That was the last he ever saw of Nina Staarbrucker. She had vanished, and although Frank, as he grew from convalescence to strength, made many inquiries as the months went by, he could never succeed in gaining satisfactory tidings of her. He once heard that she had been seen in Delagoa Bay, that was all. Whether in the years to come they will ever meet again, time and the fates alone can say. It seems scarcely probable. Africa is so vast, and nurses safely within her bosom the secret of many a lost career.
Chapter Ten.
A Tragedy of the Veldt.
The circumstances attending the fate of Leonard Strangeways were very extraordinary, and the three years of silence and doubt that followed the discovery of his body in the veldt seemed but to enhance among white men in the Bechuanaland Protectorate the mystery of that most singular affair. The whole tragedy, from the very remoteness of the place in which it was enacted, was little known south of the Orange River. I have, therefore, thought it worth while to rescue from complete oblivion the grim, strange, and unwonted circumstances of that dark business.
Leonard Strangeways was, in the year 1890, when I first met him, one of the pioneers who entered Mashonaland. He was one of those devil-may-care, reckless, wandering fellows, so many of whom are to be found upon the frontiers of civilisation in Southern Africa. I first saw him, outspanned at breakfast, near Palla Camp on the Crocodile River, with a number of other men, going into Mashonaland upon the same errand as himself. He was the life and soul of the party, and was superintending the “bossing-up” of the meal. For the next week our waggons moved on together and I saw a good deal of Strangeways. He was a tall, handsome fellow of thirty or thirty-one. He seemed to be a general favourite with his party—mainly, I imagine, because he was one of those capable men who excel in everything they undertake. He shot most of the francolins and other feathered game for the half-dozen chums he was travelling with; he had not been long in South Africa, and yet he seemed to comprehend the ways of the native servants and the methods of travel exceedingly well; he evidently understood horses thoroughly, and personally superintended the score of nags that were travelling up with the waggons. He could inspan and outspan oxen, and was already master of other useful veldt wrinkles, which usually take some time to acquire. He could paint remarkably well, I have seen him, in a short hour’s work with water-colours, turn out a very charming sketch of African scenery. And at night, by the camp fire, Strangeways’ banjo and his deep, rich voice were in inevitable request. It is not judged well to inquire too closely into the antecedents of men in the South African interior. I gathered, during the week of travel alongside of Strangeways, that he had led a wandering life for some years, and had recently come across to the Cape from Australia, where he had done little good for himself.
I parted from Strangeways and his fellow pioneers at Palachwe, and saw no more of him for rather more than a twelve-month, when I met him coming down-country, at Boatlanama, a water on the desert road, between Khama’s old town of Shoshong and Molepolole. In latter days this was not the usual route to and from Palachwe and Matabeleland, but having been several times by the Crocodile road, I happened to have taken the more westerly route for a change. On waking up next morning, after a hard and distressing trek from the nearest water in this thirsty country—Lopepe—I was surprised to see another waggon outspanned almost alongside. Still more surprised was I to find one of its two occupants Leonard Strangeways, also with a fellow pioneer travelling down-country. Our greeting was a hearty one, and indeed, I, for my part, was exceedingly well pleased to have encountered once more so genial and pleasant an acquaintance.
Strangeways had passed a year in Mashonaland, and, like most of the other Mashonalanders of that distressful season, ’90-’91, had had some pretty tough experiences. However, he had weathered the storm, had sold his pioneer farm, and the options over a number of mining properties, for cash at a good price, and was now going down to Cape Town to enjoy himself, and, as he expressed it, to “blow some of the pieces.” He was in the highest spirits. He had trekked down by this more westerly route for the purpose of getting some shooting. He was a keen sportsman, and was anxious as he came down-country to secure the heads of the gemsbok and hartebeest, two large desert-loving antelopes, not found in Mashonaland. He had succeeded in bagging two gemsbok to the westward of Lopepe, and, after breakfast, was riding out in search of hartebeest.
I had had a hard ride in the sun on the day preceding, and my horse was knocked up. I was not inclined to accompany Strangeways on his quest, therefore I did not see him again till late in the evening, when he returned with a native hunter. It was an hour or two after dark when they came up to the camp fire, where we were drinking our coffee and enjoying a quiet smoke. He rode into the cheerful blaze and dismounted. He had upon his saddle-bow the head and horns of a fine hartebeest bull, the trophy he had coveted, and behind were the skin and a good quantity of meat from the same antelope. “There!” said he, flinging down the head triumphantly, “that’s been a devilish tough customer to bring to bag, but we did the trick after all. If it hadn’t been for Marati, here,” jerking his head at a grinning Bechuana boy, “we should have lost the buck. We followed the blood spoor for five mortal hours, and but for Marati I should have given it up as a bad job. By Jove! I’m fairly beat.”
“Your supper’s in the pot,” I replied, “and there’s enough coffee to float you. Sit down and the boy will bring you a plate and cup. Put your coat on first though, it’s getting chilly.”
As I lay on my rug, Strangeways stood above me in his flannel shirt sleeves, a fine figure of a man, in the flickering blaze. Suddenly his eye caught the white tent of another waggon, which had come in during the afternoon, and was on its way up-country. “Hallo!” he said, “what’s this?”
“Oh, don’t bother about it,” I replied, “they are a mining party going up to Mashonaland. They won’t interest you. Sit down and have your supper.”