A Frontier Mystery

“I have a very great favour to ask you, Mr Glanton, and I hardly like doing so after all your kindness to us since yesterday and what has come of it. But – would you mind riding home with us this afternoon. After what has just happened we should feel so much safer if you would.”

I tried to put all the sincerity I could into my reassurances that no one would interfere with them, but apart from my own inclinations a certain anxious look on Aïda Sewin’s face as they waited for my answer decided me.

“Why of course I will if it will be any help to you, Mrs Sewin,” I said, and then again a quick grateful look from the same quarter caused me to tread on air, as I went round to see to the saddling up of the horses – my own among them.

As we took our way down the well worn bush path I could see that the incident of the morning had not been entirely cleared off from the minds of the party. The ladies were inclined to be nervous, and if a horse started and shied at a tortoise or a white snail shell beside the path I believe they more than half expected a crowd of revengeful savages to rush out and massacre them on the spot. However, of course, nothing happened, and we got to the Major’s farm by sundown.

Then I had my reward.

“Will you come and help me water some of the flowers, Mr Glanton?” said Miss Sewin, after we had offsaddled and generally settled ourselves. “No – don’t say you are going back. Mother is very nervous to-night, and I know you are going to add to your kindness to us by sleeping here.”

Again I trod on air – and yet – and yet – I felt that I was acting like a fool. What on earth could come of it – at any rate to my advantage? Yet, again – why not?

“I want you to promise me something, Mr Glanton, will you?” Miss Sewin said, when dusk and the lateness of the hour had put an end to what was to me one of the most delightful half hours I ever remember spending, for we had spent it alone, she chatting in that free and natural manner of hers, I agreeing with everything, as the entrancement of listening to her voice and watching her grace of movement wound itself more and more around me.

“I think I may safely promise you anything, Miss Sewin,” I answered. “Well? What is it?”

“I want you to promise me not to quarrel with my cousin – no matter how rude and provoking he may be.”

“Is that all? Why of course I will.”

“Ah but – you may not find it so easy,” she went on, speaking earnestly, and her wide open glance full on my face. “I have been noticing his behaviour towards you of late, and admiring your forbearance. But as a personal favour to myself, don’t quarrel with him.”

“Oh, I still think that’ll be an easy promise to keep,” I said; and yet, the very fact that she was so anxious on the subject seemed to make the other way. Why was she?

She shook her head slightly and smiled, as though reading my thoughts.

“You see, we are all so friendly together, are we not?” she said. “And a man of your experience and good sense can afford to put up with a good deal from a mere boy who hasn’t much of either.”

“Why of course,” I answered easily, and reassured by her tactful explanation. Yet – was Falkner such “a mere boy” after all?

Chapter Nine.

Hensley’s next-of-kin

It is a strange, and I suppose a wholesomely-humiliating thing that we are appointed to go through life learning how little we know ourselves. Here was I, a man no longer young, with considerable experience of the ways of the world, rough and smooth, and under the fixed impression that if there was one man in the said wide and wicked world whom I knew thoroughly, in and out, from the crown of his hat to the soles of his boots – or velschoenen, as the case might be – that man was Godfrey Glanton, trader in the Zulu. And yet I had lived to learn that I didn’t know him at all.

For instance the happy-go-lucky, free-and-easy, semi-lonely life that had satisfied me for so many years seemed no longer satisfying; yet why not, seeing that all its conditions prevailed as before? I had enough for my needs, and if I didn’t make a fortune out of my trade, whether stationary or from time to time peripatetic, I had always made a steady profit. Now, however, it came home to me that this was a state of things hardly the best for a man to live and die in.

Again why not? I had seen contemporaries of my own – men circumstanced like myself who had come to the same conclusion. They had left it – only to come to grief in unfamiliar undertakings. Or they had married; only to find that they had better have elected to go through the rest of life with a chain and ball hung round their necks, than strapped to some nagging woman full of affectations and ailments – and raising a brood of progeny far more likely to prove a curse to them than anything else; thanks to the holy and gentle maternal influence aforesaid. All this I had seen, and yet, here I was, feeling restless and unsatisfied because for several days the recollection of a certain sweet and refined face, lit up by a pair of large, appealing eyes, had haunted my solitary hours.

