Chapter 5

"Perhaps that is why I am afraid," breathed Diana. "I don't care about greatness. I don't want to be great. It all seems so unreal. I like the sunshine, and flowers, and trees, and birds, and four-footed things. I don't want to be bothered with my fellow-creatures; they are a nuisance. If they are in difficulties, and can't find a way out for themselves, they might just as well go under."

"You heartless little heathen!" affectionately.

The girl brightened suddenly. "Why! it understands, Meryl!... The Spirit of the Waters heard me, and now it is laughing. It is great enough to understand and appreciate the feelings of both of us. Don't you hear the note of revelling now?... Why!... it's all revelling. The waters are shrieking with joy. They've come tearing down the Zambesi valley for the rapture of plunging over the precipice, and now they are just beside themselves with the excitement and delight of it. O!... they heard me say I don't care about my fellow-creatures, that they are just a nuisance, and they're shouting to me, 'Neither do we ... neither do we!... Silly, wide-eyed, open-mouthed humans come and stare at us, and try to describe us, saying we are lovely and wonderful and pretty and such-like, and we just roar at them and their puniness and take our glorious plunge.' That is what the waters are saying to me now, Meryl. I feel as if I simply must plunge with them. Take me away. I can't bear any more to-day." And they went silently back through the lovely plantations to the hotel.

But in the evening, in the moonlight, her mood changed again.

"I feel a little like you to-night, Meryl. The big things do matter, of course. If I'm such a silly little goat I can't do anything big myself, I guess I'll help you whenever it's possible. And, of course, even humans matter a little, though I do like dogs and horses so much better; but there's something so calm and big and strong about the waters to-night, they are telling me all the time that the big things matter. O, Meryl, it's so lovely--so lovely--it hurts dreadfully...."

And after a pause: "If it hadn't been for you I should never have taken the trouble to come and see it. I won't grouse at the dust any more."

And later: "I'm glad there's no sign of a human habitation at hand, and that the wilderness is all round. They had to be splendidly isolated--magnificently alone--the god who did it understood that. One can think of the wide reaches of Africa afterwards, and the gem, like a priceless jewel, set in them. Deep silence, wide horizons, untrodden country on every hand, and this in the midst like a treasure tenderly enfolded."

After three days they returned to Bulawayo, and found their pilot impatient to be off. He unfolded his plans, and the two girls listened eagerly when he said:

"I am told there is every indication of gold in the Victoria district, and my engineer is anxious I should journey down there and see one or two properties. The railway does not extend beyond Selukwe, so if we go we must take a travelling ambulance and tents and sleep out in them for three or four weeks. I think there is a pretty good hotel in Edwardstown, where you could remain if you like while I travel round, and then we might all journey to Salisbury up the old pioneer route."

The girls were delighted, but Aunt Emily's mournful resignation had reached its limit. She informed them, in a voice which implied, no matter how they pleaded with her, she should remain firm, that nothing would induce her to accompany them upon such a journey.

Her brother said quietly, "Just as you like, Emily. I think I can take care of the girls. Will you stay in Bulawayo, or go back to Johannesburg?"

Aunt Emily's face wore rather a reproachful expression as she replied, "I suppose I had better return to Johannesburg, and then if any of you get ill with malaria or typhoid, you must wire for me and I will come back."

"You were very good to come so far," said Meryl gently, seeing the veiled disappointment that they could dispense with her so easily.

"If it is any consolation," volunteered Diana, "you may be quite sure we are all going to be most horribly uncomfortable for the next month or two. The only illness I anticipate is an utter and complete weariness of life. I don't know which sounds the most dreadful: being bumped along dusty roads in an ambulance, and sleeping with snakes and toads under a tent; or being stifled in an odious little corrugated-iron hotel, living on poisonous tinned stuffs in a perpetual odour of stale roast nigger. If I am going to endure it for my country, I hope my country will give me the only fitting reward--the Victoria Cross."

