I wonder if you ever met my husband. He is a mining engineer. Bateman our name is.”
John Ames thought.
“The name doesn’t seem altogether unknown to me,” he said. “The fact is I am very seldom in Bulawayo. My district lies away out in the wilds, and very wild indeed it is.”
“What sort of a place is Bulawayo?”
“Oh, a creditable township enough, considering that barely three years ago it was a vast savage kraal, and, barring a few traders, there wasn’t a white man in the country.”
“But isn’t it full of savages now?” struck in Nidia.
“Yes; there are a good few – not right around Bulawayo, though. Are you likely to be going up there?”
“We are, a little later,” replied Mrs Bateman. “This is fortunate. You will be able to tell us all about it.”
“With pleasure. I shall be too happy to give you any information I can.”
“Is it safe up there?” said Nidia. “Is there no fear of those dreadful savages rising some night and killing us all?”
Unconsciously the official reserve came over John Ames. He had more than once predicted to himself and one or two confidential friends such a contingency as by no means outside the bounds of practical politics, almost invariably to be laughed at for his pains. Now he replied:
“Everything that precaution can do is against it. They are carefully supervised; in fact, it is my own particular business to supervise a considerable section of them.”
“Really? But how do you talk, to them? Can they talk English?”
John Ames smiled. “You forget I mentioned that I was raised in Natal.”
“Of course. How stupid I am!” declared Nidia. “And so you know their language and have to look after them? Isn’t it very exciting?”
“No; deplorably prosaic. There are points of interest about the work, though.”
“And you keep them in order, and know all that’s going on?”
“We try to; and I think on the whole we succeed fairly well.”
But at that very moment Shiminya the sorcerer was dooming to death two persons, and filling with seditious venom the minds of three chiefs of importance within the speaker’s district.
Chapter Six.
About some Dallying
John Ames was beginning to enjoy his leave, and that actively.
At first he had done so in a negative kind of way. It was pleasant to have nothing to do, and plenty of time to do it in, to rise in the morning and know that until bedtime at night he had only to please himself and take no thought for anything whatever. He had a few acquaintance in the neighbourhood, more or less busy people whose avocations kept them in Cape Town throughout the working day, and so was mostly thrown upon his own resources. This, however, was not without its advantages, for the change had hardly benefited him much as yet, and he was conscious of a sort of mental languor which rendered him rather disinclined than otherwise for the society of his fellows. He liked to mount his bicycle and spin for miles along the smooth level roads, beneath the oak and fir shade, the towering wall of mountain glimpsed ever and anon athwart the trees; or, gaining the nearest point of sea shore, lie on the beach for hours, watching the rollers come tumbling in, and the revels of bathers skipping amid the surf. Hitherto he had been content to do all this alone, now he was not; and the name of the agency which had effected this change was Nidia Commerell.
Nearly a fortnight has gone by since we introduced that entrancing personality to the reader’s notice; and whatever effects the same had had upon John Ames, one at any rate was certain, viz. a conviction that it was not good to be alone.
They had seen a good deal of each other within that time. Nidia had carried out to the full her expressed intention of using him as an escort, and he, for his part, had gladly welcomed the rôle, and efficiently discharged it; and whether it was along bicycle ride, or a more remote expedition by rail, or a scramble up the Devil’s Peak, that commended itself to the two ladies for the day’s programme, there was John Ames in sure and faithful attendance. It did him good, too. There was an ingredient in the tonic which was stimulating, life-giving indeed, and now in this daily companionship he felt that life was worth living. Decidedly he had begun to enjoy his leave.
“Well, Susie, wasn’t I justified in my prediction?” said Nidia to her friend, as they were dressing for dinner after one of these expeditions.
“Which prediction? You make so many.”
“Concerning John Ames,” – for so they had got into the way of designating him when alone together.
“I said he looked as if he were nice, and also that he would come in handy as an escort for two unprotected females. Well, he is both. Isn’t he?”
“Yes; he is a remarkably well-mannered, pleasant man.”
“With more than two ideas in his head?”
“Yes; he can talk intelligently on any subject, and if he knows nothing about it won’t pretend to.”
“As is the case with the average turned-out-of-a-bandbox, eyeward-twisting-moustache type of Apollo one usually encounters in one’s progress through this vale of woe,” supplied Nidia, with an airy laugh.
“That holds good, too. But, gracious Heavens, child, don’t pile up your adjectives in that mountainous fashion, or you’ll reflect no credit on my most careful training and tuition.”
“All rights Govvie,” cried Nidia, with a peal of merry laughter – the point of the allusion being that prior to her marriage Susie Bateman had been a combination of companion and governess to the girl she was now chaperoning; in fact, was a distant relation to boot. “But the said careful training was such a long time ago. I’m beginning to forget it.”
“Long time ago!”
“Yes, it was. In the days of my youth. I am in my twenty-fourth year, remember. Is that nothing?”
“Of course it’s nothing. But – what were we talking about?”
“Oh, John Ames, as usual.”
“As usual – yes. But, Nidia, isn’t it rather rough on the man? He’s sure to end by falling in love with you.”
Again the girl laughed, but this time she changed colour ever so slightly.
“To end by it! That’s not very complimentary to my transcendent fascinations, O Susie. He ought to begin by it. But – to be serious – perfectly serious – he isn’t that sort.”
“I’m not by any means sure. Why should you think so?”
“No signs. He’d have hung out signals long ago if he’d been trending that way. They all do. The monotony of the procedure is simply wearisome.”
“Nidia, you are really a very dreadful child. Your talk is absolutely shocking to the ears of a well brought up British female.”
“Can’t
