Prester John by John Buchan
CHAPTER VI
THE DRUMS BEAT AT SUNSET
Japp was drunk for the next day or two, and I had the business of thestore to myself. I was glad of this, for it gave me leisure to reflectupon the various perplexities of my situation. As I have said, I wasreally scared, more out of a sense of impotence than from dread ofactual danger. I was in a fog of uncertainty. Things were happeningaround me which I could only dimly guess at, and I had no power to takeone step in defence. That Wardlaw should have felt the same withoutany hint from me was the final proof that the mystery was no figment ofmy nerves. I had written to Colles and got no answer. Now the letterwith Japp's resignation in it had gone to Durban. Surely some noticewould be taken of that. If I was given the post, Colles was bound toconsider what I had said in my earlier letter and give me somedirections. Meanwhile it was my business to stick to my job till I wasrelieved.
A change had come over the place during my absence. The natives hadalmost disappeared from sight. Except the few families living roundBlaauwildebeestefontein one never saw a native on the roads, and nonecame into the store. They were sticking close to their locations, orelse they had gone after some distant business. Except a batch ofthree Shangaans returning from the Rand, I had nobody in the store forthe whole of one day. So about four o'clock I shut it up, whistled onColin, and went for a walk along the Berg.
If there were no natives on the road, there were plenty in the bush. Ihad the impression, of which Wardlaw had spoken, that the nativepopulation of the countryside had suddenly been hugely increased. Thewoods were simply _hotching_ with them. I was being spied on as before,but now there were so many at the business that they could not allconceal their tracks. Every now and then I had a glimpse of a blackshoulder or leg, and Colin, whom I kept on the leash, was half-mad withexcitement. I had seen all I wanted, and went home with a preoccupiedmind. I sat long on Wardlaw's garden-seat, trying to puzzle out thetruth of this spying.
What perplexed me was that I had been left unmolested when I had goneto Umvelos'. Now, as I conjectured, the secret of the neighbourhood,whatever it was, was probably connected with the Rooirand. But when Ihad ridden in that direction and had spent two days in exploring, noone had troubled to watch me. I was quite certain about this, for myeye had grown quick to note espionage, and it is harder for a spy tohide in the spare bush of the flats than in the dense thickets on theseuplands.
The watchers, then, did not mind my fossicking round their sacredplace. Why, then, was I so closely watched in the harmlessneighbourhood of the store? I thought for a long time before an answeroccurred to me. The reason must be that going to the plains I wasgoing into native country and away from civilization. ButBlaauwildebeestefontein was near the frontier. There must be some darkbusiness brewing of which they may have feared that I had an inkling.They wanted to see if I proposed to go to Pietersdorp or Wesselsburgand tell what I knew, and they clearly were resolved that I should not.I laughed, I remember, thinking that they had forgotten the post-bag.But then I reflected that I knew nothing of what might be happeningdaily to the post-bag.
When I had reached this conclusion, my first impulse was to test it byriding straight west on the main road. If I was right, I shouldcertainly be stopped. On second thoughts, however, this seemed to meto be flinging up the game prematurely, and I resolved to wait a day ortwo before acting.
Next day nothing happened, save that my sense of loneliness increased.I felt that I was being hemmed in by barbarism, and cut off in aghoulish land from the succour of my own kind. I only kept my courageup by the necessity of presenting a brave face to Mr Wardlaw, who wasby this time in a very broken condition of nerves. I had often thoughtthat it was my duty to advise him to leave, and to see him safely off,but I shrank from severing myself from my only friend. I thought, too,of the few Dutch farmers within riding distance, and had half a mind tovisit them, but they were far off over the plateau and could knowlittle of my anxieties.
The third day events moved faster. Japp was sober and wonderfullyquiet. He gave me good-morning quite in a friendly tone, and set toposting up the books as if he had never misbehaved in his days. I wasso busy with my thoughts that I, too, must have been gentler thanusual, and the morning passed like a honeymoon, till I went across todinner.
I was just sitting down when I remembered that I had left my watch inmy waistcoat behind the counter, and started to go back for it. But atthe door I stopped short. For two horsemen had drawn up before thestore.
One was a native with what I took to be saddle-bags; the other was asmall slim man with a sun helmet, who was slowly dismounting.Something in the cut of his jib struck me as familiar. I slipped intothe empty schoolroom and stared hard. Then, as he half-turned inhanding his bridle to the Kaffir, I got a sight of his face. It was myformer shipmate, Henriques. He said something to his companion, andentered the store.
You may imagine that my curiosity ran to fever-heat. My first impulsewas to march over for my waistcoat, and make a third with Japp at theinterview. Happily I reflected in time that Henriques knew my face,for I had grown no beard, having a great dislike to needless hair. Ifhe was one of the villains in the drama, he would mark me down for hisvengeance once he knew I was here, whereas at present he had probablyforgotten all about me. Besides, if I walked in boldly I would get nonews. If Japp and he had a secret, they would not blab it in mypresence.
