisoned: but the diagnosis baffled Cobby, some of
the symptoms being strychnine symptoms, some euphorbia symptoms, all
obscurely mixed up.

To see the smith the Queen went a long way, and said to him: "Me know
who poison you: you think me not avenge you?"

"Who poison me, Bayet?" Rambya asked.

"Me not come to answer questions," she answered, "me come to see you.
Now you soon get well, no? Good health!"

Meantime, she had put a bung into that little goblet of stew abstracted
from the banquet, and had buried it in her grounds; meantime, too, the
rumour of it flew wide: one or other of the white men had done this
thing--maybe both, Cobby being taken in his own snare....

And no vengeance taken! Sueela especially now expected the Queen to
proceed immediately against Macray, but the Queen said, did, nothing;
and the Queen now expected Sueela to be pressing afresh for proceedings
against Macray, but Sueela said nothing--each for her own reasons....

In the case of Spiciewegiehotiu, the banquet had afresh alarmed and put
her on guard against Cobby, she scenting Cobby's object in going to so
much trouble--to show her the glories of Europe, and allure her to trek
that way. Cobby, then, was not done with thoughts of being off with her!
And since, obviously now, Cobby had powers of which she knew nothing,
and since Macray was one of her protections against Cobby, Macray was
afresh precious to her.

In the case of Sueela, whom the majesties of the banquet had ranged
quite definitely on the side of Cobby's desires as against the Queen's
desires, she had conceived a scheme in which Macray would have to play a
part, so did not at present desire Macray to die. Moreover, after the
banquet, Cobby's statement had become more credible to her--that Cobby
could go away "_through the air_," like a devil (or an angel), but never
would go without Macray: so she now dreaded that, if Macray perished,
Cobby any day might shake the dust of Wo-Ngwanya off his shoe, and
vanish into heaven. This, indeed, would leave to her her
Spiciewegiehotiu, her other soul; but this girl had now determined that
Spiciewegiehotiu should _go_ with Cobby, for Spiciewegiehotiu's sake,
and for Cobby's sake.

"You not want me any more to 'cut Caray short'?" Spiciewegiehotiu at
last asked her one day, with meditative eyes dwelling on her.

"Me 'fraaaid!" Sueela answered, very deceitfully, very deeply: "suppose
Cobby still want to carry you off? Why he give that feast? Maybe Caray
still useful. And me not think it was Caray who poisoned the food."

"No? Oh, you too foolish," the Queen said, and said no more.

By that time Sueela in a disguise had twice visited Cobby's
lounge-chair, to mourn each time to him: "My God, you just get well, and
now you so sick again."

"I will recover," he said; "and I bear it gladly, for now the Queen may
be coming with me."

She shook her head. "No. Listen: the feast fail--it was my fault to tell
you to give it: it only make her want you more to stay here. She say 'If
_he_ can make those things, _we_ can make them when he show us the way;
see if we not make Wo-Ngwanya the wonder of the world.'"

Thus the effect of the feast was the opposite of the effect intended by
Cobby, Spiciewegiehotiu, like Pharaoh at the miracles of Moses,
hardening her heart at the miracles of Cobby; and with the rising of the
sun upon that night of the fairies, fairyland lost its glamours for her,
and got to be a matter for practical politics, her enlarged soul now
starting to dream dreams of a new Wo-Ngwanya, far lordlier, introduced
by Cobby; the mood of revolution took her: thoughts of war, of enormous
dramas of transformation, of palms, campaigns, spectacles, splendours,
Alexandrine transactions; and always she said to herself "war, girl,
war, war." This was to work and work in her....

"As the deaf adder stoppeth her ear," Cobby muttered....

"She say she owe her life, she owe all, to the Wa-Ngwanya," Sueela told
him: "so she give herself to them."

"And I owe my life and all to Europe: I give myself to it. If she will
not come, _I_ will die rather than remain here. I will constantly try to
escape, I will hate her bitterly, I will kick and bite and fight till I
die. Tell her: I couldn't speak to her yesterday, I was so ill...."

"You ill still!"

"Yes: thank God that she or you got none of this bane that is in me into
your blood.... How _did_ it get into that stew? God knows!"

On an impulse she whispered: "Caray do it."

"No, come, come," he said peremptorily, "get that out of your head."

"He do it," she quietly insisted: "he want to kill me because me not go
with him; he want to kill Spiciewegiehotiu and you because you keep him
here; he not want to kill my mother and the others, but he so wicked, he
not care----"

"Be quiet, Sueela, you are displeasing me."

She smoothed his hands, put her cheek on them, and shut up, for, though
she knew how easily she could convince him that Macray was his enemy by
merely revealing to him how Macray had originally warned
Spiciewegiehotiu of Cobby's expedition, she was apprehensive that if
Cobby got to know of this, he might go off lonely "through the air,"
without Macray, without Spiciewegiehotiu....

"Me not think Caray much a friend to you," she said presently: "so
promise you not tell Caray what me come to say to you."

"Very good. What have you come to say?"

Smoothing his hands, on her knees, she told it: he and Macray were to
escape with a cart, she, Sueela, with them, and five fellows upon whose
friendship for her she could rely; then when they had gone a little way,
the Queen was to hear that they were away, that Macray had carried off
Sueela: in which case, it was certain that the Queen would fly in person
to find Sueela, taking with her probably only a small body of men, since
the fugitives would be but few; and, as Sueela knew of a spot in a pass
where a few in ambush might easily master many, there Cobby's lot could
kill the Queen's men, seize the Queen, and be away with her, while
Sueela went home to mourn....

Cobby held his chin, speculating. "Needn't _kill_ the Queen's men," he
muttered, "... tear-gas ... and capture.... Good, good."

"You think it good?"

"Yes! We will! You--dear: both good and clever."

"But you look after me, no? You not let Caray get me while me with him?"

"Indeed not! Be very sure of that."

"And you not let him know beforehand _why_ we do it? If you do, we
fail!--he tell the Queen. Caray not want you to carry her off! Me know,
me tell you so, you believe me, no? So you take away his guns from him
when the Queen coming, no? And you give me one of those little guns for
myself...."

She then went away, but the next time she came to him had each detail of
the scheme completely planned; and the following night met Macray by
appointment in her mother's park.

Macray, at this time in an ice of anxiety for his life, apprehensive
every day of what the Queen might mean toward him, and pining to be well
out of Wo-Ngwanya, was torn betwixt delight and suspicion at what Sueela
had to say: they were to escape! she with them, Sir Cobby to give her
something to make the Queen sleep, and while the Queen slept, the cart
and they would pass well away beyond capture.

"So who is it that you are running away with--Cobby or me?" he demanded.

Brazenly she smiled up into his face. "_With you._"

"No lies! I _saw_ you slobbering Cobby, you black Bacchant."

"But you not see me go into the canes with him? My goodness, me not give
you proof who me love?"

This solaced, this mollified; but then he burst out: "Why, I heard you
begging Spiciewegiehotiu up White River to murder me! I _heard_ you!"

"You heard?"--her hand on his shoulder, she smiling up close into his
eyes. "You were there?--to see me bathe, no? Me have the best figure of
all those girls, no? But you not guess why me beg Spiciewegiehotiu to
kill you? She so suspicious: she think me love you; and me want to make
her think me hate you: so me say 'Kill him!'"

He pondered upon it. "Was that it? Really? But if you love me so much,
why did you kiss Cobby?"

"But me love Sir Cobby, too: only different, not the same."

"I see. And why have you shunned me as you have?"

Her eye-corners ogled him. "Because you not to touch me again, until you
make me your waaif in that country."

"Oh, Lord, I see--question of matrimony: what will the parson think?
You're an unbeliever, my Sue. Never mind, I forgive you--come, kiss."

On which she drew a revolver from her moocha-girdle to present playfully
at him, saying: "You see this little gun? Sir Cobby give me. If you
touch me too soon, me shoooot you!"

But this did not deter, and when she saw him flush toward urgency, she
took to her heels; nor could he come near to catching her.

She had already explained to him what was his part in the plan of
escape: _he_ was to get the cart and oxen, keep them dark at his
domicile, and stock the cart with guns and other requisites, got in very
small lots from Cobby's waggons.

And this he did: daily entering the sigodhlo to get the things, and
discuss with Cobby, whom he now found rather a cold baas, Sueela's
statements about him having left some impression on Cobby: and it
reached the ears of Spiciewegiehotiu that Sir Caray was often at this
time in the sigodhlo--a bit of gossip that caused the Queen's eyebrows
to rise a little.

And the Queen's eyebrows could not but rise a little at Sueela, who was
sleeping unquietly, who was hanging to Spiciewegiehotiu's hand with a
fresh anguish of friendship, gushings of love. One midnight, pretending
to be asleep, she beheld Sueela seated abed, tossing her buried face,
sobbing. And one noon she went seeking Sueela to the bottom of the royal
park, having lately observed that after the return from the river-bath
Sueela disappeared a little, and she wished to see what Sueela
disappeared for. She could not see Sueela, who knew how to be invisible;
but at the far bottom of the park through a knob-hole of the stockade,
she saw Cobby's back walking off: which thing also caused her eyebrows
to rise a little.




XXVII

THE CAPTURE IN THE PASS


One dark evening a week afterwards Sueela departed from the sigodhlo to
go to visit some friends at a farmer-kraal outside Eshowe, having told
Spiciewegiehotiu that she would be back long before midnight.

She duly visited those friends, but remained there only a few minutes,
then flew, met at an appointed spot Cobby, Macray, and her five friends
with the cart, and started off with them through wild winds, drizzle and
darkness for a pass five miles distant....

It became midnight: anon Spiciewegiehotiu sprang up, glanced out at the
rude night, and finally grew angry that Sueela did not appear....

An hour later she wrapped up her head, ran out into the rain to a near
hut, and sent out a messenger, who galloped to the farmer-kraal to ask
after Sueela, and galloped back with the news that Sueela had soon left
the kraal; on which the Queen wrung her hands together, and dispatched
the galloper to Mandaganya to seek Sueela.

But before he was back, an agitated man was led into her presence to
recount how, coming home in the night from a mountain kraal, he had
encountered the white men in flight, with five and Sueela--Sueela tied,
grieving, screaming, in the grip of Macray! They, seeing that he had
seen them, had chased him, shot at him, but he had dodged and
escaped!--this bringer of tidings being a sixth friend of Sueela left
behind to bring the tidings.

The Queen listened to it in a white silence; whispered only: "Which
pass?" and "Who are the five?" then let herself down on her bed, where
she sat staring as if paralyzed; but then on a sudden flew into a fury,
sprang up, ran about, wished to tear out her hair, stamped at the
messenger in a passion, screaming at him: "Fly out of my sight! Leave
me!" then stood with her forehead on the hut-wall, quite passive some
time, till she span to act....

The morning light came bright and stormless. There where Cobby's party
lay in ambush gadded gentle gales, gladsome like gas of champagne, to be
quaffed by an organ more evolved and gladsome than the stomach; drops of
dew--tropic dew--thronged all the bush with flushings of jewellery,
drenching every movement made by jubilant green larks updarting, by
canaries screaming greetings, and by the men who lay in greenery on a
ledge twenty feet square, to which they had climbed twenty feet up an
incline from a rock-corridor, very straight and very long, running
through a realm of rock that climbed to the skies before them and behind
them; and in a _spelonk_, or rock-hole, some distance off below them
their oxen lay hid in thicket.

They breakfasted, then waited with agitated hearts. Only one of them had
not known _why_ they stopped there and waited!--Macray. But now he
understood.

"Why do we stop?" he had asked at the stoppage.

Cobby had answered that there they would engage any pursuers with
tear-gas, whereupon Macray, with a piercing eye of suspicion: "Pursuers!
I didn't know that there were to be any pursuers."

"Well, but," Cobby had said with a smile, "the man who encountered us
after we started has, of course, reported it; it must be that we are
being pursued by horsemen: so it is useless to go on until we have
defeated the pursuers, as we may here."

"Then why did you stop me from firing at the man who encountered us?"

"I don't want any killing, Macray."

"I see. Still, let's be pushing on--come. There aren't any pursuers, if
Spiciewegiehotiu is under chloroform--as I understand. We have plenty of
time to get well away, with our oxen fresh."

"Spiciewegiehotiu is not under chloroform," Cobby had then bluntly told
him.

Macray's left eye had gone small. "Sueela lied, then?"

"It may be that Sueela does not invariably speak the truth----"

"No, especially when _you_ put her to lie."

Upon which Cobby had fired a box into Macray's face.

Thus their friendly relation definitely ended. Macray, though he had
snatched at his revolver, had not struck back, possessing, as ever, no
little self-command: but he then afresh condemned Cobby to death, and
the second death.

He could see now that he had been tricked; and, though himself a
trickster, it envenomed him that others should be tricksters in respect
of him.

Here, it was clear, was a trap to catch the Queen, Sueela being there,
not in order to be with him, but, won by Cobby, in order to decoy the
Queen to come.... He, however, quickly enough came to the decision that
at the least danger of capture for the Queen he would kill in quick
succession the seven with him, Cobby to begin, then Sueela....

But against the success of that plan was the plan of Sueela, who also
had a revolver, she intending to watch, and at any movement of Macray's
hand toward his belt to lay him low. Moreover, after the breakfast,
Cobby, in fulfilment of a promise made to Sueela, proceeded to disarm
Macray, coming to where Macray sat apart on a rock to say: "I am sorry
now that I struck you, Macray, though you were so very offensive. But
you had better hand me over your revolver for the present."

"What's _that_ for?"--Macray started upright.

"I have reasons--obscure, maybe--but----"

"You be----!"

Just in time Cobby had him covered. "Lift up your hands! Believe me, I
shall not hesitate to shoot, if you are mutinous...." He took revolver,
knife, Winchester.

And afterwards Sueela, who had seen this through the thicket, came to
Macray to stand before him with lowered lids, and say: "Me think the
Queen will come."

"You do?" says Macray.

"Eheh. And me have something to tell you: me not want to kill you, but
if you make any sort of noise before Spiciewegiehotiu and all her men
pass this ledge, me stab you."

Bitterly impotent, he smiled upward at her, saying: "My Sue, my
black-livered Sue! we may meet again."

The sun climbed up high, and then hid away his face with that fickleness
of the days of the rainy season, breezes soughing now through rough seas
of trees, bringing drizzles, breathing that delicious bleakness and
chill of November reveries and memories. It was noon before Cobby, lying
at the edge of the ledge, spy-glass at eye, spied a figure coming,
pigmily remote, alone, on the road below. His heart started, ceased to
beat, and, white with excitement, he breathed to Sueela: "She comes."

A shivering seized Sueela. She whispered: "How many men?"

"I see none...."

"My God!" she breathed. Somehow this terrified her!

On plodded the solitary figure, and suddenly Cobby's forehead rushed
red, he sending out at her the shout: "_Coeur de Lion!_"

"_Sh-h-h_"--from Sueela in an anguish of secrecy, although the figure
was evidently still too distant to catch any shout.

But presently all saw her, and every breast there quailed at her coming
more than if she had come accompanied by squadrons of cavalry: some
majesty of self-assurance, some spell of proper authority, was suggested
in that steady stepping, that did not pause and palter like common
steps--and some menace: for to their nerves she came, not as a bird to
the snare, but as a judge. Cobby himself felt it, and the flush of his
shout at her rapidly perishing out of his face, left it blanched; the
five black men lay visibly affrighted; and Sueela, wringing her hands,
lamented to Cobby: "Oh, you not get her! You not get her! We all
ruined!"

"Nonsense!" answered Cobby, turning irritated upon her: "why not get
her? She comes alone!"

"Why you think she come alone--on foot? She not looking for us--she know
we here! That why she not bring any men, she not want them to be killed,
she come alone to capture us! Maybe she guess all, all...."

"Well, suppose so--what then? She is powerless! When she comes I simply
take her."

"Oh, you not take her!" she cried in an ecstasy of distress with a
cry-cry face: "you think she come like that, and not have some plan? Oh,
tie my hands together quick!"

At the same time Macray, lying on his face some feet away, called to
Cobby: "Now you think you have her safe, don't you? But I'll bet you
haven't."

Cobby turned sharply upon him. "Don't you _want_ me to have her? That is
why we are in Wo-Ngwanya!"

"Not a question of what I want," answered Macray: "I only remark that
you haven't got her yet, and probably won't, not if I know the girl. If
you do get her now, she'll be back in her pig-sty within two days...."

And on the solitary figure plodded, showing already her stretch of shin,
then showing the rhythm of her hips' motion and wilful shoulders
swinging, like some trained pacer's of "the films," then the raising of
her face in friendship to the spray of a rain fresh as the winds, and as
the wild fresh thicket, and the wild fresh breath of the spirit of
Being, then showing how the puffs of the wind kept fluttering the flimsy
stuff, saffron and black, of her kaross, and showing at last with how
grave and estranged a face she came.

To gas, or not to gas, her foreground: this was Cobby's problem. He
shrank...!

When she was opposite the ambush, her pace a little
slackened--involuntarily perhaps; but she did not look upward, walked on
beyond: and now Cobby, springing to his feet, gave a signal, and all,
save Sueela, streamed down upon her.

As she span to face them, Cobby, who was very agitated, ran up to her
with the announcement: "Now, you see, I have you."

She seemed not to see, to hear, him, but, eyeing the five blacks, said
quietly to them: "You touch me, no?" and drew a knife from her
moocha-band to hold at her bosom, to penetrate: and it was with wide
eyes that they beheld a thread of red astray on her left breast....

And in one moment now was revulsion and revolution of emotion: to ten
eyes welled ten waters--all young men with warm minds. "Bayet! No!"
broke in protest out of one mouth; one knelt with wrung palms; all put
out their arms in shame-faced reproach to her, while from the ledge
broke a shriek--Sueela's--who in a moment more was flying, tied, down
the incline, wild of eye, toward that knife.

"So you not want me to die?"

"_Bayet!_" one protested with parallel arms extended tense.

"Kneel down, then."

"Nonsense! Don't be tricked!" Cobby cried out. "You are _my_ men!"

Down, with brows bent to the ground, they knelt.

"Say after me: 'Bayet.'"

"Bayet!"

"'Our Mother.'"

"Our Mother."

"'Live for your sons.'"

"Live for your sons."

"Very well: me will. Now get up. Me pardon Sir Caray. Arrest Sir Cobby."

Upon which Cobby, who had no appetite for any more "Elephant," and had
tear-gas (non-poisonous) with him, darted into a run to get far enough
off to cast a bomb and gas the lot of them, in order to be gone with her
from Africa: but after him the blacks darted so sharply, that he had
hardly any start: to gas them would have been to gas himself; and the
thought that if he cast a bomb toward her in that spot, running the risk
of slightly wounding her, he might gas the oxen also caused him to
falter; and, as he faltered, he was caught. The men then besought him:
"You may as well--she too much for us--we not get her"--and he walked
back to her in the midst of them.

Having now unbound Sueela's hands, she tossed the cord to the blacks to
bind Cobby's, an operation which Cobby permitted with a bitter smile of
disdain, in which was some self-disdain, for, if he had gassed her from
the ledge, and not shrunk and trusted to luck, the result might have
been quite different; and to himself he said: "A fool is a man who is
wise too late."

Meantime, Macray, all asmile, was saying to the Queen: "Thanks for
'pardoning' me, Bayet: but there is nothing to pardon. I was going off
to my country, as I have a right to do, but I had no notion that a trap
was being laid for your Majesty by Sir Cobby and that young woman, who
wasn't being carried off by _me_, but came voluntarily with----"

"Tell her all your lies!" Sueela cried with a grin, glancing round from
dabbing with a cloth the wound in the Queen's breast: "she not believe!"

"Came voluntarily with Sir Cobby," Macray continued quickly, "in order
to decoy you into the trap. She kisses Sir Cobby. Her wrists have only
just been tied to deceive you----"

"Ha, ha, she not believe!" cried Sueela in triumph: "tell some more!"
And to Spiciewegiehotiu: "This man hate me like poison because me not go
with him; he hate us all, he want to poison you."

"You lie," Macray remarked.

"What!" cried the Queen with a flush: "you speak to Sueela like that in
my presence?"

"Well, if it pleases you to be deceived, be deceived," Macray
nonchalantly said.

On which Spiciewegiehotiu's eyebrows lifted, and she said to Sueela:
"But--why you not call out to warn me before me come? Somebody had his
hand over your mouth, no?"

"Yes, of course"--from Sueela.

Macray chuckled. "Yes, you chief of sinners--'of course.'"

The Queen looked from one to the other of them, thinking her thoughts,
then decided to say to Macray: "But this is strange that you speak to
Sueela like this. Me not like it, Sir Caray." This she said finishingly;
and to the blacks: "Now the cart."

