Part 15

As they advanced northwards the scenes grew more idyllic. Herds of gnus, hartebeests, elands, and zebras, intermingled with reed buck and impala, alternately stared in immobility, then dashed off in clouds of yellow dust, and once more stood at gaze. Gazelles with glossy black, annulated horns and bodies brilliant in colour--golden-red, black-banded, and snowy-white below--cropped the turf a few yards from the faintly marked track which the caravan was following; and though the bucks lifted their heads to observe this advancing file of human beings they scarcely moved away more than a few yards.

The Valley was not entirely given up to wild life, though it seemed likely that it was only used by man as a pasture ground, and that he preferred the higher country, the hillocks on either side of the plain, for his habitations, out of the way of floods and swamps. But large herds of cattle browsed among antelopes and zebra and were watched over by herdsmen who displayed singularly little curiosity over this first invasion of the Happy Valley by the white man. The Stotts who had preceded Roger and Lucy seemed to have satisfied their curiosity, once and for all. These cattle-tenders were different in physical type to the ordinary Bantu Negro. They were tall; gracefully, slenderly built; and reminded Brentham of Somalis, though their head-hair was close-cropped. Such women as were met showed no sign of fear. They were clad in ample garments of dressed leather. But the men had all the gallant nakedness of the Masai--a skin cape over the shoulders, otherwise only ivory arm-rings and metal-chain necklaces.

The Masai guides occasionally plucked handfuls of grass and exhibited them to the groups of herdsmen as a testimony to the peaceful intentions of the white man's caravan. This voucher was further confirmed by the returning band of Masai who had escorted the Stotts to this Arcadia and were now returning to northern Nguru. They exchanged musical salutations with Roger's guides and told them the "Sitoto" were camped in a village one day's further journey to the north, near the shores of the lake.

"That's all right," said Roger, his mind greatly relieved. "Then let's give our _safari_ a half-holiday and take things easy. We'll pitch our camp on that knoll. How delightful is this short green turf after the miles and miles of burnt grass we've passed through. The spring has begun here a month earlier than in the lower-lying country. I expect the high mountains to the north have attracted the rains, though it's only October. Have you noticed, also, since we entered this valley we've had no mosquitoes? I wonder why? Something p'raps they don't like in the water, or not enough long grass?..."

As soon as the camp was finished, the pastoral people brought them rich, sweet milk for sale, in tightly-woven grass receptacles, in calabashes, or clay pots. Sometimes this milk had a smoky taste from the rough methods by which the milk pots were cleansed. But it was as sweet as a nut and seemed to Lucy, who had long been deprived of milk, except doled out in small quantities for tea, incomparably delicious as a thirst-quencher. And these Egyptian-like people--so often showing a Pharaonic profile and speaking a language which Roger afterwards declared not very far removed from Gala--also traded in honey, honey flavoured with the scent of the acacia blossoms, appearing now as golden fluff on the awakening trees.

The next day, the seventh since they left Burungi, Brentham's caravan came into full view of the lake, its shores lined with dense ranks of pinkish-white flamingoes. To the south-east was a native village of long, continuous "tembe" houses, arranged more or less in parallelograms, or hollow squares, enclosing for each family or group a turfy space where the cattle passed the night and family life was carried on in the open air and in security.

