Prester John by John Buchan
CHAPTER V
MR WARDLAW HAS A PREMONITION
A week later the building job was finished, I locked the door of thenew store, pocketed the key, and we set out for home. Sikitola wasentrusted with the general care of it, and I knew him well enough to besure that he would keep his people from doing mischief. I left myempty wagons to follow at their leisure and rode on, with the resultthat I arrived at Blaauwildebeestefontein two days before I was lookedfor.
I stabled my horse, and went round to the back to see Colin. (I hadleft him at home in case of fights with native dogs, for he was an illbeast in a crowd.) I found him well and hearty, for Zeeta had beenlooking after him. Then some whim seized me to enter the store throughmy bedroom window. It was open, and I crawled softly in to find theroom fresh and clean from Zeeta's care. The door was ajar, and,hearing voices, I peeped into the shop.
Japp was sitting on the counter talking in a low voice to a bignative--the same 'Mwanga whom I had bundled out unceremoniously. Inoticed that the outer door giving on the road was shut, a most unusualthing in the afternoon. Japp had some small objects in his hand, andthe two were evidently arguing about a price. I had no intention atfirst of eavesdropping, and was just about to push the door open, whensomething in Japp's face arrested me. He was up to no good, and Ithought it my business to wait.
The low tones went on for a little, both men talking in Kaffir, andthen Japp lifted up one of the little objects between finger and thumb.It was a small roundish stone about the size of a bean, but even inthat half light there was a dull lustre in it.
At that I shoved the door open and went in. Both men started as ifthey had been shot. Japp went as white as his mottled face permitted.'What the--' he gasped, and he dropped the thing he was holding.
I picked it up, and laid it on the counter. 'So,' I said, 'diamonds,Mr Japp. You have found the pipe I was looking for. I congratulateyou.'
My words gave the old ruffian his cue. 'Yes, yes,' he said, 'I have,or rather my friend 'Mwanga has. He has just been telling me about it.'
The Kaffir looked miserably uncomfortable. He shifted from one leg tothe other, casting longing glances at the closed door.
'I tink I go,' he said. 'Afterwards we will speak more.'
I told him I thought he had better go, and opened the door for him.Then I bolted it again, and turned to Mr Japp.
'So that's your game,' I said. 'I thought there was something funnyabout you, but I didn't know it was I.D.B. you were up to.'
He looked as if he could kill me. For five minutes he cursed me with aperfection of phrase which I had thought beyond him. It was no I.D.B.,he declared, but a pipe which 'Mwanga had discovered. 'In this kind ofcountry?' I said, quoting his own words. 'Why, you might as well expectto find ocean pearls as diamonds. But scrape in the spruit if youlike; you'll maybe find some garnets.'
He choked down his wrath, and tried a new tack. 'What will you take tohold your tongue? I'll make you a rich man if you'll come in with me.'And then he started with offers which showed that he had been making agood thing out of the traffic.
I stalked over to him, and took him by the shoulder. 'You oldreprobate,' I roared, 'if you breathe such a proposal to me again, I'lltie you up like a sack and carry you to Pietersdorp.'
At this he broke down and wept maudlin tears, disgusting to witness.He said he was an old man who had always lived honestly, and it wouldbreak his heart if his grey hairs were to be disgraced. As he satrocking himself with his hands over his face, I saw his wicked littleeyes peering through the slits of his fingers to see what my next movewould be.
'See here, Mr Japp,' I said, 'I'm not a police spy, and it's nobusiness of mine to inform against you. I'm willing to keep you out ofgaol, but it must be on my own conditions. The first is that youresign this job and clear out. You will write to Mr Colles a letter atmy dictation, saying that you find the work too much for you. Thesecond is that for the time you remain here the diamond business mustutterly cease. If 'Mwanga or anybody like him comes inside the store,and if I get the slightest hint that you're back at the trade, in yougo to Pietersdorp. I'm not going to have my name disgraced by beingassociated with you. The third condition is that when you leave thisplace you go clear away. If you come within twenty miles ofBlaauwildebeestefontein and I find you, I will give you up.'
He groaned and writhed at my terms, but in the end accepted them. Hewrote the letter, and I posted it. I had no pity for the old scamp,who had feathered his nest well. Small wonder that the firm's businesswas not as good as it might be, when Japp was giving most of his timeto buying diamonds from native thieves. The secret put him in thepower of any Kaffir who traded him a stone. No wonder he cringed toruffians like 'Mwanga.
The second thing I did was to shift my quarters. Mr Wardlaw had aspare room which he had offered me before, and now I accepted it. Iwanted to be no more mixed up with Japp than I could help, for I didnot know what villainy he might let me in for. Moreover, I carriedZeeta with me, being ashamed to leave her at the mercy of the oldbully. Japp went up to the huts and hired a slattern to mind hishouse, and then drank heavily for three days to console himself.
That night I sat smoking with Mr Wardlaw in his sitting-room, where awelcome fire burned, for the nights on the Berg were chilly. Iremember the occasion well for the queer turn the conversation took.Wardlaw, as I have said, had been working like a slave at the Kaffirtongues. I talked a kind of Zulu well enough to make myselfunderstood, and I could follow it when spoken; but he had realscholarship in the thing, and knew all about the grammar and thedifferent dialects. Further, he had read a lot about native history,and was full of the doings of Tchaka and Mosilikatse and Moshesh, andthe kings of old. Having little to do in the way of teaching, he hadmade up for it by reading omnivorously. He used to borrow books fromthe missionaries, and he must have spent half his salary in buying newones.
