CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
THE PACKET MARKED "B."
With her usual frank naturalness and absence of conventionality, Nidiawent to meet him in the doorway. Then, as he took her extended hands,it seemed as though he were going to hold them for ever. Yet no wordhad passed between them.
How well he looked! she was thinking. The light, not unpicturesqueattire there prevailing, and so becoming to a good-looking, well-mademan, suited him, she decided. She had first seen him in the ordinarygarments of urban civilisation. She had seen him last a tatteredfugitive, haggard and unshaven. Now the up-country costume--silk shirtand leather belt, and riding-trousers with gaiters--endowed his lithewell set-up form with an air of freedom and ease, and looking into theclear-cut face and full grey eyes, framed by the wide, straight brim ofthe up-country hat, she thought she had never seen him looking so well."How glad I am to see you again!" she said, "Ten thousand welcomes. Doyou know, I have been feeling ever since as if _I_ were responsiblefor--for whatever had befallen you."
"Yes? Imagine, then, what _I_ must have felt at the thought of you,alone in the mountains, not knowing what to do or where to turn. Iwonder it didn't drive me stark staring mad. Imagine it, Nidia. Justtry to imagine it! Words won't convey it."
"I did have a dreadful time. But I knew nothing would have kept youfrom returning to me, had you been able. And then your boy, Pukele,arrived, and took such care of me. I sent him out to find you, and hesaid you had been among the Matabele, but had been able to leave themagain--"
"Who? My boy? Pukele?" repeated John Ames, wonderingly.
"Yes. He brought me out of the mountains. One day he went out to hunt.I heard him, as I thought, fire a couple of shots, and came up to findmyself among friends again."
"Nidia," called a voice from within--a voice not untinged withacerbity--"won't Mr Ames come inside?"
John Ames started, and the effect seemed to freeze him somewhat. Thecoldness of the greeting extended to him as he complied, completed theeffect. Instinctively he set it down to its true cause.
"We met last under very different circumstances, didn't we, MrsBateman?" he said easily. "None of us quite foresaw all that hashappened since."
"I should think not. The wonder is that one of us is alive to tell thetale," was the rejoinder, in a tone which seemed to imply that no thankswere due to John Ames that `one of us' was--in short, that he wasresponsible for the whole rising.
"And do you remember my asking if there wasn't a chance of the nativesrising and killing us all?" said Nidia. "I have often thought of that.What times we have been through!" with a little shudder. "Yet, in someways it seems almost like a dream. Doesn't it, Susie?"
"A dream we are not awakened from, unfortunately," was the reply. "Wedon't seem through our troubles yet. Well, as for as we are concerned,we soon shall be. I want to take Miss Commerell out of this wretchedcountry, Mr Ames, as soon as ever it can be managed. Don't you thinkit the best plan?"
"I think you are both far safer where you are, since you ask me," heanswered. "Any amount of reinforcements are on their way, and meanwhilethe laager here, though uncomfortable, is absolutely safe, becauseabsolutely impregnable. Whereas the Mafeking road, if still open, is sosimply on sufferance of the rebels. Any day we may hear of the Mangwebeing blocked."
"I disagree with you entirely," came the decisive reply. "I hear, onfirst-rate authority, that the coaches are running regularly, underescort, and that the risk is very slight. I think that will be our bestplan. I suppose you will be joining one of the forces taking the fieldas soon as possible, won't you, Mr Ames?"
If there was one thing that impressed itself upon John Ames when hefirst entered, it was that this woman intended to make herself supremelydisagreeable; now he could not but own that she was thoroughlysucceeding, and, as we said, he had instinctively seen her bent. Shewas, in fact, warning him off. The tone and manner, the obtrusive wayin which she was mapping out his own movements for him, stirred withinhim a resentment he could hardly disguise, but her suggestion withregard to disposing of those of Nidia struck him with a pang of dismay,and that accentuated by considerations which will hereinafter appear.Now he replied--
"My plans are so absolutely in the clouds that I can hardly say what Imay decide to do, Mrs Bateman. I might even decide to cut myconnection with this country. Take a run home to England, perhaps.What if I were so fortunate as to come in as your escort?"
