Chapter II.

Chapter II.


Under a group of tall straggling trees among the grass and low scrub, on the banks of an almost dried up river bed, a small camp had been pitched.



Three or four fires were burning about the camp in different parts, three cooking the mealies and rice which formed the diet of the men, their stock of tinned meats having been exhausted; while the fourth, which was watched by a native boy, contained the more appetising meal of the Captain.





"Now what I say is this," he brought his hand down on the red sand; "here we are with about one half teaspoon of Dop given us at night, while he has ten empty champagne bottles lying behind his tent. And we have to live on the mealies we're convoying for the horses, while he has pati and beef, and lives like a lord! It's all very well for the regulars; they know what they're in for, and they've got gentlemen over them anyhow, and one can stomach anything if you know what kind of a fellow you've got over you. English officers are gentlemen, anyhow; or if one was under Selous now–"

"Oh, Selous's a MAN!" broke out the other two, taking their pipes from their mouths.

"Yes, well, that's what I say. But these fellows, who couldn't do as farmers, and couldn't do as shopkeepers, and God knows what else; and their friends in England didn't want to have them; they're sent out here to boss it over us! It's a damned shame! Why, I want to know, amn't I as good as any of these fellows, who come swelling it about here? Friends got money, I suppose!" He cast his sharp glance over towards the bell tent. "If they gave us real English officers now–"

"Ah!" said the biggest of his companions, who, in spite of his huge form, had something of the simplicity and good nature of a child in his handsome face; "it's because you're not a big enough swell, you know! He'll be a colonel, or a general, before we've done with him. I call them all generals or colonels up here; it's safest, you know; if they're not that today they will be tomorrow!"




"What business had he to listen? What's all this fine administration they talk of? It's six years since I came to this country, and I've worked like a nigger ever since I came, and what have I, or any men who've worked hard at real, honest farming, got for it? Everything in the land is given away for the benefit of a few big folks over the water or swells out here. If England took over the Chartered Company tomorrow, what would she find?– everything of value in the land given over to private concessionaires– they'll line their pockets if the whole land goes to pot! It'll be the jackals eating all the flesh off the horse's bones, and calling the lion in to lick the bones."

"Oh, you wait a bit and you'll be squared," said the handsome man. "I've been here five years and had lots of promises, though I haven't got anything else yet; but I expect it to come some day, so I keep my mouth shut! If they asked me to sign a paper, that Mr. Over-the-Way"–he nodded towards the bell tent–"never got drunk or didn't know how to swear, I'd sign it, if there was a good dose of squaring to come after it. I could stand a good lot of that sort of thing–squaring–if it would only come my way."

The men laughed in a dreary sort of way, and the third man, who had not spoken yet, rolled round on to his back, and took the pipe from his mouth.

"I tell you what," said the keen man, "those of us up here who have got a bit of land and are trying honestly and fairly to work, are getting pretty sick of this humbugging fighting. If we'd had a few men like the Curries and Bowkers of the old days up here from the first, all this would never have happened. And there's no knowing when a reason won't turn up for keeping the bloody thing on or stopping it off for a time, to break out just when one's settled down to work. It's a damned convenient thing to have a war like this to turn on and off."

Slowly the third man keeled round on to his stomach again: "Let resignation wait. We fight the Matabele again tomorrow," he said, sententiously.


"I'm always expecting," said the big handsome man, "to have a paper come round, signed by all the nigger chiefs, saying how much they love the B.S.A. Company, and how glad they are the Panjandrum has got them, and how awfully good he is to them; and they're going to subscribe to the brazen statue. There's nothing a man can't be squared to do."

The third man lay on his back again, lazily examining his hand, which he held above his face. "What's that in the Bible," he said, slowly, "about the statue, whose thighs and belly were of brass, and its feet of mud?"

"I don't know much about the Bible," said the keen man, "I'm going to see if my pot isn't boiling over. Won't yours burn?"

"No, I asked the Captain's boy to keep an eye on it–but I expect he won't. Do you put the rice in with the mealies?"



A great stillness settled down on the camp. Now and again a stick cracked in the fires, and the cicadas cried aloud in the tree stems; but except where the solitary paced up and down before the little flat-topped tree in front of the captain's tent, not a creature stirred in the whole camp; and the snores of the trooper under the bushes might be heard half across the camp.

The intense midday heat had settled down.


He came up to the Colonial, and dropped the bird before him. "That is all I've got," he said.


The Colonial raised his head; and without taking his elbows from the ground took up the bird. "I'll put it into the pot; it'll give it the flavour of something except weevily mealies"; he said, and fell to plucking it.


