Chapter Nineteen.
Fullerton’s Move.
A light mule-waggon stood at Fullerton’s door. By the time the process of loading it—now begun—was completed it would no longer be a light waggon.
Before that stage was attained, however, Fullerton was making nasty remarks on the wholly unnecessary quantity of baggage without which lovely woman professes herself unable to move—at least his spouse pronounced them to be nasty, and, of course, she ought to know.
“Do stand up for us, Mr Wyndham,” she appealed.
“Wouldn’t be fair. You’re two to one as it is,” answered Wyndham, tugging at a refractory strap, for he was engaged in harnessing the mules.
“Oh, here—I say, Clare. We haven’t got a traction engine to move this outfit,” grumbled Fullerton, as his sister-in-law appeared, together with another quite exasperating bundle. “No we haven’t. Only mules.”
“It’s all right, Dick. Put that in somewhere,” was the serene answer. “Only, don’t squash it more than you can help, because there are things in it that’ll spoil.”
Fullerton grunted, and the work of packing and stowing went on, the bulkier and heavier articles of baggage having been fastened on behind with reins.
“That’s all right,” said Wyndham, looking up from the last buckle. “Now I think we can all get in.”
It had taken some little while and a great deal of importunity to bring Richard Fullerton round to the Buluwayo scheme, and even then his womenkind had given every reason but the real one for wanting to go there. He was endowed with his full share of obstinacy; however, he came round at last. At last! Just so. A great deal was destined to turn upon those two monosyllables.
“You take the lines first stage, Fullerton, or shall I?” asked Wyndham, the outfit being, in fact, his property. On hearing of the Fullertons’ projected move he had immediately proffered it, and volunteered to drive them himself. Such an opportunity of being in Clare’s society for three whole days was one not to be thrown away, and of showing to advantage before her during the time, for he was a first-rate whip. Fullerton was not.
“Er—you’d better tool us, I think,” said the latter. “I might be able to drive four-in-hand, but I believe I’d be rather out of it with eight.”
“Oh, it’s just as easy. Still—do as you like.” And Wyndham, climbing to his seat, took the reins, and away went the team at a brisk trot. It was a lovely morning, but inclined to be hot, and as they topped the mimosa-studded rise, and in a minute Gandela was shut out of sight behind them, there was a sense of exhilaration permeating the whole party which promised that the trip was likely to prove an enjoyable one.
“Well, Lucy,” said Fullerton, expanding accordingly, “I believe I’m rather glad you two girls persuaded me into this run. A spell at the Buluwayo Club will come in first-rate. You get rather sick of a poky little hole like Gandela.”
“Pity you wouldn’t let yourself be ‘persuaded’ a week ago,” rapped out the conjugal retort. “Or even more. You’d have been in the thick of the Buluwayo Club at this moment.”
“Yes, you took a deal of persuading, Dick,” supported Clare. “It would have been much better if we had started a week earlier.”
There was an unconscious gravity in her tone that did not seem to fit the subject or the occasion. But she was thinking of the grave urgency of Lamont’s warning—that they should remove at once; and of this, of course, the others were in complete ignorance.
“Oh well, a week more or less doesn’t matter a row of pins,” returned Fullerton unconcernedly. “That’s one good point about this jolly country, at any rate. No one need ever be in a hurry.”
“Nor ever is,” appended Wyndham. “Hallo! Here are some police Johnnies coming along.”
Riding single file along a narrow path, which would converge with the high road a little farther on, they made out a small party of Mounted Police—a dozen in all. They gained the main road just at the same time as the mule-waggon crossed the path. The sergeant rode up and saluted.
“Going to Buluwayo?” said Wyndham.
“Yes, sir. And Captain Isard said we’d better keep with you for the way.”
“Sort of escort, eh?”
“That’s it, sir.”
“Escort!” echoed Fullerton. “Why, what the devil do we want with an escort? We haven’t got the Administrator on board.”
“Well, sir,” said the sergeant, “the niggers have been a bit sulky of late, over the wholesale shootin’ of their cattle, and it’s a wide stretch of country, and the captain said that as we were going to Buluwayo in any case, it’d do no harm if we kept with your waggon.”
