A Veldt Official Part 26

Even then, a misgiving a.s.sailed him. Could a savage be trusted, especially in war-time? What if this one, now out of reach of the threatening revolver, should betray him to his countrymen? What if even now the latter were stealing back to surprise and overpower him without loss to themselves? The idea was not an exhilarating one.

But although he understood but little of what had pa.s.sed, he had been struck by the eagerness with which Tom had striven to prevent his fellow-countrymen from entering, and had succeeded. Even this, however, might be part of the _ruse_. Yet he tried to believe that the Kaffir was trustworthy, as indeed the event proved, for when, after lying concealed for upwards of an hour more, Roden ventured cautiously to peer forth, lo, there was not an enemy in sight.

The sun was now above the horizon, and the bird and insect life of the veldt was starting into glad and joyous being, as Roden, cramped and stiff from his constrained att.i.tude, stepped warily forth to explore.

The black ruins of the burnt house still smouldered, sending up jets of blue smoke, and as he stood in the dazzling radiance of the new-born day, contemplating this holocaust of savage hate and vengeance, he thought with a sweet, warm glow around his heart, not unmixed with awe, of how that mysterious voice had called him forth from the slumber which would have ended in the slumber of death.

He turned back to the fruit garden to breakfast on its luscious contents, for his saddlebag had been left within the burning house, and no other food had he. While thus occupied, a sound as of the faint tramping of feet in the distance recalled all his instincts of self-preservation. But he needed to take no second look. Mounted figures crested the sky line--whites--who, to the number of a score and a half, were cantering rapidly towards the still smoking ruins. Then Roden got out and filled his pipe, and having lighted it, sat down on the sod wall and calmly began to blow a cloud.

"Great Scott, Musgrave! is that you or your ghost?" cried Darrell, who was riding at the head of the party. "Why, what on earth has happened to you all this while, man?"

"It's me, I believe, but I'm not quite sure of it even now," answered Roden. "And, Darrell, and you fellows, look there. If you had been spending the night lying bunched up in that corner, while John Kaffir was hooraying around a blazing house fifty yards off, and when he had quit that, jumping right over you, and even on to you, on his way to eat peaches, why, you wouldn't be quite sure of it either."

Then followed explanations, and how the runaway steed had returned straight to camp, and had been at once recognised by more than one citizen of Doppersdorp there under arms; and how Darrell had been able to collect a patrol, and start post-haste in search of so perilously situated a fellow-countryman as one afoot in the middle of the hostile ground. And all stared open-mouthed as Roden narrated all that had befallen him, including his narrow escape from the deserted house. But of the cause which effected that timely flight he said nothing.

"Well, Musgrave, and which way did they go?" said Darrell, when he had done.

"Who?"

"Why, the Kaffirs, of course. We'll go and give 'em h.e.l.l."

"Darrell, get down into that ditch, there where I was. Tuck your head under your wing, and hold your very breath, and then see how competent you are to form a judgment as to the direction in which any given crowd has retreated."

"Well, we can spoor them."

"I wouldn't. They've got hours of start; besides, they're beastly numerous, and you're not. No, let them alone."

Now the extent of the above start, eke of the numerical strength of the enemy, was an exaggeration, and one of set design. Tom, _alias_ Geunkwe, had kept strict faith with him, and Roden Musgrave did not want that honourable savage to be shot or captured, if by a moderate stretch of veracity he could prevent it.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

A CHANGE.

"Well, Musgrave, old boy, I'm glad to see you back again," cried genial Peter Van Stolz, wringing his subordinate's hand, as the latter entered the office just before Court time on the morning following the events last detailed. "There are two or three drunk cases to polish off; they won't take ten minutes, and then I want to hear all your adventures."

So Sannje Pretorius, and Carolus Dirksen, and two or three other worthy specimens of the n.o.ble Hottentot, having been fined five or ten s.h.i.+llings apiece, with the alternative of seven days hard, the administrator of Doppersdorp justice lost no time in returning to be put in possession of such more or less stirring facts as the reader is already familiar with. Not altogether, however, for the narrator had a strange repugnance to chronicling his own deeds of slaughter, which, in fact, he so slurred over as to make it appear rather that they had been done by Darrell--a vicarious distinction from which that worthy, at any rate, would in no wise have shrunk. Nor, we hardly need say, did he reveal his meeting with Tom. On that point his lips were sealed, even to his friend. His word, once pa.s.sed, was inviolable.

It happened that he had come straight into Doppersdorp, abandoning the projected _detour_ by Suffield's farm, for a sort of nervous exhaustion, supervening on the strain and hards.h.i.+ps of that terrible and trying night, had compelled him to take some hours' rest beneath the first sheltering roof which he came across after his rescue by Darrell and his party, who had escorted him on his road until beyond further risk, returning then to the Main Camp. Hence, reckoning he had been away long enough, he made up his mind to reach Doppersdorp in time for Court. He would ride over to Quaggasfontein in the evening.

Then, at the midday recess, Roden found himself carried off to dine, in order that Mrs Van Stolz might hear his adventures. At that point of his narrative which touched upon the villainous behaviour of the defaulting steed, they all laughed again and again, while recognising that it was no laughing matter at the time.

"What will Miss Ridsdale say when she hears all about it?" said Mrs Van Stolz mischievously. "I suppose you haven't seen her yet, Mr Musgrave?"

