“Let’s hope so, anyhow,” replied Lambert. And hoping being all they could do for the present, the worthy pair separated for the night.
Chapter Fourteen.
Hoist With His Own Petard
When Tom, the store-boy, reached his master’s premises at an early hour on the following morning, early as it was, his said master was there to meet him.
“Well, Tom?”
“Morrow, Baas!”
“Did you get what you wanted?”
“Ja, Baas.”
“You got it all right?”
“Ja, Baas.”
Sonnenberg could hardly conceal his delight.
“And, Tom, what did he say,” with a nod in the direction meant, “when he gave it you?”
“What did he say?”
“Yes, you fool. What did he say? That was what I asked.”
“Say? say?” repeated the Kaffir, as though to recollect. “Au! he said I would be glad in the morning to find what I wanted most.”
“Was that all?”
“Ja, Baas.”
“And your brother, Ndimbi, he saw the whole affair?”
“Ja, Baas.”
“All right, Tom. Get to your work now,” said Sonnenberg, turning away. The bird was trapped now. As pretty a case as ever was proved in broad daylight. It was early yet, but no longer able to conceal his impatience he went to knock up Lambert.
It was close upon the breakfast hour at the Barkly Hotel, and a knot of men were collected on the stoep waiting for the bell. There came strolling up Roden Musgrave and Emerson, the bank-manager.
“Wish to the Lord you’d go and shoot some game, Musgrave,” the latter was saying. “Jones has been giving us more than enough of his rag yard of late.”
“His what?” said a man who was within earshot.
“Oh, old bones, and heads and tails, and all that kind of ill-assorted refuse. Now a young rhybok or so – or a few partridges would come in well.”
“Musgrave doesn’t give much of his spare time to buck-shooting now. Higher game, don’t you know,” chaffed another, with what was intended for a very meaning wink.
“Talking of shooting,” said Lambert, getting up from where he sat, “I wish you’d lend a fellow one of your guns, Musgrave. I want to go out this afternoon somewhere.”
“I’ve only got two,” answered Roden, “and you don’t want the old muzzle-loader, I suppose?”
“That’s just the one I do want,” rejoined the other eagerly. “At least – er – I mean, I couldn’t of course think of asking for your other one – your best.”
“All right. It’s a very true shooter, although, a trifle heavy. Look round at the office about twelve, Lambert, and you shall have it.”
“At the office? Is it there then?” quickly asked the doctor, again giving himself away, and causing his precious confederate, who was intently listening, to swear almost audibly.
“You look round about then,” was the careless rejoinder.
“What does he mean? What the devil does he mean?” whispered Sonnenberg, excitedly, beckoning the doctor back after the others had gone in. “Tom swears it’s all right, yet you’re to have the gun about twelve o’clock. Now, I believe he’s going to try and get it back again. Yes; that’s it. I’ll keep an eye on Tom till then and stop that little game.”
This the amiable Jew accordingly did. But that sable servitor, though never out of his master’s sight, was more good-humoured than ever, and trotted about the store and the yard, doing his work thoroughly and well, and notwithstanding that he never left the premises, by the time Lambert appeared at the public offices, according to direction, Roden reached the gun from the corner – the very weapon supposed to have been sold to Tom. Lambert could hardly believe his eyes. There it was, however; the identical piece. There had been no substitution, as he had at first suspected. Every one knew it; for the peculiar rifling of its long-range barrel was unique in Doppersdorp. No, there could be no mistake.
“I’m sorry, Lambert,” said Roden, in the indifferent tone of a man speaking to another whom he disliked but had never quarrelled with, “but I find the old shooter has broken down. It’ll want some tinkering before it’ll be good for anything.”
There could be no mistake as to the truth of this; the locks were off, and Roden seemed to be piecing them together with his hand. Lambert stared. He was lost in amazement. Had not Sonnenberg assured him jubilantly that all had gone well, that the bait had taken, that their mutual enemy was safe within the net? Yet here was the gun still in its owner’s possession, and the diabolical plot had clean broken down.
Replying confusedly and at random to certain remarks on the part of Mr Van Stolz, who had at that moment entered, Lambert finally broke away, and betook himself post-haste to his confederate. The latter’s rage was a sight to witness. He went out there and then to the yard. Tom was at work in the stable, and alone.
