CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
"ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN."
Nidia stared at the savage, her eyes dilated with the wildest dismay.The savage, for his part, stared at her, with a countenance whichexpressed but little less astonishment than her own. Bringing his handto his mouth, he ejaculated--
"_Whau! Umfanekiso_!" [The picture.]
Her glance fell upon the naked sword-bayonet which lay on the groundbetween them. She made a movement to seize it, with a desperate idea ofdefending herself. The savage, however, was too quick for her. Hepromptly set his foot on the weapon, saying in English--
"No take it."
By now Nidia's first fear had begun to calm down. She had been in thepower of some of these people before, and they had not harmed her;wherefore she tried to put on a bold front towards this one.
"Who are you?" she said, speaking slowly to facilitate the manunderstanding her. "You frightened me at first; not now."
"_Ikonde_, [baboon] he flighten much more," was the answer made with ahalf laugh. Then Nidia noticed that this Matabele had by no means anunpleasant face; indeed, she could hardly believe that he belonged tothe same race as the fiends who had slaughtered the Hollingworths.
"No be flighten," he went on. "I see you before--one, two, tlee--muchmany time."
"Seen me before?" echoed Nidia in astonishment. "Where?"
"Kwa Jonemi."
"Jonemi?" she repeated, with a start. "You know him?"
The warrior laughed.
"Oh, yes, missis. I know him. I Pukele. Jonemi his boy."
"Ah; now I see. You were his servant? You are the man who saved hislife, when the others were all murdered?" For Nidia had, of course,heard the whole story of the tragedy in Inglefield's quarters.
"I dat man, missie," said the other, with a grin that showed amagnificent set of teeth. "Umlimo he say kill all Amakiwa--whitepeople. Pukele say, No kill Jonemi. _Amapolise_ dey kill Ingerfiel,and missis, and strange white man. I not help. I go wit _amapolise_.I save Jonemi. See," lifting his foot off the sword-bayonet, "_I_ givehim dis."
"And for that you will never be sorry, I promise you," said Nidia."Listen, Pukele. For that, and that alone, you shall have what will buytwenty cows. _I_ will give it you when we are safe again. Only--youmust never tell Jonemi."
The man broke into extravagant expressions of delight, in his owntongue, once he had begun to grasp the burden of this promise, declaringthat Jonemi had always been his "father," and he was not going to lethis "father" be killed, even at the bidding of ten Umlimos--lookinground rather furtively however, as he gave utterance to thissacrilegious sentiment.
"You said you had seen me at Jonemi's," went on Nidia; "but I have neverbeen there. It must have been somewhere else."
"No somewhere else. I see missie on bit of paper, hang on de wall.Jonemi he have it in hut where he sleep. He often stand, look at it forlong time."
A soft flush came into Nidia's face, accompanied by a pleased smile.
"And you knew me from that?" she said. Then all her anxiety coming backupon her--for she had momentarily lost sight of it in the feeling ofsafety engendered by this man's appearance and identity--she exclaimed--
"But where is Jonemi? He went out yesterday--not much after midday--andshould have been back by sundown. You must find him, Pukele."
The man uttered some words to himself in his own tongue, which from thetone were expressive of like anxiety. Then, to her--
"Which way he go?"
She pointed out, as best she could, the way John Ames had proposed totake. Pukele shook his head.
"No good dat way. Much Matabele dere. 'Spose he fire gun, den Matabelehear him for sure."
Nidia's face blanched, and she clasped her hands together wildly.
"You don't think they have--killed him?" she said slowly.
In his heart of hearts Pukele thought that nothing was more likely; buthe was not going to say so.
"I tink not," he answered, "Jonemi _nkos'nkulu_. Great master. Heaflaid o' nuffin. Matabele much like him."
"Listen, Pukele," said Nidia, impressively. "You must go and find him."
"But what you do, missis? You be flighten, all alone. Suppose_Uconde_--bobyaan--he come again, you much flighten? I be away tillsun, him so," pointing to the western horizon.
"I'll be frightened of nothing," she answered emphatically. "Leave meone of your long assegais, and go. Even if you have to be away allnight, don't come back. I'll get through it somehow. But--findJonemi."
With many injunctions to her not to wander far from this spot, where tohide in the event of any Matabele chancing to pass that way, andpromising to be back by sundown, Pukele took his departure. Once moreNidia was alone. This time, however, loneliness in itself no longeroppressed her. Intense anxiety on behalf of another precluded allthought of self.
True to his promise Pukele returned at sundown, and he had learnedsomething. Jonemi had fallen in with the Matabele, even as he hadexpected. He had talked with the indunas, and having bidden farewellhad walked away. That was about the same time last evening. But Pukelesaid nothing of the subsequent and stealthy pursuit, and the plunge fromthe height, for the simple reason that these were among the things hehad not learned. The agents concerned in that last tragedy had theirown motives for not advertising it abroad.
"Who were the indunas he was talking with?" asked Nidia, suddenly.
