Part 29

_Mrs. Stott_: "Ah, _there_ you touch my greatest sorrow. Yes. Every German I know on this concession keeps a native woman, mostly from our classes. But I fear--I fear--my nephew Phil and the clerk Stallibrass as well--my two Australian boys--are not much more moral. Their relations with the native women won't bear investigation. That is not all ... and I have no right to be here as an accuser when I can't answer for my own son, Edgar.... You remember you offered in 1897 to take him home with you, and have him sent to an English school or college for a year or two? I wish ... I wish ... we had consented. It was so good of you. But we thought at the time that if children can grow up into God-fearing men and women in Australia without leaving the back-blocks or the bush, why not here, where the climate is good? Then there was the question of the cost...."

_Roger_: "I suppose he has got all his education from you and his father?"

_Mrs. Stott_: "Yes, indeed. The main thing, besides religion, was to teach our children to read and write and do simple accounts. All they wanted besides was to read the books we ordered out.... I'm sure you can't say we have been indifferent to literature?"

_Roger_: "No--not of a certain kind ... but all of it, from what I have seen, is rather old-fashioned and goody-goody...."

_Mrs. Stott_: "I don't agree. However, I won't stop to argue about it. It matters little, since Edgar from the age of twelve or thirteen has cared very little for reading. His passion is _sport_. And to think how I ran down big-game shooting, when it was not vitally necessary for our supplies! Of course, James is a good shot and a clever hunter, and Edgar, after he was twelve, used to go out with him. He killed an elephant to his own gun when he was only fifteen, and the tusks fetched as much as L60! He _was_ proud. Now his one idea is to be away shooting ... and trifling with these Iraku women. Oh!" (crying a little). "_Can't_ you see how it _silences_ me? Ann talks about cutting off a member that offends and says I should expel my own son from the Mission for loose living.... I can't do that, and besides there's nothing proved.... But I can't very well join her in her crusade against ... she _will_ use such plain words ... against fornication and unclean living. I suppose we shall have to send Edgar away ... back to Australia ... And then I fear much for his future. Thank goodness! He's a total abstainer, so far.... Ought we to invite some young woman to come out here for the mission, in the hope that he might marry her and settle down?"

_Roger_: "Wouldn't be a bad idea, if you could insure her taking his fancy. I haven't seen Master Edgar for months or taken much notice of him since he came to man's estate. Struck me, he was growing up a nice-looking lad...."

_Mrs. Stott_: "Indeed he is! It's his good looks that are his snare.... The native women run after him so...."

_Roger_: "Does he work for us or for the Mission?"

_Mrs. Stott_: "He is his father's assistant in the Carpentering school; but he's too much given to larking with the boys, who look upon him as a kind of hero. Of course, he speaks their language almost as if it came natural to him. His real bent is for Natural History ... that's the only excuse for his sport. We sell the collections he makes to the Germans. One of your mining engineers has taught him photography. He takes wonderful pictures of wild life. We posted some home to the _Graphic_, and with the money they paid, Edgar sent to Unguja and bought himself a snap-shot camera.... Am I keeping you from your work?"

_Roger_: "You are: but we don't often meet nowadays for a talk. Let's thrash this matter out. Well?"

_Mrs. Stott_: "Well, I was going on to say, with all this Edgar's mind is turning away from religion. We have hard work to get him to attend our services... He even shocked his father the other day by saying he was sick of the Bible.... I say, 'even,' because ever since my dear James has been getting up these industrial schools you were so keen on, he has become less and less spiritually minded, more and more interested in the material things of this world. He only _pretends_ to care for the Second Coming of Christ ... just to please me. He is much more interested in his new turning lathe" ... (dabs her eyes and blows her nose). "His prayers have become very trite. If it wasn't for my daughters...."

_Roger_: "Let me see: you have two daughters out here--Pretty girls.... They must be growing up...."

_Mrs. Stott_: "Yes. Carrie's nearly nineteen; and Lulu is sixteen. We called her 'Luisa,' not from the English name, but because 'Luisa' means 'darkness' in Kagulu, and when she was born she had dark hair and dark eyes ... she's fairer now.... And the way, then, seemed dark before us.... I was very ill at the time...."

