Chapter 4

Of the criminal cases to be heard, only one was of any importance, namely that of a young coloured man charged with burglary. His name was John Erlank. He had evidently more of European than of any other blood in his veins; his hair was straight and black, and his complexion light yellow. But the most striking thing about him was the beauty of his eyes. They were black, large and deep. Although clearly showing signs of vice and dissipation, there was something prepossessing in his appearance; a kind of natural refinement was visible through his evident degradation and in spite of his obviously cringing manner. Kellson could not imagine whose face it was that the prisoner's suggested. Although little more than a lad, Erlank had a bad record. From early youth upwards he had been a criminal, and several convictions for different crimes were now formally proved against him. He had in this particular instance been committed to take his trial before the circuit judge by the previous magistrate, before whom he had fully admitted his guilt, but the Attorney General had now remitted the case hack to the magistrate's court for disposal under the "Extended Jurisdiction Act." Guilt being fully admitted by the prisoner, all Kellson had to do as magistrate was to read over the depositions and pass sentence. He considered the case to be one in which severity was due, so after telling the man he was one on whom exhortation or advice would be thrown away, he passed the highest sentence allowed by law, that is two years' imprisonment with hard labour and a flogging of thirty-six lashes. It was characteristic of Kellson that the prisoner's prepossessing appearance had the involuntary effect of making the sentence more severe, or rather, perhaps, of making the magistrate more stern in his estimate of the criminality.

At about four o'clock, Kellson had disposed of all the cases, and was thus free for the rest of the afternoon, so he left the office and walked up towards his official residence. He had asked the Chief Constable to see to the fitting up of his room, and he now went to look over the premises. For a long time he was unable to dismiss the face of the prisoner Erlank from his memory, it seemed to be almost as familiar to him as the houses of the street along which he was walking.

The village had hardly changed since he had last seen it. It is one of those places that do not grow because they happen not to be on any one of the great highways to the North. One or two old fogeys came up and greeted Kellson in the street--men he had known well in the old days, now so changed as to be almost unrecognisable. He passed the little room which had been used in the old days as a public library and reading-room. It was now shut up, and almost in ruins. He thought of how he used to run over from the office and flirt with the librarian, a very pretty girl, long since married. He passed another house and caught his breath short. It was that in which she had lived--the girl he had loved in his youth, and who had loved him. He had left her in a state of uncertainty as to his intentions, and after keeping up a warm correspondence for some time, they had gradually become estranged, the estrangement commencing on his side. Why had he acted like this, he asked himself bitterly. He had dreaded something or another, he could not quite define what it was. He remembered how she, who had been as Steel to others, was like wax in his hands. He remembered----Ah, God what a lot he remembered.

He arrived at the residency after walking up the hill. The exercise made him puff. In the old days he used to run up steeper gradients, now it sometimes distressed him to walk on level ground.

The gate and the fence were new, but the verandah, the door and the windows, as in the case of the hotel, were the same he had known in the old days. He opened the door and walked in, his footsteps sounding hollow in the empty house.

Kellson stood in the passage. He had left the front door wide open so as to admit the light. The air of the empty house seemed dense with the essence of the past. He went into every room, pausing for a few seconds in each, and then entering the next on tip-toe. He stood in the dining-room, before the fireplace. He had sat where he now stood on so many evenings of winter days whose suns had set with his youth. The barren hearth was full of ghostly flames which struck a chill into his heart. There was the room opening to the left, which Mabel and Vi, the little twin daughters of his former chief, used to occupy. He seemed to hear the laughter of the children echoing from some far-off paradise of the past, before the portal of which a stern-browed Fate stood to prevent his entering. The shutters of the dining-room window had been thrown open. A memory-ghost prompted him to unfold one of them. On its inner surface, painted over, he found the heads of the tacks with which he had nailed the programme of the farewell dance given in honour of his promotion by his chief. Where were the dancers? Gone like the music to which their feet had kept time.

His bed had been placed in the room formerly occupied by the children. This pleased him; the ghosts of Mabel and Vi were more bearable than the other ghosts. He looked in to see that all he required had been provided, and then he walked over the premises outside, old recollections smiting him like whips at every turn. He went into the stable and touched the ring to which "Bob," an old pony, the joint property of the two little girls, used to be tied. The tennis-ground was over-grown with grass--his predecessor's family evidently had not cared about tennis. He recognised most of the trees in the garden. The old vine at the side of the house was green and full of unripe grapes. It was the only thing that had a cheerful look.

Kellson returned to the hotel, and found that several of the inhabitants of the village had called and left cards. After supper, he walked up again to the residency, and found the Chief Constable there, he having come to see whether the arrangements made were satisfactory. Kellson was much relieved to find he had company. He had dreaded entering the house alone in the dark. There was an old rustic seat under the verandah, and on this Kellson and the Chief Constable sat and talked for half an hour. Then the latter said "Good night" and left.

