Chapter Twenty One.
Sapazani “At home.”
Ben Halse showed no surprise when Denham broke the news to him; in fact, he felt none. What he did feel was a sharp pang at heart as he realised that he must go through the rest of his life alone. Well, it was bound to come some day, and one compensation was that it could not have come under more favourable circumstances. He had known the other long enough to have decided that had Verna searched the world over she could not have found a more fitting mate.
“Sure you’re in earnest about this, Denham?” he said. “Here you two have been thrown together for days and weeks. You’ve seen hardly anybody but ourselves all that time, and no women. I’m a plain man, you know, and I always speak my mind, so you mustn’t be offended.”
“Why, of course not. But you won’t mind my saying that you are arguing against your own argument. If, as you say, Verna and I have been thrown together all this time and are vastly less tired of each other than the day we first met, isn’t that a pretty fair test?”
“M’yes. It cuts both ways, I suppose.”
The two were seated in the shade of a wild fig-tree at the back of the house, and a little way from it, on the morning after the scene in the forest. Those words, “the first day we met,” carried Ben’s thoughts back to that very day when he had sat watching the pair walking down the garden path at the Nodwengu Hotel, and the possibility of just such a development had crossed his mind.
“If you were a younger man, Denham,” he went on, “I should be inclined to say, go away for a little while so as to make sure of yourself, and treat this as never having been. Then, if you are, come back again. But you’re old enough to know your own mind; at any rate, if you’re not now you never will be, that’s sure.”
The other laughed, lightly, pleasantly.
“Thanks,” he said; “I cordially agree as to the last, but totally disagree as to the first. Why, Halse, you surprise me. Doesn’t it occur to you that Verna may have feelings to be considered, and that the course you hint at might be a little bit rough on her? for I am conceited enough to believe that she has a very decided preference for the propinquity rather than for the absence of my unworthy self. How does that strike you?”
“I don’t know.” And the speaker subsided into thoughtful silence, and began slowly to cram his pipe. Denham, watching the movement of the gnarled brown hands, the set of the strong, handsome face, thought he could read what was passing in the other’s mind. He, himself, a stranger of a few weeks’ acquaintance, had come here to rob this man of the light of his home, of the pride and joy of his life, to destine him to loneliness thenceforward until his death. Something of this he put into words, with a rare and tactful sympathy.
“Ah, yes,” was the answer. “I might have been thinking something of the kind; in fact, I’ve often thought of it. The thing was bound to come some day, of course; but I’ve always told myself there was plenty of time, and at the girl’s age two or three or four years would make no great difference. But there—it doesn’t do to be selfish.”
Denham, recognising the shake in the voice of this strong man, put forth his hand, which the other gripped, and for a few moments there was silence.
“I’ve never seen any one I would so willingly entrust my Verna to as yourself, Denham,” said Ben Halse presently; “so there’s compensation in that.”
“You flatter me too much, Halse. But you won’t mind my saying you are about the most imprudent parent-in-law elect I ever heard or read of.”
He laughed as he said this. He was glad to throw off the serious vein.
“Why?”
“Because you are taking me so absolutely on trust. You know nothing about me. I may be a fraud financially. I may be an intending bigamist; in fact, anything. Now I tell you what. Before you give me Verna entirely you are to write to my solicitors—the two senior partners of the firm have known me ever since I was born. Write to them privately and separately, and make any and every inquiry that may occur to you.”
The trader thought a minute, then he said—
“Well, that’s fair and square and above-board, Denham. I’m pretty good at reading men, and I think I’ve read you accurately. But as you yourself have thrown out the suggestion, you won’t be offended if I follow it?”
He looked the other full in the face as though with a searching glance. But no trace of hesitation did he read there.
“Why, most emphatically not,” came the ready answer. “I’m a man of the world, Halse, and if I were in your place I should certainly exact a similar guarantee. You will get answers in a couple of months at the outside, I’ll take care of that. Meanwhile, you will sanction our engagement provisionally, subject to those answers being satisfactory to yourself?”
“Yes.”
And again the two men clasped hands.
Then followed a couple of weeks of what was simply a halcyon time. The sympathy that had existed between them almost from the very first had deepened now into the most perfect of affinity and trust. Again and again Alaric Denham blessed the chance that had brought him into the wilderness to find this pearl of great price—the one woman in the whole world who seemed born for him, who would stand by him even if the whole world were against him—and there might occur the opportunity of putting even this test upon her, but that he did not then foresee. Long days out together, in the sombre forest, or exploring wild, craggy heights in the clear, exhilarating mountain air; and every one of those days seemed far too short, and never was there the slightest sign of interest flagging between them. He told her more about himself and his life, but there was still that one thing he did not tell her. Yet why should he? The load was thrown off, and would remain buried in mystery for ever. Surely this strange, wild country had brought him relief and happiness beyond measure.
One day Verna said—
“Let’s ride over and pay a surprise visit to Sapazani this afternoon, father. We promised to show him to Alaric, you know, and he hasn’t been here for a long time.”
“All right. But how d’you know he’s at home?”
“I got it from some of the people this morning. He has been away a long time, but he’s back now.”
“Yes, he has,” said the trader meaningly. “He’ll get into trouble if he doesn’t watch it. How about the store, though?”
“Oh, we can lock it up for once in a way. Nobody’s likely to come, or if they do it’ll only be for a tenpenny knife. Trade’s too dismally slack for anything just now.”
“That’s a grand idea,” said Denham. “I had begun to think I was never going to see this ‘show’ chief of yours.”