_Roger_: "And then the eldest of all is at home, I mean in England....?"

Mrs. Stott: "Yes. Rosamund, named after me. She's a school teacher in Ireland, and practically a stranger to us. That's one of the sorrows of our life out here. Not that we haven't many blessings to counter-balance it--I'm sure the way we've kept our health in the Happy Valley--But we have either to send our children away to England or Australia, or bring them up here, with many disadvantages, it would be a pity to bring Rosamund away from a career where she is doing very well...."

_Roger_: "Quite so. Well then, we have only to deal with Carrie as a possible wife to one of our young men...."

_Mrs. Stott_: "As a matter of fact, Riemer proposed to her a few months ago. But Carrie is very particular; and besides, she wouldn't marry a German...."

_Roger_: "What nonsense! In what way are they inferior to Englishmen or Australians? I'm sure Riemer..."

_Mrs. Stott_ (tightening her lips): "Not to be thought of. Riemer is an avowed atheist..."

_Roger_: "Oh, of course, if religion is to come in the way...."

_Mrs. Stott_: "It isn't only religion, there are other things. No. Don't let my daughters come under discussion. Why couldn't the Germans here send home for nice German girls to come out and marry them, or get married when they next went on leave...?"

_Roger_: "Why not, indeed? I'll talk to them. Much better they should do so. But then, what'll happen by and by is what _you_ don't want to happen. The Germans will marry white women, have large families and gradually push out the Negroes and turn this into a White Man's country--unless the climate and the germ diseases forbid.... I'm not sure myself that I don't favour a mixture of races and that the Americans for example are not better suited to America because of their strong underlying element of Indian blood--I suppose you would not like it if the Germans married their concubines?"

_Mrs. Stott_: "As an Australian I am prejudiced against the mixture of the races..."

_Roger_: "Well, but Dame Nature isn't, in her inconsequent way. First she prompts the original human ancestors--your Adam and Eve--to segregate and separate and differentiate into sub-species, almost. Then she seems sorry for it, and does all she can to bring them together again, prompts the White man to travel all over the world and mix his blood freely with that of the other races. She has been redeeming the Negro from his original blackness and apishness by sending white immigrants into Africa for thousands of years--Egyptians, Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Indians; Portuguese, Dutch, French, English; to say nothing of all the Mediterranean peoples who pressed into Africa in prehistoric days. They have all mingled with the Negro in their time and rehumanized him. You own to a _penchant_ for the Iraku people. Why? Even for the Masai. Why do you really prefer them to the out-and-out Negro type, like the Kindiga and Wambugwe? Because they have a strain of ancient white blood in their veins. Same thing with the Swahili. We like them because of the Arab intermixture. And yet we talk and write a lot of rubbish about disliking the half-caste between a European and a Negro--By the bye, since we are talking on this subject, did I or did I not see a half-caste child in the compound of Schnitzler, that mining engineer who is such a friend of Edgar's?"

_Mrs. Stott_: "You did, at least Schnitzler's native woman has had a child by him--two years ago. And if you looked all through the settlement you could find three other half-caste infants.... They make no secret of it...."

_Roger_: "Why _should_ they? If they must form these unions, it is better they should be sanctified by the production of children. I must say it redeems the whole thing in my eyes; the Germans don't ignore their half-caste children, but have them properly brought up. It is better than what you call 'sinning in secret' and blushing at--or repudiating the consequences.... This _maddening_ question of sexual irregularities, which now seems to clog the progress of all European Colonies, and to fill up the press of the United States and of England--are they always writing about it in Australia?"

_Mrs. Stott_: "Strange to say, we never get any Australian papers. I don't know whether Phil does either.... I seem to belong so very much more to England or to north Ireland, where all my relations live...."

