Forging the Blades: A Tale of the Zulu Rebellion

Chapter Twenty One.
Sapazani “At home.”

Ben Halse showed no surprise when Denham broke the news to him; in fact, he felt none. What he did feel was a sharp pang at heart as he realised that he must go through the rest of his life alone. Well, it was bound to come some day, and one compensation was that it could not have come under more favourable circumstances. He had known the other long enough to have decided that had Verna searched the world over she could not have found a more fitting mate.

“Sure you’re in earnest about this, Denham?” he said. “Here you two have been thrown together for days and weeks. You’ve seen hardly anybody but ourselves all that time, and no women. I’m a plain man, you know, and I always speak my mind, so you mustn’t be offended.”

“Why, of course not. But you won’t mind my saying that you are arguing against your own argument. If, as you say, Verna and I have been thrown together all this time and are vastly less tired of each other than the day we first met, isn’t that a pretty fair test?”

“M’yes. It cuts both ways, I suppose.”

The two were seated in the shade of a wild fig-tree at the back of the house, and a little way from it, on the morning after the scene in the forest. Those words, “the first day we met,” carried Ben’s thoughts back to that very day when he had sat watching the pair walking down the garden path at the Nodwengu Hotel, and the possibility of just such a development had crossed his mind.

“If you were a younger man, Denham,” he went on, “I should be inclined to say, go away for a little while so as to make sure of yourself, and treat this as never having been. Then, if you are, come back again. But you’re old enough to know your own mind; at any rate, if you’re not now you never will be, that’s sure.”

The other laughed, lightly, pleasantly.

“Thanks,” he said; “I cordially agree as to the last, but totally disagree as to the first. Why, Halse, you surprise me. Doesn’t it occur to you that Verna may have feelings to be considered, and that the course you hint at might be a little bit rough on her? for I am conceited enough to believe that she has a very decided preference for the propinquity rather than for the absence of my unworthy self. How does that strike you?”

“I don’t know.” And the speaker subsided into thoughtful silence, and began slowly to cram his pipe. Denham, watching the movement of the gnarled brown hands, the set of the strong, handsome face, thought he could read what was passing in the other’s mind. He, himself, a stranger of a few weeks’ acquaintance, had come here to rob this man of the light of his home, of the pride and joy of his life, to destine him to loneliness thenceforward until his death. Something of this he put into words, with a rare and tactful sympathy.

“Ah, yes,” was the answer. “I might have been thinking something of the kind; in fact, I’ve often thought of it. The thing was bound to come some day, of course; but I’ve always told myself there was plenty of time, and at the girl’s age two or three or four years would make no great difference. But there – it doesn’t do to be selfish.”

Denham, recognising the shake in the voice of this strong man, put forth his hand, which the other gripped, and for a few moments there was silence.

“I’ve never seen any one I would so willingly entrust my Verna to as yourself, Denham,” said Ben Halse presently; “so there’s compensation in that.”

“You flatter me too much, Halse. But you won’t mind my saying you are about the most imprudent parent-in-law elect I ever heard or read of.”

He laughed as he said this. He was glad to throw off the serious vein.

“Why?”

“Because you are taking me so absolutely on trust. You know nothing about me. I may be a fraud financially. I may be an intending bigamist; in fact, anything. Now I tell you what. Before you give me Verna entirely you are to write to my solicitors – the two senior partners of the firm have known me ever since I was born. Write to them privately and separately, and make any and every inquiry that may occur to you.”

The trader thought a minute, then he said —

“Well, that’s fair and square and above-board, Denham. I’m pretty good at reading men, and I think I’ve read you accurately. But as you yourself have thrown out the suggestion, you won’t be offended if I follow it?”

He looked the other full in the face as though with a searching glance. But no trace of hesitation did he read there.

“Why, most emphatically not,” came the ready answer. “I’m a man of the world, Halse, and if I were in your place I should certainly exact a similar guarantee. You will get answers in a couple of months at the outside, I’ll take care of that. Meanwhile, you will sanction our engagement provisionally, subject to those answers being satisfactory to yourself?”

“Yes.”

And again the two men clasped hands.