It was that time since I had seen my neighbours. I had heard of them through my usual sources of information, and they seemed to me to be getting along all right; wherefore I had forborne to pay another visit lest it might have the appearance of “hanging around.” And by way of combating an inclination to do so now, I made up my mind to carry out a deferred intention, viz., pay a visit to Hensley’s place.

Tyingoza had been over to see me a couple of times, but made no allusion whatever to Falkner Sewin’s act of boyish idiocy: presumably rating it at its proper standard. But, I noticed that he wore a new head-ring. However, I hoped that was an incident forgotten; and as I heard nothing to the contrary, and my trade ran on as usual, I made no further reference to it either to Tyingoza or anybody else.

I arrived at the scene of Hensley’s disappearance about mid-day. The homestead stood in a long, narrow valley, thickly bushed. Behind, and almost overhanging it, was a great krantz whose smooth ironstone wall glowed like a vast slab of red-hot metal. The place was wild and picturesque to a degree, but – oh so hot!

Two men in shirts and trousers were playing quoits as I came up. I didn’t know either of them by sight.

“Good day,” said one of them, knocking off his play, and coming up. “Off-saddle won’t you? Dashed hot, isn’t it?”

“Thanks. I’m Glanton, from Isipanga,” I said in answer to his look of enquiry.

“Oh. Glad to know you, Glanton. I’m Kendrew, from nowhere in particular, at least not just now, price of transport being too sleg for anything.”

“Oh, you ride transport then? How many waggons?”

“Three in good times – one in bad; none in worse – as in the present case. This is Sergeant Simcox, of the N.M.P.,” introducing the other man, whom I noticed wore uniform trousers and boots. “He’s been helping me to look for my poor old uncle, you know.”

“Oh, Hensley was your uncle, was he?”

“Rather. But I’m next-of-kin – so if he’s not found I take. See?” with a comprehensive wink and jerk of the head which took in the surroundings.

I couldn’t help laughing at his coolness. He was a tall, rather good-looking young fellow, all wire and whipcord, with a chronically whimsical expression. The police sergeant was a hard bitten looking customer, typical of his line in life.

“Now what do you think of the affair?” I said. “Did you know Hensley well?”

“Hanged if I did. He didn’t like me. Did you?”

“Not very. I used to ride over and look him up now and again. But I can’t imagine him doing anything mysterious. In fact I should say he’d be the last man in the world to do it.”

“Ja. I don’t know what to think of it. I’ve been running the place since I heard of the affair – luckily I wasn’t on the road just then so was able to. You’ll stop and have some scoff of course – you too, sergeant?”

“Wish I could,” said the latter, “but it’s against rules. Must get back to my camp.”

“Hang rules. Who’s to know? Glanton here won’t split.”

He was right, wherefore I forbear to say whether Sergeant Simcox made the third at that festive board or not.

We talked of trade and transport-riding and frontier matters generally, but surprisingly little of the matter that had brought me there. In fact Kendrew rather seemed to shirk the subject; not in any sort of suspicious manner let me explain, but rather as if he thought the whole thing a bore, and a very great one at that.

“You see, Glanton,” he explained, presumably detecting a surprised look on my face, called there by the exceedingly light way in which he was taking things. “You see it isn’t as if we had had a lot to do with each other. Of course I don’t for a moment hope that the poor old boy has come to grief, in fact I can’t help feeling that he may turn up any moment and want to know what the devil I’ve taken up my quarters at his place for, in this free and easy way.”

After a good dinner, washed down with a glass or so of grog, we went to look at the place where the missing man had slept. This didn’t help towards any theory. If there had been foul play, whoever had been concerned in it had removed all traces long ago.

“A good hound, requisitioned at first, would have done something towards clearing up the mystery,” I said.

“Yes, but you might as well have requisitioned a good elephant, for all you’d get either round here,” laughed Kendrew. “Well, I shall just give it up as a bad job and leave it to Simcox. That’s what he draws his pay for. I’ll just sit tight and boss up things so long. That’s my job.”

“I’d like to have a word or two with the boy who saw him last,” I said. “Alone I mean.”