One of these enclosures had evidently been given over to the Stotts for a temporary home. And from out of it Mr. and Mrs. Stott might be descried, hurrying to meet the caravan. Before they could arrive, Roger halted his men and surveyed the whole scene before him from a grassy mound where he thought to pitch his camp. Projecting mountain buttresses shut in the valley and the lake, west, north and east. West and north these mountains almost overhung the flat lake shores in an abrupt escarpment, blue, without details, in the afternoon shadow. To the east of the lake, though there were great heights and in the north-east a hint of giant summits capped with snow, the rise was not so abrupt, more broken, and the rocks more arid, but vivid and variegated in colour---red, yellow, greenish grey, purple black and creamy white. The mountains on the west were diversified with combes and glens, were carved, moulded, seamed with watercourses; embroidered and mantled with dark green forests. Where the lake was deep its waters were a pure cobalt, but its shallows were whitish-green with salt or soda, and the level shores from which the waters had retreated were greyish white, probably with the guano of the countless flamingoes, who had their nesting-stools some distance back from the water's edge. Herds of cattle browsed peacefully on the green water-meadows of the river-delta; nearer at hand flocks of black and white sheep mingled with half-shy gazelles of golden brown. Great Secretary birds--grey, black, and white--stalked through the herbage looking for snakes and lizards, knowing no fear of man in their honourable calling. Blue whorls of smoke arose from the fishermen's fires on the lake shore, where fish was being smoked on wooden frames. All this was irradiated by the yellow light of the westering sun. Before, the Stotts could reach them and break their silence of contentment, Roger turned to Lucy and said: "This _is_ the Happy Valley!"

The Stotts were of course full of questions and wonderment. Mr. Stott was a middle-aged man of strong build, honest hazel eyes, clipped beard, tanned face and generally pleasing appearance. He had never before met either Lucy or Brentham, so Mrs. Stott had to make the introductions.

After these surprised and joyous greetings, an adjournment took place to the Stotts' quarters. Although they had only been about a week established here, in a portion of the village of Mwada lent them by the native chief, the practical and never defeated Stotts---the born colonists, the realized Swiss Family Robinson--had already made themselves a new home in the wilderness. They had swept out and cleaned the "tembes," the continuous huts of wattle and daub, divided into many compartments, which enclosed the turfy square; and in the centre of their "compound" had erected a circular building of stout palm poles and grass that covered a swept space of ground. In the middle of this they had fashioned a table of reed-bundles fastened to upright posts and had manufactured rough forms and stools of hyphaene palm trunks. This was their "baraza" or reception-room, their eating-house, and shaded playground for their hardy children. Within the enclosed ground they kept their milch goats, sheep, and riding donkeys. Of these they had quite a troop, purchased from the Masai. These asses had proved most useful as beasts of burden for the transport of their loads, so that they almost managed without human porterage. Mr. Stott had constructed very practical pack saddles.

"Come along to our baraza," said genial Mrs. Stott. "Let us try and make you up some kind of a meal before we begin talking."

Roger gave a few directions about his own camping, a quarter of a mile distant, and then joined Lucy and the Stotts, who were walking to "our new mission station," as Mrs. Stott called it.

"You know we are _never_ down-hearted; we _know_ God orders everything for the best! I am sure He thought we were settling down too comfortably among the Wagogo, and so gave us a hint to press farther into the interior. _Of course_, when things quiet down: for either the Germans or the English _must_ conquer East Africa: it would be sickening to leave the Arabs and Ruga-ruga in control--we shall build up again our Burungi station and put capable people in charge of it, people who'll get on well with the Wagogo.... They want a bit of managing. You see how well it would suit as a halt on the way to this wonderful country--What do you call it? 'The Happy Valley'? Yes, _that_ shall be its name. _How_ the Lord's ways are _past_ finding out! I felt _so_ sick at heart when we were leaving Burungi.... I'll tell you how it all happened. Our Masai friends had beaten off the Ruga-ruga, but the Wagogo thought they intended to return, probably with real Arabs in command. My husband is obliged to shoot game; otherwise we couldn't live, much less feed our people. They raided us chiefly for arms and ammunition.... We beat them off, but the Wagogo thought they would be sure to return--much stronger next time. So after thinking it over and putting our case before God in prayer we decided that night after the attack ceased, to spend the hours of darkness packing. The next morning we bought ten more donkeys from the Masai, besides the ten we had already, loaded them up and then said to our Masai friends--my husband speaks Masai pretty well: 'Now, can you guide us to some country where we can be safe from the Lajomba--their name for the Arabs--for a time?' And they led us here ... let us say, rather, they were God's agents in leading us here. Isn't this a _wonderful_ country? We have never seen the like. Somehow we feel so _safe_ here. You can't think of any enemy coming over those high mountains--one of them has snow on the summit--or over the cliffs. They can only come up the river valley. And to do that they must fight their way through the Rangi and Fiome peoples. The Rangi people speak a language like Chi-gogo, and so--oddly enough--do the fisher folk round this extraordinary lake. But the others don't look like ordinary Negroes. They are more like Somalis. And I can't make anything out of their language. But although they're different to the Masai they seem to have some kind of alliance with them, and they received us here as friends, because the Masai brought us. _What_ a field for the Lord's work! And to think I almost _doubted_ God when He let the Ruga-ruga attack Burungi!...

