Chapter 7

"How nice!" and Meryl's eyes grew very soft. "It is a much finer reward than he would probably ever have gained in the Blues. I hope he thinks so?"

"I don't suppose he cares either way. Certainly, he doesn't appear to. He just loves the country, and seems only to want to stay here; but he never speaks even of that. Since he came here a few months ago he has done a lot of investigation work among the ruins privately. He is most awfully attached to them."

Suddenly Diana asked, "I suppose he is pretty sick about two modern young women presuming to journey here to gaze at his treasure?"

Stanley coloured up, and Diana laughed. "O, don't bother to deny it. I could feel it in my very bones when we met this afternoon."

They finished their meal, and the boys moved the table away, so that they could sit round the glowing embers of a small fire, not so much for warmth as for the idea, and they lazed low in their chairs, talking idly and enjoying the cool, fragrant night.

And presently, not à propos of anything in particular, Diana said, quite aloud, "I guess The Bear is growling and scowling away nicely to-night down there in his den. I expect the first time we meet I shall forget and call him Bear Carew instead of Major Carew, and then he'll shrivel me up with a glance."

A sound beside them in the shadow made all look up suddenly, and the lamplight fell full upon Carew's face as he stood near Diana's chair.

Meryl rose hurriedly, blushing to the roots of her hair, while Stanley, secretly much amused, stood up likewise. Only the culprit remained unperturbed to outward seeming, glancing archly round.

"I'm afraid you overheard what I said ... _Major_ Carew.... I'm quite ready to apologise, only ..."

"Please, don't...." For one instant the coldly even voice had a tiny inflection in it, as of humour, though he stifled it immediately, as he turned to Meryl and said, gravely, with a bow, "Miss Pym, I think?... A letter has come for you from Edwardstown by runner. I brought it on in case you might wish to send a reply, and to enquire if you are quite comfortable here for the night."

Meryl took it from him, thanking him in her low, sweet voice, and with a rather shy, upward glance. And Diana, in the shadow, saw the soldier suddenly flinch and suddenly grow sterner, standing in an attitude of almost unnatural rigidity.

"There is no heed to reply," Meryl said, after reading her note. "It is only a message from father to say he may be detained until afternoon. Thank you so much for bringing it. Won't you sit down? Can I offer you anything? I'm afraid there is not much choice. Father does not like luxuries in the wilderness, and we only carry whisky."

"No, thank you." The tones were even again now, and he made no movement towards a chair. "Have you everything you need for the night? I hope Mr. Stanley has made himself very useful?"

"He has been splendid. I am only afraid we have tired him out. Won't you sit down?" and she shyly motioned to a chair.

"Thank you. I'm afraid I must get back. I have some despatches to write. Would you like a police-boy to keep guard here all night? There is nothing whatever to fear, but if it would add to your comfort?..."

"O no, thank you," warmly. "We are not in the least nervous. I think there are no lions very near," with a little laugh.

Diana, lying back in her chair, had scarcely taken her eyes off the tall soldier, though she watched him covertly, and without seeming to; and her quick brain perceived dimly that his aloof attitude was partly a mask which had become a habit, and that, however much he suppressed her, there was nothing whatever repellant about his chilly reserve. And then, suddenly, the little mischievous devil possessed her again, and she longed to try her arts upon him, just to see what happened, and to show him she was not seriously in the least afraid of him.

And no sooner had Meryl remarked that there were no lions near them, than she could not for the life of her help murmuring, "No lions, only bears."

Again there was an instant's answering gleam in Carew's eyes, but he only smiled very slightly, and said, "Perhaps a bear's growl, like a dog's bark, is worse than his bite."

It was as though something altogether too much for him was struggling with an inclination to relax just the least bit on Diana's behalf and insistently conquering. With scarcely a second look at her he drew himself up tautly and said he must be going. Then he saluted gravely, said good night in a voice that included them all, and strode away through the darkness towards the police camp.

For a moment there was silence round the glowing embers.

"It was kind of him to say good night," said Diana, sarcastically.

