A Frontier Mystery Part 17

"Halfway between this and where you left the other white people is a redwood tree--of which two sticks point over the path. From the path on the other side, a slope of smooth rock falls away. Just below this-- resting upright between two stones--one pointed, the other round--is that which you seek."

Briefly I translated this to my companion. Her reception of it showed a practical mind.

"What if he wants to send us off on a fool's errand while he climbs down to the crevice there and gets hold of the real coin?" she said.

"Well, of course, nothing's impossible. But, do you know, I believe him. I would in fact risk a considerable bet on it."

"Well, I am in your hands, Mr Glanton," she said. "You know these people thoroughly. I, not at all."

To tell the truth, I believed Ukozi's statement completely, so much so as not to think it worth while bothering about any thought of the responsibility I might be incurring. Otherwise I might have foreseen a reproachful manner, and a sinking in her estimation, if we found nothing. So I poured the contents of my snuff tube into Ukozi's hands and bade him farewell.

"I declare I feel quite excited over this," Aida Sewin said, as we rapidly retraced our steps. "Look. Here is where we left the others-- and--there's the slab of rock."

"Yes. It won't be a difficult scramble. Now Miss Sewin, you shall have the opportunity of verifying Ukozi's dictum yourself. So--you go first."

In a moment we were below the rock--a matter of ten yards' descent--and, in a small dry watercourse beneath we descried the glint of something.

A cry of delight escaped her.

"Why, here it is. Just exactly as he described. Come and look, Mr Glanton."

Sure enough at our feet, leaning almost upright between the two stones-- the pointed one and the round--was the lost coin.

"But what was it we saw in the crevice?" she said, when the first astonishment was over. "That seemed to s.h.i.+ne, too."

"Probably a point of rock worn smooth. Well, Ukozi has again borne out his reputation."

"Again? Why? Have you tried him before?"

Her eyes seemed to search my face. There was--or seemed to be--no prevaricating.

"Well, perhaps. Once. Or rather, he tried me. I'll tell you about it some day. By Jingo, it's getting dark, and I don't like the look of the sky. The sooner we're in the better."

Great solid ma.s.ses of cloud were banking up beyond the further ridge of the Tugela valley, and a low boom of thunder s.h.i.+vered the still air. A storm was coming up; probably a heavy one.

"How do you account for this kind of thing?" she said as we regained the path. "Could he have been pa.s.sing here at the time I dropped the coin, and deliberately planned a sort of _coup de theatre_?"

"In that case Arlo would have warned us of his presence. Yet he gave no sign."

"Of course. And talking about Arlo, wasn't it strange how he seemed not to mind that man's presence? Why he can hardly be held in when a strange native comes about."

"Yes. I noticed it. I suppose his instinct must have told him Ukozi was about to do us a good turn."

She turned towards me, then shook her head.

"You are turning it off, Mr Glanton, I can see that. Yet there is something rather weird and inexplicable about the whole thing. You know, I was watching the witch doctor when the reptile or whatever it was came up in the pool, and it looked just as if he had raised it by some incantation. It is interesting very--but--rather eerie."

"Oh they have their tricks of the trade, which they don't divulge, you may be sure. The coin finding was really cleverly worked, however it was done; for, mind you, he came from quite the contrary direction, and, as a sheer matter of time, could have been nowhere near the place we found it in when we turned back."

"It's wonderful certainly, and I'm very glad indeed to have found my coin again. You must have seen some strange things in the course of your experience among these people, Mr Glanton? Tell me--what is the strangest of them?"

"If I were to tell you you wouldn't believe me. Hallo! We'd better quicken our pace. I suppose you don't want to arrive home wet through."

The thundercloud had spread with amazing speed and blackness. The soft evening air had become hot and oppressive. Some self-denial was involved on my part in thus hurrying her, for I would fain have drawn out this walk alone with her, having now become, as you will say, G.o.dfrey Glanton complete fool. Yet not such a fool as not to be blessed with a glimmer of common-sense, and this told me that, woman-like, she would not thank me for bringing her home in a state of draggled skirt and dripping, streaming hair, which would inevitably be the case did we fail to reach the house before the downpour should burst.

We did however so reach it, and there a surprise awaited, to me, I may as well own, not altogether a pleasant one, for it took the shape of Kendrew. Now Kendrew, as I have said, was a good fellow enough, yet this was the last evening I should spend here for some time. Kendrew was all very well at his own place or at mine--but somehow I didn't want him here, at any rate not to-day, added to which he was a good-looking chap, and lively--a novelty too. There, you see--I am not above owning to my own small meannesses. It transpired moreover that I was the indirect agency through which he was there, for the first thing he said on seeing me was:

"There you are, Glanton. Thought I'd ride up and see how you were getting on, and when I got to your place they told me you had come down here. So I thought I'd come on and find you, and take the opportunity of making Major Sewin's acquaintance at the same time. Nothing like getting to know one's neighbours, and there ain't so many of them, eh?"

