harley greenoak sat smoking a pipe in the one living-room of the commandant’s modest little bungalow. it was night. the only other occupant of the room was its owner; and he was moving tranquilly about arranging his “specimens,” dividing his attention about evenly between these and the subject of conversation. yet the latter was weighty with the issues of life and death.
“if things go as you say, greenoak,” he was observing, “we haven’t a man too many; either here, or over the kei, or indeed along the whole frontier. yet, look how my hands are tied. you know, i was always against allowing those burgher forces to go home, at any rate until a sufficiently equivalent force had been raised to supply their place. i am hampered at every turn, and if it wasn’t that i believe we are only at the beginning of our troubles instead of the end, i’d resign.”
“don’t do that, commandant, if only that it would be a precious difficult thing to supply yours,” answered greenoak.
“i advised what should be done, and that was to make a quick and secret march, and arrest sandili and matanzima, together with some half-dozen more mischievous of the amapakati whom we know, and promise to hang the lot on the first outbreak among their people. when i put it to the government i was forbidden to move. you know the rest.”
greenoak nodded. the other went on—
“look what came of bagging those other two, vunisa and pahlandhle. their reserve has been fairly well behaved ever since. we can’t hang them because the gcalekas are an independent nation, but their people don’t know we can’t, and so are behaving themselves for fear we should. but the colonial tribes are british subjects, and therefore rebels if they begin the row, so there’d be no ‘prisoner of war’ treatment for them. by the way, what has become of that hair-brained young dare-devil who helped us to grab them? i don’t seem to have seen him about lately.”
“dick selmes? oh, he’s being taken care of,” answered greenoak, drily. “he’s over at waybridge’s farm. he’s got an attraction there.”
“h’m. well, but if you start on this undertaking you’ll have to leave him to himself for a while. and you’re his bear-leader.”
“he won’t object to that,” laughed greenoak. “and he seems by this time to be uncommonly well able to take care of himself.”
“so i should think. and i always thought you kept him quite enough in leading-strings. no, it’s no good. i can’t satisfactorily locate this beast even now,” bringing to the light a small wooden box from which he had just removed the lid, and which contained the identical specimen of the lizard tribe which we saw him puzzling over in the small hours of the morning which had witnessed the attack on the kangala camp. “i didn’t bring the right book. i shall have to wait until i get back to my library.”
king williamstown was the official headquarters of the f.a.m. police, and there the commandant owned a roomy and commodious bungalow, which contained a varied library, well stocked with standard works dealing with his favourite science.
now he replaced the box and went over to the window. it was open, but the blind was down. this he pulled up and stood gazing meditatively out into the night, as though to penetrate darkness and space to where the plotting chiefs were even then arranging for the wave of steel and torch which should presently sweep the land. in good sooth he might well feel anxious. he was a singularly observant and keen-minded man, with a cool, matter-of-course courage that would stick at nothing once his judgment had commended any given line of action as necessary. he had consistently maintained that, given a free hand, he would have guaranteed there should have been no outbreak at all in the first instance; when such had befallen, he was confident of his power to stem it, but again he was hampered by official orders and counter orders. and now, when the most dangerous outbreak of all was imminent, once again red tape wriggled its way in.
greenoak, seated back in his armchair, refilled and lit his pipe in silence. he too was busy with his own thoughts, and forebore to interrupt those of his friend. these two men, who understood each other so well, were both of the concentrative order of mind, and when there was anything of importance to be thought out, they thought it out thoroughly, and round and round. here there was something very important indeed, an enterprise which held out to harley greenoak quite as big a chance of losing his life as any he had ever taken. but that was not what engaged his attention for the most part. it was the chance of failure, and all that such would involve. the commandant’s favourite dogs, two beautiful black spaniels, which had just leaped in through the open window, came frisking up to him, wagging their tails, and whining for notice. mechanically his hand passed over each glossy head, and still there was silence between the two men. then the commandant shut down the window and turned into the room again.
“well, greenoak, if any other man was bound on this errand, i should say it would be useless. but yourself—”
“i shall feel the pulse of the locations anyway, and can gauge pretty accurately whether the farmers who are still sticking to their places ought to leave. i’ll have a good talk with matanzima.”
“not sandili?”
“sheer waste of time. he’d be too drunk.”
“you may find a difficulty in getting away. in any case, you’ll be shadowed at every step.”
greenoak laughed drily as he toyed with the spaniels’ ears.
“i don’t want to brag,” he said, “but we’ve known each other a long time. did you ever know me ‘shadowed’ to any purpose by any one i didn’t intend should shadow me?”
“no, i can’t say i did. i don’t believe any one ever did.”
“well, it happened once—not long ago either. and who the dickens do you think succeeded in doing it?”
“who?”
“our young friend, dick selmes. no more, no less.” and he told the other, briefly, of his enterprise in slaang kloof.
“well, that doesn’t count, for of course he guessed where you were bound for, and the distance and surroundings were so trifling that there was no opportunity of throwing him off the scent. here, of course, it’s different. you’re a wonderful fellow, greenoak, but i don’t know why your glass has been standing empty so long. here. fill up.”
several glasses already used, and a large but more than half-emptied decanter on the table—item a good deal of tobacco ash, pointed to the fact that some of the police officers and an outside friend or two had been spending the evening with the commandant. the latter now charged his glass, and pushed the excellent boer brandy—whisky was hardly known on the frontier in those days—over to greenoak.
“we’ll drink success, at any rate,” he said, “to the ‘secret service’ department.” then, after a pause, “upon my word, greenoak, i wish you’d throw up this undertaking.”
greenoak, for him, looked somewhat surprised. in all the years of their acquaintance he had never known the commandant in an expostulatory vein. he was habitually the most matter-of-fact and laconic of men. could it be that he was ageing?