Then followed a couple of weeks of what was simply a halcyon time. The sympathy that had existed between them almost from the very first had deepened now into the most perfect of affinity and trust. Again and again Alaric Denham blessed the chance that had brought him into the wilderness to find this pearl of great price – the one woman in the whole world who seemed born for him, who would stand by him even if the whole world were against him – and there might occur the opportunity of putting even this test upon her, but that he did not then foresee. Long days out together, in the sombre forest, or exploring wild, craggy heights in the clear, exhilarating mountain air; and every one of those days seemed far too short, and never was there the slightest sign of interest flagging between them. He told her more about himself and his life, but there was still that one thing he did not tell her. Yet why should he? The load was thrown off, and would remain buried in mystery for ever. Surely this strange, wild country had brought him relief and happiness beyond measure.

One day Verna said —

“Let’s ride over and pay a surprise visit to Sapazani this afternoon, father. We promised to show him to Alaric, you know, and he hasn’t been here for a long time.”

“All right. But how d’you know he’s at home?”

“I got it from some of the people this morning. He has been away a long time, but he’s back now.”

“Yes, he has,” said the trader meaningly. “He’ll get into trouble if he doesn’t watch it. How about the store, though?”

“Oh, we can lock it up for once in a way. Nobody’s likely to come, or if they do it’ll only be for a tenpenny knife. Trade’s too dismally slack for anything just now.”

“That’s a grand idea,” said Denham. “I had begun to think I was never going to see this ‘show’ chief of yours.”

“By Jove! what a beautifully built kraal!” exclaimed Denham, as they came upon it suddenly, over the lip of the hollow. “Rather different from those wretched, slovenly-looking affairs you see further down.”

“Yes; Sapazani is an intense Conservative,” said Ben Halse; “wherefore he isn’t beloved by those in authority. But the old-time kraals were all built like this one, except in the open country where there was no bush to make fences of. They used stone walls instead, and still do.”

They found the chief sitting in the shade of a dried bullock-skin just against the fence of the central open space. He gave them greeting in a dignified way, as between equals, but did not rise. That was a European custom, and therefore abhorrent to his conservative soul. But he called to an attendant to rig up a similar bullock-skin and to spread mats, not even rugs, for his visitors.

“Case of doing in Zululand as Zulus do, Alaric,” laughed Verna. “You’ll have to learn the native art of squatting. It’s all right when you get used to it.”

“Of course. I say, this is an uncommonly fine-looking chap. Do you think he’d let me fire the kodak at him? I put it in my pocket on spec.”

“We’ll try presently, but I doubt it.”

Meanwhile Sapazani was asking Halse who his guest was. He knew perfectly, but still he asked. Denham the while was watching him with intense interest. He had seen two or three chiefs at Ezulwini, looking thorough “slouches” in waistcoats and shirt-sleeves and ragged smasher hats. But this was a splendid specimen in every way. He looked every inch a chief, they did not, every inch a king, even. He hardly liked to present this dignified-looking savage with a superfluous pair of binoculars, by no means new, which he had brought along to that end. But Verna, consulted, set his doubts at rest on that score.

“What is he yarning about?” he asked.

“Oh, just commonplaces. He wouldn’t talk about anything else in the presence of a mere woman,” laughed Verna. “If father and he were alone together it would be different. Would you like to say anything to him? I can translate.”

“Yes, dear. Tell him I’m sorry I can’t talk to him myself, but that you can do it much better for me.”

“No, I won’t put it that way.” She put the remark, however, and Sapazani smiled, showing his splendid white teeth, his lustrous eyes moving from the one to the other.

“A splendid-looking chap, by Jingo!” pronounced Denham again. “A real type of the Zulu I’ve heard about or read about.”

The last remark Verna translated. The chief smiled again.

“I don’t know who the strange Inkosi is,” he answered. “He looks like one great in his own country. Perhaps the day will come when he will be able to speak with those who are great in his own country for those who were once great in ours.”

To this Denham answered that he would certainly do so if ever there was occasion for it.

Now some women appeared bringing tywala. The vessels were scrupulously clean, and the pinkish, hissing brew looked uncommonly inviting in its black clay bowls. Denham had tried it before, but had never been able to take to it. This, however, looked different.

“Try again, Alaric,” said Verna. “You’ll find this a superior brew. I know I’m dying of thirst.”

A portion was set before each of them, with the punga, or preliminary sip, which custom required on the part of the entertainers. Denham did try it, and voted it excellent, and then took a very long pull indeed.

“Now you’re initiated, dear,” said Verna merrily, “once you’ve learnt to drink tywala.”