On which the cart, ready inspanned, was brought from the _spelonk_, and
they presently set off northward, the Queen, who was weary being wedged
uneasily among packages in the cart, Sueela trudging beside it, and,
trudging in front among the blacks, Macray and a Cobby all an
inflammation of rage and rancour.




XXVIII

SUEELA MARRIED


The going was slow--steep for the feet of oxen; anon an off-wheel was on
the brink of abyss; and the Queen was so uneasily seated in the cart,
that before long she chose rather to trudge afoot. And presently Sueela,
without looking at her, ventured upon saying: "You let his hands free,
no? That hurt him...."

Spiciewegiehotiu's eyes dwelt a little on her before the reply came:
"Yes, go tell them"; and Sueela sped forward with the order.

Thus, with Cobby freed, they trekked that intricacy of rock-scenery
until near sunset, when all were weary, and Sueela exclaimed: "My
goodness, when we going to get something to eat?"

"We nearly reach Hyena Kranz now," Spiciewegiehotiu answered, "and there
we sleep till the moon come up"--this kranz being a mug of crag some
hundreds of yards across, sky-high all round, its bottom rising toward
the right, and thick with timber, save at the left (west), where there
was some bottom all rock in front of a cave: and there a fire was
lighted, meat, meal taken out of the cart, poospoos cooked, and a supper
consumed that had no lack of music, for yonder to the north a cascade
come darkling down the crag, like yard after yard of gauze and lawn
measured off recklessly in a frenzy for customers without money, the two
girls supping with a certain aloofness in the cave's mouth, the men in a
crowd round the fire under a dark sky ardent with stars--stars large
like those sparks which parted from the flame to dart away whither the
wind ranged, and strange like that aged charm of the cascade, like the
cadences of that darksome psalmody of the winds within the palms.

Only these sounds, and the fire-wood spluttering: till all the men
started at another sound--like a neigh.

"Where it come from?" they asked one another, and sat hearkening; but
now could hear nothing but the breeze, the bruit of the waterfall, and
the brawling of the brook that the waterfall caused. One sprang upright,
saying: "We go see," but Spiciewegiehotiu called from the cave-entrance:
"Maybe it was a zebra: eat your food--don't trouble"; and again all was
noiseless, save the voices of the night's silence.

Then after food they smoked, some taking small pipes out of holes in the
lobes of their ears, and then disposed themselves to sleep, the cavern
having two halls, both large, with a doorway between, in the inner of
which the Queen and Sueela lay little and lost in rock on their
karosses, and the others lay in the outer.

But Sueela could not sleep, because her head was heated and teeming with
the day's event, and because a hyena continued to laugh heartily
somewhere in the kingdom and mood of the dark, and because water was
dripping somewhere from the roof into a pool, and, drop by drop, haunted
all the hall with a succession of echoes.

Now, the fire outside the cave's mouth had been made bright to scare
away wild beasts, and so Sueela after an hour, through the portal, saw
Cobby go out soft toward the cart, saw him come back, bringing
something, did not see him lie down again....

At this thing her heart thumped thickly. What could he be doing darkly
in there in the dying half-light of the fire? She sat up to peer--could
not see! could hear the men's breathing--everyone seemed asleep but
Cobby. And she wrung her hands, anxious, in trouble for him: for though
the Queen breathed as in sleep, it was uneasy sleep....

So, after a long hour of it, Sueela levered herself soft, soft, to her
feet, to go to him--to warn, to comfort, to kneel to him.

But as she stepped away in haste, her foot touched, upset, a jar of
water ... on which back she scuttled to lie down anew, for the sound had
seemed to trouble the Queen's breathing. Only for some moments, however:
and soon she was up once more, and out, her heart in her mouth....

She found Cobby so bent over one of the blacks, that she had to touch
him before he saw her; and now she put her lips into his ear to hint the
meaning: "_Come with me._"

He whispered: "_Wait._"

After two minutes he stood up; went with her out of the cave.

And active and tactical as cat with rat the Queen was tracking their
feet.

She saw them go past the glowing embers, cross a patch of long grass and
mimosa shrub, and go into timber; and like a boa boring after a bird she
bored her journey through the bush, ferreting after them in flames: the
bush burned and was not consumed.

They stopped within a knot of fan-palms, and she could see: there was
starlight, which gives one-fifth of the light of the moon, and there was
some off-shine from the embers: but nothing could she hear of what was
said! for a brook rolled near in her hearing, and they spoke very low.

Sueela's hand was on Cobby's shoulder, her face close up to his--she
wished to know _what_ he had been doing....

"Making them all unconscious," he told her: "it took a long time, I had
to do it so gradually, to evade any outcry; but that one you found me
over was the last: now I am going to do it to her."

"Oh, my," breathed Sueela.

"Don't be frightened: it will be late to-morrow before they are on their
legs again--I am now quite her master, and shall show her."

But she clung to him, with "Oh, me 'fraid! me 'fraid! Better not--listen
to me--You know a lot, but a man no good against her, she so artful:
only some other girl could match her ... why you not leave it to me?
Maybe later on me think out some way; but me 'fraid--You make Caray
unconscious, too?"

Cobby sullenly answered: "Yes, I decided ... Macray's behaviour has been
so strange and reprehensible--he must make his way home without me, I
without him----"

"But still--Oh, God, me 'fraaaid--Spiciewegiehotiu do _some_thing--she
not go with you--not far--she run away while you asleep, she come back,
she send horses to where she left you, she drag you back, she dog-rabid
when she angry--maybe she cut off your head: if she cut it off, me drop
stiff dead"--she drooped, kneeling, to his palm, of which she made a
cushion for her cheek.

"No fear of that, dear"--he raised her up--"we shall be well away before
we sleep; and while I sleep, you will watch her."

She started! "Me going, too?" in a hoarse throat-tone.

"Why, yes--Sueela--of course."

She tossed her shut eyes about with "Oh, don't _tempt_ me!--you not want
me!

"Yes, yes," he said: "of course, you come. She will not be happy without
you, nor--will I."

At that "I" her arms were wrapped round him, and in a transport her
mouth found his--for a moment only: in the next her face was buried in
her elbow, and a sob brought forth: "Oh, what a wild beast! Me never
meant to do that. But that the second of the three, no?"

"Very good," he consented, "since you wish it so; and one more is left.
Now we go--come."

But she shrank. "No, me not go! me 'fraid ... Oh, you not hurt her, no?"

"No, no--no pain: come."

"No, me wait here: when you make her unconscious, come tell me."

"Very good"--he moved to go, and Spiciewegiehotiu was off, private as
the night-beast stealing, but fleet, leaping the bush with high wide
strides, bounding, but soundless. Cobby did not see nor hear her at all;
and when in the inner rock-hall he bent over her sleeping-place, there
she lay breathing as in sleep.

But in the outer hall she had smelled an odour--of chloroform--which she
had smelled months before (in her hut on the night of Cobby's arrival),
and knew to be narcotic, for Macray had foretold her of it: and now when
she smelled it a foot from her nose, she felt no inclination to inhale
it instead of the heavenly air; so, startling Cobby's heart, sudden and
straight she sprang, asking composedly enough: "What you want, Cobby?"

He, in a revulsion of emotion from his shock and astonishment, had her
snatched to his heart, ravenously devouring her mouth, panting at her:
"You I want."

And passively she took it; but, as soon as she could, still on his
bosom, lifted up her voice: "Come! kill this man!"

"No, they won't come," he breathlessly uttered--"all drugged. Now I am
your king. Will you do now everything that I tell you? Do you love me,
your cousin, your king?"

"Hate you! King? Slave! So you drug them all, no? This is the thanks I
get for letting your hands free, no? And you seize my body, you dare to
kiss me, without my consent? For this by itself me sentence you to ten
days in 'The Elephant.'"

"Oh, nonsense." he said, holding her close: "in ten days you and I will
be far enough from 'The Elephant.'"

"Kiss me again," she whispered witchingly: on which, fitting her to him,
he kissed her continuously; but the instant he stopped, "For that," she
said, "me sentence you to twenty days in 'The Elephant.' Now do it
again."

"Oh, no more," he panted, "my heart will break on that breast of
yours--Spicie--Cousin--Soul--secret of God revealed to me--essence of
Heaven--Come--no time---- Do you come, or do I drug you by force? I
should like to smother up your mouth, and break you to my will."

She disengaged herself from him, saying: "Me come."

"Come, then, come"--and, she following, he walked busily out, with some
wonderment in him, though occupied with other things, that she did or
said nothing as to Sueela--through the outer room, where she kicked one
of the blacks to see if that would rouse him, and then remarked dryly to
Cobby: "You think me silly, no? You think me not foresee that you might
do this?"

Cobby said nothing till they were at the cave-mouth, when he said: "Now
to get the oxen together;" on which with one hand she seized his sleeve,
and, putting with the other hand to her lips a small horn hung on her
hip below her tunic, blew a tooting.

The moon had just mounted up, cumbered in a jubilee of clouds and
colours, transmuting the mood of the night as mightily as that tooting
transmuted the mood of the wood, which was suddenly arustle with troops
rushing: for Spiciewegiehotiu had not gone out solitary from Eshowe,
though she had gone on solitary from this spot, in order to safeguard
her men from the disadvantages of an ambush; now they came pelting, a
stream of tails and feathers, to make hasty prostrations at the Queen's
feet; and, lost in astonishment, Cobby pretty soon stood a prisoner at a
signal of her finger....

In the same moments came Sueela rushing, speechless, staring terrors;
but immediately felt better when the Queen said: "There you are....
Couldn't sleep, no? Went out into the air, no?"

"Eheh"--her eyes dwelling, dwelling, on the Queen's face.

And Spiciewegiehotiu remarked: "The moon up: we go on."

"Fall in!" an officer now called out, and the troop drew up in two ranks
on the rock-ground between the grass and the grotto, by which time
Cobby had been dragged to be tied to the cart, he calling to the Queen:
"You shall kneel to me!"

She waved her hand at him, calling with banter: "Some other day!" then
at once turned to tell the officer about the six drugged, bidding him
kick them awake; and when he had tried in vain, she said to him: "They
all traitors, except the white one: so leave ten of your men with food
to arrest them when they wake. Now the horses and the oxen."

All on horses, except four with the oxen and with Cobby, they now set
off, the Queen and Sueela on their Selim and Mustapha: but the farther
they travelled, the deeper into her feet sank Sueela's heart for
affright at the Queen's silence. If she said anything, Spiciewegeihotiu
answered short, and when morning dawned upon them she understood that
that was doomsday dawning.

As they were now only a few miles from the town, a rumour of them flew,
people streamed to view them, and Cobby had to endure no lack of scowls
and frowns, prophecies of ill-fortune, one old woman pulling his ear to
say: "Now she cut you short, my man"; even one of his smith-friends gave
ungracious glances at his misery and ignominy and haggard aspect, though
the smith, Rambya, boldly grasped his hand.

From the great gate of Eshowe they led him away westward to "The
Elephant," followed by that glowering ogle of Sueela's grief, upon whom,
too, the sword of doom was about to drop: for when, some way up the
great square, they were come to the point nearest to Mandaganya's
domicile, the Queen, languidly waving to the throng, said to Sueela:
"Now go to your mother, Sueela. Later you hear from me. You not to send
me any messages."

Like lead fell Sueela's head, her fingers stiffened, her lips gaped, her
stare gazed into the depths of hell; and, saying not a word, she turned
her horse's head, to walk it as woefully slow away as after the dirges
and hearse of Hope.

Thenceforth another than Sueela slept in a hut with a Queen who did not
sleep, who, of all the bereaved and solitary, was the deepest bereaved
and lost in solitude.

Three days later three ambassadors of Wo-Ngwanya, sent to M'Niami, stood
before King Daisy in the kotla of his great-place amid a crowd of
councillors; and Daisy said to them: "Now say your say: me listen."

Upon which one lifted up his voice and said: "Spiciewegiehotiu say to
Daisy She want to strengthen the friendship at present reigning between
her and Daisy: so she proffer afresh the hand of the lady Sueela in
marriage to Daisy."

Now, the good Daisy had "had some," as people say, in respect of
marriage with Sueela, and was not taking any more without due
circumspection and care in stepping.... His heart started at that
message! This Sueela had cost him much in kine, and fears in the watches
of the night! But for that snatching off of Spiciewegiehotiu by Prince
Dzinikulu in the hour of her victory, there might now have been no more
Daisy, hardly any more the name of M'Niami. So, having banqueted the
ambassadors and given them gifts, he sent them back with thanks to the
Queen, and with the message that in a week he would despatch an
answer....

Daisy was at present inclined to elderliness, and a man likely to be
speedily subordinated and sat upon by Sueela, if he had the misfortune
to marry her--a rather weak, rather ridiculous negro, who regarded
himself as specially the _protg_ of God, or ghosts, or something, and
"me protected" he ever said with half a laugh, "something protect me!"
If there was an epidemic, or an accident, and he escaped, he'd exclaim:
"Me preserved! something preserve me"--a truth certainly, but the absurd
person never observed that it was true, too, of many men, and deer, and
pompions, and potted meats--a tall man, a little knock-kneed, with a
straggling beard, a tooth which projected a little upon the lower lip,
coloured eye-whites--not very pretty. But, though so protected, he was
wary: and, instead of sending an embassy, himself journeyed to Eshowe,
to converse with Spiciewegiehotiu.

There he was well fted, and quickly convinced himself that
Spiciewegiehotiu's object this time was really bridals, and not war.
"While you and Sueela live, we friends," she said, clasping his hand:
"When you or she die, me add M'Niami to Wo-Ngwanya."

Then, with a retinue, he went to see Sueela at Mandaganya's, and back in
high spirits hastened to Spiciewegiehotiu, who said to him: "You like
her, no?"

"Eheh--she good--she a heifer--oh yes. Sullen, still, yes; but she soon
love me. Better take the three thousand for her."

"No, only the two.... So, Daisy, you not 'fraid she scratch out your
eyes?"

"Poh, no: she not do that.... Me protected! Something protect me."

"So she go to you; you get her, Daisy. But you always treat her well,
no?"--her voice broke, she turned from him with lips that quivered and
worked.

The same evening came the doctoress-mother suppliant, and fondled the
Queen's hands, saying: "Sueela say Spare her."

On which Spiciewegiehotiu flushed. "Me told her not to send me any
messages."

"No, she not send! me come myself," the sybil said hastily: "but she say
She not want to marry, she only want you in this world."

Up sprang Spiciewegiehotiu, angry, to pace. "Spare her? Spare her? Me
marry her to a King! She and you not proud?"

"Yes, me proud! me thank you!--my goodness. But she sick--she got so
thin--she not want to go so far from you--she say She rather marry a
slave where she could see your foot pass sometimes--oh, how could you
turn her---- She done something very bad, no?"

Spiciewegiehotiu's head hung down, her gaze on the ground, full of a
lugubrious brooding, and she muttered: "No, she not done any bad; it's
me, it's me: me have a bitter heart."

"But you not bitter for nothing," the sybil said: "me know very well she
done something: me think you catch her with a man--no? Tell Mandaganya;
tell Ma-Sueela."

But the Queen, at present very fickle in temper, said fretfully: "Oh, me
tell you no---- Go away! Me not want to see anybody."

Hence when, after Mandaganya had gone, Macray sent in a pressing request
to see the Queen, she said to the messenger: "Tell him no: ask what he
want."

Whereupon Macray sent in the second message: Why marry Sueela to Daisy?
He himself was ready to marry her instead: was the Queen willing?

"Tell him yes," answered Spiciewegiehotiu: "tell him bring the two
thousand cattle for her into the kotla": at which the messenger grinned,
and Macray grumbled: "the bitch!"

The next afternoon Daisy departed for M'Niami, to make ready for the
week of wedding-feast and ceremony; and four forenoons afterwards
Spiciewegiehotiu, after her bath, left her bevy of attendants, and
worked her way with furtiveness, eyeings and lurkings, to climb a mound
covered with mimosa, whence to descry the road out of the town. There
she waited until cavalry cantering appeared, within which was Sueela;
and "let her go," she glumly muttered; but when the dust of it was no
more visible, suddenly her countenance convulsed, and but that she
stuffed up her mouth with a towel and bit into it, bitterly she would
doubtless have howled aloud....

    Alle das Neigen
    Von Herzen zu Herzen,
    Ach! wie so eigen
    Schaffet das Schmerzen!

Thus, anyway, with wailing, went the excellent Sueela away, to be lain
with by the likes of Daisy, though to sit on him....




XXIX

SEBINGWE


Cobby, meanwhile, tholing the glooms of "The Elephant" in his old room,
got during two weeks no news of the external world, but then heard from
the Collector of Messages, firstly, that Sueela was wedded, and then
heard, what to him was like a burn, that the five men-friends of Sueela
whom she had tempted to venture to trek with her and him, who then had
forsaken her and him to kneel and plead with the Queen to continue to
live, were now about to be executed for treason. Treason they had no
doubt committed: but still he was wrung with compunction for them. "My
God!" he exclaimed in pain, "is the girl a guillotine? Is she without
bowels of mercy?" and indirectly through the Sinder-ngabya (Guardian of
the Sad), being unable to send direct, he sent a message to
Spiciewegiehotiu, proffering himself, since he was the cause of the
fault and fall of those five unfortunates, to die in their stead, or in
the stead of any one of them.

Twelve days later he received the answer: "Spiciewegiehotiu say You die
the day she want, not before, not after"; and the official added in a
confidential manner: "You lie low--not worry her: she cross like a
thicket of prickly-pears these days. They say she not sleep at night,
she find no rest, because the lady Sueela gone; and now war coming----"

"War? With whom? War? What for?"

"Me not know. Maybe no war; maybe war. Some say yes, some say no. War
with Sebingwe--if it come."

"Heavens!--another ... But tell me--is there no chance at all of these
five unfortunates being spared?"

"No chance: to-morrow they die. But everybody grumbling because they die
before you; everybody waiting--your turn next they say. You lie
low--maybe you not die. Some have it to say maybe you take the Queen's
fancy! Ha, ha, they a jealous, suspicious lot; and their tongues!
_Waw!_"

Their jealousy and suspicion and tongues were to be given an impulse!
for on the thirty-first day of his imprisonment, a few days after the
execution of the five, Cobby, to the surprise and offence of all, saw
himself set free, and in the kotla was followed by a mob that goggled
and nodded at him with no good-will.

His liberators, under instructions to conduct him straight to the Queen,
failed in this, he flatly refusing, saying, "No I have to bathe"; but,
this done, he went--to find Spiciewegiehotiu like "a bear with a sore
head!"--or a lion. "You not tired of 'The Elephant'?" she asked,
spinning sharply upon him.

"Yes," he answered, "and of you, and of Wo-Ngwanya."

This held her arrested. "You tired of me?"

"Yes, and of all your ruthlessness and wars."

"Oh, me not want any long logic! Me only want to know one thing of you:
you done now trying to carry me off where me not want to go?"

"Quite done," he answered: "never again--you have my undertaking. Now I
go alone."

At which her lip whitened with spite, her eyes spitting fire. "Bah!" she
bitterly said, "you can't"--glancing backward at him, pacing the
hut--"me drag you back by your red hair."

"Be quiet," he answered with the authority of a pride quiet, yet
impassioned to pomposity: "you are speaking to a priest and king of
kings. If I tell you that I can go, you are not to say that I cannot. It
was my reluctance to forsake Macray that has held me here, but I am no
longer reluctant--to-day I hear that Macray is even seeking to instigate
the people against me. So when I will I go, having a hundred and twenty
winged horses to haul me by a path that no hawk knows, and the hounds
of your scouts cannot pursue their spoor. Be quiet."

This again gave her pause, she standing rather agape--since savage and
semi-savage intellects more or less believe every marvel they hear.

"Where you have these hundred and twenty horses?" she wished to know.

"Horse-power: in some cans."

But this defied credulity--horses with wings in cans, potted horses with
wings. And yet--having a trust in his statements, having beheld his
marvels at the banquet, she half-believed; a half-belief which had power
to make her pale.

She faced him to ask: "And, if you could go, you would go?"

"Yes; duty; work to do; duty."

"Without me?"

"Yes."

"Go, then," she muttered, turning from him; and then she span to scream
at him "Go! Go!" and stamp at him.

"Dear love!"

"Go!" she screamed again, glaring at him.

"Don't be angry with me," he now gently said. "Why are you so cross? You
don't look well...."

This broke her down. "Oh!" she cried out, running to him, and, her
forehead on his shoulder, wailed: "Me want Sueela! Me want her!"

He felt her bosom bob sobbingly without any sound coming, and "Heavens!"
he exclaimed, "then, why have you married her to Daisy?"

Her eyes fixed him with a glance, then dropped, she not saying anything,
till she made the remark, apparently irrelevant: "Maybe war coming;
Sebingwe----"

"Yes, another," said Cobby dryly, "I know: Sebingwe this time. Why, why,
can you not live----?"