"What a fine-looking man!" commented Meryl.

"He is gruffer than usual to-night. Perhaps something has happened to upset him. I think I must be going also," and Stanley reluctantly rose to follow his chief.

"Of course he is gruffer," said Diana. "Two tiresome women have dared to journey to Zimbabwe to look at his ruins."

In the darkness Carew strode on to where a light shone through the doorway of a hut, but his eyes were looking straight before him into the night, and had the expression of one whose thoughts were very far away. It had cost him an effort to go up there with the note, but he had made it purposely, determined to take in hand quickly that vein of weakness which threatened him at sight of Meryl. He would go up and speak to her and break the spell as quickly as possible, regaining his old fortitude. More particularly as he felt he could not now leave on the morrow, just as Mr. Pym was arriving expecting to find him there. Not that there appeared any reason why, just because he happened to be a millionaire, a police officer should be expected to wait on him, but no doubt the Administration had its own reason for showing special attention to a very rich man, and hoped for some benefit to the country thereby.

So he had taken the bull by the horns and strode up to the lamplit camp, where the travellers sat over the glowing embers; and, of course, he had heard Diana's remark, and smiled grimly to himself, in no way displeased, for it suited him perfectly to be shunned as a bear. And then, keeping an iron control over himself, he had addressed Meryl, and looked straight into her face without flinching. The upward look, for one second, had shaken him, but the iron control held good, and before he left them he had spoken to her and looked at her with perfect calmness. The visit had been quite as he wished it, and for a few seconds, striding into the dark, he congratulated himself upon having so satisfactorily coped with a situation that had threatened to be a little difficult and had disturbed him so in the afternoon. Of course, she wasn't really like Joan, except in a very general way. Just her height and figure and graceful movements and colouring; and, of course, the upward glance from confiding, thoughtful, blue-grey eyes that had humour lurking in them, and power and possibilities, and were so curiously framed in dark lashes in spite of light hair. In the midst of his self-congratulation he remembered the upward look again, and all in a moment once more it shook him. His gaze went blindly to the stars, and his mind flew back. Ah! how sweet Joan had been; how strong, how true! How she had stood by him through the beginning of the storm, turning the clouds to sunshine, making everything worth while! And then, the swift tragedy, the climax; the awful, awful days and nights that followed. How he had trodden the lonely Devon moors, blindly, passionately seeking a dead weariness of body that would dull his mind! How he had cursed the two men who drove in the final barb, and vowed never to see their faces again!

And then the little note-book he had found, in which Joan had inscribed some of her thoughts from time to time, and copied a few favourite passages from favourite authors! It had come to him like a voice from the dead--Joan's voice, calling to him to rise above his despair and prove himself still worthy of her. And out there on the moors at sunrise he had vowed that he would. Calmly, coldly, as an austere monk, he had laid down for ever the things that had made his life gay and joyous before, and prepared to turn his back on England and all that it held pertaining to him.

And now there is a distant wilderness and great southern stars, and mysterious, antique ruins, and a man who has grown strong and silent in aloofness, and won a sort of soothing content out of what he has given, seeking no reward.

Not, perhaps, that "renewing" a royal friend had spoken of fifteen years ago, for the contentment was void of hope and fear and joy, but balm upon the passionate, frantic bitterness and despair. But the "renewing" might come even yet, however much he scorned the thought; for forty-two is at the prime of years, and Life has a tender way of her own of healing when she will.

But to-night the memories are bitter, and the reopened wound throbs and burns. Carew strode up to his hut, with only a curt good night to the trooper, and when Stanley arrived back there was no light burning, only darkness and silence.