This he said out of sheer devilment, and he was rewarded, for if ever ahuman countenance betrayed disgust, repressed wrath, baffled scheming,all at once, that countenance belonged to Susie Bateman at that momentNidia came to the rescue.
"You have not told us your adventures yet," she said. "I want to knowall that happened since you left me. I only hope none of these tiresomemen will come in and interrupt."
_All_ that happened! He could not tell her all, for he had pledged hisword to the Umlimo. The latter had predicted that he would meet withevery temptation to violate that pledge, and here was one of them. No,not even to her could he reveal all. But he told her of his fall fromthe dwala, his unconsciousness, and, leaving out that strange andstartling experience, he went on to tell her what the reader has yet tolearn--how he awoke in the broad light of day to find himself surroundedby armed natives, friendly to himself, however, who, of course, actingunder orders from the Umlimo, had escorted him to within safe distanceof Bulawayo.
Unconsciously their tones--he narrating, she commenting upon thenarrative--became soft. Their glances, too, seemed to say somethingmore than words. Both, in fact, were back again in imagination, roamingthe wilds together, alone. They seemed to lose themselves in therecollection, oblivious of the presence of a third party.
The said third party, however, was by no means oblivious of them. Herear weighed every tone, her keen eye noted every glance, everyexpression, and she grew proportionately venomous. Yet, looking at theman, she could hardly wonder at Nidia's preference, and theuncomfortable consciousness was forced upon her that whoever might bethe object of it, this man or any other, her own feeling would be justthe same--one of acute powerless jealousy, to wit, that any should everstand before herself in her darling's preferences.
"Don't go," said Nidia, putting forth a hand to detain him, for hisstory had run on late, and he was rising with an apology. "Stay andhave dinner with us. It's siege fare, but even then a little morevaried than our precarious ration under the rocks--not that one did notpositively enjoy that at the time," she added with a laugh. He joinedin.
"Did you? I'm sure I did. Considering we were without any adjuncts,your cooking was marvellous, Nidia."
"Nidia" again! Heavens! It had come to that, then! Susie Bateman'shair nearly rose on end.
"Well, you shall see if it is any better now," went on the girl, airily."Oh, I do hope none of those stupid men will drop in. I want to have anice long talk."
"You haven't found them so stupid up till now, Nidia," struck in SusieBateman. "Why, there isn't an evening some of them haven't been in tocheer us up."
This for the benefit of John Ames, to whom the speaker divined it mightin some way not be palatable. He for his part noted that she did notsecond the invitation, but he had reached that stage when he reallydidn't care to consider any Susie Bateman overmuch. Wherefore heaccepted. But the latter, for her part, was resolved to pursue thecampaign, and that vigorously, and to this end she never left them forone moment alone together. Likewise was she rather oftener thannecessary very emphatic in referring to "Miss Commerell;" and when,later on, some of "those stupid men" did drop in, her joy was unbounded,equally so that they stayed late enough to leave John Ames no pretextfor sitting them out.
Resisting a pressing invite to finish up the evening at the SilverGrill, the latter went back to his quarters in by no means an elatedframe of mind. Yet he had to some extent foreseen what had happened.Nidia had been kind and cordial to him, but there it was--as one of acrowd. There was no longer t
hat sweet day-to-day companionship, theytwo isolated from the world. We repeat that he had foreseen thiseventuality, yet now that it had arrived he liked it not one whit themore; nor was there consolation in the thought that here was anotherconfirmation of the general accuracy of his forecasting faculty.Already he began to realise the Umlimo's forecast: "There will come atime when you will look back upon these rough wanderings of yours--thetwo of you--as a dream of paradise." Of a truth that strange beingpossessed the gift of prophecy to an extraordinary degree.