Kellson remained sitting on the rustic seat, feeling in a better frame of mind. The Moon rose over the big mountain in front of the house and distant about five miles. The soft moonlight made the landscape wonderfully beautiful. The whole mountain was draped in snow-while, clinging mist, except the very summit, over which the Moon was hanging. The peacefulness of the hour stole into his heart, and his brain calmed down. The mountain suggested to him the past, and the pure, white mist shrouding it seemed like vapour risen from the merciful waters of Lethe. The Moon suggested hope, vague and undefined, lint still hope. With the swing as of a pendulum his consciousness swept back from the dark night of despondency and bathed its wings in light. Then his soothed spirit felt the need of sleep, so he entered the house and began to prepare for bed.

The waggon-road from the village scarped around the slope at the back of the house, and he heard the clatter of a waggon passing along it. The noise irritated him sorely--he could not tell why. Soon it ceased, and he wondered why the waggon should have stopped where it did. A few minutes afterwards he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, so he paused in his undressing, wondering irritably who was coming to disturb him. Then he heard a light tap at the front door.

Taking a candle, he went to the door and opened it. He saw before him a woman. She was coloured, but of mixed race, the European element evidently preponderating. She was elderly--certainly over forty years of age--very thin; and she stooped somewhat. Her face was drawn and haggard, but her eyes were still beautiful--black, large, and deep. She was decently but poorly dressed.

"Good evening, sir," she said, speaking Dutch.

"Good evening," replied Kellson. "What do you want?"

"I beg your pardon. Sir, coming at this time to trouble you. I only came because I am in great grief. But do you not know me?"

"No," said Kellson, after scanning her features carefully; "I do not remember you. What is your name?"

"I am Rachel, sir."

"Rachel," he said, sharply; "not Rachel Arends?"

"Yes, Sir, I was Rachel Arends, but I married Martin Erlank, the blacksmith of Ratel Hoek, just after you left, long ago."

Kellson turned sick at heart. Here was a reminder of a thing he had fain forgotten, come to drive away the peace he had just acquired. Here was the ghost of a sin of long ago, which had put on flesh and blood and come back to haunt him. It was horrible. He looked at the woman-- she returned his gaze timidly for a moment, and then humbly drooped her head. Her manner and attitude suggested woe and utter humility. Then a wave of kindness and pity swept through him. Here was a fellow-creature with whom he had tasted the sweets of sin, long ago. Her youth, and all of her that he remembered, had been left behind by the hurrying years. Only one thing was clear, she was in trouble and she wanted his help. He would succour her if he could.

"Come in," he said to her kindly; and she followed him into the empty dining-room. He closed the shutters, and placed the candle on the window-sill. Then he fetched the only two chairs out of his bedroom. He placed one for her, and sat in the other himself.

"Now, Rachel," he said in a kind voice, "what can I do for you?"

Rachel tried to speak, but sobs choked her. Kellson sat and watched her, trying to imagine the course of the change in her appearance through the nineteen years. Where had her beauty gone to--the clear yellow of her cheeks, through which the red seemed to burn, making them look like ripe nectarines. Where was her graciously curved bosom? Ah! "Where are the snows of yester-year?"

"Oh, Sir," she said at length, "I have come to you about my son whom you punished today."

Kellson now for the first time remembered that the surname she had given him was the same as that of the prisoner whom he had so severely sentenced. He could now decipher the suggestion in the eyes, which had so puzzled him.

"Was that your son?" he asked.

"Yes, Sir. I know he is bad, and it is his conduct that has made an old woman of me. But I thought you might do something for him. I do not mind about the two years' imprisonment--that may do him good--but the thirty-six lashes."

"Oh, Sir, his skin has always been so tender, ever since he was a little baby. It is quite white and soft under his shirt. For the love of God, do not flog him. I did not know he was to be tried to-day, or I would have come before. When I heard you were coming I felt sure he would have had mercy."

"My poor woman," said Kellson, his heart pierced by Rachel's agony, "what can I do? I have no power to alter the sentence. He had been convicted so often before that I felt bound to punish him severely."

"I know. I know he deserves it, but for the love of God, take off the lashes. Oh, Sir, you cannot flog him. Bad as he is, I love him best of all my children, and all the others are good."

"What can I do?" said Kellson, deeply distressed. "The sentence is passed. I have no power to change it."

"Oh, Sir, do you not understand--must I tell you? I thought you would have known."

"What do you mean?"

Rachel again burst into violent weeping, and swayed to and fro in her chair. For some time she could not speak, Kellson sat and looked at her, a vague feeling of uneasiness stirring in him. At length she became calmer, and sat still--her hands pressed to her face. She stood up, looked fixedly at Kellson for a moment, and then fell un her knees before him.