“I call this uncommonly jolly,” pronounced Denham, looking around. “These chaps must have a good time of it.”

The domed huts within their ring fences shone yellow and picturesque in the sunlight. A few men were seated in groups chatting in a bass undertone, and the red top-knots of women showed above the thorn fence, gazing curiously at the visitors.

“Sapazani would tell you ‘must have had a good time of it,’” said Ben Halse. “He’s a man of the past.”

“Discontented?”

“Rather.”

“Tell him I want to give him this, Halse,” producing the binoculars. “To remember my visit by.”

Sapazani received the gift in the same dignified fashion, and they instructed him how to find the focus. He tried it on various objects and then handed it to an attendant.

“It is good,” he said. “I will remember.”

But to the proposal to snapshot him he returned a decided negative, polite but firm. Denham was disappointed.

“Couldn’t he show us his hut?” he said. “I should like to see what the hut of a big chief is like inside.”

This was readily acceded to. Sapazani rose and led the way. Then Denham was even more struck by the tall, magnificently-proportioned form, the great muscles showing through the brown satiny skin as the man walked, easily, leisurely, straight as a pine-tree, with head slightly thrown back. Verna could not help noticing that the two men, standing upright together, were of exactly the same height and build, the savage chieftain and the up-to-date English gentleman.

Denham admired the interior of the cool, spacious hut, with its polished floor of hard, black clay, and the bowl-like fire-place in the centre, the assegais disposed on pegs around the walls, and the clean, rolled-up mats against one side. The place was a model of coolness and cleanliness, he decided.

When they got outside again several of the chief’s wives, convened by Verna, were standing waiting for them. To these she distributed various things she had brought, chatting and joking familiarly with them. They were fine, merry-faced girls, and here again Denham found a keen bit of character study. Sapazani accompanied his visitors to the gate of the kraal – he was a stickler for old-time Zulu etiquette, as Ben Halse and Verna, of course, knew, wherefore they had hitched up their horses outside and bade them farewell.

“Well, and what do you think of our ‘show’ chief now, Alaric?” said Verna, as they started on their homeward ride.

“He’s a splendid-looking fellow, and his manners are perfect,” he answered. But to himself he was thinking that had Sapazani been a white man he would have resented the way in which the chief had looked at Verna more than once. Being a native, of course, any such idea was absurd, preposterous, out of the question. But he wondered whether Ben Halse had noticed it.

And Sapazani, looking after them, was saying to himself —

“The trap is set, and yonder is the bait —au! yonder is the bait —impela.”

Chapter Twenty Two.
Bluff – And Counterbluff

When they reached home they found a visitor awaiting them, in the shape of Harry Stride. Ben Halse, for all his hospitable instincts, secretly and within himself wished him at the devil. Verna would rather he had not come – just then; but Denham, of the trio, was the least concerned. So secure was he in his own happiness that he could not but be sorry for the man who had failed to draw his at the same source. But as far as any outward manifestation of lack of welcome was concerned the new arrival had no cause of complaint.

During the evening they talked generalities, the state of the country, the day’s visit to Sapazani, and so forth. But Stride, while not manifesting the former instinctive hostility towards Denham, did not fail to notice, with jealous eyes, the perfect understanding which seemed to prevail between him and Verna. Were they engaged? he wondered. They must be, judging from a look which, more than once, he saw pass between them. Well, he had a card up his sleeve, but he would not throw it until the morning. So he went on chatting about things in general, and Verna was especially kind to him. Denham too, with ready tact, refrained from anything that might be construed into bordering on an air of proprietorship! out of consideration for the poor fellow’s feelings; and when Verna went out with Stride for a quarter of an hour or so to look at the night, he remained chatting with Ben Halse.

“You won’t be shooting each other in the night, will you, Denham?” said the latter drily. The point of the joke was that, accommodation being somewhat limited, the two men would have to share the same room.

“I’ll try not to return the fire; but, on the whole, perhaps I’d better stick a dummy in the bed, and slip outside. Poor chap! Nobody could be more sorry for him than myself.”

“I’m sure of that. Well, every man must take his chance, and Harry’s young yet. He’s a good sort of boy, but I don’t believe he’ll ever do much for himself.”

“Perhaps he’s never had a show.”

