Chapter Thirty.
Overheard.
“And I say it’s a judgment on him. He killed that poor wife of his and now the Kafirs have killed.”
“But it never was proved against him.”
“No, it weren’t, but everyone knows it. He couldn’t prove he never did it, now could he? Tell me that.”
This essentially feminine line of argument proceeded, needless to say, from one of that sex, which was also the sex of the other party to the conversation. The latter was taking place a few yards from Elvesdon’s house, a day or two after the successful defence of the laager. The speakers were stock-raisers’ wives, of the unrefined and little-educated class.
“Well if he couldn’t prove he never did it they couldn’t prove he did, so he ought to have—what do they call it—the benefit of the doubt,” came the rejoinder, though not in any tone of real conviction.
“Benefit of the fiddlestick. Why it was like looking for a needle in a haystack trying to find her poor body among all those krantzes and holes and caves. But it’s there, you may take your oath to that. The Bible says those that take the sword shall perish by the sword, don’t it? Well here’s a case of it. Oh he’s a deep old fox and a wrong bad ’un is old Thornhill, and now he’s—”
But what he was or where—was not destined to be supplied. From the open window Edala’s voice rang out clear.
“Ladies—if it amuses you to wickedly slander my father, who may not be alive at this moment, don’t you think it would show better feeling to go and do so out of my hearing.”
The tones were cutting like a whip-lash. The girl’s face was deathly white, with a burning red spot in either cheek, and her blue eyes fairly blazed. The two women started as if they had been shot: then gasped as if they were going to say something, but couldn’t—then moved quickly away without a word; which perhaps, under the circumstances was the best course they could have adopted.
Edala turned back into the room. Evelyn’s face was as ghastly as her own. For a moment the two stood looking at each other, then Edala flung herself into a chair, dropped her arms upon the table and buried her face in her hands. The great sobs that shook her frame seemed as if they would tear it in pieces.
“Darling, don’t give way like this,” adjured Evelyn with an arm round the bowed shoulders, and brushing away the fast dropping tears from her own eyes. “Those wicked slanderous brutes—they ought to have their tongues cut out! How could they utter such shameful lies!”
But the sobs seemed to intensify. Suddenly Edala flung up her head.
“I—believed—it—myself. God—help me!”
“No—no—no! You couldn’t have,” and the momentary instinct to shrink away from the utterer of this terrible self-denunciation, passed. “You have been so frightfully upset, Edala, and you hardly know what you are saying. Why I have known your father for weeks only, and you have known him all your life, and yet I would no more believe him guilty of—of what those horrible wretches were saying than I would yourself. It is impossible that you could have done so.”
“But I did. I don’t now—and it is too late. He predicted that that would happen, and so did you. Too late—too late!”
And again her face was buried in her hands.
No one living was farther removed from the hysterical tendency than Evelyn Carden, but now she required every effort of her will to command her own nerves—not to break down herself. The inconceivable despair with which those last words were uttered was awful. Quickly again Edala looked up.
“If he does not come back to me,” she said, slowly and solemnly, “that I may tell him what a horrible wicked wretch I’ve been to him, I shall go and tell him in the other world. I shall kill myself. As sure as there is a God above I shall kill myself.”
The words were not uttered passionately. There was a calm solemnity about them which caused the other to believe that she would keep her word. What comfort could be administered to such remorse as this?
Then, in a moment, the scales dropped from Evelyn’s eyes, and she stood there as one who beheld a new revelation. Everything stood clear now, the aloofness with which the neighbourhood had treated her relatives and for which Thornhill had, with good-humoured contempt, pronounced himself duly thankful; in that the said neighbourhood consisted of a rotten crowd, the bulk of whom were scarcely able to write their own names, and the residue perhaps too well able to write those of other people. Edala’s attitude, too, stood explained. If she believed that her father had done this thing why the estrangement was only natural. If she believed—but—how could she—how could she? Before Evelyn could reply, however, a step was heard outside, and the door opened.
Hyland half drew back, then entered.
“Now, now, you two. This won’t do you know. Didn’t you promise me to keep up?” he said but there was a suspicious quaver in his own voice which rendered his tone gruff. “The more so that I’ve got some news for you.”
“News. Quick! What is it?” Edala sprang to her feet, while Evelyn’s face lightened.
“He is alive.”
A gasp escaped both girls.
“Where? Where?”
“At Nteseni’s ‘Great Place.’ Don’t interrupt and I’ll tell you all about it. Well then, you remember the fellow I questioned during the fight, the prisoner I mean? He sent for me this morning, and said he could tell me something I would like to hear; and after a little beating around he told me that father and Elvesdon are still alive, and if I promised not to turn him over to the police along with the other prisoners he’d tell me where they were. Of course I promised, and he said at Nteseni’s. How did he know? Well he did know, and it didn’t matter how, but if we wanted to get them away we must lose no time.
