Part 30 (2/2)
”You'd never believe the time we had--leaving out the fighting, which I am coming to by and by. We were beastly short of all sorts of machinery and our labour was awful. We had scarcely any at first, but Trent found 'em somehow, Kru boys and native Zulus and broken-down Europeans--any one who could hold a pick. More came every day, and we simply cut our way through the country. I think I was pretty useful, for you see I was the only chap there who knew even a bit about engineering or practical surveying, and I'd sit up all night lots of times working the thing out.
We had a missionary came over the first Sunday, and wanted to preach, but Trent stopped him. 'We've got to work here,' he said, 'and Sunday or no Sunday I can't let my men stop to listen to you in the cool of the day. If you want to preach, come and take a pick now, and preach when they're resting,' and he did and worked well too, and afterwards when we had to knock off, he preached, and Trent took the chair and made 'em all listen. Well, when we got a bit inland we had the natives to deal with, and if you ask me I believe that's one reason Cathcart hated the whole thing so. He's a beastly coward I think, and he told me once he'd never let off a revolver in his life. Well, they tried to surprise us one night, but Trent was up himself watching, and I tell you we did give 'em beans. Great, ugly-looking, black chaps they were. Aunt Ernie, I shall never forget how I felt when I saw them come creeping through the long, rough gra.s.s with their beastly spears all poised ready to throw. And now for my own special adventure. Won't you s.h.i.+ver when you read this! I was taken prisoner by one of those chaps, carried off to their beastly village and very nearly murdered by a chap who seemed to be a cross between an executioner and a high-priest, and who kept dancing round me, singing a lot of rot and pointing a knife at me. You see, I was right on the outside of the fighting and I got a knock on the head with the b.u.t.t-end of a spear, and was a bit silly for a moment, and a great chap, who'd seen me near Trent and guessed I was somebody, picked me up as though I'd been a baby and carried me off. Of course I kicked up no end of a row as soon as I came to, but what with the firing and the screeching no one heard me, and Trent said it was half an hour before he missed me and an hour before they started in pursuit. Anyhow, there I was, about morning-time when you were thinking of having your cup of tea, trussed up like a fowl in the middle of the village, and all the natives, beastly creatures, promenading round me and making faces and bawling out things--oh, it was beastly I can tell you! Then just as they seemed to have made up their mind to kill me, up strode Scarlett Trent alone, if you please, and he walked up to the whole lot of 'em as bold as bra.s.s. He'd got a long way ahead of the rest and thought they meant mischief, so he wouldn't wait for the others but faced a hundred of them with a revolver in his hand, and I can tell you things were lively then. I'd never be able to describe the next few minutes--one man Trent knocked down with his fist, and you could hear his skull crack, then he shot the chap who had been threatening me, and cut my bonds, and then they tried to resist us, and I thought it was all over. They were horribly afraid of Trent though, and while they were closing round us the others came up and the natives chucked it at once. They used to be a very brave race, but since they were able to get rum for their timber and ivory, they're a lazy and drunken lot. Well, I must tell you what Trent did then. He went to the priest's house where the G.o.ds were kept--such a beastly hole--and he burned the place before the eyes of all the natives. I believe they thought every moment that we should be struck dead, and they stood round in a ring, making an awful row, but they never dared interfere. He burnt the place to the ground, and then what do you think he did? From the King downward he made every Jack one of them come and work on his road. You'll never believe it, but it's perfectly true. They looked upon him as their conqueror, and they came like lambs when he ordered it. They think they're slaves you know, and don't understand their pay, but they get it every week and same as all the other labourers--and oh, Aunt Ernie, you should see the King work with a pickaxe! He is fat and so clumsy and so furiously angry, but he's too scared of Trent to do anything but obey orders, and there he works hour after hour, groaning, and the perspiration rolls off him as though he were in a Turkish bath. I could go on telling you odd things that happen here for hours, but I must finish soon as the chap is starting with the mail. I am enjoying it. It is something like life I can tell you, and aren't I lucky? Trent made me take Cathcart's place. I am getting 800 pounds a year, and only fancy it, he says he'll see that the directors make me a special grant. Everything looks very different here now, and I do hope the Company will be a success. There's whole heaps of mining machinery landed and waiting for the road to be finished to go up, and people seem to be streaming into the place. I wonder what Cathcart will say when he knows that the road is as good as done, and that I've got his job!
”Chap called for mail. Goodbye.
”Ever your affectionate
”FRED.
”Trent is a brick.”