"Glad you did," I answered, shaking hands with him as heartily as ever.

Yet at bottom, that "neighbour" idea struck unpleasantly. Kendrew as a neighbour was all very well, and I nailed him as such--for myself, but confound it, I didn't want him getting too "neighbourly" here; and that, too, just as I was going away myself for a time. And then I realised, more fully than ever, what it meant to me to be fulfilling the role of a sort of little Providence to these people. Now Kendrew would lay himself out to do that during my absence, and in short, on my return I might find, to use a vulgar syllogism, that my own nose had been most effectually put out of joint.

They had taken to him already, and were on the best of terms--I could see that. Kendrew was one of those jolly, happy-go-lucky souls that people do take to on sight, and he had youth on his side. Moreover my misgivings were in no wise dispelled by the look of surprised whole-hearted admiration which came into his face at sight of Aida Sewin. There was no mistaking this, for if there is one thing I pride myself on it is a faculty for reading every expression of the human countenance no matter how swift and fleeting such may be. Perhaps it is that constant intercourse with savages has endowed me with one of their most unfailing characteristics, but, at any rate, there it is.

"We're going to have a storm," said the Major, looking upward. "Aida-- Glanton--you're only just in time. You too, Mr Kendrew. You'll stay the night of course?"

Kendrew answered that he'd be delighted, and forthwith began to make himself at home in his free and easy fas.h.i.+on. He was not in the least afflicted with shyness, and had no objection whatever to being drawn on the subject of his experiences. He had plenty of stories to tell, and told them well too, only perhaps it was rather mean of me to think that he need not so uniformly have made himself the hero of each and all of them. I don't know that I can plead in extenuation that when we sat down to table the fellow by some means or other contrived to manoeuvre himself into the chair next to Miss Sewin, a seat I had especially marked out for myself, and in fact usually filled. Added to which, once there, he must needs fill up the intervals between blowing his own trumpet by talking to her in a confoundedly confidential, appropriating sort of style; which I entirely though secretly resented. And I was on the eve of an absence! Decidedly events tended to sour me that evening--and it was the last.

"What's the matter? Did the old witch doctor tell you something momentous that you forgot to pa.s.s on to me? You are very silent to-night."

It was her voice. We had risen from table and I had gone out on to the stoep, "to see if the storm was pa.s.sing off," as I put it carelessly.

There was a chorus of voices and laughter within, Kendrew having turned the tables on Falkner in the course of some idiotic chaff.

"Am I?" I answered. "I get that way sometimes. Result of living alone, I suppose. No, Ukozi did not tell me anything stupendous.

Amusing chap, Kendrew, isn't he?" as another chorus of laughter went up from within.

"He seems a nice sort of boy. And now--you start on Wednesday? Shall we see you again between this and then?"

"I'm afraid not, Miss Sewin. Tyingoza's nephew has disappointed me over the span of oxen he was going to hire me, and I shall have to spend to-morrow and the day after riding Heaven knows where in search of another span. Oxen--at any rate reliable ones--are precious scarce just now everywhere."

"I'm sorry. I--we--shall miss you so much, Mr Glanton--and you have been so kind to us--"

"That all?" I thought to myself bitterly. "Sort of 'make myself generally useful' blank that will create." Her next words made me feel ashamed of myself.

"But you will come and see us directly you return, won't you? I shall look forward to it, mind--and--I hate being disappointed."

Good Heavens! The voice, the gleam of white teeth in the little smile, the softening of eyes in the starlight! Had we been alone I believe I should have lost my head, and uttered I don't know what. But you can't say anything of that sort with a lot of people jabbering and laughing, and nothing between you and them but an open door and ditto window.

"You shall not be disappointed in that very unimportant particular at any rate," I answered. "And you are good enough to say you will look forward to it. Why I shall look forward to it every day until it comes."

This was pretty plain-speaking and no mistake, but I had been surprised out of myself. What she might have answered I can't even conjecture, for at that moment through a lull in the racket within, was raised a voice.

"Glanton? Yes. He's a good old buffer, Glanton. Why, what's become of him?"

Aida Sewin's eyes met mine and I could see that she was bubbling over with the humour of the situation. We broke into a hearty laugh, yet not loud enough to reach those within.

"There. Now I hope you're duly flattered," she said. "A fresh unconsidered outburst like that must be genuine. We don't often hear so much good of ourselves even without being listeners."

"But consider the qualifying adjective. That, you know, is rather rough."