“Tom.”
“Baas.”
“Didn’t you tell me this morning that it was all right —that it was all right?” repeated the Jew in his fury hissing the words through his set teeth.
“Ja, Baas.”
“But it isn’t all right, you schepsel!” Then lowering his voice to a whisper, “Where is the gun?”
“Yau! What gun, Baas?”
Sonnenberg nearly choked with fury, and made a step forward as though to strike the Kaffir. The latter, however, moved not a muscle, standing there as imperturbably as though there were no infuriated white man within a mile of him.
“Look here!” stuttered the Jew, “if you don’t drop this infernal fooling I’ll – I’ll – kill you. Didn’t you tell me you had got the gun all right? Didn’t you?”
“Childlike and bland” hardly expresses the mild open reproachfulness which sat upon Tom’s broad and sable countenance. He shook his head with a pleasant smile.
“Nay what, Baas. I said no word about any gun. You asked me if I got what I wanted, and I replied that I did.”
The Jew fairly danced; to the vast but veiled amusement of his retainer, who would have a delicious incident to relate from kraal to kraal, from hut to hut, in his wanderings for many a long day; for Kaffirs are keen mimics, and the reproduction of Sonnenberg in his wrath would throw crowds into roaring, rolling, riotous laughter, whenever he should feel like bringing it forth.
“You damnable black scoundrel!” hissed the Jew. “Give me back my money, and then go – g-go to hell.”
“Nay what, Baas. You gave me some money to buy a gun, and now you ask it back. Besides, I have not got it. My brother Ndimbi is taking care of it.”
“I’ll have you both in the tronk for theft. You’ll get five years at least, the pair of you infernal thieves.”
“Theft? Thieves?” repeated the Kaffir, in magnificent surprise. “Au! You are joking, Baas. Did you not give me money to buy a gun with, and tell me even where I could most likely get it? My brother Ndimbi was by, and heard it all. And now you ask for it back again. Nay, Baas, I can’t return it, for Ndimbi has it. I owe him nearly all of it, so as I could not get a gun I thought I had better pay it.”
Sonnenberg turned perfectly livid, and fairly gasped for breath. He saw now how completely he had been done. Tom had not the slightest intention of returning the money. He detested his master, and now here was a glorious chance of being even with the latter for many a past meanness. In all good faith he had intended to make the purchase, and then depart for the seat of war. But Roden’s uncompromising refusal, and the words he had used in reference to Sonnenberg, had thrown a new light on the matter. Tom and his brother had talked it over during their walk home, and had concluded to keep the money, fully assured that Sonnenberg would never dare to make a stir about it.
And, in fact, it was so. Standing there, mad with helpless wrath, the shrewd brain of the Jew had already realised that much. If he prosecuted Tom, the other Kaffir would prove being present when the money was given, and for what purpose it was given. Roden Musgrave, too, would testify that the boy had made the proposal to him on the very night, which would be so far circumstantially corroborative. On his side he had only Lambert; but although Lambert had been present at the transaction he understood hardly any Dutch, in which tongue the affair had been negotiated. Besides, Lambert was weak, and a good bit of an ass, and under cross-examination might be counted upon to give himself – to give both of them – away. Again, to substantiate the charge of theft he would have to show how and when he had missed the money, and what opportunity the boy had of appropriating it. Tom was known, too, as a particularly honest and well-conducted boy, while he, Sonnenberg, laboured under the disadvantage of being a very shady sort of customer. Moreover, his hatred of Roden Musgrave was well known – and his vows of vengeance against the latter had been made often and publicly. No, it would never do. The combination of coincidences would have far too fishy a look. Besides, the very suspicion of having endeavoured to supply a native with firearms, no matter with what object, would be more than likely to draw down upon him most unpleasantly practical demonstrations of popular wrath, and that there were many who would be only too glad of a pretext to foment, and take part in such he was well aware. There was no harm in trying a little bluff though.
He might as well have spared himself the trouble. At all his threats and promises Tom merely laughed good-humouredly. Then Sonnenberg, shaking his fist in the boy’s face, ordered him to clear out, to leave his service there and then, which request was met with an equable consent, and a demand for wages up to date.