She interrupted. "Now you see why me marry Sueela to Daisy: _partly_
why"--again she fixed him a little with that silent eye, saying
"_partly_."

"No, I don't see----"

"But you know that Daisy and Sebingwe friends? and if Sueela married to
Daisy she not let Daisy help Sebingwe against me. Maybe Sueela not
love--me; but she love Wo-Ngwanya mad: so now Sebingwe never have help
against Wo-Ngwanya."

"I see!--you artful being. Policy, policy, all is policy with
Spiciewegiehotiu! and for policy she will pluck out her own heart, and
the hearts of those that love her. But why, after all, fight Sebingwe?
Why not live----?"

"Cobby, me tell you"--her hand on his arm--"me not fight Sebingwe: if we
fight, Sebingwe fight _me_. You believe me, no, Cobby? Sebingwe fight
_me_. Ten days ago me send an embassy to Sebingwe to ask him _how_ it
was that so many Wa-Mashenya fight in Daisy's army the last time Daisy
fight me? and me ask Sebingwe if he willing to hand over to me as slaves
those Wa-Mashenya that fight against me. No harm in that, Cobby, no? You
see, no? that me not pick any quarrel with Sebingwe. Sebingwe send me an
insulting answer: he say _Noh_! he not willing. So, Cobby, you see, no?
that it is Sebingwe----"

"Quite so," said Cobby: "Sebingwe had no right to let his men fight
against you...."

She danced two steps behind his back.

"So, Cobby, if Sebingwe fight me, you fight this time for me, no?"

"You may be sure!--on condition that I find your account of it true: for
you deceived me in respect of the Daisy-quarrel, remember--deliberately.
But, if your quarrel is just, those who insult you insult me, and those
who fight you fight the lightning. When I said that I am going from you
on my winged horses, I didn't mean that I'd go if you are in any trouble
or peril: in trouble I am with you till the day of death, your trouble
being my trouble, since somehow your blood is my blood, and your life my
life."

Their eyes met, and in his and in hers the same tear burned and
quivered, by the work and miracle of that quick Spirit that erewhile
whispered, Let there be Life! and Life quickened and quivered, burned,
bled, yearned, yelled....

"Cousin Cobby ..." she held out her hand, and he held it, felt it,
possessed it, flesh and bone, appropriating it sacramentally in his
breast, until she shivered, and drew it, her lids drooping, and moved
from him.

"Still," he said, "there is no need for any war, I hope: things can be
adjusted. Think, dear, of the waste, not of blood only, but of wealth
and effort. They say the M'Niami people are still impoverished, while
you here----"

"Oh, war good, me know," she interrupted: "it make stronger men and
cleverer girls: and, if that cost dear, it worth it. If only the men had
no more than one wife, plenty of war would make us gods."

His eyebrows lifted. "Indeed?" says he. "Tell me: what makes you think
that?"

"Me reckon it up; me see, me know.... War make less men, and so permit a
man to pick out a better mother for his young."

Dumb-struck stood Cobby and agape; as he writes in his diary of it:
"Here was 'a new thing' for me. For though Darwin and that school, like
her, were sure that 'war is good,' Darwin thought that the good must
come through fatherhood--never somehow thought of motherhood--_forgot_
that there are mothers, too--and, in arguing that the good comes through
fatherhood, refuted himself (since the bravest fall), saw anon that he
refuted himself, and was perplexed, though still convinced that 'war is
good.' So I stood dumb before her, thinking in myself, 'Dear me, had I
to come to Africa to hear this?' But by her theory war must be
accompanied by monogamy; otherwise, after the war, the remaining men
simply take more wives, including the riff-raff. Does this explain the
stationariness of savages, of Asia? Heaven knows! Some time I must give
the matter some systematic study."

But instead of attempting now to deal with theory he returned to the
personal, saying to her: "So, then, you _want_ war?"

"No, no, no," she hastily answered: "Cobby me not want war!--you believe
me, no? _Sebingwe_ want war. War good, me say, but me not want war--now.
And suppose me want war!" she boldly added, "Cobby, you not see why?"

"No, I don't----"

"Cobby, the people not like you. At first they like you, but you make
them not like you. If you fight for them, and win, they like you. And
even if they not like you then, war--and victory--crown me with the
power to live up to my dreams, and snap my fingers in their faces. Now
you see, no?"

"Yes, but at what a cost--to other people!" he cried out. "Suppose that
war, as you say, _is_ 'good' for the stock: then, the forces of Nature
may be depended upon to bring about war, whoever doesn't want it; but is
it not the obvious duty of the individual, for _his_ part, to put forth
all his effort to avert so much woe and waste of work?"

"Eheh--of course," she answered with the shadow of a smile, eyeing a
match which she had lighted: for, supplied by the white men with
matches, she kept a box on her, and, miserly-spendthrift, would anon
strike one as a fire-work, to entertain herself.

Cobby then asked when her next message was to be sent to Sebingwe; to
which she answered: "Today.... His men here waiting...."

"And will you send a mild message? Come to some compromise----"

She smiled to herself, then on a sudden, dashing down the match-end,
pettish, pouting: "Oh, Cobby, me sad, me mad, me cross, me want Sueela!
If me not have Sueela, me fight everybody."

"What _can_ one do?" cried Cobby.

"Me low, me mean, yes," she muttered as to herself: "me have no pride;
but--she gone--me not see her any more."

"Why not send----?" he began to say, when, a sound from outside coming
to them, she started, breathing "What that?" then sharply ran to the
door to hearken.

A noise of voices brawling afar was brought her on the breeze, in whose
embroilment after a minute her ear seemed to hear insistently: "Send the
white men away!"--and she became deadly pale.

Then, running toward the hut from the avenue gate, she saw a guardsman
all wafted backward by a gale that was trouncing the forestry like a
rout of frocks tossed in profligate carousal; and he at her whisper,
"What's happening?" answered: "Bayet! the people call out to you send
the white men away; they press against the sigodhlo gate; Sir Caray on
his horse haranguing them.... He say Sir Cobby soon carry you off from
them, if you not send him away ... and they angry.... Sir Caray say you
want Sir Cobby for--yourself...."

"The scum!" with a coarse contempt her countenance scowled; red rage
rushed to her brow; and round about she ranged almost at a run, like one
evading something which chases. "The scum! Me show them white men--war
for them! If you not bleed them, they not believe in you; if you not
kick and cuff them, they not love you. War! War! The scum! Me drench
Wo-Mashenya in blood--me show them advising----"

"I think," Cobby ventured to say, "that you might comfort yourself with
some calm."

"Oh, dung to _you_!" she intolerantly retorted, slapping her haunch at
him: "you think me care what you have to say?" and down now she let
herself flop upon the floor like a child in a tantrum, her heels beating
a tattoo, her face a painting of vexation; but then sprang up to scream
in a passion to the guardsman: "Have Sebingwe's embassy summoned to me!
Me show the scum blood!"

"If I may venture----" Cobby stiffly began to say.

"You not hear me say me not want to _hear_?" her flying tongue
shrilled, she spinning upon him. "How long you going to stay here? All
day? My goodness, you can't leave me when you once see me? You think me
have nothing to think about but _you_?"

With an elegant dignity Cobby bowed, and, without a word, turned and
went out.

"Go home!" she called after: "you not to go outside the sigodhlo."

"I go where I please," he answered, chin up.

But half-way to the park gate he paused at the thought that he ought to
do something or other to stop her from sending a message to Sebingwe in
her then temper; and he went back to say: "If you will promise not to
send to Sebingwe until half-time before noon to-morrow morning, I will
bring you Sueela by then."

This arrested her. "You talking wild, no?... You not get half to M'Niami
by then."

"I will, and be back. Promise."

She stood with suspended breath. This interested her--both the
extraordinary voyage, and the object of it--interesting both her
curiosity and her longing.

"How you 'will'?... And you think me want to see her?--that snake? that
strumpet?"

"You said that you wanted. She is not a snake nor a strumpet."

"How you know? _You know her well, no?_ No! Me not want! You and she
enjoy the voyage together, no?"

"I don't--understand you.... Then, I won't go. But please don't see
Sebingwe's embassy yet----"

Now she yielded to yearning, and said averted: "Go, if you like.... Yes,
go. Me see if you come back by half-time before noon. Me not see the
embassy till then; but then me see it, and send it back."

"Very good, you undertake--good-bye." He went quickly away.




XXX

IN THE CANES


Callings and noises of the populace beyond the sigodhlo gate were still
distinctly audible anon, as Cobby walked from the royal gate to prepare
for his trip; and he had not long gone when Macray, gaining an entrance
at the sigodhlo gate, presented himself at the royal gate to see the
Queen.

Macray was at present in a very impatient, a very dangerous and devilish
frame. He had said to himself: "I want to _go_, and I'm _going_--free
America!" And that day, on hearing of Cobby's release, he no longer
allowed himself to doubt that Spiciewegiehotiu must be "gone on" Cobby,
and had no intention of ever letting Cobby go--for he no longer feared
that _she_ would ever go; and since she meant to keep Cobby, she must
mean to keep him, Macray, who was her natural ally against Cobby. Hence
his oratory from horseback, explaining to the mob that Cobby must be
sent away. He had, moreover, a dread that Cobby, who was also impatient
to be away, might now go off alone in his aeroplane, and, Cobby once
gone, Macray understood that the shears would be sharp to cut short, for
he was sure that Spiciewegiehotiu knew him, and did not love, nor had
forgotten that stew which the dog would not touch....

_Her_ he hated much more than Cobby, who had dared to slap, to lay hands
upon his body with chloroform; _her_ death would cut the knot of all his
difficulties; and he now contemplated bringing it about, together with
Cobby's and thousands, probably, of other deaths, and this in due course
of business, with that recklessness of Peace or Rockefeller, without
respect or prick of pity.

But when he presented himself at the royal gate, though conscious of
danger, he little dreamt in how dreadful a peril a phrase of Cobby's,
lately uttered, had put him: for Cobby had undertaken to
Spiciewegiehotiu never more to attempt to carry her off; and since she
had a trust in Cobby's promises, her use for Macray was now wholly over,
she now being as ready and prompt to slay as he: so that, as between her
and him, climax and crisis was here, and he was unlikely on the morrow
to scatter oratory upon the Wa-Ngwanya.

Intending to arrest him that very day of oratory, and reckoning that he
would draw revolver when arrested, she welcomed his request for an
interview; for, since interviewers left their weapons at the gate, to
grant the interview, and arrest within, might be to save a life, or
lives.

So it was some minutes before he was admitted; then, putting down
weapons, as usual, at the portals, he went in. But at his knee, within
the bagging of his knickerbockers, he had a small revolver for
self-defence, if necessary.

Having offered a stool she said: "Well, Sir Caray, what you want?"

"Look here, Great-great," says he, "I want to go home: can I go? or am I
a prisoner?"

Her answer, she having "spotted" the object in his knickerbocker-knee,
was: "Prisoner? You go when you like."

"You won't be dragging me back, if I start?"

"No, no: me not 'fraid of Sir Cobby any more. You go."

Now, standing up, she paced the room once, never turning her back to
him, while his thought was: "Why not get her now?" But he feared the
people; and had neater plans. As to her affable manner, that little
convinced him.

When she sat anew, she moved her stool between him and the door: and he
noted this.

"Well, I don't believe you mean it," he said--"I'm frank. But, come:
let's do a deal! _I_ want something, and _you_ want something. _I_ want
to go, and _you_ want Cobby. Now, you can't keep Cobby, for he has means
to go that you can't dream of, and he _will_ go, for he's told me so.
So, if _I_ tell you how to keep Cobby for ever, and if _you_ swear by
'The Elephant' to let me go, that will be fair."

Unexpected matter for her. She could not quite conceal her keenness.
"Yes!" she said: "that fair."

"Well, swear," said he.

"Oh, no--you tell me first," says she: "then me swear"--scratching a
parrot's neck.

"Very good---- I'll trust you. Well, this is what I say: to keep Cobby,
you must destroy his waggon-loads. Now, breaking up is no good, for,
while you were breaking up half, he'd be off with the other half; and
there are a lot of little spirits in his things, little but strong,
which you can't break up. So only fire is any good."

She was silent, but bright were her eyes. He understood that she would
do it.

Often the thought of breaking up had occurred to her, but inertly in her
lack of certain knowledge; also she had had it in mind to learn first
what the different things were "good for." She had not thought of firing
them: and it was the thought of Cobby, on his return, finding all his
"winged horses" burned, and himself her prisoner for life, that lit up
her eyes with that fire of spite and triumph.

But for Macray the question now was _when_ she would do it, he wishing
to be out of Eshowe then, there being that in the waggons which, with a
blaze under them, would blow, not only Spiciewegiehotiu and Cobby, but
Eshowe itself to heaven.

"Now have I deserved your thanks?" he asked her.

"Maybe----" she shrugged, she smiled.

"You mean to do it, then. But--when?"

That evening she meant to, Cobby's intended departure for M'Niami
fitting in with so neat and sweet a temptingness; but, by nature,
reticent, she merely answered: "Some time, maybe, me do it."

"But tell me definitely."

She shot a glance. "Why?"

"I think I'd like to clear out of Eshowe just then,"--he
chuckled--"Cobby will be so madly angry, and he'll guess who told you to
do it."

As he said this, he saw one of the swaths of hangings round the room
move somewhat; and as she, too, saw it, and saw that he saw, the
situation between them became thenceforth extremely tense and keen.

"No fear," she answered: "Sir Cobby just going away somewhere.... Tell
me: how long it take him to go to M'Niami and come back?"

"M'Niami? Four days." He had now unbuttoned his knickerbocker-knee, and
placed the revolver on his knee under her eyes--to bid her forbear and
beware, to bid her be certain that of those who bit the dust _she_ would
be the first; and "Cobby going to M'Niami?" says he: "what for? Oh, I
see--to bring Sueela?"

Now they were sitting tight on the _qui vive_--eye, ear, each nerve
alert--leaning a little toward each other, each knowing that life was
the victor's prize, she with her finger-joints at her cheek, thinking on
him, her eyes alight, active as cats on prickles to spring. As to the
object of Cobby's voyage she did not answer, but said suddenly: "Forgive
me--you take some snuff, no?"--and presented snuff.

This a little nonplussed him: at once he fathomed her motive for
_having_ it, but not for showing it--unless it was the same motive with
which he showed the revolver, to warn him? And he was nonplussed because
unsure, and because sure that it was well to be sure, in such a war the
victory being to him who thinks the greatest number of true thoughts per
second.

"Thank you, Great-great," says he, taking the box, and barely pretending
to inhale, for he thought of poison in it; at the same time he let the
snuff slip his fingers to the floor, having no desire to have it flung
at his eyes.

"Oh, bad man," she pouted--"spill all the snuff. That bring bad luck for
you."

"Clumsy!" he said: "forgive me."

"Me forgive you.... So Sir Cobby can't go and come back by to-morrow?"

"No, how can he?--unless he uses some of the little spirits.... He going
to-day? Then now's your chance to fire the waggons, while he's gone. Why
not to-day?"

"Maybe"--she shrugged, she smiled: and then she went "Tishum!" and cried
out "Oh! ha, ha."

"Ha, ha," he laughed, and sneezed.

"Ha, ha--we both have it!" she laughed.

"Yes, ha, ha----" like chums they chuckled with each other.

"And now," he next said--for form's sake, not caring at all--"it is for
you to swear that you'll let me go."

"Yes, that fair," she answered, standing up: "me go get a talisman to
swear on"--and made a movement toward the door.

But she was his hostage there, and safeguard, against those behind the
hangings; and jumping up now, with a flush of authority, he called out:
"Oh, no, you don't: here you remain"--and so crossed the Rubicon.

In that same moment snuff was fire in his eyes--tossed from _another_
box; and into his darkness, even as he darkly shot at her, there flashed
now a knowledge of the reason why she had offered snuff--in order that,
if any thought of snuff was in him, it might be utterly lulled, in order
that he might spill the snuff, and think her foiled at that point at
least, and feel comfortable as to snuff, and be utterly routed and bound
up by the surprise of the blinding lightning of a second box kept ready
under her kaross; and when after his second of dismay and disaster he
darkly fired at where she had been standing, she was lying at his feet,
and in some moments more was soundlessly out of the hut, and flying to
hiding.

But he, conscious of the direction of the doorway, had one leg out of it
almost as soon as she; but there was seized by five, two of whom fell
wounded before he lost the revolver, and the others, at that awkward
spot, failed to take him. He was away into the wood, they pursuing,
shooting.

Ecstasy lent him legs, extremity gave him sight, blasphemy gave him
luck: he clambered over the enclosure, untouched, unnoticed, jumped--not
far from the gate--and at a run got his Winchester before the astonished
gate-guards could take it upon themselves to stop him; he got beyond the
sigodhlo gate, vaulted upon his horse, and was gone as the swallow
swings, hatless, wind-swept, to the bewilderment of the mob still
populous in the square. But before he was past the market, he was being
pursued by riders, firing at him, and thence to the great-gate he
galloped firing backward with his repeater, seeing three pitch headlong,
himself uninjured; then, trampling through the great-gate guards, made
off, laying men low, over the road eastward, and so won clear away.

Pitiable, now, however, was his plight--his bridges all burned behind
him; no compass; little ammunition; no possibility of crossing Africa
without, no possibility of going back to get, until Spiciewegiehotiu,
firing the waggons, destroyed herself, no hope else of getting out of
Wo-Ngwanya; no hope else of living in it. Still, he was game; he hoped,
he chuckled.

Some way out of Eshowe he was aware of a shouting in the town--yet
another white-man amazement being that day in store for the mob, when
Cobby, throbbing on his motor-bicycle, passed rough and rapid,
spattering puff-puff, trumpeting, dragon-goggled, a streak of unreason,
all down the awna, and out.

Backing into bush, Macray watched him come carrying on the carrier a
black who clung like the drowning about him, blanched to his tongue; and
within that bush a Winchester was lifted to lay low: for though Macray's
enmity against Cobby was not constant and intense, as against the Queen,
as against Sueela, yet, having shot many, and being shot at, just to
shoot had become habitual, and a bitter amusement: so he might then have
shot at Cobby, but for his knowledge that Cobby was on the way to fetch
Sueela, and that by letting Cobby fetch her, by waiting a day, he would
be even with Sueela, might even manage to ravish ere he smashed, ere he
left her red. This was snuff and fun to him that, if he died, there
would be society, for, as to Spiciewegiehotiu, he was sure that she
would fire the waggons, and dance fandango and devil-dance with Eshowe
in the air. He cantered on further, then, taking his nag into canes, lay
in the glimmering in there to ponder upon his misery, to plot and to
curse and to lurk, and cock his ear for the throbbing of Cobby's return
with the girl, and for the shock and earthquake of the event at Eshowe.




XXXI

NIGHT-RIDE


After a rough passage, in the course of which he cast hundreds of kraals
and huts and lions into dumbness of affright at the sight of a flagrant
dragon flying with muttering through the night, Cobby's cycle-lamp
invaded the midnight dimness of the sigodhlo of Daisy's great-place; and
"my goodness" was on Sueela's lips, seeing him, and "eheh, me come,"
sleep still winking on her lids.

"But your husband?" Cobby suggested.

"Oh, _he_ ... Me go tell him."

Whereupon Daisy was but briefly consulted, for he within some weeks had
been adequately sat upon, and was a bottom-dog; and before long they
were off, she with shut lids in bliss on the carrier embracing Cobby's
body, bliss combined with a bicycle-terror which would have been greater
but that she had witnessed the grin of arrival and delight of the guide
brought by Cobby, and now left behind.

Wild was that night of flight for Sueela, an experience of teeming
mysteriousness, and drama of vast darkness, dismal with winds screaming,
mixed with myriads of trees streaming in retreat, series of drear
sceneries receding, to be remembered in dreams for ever. It was no fun,
however: no moon mostly; only stars wind-whiffed like hall-lamps, noises
of many waters, sometimes the sharp wash of a shower, which passed, the
road not continuous, never smooth; thrice the bicycle had to be hauled
through the brawling and rocks of broad shallow waters, and where
patches of pathless shrub meant many a jolt; there were hills whose
descent meant peril of a breaking of brakes, and hills up whose incline
the bicycle, a paltry thing of four and a half horse power, barely
crawled, till they walked beside it: so toward daybreak, harassed and
hot, Cobby stopped in forest on the brink of a river to eat a meal,
Sueela seated very near him, but separate, incapable of eating, and once
he, _en bon camarade_, put an arm about her, which she very gently and
slowly removed, remarking: "She trust me with you."

"Not without reason," he answered: "you are a dear good thing, and I
have a sister whom I do not love more than you."

