A Frontier Mystery. Mitford Bertram
“Ah, now we shall be all right,” said Mrs. Sewin, who was seated on a pile of goods for want of a chair. “I must say these savages are rather alarming.”
“They’ll go home directly, Mrs. Sewin. I’ve talked them into a better frame of mind.”
“Go home?” echoed Falkner. “But, confound it all—what about our hunt?”
“You won’t get one of them to stir in that now,” I said, “and if they did you wouldn’t be well advised to go with them.”
“Well, I think there’s considerable overweight of fuss being made because a silly old nigger puts his back up and walks off in a huff,” answered Falkner, sullenly.
“Look here, Sewin,” I said, fast beginning to lose my temper. “That ‘silly old nigger’ is one of the most influential chiefs in Natal. Added to which he’s a Zulu of high breeding, that is to say one of the proudest of men—and you’ve put upon him the biggest insult you could have thought out, and that in the presence of a number of his people—who moreover were sent up here by his orders to help your day’s amusement I say nothing of it having been done on my place—but, incidentally, your monkeyish and schoolboy prank has been the means of frightening the ladies somewhat.”
“Here, I say, Glanton. I don’t take that sort of talk, you know,” he answered, colouring up.
“Glanton’s quite right,” struck in the Major decisively, and with some sternness. “You’ve made an ass of yourself, and got us into a nice mess—which we don’t seem out of yet,” he added, as again the voices outside rose high.
I went out again. Ivuzamanzi came forward.
“We will not hunt with your friends, Iqalaqala. We are going home. As for the igcwane—let him look well on all sides of him.”
“For the first I think you are right son of Tyingoza,” I answered. “For the second—gahle! It is not wise to threaten men on the Queen’s side of the river—for such might lead to visits from the Amapolise.”
But he replied that he cared nothing for the police, and the others laughed sneeringly and agreed.
“See now,” said Ivuzamanzi, shaking his stick. “Will he, the igcwane, come out and fight? He looks big enough, and strong enough, for all that he is a fool.”
I found myself wishing the matter might be cleared up in this rough and ready manner; but for one thing the ladies were with us, for another I didn’t see how the two could fight on anything like even terms. Falkner couldn’t fight with native weapons, and Ivuzamanzi, like any other Zulu, of course had not the remotest idea how to use his fists. So it wouldn’t do.
“How can that be?” I put it. “He does not understand fighting in your way, and you do not understand fighting in his. You would both be ridiculous. Go home, son of Tyingoza, and talk with your father. You will find he has forgotten all about the affair and so must you. A mistake has been made and we all regret it.”
“Ou!” he grunted, and turned away. I thought enough had been said, to these young ones at any rate, so forbore to give them anything more in the way of entertainment lest they should think we were afraid of them. And soon, somewhat to my relief, and very much to the relief of my guests, they picked up their weapons, and with their curs at their heels moved away in groups as they had come.
“Well, we seem to have put you to no end of bother, Glanton, for which I can’t tell you how sorry we are,” said the Major. “And now we mustn’t put you to any more—so, as there is to be no hunt I propose that we saddle up, and go home.”
“Not until after lunch at any rate, Major,” I said. “I can’t allow that for a moment. As for bother it has been nothing but a pleasure to me, except this last tiresome business.”
I thought Miss Sewin’s face expressed unmistakable approval as I caught her glance.
“How well you seem to manage these people, Mr. Glanton,” she said. “I—we—were beginning to feel rather nervous until you came up. Then we were sure it would all come right. And it has.”
Inwardly I thought it had done anything but that, but under the circumstances my confounded conceit was considerably tickled by her approval, and I felt disposed to purr. However I answered that talking over natives was an everyday affair with me, in fact part of my trade, and by the time we sat down to lunch—which was not long, for the morning was well on by then—good humour seemed generally restored. Even Falkner had got over his sulks.
“I say, Sewin,” I said to him as I passed him the bottle. “You were talking about going on a trading trip with me. It wouldn’t do to get chipping bits out of the chiefs’ head-rings on the other side of the river, you know. They take that sort of thing much more seriously over there.”
“Oh hang it, Glanton, let a fellow alone, can’t you,” he answered, grinning rather foolishly.
“By the way, Major, has anything more been heard about Hensley?” I said.
“Hensley? Who’s he? Ah, I remember. He’s been over at our place a couple of times. Why? Is he ill?”
“Nobody knows—or where he is. He has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Yes. Nobody seems to have the slightest clue as to what has become of him. He went to bed as usual, and in the morning—well, he wasn’t there. He couldn’t have gone away anywhere, for his horses were all on the place, and his boys say they had never heard him express any intention of leaving home.”
“Good gracious, no. We hadn’t heard of it,” said Mrs. Sewin. “But—when was it?”
“About a fortnight ago. I didn’t hear of it till the other day—and then through native sources.”
“Oh, some nigger yarn I suppose,” said Falkner in his superior manner, which always ruffled me.
“Would you be surprised to hear that I obtain a good deal of astonishingly accurate information through the same source, Sewin?” I answered. “In fact there is more than one person to whom it relates, who would be more than a little uncomfortable did they guess how much I knew about them.”
“Oh, then you run a nigger gossip shop as well as a nigger trading shop,” he retorted, nastily.
“But what a very unpleasant thing,” hastily struck in his aunt, anxious to cover his rudeness. “Does that sort of thing happen here often?”
“I never heard of a case before.”
“Probably the niggers murdered him and stowed him away somewhere,” pronounced the irrepressible Falkner.
“Even ‘niggers’ don’t do that sort of thing without a motive, and here there was none. Less by a long way than had it been your case,” I was tempted to add, but didn’t. “No, I own it puzzles me. I shall take a ride over there in a day or two, and make a few enquiries on the spot, just as a matter of curiosity.”
“All the same it looks dashed fishy,” said the Major. “D’you know, Glanton, I’m inclined to think Falkner may have hit it.”
“Nothing’s absolutely impossible,” I answered. “Still, I don’t think that’s the solution.”
“But the police—what do they think of it?”
“So far they are stumped utterly and completely—nor can their native detectives rout out anything.”
“How very dreadful,” said Mrs. Sewin. “Really it makes one feel quite uncomfortable.”
“He lived alone, remember, Mrs. Sewin, and there are plenty of you,” I laughed, meaning to be reassuring. But I could see that a decidedly uncomfortable feeling had taken hold upon her mind, and tried to turn the conversation,