"Save him, save him from the flogging," she said hoarsely, "he is your son."

Kellson sprang to his feet and looked down at the kneeling woman; his eyes stony with horror, and his face white and rigid. He knew in a flash that what she said was true. The face that the prisoner's reminded him of, and that he could not localise, was his own. Several peculiarities in the prisoner's appearance now struck him. It was quite clear--as sure as death and as obvious as his sin. He had sentenced his own son.

For a. while there was no change in the position of either the man or the woman. Then the woman swayed forward, and laid her face on the man's feet.

"Save him, save him," she gasped.

Kellson stooped, lifted her from the ground, and placed her in the chair. He was struck by her extreme lightness.

"Rachel," he said, "I never knew of this. What can I say to you now but, 'God help us both--or all three of us.' I can give you no hope, but come and see me to-morrow morning at the Office."

This seemed to comfort her. She stood up, faltered a "Good night," and went out of the house with feeble steps.

Kellson sat down in his chair and thought. His brain was quite calm, and his mind was clear, He heard the rumble of the waggon, and the voice of the boy shouting to the bullocks as he drove the team. He stood up, and mechanically seized his hat and stick. He wondered where the keys of the Office were kept. He would go down to the Office, find the record, and strike the lashes out of the sentence. No--the sentence must stand. The one stainless record which his conscience held up to him, was that of his public life. He had never yet done a deed in his official capacity of which he was ashamed. He must not, at the close of his career, be guilty of a dishonourable action. The prisoner richly deserved his sentence. Let him undergo it.

"At the close of his career." Yes, for Kellson felt that he could no longer live. His limit of endurance had been reached. Life had for some years past been a sore burthen, and now he could carry it no longer. Had he not longed for a child--for a son? Did he not know that such would have made his wife a happy woman and him a contented man? To live, to know of that degraded thing, for whose existence he was responsible, being there at the convict station amongst the other human animals, and becoming lower and more degraded every day. To look forward through two long years of misery and apprehension to the return of--his son. His son--a strange yearning towards the vicious creature he had carelessly glanced at that morning, took possession of him. He started up again, and seized his hat. He would go down, even though it were nearly midnight, and get the gaoler to admit him to the prisoner's cell. He made a few steps towards the door, and then stopped. No, better not. Reality would blast the delicate glamour-bloom with which his imagination had clothed for the moment that sordid form. It was the beauty of the eyes that haunted him. He knew that these imaginings were false. In another moment they were gone. What--after two years to meet that horrible cringing creature with the angel's eyes, in the street, and know him as his son--his son that he had asked God for in the days when he used to pray. Better a hundred deaths.

Suicide. Why not? Suicide was said to be disgraceful. Why? Other nations, more civilised in some respects than ours, had held it to be honourable. Not if one has responsibilities. His wife--well--he shrewdly suspected that she would be glad of her freedom. He had no child----Oh, God! Yes he had.

Disgrace to his wife and to his other relations. Ah! here came in the beauty of his plan. Suicide would never be suspected.

Kellson went into the bedroom and opened his portmanteau. From the pocket of the partition he took a little bottle of chloral hydrate, a drug which he was in the habit of using when insomnia pressed heavily upon him, as it periodically did. The chloral was in five-grain tabloids. His usual dose was three tabloids or fifteen grains. He now counted twenty tabloids into a tumbler, which he half filled with water.

The front door was still open, and Kellson, remembering this, went to shut it. The moon had now soared high above the mountain, and a spectacle, wonderfully and wildly beautiful, was revealed. Kellson walked into the garden and gazed on it. The mist, no longer smooth and clinging, but drawn and curled into fantastic wreaths, was rising slowly into the windless sky. The tired-out man took one lingering look, and then walked quickly into the house. He locked the front door and went into the bedroom.

He undressed quietly and got into bed, after laying his clothes tidily on one of the chairs. The chloral had not yet quite melted, so he took his tooth-brush and stirred the contents of the tumbler with the handle. In a few moments the last tabloid had dissolved.

Kellson blew the candle out and took a sip of the chloral mixture. It was so strong that it made him cough. He lit the candle and added more water. It then struck him that the room might smell close when the people entered it on the morrow, so he got up and opened the window wide. He then returned to bed, drank off the contents of the tumbler, and lay down.

For one wild moment terror at the lowering face of Death took possession of his soul. It was as though he could sec the awful features taking form out of the darkness. The dread destroyer that he had with daring hand roused unseasonably from his lair, seemed to fill the room--the house--the sky--and call him forth in tones of thunder to the black and freezing void. Light! Light!

He started up in bed and began to grope for the matchbox. But this passed away. The face of Death grew mild, and then seemed to smile. He lay down on his side, his face turned from the open window, composed himself into a comfortable attitude, and fell softly into the deepest of all sleeps.

THE QUEST OF THE COPPER.