"You love me, no?" she whispered, stroking his arm distantly with
fingers intensely stretched: "that enough for me--me could do without
food and bed, and yet my belly full, if you love me. And you think me
not pay you back? Me toss all at your dear feet--you think me care?--me
give you Wo-Ngwanya--my land!--me love its old stones, and how it smell
on wet days--me give it--and my mother--my brothers--my friends--they
all say 'traitress!'--they spit on my name--_she_ spit--me not care--me
do it for you and for her."

A sob: and he said "dear," but added: "Though I don't understand: how
will you give me Wo-Ngwanya? and why will they say 'traitress'?"

"Wait till me know if she fight Sebingwe," she replied: "then me tell
you."

"She _will_ fight, I think," Cobby said, "if we are not there in time
before she sends back Sebingwe's embassy, for she is at present in a
most morose and dangerous mood, owing apparently to her fretting after
you. So with you it rests, Sueela, and I depend upon you to stop
anything in the way of war, since there is no need."

She smiled at him as at a child, without reply; and he said: "Come
then," springing up.

Then for three hours more they tholed the roughness of the trip, and now
in sunlight were running down a bit of road with canes on both sides
some ten miles from Eshowe, when a report of rifle-shot sounded out of
the (south) canes on their left. The hill being steep, the pace brisk,
neither was hit, but a second shot pierced the flesh of Cobby's left
arm, upon which he lost control of himself and the motor, which dashed
up a bank to the right, and collapsed over driver and passenger--luckily
in bush and canes, which concealed them from yet another bullet; and
with instant nimbleness Sueela on her feet had Cobby by the hand, haling
him into the thick of the canes.

There they squatted some time, all ear and leer, mouse-quiet but for the
little movements of Sueela binding Cobby's wound; and, "Who _can_ it
be?" Cobby whispered, to which she whispered back: "Sh-h--_Caray_."

Now another report--from farther in the canes than they, the shooter
having crossed the road; and now with a flush Cobby shot his revolver:
upon which he and she moved softly off to lurk within some other home of
the murky world of thicket.

Other shots followed. The canes being a sea in agitation billowing under
the blasts of the winds, the swish of local agitations may have
attracted the aim of the gunman, whose roaming and mysterious gun bred
not merely terror but a sort of awe, as though a ghost was gunning; and
immense, moreover, was Cobby's dismay at the time going, the loss of so
many lives involved in the delay, the object of his voyage to Daisy's
frustrated, for already he was late for his rendezvous with
Spiciewegiehotiu at Eshowe, and still a prisoner there in the canes.

Meantime, to each shot which smashed through the leafage a shot of his
answered sharply back in challenge, he quickly shifting his position
after it; and so an hour and a half passed, he having now one cartridge
only.

After a monotony of twenty minutes he whispered: "I can bear this no
more: going: you stay, until I bring a force of men."

"Me come," she whispered.

"Why? I forbid."

He kissed her hand, looked at a little compass, stole off toward the
road, and had nearly reached it, when not far to his left a sound
arose--a neigh.

Down he crouched, mouse-still, waiting, and presently again the neigh
came from the same place.

He saw that, since there was a horse, if he could capture it, mount it
_in_ the canes, and dash out and away on it, that might be well: and on
hands and knees he crept that way, keenly peering.

Presently he became aware of the breath of a horse, then saw it eating
at the canes, and then, near the horse, caught sight of a man lying
blanched and unconscious, a rifle beside him.

When Cobby bent over him, he discovered that Macray had been struck in
the left patella; and now his shouts for Sueela began to sound through
the canes, till she came brushing through.

Her nose wrinkled with repulsion at Macray; and when, after lifting,
they laid him down, her stretched fingers shrank from off him, as if to
finger him was filthy.

Having got him out of the cane and upon the nag, Cobby with difficulty
fixed him by means of part of the nag's rein, and, after making fast the
remainder of it to the motor, moved slowly on, towing him. But half-way
to Eshowe Macray came out of his faint, and in a sick voice sang out:
"Hallo, baas; hallo, Black Sue; where you taking me to? I don't want to
go to Eshowe"--but got no answer.

As they entered Eshowe near one o'clock they saw the awna all populous,
and from all quarters swarmed a multitude to gloat over the motor, to
greet Sueela, to gape at Macray, and to call out the news of war
declared in the awna at noon by the Queen, who had accused Sebingwe of
malignity, flung down the glove, and sent back the Wo-Mashenya embassy
with gage of battle.

Wild with excitement were all eyes, and it was with pelting steps to go
to the sigodhlo that Sueela left Cobby near the market, he with Macray
now going westward to Macray's hut, where, while he waited for the
turning up of his surgical-case, he said distantly to Macray: "What in
God's name have I done to you that you should shoot at me? I hope you
haven't got 'malevolence-of-the-insane.'"

"Baas," Macray said from his deck-chair, "you struck me, you know, you
chloroformed me. No man may take such liberties with me. But it wasn't
you I wanted to get, it was that strumpet."

And he said again when the leg was being made a septic: "Where's the
good, inkoos? There's been a rumpus between that Flora Macray and me:
she'll have me dead before sunset."

"She will do nothing of the kind," Cobby answered, "for I shouldn't
suffer it."

"Oh, you aren't a bad old baas ... But don't think you can stop her; the
bitch'll have her will, if she lives."

Cobby but half-chloroformed him, and then, eating melons for a meal,
hung on at the hut: for since his trained hands had no special training
in surgery, he was flurried and nervous there, and made himself nurse as
well as surgeon.

In the midst of which ministries, in rushed one of Macray's men to tell
that some men were coming with a stretcher to take Macray; and in some
moments Cobby saw five giants coming up the bush-approach to the hut: on
which he stepped out to confront them.

One of them mentioned that they came to take Sir Caray to "The
Elephant"; whereupon Cobby: "Oh, but that's out of the question. Surely
you know that the man's leg is fractured: 'The Elephant' may kill him.
You will be good enough to wait, until I see the Queen and explain."

The negroes glanced at one another and grinned. "We not come to wait,"
one said.

Cobby now flushed in his hot way, saying: "Oh, but you _are_."

"We _not_."

"You _are_--You have to do as you are told."

Now from out of the hut sounded: "Baas, it's no good!"

Of which Cobby took no notice, but said in another tone to the men: "How
can you be so inhuman? White men are framed with the same infirmities
and require the same mercies as yourselves. I will see the Queen----"

"Come, clear out, Sir Cobby," one interrupted with some roughness, "you
make us cross."

On which another flush rushed up Cobby's forehead, and now, drawing his
revolver, he said: "Whoever first enters this hut will be shot."

Again the negroes grinned with one another, and now laid down the
stretcher, while one of them went running out of the grounds through a
crowd that had come in from the near street to see the thing through.

Then ten minutes of suspense--babble, jocularities, from the mob,
expostulations from Macray, from the men, who pointed out that they were
but obeying orders: Cobby stood, revolver in hand; and when the one who
had run out returned at a trot with a body of some thirty, Cobby with
his revolver marked a mark on the path, beyond which to put a foot was
to be shot.

This made deadlock. The negroes grinned; none wished to be shot; none
thought of retreat. Then one ventured to protrude a toe over the
mark--pretending negligence; and Cobby saw it, and knew that it was not
done in negligence, and did not shoot--as Napoleon would have shot, as
Cromwell; but Cobby was not Cromwell--higher type, less efficient anon
as to the special little end, enormously more efficient, in a more
complex cosmos, as to the general business of living in a
cosmos--Cromwell, Napoleon, being hardly so much as _conscious_ of a
cosmos, imagining that God is a Baptist, a Girondin; but He is an
electro-chemist.

And then at once the frogs hopped upon the log--they rushed him; and he,
having one bullet, could well have shot somebody then, but--did not. He
was pretty roughly dealt with; and the only result--to the _eye_--for
the _time_--of his intervention was that he lost a revolver, which he
never got again. Accompanied by him, Macray was taken away, a pitiable
enough poor man, come upon misfortune, and pretty obviously on the road
to ruin. He was put into a punt at the edge of "The Elephant" pool
where, as they parted, the two shook hands.




XXXII

THE WAGGONS


Meanwhile with pelting steps Sueela sped to the Queen's, and with keen
expectancy peeped into the hut--no open arms there, only the new
favourite, who started up to tell that Spiciewegiehotiu was farther in
the wood, where some waggons were, and ran to show the way with Sueela,
whose forerunning heart and sprinting feet outstripped her.

The waggons were in a glade shut within jungle, with them the Queen and
four men, who were making fuel-heaps under them: and there stood Sueela,
eager, suspended, a gazelle that grinned, a grace awaiting her welcome,
until the Queen turned her head a little to observe: "Oh, you come."

"My goodness...."

"What you come for?"

"Come for? You not send for me?"

"Me? No."

Sueela, averted, eyed alternately the earth and the sky, and within her
neck the world ached.

"All right, my girl ... What me done to you, Spiciewegiehotiu?"

"To me? You not done anything ... So you just come? You get here quick.
You liked the ride, no?"

"Yes, me and Sir Cobby come tearing on a carriage with only two wheels,
and no horses! Sir Cobby say the horses inside."

"Eheh, me hear all about it. Sir Cobby know a lot: but he not know
everything."

"Oh, Spiciewegiehotiu ... So _this_ is what me dream of all night,
_this_ is what me fly to ... Me go ... Good health."

"Where you go to?"

"Me go back to my Kingdom."

"When me tell you to? or before?

"Oh, me not belong to you now, my girl!"

"Who you belong to? To--Sir Cobby?"

Sueela eyed her with a weighing underlook. "Me belong to myself. Me a
Queen like you. You think you can treat me cruel like this? No, me not
love you any more."

"You ever loved me?"

"Oh, no, never! Never ten times more than my own--" here her voice
weakened, and Spiciewegiehotiu, still averted, turned her head at her to
say: "Yes, cry: you think, if you cry, me cry, too."

Whereupon Sueela laughed across a sob: "You crying, my girl!"

And Spiciewegiehotiu, with working nostrils, laughed also: "Oh, you
silly thing!"

Upon which their hands, magnetized, found out each other, and Sueela
drew her. And presently Spiciewegiehotiu: "Come--You hungry?"

"Eheh."

"Come"--and off in a flutter they dashed chattering, Spiciewegiehotiu
calling over her shoulder to the men to go on making the fuel-heaps
under the waggons, which she had brought over from Cobby's park the
previous evening, intending to burn them then; but, on learning the wild
tidings of Cobby's bicycle flying down the kotla, had paused, reflecting
that that bicycle might be the very means of Cobby's threatened escape,
and that, if she fired the waggons at once, then Cobby, on finding out,
might, in his "mad anger," predicted by Macray, at once fly off on the
bicycle: so she had decided to wait a day, acquire the bicycle also,
then fire all.

"But you going to burn his waggons?" Sueela with a start asked on the
way to the hut.

"What's that to you?" Spiciewegiehotiu answered, stopping.

"Nothing!--my goodness." But inwardly appalled for Cobby, and knowing
that pleading would be useless, she added with a quick use of wit: "But
you found out what all the different things good for?"

"No, me not found out; me neglect it ... Let them go. Me not want a
subject in Wo-Ngwanya more powerful than his sovereign."

"Me see ... But, my goodness, you not wait and find out first, and then
burn them? Maybe some of them good for the war."

This touched Spiciewegiehotiu in a tender spot. "Maybe," she muttered,
"me will see." They went on.

At the hut-door the new Queen's pet was expelled, and within the hut the
two spent the afternoon in communion as in the old day, alone but for an
intrusion of the sybil and the executioner-brother, until Cobby arrived
hot on his bicycle, straight from bidding farewell to Macray at the
brink of "The Elephant" lake, he entering saying: "So after all my pains
there is to be this war."

"Well, whose fault?" asked Spiciewegiehotiu, looking up from the floor:
"Sebingwe's! You say so yourself!"

"Oh, very well, keep on! Some day you will be defeated, and taste that
flavour."

She snapped her fingers. "Oh, me never defeated! If me defeated the
first and second day, me look to it, and win the third. Even if you not
fight with me. But this time you fight."

"Well, I am not pleased. I begged you----"

"_Why_ you not pleased? You say you come back at half-way to noon. Me
wait till noon--you not come----"

"I was retarded. I come with a bullet-wound in my arm----"

"Me know. Caray never shoot at you any more."

"No, he never will, I am sure," he answered strongly, "whatever chance
he may have, for there are other forces than constables and rifles and
rods of iron; and I come to plead for that poor man. He is not in a fit
state to be in 'The Elephant'--I supplicate you to let him out till, at
all events, he is well."

Smiling steadily up into his face, she answered: "Me will see."

"Good. When?"

"Soon."

"Why not now?"

"No: soon."

"Very well: that is a promise.... Well, Sueela? Home again?"

"Eheh," says Sueela contentedly--and then sighed.

"What that thing is you bring her on?" Spiciewegiehotiu now demanded.

"It is called _a bicycle_.... Just outside"--he having brought it into
the grounds from being mobbed and pawed.

"You show it to me, no? and all those things in your waggons?"

"Very well, some day"--an answer made ten times before.

"No, now," she said.

"Very well, now."

On which she sprang up, saying: "Wait--me soon come back," and, running
out, put finger on lips to Sueela, and flew to the waggons to tell the
men to remove the fuel quick from under them.

Meantime Cobby was saying to Sueela: "Well, here you are safe--what a
ride last night! winds, and forests, and solitary rivers wandering
along; and then that ordeal in those canes. Aren't you sleepy? I am
now."

"No, me could do it again to-night and to-morrow night, and not sleep,"
she told him.

"You excellent thing! And you have done her good already, I think. Does
she love you just as before?"

"Eheh." Then she sighed; and suddenly covered her eyes to say: "But she
not love me long."

"Not? Why?"

"Because me give her to you."

He stood over her. "_How_, Sueela? Tell me."

"Me take her throne from her: then she go with you. She think that, if
she beat Sebingwe, victory give her the power to marry you; but she
wrong: me know the Wa-Ngwanya--they not like you--they not stand a white
King--not for long. And she think if she marry you, her breasts satisfy
you; but she wrong: me know you; you not want to stay; if she make you
stay, you hate her. She think she can work out what she want, but me
sure she can't--even if she beat Sebingwe. So she not beat Sebingwe: me
make Sebingwe beat her."

Cobby stood pale--scared! then, looking on the ground, paced once the
length of the room, anew assailed by temptation. But he had _undertaken_
to be done with any more scheming to force the Queen away, and he
chuckled uneasily, making the lame, and not too true, remark: "I am
afraid I don't understand...."

Sueela's forehead was dropped quite down; there just reached him from
her a moan of "Wo-Ngwanya! _my land!_" and she raised strained wild eyes
to say to him: "Then you love me well, no? Me do a lot, a lot, for you."

"Oh, Sueela, be quiet," he cried, stamping about with that energetic
action of his elbows: "I don't--I won't--understand you. Daisy has
nothing to do----"

"_Sh-h-h_, she come back. And about your waggons,--listen: look after
your waggons----"

This in just a whisper pitched to reach his ear, but he, astonished,
cried out "_Waggons!_" and then saw Spiciewegiehotiu's face in the
doorway looking from one to the other of them.

Some moments of dumbness followed, deeply awkward for Sueela, who had
promised to tell nothing of the fate overhanging the waggons, till Cobby
came out with: "Well, now, come, I will show you my wonders"--and
stepped out.

He had made some steps down the avenue when the Queen with a sheepish
half-laugh remarked: "The waggons in here!"

"My waggons?" He was all astonishment. "Why in here?"

For safety--she explained, now looking him straight in the face: rumours
of menaces made by the mob to _burn_ the waggons had reached her ears:
so, for safety----

Cobby was very perturbed. "_Why_ should they burn my waggons? What
groundless people! They would never burn anything else!"--a statement
whose significance Spiciewegiehotiu did not grasp, nor properly hear it,
being now preoccupied over the motor that leaned on a baobab near the
hut; and "come, show me!" she said; but now he was cross and
sub-anxious, and, the teacher's impulse failing, he merely made them get
on, and, sandwiched between hams, rode them exclamatory up and down the
avenue, a happy man as to woman's arms.

Dismounting in a flush, Spiciewegiehotiu asked: "So where you put it
now?" and when he answered "with the waggons, I suppose," she made a
secret grimace of glee. However, she now no more designed to fire, but
to hide, it. "It good! It good!" she cried: "there is only Cobby."

Thence they went to the waggons, whence fuel and fuel-heapers had now
vanished; and Cobby languidly told what this or that was, but, in
general, without effect on their intelligence, the objects having been
invented by a different _type_, on a different _plane_, of Mind, and to
attempt to explain them was as though a seraph ranted of astral
mathematics to a man, and lalled. "What this is?" Spiciewegiehotiu kept
on asking, but without gathering much fruit. When she pointed to an
accumulator, Cobby could not begin to think how to tell of it: he
himself could but little understand that manifestation.

Discontent that the waggons were there, his arm smarting, wearied out
and sleepy, he was cross and short; conscious that he was wasting
breath. "That in the cans is named _petrol_--these are named _bombs_--on
this thing one can fly"--words falling like hail upon tin. But there was
_one_ thing which the Queen's instinct and interest fixed on quick and
keen--the machine-gun: just the word "gun" woke her alertness; and
though he hesitated to explain or exhibit its action, as sudden darkness
had now come, and she could hardly any longer see the business of his
fingers, he shot the gun, to astonish her with those gushes of passion
with which it spat and published its bullets.

At which Spiciewegiehotiu's eyes also spat fire; she understood that it
was "good"; and she decided then not to fire the waggons until the war
was all ended, dreading that, if she fired at once, after taking out the
gun, Cobby in his anger might refuse to use for her this victorious
tool: she being sensitive as to offending him just then.

So there the waggons remained during nearly two weeks, doomed, but
respited; and, meantime, during five days of storm-winds and
wet-weather, all in the air was war, war: again the same fever and
fierceness against Sebingwe as erewhile against Daisy; once more
everywhere, every moment, that dumb music of the boom and rumble of
drums that stubbornly bumped and bumped, movements of troops, a mood of
revolution, of holiday, and hell-broken-loose, mock-battles, kerries,
cracked bones in the kotla, blasphemous dancings before God, sex gone
dog-mad, goggling, haggard, howling, while the nurseling's mouth turned
down with rueing to cry, and the rueing eye of the old threw a look at
the sky.

As to Cobby, he was once more drilling the rifle-companies, he being now
the most miserable of men, fixed in the bitterest dilemma, knowing
somewhere within him that he did not mean to lead the riflemen into
fight, that this time again he was going to fail the Queen, and, failing
her, must die of shame and meanness. Of Sueela he had seen little more,
_no_ more for any discussion, she having hurried back to M'Niami on the
third day of her visit; and two afternoons afterwards Spiciewegiehotiu
in a small squad of horse left Eshowe north-westward for the war, one of
her last acts on departing being to dig up that goblet of poisoned
_entre_, which like _foie gras_ of Provence she had buried, and to send
it to "The Elephant."




XXXIII

THE BANKNOTES


Like a man in a bath far too hot for man was Cobby now; and his bosom
was a moan. He had said that Sebingwe was in the wrong; had promised to
fight Sebingwe; whereupon had come upon him Sueela with her scheme to
defeat and dethrone the Queen, and, in the rush of the temptation of it,
he, instead of stamping promptly upon it, had said "I don't
understand"--though it was easy to understand; and before he could
recover himself, Spicewegiehotiu had come back upon them.

The next noon he had hung about the back of the royal park, at a spot
once given him as a rendezvous by Sueela--hoping to see Sueela, to
forbid her scheme; but, as she had not appeared, he had sent to invite
her to his hut, to which she had gone--accompanied by Spiciewegiehotiu;
and the next day had departed for M'Niami.

That she meant Daisy's impis to fight on Sebingwe's side was pretty
evident, she relying upon Cobby not to fight against the troops which
she sent into battle for his good--and, in fact, Cobby saw that, under
the circumstances, for him to slay one of those men would certainly be
murder. Hence the torment of the horns that tossed him--Sueela relying
upon him not to fight as confidently as the Queen upon him to fight.
Even after he knew of Sueela's scheme, after Sueela's departure for
M'Niami, when the Queen had wished to be assured that he would use the
machine-gun, he could discover nothing to say but "I suppose so."

She, noting the groan and agony in his manner, had pondered gravely upon
him, vaguely troubled; for, a little before this, the doctoress, with a
forehead all crosses, and a bosom all forebodings, had been closeted
with her, imploring her to postpone the war.

Cobby also had implored; had even said: "Suppose Daisy joins Sebingwe?"

But at this she had smiled. "That's nonsense. What me have Sueela in
M'Niami for? If one M'Niami man fight against Wo-Ngwanya, Sueela have
off his head."