X

A MINING CAMP

The following day Carew avoided the camp, after telling Stanley he might devote his time to the ladies if he wished. In the afternoon, however, he saw Mr. Pym and his engineer arrive, and then, presently, the party all went down to the ruins together. About an hour later they re-emerged, and while the two girls went back to the tents, the millionaire strolled towards the police camp. Carew, seizing his opportunity, came out, and went to meet him. He considered himself fortunate in being able to offer the necessary courtesies when the ladies of the party were absent. Mr. Pym hid his surprise at seeing so distinguished-looking an officer at such an out-of-the-way camp, and received his somewhat curt greetings in his own quiet, business-like manner. He thanked him for the attentions he had already rendered, and hoped they were not causing any inconvenience in pitching their tents near the ruins. Carew assured him they were not, and mentioned that Mr. Stanley would be happy to place his time at their service and do anything he could to make their stay agreeable.

Henry Pym, noting the obvious intention of the officer not to place much of his own time at their disposal, looked quietly into the resolute face, and felt his interest growing apace. At the same time, following his lead, he made no attempt to lengthen the interview, which he felt was more or less regarded as an official duty; and with courteous thanks said good night, hoped Major Carew would dine with them one evening, and returned to his tent.

"Well, uncle," was Diana's greeting, "what do you make of The Bear?"

"The Bear?..." questioningly.

"The cast-iron soldierman, who condescends to breathe the same air as ordinary mortals down there in the police camp."

"O, Major Carew!..." with a quick gleam in his eyes. "I thought him rather a fine fellow. Don't you?" and he smiled at her slyly.

"A fine bear," quoth Diana, with a little pout. "I prefer a man with a little more flexibility. A little more commonplace flesh and blood, so to speak."

"I asked him to dinner to-morrow," her uncle remarked.

"And is he coming?" with ill-concealed interest.

"No. He is going to see two young miners named Macaulay a few miles away, and was regretfully compelled to decline," and the humorous smile on his face widened, for he knew that Diana would be piqued.

"As if he couldn't go there any day!" she grumbled. "O, of course, he is perfectly odious."

Meryl's eyes met her father's, and they both laughed, while he remarked, "Never mind; perhaps we can lay a trap for him another time. Evidently he has no particular fancy for ladies' company."

"Do you know the Macaulays?" Meryl asked.

"No, but I am going to see them in two or three days on business."

"And you will take us?..." she pleaded. "I do want so to see all we can of the settlers as well as the country."

"We will see later," he said, and made a move to prepare for dinner.

During the next two days he and his engineer made sundry small excursions on business. Their investigation of several outcrops in the Victoria district had convinced them the gold was by no means worked out by that ancient people who had left so many traces of mining operations, and Mr. Pym was prepared to buy up claims and properties. On the fourth day he went to see the Macaulays, and took the girls with him, having procured a mule each for them to ride. Stanley and Carew were also to be of the party; the latter not a little to everyone's surprise.

All through the four days he had held consistently aloof, personating merely the courteous official upon whom Mr. Pym had a certain claim because of the letter from headquarters. As a matter of fact, he had undertaken a journey of some length on two of the days to outlying kraals; and Diana, hearing of it from Stanley, had laughed a little grimly, and said, "He need not have troubled. We have no wish to speak to him"; and Stanley, not quite clever enough to understand, remarked regretfully, "But you would like him so much if you knew him properly."

The reason was not very apparent for his accompanying them to the Macaulays' mine, but Meryl shrewdly suspected her father, who had gone quietly to smoke a pipe in the police camp with him on one or two occasions, had asked him to come more or less as a personal favour. For though Stanley knew the road perfectly he knew very little about the surrounding country itself; and Mr. Pym, with his unerring instinct, had quickly discovered that Carew's mind was a well of knowledge on most things Rhodesian. So the taciturn soldier joined the cavalcade, though he succeeded in attaching himself to Mr. Pym and riding well on ahead.

The two Macaulays were "small miners," working on tribute a mine belonging to a block owned by a company in which Henry Pym had large interests. Complaints had come through to his ears concerning the difficult conditions upon which the two young miners, and many others like them, struggled to make a fortune or a livelihood, and he had a fancy to go and see them for himself. The mine was in a hollow, banked round by tall, gloomy kopjes, which seemed to stand like a bodyguard, sternly shutting them off from all sight or sound of the outside world. At the same time, the road to it was delightful. Sometimes they climbed nearly to the top of a kopje, the mules going up stairways of granite as if born to it, and the lovely country lay outspread in a glorious panorama before them.