"A beast with horns that rend and gore My army rushes through the world; The white plumes flutter in the fore, Like mists before a tempest whirled; The roaring sea when storms are strong Is not so fierce, the lion's wrath Is tame when swells the battle-song That frights the clouds above my path!

"My beaten shields to thunder thrill, My spears like lightning flash between, Till raining blood their brightness kill, Or dim to lurid red their sheen! At morn and eve the splendid shine of burning clouds I hail with joy-- The sky thus gives its son the sign To rise up mighty, and destroy!"

Zulu Pictures. Tshaka.

I.

TSHAKA, king of the Zulus, sat in state in his Royal Kraal one morning in the month of March, 1816. His throne was a log of white ironwood standing on its end, from the upper portion of which the stumps of three thick branches expanded, thus giving it the rough semblance of an arm-chair. The ends of the stumps were rounded and polished. The throne was standing upon the skin of a large, black-maned lion, and the king's feet were resting upon the mane. A number of indunas, councilors, and officers stood around the king in respectful attitudes, or moved about quietly, and silently.

Tshaka's mother, Mnande, sat on the ground some distance away, her ear strained to catch every word chat fell from her son's lips. A few yards behind her five young girls crouched on their knees and elbows, each with an earthen pot of beer, or a skin of curdled milk before her. As each new-comer arrived within a certain distance of the throne, he flung his spear and shield to the ground, and then came forward. When he reached within about twenty paces of Tshaka, he held his right hand high over his head and called out "Bayete," which is the Zulu royal salute. He then advanced and prostrated himself before the King's feet.

Tshaka was a man of magnificent build. He sat perfectly naked except for a bunch of leopard tails slung from his waist, and a few charms fastened to a thin cord around his neck.

Kondwana, commander of the 'Nyatele regiment, an induna of the Abambo tribe, was called before the king. He approached, under the customary obeisance, and then stood up.

"You will take," said Tshaka, "what remains of the 'Nyatele regiment (a regiment that had suffered very severely in a recent campaign from fever in the coast swamps above St. Lucia Bay, as well as from slaughter by the spear), and go to the country beyond the mountains of the Amaswazi, where the green and yellow stones from which the red metal (copper) is smelted, are dug out of the ground. You will bring back so much of these stones as will cover, when heaped up, the skins of three large oxen. You will return before the Summer rains have fallen. Go."

Kondwana was a distinguished man. He had, years previously, fought against Tshaka, but since his tribe, the Abambo, had made submission, and had been incorporated into the Zulu nation, he had served his new master with faithfulness and zeal. But one of the awkward conditions of savagery is this, that whenever a subordinate shows any extraordinary capacity, and consequently attains to a position of influence, his master is apt to regard him with jealousy and fear, and will therefore often destroy him ruthlessly on the first shadow of a pretext. In jealousy and mistrust of capable subordinates, the average savage potentate resembles Louis the Fourteenth of France, of pious memory, who could never bear to have a really capable man near his throne in a position of trust. Kondwana happened to be under the ban of Tshaka's suspicion, which, once roused, was never allayed. This is the explanation of his having been sent with his splendid regiment on a useless expedition through the deadly fever country just to the south of Delagoa Bay, between the Lebomba Mountains and the sea, and of his now having to go with the effective remnant of his veterans on a quest for copper to a hypothetical spot only vaguely rumoured of.

Amongst the spoil of a recent and very distant northern raid were a few copper bangles, and the prisoners from whom these were taken said that the metal had been smelted from green and yellow stones dug out of a mountain far to the north. In a native forge at one of the villages sacked, a few stones of the kind described had been found, and these were brought to Tshaka. No other information on the subject was to be had, yet Kondwana at once prepared to start upon his quest, knowing that if he failed to carry out the king's order to the very letter, his life would inevitably pay the forfeit.

Kondwana was a tall and very powerful man, jet black, but with a pleasing expression of countenance when not moved to wrath. He was as brave as a lion, and perfectly loyal to the king.

Tshaka possessed the faculty of inspiring loyalty to a high degree, but he was unaware of this. Being of a highly suspicious nature, he sacrificed to his groundless apprehensions numbers of his most loyal and devoted adherents.

Kondwana returned to his kraal after being shown specimens of the mineral which he had to seek. These were a few small lumps of shining stone--some being blue in colour and some yellow. In others both colours were present. When freshly broken, the blue specimens were beautifully iridescent, and showed tints such as are seen in the peacock's tail. Upon arriving at the headquarter military kraal next morning, he mustered his regiment, and found it to be about four hundred and fifty strong (effective). There were several hundred more at the kraal, but they were still suffering from fever. The men were all veterans, and thus wore head-rings, circular bands about seven inches in diameter, of a black substance composed principally of gum. These bands being about an inch thick, were fixed to the hair around the crown of the head, and thus afforded a very effective protection against blows.