Cobby had groaned; had said: "Still, Sebingwe and Daisy are natural
allies, since you have made them equally nervous of your aims"--but he
could see that, unless he revealed to her Sueela's scheme "against" her
(as she would say), revealed Sueela's secret committed to him, no reason
would cause her to pause--if pause was still possible, for rumours of
forward movements of enemy bodies were already abroad. "And to be a
party to her disaster!" he writes at this time, "for, unless I use the
guns, there is no possibility of her contending against the impis of
Sebingwe and Daisy together. And for _me_ to bring her to grief and
ignominy, to see her brilliant spirit broken, her glory gone, her throne
torn from her, and then to say to her, 'it is for your good, now come
with me'--lies and nonsense. Why is it for her good? Lies and nonsense!
Our civilization is no doubt fated to attain to mountain-tops and sing a
hymn, but undoubtedly at the moment it is a sufficiently repulsive
bundle of rubbish, blood, and pus, with its lubber 'nobles,' its
'_lords_' and commons, the lords commoner than the commons, and the
commons so common, with its little 'lord-bishops,' all starch and
lawn-sleeves, whited to hide the tatters and lice beneath, bribed to
bleat to the rabble their feeble blasphemies of Matabeleland--for not
much money! offensive little men: she is quite right, I think, to like
and respect a Mo-Ngwanya more than Macray; and it is because _I_ want
her--it is for _my_ good--that like Iscariot I am betraying her to rack
and cross, not for 'her good.' What shall I do? What, in God's name,
_can_ a poor man do? If I had only known when Sueela was leaving, I
might have ridden after, taken her apart from her escort, and bidden her
give up the idea; but, being at the gun-practice, I only knew hours
after; and to follow her on the motor would have been equivalent to
'giving her away' to the Queen; so I decided to send my Sansiwana, and
at nine last night he started on my Ali for M'Niami with the message 'Do
not, I beg'--a step of which the Queen is quite sure to hear; and done
too late, I know. To-morrow she is off for the war, taking my soul with
her; when I am to follow has not been told me; nor, so far, anything
done as to Macray--I now doubt whether she intends to free him, ever,
although I have again to-day begged, and again been given hope. Her
abominable obduracy sets my blood boiling, and, if she falls, it is just
that they that use the sword shall perish by the sword. She has mocked
my admonishments and gone her way: well, let her: but, God, let me not
once see those eyes weep, for I die.... Yes, I will fight Sebingwe: that
is my decision now; but I will not--_can_not--let a shot be aimed by my
order at a man of Daisy's...."

The following afternoon Spiciewegiehotiu left Eshowe, and shortly
afterwards Cobby got marching-orders--unexpected, there being still
several regiments bivouacked in the awna; but he was probably sent
quickly away because Spiciewegiehotiu did not wish him to know then of
the doom prepared by her for Macray.

Cobby passed beyond "The Elephant" that midnight, and camped in
moonlight within sight of its western cliffs; but the following morning
when all was ready for marching, he did not march--sat on a stone alone,
smoking the forenoon away, though he never smoked till late in the day;
saw two bodies of troops move past, and still sat moody, though under
orders to be at a particular spot before sunset.

Another meal was eaten there; it was near noon before he moved; and he
had not marched two leagues farther when a big man beating a pigmy mule
was seen galloping in the rear to catch up the troop. He brought for
Cobby a message from the "Guardian of the Sad" (Sinder-ngabya): Sir
Caray was dying; wanted to see Sir Cobby. The Guardian of the Sad knew
that Sir Cobby could not go, but, in compassion, had promised to send
the message.

As when water is forced uphill, then with lavish wash at the first
chance and turn hurtles into descent, so Cobby turned back at that call,
this being escape and hiding-place for him, if but for a time. He
announced that he was bound to go, would be back, put a lieutenant in
command, sending a message to Spiciewegiehotiu as to why, and with a
guide galloped off.

Before sunset he was in a room of "The Elephant" with Macray, who hailed
him with, "Well, baas, here we are," and did not look a dying man in the
shine of two torches there, though shortly afterwards he was taken with
a spasm (tonic), when in the passion of death he arrantly railed like an
arch, until tonic merged into clonic, he then jerking himself like
earthquake, with a working of the feet that beat together at the
great-toes, trembling like trembling-bells.

This happened from time to time: but in the intervals he was lucid,
garrulous, nay, gay, or mock-gay, anon, so that Cobby could not but
recognize the gameness and invulnerable toughness wherewith this fellow
confronted the gray and gulf of death, though already in his gullet,
ever and again, a hiccup clicked, tinkling, piteous....

Cobby fancied that what he saw was tetanus, but Macray said: "The knee
has nothing--_hic!_--to do with it! Knee was getting well; but this noon
a new food--a stew--was given me--nice, too; and ten minutes afterwards
I knew she'd poisoned me."

"Shame, oh, shame, she promised ..." mourned from Cobby.

"It's only fair," Macray said: "woe to the conquered it is; I wasn't
smart enough. Whereas strength is what God honours in a lion, what He
honours in a man is wit--cares nothing for the man's piety, but
applauds his wit----"

"You know nothing of the matter," Cobby replied: "the pious receive from
Him joys which you do not conceive, hearing a voice sweeter than choirs
of sirens."

"Well, that may be so: joys to the pious, but to the witty He gives
_life_, and if your pious lad isn't smart enough, or slips where taxis
are passing, He'll cut him short off--not a theory, that--matter of
fact. Hence I'm here, because she's smarter than I, as I freely admit
now. I've pumped the warder, and I think I've been poisoned with some of
that very stew that I poisoned for the lot of you----"

"That--_you_--poisoned?"

"Who else, baas?"

On which Cobby's paleness rushed to red, he, in a voice tremulous with
emotion, uttering: "Oh, you abominable villain, Douglas Macray!"

"Now, hark at this," Macray muttered: "you might keep your hair on,
inkoos. You and I aren't so very unequal: you have a trained
brain--_hic!_--and I haven't; but, to make up, mine was born the
stronger, I think. Why the horror? My uncle, James Macray, by some trick
on slave-labour, which the so-called 'laws' create by recognizing the
claim of some individuals to 'own' the earth's crust, contrived to
acquire seven million pounds' worth of the limited wealth of a nation,
to which fact was due the deaths of hundreds, or thousands, of men,
women, and children: that's a fact; if a man said to me, 'I didn't know
that,' I'd tell him, 'Then, you're out of it, old chap--born that way.'
_You_, anyway, know it, baas: yet you don't look too wildly horrified at
that slaughter of whites by the uncle in a white waistcoat, but are
horrified because, in order to enjoy the seven millions, the nephew in a
belt attempts, and fails, to kill just seven niggers, one white-nigger
bitch, and, God forgive me, one good baas. Well, that's cant, of course:
that's not scientist eyes, inkoos. So, if you----"

"_You_ the nephew of James Macray?" Cobby broke in, all lost in
astonishment.

"Never even suspected.... Simple Simon, the scientist. We are cousins,
baas: I have you here to give you the seven millions. Don't you remember
how you used to ask me where the deuce you'd seen my face? You'd never
seen it, I think, but had no doubt seen a photograph in some
magazine--only with a beard. That Master R. K. Rolls spotted me at once
that evening I tossed away those false teeth; and your belief in my
story that a lion ate Rolls has made the ghost of that gentleman feel
deeply aggrieved. No lion dined on that great hunter before the devil,
but I dined. He attacked me on the way to Eshowe; and we were tied
together on a ledge over a precipice, when I, jumping to a lower ledge,
pulled him, cut the cord, and the immortal element of him vaulted
straight to hell--didn't stop at the bottom--his body stopped--but his
soul kept straight on down. Oh, Christ, another gripe coming...!"

By this time, after each seizure and paroxysm, the dying man was being
appreciably weakened, racked nearer to defeat; but it was not till the
sun was glorious the next day outside that home of gloom, that his
vigorous frame gave in to the antagonist in the last grim round of that
ring and wrangle, and the agony lapsed into placidity. And all that time
Cobby bided at his side. He told Cobby during the night that if "the
bitch" (Spiciewegiehotiu) had followed Cobby to Europe, she would have
found herself poor, since he, before he left Europe, had resolved that
she should never enjoy the fortune, whatever "the law" ordered; so he
had realized all that he could of it, nearly the whole, in notes of the
Bank of England, Dresdener Bank, Bank of France, mostly 1,000 English
notes, all which he had brought with him in a common cardboard box, and
had lately buried hardly half a yard deep on the east side of the well
beside his hut, together with the photograph stolen by him from the
Queen.

"And _you_ shouldn't have it, baas," he said to Cobby, "if I wasn't sure
that you'll never get that bitch to go with you. If the dead can bring
evil upon the living--_hic!_--I'll bring it upon her: hateful cat, I
never hated as I hate that cat. And tell Black Sue, too, to look out: if
I can drag the harlot after me, I will, and we'll have it hot down
there. And you, too--you struck me--damn you for that, man; but then you
stuck to me--elevated to disdain and aid the hand that aimed at your
heart. When you defended me from being brought here, I thought 'I'd like
to be cultured and innocent like him.' Now you are a king--rightful--not
like me. This is the one kingly thing I ever did, to make you a king.
Life! rum thing. I think if I had it to live again, I'd pan it out
different. Science--you are right: that's the thing: I'd train my brain
to see God, and be blind to Maxim's.... God, it's coming--the deepness
of this disease in me--you wouldn't believe, all's wrong in me--oh,
won't you give me the revolver? Cobby _give_--I give you millions, I buy
it, that's fair--you prig, you English thing, in spite of science----
Ach, now I got it--by the frantic cross of---- Help! hell!..." It was
noon before Cobby stepped out of "The Elephant" pool, and, instead of
then at once hastening to overtake his companies, he, still skulking in
this hiding-place from perplexity, decided to go to Macray's hut, where
he dug up the box of notes, only to bury it again; then at last with his
guide galloped off for the fighting, knowing of a wild rumour then
raging like fire through Eshowe that Daisy had invaded Wo-Ngwanya.




XXXIV

CALAMITY


The actual possession of "a kingdom"--or empire, say--had an effect upon
Cobby's psychology. This wealth, Spiciewegiehotiu's by "law," had, on
being so buried, been lost to her as much as if sunk in a ship, a
misfortune which, once accomplished, no "law," nor law-officers, can
alter. Cobby had recovered it through being what he was: now it was his:
and he proceeded to dream dreams. Now he could found and endow in
England, now flout the lousy little scowlers at schools and foes of
wisdom--was a king with king's counsel as before, but now with six
kings' power. This subtly affected him--increased, for one thing, his
greed to be gone for England, and to be gone not alone, but with
another: for the lucky feel aggrieved if they still need something, and
are not completely lucky, as Macray had attempted to kill several
"niggers," since he lacked cigars: so now with Cobby. The wings of his
new power were an irritant and nuisance to him in that, having them, he
was denied the right instantly to fly with them; it was a cross to him
that his aeroplane could not take a passenger, so that like a shah of
the air he might be off at once with Spiciewegiehotiu: for his seventh
million erected him to a Sabbath serenity of establishment and majesty,
and the fact that not she, but he, was the millionaire made a chemical
change in his relation to her (though he would have denied), promoted
him to a new dominance and authority, hardened his heart (though he
would have denied): and whereas he had decided to fight for her against
Sebingwe, though not against Daisy, he now decided to fight against no
one. "Her own fault," he said: "if she must fall, she must: then to
comfort her."

He made no great haste to "the front": after galloping some way through
a gale, went slow....

That morning of storm the Wo-Ngwanya army, after crossing the frontier
northward into Wo-Mashenya territory, had come into touch with the
enemy; then had smartly marched back for Wo-Ngwanya: upon which
Sebingwe, a lean colossus, with a renown for feats of prowess and
conduct in war, had hotly followed.

There is a valley a mile wide, quite flat, lying within hills white atop
with dolomite--hills east, west and south--and on it two woods within
which are villages, round these being fields of millet, dark-green
maize, groundnuts; and, flowing northward close under the west hills,
the river Perihompya, a home of hippos: in which valley, called
Spicieweija, or White Valley, Sebingwe caught up Spiciewegiehotiu, and a
battle was fought.

Spiciewegiehotiu having there spent the previous day, her reason for
advancing and then retreating, drawing Sebingwe after her, was that the
battle-field might be one which _she_ had chosen; moreover, since, to
her astonishment and dismay, the rifles had not arrived, she desired to
delay the engagement, and, awaiting their arrival, only engaged the foe
when forced to.

The battle began about noon, Sebingwe, with his son, anon watching it
from an ant-heap at the valley's centre, and anon himself speeding like
the storm with an _umkonto_, or broad spear (for stabbing), on a frantic
little horse which, with prancings and kickings like a rocking-horse,
snatched him off into the throng of things; while Spiciewegiehotiu sat
at the doorway of a hut built on piles in some timber nigh the southern
hills, her feet planted on the back of her Selim, she munching nuts with
her molars, anon calling something to a knot of men who stood close
below her, anon using her field-glass, ever engaged in trying to keep
her thighs modestly covered, for the storm wafted all below, as above
its blasts wafted streams of green pigeons gadding, streams of black
geese voyaging, from which far aloft noised down callings, voices as of
laughter and roistering at the vastness of their hilarity, at the excess
of their heaven, the milk of the Kingdom of their elysium; and down anon
washed a shower, sharp and short, adding to freshness and strangeness of
wind freshness and strangeness of water, during which the two war-hosts
fought on in a home of "holy haze" of Homer, which the gaze failed to
investigate.

Spiciewegiehotiu wantonly munched nuts with her molars, constantly
covered her legs with her reluctant kaross, which, pegged to one leg,
got fluttering free from the other in a frolic of mockery, she
recovering a knee, it recovering freedom to stream and strum; and she
sent messages to a group a few hundred yards nearer the struggling
hosts; and she laughed a little with the winds, and with her staff of
officers; for, accustomed since the age of twelve to watch and estimate
battles, she was in her element, had a certain joy in battle, like a
person employed with confident competence on work which in early boyhood
was his choice and hobby; and, though annoyed, disappointed, perplexed,
at the non-arrival of the rifles, she expected them, every few minutes
throwing her eye to see the rifles come through a declivity of the
southern hills to her right.

Sebingwe, for his part, had some rifles, and was firing them: so, though
the Wa-Ngwanya were in rather greater number, for some time the struggle
remained indecisive, until Spiciewegiehotiu gave an order in the midst
of a storm of rain, whereupon a fleet of tree-trunks, cut down the
previous day, rushed down the river, taking a regiment. To her the
_mind_, or _morale_, of fighters was always a matter of high importance,
she having no small confidence in the effect of astonishment and shock
upon the mentality of men locked in conflict: nor in this case was she
mistaken. The river having high sides, calcarious tufa on clay shale,
with mimosa bush at its edges, the regiment floated a long way down
before it was noted, and its advent upon the flank of the conflict
produced, if not a rout, a profound result. When the rain-storm wandered
off elsewhither, Spiciewegiehotiu, gazing through her glass at the
struggle, muttered to herself: "Sebingwe done."

This, however, was not what she wanted--wanted the war to be won by the
rifles and machine-gun: and now occurred in her a tug-of-war between two
alternatives--to win at once--or to wait for the rifles, and have all as
she had planned it. Estimating close and careful, her judgment held the
scales; and on the jump of this pull of judgment hung her doom. At this
time no sign of any danger from Daisy had arisen on her horizon--no
tinge of suspicion of such a thing--or there would have been no
indecision: she would pretty surely have whipped Sebingwe at once, and
then Daisy, in detail. Still, she decided rightly: to fight out the
fight now; but then in a minute went white at a fresh decision, dropped
in an impulse upon her horse, and dashed off herself to the general
staff, to order a retreat to be beaten.

It seemed to all that some fly had stung her! When all along the
battle-front the Wo-Ngwanya drums began to thump retirement, everyone
was surprised, none more than Sebingwe, who, already in retreat, readily
enough permitted the retreat of his enemy, and quickly became pigmy
northward.

Then two hours passed. The "doctors" were over the wounded,
rank-and-file were setting up a stockade, the Queen with her staff was
seated at a meal of goat on the ground under her hut, the sun at three
o'clock flying white to treat with mobs of oncoming storm-cloud, when a
horse bathed in sweat came tearing through the southern hills.

The rider brought the tidings that the army of M'Niami was marching upon
Eshowe....

"You mad, no, man?" Spiciewegiehotiu asked him; and tasted no more food
that day.

And she asked: "You see the rifles coming?"

To which he answered that the rifles were not far beyond the hills.

She stood up then to move slowly away into the wood in a world that had
turned turtle, dizzied, incapable of belief, of disbelief, of any
realization. Her lips breathed "Sueela" ...

She ran back presently to give an order as to two regiments left in
Eshowe, to bid them rush to her, then again walked out to be alone.




XXXV

CRASH


Now she saw the rifles arrive, but could not descry Cobby; saw a
rifleman making enquiries as to her whereabouts, and then racing toward
her. She ran, calling to him: "Me here!" and before he could speak
asked: "Where Sir Cobby is?"

"Sir Cobby not with us, Bayet," he said: "the Guardian of the Sad send
to tell Sir Cobby Sir Caray dying----"

Her eyes closed in pain.

"Then Sir Cobby go back. He say he come on later ... You hear, Bayet,
about Daisy?"

"Yes. Have you with you a kind of stand-up gun from Sir Cobby's
waggons?"

"No, Bayet, nothing: only rifles."

"Sir Cobby have with him that kind of gun?"

"No, Bayet, nothing: only his rifle."

"Oh, but you sure?" she asked with appeal.

"Bayet, me sure!"

Silence; her gaze on the ground; then suddenly: "Why you so late?"

He answered: "Yesterday from morning to noon we not march; we stand
still. Everybody wait: Sir Cobby not give any order."

"_Why_ he not give any order?"

"Bayet, me not know!"

"What Sir Cobby doing all that time?"

"He sit alone on a stone and smoke."

A rush of blood flushed her brow; she screamed at him: "Go way!"

Presently she let herself drop down within an old matsura tree-trunk,
where she sat paralyzed a long time, while messengers of Job on blown
horses washed in foam, messenger after messenger, came upon her, to
declare how Daisy was there or was there, was firing kraal after kraal
with frantic licence, was driving the affrighted tribesmen into wildness
of flight before his unbridled hordes, was twenty miles from Eshowe--not
Daisy himself, it appeared, who was said to be sick, but his Queen
Sueela, a Wo-Ngwanya damsel! who was in supreme command; and three
Wo-Ngwanya headmen had thrown-in their lot with her, taking oath to make
her sovereign of Wo-Ngwanya: so, they said, reported the droves of
fugitives flocking to refuge in Eshowe....

Spiciewegiehotiu in a steady way for a long while kept on striking the
tree-trunk within which she hid with the tip of one of the horns of her
horned forehead, her eyeballs all distraught like the orb of the bison's
eye, like the bull's, that, horning for fun and butting's sake, broods
with his orbs distraught; and afterwards she struck matches, match after
match prodigally, watching them glow, or puffed by the gusts, nothing
left in her but mechanism and mechanical action; but when only two
matches were left she put back the box at her waist, and--leapt up to
act.

The question with her now was: Did Sebingwe know? Daisy might be acting
either alone, or in league with Sebingwe: if alone, if Sebingwe did not
know, she might patch up a peace with Sebingwe, be off to smash Daisy,
then be back like tempest upon Sebingwe.

At eight in the night an envoy of five left her for Sebingwe. She
desired, she said, no more fighting, was tired of fighting, as Sebingwe
could see for himself from the withdrawal that morning of her warriors
in the thick of their victory: so for a nominal indemnity of five
hundred, if Sebingwe desired, she was ready to be friends.

At midnight came the embassy back. Sebingwe had singed off the head-ring
of one of its members, and had sent the message: He was willing to
treat; butlet the Queen come to him herself; and she must make every
step of the way on her knees.

At which Spiciewegiehotiu flinched with a twist of the shoulders in
protest, as from a blow; but some moments afterwards an arc-lamp, both
hot and bright, arose in her eyes, a blighting pride; and "Ah!" she
muttered, "it was Death made him say that, and he not know it: to-day he
done seeing the sun go down."

Her will now was to crush Wo-Mashenya quickly with the first blinks of
the sun, then swiftly to turn about and burst in wrath upon M'Niami,
wresting success out of the very mouth of calamity by mere dazzlement of
nimbleness and incredibility of briskness. That night she did not sleep;
neither, though her fighters slept well, did the fighters of Sebingwe
sleep, she launching upon them no less than five separate
surprise-attacks by small bodies, to keep them touchy and jumpy, and
cause them to be seedy in the morning.

And before morning broke she had before her under her hut forty
line-regiment giants and forty riflemen, whom she informed of the
message which Sebingwe had sent her; and she said: "Me wonder which of
you is to avenge me?--which one it is who is to kill Sebingwe? Me will
_love_ that fellow."