“Think you can get him to talk, eh? Well perhaps you may – I’ve heard of you, Glanton, and what a chap you are for managing Kafirs. All right, stop on till this evening, the boy’s out herding now. Then you can indaba him to your heart’s content after supper. You’ll stay the night of course.”

But I urged that such was not in my programme, and in fact I had some business to attend to next day irrespective of mere retail trade in the store. So we compromised by my consenting to remain till evening. There was sufficient moon for me to ride home by even if it rose somewhat late. I suggested that we should ride out into the veldt in the afternoon and I could interview the boy there. He would talk more freely that way, and Kendrew agreed.

The boy was a quiet, decent looking youngster, and was herding his flock in most exemplary fashion. I asked him his name.

“Pecamane, ’Nkose!”

“Have I seen you before?”

“More than once, Nkose. At Isipanga, at the store. Then again, when we danced and ate beef.”

“Ah. You were there then? Who is your chief?”

“Tyingoza, Nkose.”

Kendrew had ridden on, leaving me alone with the boy.

“Well then,” I said, “if Tyingoza is your chief you will be safe in telling me the story of your master’s ‘who is no longer here.’”

“Ou! Nkose. The only story I have to tell is what I told to the Amapolise, and he who now sits here” – meaning Kendrew. “But it is no story.”

He was right there, in that like the tale of the empty bottle there was nothing in it. His master had given him some final orders after supper, and he had gone over to the huts for the night. He was employed in the stable then.

And no one had opened the stable?

No, it was locked, and his master had the key. They had been obliged to break open the door in the morning to get at the horses.

There you see, there was nothing in this story, but then I had never expected there would be. What I wanted was to watch the face and note the manner of its narrator. This I had done, and keenly, with the result that I felt convinced that the boy knew no more about Hensley’s disappearance than I did myself. Upon this the police sergeant subsequently waxed somewhat superior. He resented the idea that what had baffled the wit of the police and native detectives combined might stand the slightest chance of being cleared up by me. However I didn’t take offence, although my opinion of the abilities of his force was but medium, and that of the native detectives nowhere, though this applied more to their morality than ingenuity. It happened that I was in a position to know something of the methods of the latter in “getting up” cases.

“Well good-bye, Glanton,” said Kendrew, as we shook hands. “Devilish glad you came over in a friendly way. And, I say – mind you repeat the operation and that often. I like a jolly, good sort of neighbourly neighbour.”

I promised him I would, as I climbed into the saddle – and the great krantz seemed to echo back our cheery good-bye in ghostly refrain.

I liked Kendrew, I decided as I rode along. He struck me as a lively, cheery sort of fellow with lots of fun in him, and not an atom of harm. Decidedly as a neighbour he would be an improvement on his poor old relative, who although a good chap enough had always been a bit of a fossil. That’s one of the advantages of the up-country or frontier life, you take a man as you find him and no make believe, or stiffness or ceremony. If he’s a good fellow he is, and all the better. If he isn’t why then he isn’t, and you needn’t have any more to do with him than you want, or make any pretence about it.

In the solitude as I took my way through the thorns the recollection of Hensley came upon me again, and I confess, as I thought upon it there, under the midnight moon – for I had started back rather later than I had intended – a sort of creepy feeling came over me. What the deuce had become of the man? If he had got a fit of mental aberration, and taken himself off, he would have left some spoor, yet no sign of any had been lighted upon by those who had again and again made diligent search. I looked around. The bush sprays seemed to take on all manner of weird shapes; and once my horse, shying and snorting at a big hare, squatting up on its haunches like a big idiot, bang in the middle of the path, gave me quite an unpleasant start. The black brow of the krantz cut the misty, star-speckled skyline now receding on my left behind – and then – my horse gave forth another snort and at the same time shied so violently as to have unseated me, but that my nerves were – again I confess it – at something of an abnormal tension.

A figure was stealing along in the not very distinct moonlight; a human figure or – was it? Suddenly it stopped, half in shadow.

“Hi! Hallo! Who’s that,” I sung out.

There was no answer. Then I remembered that with my mind running upon Hensley I had used English. Yet the figure was that of a native. It wanted not the blackness of it in the uncertain light; the stealthy, sinuous movement of it was enough to show that. Yet, this certainty only enhanced the mystery. Natives are not wont to prowl about after dark with no apparent object, especially alone. In the first place they have a very whole-hearted dread of the night side of Nature – in the next such a proceeding is apt to gain for them more than a suspicion of practising the arts of witchcraft – a fatal reputation to set up yonder beyond the river, and, I hesitate not to assert, a very dangerous one to gain even here on the Queen’s side.

