Finished

H >> H. Rider Haggard >> Finished


It occurred to me to ask the boy where the horses came from, a
question that he happened to be able to answer, as he had brought
them home when they were bought the year before. Having learned
in what direction the place lay I rode for it at an angle, or
rather for the path that led to it, making the boy run alongside,
holding to my stirrup leather. About three o'clock in the
afternoon I struck this path, or rather track, at a point ten or
twelve miles away from the Temple, and there, just mounting a
rise, met the two horses quietly walking towards me. Had I been
a quarter of an hour later they would have passed and vanished
into a sea of thorn-veld. We caught them without trouble and
once more headed homewards, leading them by their riems.

Reaching the glade where the other two were tied up, we collected
them also and returned to the house, where we arrived at five
o'clock. As everything seemed quiet I put my mare into the
stable, slipped its bit and gave it some forage. Then I went
round the house, and to my great joy found Anscombe and Heda
waiting anxiously, but with nothing to report, and with them
Footsack. Very hastily I swallowed some food, while Footsack
inspanned the horses. In a quarter of an hour all was ready.
Then suddenly, in an inconsequent female fashion, Heda developed
a dislike to leaving her father unburied.

"My dear young lady," I said, "it seems that you must choose
between that and our all stopping to be buried with him."

She saw the point and compromised upon paying him a visit of
farewell, which I left her to do in Anscombe's company, while I
fetched my mare. To tell the truth I felt as though I had seen
enough of the unhappy Marnham, and not for #50 would I have
entered that room again. As I passed the door of the hospital,
leading my horse, I heard the old Kaffir screaming within and
sent the boy who was with me to find out what was the matter with
him. That was the last I saw of either of them, or ever shall
see this side of kingdom come. I wonder what became of them?

When I got back to the front of the house I found the cart
standing ready at the gate, Footsack at the head of the horses
and Heda with Anscombe at her side. It had been neatly packed
during the day by Heda with such of her and our belongings as it
would hold, including our arms and ammunition. The rest, of
course, we were obliged to abandon. Also there were two baskets
full of food, some bottles of brandy and a good supply of
overcoats and wraps. I told Footsack to take the reins, as I
knew him to be a good driver, and helped Anscombe to a seat at
his side, while Heda and the maid Kaatje got in behind in order
to balance the vehicle. I determined to ride, at any rate for
the present.

"Which way, Baas?" asked Footsack.

"Down to the Granite Stream where the wagon stands," I answered.

"That will be through the Yellow-wood Swamp. Can't we take the
other road to Pilgrim's Rest and Lydenburg, or to Barberton?"
asked Anscombe in a vague way, and as I thought, rather
nervously.

"No," I answered, "that is unless you wish to meet those Basutos
who stole the oxen and Dr. Rodd returning, if he means to
return."

"Oh! let us go through the Yellow-wood," exclaimed Heda, who, I
think, would rather have met the devil than Dr. Rodd.

Ah! if I had but known that we were heading straight for that
person, sooner would I have faced the Basutos twice over. But I
did what seemed wisest, thinking that he would be sure to return
with another doctor or a magistrate by the shorter and easier
path which he had followed in the morning. It just shows once
more how useless are all our care and foresight, or how strong is
Fate, have it which way you will.

So we started down the slope, and I, riding behind, noted poor
Heda staring at the marble house, which grew ever more beautiful
as it receded and the roughness of its building disappeared,
especially at that part of it which hid the body of her old scamp
of a father whom still she loved. We came down to the glen and
once more saw the bones of the blue wildebeeste that we had
shot--oh! years and years ago, or so it seemed. Then we struck
out for the Granite Stream.

Before we reached the patch of Yellow-wood forest where I knew
that the cart must travel very slowly because of the trees and
the swampy nature of the ground, I pushed on ahead to
reconnoitre, fearing lest there might be Basutos hidden in this
cover. Riding straight through it I went as far as the deserted
wagon at a sharp canter, seeing nothing and no one. Once indeed,
towards the end of the wood where it was more dense, I thought
that I heard a man cough and peered about me through the gloom,
for here the rays of the sun, which was getting low in the
heavens, scarcely penetrated. As I could perceive no one I came
to the conclusion that I must have been deceived by my fancy. Or
perhaps it was some baboon that coughed, though it was strange
that a baboon should have come to such a low-lying spot where
there was nothing for it to eat.

