Tween Snow and Fire Part 39

"That's a good deal thanks to Josane," replied Eustace, as the house came into sight. "He thought he could manage to save it. I didn't.

But he was right."

"Ha-ha! I believe the old scamp has been enjoying himself all this time with the rebels. I dare say he has been helping to do the f.a.ggot trick."

"Quite likely."

Hoste eyed his companion with a curious glance. The latter had been rather laconic during their ride; otherwise he seemed to show no very great interest one way or another in the object of it. Yet there was reason for believing that if Xalasa's tale should prove true it would make every difference to the whole of Eustace Milne's future life.

The sun was just setting as they reached Anta's Kloof. The Kafir had stipulated that they should meet him at night. He did not want to incur potential pains and penalties at the hands of his compatriots as an "informer" if he could possibly help it. The house, as Hoste had said, was the only one in the whole neighbourhood which had escaped the torch, but that was all that could be said, for it was completely gutted.

Everything portable had been carried off, if likely to prove of any use to the marauders, what was not likely so to prove being smashed or otherwise destroyed. Windows were broken and doors hung loose on their hinges; in fact, the place was a perfect wreck. Still it was something that the fabric would not need rebuilding.

Hardly had they off-saddled their horses, and, knee-haltering them close, turned them out to graze around the house, than the night fell.

"Xalasa should be here by now," remarked Hoste, rather anxiously.

"Unless he has thought better of it. I always expected we should learn something more about poor Tom when the war was over. Kafirs will talk.

Not that I ever expected to hear that he was alive, poor chap--if he is, that's to say. But what had been the actual method of his death: that was bound to leak out sooner or later."

Eustace made no reply. The remark irritated him, if only that his companion had made it, in one form or another, at least half a dozen times already. Then the sound of a light footstep was heard, and a tall, dark figure stood before them in the gloom, with a muttered salutation.

"Greeting, Xalasa!" said Eustace, handing the new arrival a large piece of Boer tobacco. "We will smoke while we talk. The taste of the fragrant plant is to conversation even as the oil unto the axles of a heavily laden waggon."

The Kafir promptly filled his pipe. The two white men did likewise.

"Have you been in the war, Xalasa?" went on Eustace, when the pipes were in full blast. "You need not be afraid of saying anything to us. We are not Government people."

"_Au_!" said the Gaika, with a quizzical grin upon his ma.s.sive countenance. "I am a `loyal,' Ixeshane."

"The chiefs of the Ama Ngqika, Sandili and the rest of them, have acted like children," replied Eustace, with apparent irrelevance. "They have allowed themselves to be dragged into war at the `word' of Kreli, and against the advice of their real friends, and where are they now? In prison, with a lot of thieves and common criminals, threatened with the death of a dog!"

The Kafir uttered an emphatic murmur of a.s.sent. Hoste, who was excusably wondering what the deuce the recent bad behaviour, and eventual fate of Sandili and Co., had to do with that of Tom Carhayes, could hardly restrain his impatience. But Eustace knew what he was about. The Briton may, as he delights to boast, prefer plain and straightforward talking in matters of importance--or he may not. The savage, of whatever race or clime, unequivocally does not. He dearly loves what we should call beating around the bush. However important the subject under discussion, it must be led up to. To dash straight at the point is not his way. So after some further talk on the prospects and politics of the Gaika nation, and of the Amaxosa race in general-- past, present, and to come--Eustace went on:

"You were not always a `loyal,' Xalasa?"

"_Whau_!" cried the man, bringing his hand to his mouth, in expressive native fas.h.i.+on. "When the fire trumpet first sounded in the midnight sky, I answered its call. While the chiefs of the Ama Ngqika yet sat still, many of their children went forth to war at the `word' of the Paramount Chief. Many of us crossed into the Gcaleka country and fought at the side of our brethren. Many of us did not return. _Hau_!"

"Then you became a `loyal'?"

"_Ihuvumente_ [The Government] was very strong. We could not stand against it. Ha! _Amasoja_--_Amapolisi_--_bonke_. [Soldiers--police-- all] I thought of all the men who had crossed the Kei with me. I thought of the few who had returned. Then I thought, `Art thou a fool, Xalasa? Is thy father's son an ox that he should give himself to be slain to make strength for Sarili's fighting men?' _Hau_! I came home again and resolved to `sit still.'"

"But your eyes and ears were open among the Ama-Gcaleka. They saw--they heard of my brother, Umlilwane?"

"Thy brother, Umlilwane, was alive at the time the white _Amagcagca_ [Rabble] knocked me down and kicked me. He is alive still."

"How do you know he is alive still?" said Eustace, mastering his voice with an effort, for his pulses were beating like a hammer as he hung upon the other's reply. It came--cool, impa.s.sive, confident:

"The people talk."