Now, too, and in the days that followed, he found subject-matter forsome very serious thinking, and one of the main subjects of his thoughtswas that of the Umlimo. No abstraction, then, was this cult, such as heand others had supposed. Probably it had been originally, but he whonow used the title had seized the opportunity of turning it into a mostformidable weapon against his enemies, in furtherance of one of the mostruthless, daring, and far-reaching schemes of vengeance which the mindof man could ever conceive and foster; and the object of this terriblemonomania, the man's own nationality. John Ames was in a quandary.Here he stood, possessed of most important knowledge, yet powerless todivulge it; cognisant of a fact of most vital moment to those whoemployed him, and whose pay he was receiving, yet tied and bound by hispledged word.
There was one way out of this difficulty, and that way, not being anunscrupulous man, he decided to take. He resigned his position in theservice of the Chartered Company. Even then his mind was by no means atease. There seemed still to be a duty to perform to humanity ingeneral. Were he to keep this knowledge to himself, how many liveswould be sacrificed which otherwise might have been saved? The captureor death of the Umlimo--would it not be effectual to stop the rising?and was he not in duty bound to further this end in the interests of hisfellow-countrymen? Conscience told him he might do this; for with allthe care and secrecy that had attended both his entrance to and exitfrom the cave of mystery, he could not disguise from himself that, bycareful calculations as to time and locality, he might be able to findthe spot again. But then would rise before him his pledged word. Hehad given it when in the power of this extraordinary being, when bothhis own life and that of Nidia had lain in his hand, and he could notnow go back on it--no, not on any consideration. His countrymen musttake their chance. He had done all that could reasonably be expected ofhim in resigning his position and its emoluments.
In doing this, however, it was pre-eminently a case of looking to virtueas its own reward. Certainly it brought him no nearer the realisationof his hopes; for so slender were his private means of existence, thatonly by the exercise of the most rigid economy could he get along atall, and the necessaries of life, be it remembered, were at famineprices. Decidedly, indeed, his prospects were looking blacker and yetmore black.
And what of Nidia herself? As the days went by she seemed to draw nonearer. Seldom now was he suffered to be alone with her, and then onlyfor a minute or so, when an ever-present feeling of _gene_ and flurrywould be there to mar the effect of any opportunity he might have had toimprove the occasion, and, indeed, he was beginning to regard matters ashopeless. The persistent hostility of Mrs Bateman was ever on thewatch to defeat his every move; and as to this, even, there were timeswhen it seemed to him that Nidia was a trifle too acquiescent in thelatter's objectionable and scarcely concealed efforts at railing himoff. Then, too, Nidia was constantly surrounded by a knot of men, manyof them fine gallant-looking fellows, already distinguished for somefeat of intrepidity. There was the commander of the relief troop whichhad brought her in, for instance, and Carbutt and Tarrant and severalothers. He, John Ames, so far from being the one to bring her in, as heused to pride himself would be the case, had merely imperilled her themore by his own sheer incautious blundering. Sick at heart, he wouldfain be lying where he had fallen--a battered, lifeless heap at the baseof the great _dwala_.
From this his thoughts would wander to the mysterious rock-dwelling, andto him who inhabited it. Why, and with what object to serve, had theUmlimo spared and tended him? That he might deliver his message to theoutside world? Well, he had done that. And then--and the very thoughtsent a thrill as of needles and pins throughout his whole system. Hehad delivered the one message, but what of the other enclosure, the onewhich in some mysterious way concerned himself, the packet marked "B"?He got it out and eyed it. The Umlimo's words were vividly imprinted inhis memory. "The time may come when you will see everything dark aroundyou, and there is no outlook, and life hardly worth prolonging. Then,and then only, open it."
Solemn and weighty now did those words seem. Great Heaven! had not justsuch a time come? Was not everything dark enough in all conscience, andwhat outlook did life afford? Yes, he would do it. His heart beat fastas he undid the sealed oilskin wrappings of the packet. What would itcontain, and how could such contents in any way conduce to his ownwelfare? The last wrapping was off, revealing an enclosure. Only asealed letter, directed to the same names and address as that in thepacket marked "A"--a firm in Cape Town--of solicitors or agents, heconjectured. One word of instructions accompanied this, one singleword--
"Forward."
"And that is all?" he said to himself, perhaps a trifle disappointedly,turning the enclosure round and round. "Well, that's no trouble. I'llgo and do it."