"Perhaps we needn't stay in the hotel," said Meryl hopefully. "We can probably camp out. Surely the wonderful old ruins are somewhere near Edwardstown, father? How splendid if we could camp beside them!..."

"Quite near. We will certainly go and see them. They tell me there is a police camp there, and at this time of the year it is quite healthy."

"But how glorious!..." cried Meryl. "I had no idea you were going in their direction."

"I meant to if possible," her father said; and so the trip was decided upon.

Three days later the cavalcade started off from Gwelo with great _éclat_. Two ambulances: one containing the two girls, a driver, a fore-looper, and a small black boy named Gelungwa, who was everything from ladies' maid to general adviser; and the other containing Mr. Pym, his engineer, driver, fore-looper, and the engineer's black cook-boy, who proved himself an invaluable asset.

Each ambulance was drawn by eight mules, and carried its share of the paraphernalia necessary to a long sojourn in the wilderness, and being thoroughly well equipped, they had decided to dispense with any further railway service until they reached Salisbury.

They started from Gwelo, with its wide, tree-lined roads, in the freshness of the morning, and leaving the surrounding bare, uninteresting common quickly behind, dived straightway into a track of Rhodesia that is like a vast, undulating park. The red road wound across a wide, breezy stretch of veldt to wooded hills and valleys, and beyond this was an enchanting vista of dreaming blue kopjes on a far horizon. Even Diana found nothing to grumble at. Like Meryl, her eyes rested often on that dreaming distance, and the unique charm of a journey into the unknown, independent of railways and hotels, held her senses. When two graceful buck sprang up in the grass near them, stood a moment to investigate, and then fled away, leaping and bounding to safety, she drew a deep breath of delight.

"Di, it's going to be a glorious trip!" Meryl exclaimed in low-voiced ecstasy.

Diana paused before she remarked in answer:

"It seems so natural somehow, to be journeying out to an unknown bourne in this primitive fashion. I wonder if, in another existence, I was one of the wives or handmaidens in Abraham's caravanserai? Perhaps I was his favourite concubine!... How interesting!... I'm sure I've journeyed like this into a far land before."

And again:

"How jolly to have two drivers who don't understand a word we say, instead of a chauffeur who is all ears and an Aunt Emily who is all prejudices!"

"Still," said Meryl, "you couldn't very well have a coachman in England wearing a sky-blue felt hat that was obviously meant for a lady, and with a large blue patch upon brown trousers."

"He's just a dear," was Diana's laughing comment. "I love his awful solemnity. He's like a Hindoo idol. And what luck to have a side wind instead of a forward one!"

At twelve they stayed in a welcome piece of shade for their first veldt meal. Lounge-chairs were untied for them to rest in, and an excellent little repast prepared by the cook-boy, while the small black imp waited upon them like a trained butler. Then they dozed through the hot midday hours, continuing their journey to those alluring blue distances after all were rested, until they reached the first night's camping place and pitched their tents near a rippling river--as Diana described it, "all mixed up with stars, and dreams, and niggers, and kopjes, and mules."

For a week they journeyed on, each day seeming lovelier than the last, and the dreaming repose of a great content hovered over all of them. There was no need for haste and none was made. There was no pitiless urging of tired mules as in the post-cart; no shouting natives, no hurried pauses for a snatched rest. The mules jogged contentedly along, realising they were in good hands, and always through the midday hours everyone lazed. An early spring had brought many young leaves out, although it was still August, and these were often beautiful shades of red, bronze, orange, scarlet, gold, and emerald-green, beyond or through which blue kopjes took on a yet more dream-like, ethereal air. Sometimes the red road wound along through woods of loveliest colouring, carpeted already with spring flowers. Sometimes it ran out into open spaces where the trees stood back in line, revealing wonderful glimpses of the fascinating land to their eager gaze.

Strange, fantastical, granite kopjes like mighty mausoleums adorned with ilex trees barred their path, and Diana was convinced some of the bones of her ancestors lay buried there, because she felt so weirdly at home with them.

