A Simpleton

C >> Charles Reade >> A Simpleton


After a pause, the lion roared again, and all the beasts and birds of
prey seemed to know the meaning of that terrible roar. Till then the
place had been a solitude, but now it began to fill in the strangest
way, as if the lord of the forest could call all his subjects together
with a trumpet roar: first came two lion cubs, to whom, in fact, the
roar had been addressed. The lion rubbed himself several times against
the eland, but did not eat a morsel, and the cubs went in and feasted
on the prey. The lion politely and paternally drew back, and watched the
young people enjoying themselves.

Meantime approached, on tiptoe, jackals and hyenas, but dared not come
too near. Slate-colored vultures settled at a little distance, but not
a soul dared interfere with the cubs; they saw the lion was acting
sentinel, and they knew better than come near.

After a time, papa feared for the digestion of those brats, or else his
own mouth watered; for he came up, knocked them head over heels with his
velvet paw, and they took the gentle hint, and ran into the wood double
quick.

Then the lion began tearing away at the eland, and bolting huge morsels
greedily. This made the rabble's mouth water. The hyenas, and jackals,
and vultures formed a circle ludicrous to behold, and that circle kept
narrowing as the lion tore away at his prey. They increased in number,
and at last hunger overcame prudence; the rear rank shoved on the front,
as amongst men, and a general attack seemed imminent.

Then the lion looked up at these invaders, uttered a reproachful growl,
and went at them, patting them right and left, and knocking them over.
He never touched a vulture, nor indeed did he kill an animal. He was a
lion, and only killed to eat; yet he soon cleared the place, because
he knocked over a few hyenas and jackals, and the rest, being active,
tumbled over the vultures before they could spread their heavy wings.
After this warning, they made a respectful circle again, through which,
in due course, the gorged lion stalked into the wood.

A savage's sentiments change quickly, and the Hottentot, fearing little
from a full lion, was now giggling at Staines's side. Staines asked him
which he thought was the lord of all creatures, a man or a lion.

"A lion," said Blacky, amazed at such a shallow question.

Staines now got up, and proposed to continue their journey. But Blacky
was for waiting till the lion was gone to sleep after his meal.

While they discussed the question, the lion burst out of the wood
within hearing of their voices, as his pricked-up ears showed, and made
straight for them at a distance of scarcely thirty yards.

Now, the chances are, the lion knew nothing about them, and only came to
drink at the kloof, after his meal, and perhaps lie under the acacias:
but who can think calmly, when his first lion bursts out on him a few
paces off? Staines shouldered his rifle, took a hasty, flurried aim, and
sent a bullet at him.

If he had missed him, perhaps the report might have turned the lion; but
he wounded him, and not mortally. Instantly the enraged beast uttered
a terrific roar, and came at him with his mane distended with rage, his
eyes glaring, his mouth open, and his whole body dilated with fury.

At that terrible moment, Staines recovered his wits enough to see that
what little chance he had was to fire into the destroyer, not at him. He
kneeled, and levelled at the centre of the lion's chest, and not till he
was within five yards did he fire. Through the smoke he saw the lion in
the air above him, and rolled shrieking into the stream and crawled like
a worm under the bank, by one motion, and there lay trembling. A few
seconds of sick stupor passed: all was silent. Had the lion lost him?
Was it possible he might yet escape?

All was silent.

He listened, in agony, for the sniffing of the lion, puzzling him out by
scent.

No: all was silent.

Staines looked round, and saw a woolly head, and two saucer eyes and
open nostrils close by him. It was the Hottentot, more dead than alive.

Staines whispered him, "I think he is gone."

The Hottentot whispered, "Gone a little way to watch. He is wise as well
as strong." With this he disappeared beneath the water.

Still no sound but the screaming of the vultures, and snarling of the
hyenas and jackals over the eland.

"Take a look," said Staines.

"Yes," said Squat; "but not to-day. Wait here a day or two. Den he
forget and forgive."

Now Staines, having seen the lion lie down and watch the dying eland,
was a great deal impressed by this; and as he had now good hopes of
saving his life, he would not throw away a chance. He kept his head just
above water, and never moved.

In this freezing situation they remained.

Presently there was a rustling that made both crouch.

It was followed by a croaking noise.

Christopher made himself small.

The Hottentot, on the contrary, raised his head, and ventured a little
way into the stream.

By these means he saw it was something very foul, but not terrible.
It was a large vulture that had settled on the very top of the nearest
acacia.