But no battle began at sunrise, as she had planned: for Sebingwe,
knowing that Daisy was pelting to his aid, fled to await him, and it was
afternoon before the Wa-Ngwanya, hotly following northward, forced him
to a conflict.

But by then he was behind a stockade previously built by him on the
north brink of the Pirihompya, which, in that region, flows eastward:
and in fording the stream, and in forcing the screen, hosts of the
Queen's heroes reeled, as in the season when trees waste their leaves,
fleets of the slain sailing away to sea with the waves. Nothing, though,
could check the Wa-Ngwanya; this fight was for wife and child; they saw
Spiciewegiehotiu horsed in the throng of it all, in peril, anon pointing
a revolver to protect herself; and they fought as the tide rises, and
as the reaper strides, the rifles reaping a rood of life, and the spears
no pruning-hooks, but scythes.

Hell howling deluged and rushed the stockade, and thenceforth it was a
case of crush, hand-to-hand battle, eyeball-to-eyeball stabbing, and
backward stepping for Sebingwe, who himself quickly ceased to witness it
when a steadfast wedge of twenty, having forged a way toward him through
floods of blood, and having bulleted him dead through the breast, got at
him like dogs, and angrily gashed his body to strawberry-hash: off then
gadded his head through the throng for a flag, aloft on an assegai. When
his son, Nasandhlwana, took the command, the Wa-Mashenya were already in
pretty steep retreat, and from his horseback Cobby, who had but now
arrived, saw with his heart in his mouth through darkling twilight and
driving squall the sight of the Queen, horse and all, being swept
forward, as it seemed, by the momentum of the sweep of her teeming men.

He was on the point of pelting that way, when he caught the noise of a
spattering tramp of cavalry on sloppy soil, sounding louder and louder
from the south, then a howling of a multitude of mouths, and now was
aware of the legs of galloping nags making a palisade that came
far-spread across the breadth of the plain, so that he and his guide had
to gallop aside, flying from being rushed by this eruption of eyeballs,
on all these horsemen's heads being a helmet of hide having a horn of
the ibex at the front, and the roughness of their bawling, and the
assault of their irruption, helped these horns to make them horsemen of
hell; and on a tall horse in a group galloping at the back of the troop
was a woman, whom Cobby, though he could not see, assumed to be Sueela
on her Mustapha.

Ten minutes later they might have come too late: as it was, like the
shock and rumpus of the archangel's trump came that irruption upon their
enemy. Notwithstanding that they were but a van, that they were under
two thousand in number, just the jump and wonderment of their coming
won. Rot followed; and now rout: for at once the ranks of Nasandhlwana
rallied; and, distracted, the Wa-Ngwanya scattered and ran.

The Queen being near a path, and divining with her eye in the half-dark
that far and wide her army was squeezing itself into flight, as near her
it was squeezing itself, trampling itself, every man for himself, she
fled, or rather let herself be swept away by pressure along this path
westward; and presently found herself bounding along a road with about
forty of her own horses round her.

Soon, however, these were pursued, as they could see in the sheen of a
moon just come up, to illumine somewhat the drearness and gloom of an
evening which the gale anon washed with torrents of rain; and when the
pursuers proved to be M'Niami troops, the Wa-Ngwanya, who, though they
hanker after M'Niami women, scorn M'Niami men, asked Spiciewegiehotiu if
they should stop and fight to cover her flight; to which, glancing back
at the troop of pursuers, she replied: "No, they can't catch me on
Selim: you all get killed, if you fight," and the flight continued
another minute, until some one of the M'Niami, firing a wanton rifle,
shot a Mo-Ngwanya; upon which, with one thought, all the Wa-Ngwanya
halted, threw their horses round, and flew to do and die fighting.

But Spiciewegiehotiu, hardly bothering to glance behind at them, kept
straight on at the same pace, she cared not whither, not wishing for bed
nor bread, only for some cave or shed within which to bury away her
head, and throw her shame; and, seeing her keep on, Cobby, following
after her in the M'Niami troop, threw his animal aside into wild
mimosa-land to avoid the oncoming Wa-Ngwanya, then, galloping full bat,
regained the road half a mile behind the Wa-Ngwanya, now fighting
hand-to-hand with the M'Niami.

As she had not been conscious of his solitary pursuit through the bush,
he rushed out upon the road hardly four hundred yards from her, on
which, though he was under trees, she immediately knew him by his Ali's
hoofs, their ponderous roll prattling like drumsticks upon the mud, knew
him likewise by instinct of the eye, while he through drizzle could
distinctly see her hair heavy with wet hanging half-lax on her back,
could see her lean to her Selim's ear to bid him flee, and now could see
her mouth wide with laughing when she twisted smartly to fire twice at
him.

"_Shame!_" he passionately shouted at her, his head now down to his
animal's mane.

And a third time he saw her turn and fire her revolver with wrathful
laughter, and now for some moments lost himself, then refound himself
down on the ground, dismounted over his horse's head, which had
foundered, shot in the shoulder.

As he started up, a small squad of M'Niami dashed past him after
Spiciewegiehotiu, who had vanished; and when he made an attempt to
follow them, his horse went tame and lame. So he turned back, observing
now vultures gathering like guests to supper from every direction of
heaven, and presently saw some hundred bodies blocking the road, with
their guns, assegais, kerries, and three lynxes among them, with a
company of vultures crammed with man, philanthropists at a symposium
that only the moon looked at, musing over that lonesome moorland. All
the Wa-Ngwanya had apparently fallen in the fracas, half as many more of
the M'Niami, and, lying dead among the dead of man and nag, Cobby saw
his guide. Nags were everywhere neighing, and presently, as he went, he
began to see them running wild, singly and in groups, fleeing from the
big battle; and soon began to meet man--on foot--single--in twos and
threes--teeming in groups and troops, multitudinous, streaming, fleeing
from the stricken field, keen to be away anywhere, tearing along
followed by their plumes and loose uniforms in the teeth of flaw and
murky turmoil, bent beneath burdens of inclemency and immensity of
adversity, but trotting steadily on and on, throwing anon an eye behind
where hopelessness was, as before them homelessness; and with a sore in
his bosom, with a hung head, Cobby moved slowly onward on a horse whose
head was not less hung and heavy....

As to Spiciewegiehotiu, she sought shelter after midnight at the kraal
of a headman named Moocrya, who pretended to be an independent chief,
but paid tribute to Sebingwe. He gave her food, fodder, put her into a
hut near him, and she, sleepless for two days, was soon swooning to
sleep.

With one ear open, however. Before long she was conscious of noises,
nocturnal voices--a party of M'Niami urging upon the chief the need, for
his skin's good, to give her up: so, her Selim being near her, she went
stealing out, called him soft, vaulted upon him, and was off.

But she was hardly half-way down the kotla when, an alarm having been
raised by a watch posted there, shots and horses were following her; on
which she, not aware that they were under orders not to harm her, and
were aiming at her horse's quarters, caught at a limb of a tree in an
impulse and clinging to life, though she longed to die; and the light
was so dim, that they lost her, and, unconscious that she was in the
tree, sprinted past her, continuing to follow the horse a little, until
they could descry that it was riderless, and then stood at a loss.

Selim, however, revealed her--to his own undoing: for he soon came
trotting back with neighs to the tree: upon which she, seeing them
pelting for her, dropped upon him, dreading death less than shame, and,
facing them, was away again for the gate, firing the final shot of her
revolver.

Now, however, her Selim fell over her, pierced; and ere she could free
herself from him, she was a prisoner.




XXXVI

QUEEN SUEELA


Two afternoons afterwards Cobby, wandering solitary for Eshowe through
forested hill-country on his limping mount, which limped constantly
sicker, encountered a mob of Wa-Mashenya Tommies shouting song on their
way northward from Eshowe, who informed him that they had met travelling
from the west a party of M'Niami who had Spiciewegiehotiu a captive with
them, and were conveying her to Eshowe, which was in flames.

Cobby's eye lightened, and he flogged his horse to be on; but Ali could
only go slow. Even here nags were to be seen which appeared to be
runaways from the Battle of the Pirihompya, but they all avoided
capture, nor in all this part of Wo-Ngwanya, where all the hamlets had
been abandoned, could he get a nag; so that he felt "my 'kingdom' for a
horse," and thought of rushing on foot to Eshowe--which, in truth, if he
had known more, he would have done.

Eshowe, as the Wa-Mashenya had reported, was then in flames, and even
from the remote end of "The Elephant" at eight that evening the ex-Queen
was able to observe in the clouds the brown and frown of its burning.
And it was through fires that she drew nigh to it--camp-fires of hosts
of Wa-Mashenya, of hosts of M'Niami, regiment after regiment, of each of
which, when she moved near it, she knew the name by the make and scheme
of its shield--all this panorama of camp-fires, wafted by winds under
the wings of a falcon of sparks and smoke bound darkling south from the
roaring town, being imbrued with the luridness and wrath of a drama from
Tartarus. As for the people of Eshowe, these, as usual in such cases
there, had all flung their all upon the altar of God, and gone headlong
in flight to hide or die.

When Spiciewegiehotiu was conducted up the hot kotla, which was
encumbered with soldiers, there on the platform at the top was seated
Sueela in the stone throne, surrounded by about a hundred M'Niami;
Mandaganya, her mother, not there; none of her own people; but among the
M'Niami priests and heralds, who, some minutes previously, had been
proclaiming her Queen of Eastern Wo-Ngwanya, she being barbarously
garbed with a broad gaudiness, bedizened with ornaments of gold and
stones, a Queen, enthroned, reclined, serene, smiling an evil smile,
attired in a kaross long to the ankles, yellow with black elephants, a
dress of Spiciewegiehotiu's, and from her helmeted head vaulted enormous
horns, upon whose reds and browns of ochre shone a crowd of torches
brawling about her.

At sight of Spiciewegiehotiu she half started up, but then smartly sat
again; and, beckoning to one of the captor-group to gallop to her, got
from him the details of the capture before Spiciewegiehotiu, having been
unbound, was hoisted off a horse, and stood before the platform. The two
then looked at each other; and said Sueela, smiling: "Well,
Spiciewegiehotiu? You see."

Sueela had drunk blood, was fresh from orgy, and something or other in
her air was very strange, debauched, and raw, across her forehead being
scrawled, as it were, "Babylon, mother of harlots." Just the fact that
she had stabbed in the back her country, so beloved, that she was
everywhere execrated, her soul in hell, had been the cause that she had
broken loose, gone the whole hog, so that more had fled and bled and
blazed before the march of her devastation than if any male had led the
army of M'Niami, for at the drunkenness of the rumbling of the drums up
in her blood had flashed the savage, flashing the eye of riot and
rapine, and, mixed with the blood of massacre, had been quaffed other
liquor, and liquor of lips, she, stark and staring, dancing distracted
cancans in revels of shamelessness, shaking frenzy from her hair,
demanding the man-in-the-moon and more-than-man to manage her. The
burning of Eshowe might well have been averted by a word of hers; but
she had done nothing: only the ground round about the sigodhlo--that
spot, that cloister--holy of holies to her bosom--home of her youth--she
had rescued and protected, as she could, the storm being from the north.

And revealing her teeth, sneering, she said with levity to
Spiciewegiehotiu: "You marry me to Daisy, no? You see now. You not
always clever! You not see everything! Other girls clever, too!"

A statue stood there the defeated Queen, hard, calm, marble,
rain-streams rambling down the rampart of her face, her hair relaxed,
and to nothing she gave answer, her gaze meditating steadily upon the
other.

And Sueela, sneering, with levity: "Now you go to your own country, no?
Me give you Sir Cobby. He mad after me, me can have him, but me not want
him: me married; me good."

No answer: Spiciewegiehotiu's eyes now clandestinely estimating her
chances of attack and escape.

And Sueela: "Where Sir Cobby is? You see him anywhere when he follow you
from the battle?"

No answer: only Spiciewegiehotiu's lip curved a little, shivered a
little as it curved, she thinking of Cobby dead by her hand, having
dimly witnessed his fall from his horse.

And Sueela, with sneering teeth: "You think me care whether you answer
me or no? You nobody now, my girl. You soon go off to your own country,
nobody care, me not care. You marry me to Daisy: now me Queen of half
Wo-Ngwanya, of all M'Niami; me have other things to think about than
Spiciewegiehotiu."

At this point Spiciewegiehotiu, having watched for a chance, snatched
the spear of the officer nearest her, and, leaping, was on the platform
in rapid career to stab Sueela.

But a shout broke out, and she just failed by a foot, four soldiers
throwing themselves over her, shaking her, pouring over her a coal-sack
of French and tongue; and, panting and captive, she stood among them,
till Sueela, leaping up drew a knife from her waist, and stood with her,
saying to the men: "Go away--leave her," and to Spiciewegiehotiu,
sneering, revealing her teeth: "You want to kill me, no? But the spear
too heavy: that why you fail; take this knife."

She held it out.

"Me _do_ it," Spiciewegiehotiu mentioned, not taking it.

"Well, _do_ it: here's a knife for you, my girl."

Spiciewegiehotiu took the knife.

"Now," Sueela said, baring her breasts; and tense stood the spectators
of it with staring eyes, while Spiciewegiehotiu eyed her up and down,
down and up, with a malign eye.

"Nobody to touch her when she do it!" Sueela flung aside from her;
adding: "Now, my girl."

Spiciewegiehotiu's lip was curved as dirt; but the stroke did not come.

"What, you not do it?" said Sueela with levity, with sneering teeth:
"You 'fraid, no? What you have to be 'fraid of? 'Fraid to strike
your--friend?"--her voice on a sudden broke.

"Slut," said Spiciewegiehotiu.

"Yes, me bad, Spiciewegiehotiu--eheh, me _baad_--but me not so bad as
God and the devils think me."

Now her face went aside to hide what welled in her eyes; at the same
time Spiciewegiehotiu's face convulsed one moment, and now, dropping the
knife, off she rushed to drop from the platform at a point rather empty
of men, and, dodging capture, was gone, all legs, devouring the ground,
down the kotla's length.

"What she going to do?" started out of Sueela's mouth: "_catch_ her!"
upon which immediately a mob of people at full speed were in pursuit,
and in a few moments more in pursuit, too, was Sueela, who, in leaping,
threw off her kaross, and, using that extreme freedom and fleetness of
her feet, was soon leading the stream of pursuers, and stealing surely
upon the fugitive.

But she was chasing a fox: though the kotla was populous with soldiers,
and Sueela thrice cried out "Stop her!" to people ahead,
Spiciewegiehotiu, herself fleet of foot, dodged them in detail, as she
could, the moon's light being very obscured by the tempest and tenebrous
mood of the night, and by that roof of smoke that rolled over all, so
that all occurred as in some vault of murk and Orcus; moreover, when the
ex-Queen, who, running south, had steered her feet east, too, rushed
upon a bridge of "The Gut," a big baobab close to the bridge hid her for
some moments, and when the foremost pursuer followed upon the bridge,
she was no longer on it: they saw only her horned helmet and kaross
going down "The Gut" in the shine of huts on fire beyond: at sight of
which Sueela cried out: "She going down 'The Gut'!" and, seeking her,
peering, the pack ran down the stream, which, in its passage through the
town, is narrow and rapid.

But, in fact, Spiciewegiehotiu was going _up_ "The Gut" after lingering
a little in the dark under the bridge, and after swimming with
difficulty a little up and across, to emerge in singed mimosa on the
deserted east shore, up which in a purgatory of heat and reek she
sprinted, until she got to the spot where the river runs under the
stockade; and it was still with a sort of official shock that she saw no
watchman there; whence she made her way up into the wilds on the brink
of White River.




XXXVII

BELLADONNA


Up there she remained a long time, anon catching sight of parties
rambling far and wide with lights to find her. It was after midnight
when she went back to Eshowe, bent with fatigue, weary of being, in her
fingers a sprig of a tree rare there, the deadly-nightshade which she
had fled to find.

Slowly over the kotla her footsteps moved, unnoticed, M'Niami troops
being addicted to liquor, and most of the slumberers drunk. After
passing through the sigodhlo gate, where no guard was, she saw at the
gate of the royal grounds two guards, prostrate dogs, with a gourd of
strychnia liquor close, and her lip a little scorned the mood of the new
governing. She passed up the avenue, her object now being to burn
Cobby's waggons before going along that path which she purposed: for,
Cobby dead, as she thought, and she intending to follow that way, she
did not want his belongings to be left in hands alien and profane; and
as, besides, she thought that the Wa-Ngwanya in the North might some
time rise and fight, she did not desire that Sueela, who had seen the
machine-gun fired, should have it to aim against them.

Soft and slow she paced, could see that the hut was occupied--a slight
escape of light at the door--but ventured to stop, and drop, and prop
her heavy head upon that door, which she had known as home since the age
of seven; where, seated with shut eyes, drearily she smiled at dribble
beating her, at the bravura of that _froufrou_ of breezes trooping with
whoops through the multitudinous wood, as a woman whoops out with frolic
when a flaw swoops-up her frocks: smiling steadily, as one may grin and
grin and be a death's-head; no sob, nor salt in her tears of dribble;
prepared to pay and bear, not having "seen everything," having committed
what, to her, was the one Sin--faulty polity, wrong conduct, trust in
others just because she loved them, and thought that they loved her,
uncircumspect seeing, purblind business, infirm building; and then the
destined tendency in events, star of disaster: hating herself and That
which Makes, she disdained to make complaint.

She heard a word or two murmured within the hut, then stillness, then a
word or two, and stillness; then, presently, the breath of a sniff close
inside, then a "_whoof!_" sounded, and understood that it sounded from
Mandaganya's little dog, Ronja: upon which she sprang upright, and was
gone for the grove where the waggons were.

The night, though so wild, being still white, one could see: and after
collecting into little heaps what was left of the leaves that had been
heaped by her men under the waggons, she went to a shed into which the
fuel-wood had been flung when she had run to tell the men to remove the
fuel-heaps from under the waggons, so that Cobby might not see them; and
from the shed she fetched armful after armful of wood to deposit in good
order as fuel-heaps under the waggons.

After which, taking a match-box out of a little charm-box at her
moocha-waist, she looked into it--two matches only.

And, cautious as she was, the wind whiffed out one: upon which she
spread a bit of tarpaulin from a waggon upon a waggon-wheel that faced
the gale, and, kneeling near behind, got a few leaves alight, flew to
the fuel-heap near, and, using that magic of savages in lighting fires,
soon had the fuel-heap sounding, fuming, sloping south, an opal flowing.

Bent under the waggon, she stood waiting for the blaze to get well
going, before taking brand from it to make the other blazes, her eyes
now lowered to rest on her sprig of belladonna, while a vitagraph of
the story of her life unrolled itself before her memory--scenes from the
Second and Third M'Niami Wars, her _coup d'tat_ and leap to the throne,
the execution of the princes, the coming of Rolls, then of Macray, of
Cobby ... she shrugged, and moved to get the brand.

But for some time before this, ever since his "_whoof!_" at the
hut-door, the little dog of Mandaganya had been very restless, as dogs
will be a little before being poisoned or blown to the clouds; and "What
the matter with him?" Mandaganya had demanded of Sueela, with whom she
was keeping vigil, all at a loss and in dismay and mourning over that
homeless head of Spiciewegiehotiu; and at last when the little Ronja had
persisted in scratching at the door, when she had let him out, and he
had rushed off, then had come back to invite her with insistence to go
with him, she, ever inclined to scent "second-sight" in him, went with
him.

Now he gamboled gladly, and, nose to ground, soon had her dragged to the
waggons, whereupon she, catching sight of fire, and nothing to explain
it, for Spiciewegiehotiu had fled a little way, instinctively snatched
up a branch, and dashed at the brands, to lash and shatter.

Upon which Spiciewegiehotiu, standing now outside that waggon, smiled
and shrugged, muttering: "Even in this me fail."

At the same time Mandaganya turned to the little dog to demand of it:
"_How_ you know that there was a----?" but now heard a twig snap under a
step, glanced that way, and became conscious of Spiciewegiehotiu beyond
the waggon.

A cry broke from her: "_My darling!_"--and she ran.

But Spiciewegiehotiu ran from her round the waggon, she after, crying
out through the barking of the dog: "You run from _me_?"

"Good-bye, Mandaganya!" called Spiciewegiehotiu, laughing, popping some
of the belladonna berries into her mouth.

"_Oh, God!_" Mandaganya gasped, all aghast, pursuing her round the
waggon, having soon noted in the moonlight the sprig in her ringers, and
known of what tree of groaning that fruit grew.

And back she doubled short upon the fugitive; but Spiciewegiehotiu
doubled, too, stopping an instant to peep mischievously round a corner
of the waggon, laughing, exhibiting how she crammed more of the berries
into her mouth, then afresh was away.