“That’s the worst of it. A lot of these young fellows come drifting up to this country knowing nothing about it, and think they’re going to pick up gold under every stone. That prospecting business is just foolery. They’d much better settle down to some steady job. And yet, and yet – where’d I have been myself if I hadn’t let out and chanced it? Well, it’s a world of pitch and toss, after all.”

Stride was the first to turn in, and when his companion followed he had rolled himself in his blanket as though asleep. But he was wide awake enough in reality. He hated that other so intensely that he could not trust himself to speak now that they were alone together. Some people had all the advantages of life and others none; and here this stranger, solely because he was a rich man, or was reputed to be, must have a free walk over; must come here and rob him of all that made life worth living – hope, to wit. Well, to-morrow he would fire the first shell. And he did.

Just after breakfast, but before they got up from table, Stride produced a square envelope.

“I took a few snapshots down in the Makanya the other day,” he said, drawing out some prints. “What d’you think of that, Mr Denham?” handing one across the table to him.

Denham took it, and it was all he could do not to let it drop. The ghastly face staring at him from the glazed paper, hideous and bloated through immersion and decomposition, was that of the head which Sergeant Dickinson had been at such pains, and trouble, and risk to photograph. There was a frightful fascination about it, and he continued to gaze, aware the while that Stride was fixing his face with a pitiless glance.

“Well, what d’you think of it?” said the latter, growing impatient.

“Think? Why, that it’s a good study of a dissecting-room subject, but a beastly thing to spring upon any one just after breakfast. Where did you get it?” handing it back.

“It was taken below the Bobi drift. A head was found sticking in the bushes, also some clothes, with things in the pockets. I, before that, found a saddle with a bullet hole through the flap.”

“Yes; you told us that at the club the other night, I remember. So they’ve found more?”

Stride was puzzled. He thought to have knocked the enemy all of a heap, but the said enemy had never wilted, beyond what a man might naturally do who had an unusually ghastly and repulsive picture suddenly sprung upon him, as Denham had said, just after breakfast.

“But isn’t it our turn to be let into the mystery?” suggested Verna sweetly.

“Oh, I don’t know. No; I won’t show it to you,” answered Stride. “It is rather nasty, isn’t it, Mr Halse?” handing it on to him.

“Looks so. Ugly-looking Jew, I should say. Wonder what the devil he was doing down there. I suppose they shot him for plunder. Zulus are not what they were. Time was when a white man was perfectly safe in any part of this country. Who took the photo, by the way?”

“Dickinson, at Makanya.”

“Oh yes, the police sergeant. Well, have they investigated?”

“Rather. They’ve got at his identity, too. He was a Jo’burg Jew named Hyam Golding. The next thing is to find out what induced him to travel that way at all. It doesn’t lead anywhere in particular.”

“Let me see it,” said Verna. “I’m not of the hysterical, ‘fainting-female’ order, am I? Thanks,” as it was handed to her. “What a horrid-looking man he must have been. I mean apart from the conditions under which this was taken. Let’s see some of the others.”

He complied. One he kept out, and handed it to Denham.

“Do you recognise it?” he asked. “You came through it, I think you said.”

“Did I? I think not, considering I didn’t know one drift from the other. However, it’s just possible I may have; but one drift is very like another, especially in photography.”

“It’s the Bobi.”

Somehow Verna’s instincts were instantly on the alert. There was more than a subtle something in Stride’s manner and remarks, a sort of “making a dead set” smack about them. She became cold and hostile towards him at once. He saw this, and realised he had make a mistake. So he left the subject of the head, and drew attention to the other prints.

His plan had failed. He had thought to induce Denham to give himself away before the others, and that completely. But he had reckoned without the cool nerves of Denham. Well, the next card to play was bluff.

An opportunity was not easy to find. Most of the morning they sat in the shade, and smoked and chatted. But later, when Verna was busy indoors, and something had taken Ben Halse away, Stride said —

“I’ve got something to tell you. How about taking a bit of a stroll, where no one’ll hear us?”

“All right. Let’s.”

They strolled off together a little way. Suddenly Stride said —

“Rum thing this murder down in the Makanya, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know enough about it to say. But I suppose there’s no doubt about it being a murder?”

“Not a particle. Dickinson has worked the thing up in first-rate style. There’s hardly a link missing from the chain.”

“Not, eh? There’s a saying, though, that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link; but if the link is not merely weak but missing altogether, what’s the use of that chain?”

“The link can be supplied,” said Stride meaningly. “Dickinson could put his hand on the right man at any minute.”