At this the Hottentot got bolder still, and to the great surprise of
Staines began to crawl cautiously into some rushes, and through them up
the bank.

The next moment he burst into a mixture of yelling and chirping and
singing, and other sounds so manifestly jubilant, that the vulture
flapped heavily away, and Staines emerged in turn, but very cautiously.

Could he believe his eyes? There lay the lion, dead as a stone, on his
back, with his four legs in the air, like wooden legs, they were so very
dead: and the valiant Squat, dancing about him, and on him, and over
him.

Staines, unable to change his sentiments so quickly, eyed even the dead
body of the royal beast with awe and wonder. What! had he already laid
that terrible monarch low, and with a tube made in a London shop by men
who never saw a lion spring, nor heard his awful roar shake the air?
He stood with his heart still beating, and said not a word. The shallow
Hottentot whipped out a large knife, and began to skin the king of
beasts. Staines wondered he could so profane that masterpiece of nature.
He felt more inclined to thank God for so great a preservation, and then
pass reverently on, and leave the dead king undesecrated.

He was roused from his solemn thoughts by the reflection that there
might be a lioness about, since there were cubs: he took a piece of
paper, emptied his remaining powder into it, and proceeded to dry it in
the sun. This was soon done, and then he loaded both barrels.

By this time the adroit Hottentot had flayed the carcass sufficiently
to reveal the mortal injury. The projectile had entered the chest, and
slanting upwards, had burst among the vitals, reducing them to a gory
pulp. The lion must have died in the air, when he bounded on receiving
the fatal shot.

The Hottentot uttered a cry of admiration. "Not the lion king of all,
nor even the white man," he said; "but Enfeel rifle!"

Staines's eyes glittered. "You shall have it, and the horse, for your
diamond," said he eagerly.

The black seemed a little shaken; but did not reply. He got out of it
by going on with his lion; and Staines eyed him, and was bitterly
disappointed at not getting the diamond even on these terms. He began to
feel he should never get it: they were near the high-road; he could not
keep the Hottentot to himself much longer. He felt sick at heart. He had
wild and wicked thoughts; half hoped the lioness would come and kill the
Hottentot, and liberate the jewel that possessed his soul.

At last the skin was off, and the Hottentot said, "Me take this to my
kraal, and dey all say, 'Squat a great shooter; kill um lion.'"

Then Staines saw another chance for him, and summoned all his address
for a last effort. "No, Squat," said he, "that skin belongs to me. I
shot the lion, with the only rifle that can kill a lion like a cat. Yet
you would not give me a diamond--a paltry stone for it. No, Squat, if
you were to go into your village with that lion's skin, why the old men
would bend their heads to you, and say, 'Great is Squat! He killed the
lion, and wears his skin.' The young women would all fight which should
be the wife of Squat. Squat would be king of the village."

Squat's eyes began to roll.

"And shall I give the skin, and the glory that is my due, to an
ill-natured fellow, who refuses me his paltry diamond for a
good horse--look at him--and for the rifle that kills lions like
rabbits--behold it; and a hundred pounds in good gold and Dutch
notes--see; and for the lion's skin, and glory, and honor, and a rich
wife, and to be king of Africa? Never!"

The Hottentot's hands and toes began to work convulsively. "Good master,
Squat ask pardon. Squat was blind. Squat will give the diamond, the
great diamond of Africa, for the lion's skin, and the king rifle, and
the little horse, and the gold, and Dutch notes every one of them. Dat
make just two hundred pounds."

"More like four hundred," cried Staines very loud. "And how do I know
it is a diamond? These large stones are the most deceitful. Show it me,
this instant," said he imperiously.

"Iss, master," said the crushed Hottentot, with the voice of a mouse,
and put the stone into his hand with a child-like faith that almost
melted Staines; but he saw he must be firm. "Where did you find it?" he
bawled.

"Master," said poor Squat, in deprecating tones, "my little master at
the farm wanted plaster. He send to Bulteel's pan; dere was large lumps.
Squat say to miners, 'May we take de large lumps? Dey say, 'Yes; take de
cursed lumps we no can break.' We took de cursed lumps. We ride 'em in
de cart to farm twenty milses. I beat 'em with my hammer. Dey is very
hard. More dey break my heart dan I break their cursed heads. One day I
use strong words, like white man, and I hit one large lump too hard; he
break, and out come de white clear stone. Iss, him diamond. Long time we
know him in our kraal, because he hard. Long time before ever white man
know him, tousand years ago, we find him, and he make us lilly hole in
big stone for make wheat dust. Him a diamond, blank my eyes!"