"Dey izinduna from Sikumbutana," replied the warrior, as she thought,evasively; and in truth this was so, for although he would do anythingto assist his former master, or one in whom his former master took aninterest, Pukele's native instincts were against revealing too much.There was always in the background a possibility of the whites regainingthe upper hand, in which case it was just as well that the prime moversin the rising should not be known to too many by name.
"But if they were his own people they would not harm him?"
"Not harm him, missie. He walk away."
"Then why is he not here, long before now?" Then, excitedly, "Pukele,you don't think--they--followed him up in the dark--and--and killedhim?"
This again Pukele thought was far from unlikely. But he dissembled. Itwas more probable, he declared, that Jonemi had taken a longer way tocome back in order to throw off his track any who might be following.Or he might have discovered another impi and be forced to travel in theopposite direction to avoid it. He might be back any time.
This for her benefit. But in his heart of hearts the Matabele warriorthought that the chances of his former master being still in the land ofthe living were so small as to be not worth reckoning with. So he madeup the fire, and cooked birds for Nidia and prepared to watch over hersafety.
That night weird sounds came floating up to their resting-place, arhythmical distant roaring, now subsiding into silence, then burstingforth again, till it gathered volume like the rolling of thunder. Firestwinkled forth, too, like eyes in the darkness, among the far windingsof the hills.
"What is that, Pukele?" cried Nidia, starting up.
"Matabele make dance, missie. Big dance. Umlimo dance Matabele callhim," replied the savage, who was listening intently.
"Umlimo dance. Ah! I remember. Is there an Umlimo cave down there,where they are?" For she was thinking of the place John Ames hadpointed out to her the day before, and his remark that if it wasn't areal Umlimo cave, it ought to be. And these strange wild sounds seemedto proceed from about that very spot.
"_An_! Umlimo cave, what dat, missie?" inquired Pukele.
"A cave--a hole--where Umlimo speaks from," she tried to explain. Butthe other became suddenly and unaccountably dense.
"Gave? Hole? Oh yes, missie. Plenty hole here. Plenty hole inMatopo. Oh yes. Big mountain, plenty hole."
The great volume of savage sound came rolling up almost unintermittentlytill midnight. Then there was silence once more.
The next day, John Ames did not appear, nor the next. Then, in utterdespai
r, Nidia agreed to Pukele's repeated proposal to guide her out ofthe hills, and if possible to bring her into Bulawayo itself.
And right well and faithfully did this barbarian fulfil his undertaking.The rebels were coming into the hills now, and every step of the waywas fraught with danger. He made her lie hidden during the day, alwayschoosing some apparently inaccessible and least suspicious lookingretreat, while he himself would wander forth in search of the means ofsubsistence. At night they would do their travelling, and here the eyesof the savage were as the eyes of a cat, and actually the eyes of bothof them. And throughout, he watched over her safety with the fidelityof a dog.
One great argument which had availed to induce Nidia to yield to herguide's representations, was that once she was safe in Bulawayo, hewould be left free to pursue his search for the missing man. As towhich, let him but succeed, she assured him, and he would be a richman--as his people counted riches--for life.
Thus journeying they had reached the outskirts of the hills, and couldnow and then obtain glimpses of the open country. Twice had Pukelefallen in with his countrymen, from whom he had gleaned that it was sofar open around Bulawayo, but would not be long, for the Umlimo hadpronounced in favour of shutting it in, and the impis were massing withthat object.
Pukele was returning from a solitary hunt, bringing with him the carcaseof a klip-springer. He was under no restriction as to who heard thereport of his rifle, and being a fair shot, and as stealthy and activeas the game itself, he seldom returned from such empty handed.Moreover, he knew where to find grain when it was wanted, wherefore hischarge suffered no disadvantage by reason of short commons. He wasreturning along the base of a large granite kopje. The ground was openimmediately in front, but on his left was a straggling line of trees andundergrowth. Singing softly to himself he was striding along when--
Just the faintest suspicion of a tinkling sound. His quick ears caughtit. At any other time he would have swerved and with the rapidity of asnake would have glided and disappeared among the granite boulders.Now, however, he stood his ground.
Three mounted men--white men--dashed from the cover, with revolversdrawn. Pukele dropped his weapons and held forth his arms.
"Fire not, Amakiwa!" he said, in his own tongue. "I was seeking forsuch as ye."
But the mounted volunteers, for such they were, understood next tonothing of that tongue. They only saw before them, a native, a savage,a rebel, fully armed, with rifle and assegais, and in war-gear.
Pukele being a native, and having such an important communication tomake as that a refugee white woman was under his charge whom he desiredto place under theirs, it was not in him to make it in three words, norwould these have understood him if he had. He, however, stood waitingfor their answer. A fourth trooper dashed from the bush.
"What are you waiting for, you blanked idiots?" he yelled. "Here's abloody nigger, ain't there? Well, then--Remember Hollingworth's!"
