Читать книгу The White Hand and the Black - Mitford Bertram - Страница 9

At the time we make his acquaintance Michael Thornhill did not take his stock-farming seriously, but rather as a pastime. This he could afford to do, as from one source or another he had enough to last him comfortably for the rest of his life, and also to start his remaining son in anything sound and likely to bear good results.

His operations, then, in that line just paid their way, but very little more—a result in nowise due to any lack of capacity on his part, for he had gone through the mill himself in earlier life and was as thoroughly at home in all pertaining to stock-raising as the most strenuous and practical farmers in the colony. But he had a hobby, and it was a good one, and that was—literature.

Not the manufacture of it—oh no—or we might have felt bound to withhold the qualifying adjective. The absorption of it—ancient and modern—was his craze and his delight. He never had found time to indulge this during a hard-worked and hardening life, but had always looked forward to a good time coming when he should be able to do so. Now it had come.

It may be wondered why he did not settle down in some town, where there was a good library, and acquaintances from whom he could borrow useful books; and indeed several did venture so to hint. But his answer was simple. He had lived in the veldt all his life—up country or down, or on the road. He would feel lost if he did not wake up to hear the multifold sounds of the bush—to inhale the fresh, strong, sweet air as the sun shot up fiery over tree-fringed ridge or iron mountain top. And the life of the veldt! It had always been his life—it was too late to change now. To look round on the black wildness of those bushy kloofs, or yonder great mountain, frowning down majestically, with its mighty cliff wall shining red in the afterglow of the sunset, and to realise that he owned all this—that this fragment of splendid Nature was his property—all his own—why the realisation was sheer ecstasy. Whereby it is obvious that there was a large element of the poetic about the man.

Exchange all this for a sun-baked, dust-swept town? Not he. It had even been hinted to him by well meaning acquaintances—mostly of the feminine persuasion—that there was his daughter to be considered, that life alone in a wild and sparsely colonised part of the country was rather a dull life for a girl. This was certainly touching him on a susceptible point, but to such representations he would reply that even up-to-date fathers were entitled to some consideration—that even they could not be required to take a back seat in every question. For the rest there was nothing he denied his daughter which by any possibility he could procure for her; moreover she could have as many friends to stay with her as the house would hold, and for as long as she chose. But somehow she seldom had any. For some reason or other they rarely came. This, however, did not trouble Edala in the least. She was not particularly fond of other girls. She was too individual for most girls of her age. They could not quite make her out. And—there may have been another reason.

But on this score Edala herself never complained. Her occupations and amusements filled up all her time, and she never felt lonely. She could shoot, too, and sometimes, when out with her father, would turn over a big bushbuck ram streaking across a small open space, as neatly as he could himself. This was only when they were alone together. If there was a regular hunt she never took part in it.

Her ambition Was to become an art student, at one of the great centres. She firmly believed in her own capabilities in that line. Her father had taken her to Europe on purpose to show her all that was best of the kind, and she had come back more dissatisfied than ever. She wanted to join the regular ranks—to start at the bottom of the ladder. But Michael Thornhill had a will of his own.

“Patience, dear,” he would say. “You have plenty of time before you, and I don’t see the fun of raising children to have them desert me just when I want them most.”

Edala had not taken the remark in good part. She had flashed forth that it was no good having anything in one, if one was to be stuck away on a Natal farm all one’s life with no opportunity of bringing it out. Her father shook his head sadly.

“There may come a day when you will be glad to find yourself back on that same Natal farm,” he said. Then he went out.

Of this he was thinking as he sat in his library a few mornings after Elvesdon’s timely appearance. Why now should he not let her have her way? Why should he not send her to Europe as she wished? He himself could sell or let the farm, and trek far up country on a protracted hunting expedition; for the idea of life here without Edala was not to be thought of for a moment.

There was more than a sense of thwarted ambition which came between himself and the child he idolised. The dark cloud that separated them took the form of a dead hand. Black and bitter suspicion corroded the girl’s mind, and when the consciousness of it was more especially brought home to Thornhill from time to time, the whirlwind of vengeful hate that stormed through his heart was simply inconceivable. But not towards her. It was retrospective.

Just such a paroxysm was on him now. He could not read. He gazed listlessly around at his well filled book-shelves—with their miscellaneous stock of literature—in which he took such pleasure and pride, but made no move towards disturbing their contents. A restlessness came upon him. He could not remain still. Jumping up, he put his head through the window and shouted out to the stable boy to saddle up a horse.

Edala was on the stoep as he passed out. She was putting some finishing touches to a water-colour drawing. In his then mood he did not suggest that she should accompany him; perhaps he feared the effect of a refusal or a reluctant consent.

“Are you going out, father? It’s awfully hot.”

“Yes, I’m going a short round. Back by dinner time.”