"Knocked up, eh?" said the Colonial, glancing kindly up at him. 'I've a few drops in my flask still."

"Oh, no, I can stand it well enough. It's only a little warm." He gave a slight cough, and laid his head down sideways on his arm. His eyes watched mechanically the Colonial's manipulation of the bird. He had left England to escape phthisis; and he had gone to Mashonaland because it was a place where he could earn an open-air living, and save his parents from the burden of his support.

"What's Halket doing over there?" he asked suddenly, raising his head.

"Weren't you here this morning?" asked the Colonial. "Didn't you know they'd had a devil of a row?"

"Who?" asked the Englishman, half raising himself on his elbows.

"Halket and the Captain." The Colonial paused in the plucking. "My God, you never saw anything like it!"

The Englishman sat upright now, and looked keenly over the bushes where Halket's bent head might be seen as he paced to and fro.

"What's he doing out there in this blazing sun?"

"He's on guard," said the Colonial. "I thought you were here when it happened. It's the best thing I ever saw or heard of in my whole life!" He rolled half over on his side and laughed at the remembrance. "You see, some of the men went down into the river, to look for fresh pools of water, and they found a nigger, hidden away in a hole in the bank, not five hundred yards from here! They found the bloody rascal by a little path he tramped down to the water, trodden hard, just like a porcupine's walk. They got him in the hole like an aardvark, with a bush over the mouth, so you couldn't see it. He'd evidently been there a long time, the floor was full of bones of fish he'd caught in the pool, and there was a bit of root like a stick half gnawed through. He'd been potted, and got two bullet wounds in the thigh; but he could walk already. It's evident he was just waiting till we were gone, to clear off after his people. He'd got that beastly scurvy look a nigger gets when he hasn't had anything to eat for a long time.

"Well, they hauled him up before the Captain, of course; and he blew and swore, and said the nigger was a spy, and was to be hanged tomorrow; he'd hang him tonight, only the big troop might catch us up this evening, so he'd wait to hear what the Colonel said; but if they didn't come he'd hang him first thing tomorrow morning, or have him shot, as sure as the sun rose. He made the fellows tie him up to that little tree before his tent, with riems round his legs, and riems round his waist, and a riem round his neck."

"What did the native say?" asked the Englishman.

"Oh, he didn't say anything. There wasn't a soul in the camp could have understood him if he had. The coloured boys don't know his language. I expect he's one of those bloody fellows we hit the day we cleared the bush out yonder; but how he got down that bank with his leg in the state it must have been, I don't know. He didn't try to fight when they caught him; just stared in front of him–fright, I suppose. He must have been a big strapping devil before he was taken down.

"Well, I tell you, we'd just got him fixed up, and the Captain was just going into his tent to have a drink, and we chaps were all standing round, when up steps Halket, right before the Captain, and pulls his front lock– you know the way he has? Oh, my God, my God, if you could have seen it! I'll never forget it to my dying day!" The Colonial seemed bursting with internal laughter. "He begins, 'Sir, may I speak to you?' in a formal kind of way, like a fellow introducing a deputation; and then all of a sudden he starts off–oh, my God, you never heard such a thing! It was like a boy in Sunday-school saying up a piece of Scripture he's learnt off by heart, and got all ready beforehand, and he's not going to be stopped till he gets to the end of it."

"What did he say," asked the Englishman.

"Oh, he started, How did we know this nigger was a spy at all; it would be a terrible thing to kill him if we weren't quite sure; perhaps he was hiding there because he was wounded. And then he broke out that, after all, these niggers were men fighting for their country; we would fight against the French if they came and took England from us; and the niggers were brave men, 'please sir'–(every five minutes he'd pull his forelock, and say, 'please sir!')–'and if we have to fight against them we ought to remember they're fighting for freedom; we shouldn't shoot wounded prisoners when they were black if we wouldn't shoot them if they were white!' And then he broke out pure unmitigated Exeter Hall! You never heard anything like it! All men were brothers, and God loved a black man as well as a white; Mashonas and Matabele were poor ignorant folk, and we had to take care of them. And then he started out, that we ought to let this man go; we ought to give him food for the road, and tell him to go back to his people, and tell them we hadn't come to take their land but to teach them and love them. 'It's hard to love a nigger, Captain, but we must try it; we must try it!'–And every five minutes he'd break out with, 'And I think this is a man I know, Captain; I'm not sure, but I think he comes from up Lo Magundis way!'–as if any born devil cared whether a bloody nigger came from Lo Magundis or anywhere else! I'm sure he said it fifteen times. And then he broke out, 'I don't mean that I'm better than you or anybody else, Captain; I'm as bad a man as any in camp, and I know it.' And off he started, telling us all the sins he'd ever committed; and he kept on, 'I'm an unlearned, ignorant man, Captain; but I must stand by this nigger; he's got no one else!' And then he says–'If you let me take him up to Lo Magundis, sir, I'm not afraid; and I'll tell the people there that it's not their land and their women that we want, it's them to be our brothers and love us. If you'll only let me go, sir, I'll go and make peace; give the man to me, sir!'" The Colonial shook with laughter.

