John Ames, Native Commissioner Part 28

With many injunctions to her not to wander far from this spot, where to hide in the event of any Matabele chancing to pa.s.s that way, and promising to be back by sundown, Pukele took his departure. Once more Nidia was alone. This time, however, loneliness in itself no longer oppressed her. Intense anxiety on behalf of another precluded all thought of self.

True to his promise Pukele returned at sundown, and he had learned something. Jonemi had fallen in with the Matabele, even as he had expected. He had talked with the indunas, and having bidden farewell had walked away. That was about the same time last evening. But Pukele said nothing of the subsequent and stealthy pursuit, and the plunge from the height, for the simple reason that these were among the things he had not learned. The agents concerned in that last tragedy had their own motives for not advertising it abroad.

"Who were the indunas he was talking with?" asked Nidia, suddenly.

"Dey izinduna from Sik.u.mbutana," replied the warrior, as she thought, evasively; and in truth this was so, for although he would do anything to a.s.sist his former master, or one in whom his former master took an interest, Pukele's native instincts were against revealing too much.

There was always in the background a possibility of the whites regaining the upper hand, in which case it was just as well that the prime movers in the rising should not be known to too many by name.

"But if they were his own people they would not harm him?"

"Not harm him, missie. He walk away."

"Then why is he not here, long before now?" Then, excitedly, "Pukele, you don't think--they--followed him up in the dark--and--and killed him?"

This again Pukele thought was far from unlikely. But he dissembled. It was more probable, he declared, that Jonemi had taken a longer way to come back in order to throw off his track any who might be following.

Or he might have discovered another impi and be forced to travel in the opposite direction to avoid it. He might be back any time.

This for her benefit. But in his heart of hearts the Matabele warrior thought that the chances of his former master being still in the land of the living were so small as to be not worth reckoning with. So he made up the fire, and cooked birds for Nidia and prepared to watch over her safety.

That night weird sounds came floating up to their resting-place, a rhythmical distant roaring, now subsiding into silence, then bursting forth again, till it gathered volume like the rolling of thunder. Fires twinkled forth, too, like eyes in the darkness, among the far windings of the hills.

"What is that, Pukele?" cried Nidia, starting up.

"Matabele make dance, missie. Big dance. Umlimo dance Matabele call him," replied the savage, who was listening intently.

"Umlimo dance. Ah! I remember. Is there an Umlimo cave down there, where they are?" For she was thinking of the place John Ames had pointed out to her the day before, and his remark that if it wasn't a real Umlimo cave, it ought to be. And these strange wild sounds seemed to proceed from about that very spot.

"_An_! Umlimo cave, what dat, missie?" inquired Pukele.

"A cave--a hole--where Umlimo speaks from," she tried to explain. But the other became suddenly and unaccountably dense.

"Gave? Hole? Oh yes, missie. Plenty hole here. Plenty hole in Matopo. Oh yes. Big mountain, plenty hole."

The great volume of savage sound came rolling up almost unintermittently till midnight. Then there was silence once more.

The next day, John Ames did not appear, nor the next. Then, in utter despair, Nidia agreed to Pukele's repeated proposal to guide her out of the hills, and if possible to bring her into Bulawayo itself.

And right well and faithfully did this barbarian fulfil his undertaking.

The rebels were coming into the hills now, and every step of the way was fraught with danger. He made her lie hidden during the day, always choosing some apparently inaccessible and least suspicious looking retreat, while he himself would wander forth in search of the means of subsistence. At night they would do their travelling, and here the eyes of the savage were as the eyes of a cat, and actually the eyes of both of them. And throughout, he watched over her safety with the fidelity of a dog.

One great argument which had availed to induce Nidia to yield to her guide's representations, was that once she was safe in Bulawayo, he would be left free to pursue his search for the missing man. As to which, let him but succeed, she a.s.sured him, and he would be a rich man--as his people counted riches--for life.

Thus journeying they had reached the outskirts of the hills, and could now and then obtain glimpses of the open country. Twice had Pukele fallen in with his countrymen, from whom he had gleaned that it was so far open around Bulawayo, but would not be long, for the Umlimo had p.r.o.nounced in favour of shutting it in, and the impis were ma.s.sing with that object.

Pukele was returning from a solitary hunt, bringing with him the carcase of a klip-springer. He was under no restriction as to who heard the report of his rifle, and being a fair shot, and as stealthy and active as the game itself, he seldom returned from such empty handed.

Moreover, he knew where to find grain when it was wanted, wherefore his charge suffered no disadvantage by reason of short commons. He was returning along the base of a large granite kopje. The ground was open immediately in front, but on his left was a straggling line of trees and undergrowth. Singing softly to himself he was striding along when--

Just the faintest suspicion of a tinkling sound. His quick ears caught it. At any other time he would have swerved and with the rapidity of a snake would have glided and disappeared among the granite boulders.