The party said very little, but their eyes told that the fascination had crept into their hearts already, though they could only appreciate in silence, wondering, perhaps, why they felt this strong attraction for a land that was chiefly kopjes and veldt.

Was it, perhaps, the marvellous, translucent atmosphere, or was it the blue intensity of the dreaming kopjes, ornamented ever and anon by gleaming white battlements of granite, where the sun blazed down on giant boulders, or was it the unfathomable, mysterious, syren-like allurement of the country, that, without effort, without thought, steeped the senses in an irresistible fascination? Why does Rhodesia fascinate? Why does she call men back again and again to her manifold discomforts and unnerving disappointments, to her pests and glare, to her bully beef and unwashed Kaffirs? Who shall say?... Who shall attempt to explain?...

There is no explanation; only the foolish would seek it. The country just gets up and takes hold of one and smiles, and men become enslaved to her. Ever after "the hazy blue of her mountains, the waft of the veldt-born scent," is like a germ in the blood. The discomforts are forgotten, the disappointments dissolve into air, the noontide glare and choking dust are a mere nothing: libellous creations of some discontented grumbler. And in the midst of the crowd, or in England's green lanes, or on some far shore, the wanderer is caught in the old mesh suddenly, and all his pulses beat with swift longing at just that heaven-sweet impression: "The hazy blue of her mountains, the waft of the veldt-born scent...."

And she, the syren, lies there in her sunshine and her loveliness; locked in the arms of the deep, luscious, dreaming nights, whispering and murmuring softly under embracing, star-lit heavens; making wild riot when the splendid storms fling after each other across her bosom, while the thunders roll deafeningly amidst her kopjes, and the lightning pierces brilliantly the riotous clouds and makes a glory of the mighty scene. Sulky and colourless when she is waiting impatiently for the delayed rains; resplendent, and with a colouring that is like a Te Deum, when the renewing has come, and all her soul sings aloud in the joy of spring, and all her flowers and trees lend her loveliness past telling, and her hills a yet deeper blueness under yet intenser, rain-washed skies. All this--all her moods and whims and waywardness--going serenely on--splendidly, superbly indifferent to the men who come to tame her and stay to love in silent enslavement; as also to the men who come solely for gain and gold, and go away shrieking their complainings to the four winds. Because, perhaps, the enchantress has not troubled to show them her allurements, and ruffled, discontented minds have discovered only the dust and heat and pests.

But what of it to the syren?... There are others who stay, as many, perhaps, as she wants, and to whom she puts out a shy hand of friendship, and presently soothes and consoles as the strong, silent, storm-tossed man who rode with so soldierly a bearing beside Mr. Pym; suffering no stab of love and longing any more as he looked over her fair bosom, because the shy hand was in his, because there was that subtle sense of understanding in his heart which seemed to tell him that even as he loved Rhodesia, Rhodesia loved him.

And so they came to the Saucy Susan Gold Mine, at least to the ridge of the surrounding kopjes, and looked down to where a cluster of huts like beehives told them humans dwelt down there in the hollow.

"It can't be a mine," said Diana. "It's just a hollow in the hills; the sort of place giants hide in when they play hide-and-seek."

"But it is," Stanley assured her. "We shall see a little more as we wind down."

And presently they came within view of a shaft, and two honest-eyed young Englishmen, both old Charterhouse boys, came forward to greet them.

Meryl shook hands with her face all aglow with interest; and to their humble apologies that they had only huts to invite them into, she said, "But it is so nice of you to invite us at all. You wouldn't believe how proud I am to come here to see you, and how tremendously interested."

And Diana, with a droll expression, remarked, "You seem to live rather in the nethermost depths. You must feel as if you were going to heaven literally and figuratively every time you ascend to the outer world."

