In the Whirl of the Rising. Mitford Bertram

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he placed his pistol to his head rather than be thus captured. This was the incident he had been trying to relate to Ancram, when Lamont had twice cut him short with what the guest had deemed brusque and unnecessary rudeness.

      Having finished his meal Peters lighted a digestive pipe, and sent his plate skimming away in the direction of the boys, who immediately pounced upon the scraps; for there is never a moment in life when a native is not ready to feed, and nothing eatable that he will refuse to feed on – except fish.

      “Hey, Malvani?” he called.

      “Nkose!” And one of the boys came trotting up.

      “What of Inyovu? Will he come back, do you think?”

      “Ou nkose!” said the fellow with a half grin. “Who may say? He is Matabele. We are not.”

      “Well, get to work again.”

      “Nkose.”

      Peters sat a little longer thinking – and the subject of his thoughts was the man whose life he had saved – to wit Ancram.

      “I don’t like the cuss,” he said to himself. “Wish I’d left him where he was – no – I don’t exactly that – still, I wish he’d move on. He’s an ungrateful dog, anyhow.”

      The noonday air was sensuous and drowsy. Even the screech of the crickets was so unintermittent as to form part of the prevailing stillness. Peters began to nod.

      “Nkose!”

      The salutation was sulky rather than hearty. Peters started wide awake again, to behold his missing boy, Inyovu.

      The latter was a young Matabele, tall and slight, and clad in nothing but an old shirt and a skin mútya. But his face was the face of a truculent savage – the face of one who would have been far more in his element as a unit in some marauding expedition sent forth by Lobengula in the good old times, than serving in the peaceful avocation of mine boy to a white prospector.

      “I see you, Inyovu,” returned Peters, speaking fluently in the Sindabele. “But I have not seen you for half a day when I should have seen you working.” The point of which satire was that the fellow had taken French leave since the night before.

      “Au!” he replied, half defiantly. “I have been to see my chief.”

      “Been to see your chief —impela! Who is your chief, Inyovu? The man who pays you or the man who does not?”

      Natives are susceptible to ridicule, and Peters had a satirical way with him which lay rather in the tone than in the words used. The three Makalaka boys in the background sniggered, and this acted as a whip to the Matabele.

      “My chief?” he blared. “My chief? Whau, Mlungu! Zwabeka is my chief.”

      The tone apart, to address his master as Umlungu– meaning simply ‘white man’ – was to invite – well, a breach of the peace. But Peters kept his temper.

      “Then – O great chief Inyovu,” he said, still more cuttingly, “in that case it might be as well to return to thy chief, Zwabeka. I have no use at all for servants who own two chiefs. No. No use.”

      “Xi!”

      At the utterance of this contemptuous ‘click’ Peters did not keep his temper. His right fist shot forth with lightning-like suddenness and celerity, catching its imprudent utterer bang on the nose. He, staggering back, seized a pick-handle – an uncommonly awkward weapon, by the way – and, uttering a savage snarl, came for his smiter. The while the three Makalaka boys, in huge if secret delight, stood by to watch the fun.

      And they got it – plenty of it. Peters was far too old a campaigner to be taken at any such disadvantage. He was upon the young savage in a flash, had him by the throat with one hand, and the pick-handle with the other, just as swiftly. Inyovu seeing the game was up wrenched himself free, and turned to run, leaving the pick-handle with the enemy. Alack and alas! The mouth of the shaft was immediately behind him, and, losing his footing on some loose stones, he plunged in and disappeared from view. Then Peters threw back his head and roared with laughter. So too did the Makalakas. In fact their paroxysms seemed to threaten ultimate dissolution, as they twisted and squirmed and hugged themselves in their mirth.

      “Woza! We must get him out!” he cried at last. The shaft was no great depth as yet, luckily for Inyovu. Moreover, the bucket for hauling up the dirt was down there, and a spasmodic quiver of the rope showed that the ill-advised one was already climbing up, even if he had not arrested his fall by seizing the rope and holding on. Then, by their master’s orders, the boys manned the windlass, though so weakened by their recurring laughter they could hardly turn the handle, indeed were in danger of letting go every minute. At last the unfortunate one’s head rose above the mouth of the hole, and in a moment more he was standing glaring at his master with sulky apprehension.

      But Peters had enjoyed a good laugh, and all his anger had vanished.

      “Now, Inyovu,” he said cheerily, “get to work again.”

      And Inyovu did.

      Peace having been restored, the usual labour proceeded. Suddenly Peters’ horse, which was knee-haltered among the bushes hard by, began to whinny, then to neigh. That meant the proximity of another horse, and a minute or two later Lamont rode up alone.

      “Hallo, Peters! Nothing to make us millionaires to-day? What?” he sung out. “No sign of the stuff?”

      “Oh, that’ll come. You’ve got the grin now, but we’ll both have it – in the right direction too – when this bit of bush-veldt’s humming with battery stamps and you and I are boss directors of the new fraud,” answered Peters equably. They were to be joint partners in the results – if any – of Peters’ prospecting, at any rate while such was carried on upon Lamont’s farm.

      “‘Hope springs eternal…’ or there’d be no prospectors,” laughed the latter as he dismounted from his horse. “See here, Peters. I wish you’d left our desirable guest where he was, or taken him away somewhere else – anything rather than bring him here.”

      “What could I do, Lamont?” was the deprecating reply. “He said he was a pal of yours, and had come up-country on purpose to find you.”

      “As for the first, he lied. I hardly knew the fellow, and what little I saw of him I disliked. For the second, I’ve no doubt he did. No. You brought him, and you’ll have to take him away.”

      “Well, I’ll try and think out a plan.”

      “If you don’t, one of two things will happen. Either he’ll take over the whole show or I shall be indicted for murder.”

      “Couldn’t we set up a sort of Matabele rising scare, and rush him off to Gandela?” said Peters, brightening up. “I’ve a notion he isn’t brimming over with eagerness for a fight.”

      “The worst of setting up scares is that they’re apt to travel farther than you mean them to, especially just now when that sort of scare may any moment become grim reality. No, I’m afraid that plan won’t do.”

      “Isn’t there anyone you could pass him on to? Why not give him an introduction to Christian Sybrandt, and fire him off to Buluwayo?”

      “Because I wouldn’t give him an introduction

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