And, "Oh, you wicked thing!" panted Mandaganya, trotting in heavy haste,
all pants and gasps, and breasts in distress for breath; and when again
at the next corner Spiciewegiehotiu stopped to peep, and laugh, and
exhibit, "Oh, you spiteful thing!" Mandaganya gasped: "you not love
Mandaganya? Oh, you ungrateful thing!" and so round, with doublings-back
and dodgings, they rushed, and narrow escapes of Spiciewegiehotiu, and
laughs, and pantings of the heart, till Spiciewegiehotiu stopped to lay
her head on a corner, and was caught.

No syllable now uttered the sybil, but, getting firm hold, picked up and
bore the girl on her powerful bosom, a moan sounding out of her mouth.

So Spiciewegiehotiu presently lay on her own old bed of skins betwixt
the two roof-trees of red mopane-wood, she rapidly flushing, to pink, to
red, to crimson, while a wild silence reigned, the sybil with fixed lips
administering some one of the herbal simples borne at her girdle in
little gourds, though, in truth, the globe held no hellebore that could
now heal the hell of that heat and fever, or ward off the mortal
hour--except morphia, the antidote of atropa, a fact of which, probably,
the doctoress lacked all knowledge; and anon that laughter of atropa,
half-hearted, starting up exclamatory, languidly dropping off, as in
languid mockery of the cosmos, started up from the unconscious form, and
dropped off, while Sueela, revealing her teeth in a rictus of the lips,
sat a picture of horror, her back propped upon a pillar, her fingers
outstuck stiff, a downlooking craze in her gaze that gloated as on gulfs
of destruction and groaning. Only one outcry to Heaven she made: "Oh,
where Sir Cobby is? If he was here, he never let her die like
this!"--she having no knowledge of Cobby's halt horse, shot by
Spiciewegiehotiu.

Only Mandaganya, after an hour, spoke: spoke on and on in a low tone,
crooning over the crimson delirium and derision of the fever's dreaming.
"My lamb. No father, no mother, only me; lost in Africa; and she put up
such a fight against it, and beat it; and now it beat her; this is what
she was to come to; there she lie; my white lamb. Me bring forth
fourteen sons, and me love them all, but only now me know, my God, how
cruel a mother's bowels can rue--my mangled lamb--poor mute ewe--if
Mandaganya's bosom could ooze blood that'd do you good, she'd drench you
redder yet than you be, stretched there ... She laugh ... She laugh to
pass out of the dirty world.... You wanted to be a Queen, no?"--to
Sueela, with a nod--"Queen of Wo-Ngwanya, no? And this is what you bring
her to. What sort of a Queen? You think you can put on her shoes, and
rule men as she rule them? A little bastard like you? She pick you up
out of the ditch, a little bastard, she clasp you to her breast, she
tell you Me-and-you, and this is what you bring her to. Oh, high Heaven,
that bella in her belly bite her bitter, but it bite her never a bit so
bitter as the unremembrance of that bitter breast must have bit her. If
you wanted----"

"Oh, Ma-Sueela"--from Sueela, irritated to speech at last--"me not
answer you! If you not know that me love Spiciewegiehotiu more than my
own self, you mad! you mad! you mad!"

Up started the dreamer's laughter, half-hearted-exclamatory, and fainted
away.

And quietly the sybil: "Don't you answer me back; don't you say 'mad' to
me. Say it again, just to see what happen to you. Me owe you a drubbing
as it is, my lady. You think me not hear about your carryings-on since
the war started? You think so? If me was that fool of a Daisy me'd cut
off your right leg, and then cut off your left arm, to balance you. You
think----"

But now on a sudden two wild eyeballs intruded into the doorway, and the
light flickered upon the axe of Sandelikatze, Sueela's whole-brother,
the executioner, who, though like his other brothers he had shaken the
dust of Eshowe off his shoes, and was a fugitive, had stolen back to use
his axe: and "_where she?_" started from his lips, as in darted his
limber limbs.

Doubtless, if she had fled, that would have been her death-hour, but, as
she never stirred, her unconcern may have somewhat perturbed his nervous
pose, and the next moment he got a cuff on the jaw which sent him
staggering, from Mandaganya, who said to him, "You mad, no?" and cast
the axe out of door.

On which he stepped with stiff fingers to strangle his sister, but in
the midst of a cataract of invective saw Spiciewegiehotiu, and now
profoundness of ruth modified the mood of his rage, he rushing to kneel
and moan and hold her hand to his cheek; and after half an hour he was
induced to take himself away, his mother having made a rendezvous with
him in a wood.

Then fifteen minutes more of that vigil over the dying, and then the
eyes of Cobby, just arrived at Eshowe, were prying in, he at once
conscious of atropa, the scarlet, the laughter ... And sore now his
heart smote him and smarted, a lamentable outcry clamouring out of his
bosom: "Now, Almighty God, help me, have pity ..." and in some moments
he had her, trotting ponderously with her down the avenue for his hut,
followed by Mandaganya and Sueela fluttering, and before long had her
blood saturated with sulphate of morphia.




XXXVIII

REINSTATEMENT


The vitality of Spiciewegiehotiu rallied the following afternoon; and
the next forenoon her eyes opened with sight, and saw Cobby alive at her
side.

Then, laid in Cobby's deck-chair, she spent days of silence, smiling,
pallid now, though the backs of her hands remained of that hue named by
Herbert Spencer "impure purple."

She saw Sueela come and go, saw her seated on the floor with her head
leant upon Cobby, her eyes closed, "clothed and in her right mind" at
Cobby's side; saw Mandaganya come and go; let Cobby hold her hand; but
made no remark; hardly replied to anything: none knew her mind.

But during the fifth forenoon, lying outside the hut-door, she suddenly
wished to know of Cobby: "Why you bring me back from the dead?"

"Aren't you glad like us others?" he asked.

She shrugged; glanced up at the glorious day; said: "The sun good. But
you think me going to live? Me down; me dead; me done. My friends fail
me; they plot together against me; and me not suspect it--God take away
my understanding."

Cobby gently answered: "What you say is very wrong: Sueela loves you
with the whole of her pure soul, and the stupendous thing which she has
done she has done for you, in consequence of my having persuaded her
that that would be for your good, if you came with me to England. As to
my failing you, I shall explain to you the fix I was in, and you will
see why I _could_ not go into battle against Sueela's men: then you will
repent bitterly of having shot bullets at my life, which is your life,
and of attempting to take your life which is my life."

She shrugged. "Me down; me done. Me done loving; me done hating."

"You don't love _me_?"

"No."

"Oh, but that's nonsense; you do."

She was silent; but presently said: "Maybe me live. The sun good. They
have much wind in that country you come from? Maybe me go with you to
that country. They say you save my life: now me your cow. Throw me into
any old hut in that country."

"No!"--he kissed her kaross--"I have decided: you shall not come
perforce. I go alone--in a few days--dreadfully desolate, irretrievably
bereaved--but I go, after having restored you to the throne from which I
have helped to dethrone you."

Now her eyes moved round to him. "Restore?"

"Yes."

"How you----?" But now her interest in his statement failed, she letting
her head drop despondently and, moving it slowly, muttered: "Me down.
Maybe they rise in The North; but they never swear by Spiciewegiehotiu
any more. Me down, me done."

He put his lips on her hand, saying: "On the contrary, you are
up--higher than you ever were. I only pray of you that in future, for my
sake, in remembrance of me, you will not be always making war upon your
neighbours."

"Me?" she muttered, drooping, in that rueing tone of melancholia: "what
me have to do with wars? Me done. War good; but it bad, it bad, for them
that make it: it's the sons that eat the wheat which the mothers thresh
from the breasts they beat."

"Well, if that be really so," he answered, "war is worth the making, for
man himself is of no importance, only the son of man. But since you _do_
see that war is bad for some--for those very some whom it is the ruler's
business to protect--you will not now be too aggressive, and, as for the
aggressions of others, I assure you that for the future no negro will
ever dream of daring to molest or offend you."

With fresh interest she sat up at this, saying: "You talk ... What you
can do?"

"I have told Sueela of my decision," he answered: "she will at once
withdraw the M'Niami army, and Daisy will pay you a war-indemnity of a
thousand. As to Nasandhlwana, I am now about to order him to withdraw,
and to pay a war-indemnity of four thousand----"

At this she laughed out a little, saying: "Nasandhlwana laugh!"

"On the contrary," Cobby replied: "he will cry; his head will be waters,
and his eyes a fountain of tears--tear-gas will make him sentimental ...
Here comes Sueela: say something to her, for me, will you? Love her
again, as she loves you and me."

But to Sueela she had ceased to say anything, and when the next
forenoon, which was bright and breezy, a spirit of life pricked her, and
the whim sprang in her to go up White River as in glad old times for a
bath with five of the sigodhlo Phoebes, Sueela was not invited.

Cobby saw her off from the sigodhlo back--not that he expected any peril
for her, though crowds of rowdy troops were everywhere about; and after
watching the bevy vanish into the river-bush, went back to his hut,
whence he at once sent word in Sueela's name to three colonels of
Wo-Mashenya regiments near, requesting them to come to him.

When they had come, he, in the presence of Sueela seated near,
listening, chin on fists, made them into an embassy to Nasandhlwana to
bear this message:

"Sir Cobby declares to Nasandhlwana that he is a god.

"He can easily destroy Nasandhlwana, his people, his capital, his
cattle.

"But since Sir Cobby _looks_ like just such a man as Nasandhlwana is, he
does not expect Nasandhlwana to credit him with being a god before he
proves it.

"So, three noons hence, Sir Cobby will appear in the form of a dove,
crooning cooings of thunder, above Kranampya, Nasandhlwana's capital
kraal.

"But Sir Cobby is a god who abhors to destroy, unless he is disobeyed.
So he is not going to destroy Kranampya, only to destroy so much of it
as to show that he could destroy the whole, if he chose.

"Therefore, at that hour the population of Kranampya must evacuate the
town, assembling somewhere well outside it. Whoever stays within will
die, as all the horses, and kine, and dogs, in it will die. Nor must
anyone enter it for some hours after Sir Cobby has come and gone, or he
may die. And, as for those assembled outside the town, they will all
begin to weep bitter tears, as if all their mothers had died, and some
few will be slightly wounded.

"At once after which Nasandhlwana will make haste to withdraw all his
men from Wo-Ngwanya territory, and to send four thousand chosen cattle
to Queen Spiciewegiehotiu as war-indemnity, and as recompense for the
wanton wrong done by Sebingwe, his father, in permitting men of the
Wo-Mashenya army to wage war upon Queen Spiciewegiehotiu in her previous
war with Daisy."

The three colonels, having heard it with their ears, sat there astare,
three different pictures of scare. Blessed is he who hath not seen, and
yet hath believed! and blessed were they.

"Now, pray," Cobby said to the one in the centre, "repeat to me the
message."

And that one began: "Sir Cobby say to Nasandhlwana--He God! He come from
Heaven! Angels his servants! He can----"

But he was interrupted. Five wild-eyed girls, gasping, burst in,
competing in screaming: "_Sueela!_ Spiciewegiehotiu--they steal her!"

All sprang upright, Cobby quite white, none black, to gather presently
from the girl's gasps that a gang of some thirty, just as the girls had
dressed after bathing, had burst from bush, snatched up
Spiciewegiehotiu, and dashed off with her on mules--north-westward....

Cobby's heart was rent: she still not well....

Who were those men? Were they M'Niami? Were they Wa-Mashenya? The girls
could not say.

"They not M'Niami!" cried out Sueela.

"They not Wa-Mashenya!" cried one of the Wa-Mashenya: "They go on mules!
They Swingoni!" these Swingoni being tribesmen rather wild and degraded,
semi-independent, but paying some tribute to Wo-Mashenya.

But Cobby at once suspected Nasandhlwana, at any rate of connivance,
reminded by the event that Sebingwe had once proposed marriage with
Nasandhlwana to Spiciewegiehotiu, that Nasandhlwana had desired white,
and a white fist Cobby banged at the three Wa-Mashenya, telling them of
woe to Wo-Mashenya, if she was not delivered up within five days. "Go!
tell Nasandhlwana this with the rest."

"Wait, me give you my Mustapha!" Sueela cried, running out with them;
and one on Mustapha flew forerunning the others.

Then followed two days of care for Cobby, he now alone, for, since the
aeroplane had to be inspected and prepared, he had been unable to go
with Sueela, who had dashed off with cavalry to track the ravishers.

On the second gloaming the aeroplane stood ready at the top of the kotla
with a guard of M'Niami round it, and half the night, and all the
following morning mobs were filing near to peer at it, all the awna
being populous to its bottom: for to farthest M'Niami and Wo-Mashenya
the fame of that strange carriage of Cobby's with only two wheels in
tandem, and the mad steeds inside, had flown, and it was now assumed
that this must be that motor-bicycle, or some other kind of a like
thing. But when, an hour before noon, Cobby walked out to it, bounded
upon it, the rough row and power of it now fretting every ear, the
propeller spinning a mere nebula and remnant of visibility, then were
wild eyes intent, the mouth hardly now robbing from the eye the time to
toss a remark aside, or to moisten the lips with spittle; and now he was
dashing over ashes and cinders down the length of the Square, as many
thousands now fleeing with screams from before his career as were
darting with howling after him, everyone looking to see him go scooting
out where the great gates had lately stood; but when, somewhat before he
got half to the market, all at once God took him, and fluttering
triumphant he reigned on his throne in the air, then there arose and
floated to him a drone of many adoring, and many were felled.

It was the same at Kranampya, a kraal in a charming vale, all orchard,
maize and palmyra, and white blossoms of baobab, whither he had twice
before ridden; and, knowing precisely its compass-point, he arrived
before noon, spied its folk crowded two miles outside it, and, flying
low thrice over it, dropped one high-explosive bomb, four "mustard"
gas-shells (di-chlorethyl sulphide), and four chlorines; then into the
nest of kneeling people laid a few "egg-bombs" of tear-gas to make them
mourn a little because of him; and in a little while was taken out of
their sight.

But he came down badly, not in Eshowe, but in a meadow, smashing his
chassis; and there in that meadow the monoplane remained, as its wreck
may there remain for many a day, a monument of man's mentality immensely
more monumental than those remains of ancient "civilizations" which at
various places confront one in that country.




XXXIX

THE SWINGONI


When Cobby walked back into Eshowe he found Sueela now there--speechless
for grief, she not having succeeded in tracking the gang of ravishers,
though she had now discovered that they were, in fact, a gang of the
ungoverned Swingoni.

This was soon confirmed by urgent messengers from Nasandhlwana asserting
that the guilty ones were Swingoni, who had thus turned to their purpose
the turmoil and disturbed condition of things, their motive being to
beguile Nasandhlwana into purchasing the white girl, for they had sent
him an offer to sell her at a certain spot, and Nasandhlwana was then
starting off with half an impi, first to win Spiciewegiehotiu of them by
purchase, and then to exterminate them. As to the other demands of
Cobby, these were being met.

Such was the message: but for Cobby and Sueela to sit still and wait
upon Nasandhlwana's activity was impossible; therefore, having
ascertained the proposed route of Nasandhlwana's party, they started off
to come up with it on the motor-bicycle.

They came up with it the same night; and two nights later arrived at the
rendezvous given by the Swingoni--a mountain-road, where, in a grove,
four gods of wood stood under four marulas.

When Nasandhlwana had had drums beaten, a drum within the grove
answered, and soon two Swingoni appeared, who arranged the details of a
meeting to take place the next day between their chief and the King on
the brink of the lake beneath.

This lake could be vaguely seen gleaming remotely below in moonlight, a
river-like pool, leagues long, though hardly four hundred yards across;
and it was almost known that in the village beyond this Spiciewegiehotiu
must be.

So, to be nearer to her, Cobby and Sueela, after the bivouac and a meal,
rode down on the motor, some four or five miles, sometimes with tense
brakes, to the lake's brink, it being then late toward the midnight of a
mild night, benign, sanctified, sighing as in satisfaction and
fulfilment, its little breaths brindling that brand of brilliance which
bridged the lake's breadth, treading-water within that brand, like
rabbles of bathers bathed in beatitude; and for over an hour they two
stood there holding the motor, alone, as it were, in the world, though a
roof or two looked out through wood across the water; both hushed and
mournful; and with a low brow she muttered: "You go--and without her. So
all me do me do for nothing. And now she not love me any more."

"Yes, she loves you," he answered, "and will soon forgive fully. She is
not quite well yet."

"She in Wo-Ngwanya, me in M'Niami, you gone where the sun set,
everything ended. Oh, my, me not want to live; me die: my mother say me
born to die young."

"No, no"--he patted her--"you are still a child: life will unfold for
you new interests. She will borrow you often from Daisy, and some day
_I_ may be driven to come again to see her and you."

"It too far," she mourned; "she and me wait, and you not come. If you
come, you find me bad. Me bad now. You not--know--what me done since the
war. When me close to you me good, but a devil in me."

"Nothing of the sort," he confidently answered: "you are very good, and
dear, and pure _au fond_. What you imagine to be a devil is God, who is
all in all, and nothing is but Him. Look, the moon, that's He in beauty;
and the man-in-the-moon, that's He in buffoonery. And He some day will
be perfectly good, I think; and meantime, when He is good, and when He
is bad, is perfectly working ... What have you done since the war?"

Her head bent. "Me go crazy, me untrue to you, me dance at you, me spit
at you ..."

"Oh, fie: and at poor Daisy?"

"Oh, _he_--Eheh."

"Well, then, I am cross. All that is so undistinguished ... But never
mind, forgive Him in you and yourself in Him till seventy times, and
ever afresh be trying to be pretty and princely. And when you achieve,
that's He succeeding in achieving, and when you fail, that's He
succeeding in failing."

"Me remember ... Me love you too much! It not love; me adore the dust
you've stood on. And you go ... you go ... To-night me tell you
good-bye. You owe me one last kiss."

"Yes, the third. But why to-night?"

"Me not know. Something make me want it now."

Now he put an arm round her, saying: "Very good, come--my dear."

On which, taking his face between her hands, she kissed him long,
continently, solemnly, kissing his soul, conscious of the moments, and
of long time to come in which those moments would not be; then cried out
"Oh!" and succumbed to her knees, still holding him.

When he had raised her, they stood side by side in silence, looking over
the trail of light on the lake, and that pretty tripping of the ripples
within it, like treaders steadily treading water, while the warbling,
and warning, of a wedrigo (accent on "_go_"; sort of owl) sounded out of
wood near on their left, until Sueela breathed: "My goodness, that
wedrigo ... sure token of death ..." and then again breathed: "What that
is coming there?"

Cobby also saw a black object blotching the blaze of the trail on the
lake, without comprehension; but in some moments more Sueela, who was of
an extreme keenness of sight, cried out, even as she rushed from him to
plunge into the water: "It is Spiciewegiehotiu! She escape!"

This was so: and before the two heads on the lake met Cobby heard
shoutings on the further shore, then saw some thirty canoes, full of
pursuers, spurt off ...

Highly excited, drawing his revolver, he fired at those in the line of
light.

This, however, although he emptied his magazine, did not stay any of
them, and madly on they came paddling, gaining fast, and presently
raining at Cobby arrows which these Swingoni poison with the entrails of
the caterpillar n'gwa: so he was soon hiding behind the bicycle, until
he hurried with it to the girls, who emerged on the shingle some hundred
yards in advance of the Swingoni.

"Fly--they kill----!" Spiciewegiehotiu panted at him, she herself
starting off immediately for the timber near.

"No, come! come! the motor!" he called, running some steps after her.

But that might have been well, if he had not interfered; for it appears
that she, not aware that help was near her, had carefully concocted her
escape, had been conscious that she would be chased, but still had been
confident of making safe away within the timber.

He, however, knowing nothing of her plans, could hardly have helped
interfering: and she, seeing him and Sueela in a peril which each
instant grew while she and he stood arguing, darted to the motor, which
immediately started, she between Cobby's arms, Sueela on the carrier.

One minute more and the savages were splashing up to the shore, well
left behind, but not affrighted from flying after that marvellous cart
that carried off their prize, nor frightened to shoot, since
Spiciewegiehotiu, whom they did not want to shoot, was quite covered by
the other two.

And presently, with loud mouths of discovery, they found themselves
coming closer to the motor, which, thus loaded, was now only slowly
moving up a steep foothill of the mountain; and soon nearly ceased to
move.

Whereupon the air became thick with missiles, Cobby coaxing the motor
all he could in vain: and the fact that at that hill-top, not far, was
deliverance, and the fact that the whole misery was unnecessary, since
the men were willing to sell their captive, added to the affliction and
prickly-heat of his fix. He even contemplated surrender, but dreaded
being killed before the meaning of the surrender could be understood;
and now Spiciewegiehotiu called out: "You get shot! me run"--making a
movement to dismount; but Cobby's elbows instinctively nipped to hold
her under her cover, and in the same moment he was aware of a whisper
somewhere that said: "_Good health!_" the motor now leaping onward,
Sueela gone.