As a matter of fact the men were not ‘going to Buluwayo in any case,’ but had been specially told off by their commanding officer to escort this outfit thither. It—for all purposes in his eyes—spelt Clare Vidal. In spite of his former rejection he had not got over his weakness for that extremely attractive young person, and here was a right royal chance to ingratiate himself with her; for of course he would contrive to let her know later that it was solely upon her account that the escort had been furnished. Isard had accepted Lamont’s warning with a considerable pinch of salt, still there was no doubt but that there was unrest among the natives, and where Clare was concerned it was as well to be on the safe side. The safe side! Well, Isard was steeped to the crown of his handsome and soldierly head in the British and military tradition of despising your enemy, wherefore, of course, the presence of a dozen of his Mounted Police was sufficient to overawe every squalid nigger in Matabeleland, or the whole lot of them put together.
“There’s something in that, sergeant,” said Wyndham, “and it’s very good of the captain to have thought of it.” Then, as the sergeant having saluted again and dropped behind, he went on—
“By George, that’s very considerate of Isard. He’s not at all the sort of fellow I should have expected a thing of that sort from. Well, Miss Vidal, you’ve got the experience of travelling under an armed escort. Quite romantic, isn’t it?”
“Quite. But, as you say, it’s very kind of Captain Isard all the same,” answered Clare, the only one who was behind the scenes as to the situation. Lamont’s warning to herself had been urgent and definite, yet her brother-in-law’s provoking obstinacy had caused him to put off and put off. The limit of the time named must nearly have been reached, and, remembering this, secretly she hailed the presence of those armed police with a feeling of devout thankfulness.
“But—is there really any danger?” said her sister anxiously. “Because if there is, I, for one, vote we turn back.”
“Danger! Pho!” rapped out Fullerton contemptuously. “I suppose Lamont has been putting about one of his chronic scares, or something of that sort. Turn back? No fear. We’re in for a jolly trip.”
Whereby it is manifest that in a small place like Gandela, things will leak out. Assuredly nothing could look more peaceful than the aspect of things as they pulled up at the mixture of store and wayside inn where they were to outspan after the first stage. The wild veldt, aglow in the shimmering heat, the drowsy hum of native voices, the sleepiness and calm of the place—no suggestion of a cataclysm lay here.
“Hallo, Langrishe!” sang out Wyndham, as a lank, parchment-faced man lounged forward, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. “Any news? We’re bound for Buluwayo. How’s the scare getting on?”
“Scare? I don’t know nuth’n about any bloomin’ scare, and don’t want to.”
“Don’t believe in it, eh?”
The storekeeper fired off a very contemptuous ejaculation, and turned to help Wyndham to unharness the mules. Fullerton also bore a hand, contriving however to be of more hindrance than help.
“What’ll you take, sergeant?” said Wyndham, as, the above operation completed, they adjourned to the bar. The sergeant named his—and taking up the usual dice-box Wyndham and Fullerton threw between them.
“Mine,” pronounced the former. “By the way, Langrishe, there are a dozen thirsty police outside. Serve them a good tot all round.”
In the rough dining-room a small Makalaka boy was spreading a murky cloth on a murkier table. The inhabitants of the room were mostly flies, and, incidentally, Lucy and Clare. But they were used to these little defects of detail, by that time.
“Can’t give you anything but tinned stuff, ladies,” said Langrishe, gruffly apologetic. “Everything fresh has died of the drought or the rinderpest.”
That too, did not afflict them, and they discussed Paysandu tongue in that rough-and-ready veldt shanty with an appetite not always present at the most dainty and glittering of snowy tables. Then after a brief rest the mules were inspanned again. “Going to outspan at Skrine’s?” said Langrishe, as, having settled up, they bade him good-bye.
“Don’t know,” answered Wyndham; “I’d like to get on to the Kezane.”
“You can’t. It’s too far and too hot. You’ll bust them mules.”
“Oh well, I’ll see how they get on. So long, Langrishe, we’ll look in on the way back.”
Poor Langrishe! he was a rough pioneer in a rough country, but a good fellow enough according to his lights. Little they thought, that gay and light-hearted party, as they bade him good-bye—little he thought himself—that not merely his days, but his hours were numbered—and that not even two figures would be needed to write the number of them; for one of the awful features of that ghastly rising was that it whirled down upon its victims as a veritable bolt from the blue. And its victims were scattered, singly or by twos and threes, throughout the length and breadth of the land.
Craftily Wyndham had manoeuvred that Clare should share the front seat with him. She could see the country better, he declared, and if there was more sun there was more air than in the back seat. Clare herself was nothing loth, and moreover the move met with Fullerton’s approval. That sybaritic engineer, feeling genial after a plain but plentiful lunch and two or three long whiskies-and-sodas, felt likewise a little drowsy; and the back seat was more comfortable for the purpose of forty winks. Wyndham was actuated by another motive. He was proud of his driving and he wanted the girl to witness and appreciate it. And she did, and said so, thereby raising Wyndham to the seventh heaven of delighted complacency.