"This is my natural environment," she informed her uncle and the engineer. "I ought to be dwelling here in state, as the favourite wife of the greatest chief in the land."

Meryl grew dreamier with every day, though sometimes her eyes were sad as she looked out over the country, as if she already loved it with a love that was akin to pain.

Had he, that great Imperialist, looked at it with those calm eyes of his, and known just that sense of aching love?... When he journeyed out into its enchanting untrodden spaces, accompanied only by some kindred spirit, had the land risen up and enslaved and enfolded him, like some enchantress who bound men's souls for ever?... Had Rhodesia, in her sunny loveliness, been wife and child to the great man who went lonely to his grave?...

As they drove along and the fascination increased, far outweighing any discomfort of glare and dust and jolting roads, Meryl felt herself engraving the sight and the sound and the freshness of it upon her soul, that she might have hidden pictures to gaze upon with closed eyes when the exigencies of life called her back into the throng.

Her father was mostly silent as was his wont, planning and scheming with a brain that knew little other rest than following its natural bent, yet with that in his silence, and in his watchful eyes that made one feel he too loved the land for itself, as well as for what he could get out of it; and that when occasion came, like Alfred Beit and Cecil Rhodes, he would pay his debt a hundredfold.

So they came at last to the wide, open veldt where Edwardstown was situated, and knew themselves in the district teeming with pioneer memories.

Meryl and Diana descended reluctantly at the hotel, and looked round disparagingly at their little hot bedroom, thinking regretfully of their tent in the wilderness.

"How awful," said Diana, "if we find ourselves never able to exist in an ordinary house again! We shall have to pitch two tents in Hyde Park. Ugh!... it positively smells of walls and doors and windows; how I hate them!"

"We'll go on to Zimbabwe to-morrow and camp beside the ruins," answered Meryl. "How splendid to be going there so soon!"

"Ruins are not much in my line," quoth the outspoken. "Let's hope there'll be a man there as well."

VII

CAREW IS DISTURBED

The news that the millionaire Henry Pym with his daughter and a niece were journeying to Great Zimbabwe reached the police camp first through a letter from the Administration to Major Carew, requesting him to have the long, disfiguring dry grass burnt, and the surroundings of the temple tidied up a little, and to show every attention to the travellers. When he received the letter it was obvious at once that the information did not give him any pleasure. On the contrary, his expression as nearly approached a frown as he was likely to permit it on receiving orders from headquarters. He had opened the letter standing outside his hut, where it had been handed to him by the native runner, and Stanley was reading a newspaper near, while Moore affectionately handled an antediluvian gun he was thinking of buying from a prospector.

Stanley glanced up, wondering what letters had come, and saw the hovering frown.

"Any news, sir?" he asked frankly, for he was no longer in awe of his silent chief. As a matter of fact, he never had been to any degree. The Kid would have found it difficult to be in awe of anyone, but for a few days Carew had baffled him.

"Henry Pym, you've probably heard of him, is likely to arrive here in a few days."

Stanley opened his eyes a little. "What! the millionaire?... Good biz! We'll rook him at poker and bridge and shooting, and a few other things. It isn't right for him to have all that money. It would even things up a little if we could transfer some of it to poor, penniless policemen."

"He is accompanied by his daughter and a niece," said Carew in even tones.

"Lord love a holy duck!..." exclaimed the young policeman, and was fairly astonished on to his feet. "Coming here, sir?... Coming here to Zimbabwe?"

"So the letter says. It also adds that they may wish to camp near, and they are to be shown every attention."

"_They shall be_ ..." quoth The Kid, so comically that even Carew's lips relaxed. "I suppose the letter doesn't specify the attention?... Christopher Columbus!... Great Scott!... Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!... To think of two millionaires' daughters all at once in this benighted, thirsty land!... It fairly catches me in the breath," and he sat down again suddenly as if the news was too much for him.

"By gad, Moore!... do you hear that?... a bloated millionaire and two millionairesses are about to descend upon us from the skies. Talk of manna and blessings coming down from heaven!... Give me millionairesses!..."