My next idea was to slip in by the back to the room I had once livedin. But how was I to cross the road? It ran white and dry somedistance each way in full view of the Kaffir with the horses. Further,the store stood on a bare patch, and it would be a hard job to get inby the back, assuming, as I believed, that the neighbourhood was thickwith spies.
The upshot was that I got my glasses and turned them on the store. Thedoor was open, and so was the window. In the gloom of the interior Imade out Henriques' legs. He was standing by the counter, andapparently talking to Japp. He moved to shut the door, and came backinside my focus opposite the window. There he stayed for maybe tenminutes, while I hugged my impatience. I would have given a hundredpounds to be snug in my old room with Japp thinking me out of the store.
Suddenly the legs twitched up, and his boots appeared above thecounter. Japp had invited him to his bedroom, and the game was now tobe played beyond my ken. This was more than I could stand, so I stoleout at the back door and took to the thickest bush on the hillside. Mynotion was to cross the road half a mile down, when it had dropped intothe defile of the stream, and then to come swiftly up the edge of thewater so as to effect a back entrance into the store.
As fast as I dared I tore through the bush, and in about a quarter ofan hour had reached the point I was making for. Then I bore down to theroad, and was in the scrub about ten yards off it, when the clatter ofhorses pulled me up again. Peeping out I saw that it was my friend andhis Kaffir follower, who were riding at a very good pace for theplains. Toilfully and crossly I returned on my tracks to mylong-delayed dinner. Whatever the purport of their talk, Japp and thePortuguese had not taken long over it.
In the store that afternoon I said casually to Japp that I had noticedvisitors at the door during my dinner hour. The old man looked mefrankly enough in the face. 'Yes, it was Mr Hendricks,' he said, andexplained that the man was a Portuguese trader from Delagoa way, whohad a lot of Kaffir stores east of the Lebombo Hills. I asked hisbusiness, and was told that he always gave Japp a call in when he waspassing.
'Do you take every man that calls into your bedroom, and shut thedoor?' I asked.
Japp lost colour and his lip trembled. 'I swear to God, Mr Crawfurd,I've been doing nothing wrong. I've kept the promise I gave you likean oath to my mother. I see you suspect me, and maybe you've cause,but I'll be quite honest with you. I have dealt in diamonds beforethis with Hendricks. But to-day, when he asked me, I told him that thatbusiness was off. I only took him to my room to give him a drink. Helikes brandy, and there's no supply in the shop.'
'He had and he hadn't,' said Japp. 'He was always a sullen beggar, andnever spoke much. But he said one queer thing. He asked me if I wasgoing to retire, and when I told him "yes," he said I had put it offrather long. I told him I was as healthy as I ever was, and he laughedin his dirty Portugoose way. "Yes, Mr Japp," he says, "but the countryis not so healthy." I wonder what the chap meant. He'll be dead ofblackwater before many months, to judge by his eyes.'
This talk satisfied me about Japp, who was clearly in desperate fear ofoffending me, and disinclined to return for the present to his oldways. But I think the rest of the afternoon was the most wretched timein my existence. It was as plain as daylight that we were in for somegrave trouble, trouble to which I believed that I alone held any kindof clue. I had a pile of evidence--the visit of Henriques was the lastbit--which pointed to some great secret approaching its disclosure. Ithought that that disclosure meant blood and ruin. But I knew nothingdefinite. If the commander of a British army had come to me then andthere and offered help, I could have done nothing, only asked him towait like me. The peril, whatever it was, did not threaten me only,though I and Wardlaw and Japp might be the first to suffer; but I had aterrible feeling that I alone could do something to ward it off, andjust what that something was I could not tell. I was horribly afraid,not only of unknown death, but of my impotence to play any manly part.I was alone, knowing too much and yet too little, and there was nochance of help under the broad sky. I cursed myself for not writing toAitken at Lourenco Marques weeks before. He had promised to come up,and he was the kind of man who kept his word.
In the late afternoon I dragged Wardlaw out for a walk. In hispresence I had to keep up a forced cheerfulness, and I believe thepretence did me good. We took a path up the Berg among groves ofstinkwood and essenwood, where a failing stream made an easy route. Itmay have been fancy, but it seemed to me that the wood was emptier andthat we were followed less closely. I remember it was a lovelyevening, and in the clear fragrant gloaming every foreland of the Bergstood out like a great ship above the dark green sea of the bush. Whenwe reached the edge of the plateau we saw the sun sinking between twofar blue peaks in Makapan's country, and away to the south the greatroll of the high veld. I longed miserably for the places where whitemen were thronged together in dorps and cities. As we gazed a curioussound struck our ears. It seemed to begin far up in the north--a lowroll like the combing of breakers on the sand. Then it grew louder andtravelled nearer--a roll, with sudden spasms of harsher sound in it;reminding me of the churning in one of the pot-holes of Kirkcaplecliffs. Presently it grew softer again as the sound passed south, butnew notes were always emerging. The echo came sometimes, as it were,from stark rock, and sometimes from the deep gloom of the forests. Ihave never heard an eerier sound. Neither natural nor human it seemed,but the voice of that world between which is hid from man's sight andhearing.
