Читать книгу The Empire Makers - Hume Nesbit - Страница 17

Stephanus Groblaar did not patronise the camp. Either he was too much ashamed or too sulky to show himself so soon after his ignominious defeat. While our heroes remained awake, his distant figure could still be seen bending over the water-hole.

After that frustrated and cowardly attempt to draw his knife upon Ned Romer, even Fred Weldon, who had been the most friendly disposed towards him, gave him up. Neither English nor colonial-bred Britons could take the hand of a would-be assassin. All the instincts of their race are against this, as they are against using the feet in a fight. Only a Spaniard can endorse the one weapon, and a Frenchman tolerate the other mode of getting an advantage. Spaniards stab, Frenchmen kick, and cats scratch when they quarrel; Englishmen clench their fists and strike, or grip and throw.

Inspired by the charge which had been given to them by their illustrious visitor, and influenced by his timely warning, our heroes resolved to part company with Stephanus and his cousin as soon as possible. Meantime, to ward against possible treachery, they also resolved to be watchful and wary. Therefore it was agreed that, while two slept, one would keep guard over the waggon. This they did by turns faithfully until they reached Johannesburg.

Stephanus came to the waggon about midnight, while Fred was on duty. He did not speak to Fred, nor did he go inside, but ordered one of the Kaffirs, whom he roused up for the purpose, to bring out a rug for him. With this he sullenly retired to the shelter of one of the wine-drays, and there he spent the night. He was taking his beating in a nasty and Boer-like spirit.

In the morning he appeared at breakfast wearing a large pair of smoke-coloured sun-spectacles, and his nose considerably enlarged. He did not make any remarks about the preceding evening, and his good-natured and unobservant cousin never noticed that there was anything amiss. The boys took their cue from this sulky Dutchman, and made no allusion to it either.

As they were about to inspan, a party of armed burghers came on the scene, and gave them a foretaste of what they had to expect during their stay in the Transvaal.

They represented the mounted police, or border tax-collectors. Well mounted and armed to the teeth, they rode in and delayed the start for a couple of hours, while they examined every packet most thoroughly.

They were particularly rude and insolent to the three young Uitlanders, tumbling their packages about roughly, and scattering the contents over the ground in a reckless and wanton manner, as if desirous of destroying what they could not seize. All the ammunition and arms they took possession of, telling the young men that they would be sent on to Johannesburg, where, if they could gain permission from the authorities there, they might get them, or part of them, returned.

The police gave no promise, however, neither did they favour them with any list of what they had taken. In fact, as the boys felt, with raging hearts, they were being treated exactly like prisoners in an enemy’s country. They were fleeced and left utterly defenceless, with the exception of their belt-knives.

This was all the harder to bear when they saw that Stephanus and his cousin were permitted to retain their rifles, revolvers, and cartridges. It was privileges for the Boer, and none for the Uitlander.

They protested against this gross injustice, but were told roughly that they ought to be thankful that they were not taken in charge for bringing arms of any kind into the country. Also, to their indignation, they were subjected to a close personal search, and every paper they had in their pockets opened and read. Ned now understood why he had been told to place that missive inside his boot, for even their shirts were felt over to see that they had nothing concealed inside. They were certainly at last inside a land of suspicion and gross tyranny.

“So this is the result of democracy,” said Ned, with a bitter laugh. “I suppose every man here is either a tyrant, a traitor, or a spy.”

“Take heed what you say, young fellow,” grunted one of the Boer policemen. “Remember you are not in England now, but in a country where wagging tongues are silenced pretty quickly.”

“Ah! you need not remind me that I am not in England. Your actions have proved conclusively that we are subject to the glorious laws of the Republic. By Jove, though, I wonder what my countrymen would say if a foreigner was treated to this usage in England? Oh my! wouldn’t there be a public conflagration!”

“We are free men here.”

“You are, whatever your visitors may be.”

The policeman looked at Ned with a suspicious and most unfriendly scowl.

“Are you going to stay long in the Transvaal, younker?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Because I fancy, if you were, that you would be likely to spend most of your time in the tronk and the stocks. That is where your sort mostly find a home here.”

Ned prudently did not reply. His shirt had been examined and his pockets turned out. He did not want to have to unlace his boots next.

“I’ll report that younker as a dangerous character. Keep an eye on him as you go along,” cried the chief to the Groblaars, as he rode off with his men.

Stephanus took no part in this conversation, while his cousin only chuckled good-naturedly, as if it were a good joke. He was an easy-going fellow, and did not let anything trouble him much beyond the keeping of the wine cool and the oxen in good condition.

It was about four o’clock the third afternoon after this that they lumbered into Johannesburg amidst a cloud of dust, and unharnessed for the last time together.

Our heroes said good-bye with all friendliness to the vine-grower’s son; and with a cold word or two to the still sullen Stephanus, they went off together to the house of Clarence Raybold, senior.

Taking it all through, their journey up-country had been an educating and a pleasant one. They had passed through a prosperous land, full of variety and strangeness. They had met all sorts of people, both white and coloured, and every description of pastures. They were brown with the fierce sun and covered with the white dust, and totally changed, outwardly and inwardly, from the schoolboys who left England such a little time ago.