The place was eerie, so much so that I bethought me of tales of
the ghosts whereby it was supposed to be haunted. Also, oddly
enough, of Anscombe's presentiment which he had fulfilled by
killing a Basuto. Look! There lay his grinning skull with some
patches of hair still on it, dragged away from the rest of the
bones by a hyena. I cantered on down the slope beyond the wood
and through the scattered thorns to the stream on the banks of
which the wagon should be. It had gone, and by the freshness of
the trail, within an hour or two. A moment's reflection told me
what had happened. Having stolen our oxen the Basutos drove them
to the wagon, inspanned them and departed with their loot. On
the whole I was glad to see this, since it suggested that they
had retired towards their own country, leaving our road open.

Turning my horse I rode back again to meet the cart. As I
reached the edge of the wood at the top of the slope I heard a
whistle blown, a very shrill whistle, of which the sound would
travel for a mile or two on that still air. Also I heard the
sound of men's voices in altercation and caught words, such
as--"Let go, or by Heaven--!" then a furious laugh and other
words which seemed to be--"In five minutes the Kaffirs will be
here. In ten you will be dead. Can I help it if they kill you
after I have warned you to turn back?" Then a woman's scream.

Rodd's voice, Anscombe's voice and Kaatje's scream--not Heda's
but Kaatje's!

Then as I rode furiously round the last patch of intervening
trees the sound of a pistol shot. I was out of them now and saw
everything. There was the cart on the further side of a swamp.
The horses were standing still and snorting. Holding the rein of
one of the leaders was Rodd, whose horse also stood close by. He
was rocking on his feet and as I leapt from my mare and ran up, I
saw his face. It was horrible, full of pain and devilish rage.
With his disengaged hand he pointed to Anscombe sitting in the
cart and grasping a pistol that still smoked.

"You've killed me," he said in a hoarse, choking voice, for he
was shot through the lung, "to get her," and he waved his hand
towards Heda who was peering at him between the heads of the two
men. "You are a murderer, as her father was, and as David was
before you. Well, I hope you won't keep her long. I hope you'll
die as I do and break her false heart, you damned thief."

All of this he said in a slow voice, pausing between the words
and speaking ever more thickly as the blood from his wound choked
him. Then of a sudden it burst in a stream from his lips, and
still pointing with an accusing finger at Anscombe, he fell
backwards into the slimy pool behind him and there vanished
without a struggle.

So horrible was the sight that the driver, Footsack, leapt from
the cart, uttering a kind of low howl, ran to Rodd's horse,
scrambled into the saddle and galloped off, striking it with his
fist, where to I do not know. Anscombe put his hand before his
eyes, Heda sank down on the seat in a heap, and the coloured
woman, Kaatje, beat her breast and said something in Dutch about
being accursed or bewitched. Luckily I kept my wits and went to
the horses' heads, fearing lest they should start and drag the
trap into the pool. "Wake up," I said. "That fellow has only
got what he deserved, and you were quite right to shoot him."

"I am glad you think so," answered Anscombe absently. "It was so
like murder. Don't you remember I told you I should kill a man
in this place and about a woman?"

"I remember nothing," I answered boldly, "except that if we stop
here much longer we shall have those Basutos on us. That brute
was whistling to them and holding the horses till they came to
kill us. Pull yourself together, take the reins and follow me."

He obeyed, being a skilful whip enough who, as he informed me
afterwards, had been accustomed to drive a four-in-hand at home.
Mounting my horse, which stood by, I guided the cart out of the
wood and down the slope beyond, till at length we came to our old
outspan where I proposed to turn on to the wagon track which ran
to Pilgrim's Rest. I say proposed, for when I looked up it I
perceived about five hundred yards away a number of armed Basutos
running towards us, the red light of the sunset shining on their
spears. Evidently the scout or spy to whom Rodd whistled, had
called them out of their ambush which they had set for us on the
Pilgrim's Rest road in order that they might catch us if we tried
to escape that way.

Now there was only one thing to be done. At this spot a native
track ran across the little stream and up a steepish slope
beyond. On the first occasion of our outspanning here I had the
curiosity to mount this slope, reflecting as I did so that
although rough it would be quite practicable for a wagon. At the
top of it I found a wide flat plain, almost high-veld, for the
bushes were very few, across which the track ran on. On
subsequent inquiry I discovered that it was one used by the
Swazis and other natives when they made their raids upon the
Basutos, or when bodies of them went to work in the mines.