"But here we are, at our temporary home, and I must go to the cook-house and see about your meal. You won't mind native stuff, will you? You see we've lost most of our tinned provisions, and indeed we had been living on the country long before the Ruga-ruga attacked us. Like all the other missionaries of late we've had very few caravans from the coast."

Mr. Stott led the way to the "baraza" with its rough table of reed-bundles on a framework of sticks and its palm trunks to sit on.

The Stott children were playing on the dusty turf of the cleared ground in front of the baraza.

"I'm afraid you'll think our little 'uns rather uncared for," said Mr. Stott apologetically; "but my poor wife's had too much to do in our hurried flight and after we got here to spend much time on their clothing or even getting them clean!" The eldest of the three was a pretty boy with light flaxen hair and blue eyes, very tanned of skin, very grubby of face and hands. He wore a tattered smock and short breeches, vestiges of a "sailor suit." On his feet were cleverly made native sandals, as on those of his younger brother and little sister, whose legs and feet were otherwise naked, and the two smaller children had little on but a yard or two of calico wound round the waist. Lucy recognized in the youngest the solemn baby she had seen at Unguja playing with the large cockroaches; and said so.

"Yes," replied Mr. Stott. "Afraid of nothing, poor little mite. When the Ruga-ruga came I hurriedly built up a sort of zariba of boxes and stones, and put a tarpaulin over it and told the little 'uns to keep quiet; and there they were, all through the fighting. Mother and I would go and give 'em food every now and again, and Edgar here"--pointing to the boy--"'ud say, 'How's the fight going, Daddy?' And Edgar's bin a rare good boy since we came here, helping to tie these bundles of reeds and making himself useful. Our eldest's at home in Ireland with her grandmother--for her education. The next one we buried years ago in the Nguru country, and the very youngest--bless her--died of infantile diarrhoea last March at Burungi. That accounts for the six of 'em; and I'll lay there aren't many British children have had such an adventurous bringing-up, 'cept the young Livingstones and Moffats."

Mrs. Stott was now spreading a wrinkled, grey-white cloth over the reed table-top. And the children were up on their feet helping her and a native servant bring the meal from the cook-house to the baraza.

"We're giving you just the native _ugali_--porridge, you know," said Mrs. Stott, "but there's a lovely pot of fresh milk from the natives' cattle. Here's some honey in a calabash. Here are the rest of the scones we had for breakfast. I've made you some tea--rather weak, but it is so precious. And whilst you're tackling _that_ I'm going to fry some fish we got from the lake this morning--bony, but very sweet."

During their meal Roger and Lucy tried to give in instalments a description of the extraordinary circumstances which had brought them here in company. Mrs. Stott, who had fetched her sewing so that she might not be wasting time (Mr. Stott had excused himself, having urgent work to do till the evening), looked a little puzzled and not quite acquiescent over Brentham's explanations.

"Here, children! You go now and help Brahimu and Kagavezi. Don't get into mischief. Keep out of the sun, don't pick up scorpions, and don't go outside the boma.... I'm an outspoken woman, you know, Lucy. I can't help saying I think you ought to have stuck by your husband."

"But I was so _ill_, Mrs. Stott, and John _insisted_ on my going. Didn't he ... Captain Brentham?"