The elder brother laughed pleasantly, but the younger, who had a white face and a delicate, refined air, looked at her a little wistfully. Meryl chatted on with the elder, but Diana, with her quick perception, scented a silent, wordless, plucky endurance of adverse conditions in the younger, and gave her attention to him.

Then they went into the dining-room hut, and found a meal spread on a roughly made table, with only two chairs for seats and all the rest packing-cases.

"Who has to sit on a chair?" asked Diana. "I needn't, need I?..."

"Why, they are quite sound!... Are you afraid of a spill?..." asked Lionel Macaulay, looking amused.

"No, only I can sit on a chair any day of my life. I simply insist upon having a packing-case when such a good opportunity offers."

So Meryl and her father were duly ensconced in the only two chairs, and Diana mounted gaily on to a tall, thin packing-case, which would certainly have gone over backwards if Colin, the rather sad-eyed brother, had not caught her just as she was overbalancing.

"How clever of you!..." she laughed. "What happens when you two overbalance and don't happen to be near enough to catch each other?... Does the dinner come in and find you both sprawling on the floor?"

"Well, we've had a good deal of practice, you see," he told her, already cheering visibly. "The tables are turned for us, and we choose a chair when we can get it, for a treat."

Afterwards she made him show her all his clever contrivances for packing-case furniture, and admired his sackcloth curtain, barrel washhand stand, and made him feel vigorous and hopeful.

Stanley was talking to Meryl, and Lionel Macaulay was showing Mr. Pym, the engineer, and Carew over the mine, so she gossiped away to him all by herself. And she drew from him a little of the bitter disappointments they had encountered in the country. A story of first one mine and then another failing them; of capital slipping away and bills mounting; of the gradual cutting down of comforts and increased austerity of living: a story common enough in all colonies where Life puts men through the mill again and again to prove and harden them. Acting perhaps on the lines:

"It is easy enough to be pleasant When life moves along like a song, But the man worth while is the man who can smile When everything goes dead wrong."

Life wants a lot of men and women whom she knows are "worth while" in carrying out her great affairs, and that is perhaps why so often "everything goes dead wrong."

Diana maintained her rôle of gay inconsequence because it pleased her best.

"It all sounds very superior and all that rot, and I'm sure Meryl would call you a hero; but I should swear myself black and blue in your shoes, and that's about what you do pretty often, I expect."

His smile grew fresher and more genuine.

"It doesn't do much good though."

"O yes it does. Don't tell me! When things get into a silly stupid mess with me I just shut the door and say every swear word I know until I feel better. That's one advantage of living in a hollow in the desert. You needn't even bother to shut the door!... You can shout your ruffled feelings to the kopjes, and I suppose they echo the words back to you. How perfectly splendid! That's a thing about Rhodesia I hadn't thought of before. Of course, the echoes are sometimes wonderful; so if you were to shout a few swear words the kopjes would shout them after you; and that's much better than 'dreaming stillness' in my opinion. But why aren't you and your brother making a fortune? I thought everyone in Rhodesia was making one who had a mine."

"We don't get up enough gold. By the time we have paid our royalty and the expenses there is nothing left."

"Then the royalty must be too big. Who do you pay it to?"

He coloured, and she watched him humorously.

"Has my uncle something to do with your company? O, don't look uncomfortable. I'll just talk to him about it. There ought to be occasions when no royalty is taken at all. I'll tell him so."

Colin Macaulay laughed into her smiling eyes.

"As it is, there is a charge for everything, even the grass the donkeys eat!..."

"O, monstrous! I never heard of such a thing. I'll interview the board about it if you like. Tell your donkeys they may eat anything they choose in future, it is not going down in the bill any more!..." and they both laughed gaily.

In a more serious mood, however, she asked him presently, "I suppose it has been rather a disappointment?... This coming out to Rhodesia to make a fortune!"

"Why do you think so?"

"O, well, lots of reasons. You haven't come within sight of the fortune, for one thing; and you've still got packing-case furniture and live in huts. And you eat a lot of bully beef, now don't you?"

"We do."

"But that isn't what you came for?"