"Follow me," I shouted and crossed the stream which was shallow
between the little pools, then led the way up the stony slope.
The four horses negotiated it very well and the Cape cart, being
splendidly built, took no harm. At the top I looked back and saw
that the Basutos were following us.

"Flog the horses!" I cried to Anscombe, and off we went at a hand
gallop along the native track, the cart swaying and bumping upon
the rough veld. The sun was setting now, in half an hour it
would be quite dark.

Could we keep ahead of them for that half hour?



CHAPTER IX




FLIGHT





The sun sank in a blaze of glory. Looking back by the light of
its last rays I saw a single native silhouetted against the red
sky. He was standing on a mound that we had passed a mile or
more behind us, doubtless waiting for his companions whom he had
outrun. So they had not given up the chase. What was to be
done? Once it was completely dark we could not go on. We should
lose our way; the horses would get into ant-bear holes and break
their legs. Perhaps we might become bogged in some hollow,
therefore we must wait till the moon rose, which would not be for
a couple of hours.

Meanwhile those accursed Basutos would be following us even in
the dark. This would hamper them, no doubt, but they would keep
the path, with which they were probably familiar, beneath their
feet, and what is more, the ground being soft with recent rain,
they could feel the wheel spoor with their fingers. I looked
about me. Just here another track started off in a nor'-westerly
direction from that which we were following. Perhaps it ran to
Lydenburg; I do not know. To our left, not more than a hundred
yards or so away, the higher veld came to an end and sloped in an
easterly direction down to bush-land below.

Should I take the westerly road which ran over a great plain?
No, for then we might be seen for miles and cut off. Moreover,
even if we escaped the natives, was it desirable we should plunge
into civilization just now and tell all our story, as in that
case we must do. Rodd's death was quite justified, but it had
happened on Transvaal territory and would require a deal of
explanation. Fortunately there was no witness of it, except
ourselves. Yes, there was though--the driver Footsack, if he had
got away, which, being mounted, would seem probable, a man who,
for my part, I would not trust for a moment. It would be an ugly
thing to see Anscombe in the dock charged with murder and
possibly myself, with Footsack giving evidence against us before
a Boer jury who might be hard on Englishmen. Also there was the
body with a bullet in it.

Suddenly there came into my mind a recollection of the very vivid
dream of Zikali which had visited me, and I reflected that in
Zululand there would be little need to trouble about the death of
Rodd. But Zululand was a long way off, and if we were to avoid
the Transvaal, there was only one way of going there, namely
through Swaziland. Well, among the Swazis we should be quite
safe from the Basutos, since the two peoples were at fierce
enmity. Moreover I knew the Swazi chiefs and king very well,
having traded there, and could explain that I came to collect
debts owing to me.

There was another difficulty. I had heard that the trouble
between the English Government and Cetewayo, the Zulu king, was
coming to a head, and that the High Commissioner, Sir Bartle
Frere, talked of presenting him with an ultimatum. It would be
awkward if this arrived while we were in the country, though even
so, being on such friendly terms with the Zulus of all classes, I
did not think that I, or any with me, would run great risks.

All these thoughts rushed through my brain while I considered
what to do. At the moment it was useless to ask the opinion of
the others who were but children in native matters. I and I
alone must take the responsibility and act, praying that I might
do so aright. Another moment and I had made up my mind.

Signing to Anscombe to follow me, I rode about a hundred yards or
more down the nor'-westerly path. Then I turned sharply along a
rather stony ridge of ground, the cart following me all the time,
and came back across our own track, my object being of course
to puzzle any Kaffirs who might spoor us. Now we were on the
edge of the gentle slope that led down to the bush-veld. Over
this I rode towards a deserted cattle kraal built of stones, in
the rich soil of which grew sundry trees; doubtless one of those
which had been abandoned when Mosilikatze swept all this country
on his way north about the year 1838. The way to it was easy,
since the surrounding stones had been collected to build the
kraal generations before. As we passed over the edge of the
slope in the gathering gloom, Heda cried--

"Look!" and pointed in the direction whence we came. Far away a
sheet of flame shot upwards.

