Читать книгу Forging the Blades: A Tale of the Zulu Rebellion - Mitford Bertram - Страница 5

The river swirled on through the heat, the sweltering, fever-breathing heat. The long, deep reach made but scant murmur, save where the boughs of a luxuriant vegetation dipped on its surface. Above, on either hand, masses of rolling verdure, tall forest trees, undergrowth in rich profusion, and, high up against the blue sky, battlemented rock walls.

Two dark objects relieved the shimmering smoothness of the surface of the reach—two minute dark objects to the ordinary observer, afloat, motionless. Yet why should these remain motionless instead of floating down with the fairly strong, though smooth, current? Well, there might have been, behind each, about twelve feet of ugly, scaly saurian, whose powerful under-water stroke kept them stationary, while watchful, against the descending stream.

A grassy glade slopes down to the bank, tailing away inland into a path something like a “ride” in an English game covert. Great trees, rising overhead, shade this, in a dimness which shuts out, save in a faint network, the glare of the molten sun. And it is at present occupied by two horses and a man.

The horses still have their saddles on, though the girths are loosened. The animals are grazing, their bridles trailing on the ground. Suddenly both throw up their heads and snort, then walk quickly away, further up the forest path. The man, who is standing up, gazing meditatively out upon the river reach, notices this and turns. Then he advances a step or two, and halts suddenly. For there is a movement in the grass a few yards in front, and immediately from this rises the head and neck of a large green mamba.

Instinctively the man’s hand goes to his revolver, then he pauses. The snake is hissing viciously. More of the long neck appears, waving to and fro as though preparing for a spring. This is a peculiarly fierce and aggressive species when disturbed, and the man knows it. He knows also that the chances of being able to stop its rush with a bullet are small. He abandons the firearm and starts another plan.

He begins whistling in a low but peculiarly clear note. The effect is magical. The angry, excited waving of the sinuous neck ceases. The head, still raised, is motionless as though under some new and enthralling influence. Clearly on the part of its owner hostilities are suspended.

He sustains the spell. Tune after tune trills forth in that clear note, and the reptile, its deadly head still raised, its original fury dulled to an almost placid expression, still listens. To the performer the position now seems ridiculous, then rather interesting. He has never set up as a snake-charmer before. For now, indeed, the horror with which the much dreaded reptile had inspired him has given way to a subtle sort of sympathy. He no longer fears it. He seems to have tamed it, and feels accordingly. It is a strange and appropriate picture: the man and the dreaded serpent, the dim shadowing away of the tangled forest, the two horses snuffing with uneasy curiosity in the background, the river reach, still and deep-flowing, with the muzzles of its two voracious denizens causing a light ripple on its surface.

All thought of destruction has faded from the mind of the human actor in this weird performance. He continues to evolve his natural music, even advancing a few steps nearer to his grim listener. The latter shows no sign of fear or resentment. Then an interruption occurs.

Crash! The motionless, uplifted neck of the serpent seems to fly nearly in half, and the great coils beat and burst convulsively in the grass. The man turns. Another man is standing behind him holding a shotgun, one barrel of which is still smoking.

“What the devil did you do that for?” says the first angrily.

The other laughs, a thick sort of laugh, and by no means a pleasant one.

“Do that for?” he echoes, speaking with somewhat of a Jewish tone and accent. “Can’t I shoot a blighted snake without having to ask your leave?”

“You idiot. I was in the thick of a most interesting experiment, and you’ve spoilt it all by your infernal and officious interference.”

“Interesting experiment? I call it disgusting.”

“Here, drop that gun sharp, or I’ll blow your head into the river.”

The Jewish-looking man with the shotgun starts. The other’s revolver is pointing right at his chest, and there is no mistaking the determination in his steely eyes. He knows full well that there is every reason why his life is in mortal peril. So he drops the gun sullenly into the grass.

“Now, then. Take five steps back from it. If you move otherwise you’re dead.”

There is no alternative but to obey, and this the threatened one does.

“Don’t know if you’ve gone mad,” he says. “Fooling with snakes must have sent you off your chump, I reckon.”

“Do you? Well, you chose to fasten yourself on to me for your own purpose—to wit, blackmail. Now you are going to write down, here and now, something which will put it out of your power to try any more blackmail on me for ever.”

“I’ll see you damned first. I’ll see you damned before I write anything.”

“Will you? But you’ll have to wait for that some time—till you’ve had a spell of damnation yourself first. Now, then, are you going to do it?”

“No.”

The pistol cracks. It is a miss. The bullet has grazed the other’s ear. The assailed is standing just on the edge of the bank with his back to the river.

“Don’t move. I’ll give you another chance. I’m aiming lower this time. You’ll get it bang amidships, between wind and water, so to say, and—it’ll hurt more. You were going to stick to me till I came to your price, were you? But you’ve stuck rather too tight.”

“Oh, but—you’ll swing for this,” says the other, between dry, tremulous lips.