They had killed puff adders and other deadly snakes on their way, and had got over their shuddering horror for those obnoxious reptiles. They had also seen the best side of the Boer character, and had commenced to experience the other side—the Boer in power, with their countrymen under his feet.

It was a new and a disagreeable experience to those proud young Britons to find their countrymen in the condition of serfs and door-mats, with clumsy and ignorant clowns tramping over them ruthlessly. As they walked through the streets of Johannesburg, and saw at every step evidences of the misrule of that hypocritical and false tyrant, Kruger, they felt a natural and deep disgust towards the Englishmen who had permitted such a condition of things to exist.

They met gangs of Boers swaggering about fully armed, and jeering at the unarmed citizens. They saw Britons, or what looked like their countrymen, sneaking about and meekly eating the leek. Their generous young blood boiled within them as they looked up at the guns which the hoary tyrant of the Transvaal had planted on the fort to overawe the city. They felt as if they were inside the walls of a big prison, and every instinct within them moved towards rebellion.

From the moment they caught sight of that fort, with the guns dominating the streets, they were filled with a hatred towards the Boers and a quenchless desire for slaughter.

“I wonder what our people out here are made of to stand this sort of thing?” murmured Ned, as he looked at his chums’ blazing eyes. “Surely some of them have enough of the old blood left to risk it for the sake of liberty.”

“I’ll not be able to stand it long,” answered Clarence, with a deep-drawn breath.

“Nor can I,” said Fred.

“It will be a lark if we are destined to light the spark,” continued Ned, musingly. “I think we could get over these walls some dark night without much trouble. Oh, let’s get on, boys, or I’ll be after having a try now,” he added impatiently, as he strode hastily forward.

“There, now, who do you think you are shoving against?” he cried angrily, as he ran against a pair of burghers who were coming round a corner.

It was Ned who had been at fault in his haste. In any other place he would have apologised, but seeing that they were Boers, he pushed them off the footpath and then turned to abuse them. It was the natural protest of a free man against unaccustomed tyranny. With those Krupp guns behind them, politeness looked like submission and fear. Fortunately for the safety of that billet in Ned’s boot, which he had for the moment forgotten, these burghers were good-tempered and stolid Dutchmen, who didn’t mind either a push or a cross word. They merely laughed boisterously, and passed on their way.

Now, Ned felt both aggrieved and rebuked by the good nature of these Boers, who doubtless considered him to be a foolhardy fellow rendered extra brave through “Cape smoke.” Then he remembered his charge, and became utterly ashamed of his uncalled-for rudeness. He would have run after the burghers and apologised, only that might have made matters worse; besides, they had both gone into some building.

“That is not how Cecil Rhodes acted when he was being badgered by some of the commissioners, nor what he advised,” Ned muttered to himself, as he bent his head with shame. “I must try to remember always that I am a gentleman, and not act like a clown.”

At this moment Clarence proposed taking a cab, as the easiest and quickest mode of finding out his father’s house.

Mr. Raybold was one of the prominent citizens, and the moment the Jehu heard his name he knew where to drive to.

“You have most chance of finding him at his private residence, if you want to see Mr. Raybold personally.”

“Yes,” answered Clarence. “Drive us straight there.”

What a wonderful city this was, which had grown from nothing within the last six years! Grown up also in the teeth of as much discouragement and injustice as ever civilisation had to encounter, from narrow prejudice, extortion, and bigotry.

Our heroes drove along streets fifty and ninety feet in width, with trams running through them, and massive, handsome shops lining them, with plate-glass windows, looking for all the world like some of the best West End London shops.

It was a city where money was spent with lavish prodigality. There were crowds of flash hotels and clubs, and more than the ordinary number of low public-houses and canteens, every one crowded with thirsty customers.

They passed banks, stores, and palatial-looking offices, with electric globes and gas lamps ranged over them. They passed crowds of fashionably dressed men and women, all seemingly busy and lively enough. In spite of those earthworks and guns which covered them wherever they went; in spite of the constantly blazoned fact that they were completely at the mercy of their armed masters, who patrolled the city as warders do a penal settlement—they were allowed to earn and spend as much money as they pleased, after paying the exorbitant taxes, dress as they please, and drink what they could pay for.

But they had no more civic rights than convicts or slaves have. They had no means to defend their women or children from insult. The male portion wore beards and dressed like men, but they were only men in outward appearance. They might as well have had chains upon their wrists and ankles. They were voluntary slaves and shadow citizens. They were just what their rude masters called them—Uitlanders—and on the same level as the vanquished and down-trodden Kaffirs.

Yet they called themselves British, afraid as they were to show the Flag of England or to sing the National Anthem; all they could do was to dress, drink, and make money, and, like the servile clients of ancient Rome, bend their supple backs to their arrogant and uncouth patrons, and thank them for permission to live. Sixty thousand souls who had been born free, for the sake of gold bent the knee before sixteen thousand uncultivated retarders of civilisation.

Their condition was ten times worse than that of the Scots when Edward enslaved them with his overpowering hosts. More degrading, because they were children of the nineteenth century, who had consented to be driven by a race who had not advanced past the benighted and rusty prejudices of the dark ages of bigotry and superstition. More shameful, since they outnumbered their tyrants five times over. No wonder that these Boers regarded Britons with contempt, and the Empire as a fallen tree.