To-night as he sat and puffed in his armchair, he was full of storiesabout a fellow called Monomotapa. It seems he was a great blackemperor whom the Portuguese discovered about the sixteenth century. Helived to the north in Mashonaland, and had a mountain full of gold.The Portuguese did not make much of him, but they got his son andturned him into a priest.
I told Wardlaw that he was most likely only a petty chief, whoseexploits were magnified by distance, the same as the caciques inMexico. But the schoolmaster would not accept this.
'He must have been a big man, Davie. You know that the old ruins inRhodesia, called Zimbabwe, were long believed to be Phoenician inorigin. I have a book here which tells all about them. But now it isbelieved that they were built by natives. I maintain that the men whocould erect piles like that'--and he showed me a picture--'weresomething more than petty chiefs.'
Presently the object of this conversation appeared. Mr Wardlaw thoughtthat we were underrating the capacity of the native. This opinion wasnatural enough in a schoolmaster, but not in the precise form Wardlawput it. It was not his intelligence which he thought we underrated,but his dangerousness. His reasons, shortly, were these: There werefive or six of them to every white man; they were all, roughlyspeaking, of the same stock, with the same tribal beliefs; they hadonly just ceased being a warrior race, with a powerful militarydiscipline; and, most important, they lived round the rim of thehigh-veld plateau, and if they combined could cut off the white manfrom the sea. I pointed out to him that it would only be a matter oftime before we opened the road again. 'Ay,' he said, 'but think ofwhat would happen before then. Think of the lonely farms and thelittle dorps wiped out of the map. It would be a second and bloodierIndian mutiny. 'I'm not saying it's likely,' he went on, 'but Imaintain it's possible. Supposing a second Tchaka turned up, who couldget the different tribes to work together. It wouldn't be so very hardto smuggle in arms. Think of the long, unwatched coast in Gazaland andTongaland. If they got a leader with prestige enough to organize acrusade against the white man, I don't see what could prevent a rising.'
'I'm not so sure. They are cunning fellows, and have arts that we knownothing about. You have heard of native telepathy. They can send newsover a thousand miles as quick as the telegraph, and we have no meansof tapping the wires. If they ever combined they could keep it assecret as the grave. My houseboy might be in the rising, and I wouldnever suspect it till one fine morning he cut my throat.'
'But they would never find a leader. If there was some exiled princeof Tchaka's blood, who came back like Prince Charlie to free hispeople, there might be danger; but their royalties are fat men with tophats and old frock-coats, who live in dirty locations.'
Wardlaw admitted this, but said that there might be other kinds ofleaders. He had been reading a lot about Ethiopianism, which educatedAmerican negroes had been trying to preach in South Africa. He did notsee why a kind of bastard Christianity should not be the motive of arising. 'The Kaffir finds it an easy job to mix up Christian emotionand pagan practice. Look at Hayti and some of the performances in theSouthern States.'
Then he shook the ashes out of his pipe and leaned forward with asolemn face. 'I'll admit the truth to you, Davie. I'm black afraid.'
He looked so earnest and serious sitting there with his short-sightedeyes peering at me that I could not help being impressed.
'Whatever is the matter?' I asked. 'Has anything happened?'
He shook his head. 'Nothing I can put a name to. But I have apresentiment that some mischief is afoot in these hills. I feel it inmy bones.'
I confess I was startled by these words. You must remember that I hadnever given a hint of my suspicions to Mr Wardlaw beyond asking him ifa wizard lived in the neighbourhood--a question anybody might have put.But here was the schoolmaster discovering for himself some mystery inBlaauwildebeestefontein.
I tried to get at his evidence, but it was very little. He thoughtthere were an awful lot of blacks about. 'The woods are full of them,'he said. I gathered he did not imagine he was being spied on, butmerely felt that there were more natives about than could be explained.'There's another thing,' he said. 'The native bairns have all left theschool. I've only three scholars left, and they are from Dutch farms.I went to Majinje to find out what was up, and an old crone told me theplace was full of bad men. I tell you, Davie, there's somethingbrewing, and that something is not good for us.'
There was nothing new to me in what Wardlaw had to tell, and yet thattalk late at night by a dying fire made me feel afraid for the secondtime since I had come to Blaauwildebeestefontein. I had a clue and hadbeen on the look-out for mysteries, but that another should feel thestrangeness for himself made it seem desperately real to me. Of courseI scoffed at Mr Wardlaw's fears. I could not have him spoiling all myplans by crying up a native rising for which he had not a scrap ofevidence.
'Have you been writing to anybody?' I asked him.
He said that he had told no one, but he meant to, unless things gotbetter. 'I haven't the nerve for this job, Davie,' he said; 'I'll haveto resign. And it's a pity, for the place suits my health fine. Yousee I know too much, and I haven't your whinstone nerve and total lackof imagination.'
I told him that it was simply fancy, and came from reading too manybooks and taking too little exercise. But I made him promise to saynothing to anybody either by word of mouth or letter, without tellingme first. Then I made him a rummer of toddy and sent him to bed atrifle comforted.
The first thing I did in my new room was to shift the bed into thecorner out of line with the window. There were no shutters, so I putup an old table-top and jammed it between the window frames. Also, Iloaded my shot-gun and kept it by my bedside. Had Wardlaw seen thesepreparations he might have thought more of my imagination and less ofmy nerve. It was a real comfort to me to put out a hand in thedarkness and feel Colin's shaggy coat.