“oh, i’m getting rusty here, and spoiling for the chance of putting something or somebody to rights,” was the answer.
by this time it was well known that the gaika locations were in a frame of mind that may best be described as smouldering. so far the grog-sodden mind of sandili was incapable of deciding anything. whoever got the old chief’s ear last spoke the “word” that was “good.” but his warrior son, matanzima, and the young men of the tribe, were spoiling for a chance to distinguish themselves. the spirit of donnybrook was dangerously abroad.
but their kinsmen, the gcalekas, across the kei, had been badly defeated and their country cleared—this, then, was no time for a rising on the colonial side. so one would have thought, but a short-sighted policy had allowed one by one of the burgher forces in the transkei to evacuate that territory without supplying their place. the war was over, it was pronounced. was it? back came the defeated paramount tribe, swarming into its old country again; the paramount chief, kreli, as paramount as ever, and laughing at the “softness” of the white man. these were now plotting to stir up the intra-colonial tribes, and by a simultaneous rising on the part of these to drive the said white man “into the sea,” as their expressive way of putting it ran.
this plot was, of course, suspected by many, and known by few, but it was reserved for harley greenoak to find out through one of those mysterious sources of information that seemed closed to others, that the time for its execution was imminent. an accredited body of gcaleka fighting men was to cross the kei into sandili’s location, and their arrival was to be the signal that the moment for rising had come. thousands upon thousands of armed savages would thus hold the frontier at their mercy. it was too late to prevent this. the only course was to neutralise it, by being prepared. and the bulk of the armed force upon the border had been withdrawn.
harley greenoak got up and went to his room. he took down his guns and drew them from their holsters. the double .500 express was deadly with big game, but he was not sure he did not prefer the rifle and smooth-bore for man. a charge of treble a. buckshot was so deadly at anything like close quarters. yes, he would take the one with the shot barrel. it, with his ordinary and very businesslike revolver, constituted a most formidable armament, in the hands of one who so thoroughly knew how to use it as himself. returning to the other room, he proceeded to load up a saddle-bag with a supply of the most concentrated and therefore portable provisions, sufficient to last him several days; but, to all appearances, hardly enough to last him for one.
“you’ll find mantisa at the place arranged, all right,” said the commandant, naming one of the native detectives. “he’s a good runner, and will bring the news straight and quick—directly you get any to send. john voss had better be sent round to warn the farms.”
the other nodded, and the two men shook hands. the lights were then extinguished, for it was just as well that possible watching eyes should not see harley greenoak as he stepped forth into the darkness. and having saddled up his horse, he started upon his dangerous and self-sacrificing undertaking alone.
as he rode on through the night, keeping his horse at a walk, his thoughts were still busy with his plan. he had not told the commandant of the expected crossing, and this for more than one reason. first, he wanted to verify, his information, and this he felt confident of his ability to do, by going in person among the disaffected gaikas. his consummate knowledge of natives and their language, above all of the ways of their language, would enable him to do this. he could read them like a book, however much they strove to conceal from him their real mind. then he was not altogether without hope that he might be able, even at the eleventh hour, to persuade them to “sit still.” his personal prestige with them, and influence, were enormous, and while they would secretly be laughing at any accredited government official, to his own words they would listen with unfeigned respect. again, were a strong patrol of police despatched to watch the drifts, it would defeat its own object. it would be powerless to prevent the projected incursion, for the gcaleka emissaries, being aware of its presence, as, of course, they could not fail to be, would simply melt into twos and threes, and cross the river at many different points instead of at one. further and more important still, it would precipitate the outbreak he was striving to delay, even if he could not prevent; and such of the settlers who still remained on their farms would be massacred without warning. and this was just what he had set himself out to avert, this strong, brave, experienced man—he alone—single-handed.
but what of himself—of his own life? did he not value it that he was going to place himself alone in the power of these sullen plotting savages? well, this was not the first situation of the kind in which he had played the leading and only part. it was by just such cool and calculated intrepidity, by just such well-nigh superhuman confidence in his own personality and resource, that harley greenoak had come forth, not merely with his life, but triumphant and successful where ninety-nine men out of a hundred would never have come forth at all.
the settlement, largely augmented by tents and waggons of refugees, was in darkness, as he left it behind. down by the outspan quite a number of waggons had formed a laager, but from this came no challenge as he passed it near by. either its inmates were asleep, or the sound of a horse travelling at a foot’s pace conveyed no suggestion of danger. the open veldt lay in front, the great table-topped cone of moordenaar’s kop towering on high against the myriad stars.
but—what was this? behind, not too near, but just near enough to keep the horseman within sight, within hearing, a stealthy form was flitting. seen in the darkness, it was that of an evil-looking, thick-set savage, with a forbidding countenance dotted unevenly with scrabbly wisps of beard. in his hand was a pair of hard iron-wood sticks, and one assegai, with a broad, keen, fluted blade.
the rider held carelessly on. his horse, purposely kept unshod, gave little sound from its footfalls; himself, perfect in his self-restraint, foregoing even the comfort of a harmless pipe. harmless, yes—under most conditions; under existing ones, the mere faint spark of light required for its ignition was a thing to be avoided, lest it should reach the wrong eyes, small as might be the chance of it doing so. but his habit was to take no chances in a matter of life and death.
hour after hour—then a short off-saddle, then on again, and still the stealthy form moved silently, cautiously behind, always keeping its distance lest the horse should neigh, or otherwise show signs of uneasiness. harley greenoak was being shadowed.