“I’ll see you in hell before I’ll pay you a cent, you damned black thief,” screamed the Jew. “You’ve robbed me of more than enough already. Get out of this, now, at once, or I’ll kick you out.”
“Au!”
“Do you hear?” screamed the Jew, advancing a step. But the other did not move. He merely reiterated his demand for wages.
“You’ll get nothing from me. Now go, before I kick you out. What – you will have it? All right. Take that.”
But “that” fell upon empty air. A very ugly look had come into the Kaffir’s ordinarily good-humoured face, as he deftly dodged the blow aimed at him. Still, he did not return it. Sonnenberg, reading weakness in this abstinence, rushed at him again.
To assert an intention of kicking a person out of anywhere may constitute a tolerably resonant threat; but to render it in any way an efficacious one, it follows that the kicker must be of a vastly more powerful habit of body than the kickee, of which salutary consideration Sonnenberg had completely lost sight as, foaming with rage, he returned to the charge. Now, Tom was an extremely thick-set, muscular Kaffir, who thought nothing of carrying a muidsack of mealies or other stuff on his back as often as required, in the process of loading or off-loading waggons in front of the store, whereas his employer was weedy and “soft” all through, and took a precious deal more bad liquor than good hardening exercise; consequently, when these two closed, the tussle could have but one result. That result was Sonnenberg on his back in the dust of the yard, and the Kaffir sitting upon him, the while lecturing him on the advisability of promising to refrain from further violence if permitted to rise. This the Jew, at length, help not arriving, had no alternative but to do, whereupon his servitor was as good as his word, and in a trice Sonnenberg was standing upright again, the back of his coat and trousers bearing a strong family likeness to Lot’s wife subsequent to her “conversion,” shaking his fist wildly, and rolling out curses thick and marvellous in many languages. Then he fished some coins out of his pocket, and flinging them at Tom, ordered him to quit that instant, and that he would want every farthing of it and more to pay the fine that would be put upon him for this assault.
The Kaffir, whose face had resumed its normal good-humour, picked up the money with native imperturbability, and having satisfied himself that it represented every farthing of his wages, coolly pocketed it, and took his departure.
Scarcely were the public offices open than Sonnenberg came rolling in to prefer his charge of assault against Tom, a proceeding which that astute child of nature met by taking out a cross-summons, and in the result both were dismissed before half heard, Mr Van Stolz remarking on the very strange circumstance of Lambert witnessing the affair through a window, and yet not going to render assistance. And Sonnenberg had the pleasure of paying a guinea to the law-agent, Tasker, having – unwisely – employed that astute practitioner, in the hope of rendering Tom’s conviction doubly sure.
Tom, however, was the gainer by the full amount of his wages, over and above the sum of fifteen pounds which his ex-master had so generously presented him with, in order to compass an enemy’s ruin. Nothing more, however, was said about this, and a few days later he disappeared from Doppersdorp. But greatly did the malevolent Jew rage and swear, as he reflected how he had been done, and, thinking to recognise his hand in the matter throughout, more than ever did he vow the most deadly vengeance upon Roden Musgrave.
Chapter Fifteen.
A Shake of the Dice
Time stood not still, even at Doppersdorp, and on the whole it went by merrily. There were always mounted contingents proceeding to the seat of war or returning thence, the latter quicker that they went, as the misanthropic Emerson cynically, but we believe libellously, put it. This kept things lively, especially for such good Doppersdorpers as had anything to sell, and was a state of affairs likely to last indefinitely, for, although actual hostilities were confined to the Transkei, Kreli was scotched, not killed, and as long as the Paramount Chief was at large and unconquered there was no telling how far the rising might spread. Indeed the tribes within the Colonial border, Gaikas, Hlambis, and a section of the Tembus, were reported more and more restless, and ominous rumours filled the air, of a preconcerted rising, of signal fires flashing their dread message nightly from the most prominent mountain heights, of war-dances on a large scale, and the sending of cattle away to places of concealment.