More than once he stole a glance of admiration at the beautiful, animated face beside him. The heat, and a modicum of dust, seemed to affect her not one whit. Poor Lucy Fullerton in the back seat, not less drowsy than her proprietor, was looking a trifle red and puffy from the effects of both, but Clare, in her fresh and cool attire and straw hat, was as fresh and cool and smiling as though heat and dust did not exist. She did not even want to put up a sunshade, that most abominable of nuisances on the part of the sharer of your driving seat, what time your way lies over none too smooth roads, and through an occasional stony and slippery drift. And they chatted and joked merrily and light-heartedly as they sped over the sunlit landscape with its variety of towering granite kopje near by and hazy line of distant ridge far away against the deep blue of heaven’s vault, what time both Fullertons snored placidly behind, one discordantly, the other lightly.
“Our good Fullerton is guilty of a snore fit to give a dead man the nightmare, isn’t he, Miss Vidal?” said Wyndham presently, turning his head to look at the offender. That estimable engineer lay back in his corner in an uncomfortable attitude, his mouth wide open and emitting sounds that baffle description. “I really think we ought to wake him.”
Clare laughed. “No, no. Let him alone. He’s quite happy now.”
“He reminds me of a man who was one of a shooting party I was with up on the Inyati. There were several of us, and we slept in a scherm, very snug and jolly we were too. But the moonlight nights were heavenly, and I was restless and couldn’t sleep—so I used to get up and light my pipe, and stroll about outside, and admire the view, and all that sort of thing. Well, after a couple of nights or so the chap who slept next me objected—swore I was an outrageously restless beggar and disturbed him half a dozen times a night, and wouldn’t I go and sleep on the other side of the scherm in future? I put it to him how the demon could I be anything but restless when I found myself turned in alongside of a saw-mill in full blast—not even a respectable saw-mill either, and one of regular habits, but one that started on a hard-grained slab and buzzed through that, then struck a hard knot and bucked and kicked and returned to the charge, and finally screamed through it, and no sooner had it resumed the even tenor of its way than a nail had to be negotiated. Well, as for the cutting through of that nail, I give it up. I suppose the infernal regions alone could produce such sounds of soul-splitting stridency as those evolved by my next-door neighbour’s blowpipes when it got to that.”
Clare was convulsed.
“How did you settle it?” she said.
“Why, he went and turned in alongside of a man who was stone deaf in one ear, and half in the other, so it didn’t matter. Fullerton is a terror to snore, too, and with a little more practice he’ll be as good as the other man. Just listen to him.”
“Eh? What’s that about me?” ejaculated the object of this remark, starting up spasmodically, and rubbing his eyes. “Why, I believe I’ve been asleep.”
“I don’t know about that, old chap,” laughed Wyndham. “What we do know is that you must have worked off a biggish contract in the plank sawing line, since we last heard the sound of your manly voice. Don’t we, Miss Vidal?”
“Well, this scooting through the air—hot air too—makes one snoozy,” explained Fullerton, uttering a cavernous yawn. “Hallo! I must have been asleep a good time, we’re at Skrine’s already.”
They had topped a rise, and now on the slope beneath, and in front, stood two or three buildings, with the usual native huts and goat kraal behind. But about the place no sign of life showed.
“Great Scott! I believe there isn’t a soul on the place,” said Wyndham anxiously. “No, I thought not,” as they rattled up to the door, and saw that it was securely shut, and that of the stable padlocked. Then, putting his head round the tent of the waggon, “Sergeant!”
“Sir?” answered the non-com. trotting up.
“Fall back just out of earshot with your men, and do a little language for us, will you? We can’t, we’ve got ladies with us. Skrine’s store’s no good. Skrine’s away and his idiotic stable’s locked up. No use outspanning here.”
The police sergeant spluttered—and those in the waggon laughed. Yet not very light-heartedly. It was really a nuisance, for it meant that they must push on another stage to the Kezane Store—the original plan, but one which Wyndham had already recognised that Langrishe was right in advising him to abandon; for the heat and the pace had already told on the mules.
They would have laughed less light-heartedly, or rather they would not have laughed at all, had they known that about a mile back, and only a few hundred yards from the road, the bodies of Skrine and three other men, who had fled thus far for their lives, were lying among the bushes, their skulls smashed, and their poor faces hacked and gory beyond recognition, stamped with the ghastly imprint of their awful death-agony, staring upward to the serene and cloudless blue of heaven.