The figure straightened up, causing my fool of a horse to snort and describe further antics. Then a voice:

“Inkose! Iqalaqala. Be not afraid. It is only Ukozi, who watches over the world while the world sleeps – ah – ah! while the world sleeps.”

I must own to feeling something of a thrill at the name. This Ukozi was a diviner, or witch doctor, whose reputation was second to none among the Natal border tribes – ay and a great deal wider – and that is saying a good deal. Now of course the very mention of a witch doctor should arouse nothing but contemptuous merriment; yet the pretentions of the class are not all humbug by any means, indeed I have known a good few white men – hard bitten, up-country going men with no nonsense or superstition about them – who never fail to treat a genuine native witch doctor with very real consideration indeed.

“Greeting, father of mystery,” I answered, with some vague idea that the meeting all so unexpected and somewhat weird, might yet be not without its bearings on the fate of Hensley. “You are bent upon múti indeed, when the world is half through its dark time and the moon is low.”

“M-m!” he hummed. “The moon is low. Just so, Iqalaqala. You will not go home to-night.”

“Not go home!” I echoed, meaning to humour him, and yet, in my innermost self, conscious that there was a very real note of curiosity that could only come of whole, or partial, belief in the question. “And why should I not go home to-night?”

He shrugged his shoulders impressively. Then he said:

“Who may tell? But – you will not.”

I tried to laugh good-humouredly, but it was not genuine. Yet was not the thing absurd? Here was I, letting myself be humbugged – almost scared – by an old charlatan of a witch doctor, a fellow who made a comfortable living out of his credulous countrymen by fooling them with charms and spells and omens, and all sorts of similar quackery – I, a white man, with – I haven’t mentioned it before – an English public school education.

“Here, my father,” I said, producing a goodly twist of roll tobacco. “This is good – always good – whether by a comfortable fire, or searching for múti materials under the moon.”

He received it, in the hollow of both hands, as the native way is. I saw before me in the moonlight what was not at all the popular conception of the witch doctor – a little shrivelled being with furtive, cunning looks, and snaky eyes. No. This was a middle-aged man of fine stature, and broadly and strongly built: destitute too of charms or amulets in the way of adornments. His head-ring glistened in the moonlight, and for all clothing he wore the usual mútya. In fact the only peculiarity about him was that he had but one eye.

“What has become of Nyamaki?” I said, filling and lighting my pipe.

“U’ Nyamaki? Has he gone then?” was the answer which, of course, was a bit of assumed ignorance.

“Now how can the father of wisdom ask such a question?” I said. “He – to whom nothing is dark!”

Ukozi’s face was as a mask. He uttered a single grunt – that was all.

“The whites will offer large reward to the man who finds him,” I went on.

“Will he who sits yonder” – meaning my recent entertainer – “offer large reward?” was the answer, a sudden whimsical flash illuminating the dark, impassive face.

“That I cannot say. But I should think it probable. And now you are seeking midnight múti so as to obtain such reward. Take care,” I went on, chaffing him. “To wander at midnight would not be safe la pa,” pointing in the direction of the Zulu country. “But here we are under the Queen.”

“The Queen! Au! Even the Queen cannot do everything.”

“She just about can though,” I answered decisively.

“Can she find Nyamaki?” he said, putting his head on one side.

This was a facer. I didn’t know what the deuce to answer. While I was hesitating he went on:

“Au! Well, Iqalaqala, turn back and make your bed with him yonder, for you will not go home to-night Hamba gahle.”

“Hlala gahle, father of mystery,” I answered lightly touching my horse with the spur.

You will think it strange I should make so light of his warning, yet as I resumed my way up the valley, no thought of material danger came into my mind as I pondered over it. I would show him that wise as he was, and great his reputation, yet he did not know everything. I would have the crow of him next time we met, when —

My horse had suddenly cocked his ears, then uttering a loud snort he stopped dead – so suddenly indeed that I as nearly as possible pitched over his head. Yet, there was nothing in sight.