"Where is he, Xalasa?"

"Listen, Ixeshane," said the Kafir, glancing around and sinking his voice to an awed whisper. "Where is he! _Au! Kwa 'Zinyoka_."

"_Kwa 'Zinyoka_! `The Home of the Serpents!'" Well he remembered the jeering, but ominous, words of the hideous witch-doctress at the time his unfortunate cousin was being dragged away insensible under the directions of his implacable foe, Hlangani. "_He will wake. But he will never be seen again_." And now this man's testimony seemed to bear out her words.

"What is this `Home of the Serpents,' Xalasa?" he said.

"_Au_!" returned the Kafir, after a thoughtful pause, and speaking in a low and apprehensive tone as a timid person in a haunted room might talk of ghosts. "It is a fearsome place. None who go there ever return-- none--no, not one," he added, shaking his head. "But they say your magic is great, Ixeshane. It may be that you will find your brother alive. The war is nearly over now, but the war leaves every man poor.

I have lost all I possessed. When you find your brother you will perhaps think Xalasa is a poor man, and I have too many cattle in my kraal. I will send four or five cows to the man who told me my brother was alive."

In his heart of hearts Eustace thought how willingly he would send him a hundred for precisely the opposite intelligence.

"Where is `The Home of the Serpents'?" he said.

"Where? Who knows? None save Ngcenika, who talks with the spirits.

None save Hlangani, who rejoices in his revenge as he sees his enemy there, even the man who struck him, and drew the blood of the Great Chief's herald. Who knows? Not I. Those who go there never return,"

he added impressively, conveying the idea that in his particular instance "ignorance is bliss."

Eustace's first instinct was one of relief. If no one knew where the place was, clearly no one could tell. Then it struck him that this rather tended to complicate matters than to simplify them. There had been quite enough insinuated as to himself, and though guiltless as to his cousin's fate, yet once it got wind that the unfortunate man was probably alive somewhere, it would devolve upon himself to leave no stone unturned until that probability should become a certainty. Public opinion would demand that much, and he knew the world far too well to make the blunder of treating public opinion, in a matter of this kind, as a negligeable quant.i.ty.

"But if you don't know where the place is, Xalasa, how am I to find it?"

he said at length. "I would give much to the man who would guide me to it. Think! Is there no man you know of who could do so?"

But the Kafir shook his head. "There is none!" he said. "None save Ngcenika. _Whau_, Ixeshane! Is not thy magic as powerful as hers?

Will it not aid thee to find it? Now I must go. Where the `Home of the Serpents' is, thy brother is there. That is all I can tell thee."

He spoke hurriedly now and in an altered tone--even as a man who has said too much and is not free from misgiving as to the consequences. He seemed anxious to depart, and seeing that nothing more was to be got out of him for the present, the two made no objection.

Hardly had he departed than Josane appeared. He had noted the arrival of Xalasa, though Xalasa was under the impression that he was many miles distant. He had waited until the _amakosi_ [Literally "chiefs." In this connection "masters"] had finished their _indaba_ [Talk] and here he was. He was filled with delight at the sight of Ixeshane and his eyes felt good. His "father" and his "friend" had been away for many moons, but now he was back again and the night was lighter than the day.

His "father" could see, too, how he had kept his trust, the old man went on. Where were the houses of all the other white _amakosi_! Heaps of ashes. The house of his "father" alone was standing--it alone the torch had pa.s.sed by. As for the destruction which had taken place within it, that could not be prevented. The people "saw red." It had taxed the utmost effort of himself and Ncanduku to preserve the house.

Reft of hyperbole, his narrative was plain enough. A marauding band had made a descent upon the place on the very night they had quitted it, and, although with difficulty dissuaded from burning it down, the savages had wrecked the furniture and looted the stores, as we have shown. This, however, was comparatively a small evil.

Hoste, wearied with all this talk, which moreover he understood but imperfectly, had waxed restive and strolled away. No sooner was he out of earshot than Josane, sinking his voice, remarked suddenly:

"Xalasa is a fool!"

Eustace merely a.s.sented. He saw that something was coming, and prepared to listen attentively.

"Do you want to find Umlilwane?" went on the old Kafir with ever so slight an expression on the "want."

"Of course I do," was the unhesitating reply. But for the s.p.a.ce of half a minute the white man and the savage gazed fixedly into each other's faces in the starlight.

"_Au_! If I had known that!" muttered Josane in a disappointed tone.

"If I had known that, I could have told you all that Xalasa has--_could have told you many moons ago_."

"You knew it, then?"

"Yes."

"And is it true--that--that he is alive now?"