_Roger_: "... I often wish the Almighty or Nature or Chance--or whatever it was that developed us out of lifeless matter--had not tried this clever trick of the two sexes--I suppose it began a hundred million years ago, in the union of two entirely different microbes. I wish we had been allowed to go on increasing by fissure, by budding. Certainly among the world-problems of to-day it is the most difficult to solve. I sometimes feel irritated against Christianity for the fuss it makes about Chastity. But I imagine it arose from the tremendous revulsion that took place in the Eastern Mediterranean two thousand years ago against an excessive sexual licence: just in those very countries where the purest doctrines of self-restraint were afterwards preached. The Christian ideal certainly seems the most likely to promote a good type of human being, but it is very hard to live up to.... Yet what texts you could find--in favour of Chastity--you missionaries--_if_ you only realized the history of the Negro and did not go merely to the Old and New Testament for your pegs to hang a sermon on. The Negro is in his present inferior position because he has weakened his mental energy by extravagant sexual indulgence--and limited his numbers. Do you find the Happy Valley any less depraved than Nguru or Ugogo?"

Mrs. Stott: "I should _think not_. A little worse, if possible! I assure you, Major Brentham, when we first arrived from Australia I had _no conception_ there could _exist_ such _depravity, such_ vices. They were referred to here and there in the Bible. But I did not know what the references meant...."

_Roger_: "Well: there you are. _That_ is a justification for your being here, as in other parts of Africa.... If you and we can only give the Negro _something else to think of_. He is like our labouring class at home. It is the only pleasure he knows of. Give him education, ambition, sports, remunerative work, an interest, even, in better food, in better houses, pictures, music, theatres..." (Mrs. Stott shudders.) "Well: there you are, making a face at the theatre. You won't distract the Negro--or the European--from indulging sexual desires by prayers and hymns and the reading of ancient scriptures: _that's_ certain. I know we differ there, and you must be already worn out with this lengthy conversation. As you've stayed so long, stay a little longer and have lunch with us? Lucy was only saying this morning she never sees you nowadays. You can go and have a talk to her, while I glance through these reports. See, by the bye, they give your donkey a feed, and put it safely in the stable. The other day one of ours disappeared. Of course, they said it was a leopard----"

At luncheon. The dining-room at Magara House is a fair-sized apartment, with walls of well-smoothed cement surface of pinkish tone, due to red ochre being mixed with the cement. On the walls are hung a few clever pastel studies done by a talented German horticulturist who has an eye for colour and design; there are trophies of shields and spears; there is a dado of native matting; and a smooth floor surface of red _chunam_ plaster, made by Indian masons from the coast. In a pleasant bay which looks on to the front verandah a magnificent lion's skin lies between the window-seats....

A Swahili butler and footman clothed in long white _kansus_, with white "open-work" skull-caps, and black, gold-embroidered _visibao_,[#] are serving the luncheon, cooked admirably by the still surviving husband of Halima, the Goanese Andrade. The meal consists of chicken broth, flavoured with grated coco-nut and red chillies; curried prawns (out of tins); kid cutlets and chip potatoes; Mango "fool"; and a _macedoine de fruits_--fresh pineapple, bananas, sliced papaw, and oranges. [A little Rhine wine flavoured the fruit-salad and was served at table with Seltzer water.] Then, in the alcove with the lion skin [the door-window opens on to the verandah with the petunia beds below in carmine and purple blaze] the servants place Turkish coffee and cigarettes. Mrs. Stott only drinks Seltzer water and declines a cigarette; but thoroughly enjoys her lunch and congratulates Lucy on the flower-decorations of the table....

[#] Sleeveless waistcoats.

"It's Hamisi, our butler, that deserves your praise. I get so easily tired in these days that I seldom do the flowers as I used. I make up for it by doing all the mending that Maud will let me have and writing all the letters home. John and Maudie expect a full account of our doings every month.... And dear sister Maud that is here, is always busy over our accounts and Roger's business correspondence and her poultry farming. You know whilst Roger was in South Africa she almost took his place!"