Mr Wardlaw clutched my arm, and in that moment I guessed theexplanation. The native drums were beating, passing some message fromthe far north down the line of the Berg, where the locations werethickest, to the great black population of the south.
'But that means war,' Mr Wardlaw cried.
'It means nothing of the kind,' I said shortly. 'It's their way ofsending news. It's as likely to be some change in the weather or anoutbreak of cattle disease.'
When we got home I found Japp with a face like grey paper. 'Did youhear the drums?'he asked.
'Yes,' I said shortly. 'What about them?'
'God forgive you for an ignorant Britisher,' he almost shouted. 'Youmay hear drums any night, but a drumming like that I only once heardbefore. It was in '79 in the 'Zeti valley. Do you know what happenednext day? Cetewayo's impis came over the hills, and in an hour therewasn't a living white soul in the glen. Two men escaped, and one ofthem was called Peter Japp.'
'We are in God's hands then, and must wait on His will,' I saidsolemnly.
There was no more sleep for Wardlaw and myself that night. We made thebest barricade we could of the windows, loaded all our weapons, andtrusted to Colin to give us early news. Before supper I went over toget Japp to join us, but found that that worthy had sought help fromhis old protector, the bottle, and was already sound asleep with bothdoor and window open.
I had made up my mind that death was certain, and yet my heart beliedmy conviction, and I could not feel the appropriate mood. If anythingI was more cheerful since I had heard the drums. It was clearly nowbeyond the power of me or any man to stop the march of events. Mythoughts ran on a native rising, and I kept telling myself how littlethat was probable. Where were the arms, the leader, the discipline? Atany rate such arguments put me to sleep before dawn, and I wakened ateight to find that nothing had happened. The clear morning sunlight,as of old, made Blaauwildebeestefontein the place of a dream. Zeetabrought in my cup of coffee as if this day were just like all others,my pipe tasted as sweet, the fresh air from the Berg blew as fragrantlyon my brow. I went over to the store in reasonably good spirits,leaving Wardlaw busy on the penitential Psalms.
The post-runner had brought the mail as usual, and there was oneprivate letter for me. I opened it with great excitement, for theenvelope bore the stamp of the firm. At last Colles had deigned toanswer.
Inside was a sheet of the firm's notepaper, with the signature ofColles across the top. Below some one had pencilled these five words:
'_The Blesbok[1] are changing ground._'
I looked to see that Japp had not suffocated himself, then shut up thestore, and went back to my room to think out this new mystification.
The thing had come from Colles, for it was the private notepaper of theDurban office, and there was Colles' signature. But the pencilling wasin a different hand. My deduction from this was that some one wishedto send me a message, and that Colles had given that some one a sheetof signed paper to serve as a kind of introduction. I might take it,therefore, that the scribble was Colles' reply to my letter.
Now, my argument continued, if the unknown person saw fit to send me amessage, it could not be merely one of warning. Colles must have toldhim that I was awake to some danger, and as I was inBlaauwildebeestefontein, I must be nearer the heart of things than anyone else. The message must therefore be in the nature of somepassword, which I was to remember when I heard it again.
I reasoned the whole thing out very clearly, and I saw no gap in mylogic. I cannot describe how that scribble had heartened me. I feltno more the crushing isolation of yesterday. There were others besideme in the secret. Help must be on the way, and the letter was thefirst tidings.
But how near?--that was the question; and it occurred to me for thefirst time to look at the postmark. I went back to the store and gotthe envelope out of the waste-paper basket. The postmark was certainlynot Durban. The stamp was a Cape Colony one, and of the mark I couldonly read three letters, T. R. S. This was no sort of clue, and Iturned the thing over, completely baffled. Then I noticed that therewas no mark of the post town of delivery. Our letters toBlaauwildebeestefontein came through Pietersdorp and bore that mark. Icompared the envelope with others. They all had a circle, and'Pietersdorp' in broad black letters. But this envelope had nothingexcept the stamp.
I was still slow at detective work, and it was some minutes before theexplanation flashed on me. The letter had never been posted at all.The stamp was a fake, and had been borrowed from an old envelope.There was only one way in which it could have come. It must have beenput in the letter-bag while the postman was on his way fromPietersdorp. My unknown friend must therefore be somewhere withineighty miles of me. I hurried off to look for the post-runner, but hehad started back an hour before. There was nothing for it but to waiton the coming of the unknown.
That afternoon I again took Mr Wardlaw for a walk. It is an ingrainedhabit of mine that I never tell anyone more of a
We took the same road to the crown of the Berg, and I was confirmed inmy suspicion that the woods were empty and the watchers gone. Theplace was as deserted as the bush at Umvelos'. When we reached thesummit about sunset we waited anxiously for the sound of drums. Itcame, as we expected, louder and more menacing than before. Wardlawstood pinching my arm as the great tattoo swept down the escarpment,and died away in the far mountains beyond the Olifants. Yet it nolonger seemed to be a wall of sound, shutting us out from our kindredin the West. A message had pierced the wall. If the blesbok werechanging ground, I believed that the hunters were calling out theirhounds and getting ready for the chase.
[1] A species of buck.