With the words he discharged his revolver almost point-blank intoPukele's chest. Another echoing the vengeful shout, "RememberHollingworth's!" fired his into the body of the faithful protector ofthe only survivor of Hollingworth's, which slowly sank to the earth,then toppled forward on its face.
The troopers looked upon the slain man with hate and execration. They,be it remembered, had looked upon the bodies of their own countrymen andwomen and children, lying stark under all the circumstances of a hideousand bloody death. Then the first man who had fired, dismounted andseized the dead warrior's weapons, administering a savage kick to thenow motionless corpse. So Pukele met with his reward.
"Get into cover again. There may be more of 'em!" he enjoined. Andscarcely had they done so than the rest of the troop--for which thesehad been acting as flying scouts--having heard the firing, came hurryingup.
The affair was reported. Those in command jocosely remarking that itseemed a devil of a waste of ammunition to fire two shots into onenigger, who was neither fighting nor running away. Orders were given tokeep a sharp look-out ahead, in case the slain man should be one of thescouts of an impi, and the troop moved on. It was, in fact, a relieftroop which had been formed to search for and rescue such whites in thedisturbed districts who had not already been massacred, and of such ithad found and rescued some. Now it was returning.
Soon it was reported that the scouts had descried something or somebody,moving among the granite boulders of an adjacent kopje. Field-glasseswere got out.
"By George, it's a woman. A white woman!" cried the officer in command,nearly dropping his glass from his hand. "She looks the worse for weartoo, poor thing. Another of these awful experiences, I'll bet a dollar.She's seen us. She's coming down off the kopje. But we don't want toscare her with all our ugly faces, though. Looks like a lady too, inspite of her tatters, poor thing," he went on, with his glass still athis eyes. "Moseley, Tarrant--you might step forward and meet her, eh?We don't need all to mob her in a body."
"We've met her before, I think, colonel," said the latter, who had alsobeen looking through his field-glasses. "And that was atHollingworth's."
"No!"
"Fact. When we got there she had disappeared, leaving no trace. GreatHeaven, where can she have been all this while? Come along, Moseley."
Great sensation spread through the troop, as it got abroad that this wasthe girl whose unknown fate had moved them all so profoundly. Severalwere there, too, who had been present at the discovery of the murderedfamily, and whose cherished thoughts of vengeance had been deepenedtenfold by the thought of this helpless English girl in the power of thevery fiends who had perpetrated that atrocity.
Under the circumstances, it was little to be wondered at if the voicesof Moseley and Tarrant were a little unsteady as they welcomed thefugitive, and if indeed--as those worthies afterwards admitted to eachother--they felt like qualified idiots, when they remembered the bright,sweet, sunny-faced girl, with the stamp of daintiness and refinementfrom the sole of her little shoe to the uppermost wave of hergolden-brown hair. And now they saw a sad-faced woman, wistful-eyed,sun-tanned, in attire bordering on tattered dishevelment. Truly a lumpgathered in their throats, as they stood uncovered before her andthought of all she must have gone through.
"Welcome, Miss Commerell. A hearty, happy welcome," was all thatMoseley could jerk out, as he put out his hand. "Thanks. Oh yes. Wehave met before," with a tired smile, in answer to Tarrant's ratherincoherent greeting. "But--where are the rest of you? Ah--I see--overthere."
Soon the officer in command was welcoming her, and the troopersgradually edged in nearer, for curiosity was great and discipline by nomeans rigid.
"And I am among friends at last, and safe?" looking from one to theother, in a half vacant way, "But where is Pukele?"
"Who is `Pukele,' Miss Commerell?" said Moseley.
"A Matabele. He has guided and taken care of me for the last week.Where is he? Isn't he here? Didn't he bring you to me? He went out tofind game. I thought I heard him fire two shots, just lately, and cameout to see. Then I saw you all. Where can he be?"
Where indeed? A strange, startled look was now on the faces of severalof her listeners, including those in command. "Went out to find game."And the native just shot was in possession of a klip-springer.
Dreamily Nidia continued--
"I feel so tired. Where am I, did you say?" Then passing her handsover her eyes, "How dark it seems" (it was mid forenoon). "I think--I'll--rest." And she sank down in a deathly swoon.
"Jee-hoshaphat, Jack!" a trooper in the background was saying. "Thatwas _her_ nigger you chaps bowled over. And now she's asking for him."
"What did the fool run up against our guns for, in that cast-ironhurry?" sullenly grumbled the other, who was really sorry for themistake. "It wasn't our faults, was it?"
"Of course not, old man," rejoined the other. "It was nobody's fault--only the nigger's misfortune. Accidents will happen."
Such the epitaph on the faithful, loyal savag
e, who having watched overthe helpless refugee for days and nights that he might restore her tofriends and safety, had found his reward. Shot on sight, by those veryfriends, when in the act of consummating his loyalty, such was hisepitaph. "Accidents will happen!"