"Oh, as to that," says Maud, who has a strong sense of justice, "you must all admit Hildebrandt and Dr. Wiese both played up. I shall _never_ forget how loyal they were to Roger ... they might have been Englishmen ... and that, too, at a time when other Germans out here were looking askance at us, and that horrible Stolzenberg was threatening to raid the Concession and seize the mines..."

"By the bye," says Roger, "you never told me, either of you, about the Flamingo outrage. There are many things I could forgive, but not that. It was one of my great pleasures out here, going to see the Stotts and watching the flamingoes on the lake shore. If I'd been here at the time I should certainly have followed up the brute and shot him..."

"We didn't tell you because we wanted you to get well, and feared you might do something violent before your leg was healed."

"Well, now that I know, I shall certainly lodge a strong complaint with the German Commandant at Kondoa...."

"Ann Anderson has solemnly cursed him for his cruelty," said Mrs. Stott. "She said so in the letter she sent him by the poor Masai whose hand he chopped off. I think that, by the bye, is better worth taking up with the authorities than the flamingo massacre. I'm afraid you won't find many of the Germans sympathize with you there, though I must admit they are a great loss to the scenery. But Ann said in the letter: 'If man doesn't punish you, God will.'"

"Of course," said Roger, "it is a scandal the way the Germans tolerate this monster, just because, like Patterne--I suppose _he_ hasn't turned up again?..."

"Don't know."

"... Just because he lives on the outskirts of civilization in no man's land. I shall try a ride on one of the Basuto ponies next week, go first of all and see your old station of Mwada, interview Ann, remind her of the parable of the Mote and the Beam, ask her to go slow ... with these denunciations of moral frailty; and get some idea of the damage done to the flamingoes. I expect my complaints may draw down on me counter remonstrances from the Germans. I heard a growl the other day from a Herr Inspektor of Native schools that you taught no German" (addressing Mrs. Stott), "only Swahili and a little English. What could you do in that respect? I should not like them to have any excuse for interference with you...."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Stott, her face paling at the very thought, "after all the _time, labour, money_--much of it _your_ money--that we've put into Mission work in the Happy Valley. Oh, _why_ wasn't it taken over by the English? ... I think it would _break my heart_ to leave it and begin our work over again. We've got so fond of the people ..."

"Don't be down-hearted," said Roger, "I shall always stand up for them as long as I'm here, and I have no intention of going--except for a holiday--for ever so long.... _What a strange noise_...?!..."

A prolonged, distant rumble, like the sound a big avalanche makes in the Alps: and before they could speculate on its meaning, the ground trembled under their feet, the two-storied house seemed to sway this way and that, and then settle itself with a jarring thud. Fine dust fell from the ceiling; trophies of shields and spears came clattering down, the glass and china on the table tinkled, the finger-bowls giving forth a prolonged musical note. Outside, after a moment's hush, cocks crowed, hens whooped, geese raised grating screams, peacocks honked and yelled, turkeys gobbled and crowned cranes threw back their golden-crested heads and uttered their resounding call.

"An earth tremor," said Roger in an even voice, for Lucy looked like fainting. "A _very small_ earthquake; _nothing_ to be alarmed at, though it turns one a bit sick inside. They don't often happen. This is only the second I've experienced in ten years. You see, we live on the border of a volcanic region. Here, _Lucy_! Pull yourself together. Have a nip of brandy?...

"Better? Let's get out into the air, on the verandah, and see if any damage has been done.... I hope it won't affect our mining galleries...."

But no reports of damage from the earthquake came to hand. The natives said that these shocks were sometimes followed by outbursts of gases, smoke, steam from one or other of the craters in the north.

A week after Mrs. Stott's visit, Roger, accompanied by Maud to look after him and see he did not overstrain himself, rode down into the Happy Valley to Mwada station. Here they interviewed the redoubtable Ann, now a square-built grey-haired matron of middle age and practically no sexual charm. She had black eyes, glowering under black eyebrows, a sallow complexion, and a thin-lipped mouth, with down-turned corners, like the mouth of Queen Victoria when she was displeased. Ann listened in grim silence to Major Brentham's hesitating remonstrances. When he had finished she replied that it was more than flesh and blood could stand that she should be spending her time and the Mission money training up native girls to be Christian wives for Christian natives, and as soon as they had learnt some civilization they were sought out and snapped up by Germans, inside and outside the Concession. It wasn't for that she had come out to Africa....