“Not much ‘swing.’ Why, nobody will be any the wiser. Not a soul has seen us together. You disappear, that’s all. Well, are you going to do as I tell you? I’ve got everything here—well-filled fountain pen, and paper; strangely out of place in these surroundings, still, here they are.”

The threatened man does not immediately reply. He is calculating his chances, and in a flash it is borne home to him that he has no chances. Opposite him stands a desperate and determined man dictating terms. These he will have to accept, and will feel anything but safe even then; for well he knows that the other has every motive for sending him out of the world.

“Well? Are you going to do it? I’ll count five.”

But hardly has he begun to do so than the situation changes. The man on the river brink suddenly puts his hand behind him, ducking low as he does so, to avoid the shot that simultaneously whizzes over where his chest had been a fraction of a second earlier. A revolver glints in his hand, but he is not quick enough. Before he can get in a shot the other pistol cracks again, this time with effect. He topples heavily into the water.

Yet he is struggling for his chance of life, but a glance is sufficient to show that he can hardly swim a stroke even if unwounded—which he is not. The other points his pistol for a final and decisive shot. But there is something in the wild appealing scream of the drowning wretch that unnerves him, that shatters his callous desperation. And then—the crocodiles.

“Make for this stump,” he shouts, running down the bank. “I’ll give you a hand out. Now I’m going to fire over your head.”

There is nothing now to fire at. The two motionless objects have disappeared, nevertheless he sends a bullet into the water at the place where they had been.

Splashing, kicking, panting, the drowning man makes for the stump indicated. In a moment he will have seized it and the other is running down to help him. A yard further and he will be safe. His hand is already stretched forth to grasp it, when—with a frightful scream of agony and terror he disappears beneath the surface.

The survivor stands on the bank appalled.

“The ‘crocs’ have got him, by God!” he exclaims. A moment back and he himself was ready to take this man’s life—for all he knew he had taken it. But the final method of his death is so revolting, so ghastly that he could wish him safe back again. Well, at any rate he had done what he could to save him. It was not his fault if the fool chose to topple into the river. Yet, but for his own compulsion the said “fool” would not have been standing where he was.

He stands gazing down the reach. Is that blood, floating in a dark patch upon the surface lower down? No. Only the light and shade. And now, what to do next?

If the body should be found the bullet wound would tell its own tale. Even then the natives, already in a state of unrest, would be credited with another outrage. But if, as he surmised, the dead man had been pulled under by crocodiles, why then there would be little enough left of him to tell any tale at all. But—what of his horse?

This is something of a problem, and sitting down with his back against a yellowwood-tree he proceeds to think it out. Shall he shoot the animal and leave it there, for its return anywhere without its rider will, of course, raise an alarm? Then an idea strikes him—rather an original and ghastly one. The dead mamba? Its poison glands are intact. Can he not by some means make the dead head bite the living animal? That would look less suspicious than a bullet hole, in the event of the carcase being found. But he doubts whether the venom will inject under the circumstances. No. He must sacrifice the poor brute to his own sense of self-preservation.

The two horses have withdrawn some little way, uneasy at the sound of the firing. Now he lounges quietly towards them, and has no difficulty in securing the bridle rein of both, trailing, as that is, upon the grass. He hitches his own mount to a strong sapling and leads the other to the river bank.

But this is not so easy. The horse, by some instinct, grasps that something is wrong, and demurs to leaving its fellow. At last by dint of patience and coolness it is induced to do so, and is led to an overhanging bank similar to that whence its owner took his last plunge. A quick shot. Four kicking hoofs turn convulsively upwards and the lifeless carcase falls into the deep water with a great splash. The man looks after it for a minute or two as it sinks.

“A pity, but necessary,” he reflects. “Too much cannonading, though. Sure to have been heard.” Then he reseats himself on the grass and lights his pipe.

“This is no murder,” run his reflections. “The fool brought it upon himself. He was given every chance.” Then, as the long period of blackmailing to which the dead man has subjected him comes back, he feels ruthless. Yet the tragedy just enacted seems to have left its mark. He has taken life—human life—and somehow the consideration weighs; in spite of the feeling of relief at having rid himself, and the world, of that most pestilent thing alive—a blackmailer. Should the circumstances leak out he would have to stand his trial for murder—an ugly word. But—how should they? This wild, lonely forest valley, seldom visited even by natives, never by whites, would keep its own secret. And nobody had seen them together.

As he sits there the whole situation seems to get upon his nerves, high-strung as they are after the quick excitement of the foregoing events. The whole atmosphere of the tangled forest, of the deep-flowing river, seems to breathe death. The dank, decaying vegetation, the dimness, the very airlessness of the sweltering valley—all this is not merely heat. It is asphyxia. It is strangely silent too; only the murmur of the river, and that remindful of its voracious denizens, breaks upon the fever-breathing stillness. He shivers, then, as with an effort, starts up, and going over to his horse, he hitches it, straps tighter the girths, and mounted, rides away down the dim, overhung path.

But not until six hours later does he remember that the dead man’s shotgun has been left lying just where it was dropped.