"What did the Captain say?" asked the Englishman.

"The Captain; well, you know the smallest thing sets him off swearing all round the world; but he just stood there with his arms hanging down at each side of him, and his eyes staring, and his face getting redder and redder: and all he could say was, 'My Gawd! my Gawd!' I thought he'd burst. And Halket stood there looking straight in front of him, as though he didn't see a soul of us all there."

"What did the Captain do?"

"Oh, as soon as Halket turned away he started swearing, but he got the tail of one oath hooked on to the head of another. It was nearly as good as Halket himself. And when he'd finished and got sane a bit, he said Halket was to walk up and down there all day and keep watch on the nigger. And he gave orders that if the big troop didn't come up tonight, that he was to be potted first thing in the morning, and that Halket was to shoot him."

The Englishman started: "What did Halket say?"

"Nothing. He's been walking there with his gun all day."


"Is the nigger hanging there now?"

"Yes. The Captain said no one was to go near him, or give him anything to eat or drink all day: but–" The Colonial glanced round where the trooper lay under the bushes; and then lowering his voice added, "This morning, a couple of hours ago, Halket sent the Captain's coloured boy to ask me for a drink of water. I thought it was for Halket himself, and the poor devil must be hot walking there in the sun, so I sent him the water out of my canvas bag. I went along afterwards to see what had become of my mug; the boy had gone, and there, straight in front of the Captain's tent, before the very door, was Halket letting that bloody nigger drink out of my mug. The riem was so tight round his neck he couldn't drink but slowly, and there was Halket holding it up to him! If the Captain had looked out! W-h-e-w! I wouldn't have been Halket!"

"Do you think he will try to make Halket do it?" asked the Englishman.

"Of course he will. He's the Devil in; and Halket had better not make a fuss about it, or it'll be the worse for him."

"His time's up tomorrow evening!"


"It's hardly sport to shoot a man tied up neck and legs," said the Englishman; his finely drawn eyebrows contracting and expanding a little.

"Oh, they don't feel, these niggers, not as we should, you know. I've seen a man going to be shot, looking full at the guns, and falling like that!– without a sound. They've no feeling, these niggers; I don't suppose they care much whether they live or die, not as we should, you know."


"They have no right to order Halket to do it–and he will not do it!" said the Englishman slowly.

"You're not going to be such a fool as to step in, are you?" said the Colonial, looking curiously at him. "It doesn't pay. I've made up my mind never to speak whatever happens. What's the good? Suppose one were to make a complaint now about this affair with Halket, if he's made to shoot the nigger against his will; what would come of it? There'd be half-a- dozen fellows here squared to say what headquarters wanted–not to speak of a fellow like that"–turning his thumb in the direction of the sleeping trooper–"who are paid to watch. I believe he reports on the Captain himself to the big headquarters. All one's wires are edited before they go down; only what the Company wants to go, go through. There are many downright good fellows in this lot; but how many of us are there, do you think, who could throw away all chance of ever making anything in Mashonaland, for the sake of standing by Halket; even if he had a real row with the Company? I've a great liking for Halket myself, he's a real good fellow, and he's done me many a good turn–took my watch only last night, because I was off colour; I'd do anything for him in reason. But, I say this flatly, I couldn't and wouldn't fly in the face of the authorities for him or anyone else. I've my own girl waiting for me down in the Colony, and she's been waiting for me these five years. And whether I'm able to marry her or not depends on how I stand with the Company: and I say, flatly, I'm not going to fall out with it. I came here to make money, and I mean to make it! If other people like to run their heads against stone walls, let them: but they mustn't expect me to follow them. This isn't a country where a man can say what he thinks."

The Englishman rested his elbows on the ground. "And the Union Jack is supposed to be flying over us."

"Yes, with a black bar across it for the Company," laughed the Colonial.

"Do you ever have the nightmare?" asked the Englishman suddenly.

"I? Oh yes, sometimes"; he looked curiously at his companion; "when I've eaten too much, I get it."

"I always have it since I came up here," said the Englishman. "It is that a vast world is resting on me–a whole globe: and I am a midge beneath it. I try to raise it, and I cannot. So I lie still under it–and let it crush me!"