“By Jove! what a beautifully built kraal!” exclaimed Denham, as they came upon it suddenly, over the lip of the hollow. “Rather different from those wretched, slovenly-looking affairs you see further down.”
“Yes; Sapazani is an intense Conservative,” said Ben Halse; “wherefore he isn’t beloved by those in authority. But the old-time kraals were all built like this one, except in the open country where there was no bush to make fences of. They used stone walls instead, and still do.”
They found the chief sitting in the shade of a dried bullock-skin just against the fence of the central open space. He gave them greeting in a dignified way, as between equals, but did not rise. That was a European custom, and therefore abhorrent to his conservative soul. But he called to an attendant to rig up a similar bullock-skin and to spread mats, not even rugs, for his visitors.
“Case of doing in Zululand as Zulus do, Alaric,” laughed Verna. “You’ll have to learn the native art of squatting. It’s all right when you get used to it.”
“Of course. I say, this is an uncommonly fine-looking chap. Do you think he’d let me fire the kodak at him? I put it in my pocket on spec.”
“We’ll try presently, but I doubt it.”
Meanwhile Sapazani was asking Halse who his guest was. He knew perfectly, but still he asked. Denham the while was watching him with intense interest. He had seen two or three chiefs at Ezulwini, looking thorough “slouches” in waistcoats and shirt-sleeves and ragged smasher hats. But this was a splendid specimen in every way. He looked every inch a chief, they did not, every inch a king, even. He hardly liked to present this dignified-looking savage with a superfluous pair of binoculars, by no means new, which he had brought along to that end. But Verna, consulted, set his doubts at rest on that score.
“What is he yarning about?” he asked.
“Oh, just commonplaces. He wouldn’t talk about anything else in the presence of a mere woman,” laughed Verna. “If father and he were alone together it would be different. Would you like to say anything to him? I can translate.”
“Yes, dear. Tell him I’m sorry I can’t talk to him myself, but that you can do it much better for me.”
“No, I won’t put it that way.” She put the remark, however, and Sapazani smiled, showing his splendid white teeth, his lustrous eyes moving from the one to the other.
“A splendid-looking chap, by Jingo!” pronounced Denham again. “A real type of the Zulu I’ve heard about or read about.”
The last remark Verna translated. The chief smiled again.
“I don’t know who the strange Inkosi is,” he answered. “He looks like one great in his own country. Perhaps the day will come when he will be able to speak with those who are great in his own country for those who were once great in ours.”
To this Denham answered that he would certainly do so if ever there was occasion for it.
Now some women appeared bringing tywala. The vessels were scrupulously clean, and the pinkish, hissing brew looked uncommonly inviting in its black clay bowls. Denham had tried it before, but had never been able to take to it. This, however, looked different.
“Try again, Alaric,” said Verna. “You’ll find this a superior brew. I know I’m dying of thirst.”
A portion was set before each of them, with the punga, or preliminary sip, which custom required on the part of the entertainers. Denham did try it, and voted it excellent, and then took a very long pull indeed.
“Now you’re initiated, dear,” said Verna merrily, “once you’ve learnt to drink tywala.”
“I call this uncommonly jolly,” pronounced Denham, looking around. “These chaps must have a good time of it.”
The domed huts within their ring fences shone yellow and picturesque in the sunlight. A few men were seated in groups chatting in a bass undertone, and the red top-knots of women showed above the thorn fence, gazing curiously at the visitors.
“Sapazani would tell you ‘must have had a good time of it,’” said Ben Halse. “He’s a man of the past.”
“Discontented?”
“Rather.”
“Tell him I want to give him this, Halse,” producing the binoculars. “To remember my visit by.”
Sapazani received the gift in the same dignified fashion, and they instructed him how to find the focus. He tried it on various objects and then handed it to an attendant.
“It is good,” he said. “I will remember.”
But to the proposal to snapshot him he returned a decided negative, polite but firm. Denham was disappointed.
“Couldn’t he show us his hut?” he said. “I should like to see what the hut of a big chief is like inside.”
This was readily acceded to. Sapazani rose and led the way. Then Denham was even more struck by the tall, magnificently-proportioned form, the great muscles showing through the brown satiny skin as the man walked, easily, leisurely, straight as a pine-tree, with head slightly thrown back. Verna could not help noticing that the two men, standing upright together, were of exactly the same height and build, the savage chieftain and the up-to-date English gentleman.
Denham admired the interior of the cool, spacious hut, with its polished floor of hard, black clay, and the bowl-like fire-place in the centre, the assegais disposed on pegs around the walls, and the clean, rolled-up mats against one side. The place was a model of coolness and cleanliness, he decided.
When they got outside again several of the chief’s wives, convened by Verna, were standing waiting for them. To these she distributed various things she had brought, chatting and joking familiarly with them. They were fine, merry-faced girls, and here again Denham found a keen bit of character study. Sapazani accompanied his visitors to the gate of the kraal—he was a stickler for old-time Zulu etiquette, as Ben Halse and Verna, of course, knew, wherefore they had hitched up their horses outside and bade them farewell.
“Well, and what do you think of our ‘show’ chief now, Alaric?” said Verna, as they started on their homeward ride.
“He’s a splendid-looking fellow, and his manners are perfect,” he answered. But to himself he was thinking that had Sapazani been a white man he would have resented the way in which the chief had looked at Verna more than once. Being a native, of course, any such idea was absurd, preposterous, out of the question. But he wondered whether Ben Halse had noticed it.
And Sapazani, looking after them, was saying to himself—
“The trap is set, and yonder is the bait—au! yonder is the bait—impela.”