For all these alarms, Doppersdorp, secure in its comparative remoteness from the theatre of strife, cared but little. Still, it must draw some entertainment out of the prevailing excitement, wherefore its already existing Volunteer Corps was promptly remodelled, and many recruits poured in. It was a most important institution was this Volunteer Corps, for did it not confer military rank on more than one of the most prominent store-keepers, with whom Solomon in all his glory was not in it, what time these majors and captains were swaggering around in a silver-grey uniform adorned with a shining shoulder strap and a whistle and jingling chain, the while striving hard to be at their ease and yet not stumble over the sabre, which was the proudest adornment of all? Further, did it not form a convenient outlet to the martial ardour of many a waggon-wright’s or blacksmith’s apprentice, and perchance a shopman or so – hight a store-clerk in local parlance – who, rising suddenly from their hard-earned slumbers, to the sound of a bugle ringing out the wildest of alarm, would fall into rank for a nocturnal forced march along the waggon road, and, hearts beating high with heroism, effect the surround and capture of three or four amazed and perfectly harmless natives camped for the night? Then it was deemed necessary to place a guard over the nocturnal safety of the township, with periodical patrols, during which some warrior might perchance distinguish himself by spitting with his bayonet a more rashly aggressive cur than ordinary. These heroes found nightly asylum in a “guard-house,” devoted to the custody of many fleas and a few insignia of the order of Good Templars, to whom the structure in fact belonged; and when upon his round of inspection one of the newly gazetted majors or captains aforesaid heard the ringing order, “Guard – turn out!” why then indeed he felt he had not lived in vain. But that doughty corps the Doppersdorp Volunteer Rifles had its uses, and in the fulness of time its band learned to play more than two tunes.
Further, there would appear sporadically in Doppersdorp at this time certain warlike individuals, arrayed in nondescript uniform, high boots, and very bright spars, eke helmet, immaculately white. These warriors would swagger around, tapping the boots aforesaid with a chowrie – a weapon which, for some occult reason, they much affected – and giving out darkly that they were recruiting for native levies, of which they were to have command when a sufficient number of recruits had been raised. In some few instances these “colonels,” as the misanthropic Emerson termed them, were bond fide, and able to produce credentials at the public offices empowering them to receive rations and assistance in the furtherance of their plans. Of such, the above misanthrope would predict that, the next time they were heard of would be in connection with “cooking” pay-sheets, or something of the kind. And, alas! for the frailty of human nature, ministering to the triumphant laughter of the cynic, in one or two such instances Emerson’s sardonic predictions were fulfilled.
Turning from public affairs to those of private persons, Mona Ridsdale’s behaviour, as regarded a certain one of such private persons, had become, all things considered, strange. We say “all things considered” advisedly, because the change in her demeanour was unaccountable, to say the least of it. The sweet, subtle charm of those days of convalescence, seemed, with the accomplishment of that convalescence, to come to an abrupt termination. Her patient fairly off her hands, Mona seemed to encase herself with a cold reserve, as in a shell. Had she mistaken her feelings after all? Had she given herself away too much, and now desired to draw back before it was too late? Her behaviour puzzled those around her. Suffield noticed it, but like a wise man held his tongue. His wife noticed it, and being a woman, did not hold, hers. She remonstrated, giving her relative what she termed a little bit of her mind – result, anger, and a lively passage of arms.
There was one whom this behaviour did not puzzle, and that was Roden Musgrave himself. To him it afforded no surprise; for it was precisely such as might have been expected. The only thing that did surprise him was that he himself should have been temporarily lulled into believing in, not so much the genuineness, as the durability of the feeling Mona had shown; that a cool, practised head, such as his, should have been thrown off its level, even for the moment. He had been ill, which might account for it. Well, he was well now, and awakened from that fantastic dream. Mona had undoubtedly saved his life by her cool, ready courage; yet now he hardly felt grateful to her. Possibly, she herself regretted she had done so now, in that the failure of her efforts would have spared her the small degree of vexation which might attend her sudden change of front. Those words, those acts at the time, had been wrung from her by a certain warm, hysterical superabundance of feeling which must find an outlet somewhere. This it had found, and the volcano was quiescent again – until the advent of some fresh cause of eruption; some freak cause, be it understood. Clearly hers was one of those surcharged, excitable temperaments, which, craving a new sensation, will conceive an ardent passion, flaming with fiercely consuming brilliancy and heat, only to sink, like a burnt-out building, as quickly as it flared – to die into dark, cold, unprofitable ashes. He had seen such before – not once, nor twice – and the outcome was ever the same.