This was intended as a solemn form of asseveration adapted to the white
man's habits.

Yes, reader, he told the truth; and strange to say, the miners knew
the largest stones were in these great lumps of carbonate, but then the
lumps were so cruelly hard, they lost all patience with them, and so,
finding it was no use to break some of them, and not all, they rejected
them all, with curses; and thus this great stone was carted away as
rubbish from the mine, and found, like a toad in a hole, by Squat.

"Well," said Christopher, "after all, you are an honest fellow, and I
think I will buy it; but first you must show me out of this wood; I am
not going to be eaten alive in it for want of the king of rifles."

Squat assented eagerly, and they started at once. They passed the
skeleton of the eland; its very bones were polished, and its head
carried into the wood; and looking back they saw vultures busy on the
lion. They soon cleared the wood.

Squat handed Staines the diamond--when it touched his hand, as his
own, a bolt of ice seemed to run down his back, and hot water to follow
it--and the money, horse, rifle, and skin were made over to Squat.

"Shake hands over it, Squat," said Staines; "you are hard, but you are
honest."

"Iss, master, I a good much hard and honest," said Squat.

"Good-by, old fellow."

"Good-by, master."

And Squat strutted away, with the halter in his hand, horse following
him, rifle under his arm, and the lion's skin over his shoulders, and
the tail trailing, a figure sublime in his own eyes, ridiculous in
creation's. So vanity triumphed, even in the wilds of Africa.

Staines hurried forward on foot, loading his revolver as he went, for
the very vicinity of the wood alarmed him now that he had parted with
his trusty rifle.

That night he lay down on the open veldt, in his jackal's skin, with
no weapon but his revolver, and woke with a start a dozen times. Just
before daybreak he scanned the stars carefully, and noting exactly where
the sun rose, made a rough guess at his course, and followed it till the
sun was too hot; then he crept under a ragged bush, hung up his jackal's
skin, and sweated there, parched with thirst, and gnawed with hunger.
When it was cooler, he crept on, and found water, but no food. He was in
torture, and began to be frightened, for he was in a desert. He found an
ostrich egg and ate it ravenously.

Next day, hunger took a new form, faintness. He could not walk for it;
his jackal's skin oppressed him; he lay down exhausted. A horror seized
his dejected soul. The diamond! It would be his death. No man must so
long for any earthly thing as he had for this glittering traitor. "Oh!
my good horse! my trusty rifle!" he cried. "For what have I thrown you
away? For starvation. Misers have been found stretched over their gold;
and some day my skeleton will be found, and nothing to tell the base
death I died of and deserved; nothing but the cursed diamond. Ay, fiend,
glare in my eyes, do!" He felt delirium creeping over him; and at that a
new terror froze him. His reason, that he had lost once, was he to lose
it again? He prayed; he wept; he dozed, and forgot all. When he woke
again, a cool air was fanning his cheeks; it revived him a little; it
became almost a breeze.

And this breeze, as it happened, carried on its wings the curse of
Africa. There loomed in the north-west a cloud of singular density, that
seemed to expand in size as it drew nearer, yet to be still more
solid, and darken the air. It seemed a dust-storm. Staines took out his
handkerchief, prepared to wrap his face in it, not to be stifled.

But soon there was a whirring and a whizzing, and hundreds of locusts
flew over his head; they were followed by thousands, the swiftest of the
mighty host. They thickened and thickened, till the air looked solid,
and even that glaring sun was blackened by the rushing mass. Birds of
all sorts whirled above, and swooped among them. They peppered Staines
all over like shot. They stuck in his beard, and all over him; they
clogged the bushes, carpeted the ground, while the darkened air sang
as with the whirl of machinery. Every bird in the air, and beast of the
field, granivorous or carnivorous, was gorged with them; and to these
animals was added man, for Staines, being famished, and remembering the
vrow Bulteel, lighted a fire, and roasted a handful or two on a
flat stone; they were delicious. The fire once lighted, they cooked
themselves, for they kept flying into it. Three hours, without
interruption, did they darken nature, and, before the column ceased,
all the beasts of the field came after, gorging them so recklessly, that
Staines could have shot an antelope dead with his pistol within a yard
of him.

But to tell the horrible truth, the cooked locusts were so nice that he
preferred to gorge on them along with the other animals.

He roasted another lot, for future use, and marched on with a good
heart.

But now he got on some rough, scrubby ground, and damaged his shoes, and
tore his trousers.

