John Ames, Native Commissioner Part 11

"'M--yes."

The while, John Ames, having turned his horse over to his boy, entered his office. There was not much to do that day, as it happened, so after spending half an hour looking over some papers, he locked up for the day, and adjourned to the hut which served him for sitting and dining room combined, in which we have already seen him.

He threw himself into a chair and lighted a pipe. There was an absent, thoughtful look in his eyes, which had been there ever since he found himself alone; wherefore it is hardly surprising that in lieu of seeking solace in literature, he should have sat, to all outward appearances, doing nothing. In reality, he was thinking--thinking hard and deeply.

A month had gone by since his unexpected and most unwelcome recall; but unwelcome as it had been, he could not quarrel with it on the ground of its superfluity. Times had been lively since his return--more than lively--but not in an exhilarating sense. The rinderpest had taken firm root in the land, and was in a fair way of clearing it of horned cattle from end to end. Not at domestic cattle did it stay its ravages either.

The wild game went down before its fell breath; every variety of stately and beautiful antelope, formerly preserved with judicious care beneath the rule of the barbarian king, underwent decimation. But it was in the mowing down of the cattle that the serious side of the scourge came, because, apart from the actual loss to the white settlers, the enforced destruction of the native stock rendered the savages both desperate and dangerous. Already rumours of rising were in the air.

The sullen, brooding demeanour exhibited by Madula's people was but a sample of the whole.

To the perilous side of the position, as regarded himself individually, John Ames was not blind. He was far too experienced for that. And his position was full of peril. Apart from a rising, he was marked out as the actual agent in executing the most hateful law ever forced upon a conquered people. His was the hand by which actually perished its animal wealth. Every bullock or heifer shot down sent a pang of fierce vindictiveness through more than one savage heart. In blind, barbaric reasoning, what more plausible than that to destroy the instrument would be to render inoperative the cause which set that instrument in motion?

A blow from behind, a sudden stab, in the desperate impulse of the moment--what more likely?

Not of peril, present or potential, however, was he thinking, as he sat there alone, but of the change, absorbing and entire, which had come over his life since returning from his all too brief furlough. He had left, cool, well-balanced, even-minded; he had returned, so far as his inner moments were concerned, in a trance, a state of absorption. It was wonderful. He hardly recognised himself. But what a new glad suns.h.i.+ne was now irradiating his lonely life. The recollection! Why, he could sit for hours going over it all again. Not again only, but again and again. Everything, from the first accidental meeting to that last bright and golden day by an enchanted sea--to the last farewell.

Every word, every tone was recalled and weighed. Ah, he had not known what it was to live before! He had grovelled like a blind grub in the dust and darkness--now he was soaring in arrowy gleams upon wings of light. But--no words had been uttered, no promises exchanged. What matter? If at times of physical depression he felt misgivings he put them from him.

True to her promise, Nidia had written--once--and with that letter he had had no cause to find fault. She had even sent him a dainty little portrait of herself, the only one she had, she explained; but where that was habitually kept we decline to say, "We shall meet again," she had declared. Yet if that utterance were to be unfulfilled, if indeed this dream were to fade, to go the way of too many such dreams, and to end in a drear awakening, even then was it not something to have lived in the dream, to have looked upon life as so new and golden and altogether priceless? With such considerations would he comfort himself in moments of depression.

"We shall meet again."

Often he would picture to himself that meeting. There would be others present most probably, but she, in his sight, would be alone. She would be surrounded by adorers, of course, but as her eyes met his she would know there was in reality but one. In all the adjuncts to her serene loveliness which taste and daintiness could surround her with, she would stand before him. Such would be their meeting, and upon it he dwelt; and to it his imagination reached through s.p.a.ce, as to the culminating ecstasy of the goal of a life attained.

From such soarings, however, comes a descent, as abrupt as it is profound, in this hard work-a-day world. John Ames sat bolt upright with a start of dismay, for the clock opposite told its own tale. His musings had carried him over some hours. It was nearly dark, and he was due--almost overdue--at Inglefield's.

CHAPTER TEN.

THE IGNITING OF THE FLAME.

"That man's late again. He always is. Tom, don't ever ask him again.

He seems to treat me with studied rudeness."

Thus Mrs Inglefield, consulting her watch. She was an acid looking person, who might once have been pa.s.sable in aspect. Now the deepening of her habitual frown was far from prepossessing.

"It's only on the stroke of seven," said Inglefield, shortly. "Give him a little law, Annie. He'll be here directly. Perhaps some n.i.g.g.e.r turned up at the last moment on particular business."

