At Durban a surprise awaited us since, as we trekked into the town, which at that time was still a small place, whom should we meet but Sir Alexander Somers, who, hearing that wagons were coming from Zululand, had ridden out in the hope of obtaining news of us. It seemed that the choleric old gentleman’s anxiety concerning his son had so weighed on his mind that at length he made up his mind to proceed to Africa to hunt for him. So there he was. The meeting between the two was affectionate but peculiar.
“Hullo, dad!” said Stephen. “Whoever would have thought of seeing you here?”
“Hullo, Stephen,” said his father. “Whoever would have expected to find you alive and looking well—yes, very well? It is more than you deserve, you young ass, and I hope you won’t do it again.”
Having delivered himself thus, the old boy seized Stephen by the hair and solemnly kissed him on the brow.
“No, dad,” answered his son, “I don’t mean to do it again, but thanks to Allan there we’ve come through all right. And, by the way, let me introduce you to the lady I am going to marry, also to her father and mother.”
Well, all the rest may be imagined. They were married a fortnight later in Durban and a very pleasant affair it was, since Sir Alexander, who by the way, treated me most handsomely from a business point of view, literally entertained the whole town on that festive occasion. Immediately afterwards Stephen, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Eversley and his father, took his wife home “to be educated,” though what that process consisted of I never heard. Hans and I saw them off at the Point and our parting was rather sad, although Hans went back the richer by the £500 which Stephen had promised him. He bought a farm with the money, and on the strength of his exploits, established himself as a kind of little chief. Of whom more later—as they say in the pedigree books.
Sammy, too, was set up as the proprietor of a small hotel, where he spent most of his time in the bar dilating to the customers in magnificent sentences that reminded me of the style of a poem called “The Essay on Man” (which I once tried to read and couldn’t), about his feats as a warrior among the wild Mazitu and the man-eating, devil-worshipping Pongo tribes.
Two years or less afterwards I received a letter, from which I must quote a passage:
“As I told you, my father has given a living which he owns to Mr.
Eversley, a pretty little place where there isn’t much for a
parson to do. I think it rather bores my respected parents-in-law.
At any rate, ‘Dogeetah’ spends a lot of his time wandering about
the New Forest, which is near by, with a butterfly-net and trying
to imagine that he is back in Africa. The ‘Mother of the Flower’
(who, after a long course of boot-kissing mutes, doesn’t get on
with English servants) has another amusement. There is a small
lake in the Rectory grounds in which is a little island. Here she
has put up a reed fence round a laurustinus bush which flowers at
the same time of year as did the Holy Flower, and within this reed
fence she sits whenever the weather will allow, as I believe going
through ‘the rites of the Flower.’ At least when I called upon her
there one day, in a boat, I found her wearing a white robe and
singing some mystical native song.”
Many years have gone by since then. Both Brother John and his wife have departed to their rest and their strange story, the strangest almost of all stories, is practically forgotten. Stephen, whose father has also departed, is a prosperous baronet and rather heavy member of Parliament and magistrate, the father of many fine children, for the Miss Hope of old days has proved as fruitful as a daughter of the Goddess of Fertility, for that was the “Mother’s” real office, ought to be.