The path, here rather steep, narrowed between high thick bush, just over which on either hand, rose two straight but entirely insignificant krantzes.

“He has seen a snake, a big mamba perhaps,” I decided. “Well, let the brute crawl away, as he’s sure to do if alarmed. Then we’ll get on again.”

But we didn’t. I shouted a little, and swished at the bushes with my whip. Then I spurred my horse forward again. The confounded animal wouldn’t budge.

“Here, this won’t do,” I said to myself feeling angry. Then I got off. If the fool wouldn’t go in the ordinary way perhaps he would lead. Would he? Not a bit of it; on the contrary he rucked back at his bridle so violently as nearly to tear it out of my hand. I got into the saddle again.

“Now you’ve got to go, damn it!” I growled, letting him have both rowels till I thought I could hear the bones squeak.

In response he first plunged violently, then kicked, then reared, finally slewing round so quickly as nearly to unseat me. And now I became aware of a strange sickly scent, almost like that of a drug – yet how could it be? Then, as it grew stronger, it took on a vile effluvium as of something dead. Yet; I had passed over that very spot but a few hours back, and nothing of the kind had been there then. The horse was now standing quite still, his head towards the way we had come, all in a sweat and trembling violently.

And now I own that some of his scare began to take hold of me. What did it mean – what the very deuce did it mean? What infernal witchcraft was this that could hold me up here on a path I had ridden several times before, on this identical horse too? Yet, here in the still ghostly midnight hour alone, the affair began to grow dashed creepy. I made one more attempt, and that a half-hearted one – then giving the horse the rein let him take his own way, and that way was straight back to Kendrew’s.

Some thought of making a détour, and passing the bewitched point by taking a wide sweep, came into my mind, but that would have involved some infernally rough travelling, besides the moon wouldn’t last much longer, and who could say whether the result might not turn out the same, for by now the witch doctor’s declaration had carried its full weight. So I was soon knocking Kendrew out of his first sleep, with literally a lame excuse to the effect that my steed had gone lame, and it was no use trying to get over two hours of rough road with him that night.

“All right, old chap,” sung out Kendrew, in a jolly voice, as he let me in. “Have a glass of grog first, and then we’ll take him round to the stable. You can turn in in any room you like.”

I hoped he wouldn’t notice that neither then nor on the following morning did my horse show the slightest sign of lameness. But I had made up my mind to say no word to him of what had occurred – and didn’t.

Chapter Ten.

Falkner Pugnacious

“Well but – who are you? What’s your name? Ain’t ashamed of it, are you?”

“Ashamed of it? I’ll darned soon let you know if I am or not, and teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head into the bargain.”

Such was the dialogue that came to my ears very early on the morning following the events just recorded. The voices were right in front of my window and I chuckled, for I knew them both – knew one for that of my present host, the other for that of no less a personage than Falkner Sewin.

I repeat, I chuckled, for there was a side of the situation which appealed to my sense of humour. Falkner Sewin’s temper and dignity alike were ruffled. There was going to be a row. Falkner had long wanted taking down a peg. It was highly probable that the said lowering process would now be effected.

In about a moment I was at the window. The contending parties, by neither of whom was I observed, were drawn up in battle array. Falkner, who had apparently just arrived on horseback, had dismounted, and was advancing upon Kendrew in a sort of prize ring attitude. The latter for his part, simply stood and waited, his face wearing an expression of indifference that might be extremely provoking. No, I was not going to interfere – not yet. A little bloodletting would do Falkner no harm – or, for the matter of that, either of them.

“Come on,” sung out the latter. “Come on, can’t you. Not afraid, are you?”

“Not much. I’m waiting for you.”

Then they went at it – hammer and tongs. Falkner had science – I could see that – but Kendrew was as hard as nails, and a precious tough customer to handle, and made up for his lack of science by consummate coolness; and with an eye keen as a hawk’s whenever he saw his chance, he confined himself so far to standing his ground, the while Falkner waltzed round him, for all the world like a dog on the seashore when yapping round some big crab which he doesn’t feel quite equal to closing in upon. For a little while I watched these manoeuvres in a state of semi-choke for stifled laughter, till they got to work in earnest, and then, by Jingo, it was no child’s play.