When he flung a glance backward, he saw her running, struggling forward,
but backward from him, he fast abandoning her....

What in the world a man should do now he did not know. All the ruth that
was in him, all the God's pity, groaned and rued. To dash back to her on
foot ... but Spiciewegiehotiu could not manage the motor.... To be with
either was bitterly to abandon the other....

As for Spiciewegiehotiu, not having Sueela's actual experience that
getting off sometimes made the motor go, she did not at first know what
had caused the motor to spurt forward, but very quickly realized in some
way that Sueela had leaped off; and immediately a scream: "_Sueela!_
Make it stop!"

Cobby now thought of stopping to wait for Sueela, the ground here near
the hill's brow being not so steep, but when he now peered round, it was
to see Sueela down on the ground, and the foremost group of Swingoni
almost upon her: so, seeing the needlessness of imperilling
Spiciewegiehotiu and himself, he shrank from stopping--though, in fact,
if Spiciewegiehotiu had been shot, it would have been by some random
arrow not meant for her, she being wealth to the savages; and over the
hill's top they swiftly went, Spiciewegiehotiu in a flush of rage
beating upon his face, shrieking, wriggling in his grip to be free, he
crying to her: "It is useless!" she in a scarlet fever of passion still
screaming at him: "Cobby, let me _go_!" But on, downhill, he bounded,
till after a while their fight capsized the bicycle; and when she
started up to fly back, he caught her, and they fought, they by this
time being quite out of sight of the tribesmen.

Spiciewegiehotiu flopped down upon the path, clasped her hands on the
top of her head, and bawled: "_Sueela!_"

Only when Cobby represented to her that Nasandhlwana's force was near on
the mountain, that Sueela might be merely wounded, that something might
yet be done, did she consent to go on with him.

But when near morning he and she--for she would not be kept away--and
with them the King himself and a posse of spears afresh reached the
spot, it was to see the body of Sueela decapitated, her hands hacked
off, for the savages had gnashed; and when the posse crossed the lake at
a drift to take vengeance, the village was still and dead, the slayers
fled.

Thus Sueela met her death there: it had all happened in three crammed
minutes of impulse, accident, and catastrophe; and the moving Finger,
having writ, moved on.




XL

EN ROUTE


To Nasandhlwana, as to all, Cobby was now, in fact, "a god"; and it was
with a squad of Wo-Mashenya cavalry that he, on the motor, and
Spiciewegiehotiu, horsed, re-entered Eshowe.

There already Spiciewegiehotiu saw everything changed; the foreign
regiments all withdrawn; coming for her along the country-roads,
shuffling with brush of shoulders, both bull and cow, in crowds, in
monstrous mobs, trotting with rowdy knock-knees, and orbs distraught,
and horns transformed to the oddities of form to which the Wa-Mashenya
warp all their horns; and flocks of Wa-Ngwanya on all paths, thronging
back to their abandoned kraals, thronging out from Eshowe to welcome
Spiciewegiehotiu with shoutings of frenzy, for throughout Wo-Ngwanya
like loosened effluvia had flown the news that Cobby was "a god,"
god_like_ beyond doubt, and on their side, their Queen's knight and
might, and not _they_ were defeated, but Nasandhlwana was defeated, and
M'Niami: and they were coming, had come, again, singly, in multitudes of
groups, grinning pilgrimages, gay of gait, so that now every wood round
Eshowe was full of brisk fingers picking withies with which to rebuild;
and in very few days a new Eshowe stood there.

But Spiciewegiehotiu was stone--showed no elation, her face blanched
like marble; she hardly spoke; only, suddenly, as she sat astare, she
would clasp her hands on the top of her head to bawl: "_Sueela!_"

Of which sorrow of hers Cobby writes: "I have heard her say many gross
things, as was to be anticipated, but, such is that gift of grace which
she has from Heaven, I have hardly ever seen her do anything gross and
ugly, until now that she shows this negro grief. No, here, I admit, she
is not pretty, her mouth opening oblong, as she bawls '_Sueela!_' the
whole exhibition having that indecent aboriginalness of the motions and
emotions of children and lower animals; but all the more heart-breaking
for me is this tribulation because of its naked and shameless sincerity;
and something in me, too, screams 'Sueela.' ..."

Sueela's body, brought back, was taken to Mandaganya's singed domain,
that the Queen might not see it, and there, on the third day after the
return, was buried in the presence of Daisy. Two hours after which,
while Cobby was busied about a waggon with six negroes who had eagerly
agreed to go three hundred miles with him, he now making final
preparations for the trek, a deputation of councillors, having
Mandaganya for their spokesman, approached him, to beg him not to go,
but to wed the Queen, and be their King.

Now, no protest so far had come from Spiciewegiehotiu as to his
preparations--no prayer to stay--nothing. And this deputation surprised
him.

"How do you know that the Queen would wed me?" he asked them; upon which
one of the councillors winked at him; another cried out: "That all
right--na!" and he understood that now Spiciewegiehotiu was moving to
hold him.

And though he knew that she would not now burn his things--for he had
observed the fuel-heaps under the waggons, and had given her to know
that that was a good thing for her and for the sigodhlo that she had not
accomplished her will--yet he now felt a misgiving, a fear lest she
might be at some scheme to keep him.

"Now, Mandaganya," he answered, "this is not fair. You know that I am
not going eagerly, but because I must, because I, like you, am a priest,
an elder, _knowing more_ than children, and having duties to do. And you
but make harder the doing of what has to be done when you ask me not to
do it."

She bent her head; and they left him.

The next day everything was ready for the departure: but, for the
heart-break of parting, he delayed still three days, spent mainly with
the Queen, to whom he showed the uses of many things which he was
leaving with her, he meaning to go with only one waggon; and she made no
prayer that he would remain, being now all shut in herself, dumb,
sullen, anon muttering the name of her dead friend.

But on the afternoon of departure an uproar arose which Cobby afterwards
believed to have been engineered by her....

It was somewhat before sunset; his six were awaiting him with the waggon
in the Square, he having been in the royal hut an hour to say good-bye,
when the populace began to clamour at the sigodhlo gate, got in, or were
_let_ in, got into the royal grounds, or were _let_ in, and came roaring
in thousands up the avenue, clamouring: "Marry Sir Cobby! Make Sir Cobby
remain! Make Sir Cobby King!"

In the midst of which Spiciewegiehotiu suddenly flung herself before
him, holding him, saying with an imploring face: "You stay, no? They
call you a god, they want you for their King. You stay with them and me,
no?"

Cobby groaned. "Ah, how pitiless of you, to make it so bitterly
difficult for me! If you see me leaving my soul behind me, do you not
conceive that I go because I ought, and must?"

"And you think me live?" she cried to him: "Sueela dead--through _you_:
you not always act right! You think me live? Three days after you gone
me stiff dead!"

A flush of resentment rushed up his face. "Oh, shame, to attempt to hold
me with such a statement! But even _that_ shall not hold me. Understand
that I _go_."

"What! You say that to me? Whether me live or die?"

"Yes! I say so!"

Upon which up at once she sprang in a flush of passion to rush to the
door, to throw it open, and to shriek to the people with the shrill
tongue of a shrew: "Go way! He care nothing about you and me! He not
want me! Go way! Go way!"

Then she crashed the shutter into its place afresh, and went to stand
with her back propped upon the wall, all pallid now, he walking about
with pocketed hands, dumb, wrung with sorrow.

And presently he stepped to her, held her shoulders, touched each of her
cheeks with a kiss, she like an image which is kissed, while a breath
that trembled and broke rose in him in a struggle to utter "good-bye";
and not till he was well in flight from her did she make one step to
restrain him, but then stopped, and dropped down, staring, while he with
a bent body fled away for the gateway, sobs now gobbling out of his
god-forgotten solitude.

So he went away; but during the next days made but slow progress,
lingering within Wo-Ngwanya, bidding a repining good-bye to its rills
and wilds and winds. A garnet in a fragment of gneiss that rolled down a
roadside hill to him he kissed before dropping into his pocket; he
picked up a sprig of grass, of indigo, a francolin's feather, to drop
into his pocket for parting's sake, his heart aching.

Anon he would say droopingly to the executioner, who had proffered
himself with enthusiasm to be of the six: "Well, Sandelikatze, my
friend, how do you say that she is faring?" to which Sandelikatze would
ever answer: "You not fret: she get over it. When anybody once try to
die, and not die, they not try again."

On the second evening they turned into Hyena Pass, and on the third
evening were still no further than that Hyena Kranz where the cavern is
in which Cobby had chloroformed Macray and the rest of the sleepers, and
had been arrested by the Queen's men dashing out from ambush. There they
stayed the night; and he, listening to the cascade expatiating to
itself on its special case, lifting his eyes to the scintillating bit of
sky visible within the theatre of cliff, sat for hours at the cavern's
mouth, smoking, thinking of how in that near thicket Sueela's lips,
sealed for evermore, had kissed him a second time of thrice, and he had
twice wildly kissed the Queen in the interior chamber, to be sentenced
to those thirty days which he had served in "The Elephant."

All his six were asleep in the exterior hall when he walked into that
interior hall, to sleep on the spot, as nearly as he could recall, where
the Queen had slept, or pretended to sleep.

And presently he slept--not for long, wakened by the ache of the weight
of that solitude that lay upon him, and for life would lie, feeling now,
as not before, how really the being of his cousin had become an
ingredient of his blood, and how grievous without her, as without serum,
was his disease. He groaned in the dark; but did not harbour the
impulses that spurred him to turn back to her kisses.

And again he slept, longer this time; but this time had a nightmare in
which he seemed to be fighting with a cheetah, which floored and was
choking him--till he woke: and now he found that some forearm was over
his throat interfering with his breathing, and somebody asleep near him.

He sat up, could see nothing but, groping warily, felt a face ...
hair.....

And now fulness of love overflowing flooded his soul, exultancy,
extravagance of gratitude, a broken-hearted lowliness, he dropping back
to sob on his face a long while, steadily but soft, so as not to wake
her.




XLI

AFRICA


"So you have come?" he said to her, seated beside her in the morning
light.

She shrugged, she smiled a little, hugging her shins. "Eheh, me come."

"You love me?"

"Eheh. And you, no?"

"Eheh."

"So you come back now with me, no?"

"Ah, now, don't start that again ... I am all in heaven! I love God! And
you?"

She shrugged. "Eheh."

"So you actually come with me ... I can't, I can't, realize it!... But
what in the world have you done about the Government?"

"Me proclaim Rambya King. Me get Mandaganya to consent."

He clapped his fingers. "You sagacious thing! You wise nut!"--this
Rambya being a nobody, a blacksmith, but noted for strength in the head.
(He had been poisoned at Cobby's "banquet.")

"And what," he asked, "do the people say about Rambya?"

"They trust in me. Most of them say yes."

"Good, good.... And how did you come?"

"Me come on a horse to the top of the pass, then me come on alone on
foot. The town come after me; me order them back; they lift up their
voice and bawl ... But they not love me more than me love them." Now her
countenance convulsed, tears flowed down her stony cheeks, till on a
sudden she chuckled, leaping up, saying: "Come, let's get away before me
run back."

That evening they were among the foot-hills south of the mountains,
where, seated on a stone with her, holding her thumb, looking over plain
and wood that rolled away to the frame of space, he said to her: "We two
shall need, I can see, to be extremely distant and discreet with each
other, during this great trek."

"Why so?" she wished to know.

"There are reasons. One is that you are going to a land of a good many
handsome and gifted men of your own race, and I think it only fair to
you that you should see these beforehand, so as to make a deliberate
selection, before I rivet you irrevocably to me."

At which she smiled a little on him, with something of motherly pity,
saying: "Poor Cobby: you something like a child. Cobby soon see."

"I mean it, though," he said: "you, too, will see."

"Yes, me chiefly, poor me ... As to those handsome men in that country,
me will love them only with my eyes, Cobby; Cobby me love with my
backbone, no, Cobby?" She touched his knee, and his being flushed to
hues of emotion like the vacuum tube flushing to chromes of beauty at
the first stroke of the pump.

That night, however, and several nights, they slept within separate
coverts, until they were suddenly abandoned by their six companions,
this taking place on the sixth midnight.

On that sixth day, during the rest following the midday food, the whim
took Spiciewegiehotiu to be given instruction in the use of the
machine-gun, which Cobby had considered needful to bring with him. "Show
me how you do it," she begged him; so he got up, deposited the gun on
the ground, and, sitting before it--one of the little Vickers--exhibited
how to thread the belt-tag through the feed-block, how to drag down the
crank-handle once, and once again, and then let her thumb the
thumb-pieces, and be shaken by the shocks of its strong agitation, as it
threw out a few bullets.

Her verdict, as she stood up from it, was: "It good"; and then she
wished to know: "But where you get the cartridges to put into the belt?"
upon which he pointed out the small-arms ammunition-box in which the
cartridges were, the six Wa-Ngwanya being spectators at the exhibition:
and there the incident appeared to end.

But in the silence of that night Spiciewegiehotiu rose up, stole through
bush to Cobby, assured herself that he slept, then went soft and woke
the Wa-Ngwanya, led them to the waggon, and again, slowly, showed them
how to load the gun. Two then took the S.A.A. box, one the tripod, one
the gun, and she walked a mile with them northward to a spot where, they
having now dropped prostrate before her, she said to them: "Show Rambya
how to shoot the gun.... Tell him me say again me will be hoping in that
country me go to that he soon add Wo-Mashenya to Wo-Ngwanya; but he
better let M'Niami alone till Daisy dead.... Tell him me say Good luck
... Get up, my sons, let me kiss----" She could utter no more.

So it was with opened arms that Cobby hurried to her early the next
morning to exclaim: "The men are all gone!"

"My goodness!" says she: "they run away?"

"Yes, what in the world shall we do now?"

"Oh, well," she said resignedly, "me-and-you, Cobby. Me know Africa: we
get through. You drive, me your voorlooper, no?"

But Cobby was all in dismay; and in an hour another outcry from him:
"The machine-gun is gone!"

"Gone...?"

"The men have stolen it!"

"My goodness!"

"We may bitterly regret its absence before long!"

"Never mind, Cobby," she said, her hands on his shoulders: "we fight
with rifles, if we have to fight. Me-and-you, Cobby; me-and-you, no? Me
give you a kiss.... That something like a machine-gun, no, Cobby?"

He called the oxen; they walked on.

And with many a care and scare, and with many a scrape and escape, they
trekked many days--or say wended, one of the early incidents of the
journey being their bursting into a belt of tsetse, out of which their
cattle emerged infirm and collapsing one by one: whereupon, abandoning
waggon and goods in uninhabited country, afoot they two confronted the
realm whose name is Immeasurable, Innumerable, Immutable, Unimaginable,
the Egyptian Sphinx, the Pan of Africa. Once north of the Sabi, once
north of the Limpopo, they fought formal battles, with Spiciewegiehotiu
as commander, the second struggle going on several days from a kopie on
whose granite top was no water, they then naked save for a rag that
might as well have been cast away, and haggard with a hunger which the
"cabbage" scooped from the roots of leaves of the dwarfpalm hardly
appeased.

But, tattered, famished, parched, chewing anon morsels of the soft wood
of baobab to win a little moisture, reduced to the elements of being,
brutish in need, they still were not savage nor brute, and
Spiciewegiehotiu got still a sense of the god's gesture when, on the top
of that kopie, or where they halted in some darksome covert under vaults
all informed with stars, she saw him conning the altitude of Alpha
Andromed, remarking Alpha Eridani, connoting the slope of Canopus. "Me
think me never to understand how that box tell where we are," she would
say; and would add: "There is only Cobby."

Nor was that other box, of cardboard, so guarded by Cobby, less
astounding--how thousands of cows could be crowded into that petty
space. "This _paper_ is _money_--cowries, as it were," he told her, in
English now--they lying one night within a limestone bunk behind bush,
invisible to each other, thunders sounding outside, the drought now
done, the rains of April puddling, the floods descending--"_money_ is
not wealth; how much _money_ we two have! yet how little wealth: bread,
butter, boots, is wealth: anything desirable for itself, acquired from
Nature _by work, i.e._ by using Force or Power, and moving something by
God's help--that is wealth; and money _represents_ wealth in some
places, since it fills little space."

"But it mine, this wealth!" she cried: "how you say it yours? How Caray
can give it to you, if it mine?"

"Well, he did. It was buried--lost to you. Then he gave it me."

"But how he could? My father's wealth!"

"No, not your father's; his "by law"; but fantastic laws are to be
laughed at. _Well_ is _good_, or God; _wealth_ is _goods_, or God, or
Power, or Force; the effect of Force is motion; and when Force moves
anything, '_work_' is said to be done, as when a planet flies, or a
stone drops, or when by God's help we wink, or plough: so _wealth_ or
_goods_ belongs to workers who move things by Force, or Power, or God's
help, to acquire them from Nature. But your father could not have moved
enough things in hundreds of years to acquire seven million pounds'
worth of things, and the laws that say that he did are laws made by
lubbers, 'lawyer' minds, men who, not being trained in thought, cannot
think, who, in so far as they are not scientists, know nothing, but are
like children, who cannot build, but _play_ at building, making
sand-mounds, not houses of men. Anyway, there is no you and I. We will
call the money yours, and I will spend it for you."

"Oh, but no," she muttered, "we call it yours, and me spend it for you."

He answered: "It may spend itself in the rains close to our skeletons.
Still fifty miles before the Limpopo."

It was soon after this that she generaled him in their second (Limpopo)
battle, she being, moreover, a great gun at game, and had, moreover, a
singular knack in catching fish by different tricks, sometimes with
nothing but her hand, a trick of the wrist, or a baobab-shell affixed to
a stick, catching jack in the upper branches of the Zavora, barbel in
the Limpopo, a knack that four or five times gave them life where game
was lacking, and where no kraal, lost in the dark heart of the vast of
some haunted forest, was wrought to sorrow with all their poverty and
forlornness.

Yet, even in fever regions in the rains of April and May, their health
remained excellent, and if Cobby anon desponded, not so
Spiciewegiehotiu, who, in spite of her _grossesse_, was not often tired,
never perspired, and when they got to the granite country, craggy with
quartz outcrops, bordering upon the northern Boers, the girl-child to
which Spiciewegiehotiu gave birth in a deserted village, in which not a
dog was still visible--a girl-child to which they agreed to give the
name "Sueela"--presently gave evidence of no little vigour and grip on
life, in spite of its parents' training in trepidation and privation.

Thenceforth, the tokens of civilization now commencing to unfold
themselves before them, the faring became merrier. Clothed now and
comfortable in stomach, the three reached Pietermaritzberg; and at Port
Natal Spiciewegiehotiu, although yonder in the North she had often
watched the rotting _Florida_ cocked on its rocks, widened her eyes one
night at sight of the lines of lights of a liner, a street of dream and
mystery on the sea, built by the Divinity that builded the sea and the
bee's crib, and still trickier builds and trickier, increasingly....


                                 THE END




  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
  | Transcriber's Note:--                                         |
  |                                                              |
  | Punctuation errors have been corrected.                      |
  |                                                              |
  | The following apparent printer's errors have been addressed. |
  |                                                              |
  | Page 34 'galignite' to 'gelignite'                           |
  | 'arc-lamps and gelignite'                                    |
  |                                                              |
  | Page 40 'two' to 'too'                                       |
  | 'I'm too wide-awake'                                         |
  |                                                              |
  | Page 44 'muttured' to 'muttered'                             |
  | 'Rolls muttered intolerantly'                                |
  |                                                              |
  | Page 67 'Marcay' to 'Macray'                                 |
  | 'into the tympanum of Macray'                                |
  |                                                              |
  | Page 87 'venerial' to 'venereal'                             |
  | 'something very venereal in the beast'                       |
  |                                                              |
  | Page 160 'missing word 'the' added                           |
  | 'down on the cliff'                                          |
  |                                                              |
  | Page 187 'ghast' to 'aghast'                                 |
  | 'The two girls sat rather aghast'                            |
  |                                                              |
  | Page 188 'go' to 'to'                                        |
  | 'out to capture the ladies eyes'                             |
  |                                                              |
  | Page 219 'glumy' to 'glumly'                                 |
  | 'she glumly muttered'                                        |
  |                                                              |
  | Page 238 'reim' to 'rein'                                    |
  | 'part of the nag's rein'                                     |
  |                                                              |
  | Page 289 'pursurers' to 'pursuers'                           |
  | 'full of pursuers'                                           |
  |                                                              |
  | Page 289 'afrighted' to 'affrighted'                         |
  | 'but not affrighted from flying'                             |
  |                                                              |
  +--------------------------------------------------------------+




[End of _Children of the Wind_ by M. P. Shiel]