"It's curious you should have the nightmare so up here," said the Colonial; "one gets so little to eat."



He walked away towards the pot with the bird in his hand. When he had gone the Englishman turned round on to his back, and lay with his arm across his forehead.




Halket was released from his duty, and had come up, and lain down a little in the background of the group who gathered round their fire.

The Colonial and the Englishman had given orders to all the men of their mess that Halket was to be left in quiet, and no questions were to be asked him; and the men, fearing the Colonial's size and the Englishman's nerve, left him in peace. The men laughed and chatted round the fire, while the big Colonial ladled out the mealies and rice into tin plates, and passed them round to the men. Presently he passed one to Halket, who lay half behind him leaning on his elbow. For a while Halket ate nothing, then he took a few mouthfuls; and again lay on his elbow.

"You are eating nothing, Halket," said the Englishman, cheerily, looking back.


"You won't come nearer to the fire, Halket?' asked the Englishman.

"No, thank you, the night is warm."


"He's had a pretty stiff day," said the Colonial. "I expect he's glad enough to turn in."

Then all the men round the fire chatted freely over his concerns. Would the Captain stick to his word tomorrow? Was Halket going to do it? Had the Captain any right to tell one man off for the work, instead of letting them fire a volley? One man said he would do it gladly in Halket's place, if told off; why had he made such a fool of himself? So they chatted till nine o'clock, when the Englishman and Colonial left to turn in. They found Halket asleep, close to the side of the tent, with his face turned to the canvas. And they lay down quietly that they might not disturb him.








The man opened his eyes slowly, without raising his head; and looked at Peter from under his weary eyebrows. Except that they moved they might have been the eyes of a dead thing.

Peter put up his fingers to his own lips–"Hus-h! hus-h!" he said.

The man hung torpid, still looking at Peter.



"Ari-tsemaia! Hamba! Loop! Go!" whispered Peter Halket; using a word from each African language he knew. But the black man still stood motionless, looking at him as one paralysed.

"Hamba! Sucka! Go!" he whispered, motioning his hand.


The Captain threw back the door of his tent. "Who is there?" he cried.


The noise roused the whole camp: the men on guard came running; guns were fired: and the half-sleeping men came rushing, grasping their weapons. There was a sound of firing at the little tree; and the cry went round the camp, "The Mashonas are releasing the spy!"


There was a wild confusion of voices. "How many were there?" "Where have they gone to now?" "They've shot Peter Halket!"–"The Captain saw them do it"–"Stand ready, they may come back any time!"


"He's dead," he said, quietly.


"What are you fellows fooling about here for?" cried the Captain. "Do you suppose it's any use looking for foot marks after all this tramping! Go, guard the camp on all sides!"

"I will send four coloured boys," he said to the Englishman and the Colonial, "to dig the grave. You'd better bury him at once; there's no use waiting. We start first thing in the morning."


"Strange, isn't it, what he can have been doing here?" said the Colonial; "a small wound, isn't it?"

"A pistol shot," said the Englishman, closing the bosom.

"A pistol–"


"I told you he would not kill that nigger.–See–here–" He took up the knife which had fallen from Peter Halket's grasp, and fitted it into a piece of the cut leather that lay on the earth.

"But you don't think–" The Colonial stared at him with wide open eyes; then he glanced round at the Captain's tent.

"Yes, I think that– Go and fetch his great-coat; we'll put him in it. If it is no use talking while a man is alive, it is no use talking when he is dead!"





But the Englishman and the Colonial went to their tent, to lie down.

"Do you think they will make any inquiries?" asked the Colonial.

"Why should they? His time will be up tomorrow."

"Are you going to say anything?"

"What is the use?"


"Do you believe in a God?" said the Englishman, suddenly.

The Colonial started: "Of course I do!"


"Oh, don't say that!" cried the Colonial, much distressed. "Are you going off your head, like poor Halket?"

"No; but there is no God," said the Englishman. He turned round on his shoulder, and said no more: and afterwards the Colonial went to sleep.


By five o'clock the carts had filed away; the men rode or walked before and behind them; and the space where the camp had been was an empty circle; save for a few broken bottles and empty tins, and the stones about which the fires had been made, round which warm ashes yet lay.



The men mounted their horses to follow him; but the Englishman turned in his saddle and looked back. The morning sun was lighting up the straggling branches of the tall trees that had overshadowed the camp; and fell on the little stunted tree, with its white stem and outstretched arms; and on the stones beneath it.

"It's all that night on the kopje!" said the Colonial, sadly.

But the Englishman looked back. "I hardly know," he said, "whether it is not better for him now, than for us."

Then they rode on after the troop.