Three or four great rough-haired dogs, lying in the shade behind the stable, sprang up as the horse was led forth, whining and squirming with wild excitement at sight of the gun in their master’s hand. He, however, drove them back; he was not going to hunt, but there was always the chance of coming across unwary “vermin”—a jackal perhaps, or a rooikat.

The first point he made for was the scene of yesterday’s episode. As he approached it a low hum of voices was borne to his ears. Some half dozen natives stood clustered round the spot. The carcase of Elvesdon’s horse lay swollen and distended, tainting the air, and beside it the great snake. But on the latter was their attention concentrated.

“Whau! but that was the very king of serpents,” one of them was saying. “I, who am old, have never seen one like it—no never.”

“M-m!” hummed his hearers. “Nkose!”

This in respectful greeting as they became aware of the new arrival’s presence. He acknowledged it.

“I, who am old, have never seen one like it, impela,” repeated the speaker. “Nkose. The snake—the king of snakes—has killed the horse, but who has killed the snake?”

“The horse,” said Thornhill. “He fell over on it and broke its back, just after it had struck him.”

“It is the horse of—of—the new magistrate—at Kwabulazi,” went on the other. “He was at my kraal just before.”

“That is so, Tongwana. Here is gwai,” getting out a large snuff-horn, which came in handy on such occasions.

“Nkose!” cried the chief, receiving it in both hands. He was an old man, with a white beard, and, of course, head-ringed. Two of the others were also ringed. As Thornhill told the story of the occurrence many were the murmurs of surprise that went up. The new magistrate at Kwabulazi was clearly no fool of a white man, and this inference impressed them greatly.

One of them, however, it did not seem to impress at all, and that was one of the ringed men. He had listened in a careless, almost contemptuous way to the narrative, uttering no remark or interjection. He was of fine stature, and unlike Tongwana and two or three of the others, wore no article of European clothing; wherein he showed taste, for the savage in his mútya alone looks an immeasurably finer savage than his brother clad in the same, with a super-added shirt, usually none too clean. Him Thornhill set down as a Zulu from beyond the border: but at the same time he was vaguely conscious of having seen him somewhere before.

This man now, without a word of farewell greeting, detached himself from the group, and began to walk leisurely away. Then it became noticeable that he walked with a slight limp.

“Bullet in the war of ’79 did that,” decided Thornhill grimly, as he looked after him. “Wonder if he’ll compete for another distinguishing mark of the same kind before long.” Then aloud—

“Who is he?”

They looked at each other.

“He is a stranger, Nkose,” answered Tongwana with a whimsical smile. “From the other side?”

“E-hé.”

“Yet it seems I have seen him before. No matter. For the rest, amadoda, the house is very near and contains that which is good to eat and drink. The Inkosazana (lit. Little Chieftainess) is there, and will see to that. I return soon myself. Hambani gahle!”

They were delighted, and chorussed a sonorous farewell. Thornhill made it a rule to treat his native neighbours on liberal and friendly terms, consequently the relations between them were of the best. None of his stock was ever missing nor did he ever lack farm servants. Incidentally, some of his white neighbours disagreed with him on the point. They said he was spoiling the natives. But, out of the plenitude of his experience he had found it a policy that paid.

Now, when after a few minutes’ ride along the bush track he overtook the stranger, that worthy’s demeanour towards himself constituted quite an unusual experience. It was off-hand, to say the least of it, almost offensive.

“May I not have first right to ride along the paths on my own farm?” began Thornhill, banteringly. For the path here was exceedingly narrow with high thick bush on either hand, and the other showed not the least anxiety to make way for him, but strode on as though there was no one within a hundred miles. It was all Thornhill could do to restrain himself from bringing down the butt of his gun hard and violently between the broad, shining shoulders. It was, if possible, more difficult still, as the stranger replied, without halting or even looking back:

“Patience, Inqoto. The path is not wide enough for two.”

This gazula—or addressing a white man familiarly by his native name, even though that name in this instance was a complimentary one, referring to decisiveness of character—would have led then and there to a breach of the peace on the part of most white men, especially as the tone of the speaker bordered on the contemptuous. This one only waxed coldly sarcastic.

“I see you, King. Bayéte, King of the Heavens and the world! Elephant! Lion! Divider of the Sun! Shaker of the Earth!” he went on, giving the other half a dozen more titles of royal sibongo. “Whau! It is truly the Great Great One come to life again, for who else in these times would walk about my farm armed with assegais?”

The path had now widened out. The savage halted and stepped aside.

“Do you know me, Inqoto?” he said. “Have you ever seen me before?”

“Surely. O Elephant. In another world,” came the ready and sarcastic reply.

“M-m! In another world. But it is in this world you shall see me again, Inqoto. Ah, ah! In this world. Hamba gahle!”

With which farewell, insolently sneering, the speaker turned and strolled leisurely away.