“How did I know he was telling the truth, I asked. Easily, he answered. If we were going to make an attempt to get them out, we could take him with us. All he asked was that he should be allowed to escape when we had found them. I talked this over with Prior and he agreed, so I went around on the quiet beating up volunteers. I got about two dozen, and we’re going to slip off quietly as soon as it’s dark. By pushing the horses a bit we can do it, and be back here again to-morrow morning—with them.”
“Oh Hyland, for God’s sake do,” said Edala. “But what if this man is only trying to lead you into some trap?”
“We shall take precious good care that in such an eventuality he’ll be the first man to go under—and he jolly well knows it. We’re keeping the jump-off on the strict Q.T. though, so don’t you go giving it away.”
“Of course not. It’s a long time to wait, though, until dark.”
“It’s just as long to me—you may swear to that,” answered Hyland. “But it would simply wreck the whole biz if we moved a moment before.”
A troop of Mounted Police had arrived at Kwabulazi later on the same day as the repulse—perhaps an inkling of their approach on the part of the rebels had had something to do with the abandonment of the attack. Other refugees, too, had come in, and the place was now a large and important laager. The prisoners were set to work to bury the slain, and the wounded were attended to in the camp hospital under the direction of our former acquaintance, Dr Vine, and things were ship-shape again. Ndabakosi’s kraals had been burnt, but the old chief and some of his headmen had surrendered; he declaring that he had nothing to do with the attack upon the place, the impi being composed almost entirely of strangers; a statement which Hyland Thornhill for one, remembering his experience at Ndabakosi’s kraal, took with a considerable dash of salt.
Now Hyland’s praises were in everybody’s mouth. His coolness and daring during the fight had been witnessed by all, and his brusque and almost commandeering manner was quite forgiven him. Men will overlook—especially at such a time as this—a great deal in one who has given them ocular proof of the above-named qualities; moreover all there knew that this one was undergoing at heart an intense grief and apprehension. So when he went about quietly, asking the most likely men to back him up in his perilous venture he met with no single refusal. He could have doubled his force had he so wished, but he did not. This was to be a run-through venture, not a fighting one, and for such a purpose a small force was better than a larger one.
During the afternoon one of the detectives sent out by Prior slipped quietly into the camp. He confirmed the statement of the Zulu in every particular. The prisoners were at Nteseni’s kraal. One had been murdered, that morning, and that was the Police trooper. He had been killed by order of the chief, and the impi had been ‘doctored’ with his blood. The others would have shared the same fate had not another chief, one presumably of higher authority than Nteseni, prevented it, and he had only done this with some difficulty. These facts had the detective been able to gather owing to the wonderful and telegraphic swiftness with which news spreads among natives; for it must not be supposed that he himself had been at the scene of the tragedy—or anywhere near it.
Here was grand comfort for the two sorrowing women, but the lamentable side of the story, the murder of poor young Parry was kept from them, as indeed it was from the camp at large until the expedition should have returned. They could hardly find words for their thankfulness and hope. But would those leaden hours of sunlight never cease to drag on?
“Hyland, darling,” pleaded Edala, as she hung around her brother’s neck as the time came to start. “You will not be reckless will you? When you have got them you will come straight back—you won’t delay for the sake of a fight unless you are obliged—you are always tempted to do that, you know. Think what I—what we—shall be suffering all the time.”
“No—little one. You may take your oath I’ll do nothing of the kind. But I’ll bring him—them—back or I won’t come back myself. That, also, you may take your oath to,” he answered huskily, gruffly. “Now—good-bye—good-bye.”
He disappeared into the darkness. No lights were shown—no fuss was made about seeing them off. So the two women were left alone to weep—and perchance to pray.
Had it been light enough as the horsemen moved away it might have been seen that they led among them two spare mounts. It might also have been seen that there was another led horse, but it was not a riderless one. On its back, his feet tied beneath its belly with a raw-hide thong, sat the Zulu prisoner. Though firmly convinced of the good faith of the latter, Hyland had no idea of taking any risks. To a savage, even though riding in their very midst, to slip off into the darkness of the thick bush and disappear would be no impossible feat, but to do so, firmly bound to the horse itself, would be: and this had been explained to him. But he took it with characteristic imperturbability.
“What I have said I will do I will do. What Ugwala says he will do he will do. I am content,” was his unruffled comment upon this apparent indignity.
“Attend, Njalo,” whispered Hyland, ranging his horse alongside that of the captive. “If you are true to us now and we rescue those whom we seek, letting you escape is not all that will happen to you for good. Cattle shall be yours—cattle that will make you almost a rich man among your people, after the troubles are all over. That will be good, will it not, and such is my word to you?”
“Au! Nkose has an open hand,” answered the man in a gratified tone. “And I think that the two whom you seek will return with you.”
“The two whom you seek,” he had said. Not until afterwards did it occur to Hyland to wonder how it was the speaker knew that there were only two left to seek. Here again that wonderful, mysterious native telegraphy must have come in.