"He did really, Mrs. Stott. I had instructions to advise all the missionaries to leave their stations and return to the coast--indeed, I come here to you with that message, but I suppose you won't obey it?"

"Indeed I won't, Captain Brentham, though I thank you for your efforts to find us and help us. I do indeed. But wherever my husband is, there will I be too, unless he absolutely ordered me to go away.... And I saw it was the will of God that I should go."

"Well: that was what John did to me--absolutely _ordered_ me to go," said Lucy, beginning to cry. "He ordered Ann to go with me. It isn't my fault--our fault--that Ann has gone back, in spite of John's _positive commands_. Ann never obeys any one. Oh dear, oh dear! _what_ should I do ... I feel if I go back to that place I shall simply die ... and yet I shall lose your good opinion ... if I go to the coast with Captain Brentham...."

"Oh, I don't say that. I'm not one for passing judgments on my fellow creatures. It's between them and God. But look here, Captain Brentham: I don't want to keep you idle. I'll be bound there's a hundred things you want to see to in your camp. I'll keep Lucy with me. She and I are old friends, as you know. If you'd send over her loads and her native woman--let's see, what was her name? I remember how she nursed you when your poor baby came--and went--Halima? Yes. Well, send over everything that belongs to Lucy and her tent shall be pitched inside our boma whilst she stays here. She and I will talk things over a bit and then, maybe, we'll call you into consultation. I'm sure you want to do what's best for us all. What a _strange_ place to meet in! The last time we spoke together was in your grand Arab house at Unguja and I was more than a bit afraid of you."

Mrs. Stott rose up from her sewing, walked with Brentham to the exit from the compound, and gazed across the outer greensward to the very blue lake, with its whitish rim of scum or salt. In the distance the blush-tint flamingoes flew with wings of black and scarlet in V formations, against an azure background of colossal mountains rising tier above tier; or, their glistening plumage showed up more effectively against the violet shadows of the western cliffs and wooded gorges bordering the lake, and still more strikingly when contrasted with the cobalt surface of the lake itself. Other flamingoes waded into the lake, filtering through their laminated beaks the minute organisms evidently abundant in its water. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of these birds stood in serried ranks along the curving, diverging shores. The rear ranks were composed of immature birds of dirty-white plumage streaked with brown; but these were masked by the front rows of adults, affectedly conscious of their beauty of plumage and outline. They exhibited a hundred mannerisms in their poses: lowered their kinky necks to dabble in the ooze, or raised them perpendicularly and "honked" to let the humans know they were on their guard (though never a man in these parts thought of harming them). Or they cleaned their backs with rosy coils of neck, stood on one vermilion leg and bent the other limb beneath the belly feathers. Or they fenced at each other with decurved bills of purple and red in make-believe petulance, and because life-conditions were so perfect that they had nothing whatever to grumble at.... Some Wambugwe canoes were approaching the lake shore with fish to sell to the white men. A considerable section of the flamingoes rose into the sky with a display of roseate tints against the blue ... then landed and folded their wings in assurance of safety.

"Yes," continued Mrs. Stott, "I little thought we should meet under circumstances like these. Aren't those flamingoes _wonderful_? Like a revelation of God--almost. I shall stay here if only to look after them. _They_ shall be the roses in my garden. I shan't want any others. You see they're not afraid of man and they don't get in man's way. They aren't good to eat--much too fishy. And, as far as I can see, they don't eat fish; only mud, seemingly--shrimps, p'raps...."

"Well, Consul: come again at supper-time; and if I'm too stingy over my precious tea, at any rate I'll give you hot milk and pancakes and honey."

Left with Lucy, Mrs. Stott first took her to the washing hut and provided the means for a good bath and next lent her some garment of the dressing-gown order with which to clothe herself till her luggage and her attendant arrived.