Ernestine read the letter slowly, line by line, word by word. To tell the truth it was absorbingly interesting to her. Already there had come rumours of the daring and blunt, resistless force with which this new-made millionaire had confronted a gigantic task. His terse communications had found their way into the Press, and in them and in the boy's letter she seemed to discover something Caesaric. That night it was more than usually difficult for her to settle down to her own work. She read her nephew's letter more than once and continually she found her thoughts slipping away--traveling across the ocean to a tropical strip of country, where a heterogeneous crowd of men were toiling and digging under a blazing sun. And, continually too, she seemed to see a man's face looking steadily over the sea to her, as he stood upright for a moment and rested from his toil. She was very fond of the boy--but the face was not his!
CHAPTER x.x.xI
A special train from Southampton had just steamed into Waterloo with the pa.s.sengers from the Royal Mail steamer Ophir. Little groups of sunburnt men were greeting old friends upon the platform, surrounded by piles of luggage, canvas trunks and steamer chairs. The demand for hansoms was brisk, cab after cab heavily loaded was rolling out of the yard. There were grizzled men and men of fair complexion, men in white helmets and puggarees, and men in silk hats. All sorts were represented there, from the successful diamond digger who was spasmodically embracing a lady in black jet of distinctly Jewish proclivities, to a sporting lord who had been killing lions. For a few minutes the platforms were given over altogether to a sort of pleasurable confusion, a vivid scene, full of colour and human interest. Then the people thinned away, and, very nearly last of all, a wizened-looking, grey-headed man, carrying a black bag and a parcel, left the platform with hesitating footsteps and turned towards the bridge. He was followed almost immediately by Hiram Da Souza, who, curiously enough, seemed to have been on the platform when the train came in and to have been much interested in this shabby, lonely old man, who carried himself like a waif stranded in an unknown land. Da Souza was gorgeous in frock coat and silk hat, a carnation in his b.u.t.tonhole, a diamond in his black satin tie, yet he was not altogether happy. This little man hobbling along in front represented fate to him. On the platform at Waterloo he had heard him timidly ask a bystander the way to the offices of the Bekwando Land and Gold Exploration Company, Limited. If ever he got there, what would be the price of Bekwando shares on the morrow?
On the bridge Da Souza saw him accost a policeman, and brus.h.i.+ng close by, heard him ask the same question. The man shook his head, but pointed eastwards.
”I can't say exactly, sir, but somewhere in the City, for certain,” he answered. ”I should make for the Bank of England, a penny 'bus along that way will take you--and ask again there.”
The old man nodded his thanks and stepped along Da Souza felt that his time had come. He accosted him with an urbane smile.
”Excuse me,” he said, ”but I think I heard you ask for the offices of the Bekwando Land Company.”
The old man looked up eagerly. ”If you can direct me there, sir,” he said, ”I shall be greatly obliged.”
”I can do so,” Da Souza said, falling into step, ”and will with pleasure. I am going that way myself. I hope,” he continued in a tone of kindly concern, ”that you are not a shareholder in the Company.”
The old man dropped his bag with a clatter upon the pavement, and his lips moved for a moment without any speech coming from them. Da Souza picked up the bag and devoutly hoped that none of his City friends were in the way.
”I don't exactly know about being a shareholder,” the old man said nervously, ”but I've certainly something to do with it. I am, or should have been, joint vendor. The Company is wealthy, is it not?”
Da Souza changed the bag into his other hand and thrust his arm through his companion's.
”You haven't seen the papers lately, have you?”
”No! I've just landed--to-day--from Africa!”
”Then I'm sorry to say there's some bad news for you,” Da Souza said.
”The Bekwando Land and Gold Company has gone into liquidation--smashed up altogether. They say that all the directors and the vendor will be arrested. It seems to have been a gigantic swindle.”
Monty had become a dead weight upon his arm. They were in the Strand now, and he pushed open the swing-door of a public-house, and made his way into the private bar. When Monty opened his eyes he was on a cus.h.i.+oned seat, and before him was a tumbler of brandy half empty. He stared round him wildly. His lips were moist and the old craving was hot upon him. What did it mean? After all he had broken his vow, then! Had he not sworn to touch nothing until he had found his little girl and his fortune? yet the fire of spirits was in his veins and the craving was tearing him to pieces. Then he remembered! There was no fortune, no little girl! His dreams were all shattered, the last effort of his life had been in vain. He caught hold of the tumbler with fingers that shook as though an ague were upon him, lifted it to his lips and drank. Then there came the old blankness, and he saw nothing but what seemed to him the face of a satyr--dark and evil--mocking him through the shadows which had surely fallen now for ever. Da Souza lifted him up and conveyed him carefully to a four-wheel cab.
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