Roden answered that he had not, and then a little more sly fun was poked at him. Finally, it became time to return.

"You see, it's post day, Musgrave, old boy," said Mr Van Stolz, as they walked back to the office together, "or I would say, Clear out. I know you are dying to go up to Suffield's. But it may be in early, and there's sure to be nothing of much importance. After it's in, you can clear out as soon as you like. Hark! there's the horn now. The cart's just coming over the neck."

It was. About a mile or so up the road they could make out the rising dust, which should soon resolve itself into a weather-beaten, two-wheeled cart, laden with mail-sacks, and driven by a yellow-skinned Hottentot, tootling on a battered trumpet. Nor was it much longer before a portion of its contents was duly transferred to the public offices.

"Congratulate me, Musgrave!" cried Mr Van Stolz, skipping into his subordinate's room, with an open official letter in his hand.

"Congratulate me! I'm promoted!"

But the beaming and joyous expression of his countenance found no reflection in that of Roden, who said--

"As far as you are the better for it, I do most heartily. Speaking selfishly, however, it's the worst news I've heard for many a long day."

The other stared for a moment, then his face softened. No congratulations could have conveyed a more direct tribute to the esteem in which he was held by the speaker.

"Thanks, old fellow," he said, "I know what you mean. We've always got on right well together, I really believe."

"Got on? I should rather think we had. The man who couldn't get on with you could get on with n.o.body."

Still more did the other stare. This habitually cold, reserved cynic!

To hear him now, would be to think the man was full of heart.

"I'm afraid my congratulation is of a rueful order at best," said Roden, with a smile. "And now, where is the transfer to, and what increase does it carry?"

"Barabastadt. It's just such another hole as Doppersdorp--poor old Doppersdorp isn't such a bad little place though. It's away in the Karroo at the foot of the Rooi Ruggensbergen. Good springbok shooting, I believe. And it means 100 pounds a year more, which is a consideration when a man's hat doesn't cover all his family. Look; there's the letter."

Roden ran his eye down the sheet, which set forth in official rigmarole that His Excellency the Governor, with the advice of the Executive Council, had been pleased to appoint Mr Peter Van Stolz to be Civil Commissioner and Resident Magistrate of Barabastadt, at a salary of so much per annum, in the room of Mr Somebody Else transferred.

"And your successor, what sort of man is he?" he said at length.

"Shaston? Frederick Romsey Shaston. A devil of a name that, Musgrave.

Well, he's rather like his name, rather a pompous sort of chap. I remember him four years ago, when he was 'acting' at Maraisburg. He was always getting his judgments reversed. He's not a bad sort of fellow though; not at all a bad sort of fellow at bottom."

This is a species of eulogy which is of the faintly exculpatory order, and from both the words and the tone none knew better than Roden Musgrave that his new chief would be almost certain to prove a direct ant.i.thesis to his old one.

"No, he isn't a bad sort of fellow, Musgrave, if you take him the right way. You'll get on all right."

In his heart of hearts the speaker knew as surely as he could know anything that the two would _not_ get on all right; however, he was not going to say so.

"It isn't the 'getting on' part of it I'm thinking of, Mr Van Stolz,"

said Roden. "Can't you credit me with realising that true friends are scarce, and not feeling overjoyed at the prospect of losing a firm specimen of the article?"

"Of course, of course. I understand. But, Musgrave, old boy, you mustn't talk about losing a friend, hope we shall not have seen the last of each other because I have left this. Why, we have had plenty of good times together, and will have plenty more. The wife likes you so much, too. No, no. Of one thing we may be sure. You have always firm friends in us, no matter what happens."

"Thank you. I am sure of it," said Roden, on whom the words struck with something like a presentiment. And the time was coming when he was destined to remember them.

Cantering over the gra.s.sy flats in the slant of the golden sun-gleam, Roden's mind dwelt more and more on that mysterious midnight warning which had startled him from a slumber destined otherwise to end in the slumber of death. So signal had been its result, that the anxiety which had at first beset him, lest evil hovered over its utterer, was quite dispelled, giving place to a strange, sweet awe so foreign to his nature that he could hardly recognise his very self. Now, as he drew near Suffield's house, he smiled curiously at his own eagerness, and made believe to check it. There stood the homestead against its background of green willows, away over the flat, then, as the track dipped into a slight depression, he saw it no more.

All the way out, all that day, he had been trying to picture his reception, and very alluring had that occupation proved. He had never, as we have said, been away from Mona before, not away beyond reach, that is. How would she receive him? He thought he knew. Then, as the house again came into view, he strained his eyes for the first glimpse of that supple, exquisitely modelled form, for the first flutter of a dress.

Yet no such glimpse rewarded him.

He was in a fanciful vein, and the circ.u.mstance of this dejection struck him with a sort of chill. He rode up to the door amid the clamour of the yelling pack, which, ever aggressive, charged him open-mouthed, a demeanour which speedily subsided into much jumping and tail-wagging as his ident.i.ty became manifest. Then a gleam of light drapery down among the willows caught his eye. Ah, there she was, but not alone; for both Suffield and his wife were there, and the trio seemed to be indulging in the most prosaic of evening strolls. This then was to be that often-dwelt-on first meeting--a conventional hand-shake, a mere plat.i.tude of a "How d'you do?" In which especial particular the irony of circ.u.mstances manifests itself more often than not.