"I'll tell you what I am going to advise Captain Brentham to do, Lucy," said Mrs. Stott. "Come what may, you'll be none the worse for a good rest here. This place is evidently far healthier than the lower country. The Consul shall bargain with your Masai guides to go as fast as they can back to Ulunga and find out what has happened at Hangodi. If things are still quiet there, the probability is they are going to remain quiet. In that case--if your husband does not absolutely forbid it, Captain Brentham ought to take you back to Hangodi and leave you there. He can then find his own way _somehow_ to the place he lives at--Medina. If the messengers come back with _bad_ news about the Arabs, or if John Baines positively vetoes your returning, _then_ all you can do is to put yourself under the Consul's care and travel with him to Mvita ... unless you like to stop with me and live on country produce. I think we can--whilst you're waiting here--get in touch with the Masai beyond the mountains and by giving them a present induce them to guide you to the Kilimanjaro country, to one of the mission stations there--Evangelical or Methodist, don't matter which. After that all would be plain sailing, for I don't believe the Arabs of the British sphere are going to rise."

When in the evening of that day, by the light of a camp fire--they had practically no artificial light--Mrs. Stott put this plan before Roger, he promptly agreed. It would show he had done the right thing. It would go far to save Lucy's good name, especially among Mission folk. And it would give him nearly a month to stay and explore the Happy Valley. He had spent much of the day with James Stott helping him in his work on the embryo station, and Stott had told him of wonderful things he had seen or had gleaned from native information. There was the new lake to survey roughly; there was a paradise of big game to shoot in. Here Mrs. Stott intervened: "I hope you and my husband will go slow as regards shooting. I know we must have the meat and we're so nearly bankrupt at the coast that a few tusks of ivory would come in handy. But somehow I should like to think of this Happy Valley as a sort of preserved zoological gardens where all these innocent creatures of God's handiwork----"

"I shouldn't call a rhinoceros innocent, Mrs. Stott," said Roger, smoking his pipe with such contentment as he had not known for months--"I have rather a tender conscience about antelopes and zebras, but rhinos attack you absolutely unprovoked...."

_Mrs. Stott_: "Only because men began humbugging them first of all, long ago, I expect. However, if ever I lived to see our mission stations self-supporting and growing all the food they needed, I'd never let James fire another shot at the game."

The next morning the two Masai guides, well rewarded, started off with a package. It contained letters home from the Stotts, telling of their wonderful deliverance; a brief despatch from Captain Brentnam to H.M. Agent at Unguja, and letters to John Baines and Ann Jamblin. John was asked how things were going, and whether on second thoughts he would prefer Lucy to return to Hangodi, and if he could take the next opportunity of having the accompanying letters sent to the coast; and Ann was given--curtly--information as to Lucy's reaching the temporary station of the Stotts. However expansive the Stotts might be, within the compass of one sheet of paper, they said very little about the situation of the Happy Valley; and Brentham was still more reticent. Both no doubt for the same reason, that the Happy Valley was too good a proposition to be given away lightly to a greedy world. Mrs. Stott still hoped, despite concluded boundary conventions, it might be brought within the British sphere; Brentham did not want any other fellow to have a go at its big game or an examination of its alluring secrets till he had had a chance to return.

Whilst these letters were being carried to their destination by two lithe, naked men of red-brown skin, with hair done up in periwigs of twine soaped with mutton fat and the same red-ochre as coloured their sleek bodies, men who carried knobkerries in their waistcords and long-bladed spears in the right hand, great oval shields on the left arm, and who ran on sandalled feet a steady six miles an hour when they were on the road: Lucy and Roger disposed themselves to await patiently the news which--they felt--was to determine their fate.

Twenty days went by in the Happy Valley in blissful sameness. Lucy had her very limited wardrobe washed in the lake waters which had some oddly cleansing, blanching effect--something chemical which both Roger and Mr. Stott would discuss in muttered phrases. Lucy and Mrs. Stott together, with many a laugh at blunder or foiled hopes of success, at length succeeded in ironing the skirts and bodices and petticoats and linen with a parody of a flat-iron, made for them by a naked Elkonono blacksmith in a native forge.