"The house is burning," she exclaimed.

"Yes," I said, "it can be nothing else;" adding to myself, "a
good job too, for now there will be no postmortem on old
Marnham."

Who fired the place I never learnt. It may have been the
Basutos, or Marnham's body-servant, or Footsack, or a spark from
the kitchen fire. At any rate it blazed merrily enough
notwithstanding the marble walls, as a wood-lined and thatched
building of course would do. On the whole I suspected the boy,
who may very well have feared lest he should be accused of having
had a hand in his master's death. At least it was gone, and
watching the distant flames I bethought me that with it went all
Heda's past. Twenty-four hours before her father was alive, the
bondservant of Rodd and a criminal. Now he was ashes and Rodd
was dead, while she and the man she loved were free, with all the
world before them. I wished that I could have added that they
were safe. Afterwards she told me that much the same ideas
passed through her own mind.

Dismounting I led the horses into the old kraal through the gap
in the wall which once had been the gateway. It was a large
kraal that probably in bygone days had held the cattle of some
forgotten head chief whose town would have stood on the brow of
the rise; so large that notwithstanding the trees I have
mentioned, there was plenty of room for the cart and horses in
its centre. Moreover, on such soil the grass grew so richly that
after we had slipped their bits, the horses were able to fill
themselves without being unharnessed. Also a little stream from
a spring on the brow ran within a few yards whence, with the help
of Kaatje, a strong woman, I watered them with the bucket which
hung underneath the cart. Next we drank ourselves and ate some
food in the darkness that was now complete. Then leaving Kaatje
to stand at the head of the horses in case they should attempt
any sudden movement, I climbed into the cart, and we discussed
things in low whispers.

It was a curious debate in that intense gloom which, close as our
faces were together, prevented us from seeing anything of each
other, except once when a sudden flare of summer lightning
revealed them, white and unnatural as those of ghosts. On our
present dangers I did not dwell, putting them aside lightly,
though I knew they were not light. But of the alternative as to
whether we should try to escape to Lydenburg and civilization, or
to Zululand and savagery, I felt it to be my duty to speak.

"To put it plainly," said Anscombe in his slow way when I had
finished, "you mean that in the Transvaal I might be tried as a
murderer and perhaps convicted, whereas if we vanish into
Zululand the probability is that this would not happen."

"I mean," I whispered back, "that we might both be tried and, if
Footsack should chance to appear and give evidence, find
ourselves in an awkward position. Also there is another
witness--Kaatje, and for the matter of that, Heda herself. Of
course her evidence would be in our favour, but to make it
understood by a jury she would have to explain a great deal of
which she might prefer not to speak. Further, at the best, the
whole business would get into the English papers, which you and
your relatives might think disagreeable, especially in view of
the fact that, as I understand, you and Heda intend to marry."

"Still I think that I would rather face it out," he said in his
outspoken way, "even if it should mean that I could never return
to England. After all, of what have I to be afraid? I shot this
scoundrel because I was obliged to do so."

"Yes, but it is of this that you may have to convince a jury who
might possibly find a motive in Rodd's past, and your present,
relationship to the same lady. But what has she to say?"

"I have to say," whispered Heda, "that for myself I care nothing,
but that I could never bear to see all these stories about my
poor father raked up. Also there is Maurice to be considered.
It would be terrible if they put him in prison--or worse. Let us
go to Zululand, Mr. Quatermain, and afterwards get out of Africa.
Don't you agree, Maurice?"

"What does Mr. Quatermain think himself?" he answered. "He is
the oldest and by far the wisest of us and I will be guided by
him."

Now I considered and said--

"There is such a thing as flying from present troubles to others
that may be worse, the 'ills we know not of.' Zululand is
disturbed. If war broke out there we might all be killed. On
the other hand we might not, and it ought to be possible for you
to work up to Delagoa Bay and there get some ship home, that is
if you wish to keep clear of British law. I cannot do so, as I
must stay in Africa. Nor can I take the responsibility of
settling what you are to do, since if things went wrong, it would
be on my head. However, if you decide for the Transvaal or Natal
and we escape, I must tell you that I shall go to the first
magistrate we find and make a full deposition of all that has
happened. It is not possible for me to live with the charge of
having been concerned in the shooting of a white man hanging over
me that might be brought up at any time, perhaps when no one was
left in the country to give evidence on my behalf, for then, even
if I were acquitted my name would always be tarnished. In
Zululand, on the other hand, there are no magistrates before whom
I could depose, and if this business should come out, I can
always say that we went there to escape from the Basutos. Now I
am going to get down to see if the horses are all right. Do you
two talk the thing over and make up your minds. Whatever you
agree on, I shall accept and do my best to carry through." Then,
without waiting for an answer, I slipped from the cart.