“Then why the devil doesn’t he?”

The straightness of this query rather nonplussed Stride. But he remembered that men in desperate straits had many a time been known to save the situation by consummate bluff.

“Perhaps he isn’t quite sure where he is at this moment,” he answered. “I could help him.”

“Then why the devil don’t you?”

“Look here. Let’s quit beating around the bush,” said the other, speaking quickly. “Will you take a piece of advice?”

“Can’t say until I hear it. But I’ll promise to consider its burden when I do.”

Denham was getting rather sick of all this mysterious hinting. He was also getting a bit “short.”

“I’ll give it you in one word, then,” was the answer. “Skip.”

“Don’t see the joke. Explain.”

“Don’t see it, eh?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“Well, bluff’s a good dog sometimes,” sneered the other, who thought he would enjoy a different situation directly. “Still, you take my tip and skip, with the smallest loss of time you can manage. I don’t suppose they’ll bother to follow up the thing very keenly once you’re clean out of the country. And if you’re wise you mighty soon will be. Get out through Swaziland and into German territory if you can, or at any rate keep dark. Halse will be able to help you.”

All this while Denham had been looking at the speaker with a kind of amused curiosity. At the close of the above remark he said —

“What’s the matter with you?”

“What d’you mean?” snarled Stride, who was fast losing his temper.

“Mean? Why, that I’m wondering why you asked me to come out with you to listen to all the nonsense you have just been talking. You’re not drunk, any fool can see that, and yet you fire off some yarn about some Jew found drowned, or murdered, or something, down in the Makanya; and talk about chains and missing links and all sorts of foolishness, and on the strength of it all invite me to ‘skip.’ Really the joke strikes me as an uncommonly thin one.”

“It’ll take the form of an uncommonly thick one,” snarled the other, “and that a rope, dangling over a certain trap-door in Ezulwini gaol. Well, I thought to do you a good turn, came up here mostly to do it, and that’s how you take it. Well, you may swing, and be damned to you.”

Denham lit a fresh cigar. He offered his case to his companion, but it was promptly refused.

“Now let’s prick this bubble,” he said, looking the other fair and straight in the eyes. “From a remark you made in the club the other evening I gathered you wanted to insinuate that I had murdered some one. That, of course, I didn’t take seriously.”

“There may have been others who did, though,” interrupted Stride.

“No matter. Then you roll up here, and suggest that I am wanted as the murderer of some unknown Jew, whose top end appears to have been found in the Makanya bush. You know, if I were less good-natured, you might get into serious trouble over such a thing as that. You insinuated it in the presence of the Halses, too.”

“Meaning an action for slander, I suppose. Go ahead. I defy you to bring it. Do you hear? I defy you to bring it.”

“It isn’t worth while. Still, if you go on spreading these stories all over the country I may be compelled to. It’s one thing to make accusations, but quite another to prove them. To prove them,” he repeated emphatically, with his eyes full upon the other’s, and a sudden hard ring coming into his tone with the last words.

Inwardly Stride was conscious of his first misgiving in the matter. He was as certain in his own mind that the man before him had, for some reason or other, killed the one, part of whose remains had been found, as that the sun shone. But between certainty and proof was a far cry. He was not lawyer enough to know that in such a case as this any evidence that could be got together would be of the circumstantial kind, and not necessarily conclusive, and he had come here with the express object of frightening Denham out of the country altogether. Instead he had found that Denham was not the sort of man to be frightened at all.

“Oh, the proof’ll come right enough,” he answered, with an easiness that was more than half affected. Then seriously, “Look here, you know I’ve no reason exactly to belove you?”

Instantly Denham’s tone softened.

“I think I can guess,” he said, “and cannot but be sorry. But that is all in the fair chances of life. How can I help it?”

“Help it? Damn ‘helping it,’” was the furious reply. “But now, look here. I – with others – am going to make it the business of life to bring this thing home to you. We shall hunt up every scrap and particle of evidence of your movements since you first landed, your every movement. There’s one chance for you and it the last. Clear out – now, at once.”

“Now, really, you make me laugh. Is it in the least likely?”

“What is in the least likely?”

Both started. Verna had come up behind them, but though she had coughed more than once, in the tension of their discussion they had failed to hear her. She had foreseen a quarrel when she saw them go off alone together, and had made up her mind as to the best means of preventing it. And it was perhaps just as well that she had.