was a round wattle-and-daub hut that he showed us into, but not the ordinary sort. This one was as bright and clean as a new pin. Bits of calico and muslin and gay-coloured kapelaan made curtains, blinds, and table-covers. The tables were of the gin-case pattern, legs planted in the ground; the chairs ordinary Bush stools; but what struck me as so extraordinary was the sight of all the English periodicals and illustrated papers laid out in perfect order and neatness on the table, as one sees them arranged in a reading-room before the first frequenters have disturbed them. There was also a little hanging shelf on which were five books. I couldn’t help smiling at them – the Bible, a Shakespeare, the Navy List, a dictionary, and Ruff’s Guide.
“They say that you may tell a man by his friends, and most of all by his books; but I couldn’t make much out of this lot, with one exception. I looked at the chap’s easy bearing, the pleasant, hearty manner and torpedo beard, and concluded that the Navy List, at any rate, was a bit of evidence. However, he kept things going so pleasantly and gaily that one had no time in which to observe much.
“Lots of little things occurred which were striking and amusing in a way, because of the peculiar surroundings and conditions of the man’s life rather than because of the incidents themselves. For instance, when we owned up that we had had no breakfast, we found ourselves within a few minutes enjoying poached eggs on toast, and I felt myself grinning all over when the Swazie boy waited in passable style with a napkin thrown carelessly over one shoulder. Surely a man must be a bit eccentric to live such a life as this in such a place and alone, and yet take the trouble to school a nigger to wait on him in conventional style.
“I thought of the peculiar littleness of teaching a nigger boy that waiter’s trick, and concluded that our friend, whatever his occupation might be, was not a trader from necessity. After breakfast he produced some excellent cigarettes – another fact in the nature of a paradox.
“We were making for the landing-place on the Tembe River, and had intended moving along again that day; but our host was pressing, and we by no means anxious to turn our backs on so pleasant a camp, so we stayed overnight, and became good friends right away.
“I was quite right. He had been in the navy many years, and had given it up to play at exploring. He said he had settled down here because there was absolute peace and a blissful immunity from the ordinary worldly worries. Once a week a native runner brought him his mail letters and papers, and, in fact, as he said, he was as near to the world as he chose to be, or as far from it.
“He had a curious gold charm attached to a watch-chain, which I saw dangling from a projecting wattle-end in the dining-hut. I was looking at this, and puzzled over it; it seemed so unlike anything I had ever seen. He saw me, and, after putting us to many a futile guess, told us laughingly that he had found it in one of the villages they had sacked on the West Coast. I don’t know what sort of part he took in these nasty little wars, but I’ll bet it was no mean one. We listened that night for hours to his easy, bright, entertaining chat, and although he hardly ever mentioned himself or his own doings, one couldn’t but see that he had been well in the thick of things, and dearly loved to be where danger was. Now and then he let slip a reference to hardships, escapes, and dangers, but only when such reference was necessary to explain something he was telling us of. What interested us most was his description of General Gordon – ‘Chinese Gordon’ – with whom he appeared to have been in close contact for a good while. The little details he gave us made up an extraordinarily vivid picture of the soldier-saint, the man who could lead a storming-party, a forlorn hope, with a Bible in one hand and a cane in the other; the man who, in the infiniteness of his love and tenderness, and in the awful immutability of his decision and justice, realised qualities in a degree which we only associate with the Deity. I felt I could see this man helping, feeding with his own short rations, nursing, and praying with, the lowliest of his men, the incarnation of mercy. But I also saw him facing the semi-mutinous regiment of barbarians, and, with the awful passionless decision of fate itself, singling out the leaders here and there – in all a dozen men – whom he shot dead before their comrades, and turning again as calm and unmoved as ever to repeat his order, which this time was obeyed! I pictured this man, with the splendid practical genius to reconquer and reorganise China, treasuring a cutting which he had taken from what he verily believed to be the identical living tree from which Eve had plucked the forbidden fruit. Surely, one of the enigmas of history!”
“Do you mean to say that’s a fact?” asked the millionaire, as old Barberton paused.
“As far as I know, it certainly is. Our friend told it as a fact, and not in ridicule, either, for he had the deepest reverence and regard for Gordon. He assured us, moreover, that Gordon was once most deeply mortified and offended by a colleague of his treating the matter as a joke and laughing at it. Gordon never forgot that laugh, and was always constrained and reserved in the man’s presence afterwards.
“I wish I could remember a hundredth part of our host’s anecdotes of well-known people, descriptions of places and of peoples, accounts of travels and adventures. He seemed to know everyone and all places. It was three in the morning before we thought of turning in. After breakfast we saddled up and bade adieu, but our friend walked along part of the way with us to put us on the right path. He was carrying a bunch of white Bush flowers – a curious fancy, I thought, for a man clothed in a towel and an eyeglass. I remarked on the beauty of the mountain flowers, and he held up the bunch.
“‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they are lovely, aren’t they? Poor old Tarry! He was my man – the only other white man that ever lived here. He was with me for many years, and died here two summers back – fever contracted on the Tembe. Poor old fellow! I fixed him up on the bluff yonder. He used to gather these flowers and sit there every day of his life looking out towards Delagoa, wondering if we would ever quit this place and get a sight of old Ireland again. I take him a bunch once in a while. Come up and see where a good friend lies.’
“We left the horses and climbed up the rough path, and looked at the unpretentious stone enclosure and the soft slate slab with a rough-cut inscription:
“Paddy Tarry’s Rest!
Are ye ready?
Ay, ay, sir!”
“Our friend leaned over the low stone wall and replaced the faded wreath by the fresh one.
“We left him standing there on the ridge, clear-cut above the outline of the mountain, and took our way down the rough cattle-path that wound down to the still rougher, wilder kloof through which our route lay. I remember so well the way he was standing, one foot on a projecting rock, arms folded, until we were rounding the turn that took us out of sight. Then he waved adieu.”
“We had unpleasant times on that trip to the Tembe. We met all the murderous ruffians in that Alsatia, and they were all at loggerheads, thieving and shooting with both hands. However, we got out all right after months and months of roaming about, owing to the trouble about those Kaffirs, and I think we had both forgotten all about Sebougwaan by the time we fetched up in Lydenburg again. There was always something happening in that infernal outlaw corner of Swazieland to keep the time from dragging!
“My chum went off to his farm; but I had no home, and took the road again with waggons, and loaded for Barberton at slashing fine rates. I got there just as the Sheba boom was well on. Companies were being floated daily, shares were booming, money flowing freely. All were merry in the sunshine of to-day. No one took heed of to-morrow. Speculators were making money in heaps; brokers raking in thousands.
“You know how it is in a place like that. After you have been there for a few hours, or a day or two, you begin to notice that one name is always cropping up oftener than any other; one man seems the most popular, important, and indispensable. Well, it was the same here. There was always this one name in everything – market, mines, sport, entertainment – any blessed department. You can just imagine – at least, you can’t imagine – my surprise when