Now, however, he stood his ground.

Three mounted men--white men--dashed from the cover, with revolvers drawn. Pukele dropped his weapons and held forth his arms.

"Fire not, Amakiwa!" he said, in his own tongue. "I was seeking for such as ye."

But the mounted volunteers, for such they were, understood next to nothing of that tongue. They only saw before them, a native, a savage, a rebel, fully armed, with rifle and a.s.segais, and in war-gear.

Pukele being a native, and having such an important communication to make as that a refugee white woman was under his charge whom he desired to place under theirs, it was not in him to make it in three words, nor would these have understood him if he had. He, however, stood waiting for their answer. A fourth trooper dashed from the bush.

"What are you waiting for, you blanked idiots?" he yelled. "Here's a b.l.o.o.d.y n.i.g.g.e.r, ain't there? Well, then--Remember Hollingworth's!"

With the words he discharged his revolver almost point-blank into Pukele's chest. Another echoing the vengeful shout, "Remember Hollingworth's!" fired his into the body of the faithful protector of the only survivor of Hollingworth's, which slowly sank to the earth, then toppled forward on its face.

The troopers looked upon the slain man with hate and execration. They, be it remembered, had looked upon the bodies of their own countrymen and women and children, lying stark under all the circ.u.mstances of a hideous and b.l.o.o.d.y death. Then the first man who had fired, dismounted and seized the dead warrior's weapons, administering a savage kick to the now motionless corpse. So Pukele met with his reward.

"Get into cover again. There may be more of 'em!" he enjoined. And scarcely had they done so than the rest of the troop--for which these had been acting as flying scouts--having heard the firing, came hurrying up.

The affair was reported. Those in command jocosely remarking that it seemed a devil of a waste of ammunition to fire two shots into one n.i.g.g.e.r, who was neither fighting nor running away. Orders were given to keep a sharp look-out ahead, in case the slain man should be one of the scouts of an impi, and the troop moved on. It was, in fact, a relief troop which had been formed to search for and rescue such whites in the disturbed districts who had not already been ma.s.sacred, and of such it had found and rescued some. Now it was returning.

Soon it was reported that the scouts had descried something or somebody, moving among the granite boulders of an adjacent kopje. Field-gla.s.ses were got out.

"By George, it's a woman. A white woman!" cried the officer in command, nearly dropping his gla.s.s from his hand. "She looks the worse for wear too, poor thing. Another of these awful experiences, I'll bet a dollar.

She's seen us. She's coming down off the kopje. But we don't want to scare her with all our ugly faces, though. Looks like a lady too, in spite of her tatters, poor thing," he went on, with his gla.s.s still at his eyes. "Moseley, Tarrant--you might step forward and meet her, eh?

We don't need all to mob her in a body."

"We've met her before, I think, colonel," said the latter, who had also been looking through his field-gla.s.ses. "And that was at Hollingworth's."

"No!"

"Fact. When we got there she had disappeared, leaving no trace. Great Heaven, where can she have been all this while? Come along, Moseley."

Great sensation spread through the troop, as it got abroad that this was the girl whose unknown fate had moved them all so profoundly. Several were there, too, who had been present at the discovery of the murdered family, and whose cherished thoughts of vengeance had been deepened tenfold by the thought of this helpless English girl in the power of the very fiends who had perpetrated that atrocity.

Under the circ.u.mstances, it was little to be wondered at if the voices of Moseley and Tarrant were a little unsteady as they welcomed the fugitive, and if indeed--as those worthies afterwards admitted to each other--they felt like qualified idiots, when they remembered the bright, sweet, sunny-faced girl, with the stamp of daintiness and refinement from the sole of her little shoe to the uppermost wave of her golden-brown hair. And now they saw a sad-faced woman, wistful-eyed, sun-tanned, in attire bordering on tattered dishevelment. Truly a lump gathered in their throats, as they stood uncovered before her and thought of all she must have gone through.

"Welcome, Miss Commerell. A hearty, happy welcome," was all that Moseley could jerk out, as he put out his hand. "Thanks. Oh yes. We have met before," with a tired smile, in answer to Tarrant's rather incoherent greeting. "But--where are the rest of you? Ah--I see--over there."

Soon the officer in command was welcoming her, and the troopers gradually edged in nearer, for curiosity was great and discipline by no means rigid.

"And I am among friends at last, and safe?" looking from one to the other, in a half vacant way, "But where is Pukele?"

"Who is 'Pukele,' Miss Commerell?" said Moseley.

"A Matabele. He has guided and taken care of me for the last week.

Where is he? Isn't he here? Didn't he bring you to me? He went out to find game. I thought I heard him fire two shots, just lately, and came out to see. Then I saw you all. Where can he be?"

Where indeed? A strange, startled look was now on the faces of several of her listeners, including those in command. "Went out to find game."

And the native just shot was in possession of a klip-springer.