The suggestion was like throwing paraffin upon flames.

"That makes it worse," exploded the lady. "To keep me--to keep us-- waiting to suit the convenience of a few filthy blacks--"

"Well, give the chap a show," snapped Inglefield, not in the best of humours himself. The while, Crosse, the cattle inspector, sat profoundly pitying Inglefield, thinking, too, that the defaulter, when he did come, was not going to enjoy his dinner overmuch.

"Hope I'm not late," said a voice in the doorway.

"Not a bit, Ames; at least, only two minutes, and that doesn't count,"

cried Inglefield, cordially, feeling very much "in opposition."

"Roll up, man, and have an appetiser, Crosse, you'll cut in?"

John Ames, ignoring the coldness of his hostess' greeting, noticed that fully a quarter of an hour went by before they sat down to table. When they did sit down the interior of the hut looked snug enough. The bright lamp shed a cheerful glow upon the white napery and silver forks; and pictures and knick-knacks upon the walls and about the room--or rather, the hut, for such it was--rendered the place pleasant and homelike, suggestive of anything but the wilds of savage Matabeleland.

Any remark, however, which he addressed to his hostess was met by a curt monosyllable, she turning immediately to converse with Crosse, affably voluble. It mattered nothing. He had only consented to come upon Inglefield's urgent and repeated invitation, having experienced that sample of behaviour before.

"What sort of a time did you have down in Cape Town, Ames?" said Crosse presently, when he could conversationally break away.

"Rather a good one. It was a great nuisance having to come back."

"Mr Coates was such a nice man," interpolated Mrs Inglefield, with meaning, referring to John Ames's _loc.u.m tenens_. "We used to see a great deal of him."

"Find any nice girls down there, eh, Ames?" said Inglefield, slily, fully alive to the unveiled rudeness of his spouse.

"Oh yes--several."

"And one in particular, eh?" went on the other, waggishly, drawing a bow at a venture; for John Ames was not one to wear his heart upon his sleeve or to embark in chatter upon the subject nearest and dearest to that organ.

"_Nice_ girls! I didn't know there were any nowadays," snapped Mrs Inglefield. "A pack of bicycling, cigarette-smoking, forward tomboys!"

"Oh, come, Mrs Inglefield," laughed Crosse, "you mustn't be so down on them. They're only up to date, you know."

"Up to date! Then, thank Heaven I'm not up to date; I'm only old-fas.h.i.+oned," she retorted.

"I'd be sorry to wear the boots of the chip who told you so, Annie,"

p.r.o.nounced Inglefield. "Besides, you're romping hard over Ames's feelings; at least, I surmise you are. He's too close a bird to give the show away. _But_--as poor old Corney Grain used to say."

"Oh, I always say what I mean," she answered, with an air which plainly added: "if people don't like it so much the worse for the people." And John Ames was thinking that never again, under any circ.u.mstances whatever, would he sit at the table of this abominably ill-bred and offensive woman. He was right. He never would; but for a reason that it was as well he--and all of them seated there--did not so much as dream.

Then, partly that subject-matter for conversation is, to isolated dwellers in a remote wilderness, necessarily limited, partly because he deemed it a safe topic, Inglefield led the talk round to the day's doings--the destruction of Madula's cattle.

"It's an infernally wasteful way of getting rid of them," he said. "I dare say you've blazed away nearer a thousand cartridges than a hundred, eh, Ames?"

"Quite that. As you say, it is an abominable waste, and if ever the time comes when we shall sorely need every one of those cartridges for our own defence--"

"Oh, now you're croaking again, old chap," interrupted Inglefield; while his spouse remarked--

"Faugh! I'd as soon be a slaughter-house butcher at once. Sooner."

"Somebody must do it, you know, Mrs Inglefield," replied John Ames, placidly. "If the job were turned over to natives they'd waste five times the number of cartridges, and the poor beasts would suffer all the more."

"Suppose we change this very unpleasant subject," she remarked, looking pointedly at him, quite ignoring the fact that it had been started by her husband, and she it was who had done the most towards keeping it going.

"Policeman he want to see Inkose."

The interruption proceeded from one of the two small boys who acted as waiters, and who had just entered.

"Tell him to wait until I've done dinner, Piccanin," replied Inglefield, placidly.

"It may be something important," hazarded John Ames.

"Oh, it'll keep till after dinner," was the airy rejoinder. "Er--which policeman is it, Piccanin?"