The White Hand and the Black Part 28

He hastened to rea.s.sure her on that point. The whole programme was that of a wonderfully dramatic and realistic show got up for their entertainment. If she chose to let her imagination go, why that would only add to the excitement--to her--he appended, with an easy laugh.

He stole a glance at Edala. She was standing a little apart eagerly watching the manoeuvres beneath, a slight flush of excitement in her cheeks, and the expressive eyes wide and interested. He had deliberately come to the conclusion that it would be a difficult and dreary thing to go on living without her, and yet how would she look at it? He knew that she liked him, but he wanted her to do a great deal more than that. In all probability however, she in the brightness of her youth looked upon him as quite an old fogey. Well, he must make some opportunity of putting it to the test. Why not do so this evening, on the way home? Yes, he would; yet it was with some sinking of the heart that he realised that the test would probably break down.

"What can you be thinking about? You look quite worried."

Edala had turned to him as he joined her, with wonder in her eyes. Here was his chance had they been alone together.

"I am, rather," he answered in an undertone. For a moment her glance rested full upon him, then turned away.

"They are beginning down there," she said.

The impi beneath was on the march, and they could trace its course, pouring upward through gra.s.s and bushes towards the doomed kraal. Then suddenly its stealthy advance changed into a swift charge, the while its lines extended, throwing out the terrible outflanking 'horns,' and with a mighty roar it hurled itself upon its objective.

The kraal was in a state of indescribable confusion; men, women and children pouring forth helter-skelter from the only side left open. In vain. Here, too, those terrible horns closed up, and there ensued a scene of discriminate ma.s.sacre, to the accompaniment of the most diabolical shouts and hisses. The spectators could scarcely believe it was not real. Evelyn Carden's face had gone quite white, and even that of Edala looked disturbed.

"What awful creatures!" said the former. "Mr Elvesdon, are you sure it isn't real? I can hardly believe it."

"No--no. It's not real. But it's marvellously well counterfeited."

"It's too dreadful. I don't think I care to look at it any more."

"Well, look at this. They are retiring now."

The impi had formed up, and, raising a mighty song of victory was moving away from the scene of the mock ma.s.sacre. Down through the valley it poured, with a movement that was partly a march and partly a dance, and the deep-toned thunder-notes of the triumph song rose to a pitch of fell ferocity that was rather terrifying, so realistic had the whole thing been.

Elvesdon suddenly remembered the letter which had been given him; and now that the show was over he thought he might as well investigate it.

But the first glance at the scrawl which he unfolded made him start.

This is how it ran:

"Mr Elvesdon, resident Magistrate.

"Sir,

"You are a good man. I not want to see you hurt. I not want to see Christian ladies hurt. I am Christian too. Get your party away so soon as you ever can.

"I not give my name--but--do.

"Remember Mr Hope."

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

AFTER THE WARNING.

Just as he had thought, decided Elvesdon. Clearly the letter was from some half--educated native, but how different its import to that which he had expected. Was it a hoax, he wondered? Anyway its substance was sufficiently disquieting. Surely so tried and trusted a chief as old Tongwana could not be guilty of any such ghastly act of treachery as that hinted at. His people, too, had paid up their taxes without a murmur. The thing looked like a hoax.

It might be well to be on the safe side; to get his party away at once.

But then his official _prestige_ and influence would be irretrievably wrecked. He would be showing distrust--fear--of those over whom he held authority. But the sting of the whole communication lay in the concluding words, "Remember Mr Hope."

These referred to a tragedy, which had befallen a little over a quarter of a century back. The victim had been a magistrate in Pondoland, and had been treacherously set upon and murdered, together with his two clerks, while witnessing just such an entertainment as had been provided here to-day.

Elvesdon was a boy at the time but he had since served in Pondoland--as we heard him tell Thornhill--and there at that time the event was still sufficiently fresh. But for those concluding words he would have felt inclined to set the communication down as a practical joke.

Rapidly his clear mind reviewed the position. His camp was quite a mile away; they had strolled that distance in order to gain the point whence they could overlook the mimic attack upon the kraal. The horses were knee-haltered, and grazing under the charge of his two boys, and they were a little beyond, on the other side of the camp. The impi was marching down the valley in a direction which should take it rather away from the camp than towards it. Tongwana's kraal seemed deserted; even the women had hurried out to see the sham fight.

"We may as well get back to camp now," he said carelessly. "The show's about over, and we shan't be home much before dark as it is."