This lasted a terrible distance; but at the end of it came the usual
arid ground; and at last he came upon the track of wheels and hoofs.
He struck it at an acute angle, and that showed him he had made a good
line. He limped along it a little way, slowly, being footsore.

By and by, looking back, he saw a lot of rough fellows swaggering along
behind him. Then he was alarmed, terribly alarmed, for his diamond; he
tore a strip of his handkerchief, and tied the stone cunningly under his
armpit as he hobbled on.

The men came up with him.

"Hallo, mate! Come from the diggings?"

"Yes."

"What luck?"

"Very good."

"Haw! haw! What! found a fifty-carat? Show it us."

"We found five big stones, my mate and me. He is gone to Cape Town to
sell them. I had no luck when he had left me, so I have cut it; going to
turn farmer. Can you tell me how far it is to Dale's Kloof?"

No, they could not tell him that. They swung on; and, to Staines, their
backs were a cordial, as we say in Scotland.

However, his travels were near an end. Next morning he saw Dale's Kloof
in the distance; and as soon as the heat moderated, he pushed on,
with one shoe and tattered trousers; and half an hour before sunset he
hobbled up to the place.

It was all bustle. Travellers at the door; their wagons and carts under
a long shed.

Ucatella was the first to see him coming, and came and fawned on him
with delight. Her eyes glistened, her teeth gleamed. She patted both
his cheeks, and then his shoulders, and even his knees, and then flew
in-doors crying, "My doctor child is come home!" This amused three
travellers, and brought out Dick, with a hearty welcome.

"But Lordsake, sir, why have you come afoot; and a rough road too? Look
at your shoes. Hallo! What is come of the horse?"

"I exchanged him for a diamond."

"The deuce you did! And the rifle?"

"Exchanged that for the same diamond."

"It ought to be a big 'un."

"It is."

Dick made a wry face. "Well, sir, you know best. You are welcome, on
horse or afoot. You are just in time; Phoebe and me are just sitting
down to dinner."

He took him into a little room they had built for their own privacy, for
they liked to be quiet now and then, being country bred; and Phoebe was
putting their dinner on the table, when Staines limped in.

She gave a joyful cry, and turned red all over. "Oh, doctor!" Then his
travel-torn appearance struck her. "But, dear heart! what a figure!
Where's Reginald? Oh, he's not far off, I know."

And she flung open the window, and almost flew through it in a moment,
to look for her husband.

"Reginald?" said Staines. Then turning to Dick Dale, "Why, he is
here--isn't he?"

"No, sir: not without he is just come with you."

"With me?--no. You know we parted at the diggings. Come, Mr. Dale, he
may not be here now; but he has been here. He must have been here."

Phoebe, who had not lost a word, turned round, with all her high color
gone, and her cheeks getting paler and paler. "Oh, Dick! what is this?"

"I don't understand it," said Dick. "Whatever made you think he was
here, sir?"

"Why, I tell you he left me to come here."

"Left you, sir!" faltered Phoebe. "Why, when?--where?"

"At the diggings--ever so long ago."

"Blank him! that is just like him; the uneasy fool!" roared Dick.

"No, Mr. Dale, you should not say that; he left me, with my consent,
to come to Mrs. Falcon here, and consult her about disposing of our
diamonds."

"Diamonds!--diamonds!" cried Phoebe. "Oh, they make me tremble. How
COULD you let him go alone! You didn't let HIM go on foot, I hope?"

"Oh, no, Mrs. Falcon; he had his horse, and his rifle, and money to
spend on the road."

"How long ago did he leave you, sir?"

"I--I am sorry to say it was five weeks ago."

"Five weeks! and not come yet. Ah! the wild beasts!--the diggers!--the
murderers! He is dead!"

"God forbid!" faltered Staines; but his own blood began to run cold.

"He is dead. He has died between this and the dreadful diamonds. I shall
never see my darling again: he is dead. He is dead."

She rushed out of the room, and out of the house, throwing her arms
above her head in despair, and uttering those words of agony again and
again in every variety of anguish.

At such horrible moments women always swoon--if we are to believe the
dramatists. I doubt if there is one grain of truth in this. Women seldom
swoon at all, unless their bodies are unhealthy, or weakened by the
reaction that follows so terrible a shock as this. At all events,
Phoebe, at first, was strong and wild as a lion, and went to and fro
outside the house, unconscious of her body's motion, frenzied with
agony, and but one word on her lips, "He is dead!--he is dead!"

Dick followed her, crying like a child, but master of himself; he got
his people about her, and half carried her in again; then shut the door
in all their faces.

