Greenoak, for him, looked somewhat surprised. In all the years of their acquaintance he had never known the Commandant in an expostulatory vein. He was habitually the most matter-of-fact and laconic of men. Could it be that he was ageing?
“Oh, I’m getting rusty here, and spoiling for the chance of putting something or somebody to rights,” was the answer.
By this time it was well known that the Gaika locations were in a frame of mind that may best be described as smouldering. So far the grog-sodden mind of Sandili was incapable of deciding anything. Whoever got the old chief’s ear last spoke the “word” that was “good.” But his warrior son, Matanzima, and the young men of the tribe, were spoiling for a chance to distinguish themselves. The spirit of Donnybrook was dangerously abroad.
But their kinsmen, the Gcalekas, across the Kei, had been badly defeated and their country cleared—this, then, was no time for a rising on the Colonial side. So one would have thought, but a short-sighted policy had allowed one by one of the burgher forces in the Transkei to evacuate that territory without supplying their place. The war was over, it was pronounced. Was it? Back came the defeated paramount tribe, swarming into its old country again; the Paramount Chief, Kreli, as paramount as ever, and laughing at the “softness” of the white man. These were now plotting to stir up the intra-Colonial tribes, and by a simultaneous rising on the part of these to drive the said white man “into the sea,” as their expressive way of putting it ran.
This plot was, of course, suspected by many, and known by few, but it was reserved for Harley Greenoak to find out through one of those mysterious sources of information that seemed closed to others, that the time for its execution was imminent. An accredited body of Gcaleka fighting men was to cross the Kei into Sandili’s location, and their arrival was to be the signal that the moment for rising had come. Thousands upon thousands of armed savages would thus hold the frontier at their mercy. It was too late to prevent this. The only course was to neutralise it, by being prepared. And the bulk of the armed force upon the border had been withdrawn.
Harley Greenoak got up and went to his room. He took down his guns and drew them from their holsters. The double .500 Express was deadly with big game, but he was not sure he did not prefer the rifle and smooth-bore for man. A charge of Treble A. buckshot was so deadly at anything like close quarters. Yes, he would take the one with the shot barrel. It, with his ordinary and very businesslike revolver, constituted a most formidable armament, in the hands of one who so thoroughly knew how to use it as himself. Returning to the other room, he proceeded to load up a saddle-bag with a supply of the most concentrated and therefore portable provisions, sufficient to last him several days; but, to all appearances, hardly enough to last him for one.
“You’ll find Mantisa at the place arranged, all right,” said the Commandant, naming one of the native detectives. “He’s a good runner, and will bring the news straight and quick—directly you get any to send. John Voss had better be sent round to warn the farms.”
The other nodded, and the two men shook hands. The lights were then extinguished, for it was just as well that possible watching eyes should not see Harley Greenoak as he stepped forth into the darkness. And having saddled up his horse, he started upon his dangerous and self-sacrificing undertaking alone.
As he rode on through the night, keeping his horse at a walk, his thoughts were still busy with his plan. He had not told the Commandant of the expected crossing, and this for more than one reason. First, he wanted to verify, his information, and this he felt confident of his ability to do, by going in person among the disaffected Gaikas. His consummate knowledge of natives and their language, above all of the ways of their language, would enable him to do this. He could read them like a book, however much they strove to conceal from him their real mind. Then he was not altogether without hope that he might be able, even at the eleventh hour, to persuade them to “sit still.” His personal prestige with them, and influence, were enormous, and while they would secretly be laughing at any accredited Government official, to his own words they would listen with unfeigned respect. Again, were a strong patrol of Police despatched to watch the drifts, it would defeat its own object. It would be powerless to prevent the projected incursion, for the Gcaleka emissaries, being aware of its presence, as, of course, they could not fail to be, would simply melt into twos and threes, and cross the river at many different points instead of at one. Further and more important still, it would precipitate the outbreak he was striving to delay, even if he could not prevent; and such of the settlers who still remained on their farms would be massacred without warning. And this was just what he had set himself out to avert, this strong, brave, experienced man—he alone—single-handed.
But what of himself—of his own life? Did he not value it that he was going to place himself alone in the power of these sullen plotting savages? Well, this was not the first situation of the kind in which he had played the leading and only part. It was by just such cool and calculated intrepidity, by just such well-nigh superhuman confidence in his own personality and resource, that Harley Greenoak had come forth, not merely with his life, but triumphant and successful where ninety-nine men out of a hundred would never have come forth at all.