But there were two upon whom his carelessness did not altogether impose--Edala and her father. The girl, naturally sharp-witted as she was, had not failed to note the ever so slight involuntary start which had escaped him on the perusal of the missive, while Thornhill took in by instinct that something was wrong. Both, however, forebore to take any outward notice of the fact: for which he was devoutly thankful, for at all costs he must avoid alarming the weaker ones of the party. He would have given much for an opportunity of taking Thornhill into counsel, but this would have had the very effect he was anxious to avoid.

"There's an official matter I want to get home and look into as soon as I can," he explained carelessly. "Here, Parry. You can ride on and say I'm coming."

He took the young Police trooper apart, as they walked.

"Look here," he said, "and attend carefully. Go down to the camp as fast as you can walk--can _walk_, mind, not run--and get the horses saddled up as soon as you possibly can; ours first, you understand, not the boys': and see that the girths are tight enough. Then all of you bring them out here to meet us; and every minute you save in doing it is a minute gained. You understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"If anything happens use your own judgment, but we must have the horses as soon as ever we can, yet you must not run or show any sign of hurry.

It'll mean good for you my lad, very good. Now go."

The young fellow saluted, and started off down the slope at a brisk springy walk which represented nearly four and a half miles an hour. He was radiant with pride. Naturally sharp, he had to a certain extent grasped the situation, and here, after a few months in the force, he found himself entrusted with a real and critical mission, with the promise of the good word of his superior. Visions of unheard of promotion floated upon his mental sight, as he paced downward to the camp, with rapid, elastic step.

Elvesdon strove to talk cheerfully, as they took their way down at a perforce slower pace than that of the young Police trooper--but it was difficult. The ridge was well between them and the impi now, but the latter might at any moment appear over it, or where it ended farther down. Had he been alone, or alone with Thornhill, he would not have felt overmuch concerned. He was as brave a man as ever lived, and endowed with his full share of nerve. He would, if the worst came to the worst, have chanced the moral effect of a display of the confidence of authority and absolute fearlessness. But now, with these two women dependent on them for protection, why it was dreadful. He reproached himself bitterly for having brought them into this peril; for, in the disturbed and simmering state of the native locations, who could be trusted? More bitterly still, perhaps, did he reproach himself for his neglect to open the communication handed to him by the old man. Then there would have been time for them to have acted upon the warning conveyed therein, and to have withdrawn while the attention of the savages was engaged by the mimic surprise of the kraal. Now it was in all probability too late.

Now he began to revolve in his mind what should be done in the event of Parry being unable to fulfil his instructions in time. He had a fight revolver in his pocket, and he suspected Thornhill was not unarmed. But of what use were they against an overwhelming crowd, all heavily armed, and right out in the open? They might shoot down a few, but would not this exasperate the savages into murdering the girls as well? Of course it would.

The wide landscape slept in the golden suns.h.i.+ne, the rolling plains unfolding out into misty dimness, on the one hand; on the other the outlines of distant heights softened against the clear blue. From Tongwana's kraal, crowning the adjacent eminence, a smoke reek rose lazily upon the still air. An idea suggested itself to Elvesdon. Why not take the bull by the horns and go straight to Tongwana's kraal?

Surely there, under, figuratively speaking, the roof of the old chief, they would be safe. But just then he could see his emissary in the act of faithfully fulfilling the duty laid upon him. Down at the camp the horses were being led in. They might find safety at Tongwana's kraal, but the Police trooper, caught alone, would certainly be murdered, if things were as desperate as the warning embodied in the letter seemed to convey. But--if only Parry would hurry up!

Now some inkling of danger seemed to have come over the weaker side of the party. Elvesdon's silence had told--it was impossible for him to keep up his attempts at manufactured conversation under the weight of responsibility which lay upon him. They, too, were reduced to silence, and, he became aware, were looking at him curiously and furtively.

"I don't know that I want to see one of these native performances again," said Evelyn Carden. "Don't think me unappreciative, Mr Elvesdon, but really this has given me the creeps. It all seemed so fearfully natural."

"Ah, well. It isn't musical comedy, you know," he answered with forced lightness.

"Old Tongwana ought to have figured in a swallow-tailed coat and a top hat and a _mutya_" said Thornhill. "That might have given a Gilbert and Sullivan smack to it."

The laugh that greeted this was feeble. But now Elvesdon noted with intense relief that the horses had been saddled up at last--they themselves had more than halved the distance to the camp by that time, and of coa.r.s.e could see everything that was going on there all the way.

Too late.

A burst of voices on the right front, and then the impi appeared, pouring over the ridge, forming a dense black line between them and the camp and, of course the horses. Then, extending, the warriors executed the surround manoeuvre and having thus completely hemmed in their guests--or their victims--they recommenced the war-dance.

"Oh for Heaven's sake, Mr Elvesdon, tell them to stop and go away,"

said Evelyn Carden. "This is horrible, hateful."