The White Hand and the Black: A Story of the Natal Rising. Mitford Bertram
know,” he said, rather lamely. “The affair was of no great account. You’d have got out of it anyhow. I think perhaps, I’d better start. Good-bye.”
But she ignored the proffered hand. She deliberately put hers behind her back.
“Doesn’t it occur to you,” she said, “that I may be a little bit nervous going home alone after that experience? There may be another of the same species – what did you call it —indhlondhlo? – somewhere near. I never was afraid of a snake before.”
Then he surrendered with a good grace – a very good grace – and profuse apologies.
“I confess I missed that point of view. Let me collect your painting things. Do you often come here to draw?”
“Yes, and everywhere else. I love it. I believe I could do something real in that way if only I had a show.” And there was a clouding over of the speaker’s face that was not lost upon her escort.
“By Jove! I should think you could,” he answered, scrutinising the nearly finished sketch. “Why, this is perfect.”
“I don’t know if it’ll ever be finished,” she said. “I believe I’d be scared to come and sit here again. I don’t know. I’ll bring a shot-gun loaded with buckshot. No snake on earth could stand against that.”
“Rather not,” answered the other, vastly amused by this readiness, a downright matter-of-fact way of looking at things. “I suppose – er – you know how to handle firearms.”
“Oh yes. I’ve learnt that. But I never bother about carrying them for purposes of defence. There’s no use for it here.”
“What about the natives? Is it quite wise for you to go rambling about the veldt alone, do you think?”
“Of course. Why they have known me all my life, and I have known them. There isn’t one of them anywhere round here who wouldn’t – give his life for me, I was almost going to say – let alone harm me.”
The other was still more puzzled, and relapsed into silence for a little, thinking even yet harder as to the personality of the other actor in this strange adventure. She, for her part, was no less busied with regard to him. She saw beside her, as they stepped along the bush path together, some six feet of well-proportioned British manhood, not exactly in the first youth, and yet on the right side of middle age; and the bronzed face and clear eyes told of healthy wholesome living, and the readiness of resource of their owner she herself had just had an opportunity of gauging. The result was satisfactory.
The bush path ended, then a narrow one bordering a quince hedge which shut in a fine fruit garden. Here they overtook a man, who, at sound of footsteps, turned inquiringly – a tall man, with a strong, good-looking face and full brown beard just streaking with grey. The girl’s clear voice broke the silence.
“Father. This gentleman has just saved my life.”
Chapter Two.
The New Magistrate
The older man started.
“What’s that?” he said quickly, looking from the one to the other.
Briefly she told him. This was a man not easily moved, but he was then.
“And I should have been lying there instead of that poor horse,” concluded the girl.
“I should think you would.” Then, to the stranger, “Well, sir, I don’t quite know what to say to you or how to put it – but I believe you can understand.”
The said stranger, almost writhing from the force of the hand grip which the other was administering to him, realised that he did understand. This strong, impassive-looking man was obviously moved to the core, but what seemed passing strange was that he refrained from any little outward and natural act of affection, or even word, towards his child who had just escaped a horrible death. No, that omission, indeed, he could not understand.
“Why, of course,” he answered. “But I’d better introduce myself. My name’s Elvesdon, and I’m the new magistrate at Kwabulazi, so we shall not be very distant neighbours. I hope, too, that we shall become very much better acquainted.”
“Same here. I’m Thornhill, and I own about thirteen thousand morgen (about double that number of acres), most of which you can see from where we stand, and a good deal of which is of no earthly use except to look at – or to paint,” with a smile at his daughter.
“It certainly is very good to look at,” said the stranger. “Does it hold much wild game, Mr Thornhill?”
“Middling. See that line of krantz yonder?” pointing to a craggy wall, about a mile away. “Well, that’s all bored with holes and caves – I was going to say it was filled with tiger (leopard) like bee-grubs in a comb, but that’s a little too tall. Still there are too many. Are you a sportsman, Mr – Elvesdon? Though – you must be, after what I’ve just heard.”
“I’m death on it. Where I’ve come from there wasn’t any.”
“Where’s that?”
“The Sezelani. All sugar cane and coolies. Beastly hot, too. I’m jolly glad of this move.”
“Well I hope you’ll make up for it here. There’s a fair number of bushbuck in the kloofs – duiker and blekbok too, guinea fowl, and other small fry. So be sure and bring your gun over whenever you can and like.”
“Thanks awfully,” replied Elvesdon, thinking he would manage to do this pretty often.
They had reached the homestead. The house was a one-storeyed, bungalow-like building, with a thatched verandah running round three sides of it. It stood on a slope, and the ground in front fell away from a fenced-in bit of garden ground down a well-grown mealie land, whose tall stalks were loaded with ripening cobs. Then the wild bush veldt began. Black kloofs, dense with forest trees; bush-clad slopes, culminating in a great bronze-faced krantz frowning down in overhanging grandeur; here and there patches of open green as a relief to the profusion of multi-hued foliage – in truth in whatever direction the eye might turn, that which met it was indeed good to look at, as the stranger had said.
The said stranger, as they entered the house, was exercised by no small amount of curiosity. Of what did this household consist? he asked himself. The other members of the family, for instance, what were they like, he wondered? Like this girl – who had struck him as so unlike any other girl he had ever seen? Like her father – who in his own way seemed almost to stand unique? But beyond themselves there seemed to be nobody else in the house at all.
The room he was ushered into was cool and shaded. It was got up with innumerable knick-knacks. There were water-colour sketches on the walls – and framed photographic portraits placed about on easels. There was a piano, and other signs of feminine occupation. But nothing was overdone. The furniture was light and not overcrowded, thoroughly suitable to a hot climate. After the noontide glare outside, the room struck him as cool and restful to a degree – refined, too; in short a very perfect boudoir.
“Nice little room, isn’t it?” said his host rejoining him, for he had excused himself for a minute. “Yes, that portrait – that’s my eldest boy. Poor chap, he was killed in the Matabele rising in ’96. That other’s the second – I’ve only the two. He’s away at the Rand; making his fortune – as he thinks; fortunately he’s got none to lose.”
“What fine looking fellows,” said Elvesdon. “By Jove they are.”
The other smiled.
“That group there,” he went on, “represents Edala in various stages of growing up. You’ll recognise the latest.”
“Yes. It’s a splendid likeness.” The while he was thinking to himself, “Edala! what an out-of-the-way name. Edala! Well, it fits its owner anyway.”
“I daresay you’d like a cold splash – we’ll have dinner directly. Come this way. You’ll find everything in there,” opening the door of a spare room.
His host’s voice almost made Elvesdon start,