Читать книгу Children of the Wind - Matthew Phipps Shiel - Страница 10

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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 'Bayeté!—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.