第61章
Soon we were at the pickets, who had nothing to tell us; and then we were racing up the long sandy street to the offices, and there, sitting smoking on the doorstep of the hotel, surrounded by everybody who was not on duty, were Mackay and Ashurst.
"They were an odd pair.Ashurst still wore his uniform; but he seemed to have been rolling about in it on the ground; his sleek hair was wildly ruffled, and he was poking holes in the dust with his sword.Mackay had lost his topper, and wore a disreputable cap, his ancient frock-coat was without buttons, and his tie had worked itself up behind his ears.They talked excitedly to each other, now and then vouchsafing a scrap of information to an equally excited audience.When they saw me they rose and rushed for me, and dragged me between them up the street, while the crowd tailed at our heels.
"'Ye're a true prophet, Captain Thirlstone,' Mackay began, 'and Iask your pardon for doubting you.Ye said the Governor only needed a crisis to behave like a man.Well, the crisis has come;and if there's a man alive in this sinful world, it's that chief o' yours.And then his emotion overcame him.and, hard-bitten devil as he was, he sat down on the ground and gasped with hysterical laughter, while Ashurst, with a very red face, kept putting the wrong end of a cigarette in his mouth and swearing profanely.
"I never remember a madder sight.There was the brassy blue sky and reddish granite rock and acres of thick red dust.The scrub had that metallic greenness which you find in all copper places.
Pretty unwholesome it looked, and the crowd, which had got round us again, was more unwholesome still.Fat Jew boys, with diamond rings on dirty fingers and greasy linen cuffs, kept staring at us with twitching lips; and one or two smarter fellows in riding-breeches, mine-managers and suchlike, tried to show their pluck by nervous jokes.And in the middle was Mackay, with his damaged frocker, drawling out his story in broad Scots.
"'He made this laddie put on his braws, and he commandeered this iniquitous garment for me.I've raxed its seams, and it'll never look again on the man that owns it.Syne he arrayed himself in purple and fine linen till he as like the king's daughter, all glorious without; and says he to me, "Mackay," he says, "we'll go and talk to these uncovenanted deevils in their own tongue.We'll visit them at home, Mackay," he says."They're none such bad fellows, but they want a little humouring from men like you and me." So we got on our horses and started the procession--the Governor with his head in the air, and the laddie endenvouring to look calm and collected, and me praying to the God of Israel and trying to keep my breeks from working up above my knees.I've been in Kaffir wars afore, but I never thought I would ride without weapon of any kind into such a black Armageddon.I am a peaceable man for ordinar', and a canny one, but I wasna myself in that hour.Man, Thirlstone, I was that overcome by the spirit of your chief, that if he had bidden me gang alone on the same errand, I wouldna say but what Iwould have gone.
"'We hadna ridden half a mile before we saw the indunas and their men, ten thousand if there was one, and terrible as an army with banners.I speak feeguratively, for they hadna the scrap of a flag among them.They were beating the war-drums, and the young men were dancing with their big skin shields and wagging their ostrich feathers, so I saw they were out for business.I'll no'
say but what my blood ran cold, but the Governor's eye got brighter and his back stiffer."Kings may be blest," I says to myself, "but thou art glorious.""'We rode straight for the centre of the crowd, where the young men were thickest and the big war-drums lay.As soon as they saw us a dozen lifted their spears and ran out to meet us.But they stopped after six steps.The sun glinted on the Governor's gold lace and my lum hat, and no doubt they thought we were heathen deities descended from the heavens.Down they went on their faces, and then back like rabbits to the rest, while the drums stopped, and the whole body awaited our coming in a silence like the tomb.
" Never a word we spoke, but just jogged on with our chins cocked up till we were forenent the big drum, where yon old scoundrel Umgazi was standing with his young men looking as black as sin.For a moment their spears were shaking in their hands, and I heard the click of a breech-bolt.If we had winked an eye we would have become pincushions that instant.But some unearthly power upheld us.Even the laddie kept a stiff face, and for me I forgot my breeks in watching the Governor.He looked as solemn as an archangel, and comes to a halt opposite Umgazi, where he glowers at the old man for maybe three minutes, while we formed up behind him.Their eyes fell before his, and by-and-by their spears dropped to their sides."The father has come to his children," says he in their own tongue.
"What do the children seek from their father?
"'Ye see the cleverness of the thing.The man's past folly came to help him.The natives had never seen the Governor before till they beheld him in gold lace and a cocked hat on a muckle horse, speaking their own tongue and looking like a destroying angel.Itell you the Labonga's knees were loosed under them.They durstna speak a word until the Governor repeated the question in the same quiet, steely voice."You seek something," he said, "else you had not come out to meet me in your numbers.The father waits to hear the children's desires.""'Then Umgazi found his tongue and began an uneasy speech.The mines, he said, truly enough, were the abode of devils, who compelled the people to work under the ground.The crops were unreaped and the buck went unspeared, because there were no young men left to him.Their father had been away or asleep, they thought, for no help had come from him; therefore it had seemed good to them, being freemen and warriors, to seek help for themselves.