“Well, and that is aboriginal dispersion,” said the novelist. “That is the aristocratic method of legislating the native out of existence.”
Blackburn here vigorously protested. “Yes, it’s very like a novelist, on the hunt for picturesque events, to spend his forensic soul upon ‘the poor native,’—upon the dirty nigger, I choose to call him: the meanest, cruellest, most cowardly, and murderous—by Jove, what a lot of adjectives!—of native races. But we fellows, who have lost some of the best friends we ever had—chums with whom we’ve shared blanket and tucker—by the crack of a nulla-nulla in the dark, or a spear from the scrub, can’t find a place for Exeter Hall and its ‘poor native’ in our hard hearts. We stand in such a case for justice. It is a new country. Not once in fifty times would law reach them. Reprisal and dispersion were the only things possible to men whose friends had been massacred, and—well, they punished tribes for the acts of individuals.”
Mrs. Falchion here interposed. “That is just what England does. A British trader is killed. She sweeps a native town out of existence with Hotchkiss guns—leaves it naked and dead. That is dispersion too; I have seen it, and I know how far niggers as a race can be trusted, and how much they deserve sympathy. I agree with Mr. Blackburn.”
Blackburn raised his glass. “Mrs. Falchion,” he said, “I need no further evidence to prove my case. Experience is the best teacher.”
“As I wish to join the chorus to so notable a compliment, will somebody pass the claret?” said Colonel Ryder, shaking the crumbs of a pate from his coat-collar. When his glass was filled, he turned towards Mrs. Falchion, and continued: “I drink to the health of the best teacher.” And every one laughingly responded. This impromptu toast would have been drunk with more warmth, if we could have foreseen an immediate event. Not less peculiar were Mrs. Falchion’s words to Hungerford the evening before, recorded in the last sentence of the preceding chapter.
Cigars were passed, and the men rose and strolled away. We wandered outside the gardens, passing the rejected guide as we did so. “I don’t like the look in his eye,” said Clovelly.
Colonel Ryder laughed. “You’ve always got a fine vision for the dramatic.”
We passed on. I suppose about twenty minutes had gone when, as we were entering the garden again, we heard loud cries. Hurrying forward towards the Tanks, we saw a strange sight.
There, on a narrow wall dividing two great tanks, were three people—Mrs. Falchion, Amshar, and the rejected Arab guide. Amshar was crouching behind Mrs. Falchion, and clinging to her skirts in abject fear. The Arab threatened with a knife. He could not get at Amshar without thrusting Mrs. Falchion aside, and, as I said, the wall was narrow. He was bent like a tiger about to spring.
Seeing Mrs. Falchion and Amshar apart from the others,—Mrs. Falchion having insisted on crossing this narrow and precipitous wall,—he had suddenly rushed after them. As he did so, Miss Treherne saw him, and cried out. Mrs. Falchion faced round swiftly, and then came this tragic situation.