Having examined the horses, who were cropping all the grass
within reach of them, I crept to the wall of the kraal so as to
be quite out of earshot. The night was now pitch dark, dark as
it only knows how to be in Africa. More, a thunderstorm was
coming up of which that flash of sheet lightning had been a
presage. The air was electric. From the vast bush-clad valley
beneath us came a wild, moaning sound caused, I suppose, by wind
among the trees, though here I felt none; far away a sudden spear
of lightning stabbed the sky. The brooding trouble of nature
spread to my own heart. I was afraid, and not of our present
dangers, though these were real enough, so real that in a few
hours we might all be dead.

To dangers I was accustomed; for years they had been my daily
food by day and by night, and, as I think I have said elsewhere,
I am a fatalist, one who knows full well that when God wants me
He will take me; that is if He can want such a poor, erring
creature. Nothing that I did or left undone could postpone or
hasten His summons for a moment, though of course I knew it to be
my duty to fight against death and to avoid it for as long as I
might, because that I should do so was a portion of His plan.
For we are all part of a great pattern, and the continuance or
cessation of our lives re-acts upon other lives, and therefore
life is a trust.

No, it was of greater things that I felt afraid, things terrible
and imminent which I could not grasp and much less understand. I
understand them now, but who would have guessed that on the issue
of that whispered colloquy in the cart behind me, depended the
fate of a people and many thousands of lives? As I was to learn
in days to come, if Anscombe and Heda had determined upon heading
for the Transvaal, there would, as I believe, have been no Zulu
war, which in its turn meant that there would have been no Boer
Rebellion and that the mysterious course of history would have
been changed.

I shook myself together and returned to the cart.

"Well," I whispered, but there was no answer. A moment later
there came another flash of lightning.

"There," said Heda, "how many do you make it?

"Ninety-eight," he answered.

"I counted ninety-nine," she said, "but anyway it was within the
hundred. Mr. Quatermain, we will go to Zululand, if you please,
if you will show us the way there."

"Right," I answered, "but might I ask what that has to do with
your both counting a hundred?"

"Only this," she said, "we could not make up our minds. Maurice
was for the Transvaal, I was for Zululand. So you see we agreed
that if another flash came before we counted a hundred, we would
go to Zululand, and if it didn't, to Pretoria. A very good way
of settling, wasn't it?"

"Excellent!" I replied, "quite excellent for those who could
think of such a thing."

As a matter of fact I don't know which of them thought of it
because I never inquired. But I did remember afterwards how
Anscombe had tossed with a lucky penny when it was a question
whether we should or should not run for the wagon during our
difficulty by the Oliphant's River; also when I asked him the
reason for this strange proceeding he answered that Providence
might inhabit a penny as well as anything else, and that he
wished to give it--I mean Providence--a chance. How much more
then, he may have argued, could it inhabit a flash of lightning
which has always been considered a divine manifestation from the
time of the Roman Jove, and no doubt far before him.

Forty or fifty generations ago, which is not long, our ancestors
set great store by the behaviour of lightning and thunder, and
doubtless the instinct is still in our blood, in the same way
that all our existing superstitions about the moon come down to
us from the time when our forefathers worshipped her. They did
this for tens of hundreds or thousands of years, and can we
expect a few coatings of the veneer that we politely call
civilization, which after all is only one of our conventions that
vanish in any human stress such as war, to kill out the human
impulse it seems to hide? I do not know, though I have my own
opinion, and probably these young people never reasoned the
matter out. They just acted on an intuition as ancient as that
which had attracted them to each other, namely a desire to
consult the ruling fates by omens or symbols. Or perhaps
Anscombe thought that as his experience with the penny had proved
so successful, he would give Providence another "chance." If so
it took it and no mistake. Confound it! I don't know what he
thought; I only dwell on the matter because of the great results
which followed this consultation of the Sybilline books of
heaven.