The Irishman looked up with a knowing smile. "Shure!" said he, "give me whisky...."

"Begorra, Pat!" laughed The Kid. "If you got the heiress you could swim in whisky." Then he looked again at Major Carew and observed the suggestion of a frown still on his face while he stood with the letter in his hand.

"Heiresses are seemingly not much in your line, sir?" he suggested humorously. "You ... well, you don't quite look overjoyed!..."

Carew in his quiet way had grown fond of the gay young trooper, and he showed no offence at the attitude of familiarity.

"We shall have to consider a good camping-place for them, and probably give up two huts to the ladies. I gather they may be here in two or three days. Is the grass dry enough to burn to-night?"

The Kid glanced round doubtfully. "Hardly; and the place won't look well all black."

"That's why I thought we had better begin at once. If they are some days the ash will have had time to blow away. Arrange for a gang of boys to be ready at six o'clock, and we will light up and see what we can do."

In the hut he tossed the letter down on to his table. "Confound it!..." he said under his breath. "Fancy women down here, staring and chattering, and prying! I suppose they will expect the entire police force in the neighbourhood to be at their disposal, and nothing else will matter at all." His face grew more and more gloomy. "If I had only started to M'rekwas yesterday, I could have been absent a fortnight, and by then they would have departed again." He stood a moment considering if he could start at once, and decided, as the letter was sent specially to him, he could hardly leave before carrying out his instructions.

Stanley and the other trooper meanwhile made hurried preparations for a great fire. They lit up in the evening, having stationed boys at intervals to keep the flames within bounds, and themselves stood posted with their guns, hoping for a shot at wild pig or cheetah, or possibly a lion or leopard. Carew kept guard at the huts, with a few boys to beat off the flames that encroached to any danger points and watch for flying sparks that might ignite the thatch. It was a wonderful sight, and his eyes were full of appreciation as he watched it. The gathering darkness, the lurid flames lighting up with swift brightness the ancient ruins; the high Acropolis Hill on one side, the low granite-strewn kopjes on the other, and running between the Valley of Ruins, now a vale of fire.

It crossed his mind that it was almost a pity they had not left the burning of the grass until the travellers arrived, that they might see the strange, fantastic sight. But he cogitated that the millionaires he had known hitherto had little appreciation for much beyond money-making, and no doubt they were merely taking a passing glimpse at the ruins; the man on some money-making quest, and the girls just to be able to say they had seen them. His eyes rested on the temple wall, and he felt suddenly absurdly resentful that these rich pleasure-seekers should come even there to gape and stare. He had grown to love the ruins dearly, until that moment he had scarcely known how dearly, and to him it seemed for the moment like showing some treasured personal relics to barbarians.

There were so many other things for the pleasure-seekers. Let them go to the Falls, and Lake Nyassa, and the Himalayas, and those tourist treasures; but why come and chatter inane banalities about his ruins: his treasured, mysterious relic of perhaps the oldest civilisation the world has known?