"I _do_ feel for you and will see what can be done," said Brentham; "but at the same time we must remember we are not on British territory, where they stand a good deal from the missionaries, but in _German_ Africa. The Germans have made a handsome acknowledgment of what Mr. Stott has done in the way of industrial teaching. Don't go and spoil it all by being too ready to denounce these--these--irregularities! Things may right themselves in time. It would be such a dreadful blow to the Stotts if they were told to go, to leave the work of so many years...."

Ann would promise nothing, however. She would speak as the Spirit bade her.... For the present her time was taken up with mission work among the Wambugwe, who were _quite_ the worst heathens she had met with. "Not only terribly depraved--they eat the corpses of their dead!!!--but the dirtiest Negroes I have ever seen, and _wholly_ lacking in spirituality."

"Well then," said Roger, "_there_ you've got your work cut out, for several years. Meantime I will talk to our German friends...."

"_Friends_, indeed?" said Ann. "They're _no friends_ of _mine_!"

In spite of her fierceness of denunciation, she made both Roger and Maud as comfortable as she could at her rather Spartan station, and became so happy, friendly and even tearful during the evening with Maud, talking over the little world of Reading and Basingstoke, Aldermaston and Englefield, that evening prayers for once were intermitted. Her husband sat mostly silent, listening respectfully. It was evident that he worked very hard at material things during the day, that he stood much in awe of his wife, and had completely lost his gift of extempore prayer. Their one daughter was a thin, sickly, wistful little girl of ten, very shy, and fonder of her father than of her mother. But according to Ann she was already a good needlewoman, and helped in the sewing classes. Kind Maud proposed she should be fetched one day and taken to Magara for a week's stay. The air was so good there. Ann consented a little reluctantly.

They rode their Basuto ponies to see if there were traces of Stolzenberg's slaughter of the flamingoes. But the bodies had evidently been carried away from the lake to be skinned and because the bones were valuable; and the sole visible result of the raid was the absence of adult birds in pink plumage. There only remained of the former serried ranks a thin broken line of ugly immature flamingoes, dirty-white in plumage, streaked with brown. They were dibbling timidly in the thick waters of the lake; and this had also lost much of its former beauty--though Stolzenberg was not responsible for the slow desiccation of East Africa. The lake just now was no longer a uniform sheet of cobalt, bordered with a grey-white fringe of salt and guano mixed; it was reduced to two large areas of deep water with grey mud in between. How different from what Roger had seen in the glamour of 1888!

Away from the lake shore, in a detour through the foot-hills, they met a few wandering Masai on their way to trade at the Mission station. They greeted Roger with acclamations of friendship and much spitting. Without an interpreter he could not understand them, but they kept pointing to the north-west and evidently referring to the wicked Stolzenberg under their name of _Oleduria_ ("The Terror"); and at the same time to "God"--_Engai_. They talked with the satisfied tone of a thing now settled, and went on their way to interview the Woman-chief who was their medical adviser, and would-be converter.

"They may have heard of Ann's letter," said Roger, "and believe her curse is coming off. Do you see where they were pointing? ... That curious cloud that seems to be rising high in the air, rising and falling, as though one of the craters were showing signs of activity?"

As soon as he returned to Magara, Roger drew up a formal complaint against Stolzenberg, addressed to the officer commanding in Irangi. He set forth the long tale of misdeeds on the part of "The Terror" during the past ten years and urged the German authority for the good name of the Empire to arrest and try this bandit. If this were not done, he would be compelled to place all the facts before the German directors of the Concessionaire Company whose employes' people and property suffered so much from Stolzenberg's raids and violence. The maiming of the Masai messenger was a concrete case, whatever might be thought of the offence in slaughtering the flamingoes, birds whose guano was one of the Concession's assets.