He remembered his first instincts with regard to her. Why had he suffered himself, even partially, to lose sight of them? Well, fortunate that it was only partially, and there was no harm done. Yet, after all, he was human.
Few and far between now were his rides out to Suffield’s farm, and then for a visit of but short duration. His spare time he spent mostly in buck-shooting among the mountains, and his ordinary working time was now, since the war, pretty full. For her part, Mona seldom came into Doppersdorp.
But if Roden’s visits to the Suffields were infrequent, the same could not be said for those of Lambert. Quick to perceive the state of affairs, the young doctor judged his own opportunity to have come round again, and was not slow to improve it. If Musgrave was out of the running, now was his own time to chip in, as he put it; and truth to tell, his efforts in that direction were received very graciously.
“I’m surprised at you, Mr Musgrave,” said Mrs Van Stolz one evening. “You are letting the doctor cut you out most completely.”
“Cut me out?”
“Yes. He is always at the Suffields’ now. I thought when you were invalided there, your chance had come, but you seem to have thrown it away again, somehow.”
“My chance! My dear Mrs Van Stolz, what on earth ‘chance’ are you alluding to?”
“Oh, how very innocent we are!” she rejoined archly, while her husband chuckled. “Well, it may not be true, but they say Miss Ridsdale and the doctor take moonlight walks together.”
This shaft, meant to be deadly, seemed to fly utterly wide. Roden, who was engaged lighting his pipe at the moment, continued to do so with unmoved countenance and hand as steady as a rock.
“And if it is true, I don’t see what earthly business it is of mine,” he answered, in so perfectly equable a voice as to astonish his hearers. “Really I have no more right to challenge Miss Ridsdale’s acts than, say, Lambert himself has.”
“Perhaps he has by this time, Musgrave,” struck in Mr Van Stolz mischievously.
“In that event, still less can it be any business of mine,” was the perfectly good-humoured rejoinder. As a matter of fact, Roden disliked this form of chaff; but he liked the utterers of it more than a little, and knew that they meant it as nothing but sheer fun; moreover, he was far too thorough a student of human nature to afford prominence to a distasteful topic by appearing to shrink from it. Nor was his unconcern in any degree forced. It was not in him to be jealous of Lambert, or indeed, of anybody. Jealousy was a word which, done into a definition, meant going begging to a given person for a consideration beyond what that person felt – a despicable lowering of himself, towards which Roden Musgrave felt no temptation. He rated himself at far too high a value for that.
If Mona’s apparently unaccountable conduct were of set design, if her distant reserve were intended to draw him the more ardently to her feet, to bind him more closely in her chains, if she were really making use of the rather stale and transparent trick of playing off one against the other, why then she was indulging in a very risky game. With nine men out of ten that sort of thing might answer; with this one, never. He was beginning to think of her with something of aversion, bordering on contempt.
So the weeks went by and Christmas had come, but there was a sullen, boding, uneasy feeling; for the restlessness of the border tribes had been growing apace. Doppersdorp, however, managed to make merry, after its kind, and got up rifle matches, and athletics, and balls, of a mixed and republican sort, and the band made a nocturnal round from house to house, discoursing from its limited repertory much bad music, which grew worse in proportion to the cumulative hospitality of those serenaded. Then vast numbers of natives swarmed in from the locations, drawn by a big tab of the worst kind of grog, broached by Jones of the Barkly Hotel, and on tap for all comers; and by midday the township was overran by such racing, whooping blackfellows as were not too drank for that form of seasonable exuberance; yet in view of the novel reflection that Christmas occurred but once in a year, these and other little irregularities were winked at.
Then, with the closing days of the year, the thunderclap burst, the pent-up electricity so long in the air blazed forth. The tribes within the border had risen, and that with a spontaneity and fixity of purpose which should have been gratifying to all overs of the thorough-going, and the hot, Southern midsummer nights of the closing year echoed the fierce thunder of the war-song, where crowds of excited savages danced fiend-like in the lurid glow of flaming homesteads.