Of course, he knew perfectly that much controversy had raged round the question, and that one or two learned scientists had definitely stated their belief that the ruins were of comparatively recent date, and deduced more or less convincing proofs in support of their theory; but controversies and carefully worded reports were small things to the man who had dwelt beside the mysterious temples and fortifications, and learnt to love and treasure them. He had his proofs too and his deductions, and such as they were they satisfied him, in the face of all opposition, that the curious remains were indeed of great antiquity, quite probably the ancient Havilah of the Scriptures. To him every nook and every corner had its meaning and its history. In the play of his fancy he had seen the white-robed priests and acolytes in stately procession, amid the old, old walls; heard strains of far-off music when an ancient worship offered its votary of prayer and praise to that mysterious deity whom they believed in; heard perhaps a single lovely voice, or seen a single lovely convert kneel before the Sacred Enclosure. He had seen their strong men and their brave men and their great men marshalling a host of women and children and infirm citizens safely into the fastnesses of the Acropolis Hill, where, with a sufficient supply of food and water, three thousand people might be safely shielded for any length of time. He had seen them stand on the high battlements, and look out across the plain or into the rock-hewn kopjes for the hosts of the enemy. He had seen them, even when besieged upon that mighty hill, assembling together to worship in the temples they had laboriously raised upon the giant granite ledges. Were they fair, those women of that old, old day? Were they brave, were they mighty in stature, those men who evolved and achieved those wonderful defence works? Did they love the fair land that fed them with the love of home and country, or were they but sojourners for a while amid unfriendly, cruel tribes, that needed watchful eyes day and night? Led perhaps by a spirit of adventure, or by persecution elsewhere, or by the lust of gold, yet faithful always to the worship of their race, and building at infinite, incomprehensible pains those temples in the alien land. How they held him; how they fascinated; how they soothed with infinite soothing the bitter sorrow, the gaping, stinging wound that had driven him furiously away, all those years before, from the flesh-pots of a modern Babylon! Had he cared for it all very much then?... He wondered, looking full and deep into his hidden memories. Had the lights and the music, the song and dance, the laughing women and reckless men, the midnight orgies and morning headaches, really given him so much pleasure that he must needs fling it all aside with such bitter anger and harsh regret when the thunderbolt fell and the searching dart stabbed him awake? Outraged, hurt-maddened, he had flung away, as he believed, to outer darkness, and to a joyless, purposeless, colourless life. And he had found?...

Ah!... when he looked at the ancient, mysterious ruins he had grown to love, and around upon a country that was life-hope and life-interest to him, he knew that it was the other life which had been purposeless, and all of one colour, and the self-chosen exile that had given him the things it is good to live and breathe and die for.

And thinking of it all, with that shy softness which sometimes stole, as it were, stealthily into his strong face in moments of dreaming thought, he remembered with growing regret the advent of the party for which he was bidden to make preparations, and resented it yet more forcibly. Why need they come?... these women ... these spoiled, flattered, perhaps vulgar, heiresses. What did they want with ancient rites and wonderful relics of antiquities? What were they doing in Rhodesia at all, flaunting their finery and their possessions before the eyes of the hardy settlers and the plucky women who shared their difficulties and disappointments? In a young, struggling country what place was there for the idly, gracefully rich?

In his goaded fancy he saw their elegant, costly garments, and he heard strident voices exclaiming shrilly at his treasure, perhaps calling it an interesting heap of stones. Was there still time to get away, he wondered? Could a sudden call be arranged?... a sudden need for hasty departure?...

Let The Kid laugh the hours away with them, and take his fill of gay companionship; and let him return when the siege was over, and the soothing and the restfulness and the splendour had come back.

Wondering still, and with the sore regretfulness growing, he looked round to make sure all was safe, and that no further danger need be feared from blowing sparks or creeping flames; and then went gravely into his hut to read.

The next morning he told Stanley that he might be obliged to go east the following day on important business, and leave him to receive the travellers, and remained imperturbably grave and non-seeing when Stanley raised his eyebrows and regarded him with a little amused twinkle of understanding.

But in the afternoon the party quite unexpectedly turned up, and somewhere away in the blue, dreaming kopjes the voice of a following fate laughed softly.

VIII

TWO UNEXPECTED MEETINGS

Early in the afternoon Carew rode to the mission station to tell Ailsa Grenville and her husband of the expected visitors, and of how he was likely to depart in the morning for M'rekwas and be away about a fortnight.

Ailsa Grenville smiled at him archly when he told her. "Why do you run away when, for once in a way, you have the chance of a little companionship? It would do you more good to stay."

"I think not; and besides," he added, hastily, "I am going on business."

"A convenient sort of business, I fancy. Why not wait and see them first?"

"Well, I could hardly go away immediately after their arrival, when Mr. Pym probably knows of the letter despatched to me from headquarters. It is far simpler to send a runner back with excuses."

"But why go at all?" in a persuasive voice.