He got the poor creature to sit down, and she began to rock and moan,
with her apron over her head, and her brown hair loose about her.

"Why should he be dead?" said Dick. "Don't give a man up like that,
Phoebe. Doctor, tell us more about it. Oh, man, how could you let him
out of your sight? You knew how fond the poor creature was of him."

"But that was it, Mr. Dale," said Staines. "I knew his wife must pine
for him; and we had found six large diamonds, and a handful of small
ones; but the market was glutted; and to get a better price, he wanted
to go straight to Cape Town. But I said, 'No; go and show them to your
wife, and see whether she will go to Cape Town.'"

Phoebe began to listen, as was evident by her moaning more softly.

"Might he not have gone straight to Cape Town?" Staines hazarded this
timidly.

"Why should he do that, sir? Dale's Kloof is on the road."

"Only on one road. Mr. Dale, he was well armed, with rifle and revolver;
and I cautioned him not to show a diamond on the road. Who would molest
him? Diamonds don't show, like gold. Who was to know he had three
thousand pounds hidden under his armpits, and in two barrels of his
revolver?"

"Three thousand pounds!" cried Dale. "You trusted HIM with three
thousand pounds?"

"Certainly. They were worth about three thousand pounds in Cape Town,
and half as much again in"--

Phoebe started up in a moment. "Thank God!" she cried. "There's hope for
me. Oh, Dick, he is not dead: HE HAS ONLY DESERTED ME."

And with these strange and pitiable words, she fell to sobbing as if her
great heart would burst at last.




CHAPTER XXIV.


There came a reaction, and Phoebe was prostrated with grief and alarm.
Her brother never doubted now that Reginald had run to Cape Town for a
lark. But Phoebe, though she thought so too, could not be sure; and so
the double agony of bereavement and desertion tortured her by turns, and
almost together. For the first time these many years, she was so crushed
she could not go about her business, but lay on a little sofa in her own
room, and had the blinds down, for her head ached so she could not bear
the light.

She conceived a bitter resentment against Staines; and told Dick never
to let him into her sight, if he did not want to be her death.

In vain Dick made excuses for him: she would hear none. For once she
was as unreasonable as any other living woman: she could see nothing but
that she had been happy, after years of misery, and should be happy now
if this man had never entered her house. "Ah, Collie!" she cried, "you
were wiser than I was. You as good as told me he would make me smart for
lodging and curing him. And I was SO happy!"

Dale communicated this as delicately as he could to Staines. Christopher
was deeply grieved and wounded. He thought it unjust, but he knew it
was natural: he said, humbly, "I feel guilty myself, Mr. Dale; and yet,
unless I had possessed omniscience, what could I do? I thought of her in
all--poor thing! poor thing!"

The tears were in his eyes, and Dick Dale went away scratching his head
and thinking it over. The more he thought, the less he was inclined to
condemn him.

Staines himself was much troubled in mind, and lived on thorns. He
wanted to be off to England; grudged every day, every hour, he spent in
Africa. But Mrs. Falcon was his benefactress; he had been, for months
and months, garnering up a heap of gratitude towards her. He had not
the heart to leave her bad friends, and in misery. He kept hoping Falcon
would return, or write.

Two days after his return, he was seated, disconsolate, gluing garnets
and carbuncles on to a broad tapering bit of lambskin, when Ucatella
came to him and said, "My doctor child sick?"

"No, not sick: but miserable." And he explained to her, as well as he
could, what had passed. "But," said he, "I would not mind the loss of
the diamonds now, if I was only sure he was alive. I think most of poor,
poor Mrs. Falcon."

While Ucatella pondered this, but with one eye of demure curiosity on
the coronet he was making, he told her it was for her--he had not forgot
her at the mines.

"These stones," said he, "are not valued there; but see how glorious
they are!"

In a few minutes he had finished the coronet, and gave it her. She
uttered a chuckle of delight, and with instinctive art, bound it, in a
turn of her hand, about her brow; and then Staines himself was struck
dumb with amazement. The carbuncles gathered from those mines look like
rubies, so full of fire are they, and of enormous size. The chaplet had
twelve great carbuncles in the centre, and went off by gradations into
smaller garnets by the thousand. They flashed their blood-red flames in
the African sun, and the head of Ucatella, grand before, became the head
of the Sphinx, encircled with a coronet of fire. She bestowed a look of
rapturous gratitude on Staines, and then glided away, like the stately
Juno, to admire herself in the nearest glass like any other coquette,
black, brown, yellow, copper, or white.