The news of the outbreak, grim as it might be, was received by Doppersdorp as by no means an unmixed evil; for did it not mean more excitement, and was not excitement a most blessed boon to that slow-going community? First, there was the delight of discussing the news, and, on the part of each citizen, the inestimable joy of carrying on the whole campaign exactly as it should be carried on – from Jones’ bar-room. Then, there was the exhilaration of many Volunteer parades, and the sounding of wholly strange and uncalled-for alarms at all hours of the day and night, not to mention midnight swoops into the town location in quest of potential spies, and the rude disturbance of the slumbers of its population, resulting in two or even three decrepit and otherwise inoffensive natives, unable in the scurry and alarm to produce their passes, being marched off to gaol, triumphantly and securely escorted by some three-score fixed bayonets. All these, and many more doughty deeds of valour, were achieved by the armed manhood of Doppersdorp daring those trying times.
Perhaps, however, the acme of jubilation was attained when the Burgher law was put in force in the district. Then a monster meeting was convened, and to it swarmed a vast number of armed Boers of all sorts and sizes, and the atmosphere of the Court-house was terrific, even with all the windows wide open, in its combined reek of humanity and general unwashenness, and honest sweat, and gun-oil, and seldom-changed corduroy, and hoarse, uncouth, clamouring voices. For the enthusiasm was intense, so that, with all the excuses and prayers for exemption, Mr Van Stolz had no difficulty in enrolling a good solid command some three hundred strong, and when this was mustered on the following day in front of the Court-house, and marched out, duly armed and mounted, to the usual accompaniments of the Volunteer band and “God save the Queen,” and the whole population of Doppersdorp, reputable or ragged, yelling itself hoarse with patriotism and enthusiasm, all felt that very great things had been done, and that even a Kaffir war had its bright side – for those who stayed at home.
After this, things quieted down a little, and just then, on Mr Van Stolz’ recommendation, Roden found himself placed on the Commission of the Peace, and nominated Assistant Magistrate; for the district was a large one, and there was a periodical Court held at an outlying township.
“You see, Musgrave,” said the former, “it will get you on quicker, even if it means precious little more pay. You can go and hold the periodical Court at Luipaard’s Vlei, and that’ll get you into practice; and then, if I go on leave, as I want to do soon, I’ll make them appoint you to act here. It all helps you on, betters your chances. I like to help a fellow on all I can, when he’s the sort of fellow to help; and I’ve often been able to. The only one I’m damned if I’ve been able to help is myself,” he broke off, with a jolly laugh, careering away down the Court-house to stop somebody passing in the street, whom he more or less particularly wanted to see.
Just before these matters took place, Mona’s demeanour underwent a further change. She showed a disposition to revert to the old state of things. Yet the bird was too scared to return at once to the lure. As we have said, Roden Musgrave set too high a value upon himself to give vent to so commonplace and vulgar an emotion as jealousy, and as a matter of fact he had felt none. But he had undergone a mental shaking up, so to say, had had time to pull himself together and think. Yet, we know not now it happened, so imperceptibly, so gradually, but the sweet, subtle spell was beginning to weave itself around him again, and the worst of it was he knew it.
He began to find reason in her former reserve. She had said too much at first. She wanted an opportunity of drawing back. She had mistaken her own feeling, her own heart – had been too impulsive. Well, such an opportunity she should have, and accordingly he had left her undisturbed. And now once more she had broken down the barriers, and how it came about he knew not any more than we do. Her image began to hover around him during his official work, to accompany his long solitary rides, taken for purposes of business or pleasure. Yes, the chains were weaving themselves about him again, and somehow or other he seemed not unwilling that they should.
In due time glowing reports arrived as to the doings of the Doppersdorp Burghers, who had met the enemy more than once with dire results to that barbarous entity, both in slaughter and the capture of numerous head of cattle. Presently, too, arrived, on a few days’ leave, our old acquaintance, Darrell, the attorney, whose practice being of a precarious, not to say hand-to-mouth nature, might profitably be neglected for a while in favour of the more certain pay of a Field-captain in the Doppersdorp Burghers, to which office he had been duly elected. He, his leave expired, returning to the field of glory, pressed Roden to accompany him to the Main Camp for a few days, and go on a patrol or two, and see something of the war; which invitation Roden, with the sanction of his official superior – for there was a lull in the extra work just then – decided to accept.