Marie: An Episode in the Life of the Late Allan Quatermain, H. Rider Haggard [world of reading .txt] 📗

who needs the tall white maiden, and not I. Perhaps if he does certain things for me, I have promised her to him in payment. And perhaps,” he added, laughing quite loud, “I shall trick him after all, keeping her for myself, and paying him in another way, for can a cheat grumble if he is out-cheated?”

I answered that I was an honest man, and knew nothing about cheats, or at what they could or could not grumble.

“Yes, Macumazahn,” replied Dingaan quite genially. “That is where you and I are alike. We are both honest, quite honest, and therefore friends, which I can never be with these Amaboona, who, as you and others have told me, are traitors. We play our game in the light, like men, and who wins, wins, and who loses, loses. Now hear me, Macumazahn, and remember what I say. Whatever happens to others, whatever you may see, you are safe while I live. Dingaan has spoken. Whether I get the tall white girl, or do not get her, still you are safe; it is on my head,” and he touched the gum-ring in his hair.

“And why should I be safe if others are unsafe, O king?” I asked.

“Oh! if you would know that, ask a certain ancient prophet named Zikali, who was in this land in the days of Senzangacona, my father, and before then—that is, if you can find him. Also, I like you, who are not a flat-faced fool like these Amaboona, but have a brain that turns in and out through difficulties, as a snake does through reeds; and it would be a pity to kill one who can shoot birds wheeling high above him in the air, which no one else can do. So whatever you see and whatever you hear, remember that you are safe, and shall go safely from this land, or stay safely in it if you will, to be my voice to speak with the Sons of George.

“Now return to the commandant, and say to him that my heart is his heart, and that I am very pleased to see him here. To-morrow, and perhaps the next day, I will show him some of the dances of my people, and after that I will sign the writing, giving him all the land he asks and everything else he may desire, more than he can wish, indeed. Hamba gachlé, Macumazahn,” and, rising with surprising quickness from his chair, which was cut out of a single block of wood, he turned and vanished through the little opening in the reed fence behind him that led to his private huts.

As I was being conducted back to the Boer camp by Kambula, who was waiting for me outside the gate of the labyrinth which is called isiklohlo, I met Thomas Halstead, who was lounging about, I think in order to speak with me. Halting, I asked him straight out what the king’s intentions were towards the Boers.

“Don’t know,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders, “but he seems so sweet on them that I think he must be up to mischief. He is wonderfully fond of you, too, for I heard him give orders that the word was to be passed through all the regiments that if anyone so much as hurt you, he should be killed at once. Also, you were pointed out to the soldiers when you rode in with the rest, that they might all of them know you.”

“That’s good for me as far as it goes,” I replied. “But I don’t know why I should need special protection above others, unless there is someone who wants to harm me.”

“There is that, Allan Quatermain. The indunas tell me that the good-looking Portugee, whom they call ‘Two-faces,’ asks the king to kill you every time he sees him. Indeed, I’ve heard him myself.”

“That’s kind of him,” I answered, “but, then, Hernan Pereira and I never got on. Tell me what is he talking about to the king when he isn’t asking him to kill me.”

“Don’t know,” he said again. “Something dirty, I’ll be bound. One may be sure of that by the native name they have given him. I think, however,” he added in a whisper, “that he has had a lot to do with the Boers being allowed to come here at all in order to get their treaty signed. At least, one day when I was interpreting and Dingaan swore that he would not give them more land than was enough to bury them in, Pereira told him that it didn’t matter what he signed, as ‘what was written with the pen could be scratched out with the spear.’”

“Indeed! And what did the king say to that?”

“Oh! he laughed and said it was true, and that he would give the Boer commission all their people wanted and something over for themselves. But don’t you repeat that, Quatermain, for if you do, and it gets to the ear of Dingaan, I shall certainly be killed. And, I say, you’re a good fellow, and I won a big bet on you over that vulture shooting, so I will give you a bit of advice, which you will be wise to take. You get out of this country as soon as you can, and go to look after that pretty Miss Marais, whom you are sweet on. Dingaan wants her, and what Dingaan wants he gets in this part of the world.”

Then, without waiting to be thanked, he turned and disappeared among a crowd of Zulus, who were following us from curiosity, leaving me wondering whether or no Dingaan was right when he called this young man a liar. His story seemed to tally so well with that told by the king himself, that on the whole I thought he was not.

Just after I had passed the main gateway of the great town, where, his office done, Kambula saluted and left me, I saw two white men engaged in earnest conversation beneath one of the milk trees which, as I think I have already mentioned, grow, or grew, there. They were Henri Marais and his nephew. Catching sight of me, Marais walked off, but Pereira advanced and spoke to me, although, warned perhaps by what had happened to him in the case of Retief, I am glad to say he did not offer me his hand.

“Good day to you, Allan,” he said effusively. “I have just heard from my uncle that I have to congratulate you, about Marie I mean, and, believe me, I do so with all my heart.”

Now, as he spoke these words, remembering what I had just heard, my blood boiled in me, but I thought it wise to control myself, and therefore only answered:

“Thank you.”

“Of course,” he went on, “we have both striven for this prize, but as it has pleased God that you should win it, why, I am not one to bear malice.”

“I am glad to hear it,” I replied. “I thought that perhaps you might be. Now tell me, to change the subject, how long will Dingaan keep us here?”

“Oh! two or three days at most. You see, Allan, luckily I have been able to persuade him to sign the treaty about the land without further trouble. So as soon as that is done, you can all go home.”

“The commandant will be very grateful to you,” I said. “But what are you going to do?”

“I do not know, Allan. You see, I am not a lucky fellow like yourself with a wife waiting for me. I think that perhaps I shall stop here a while. I see a way of making a great deal of money out of these Zulus; and having lost everything upon that Delagoa Bay trek, I want money.”

“We all do,” I answered, “especially if we are starting in life. So when it is convenient to you to settle your debts I shall be glad.”

“Oh! have no fear,” he exclaimed with a sudden lighting up of his dark face, “I will pay you what I owe you, every farthing, with good interest thrown in.”

“The king has just told me that is your intention,” I remarked quietly, looking him full in the eyes. Then I walked on, leaving him staring after me, apparently without a word to say.

I went straight to the hut that was allotted to Retief in the little outlying guard-kraal, which had been given to us for a camp. Here I found the commandant seated on a Kaffir stool engaged in painfully writing a letter, using a bit of board placed on his knees as a desk.

He looked up, and asked me how I had got on with Dingaan, not being sorry, as I think, of an excuse to pause in his clerical labours.

“Listen, commandant,” I said, and, speaking in a low voice, so as not to be overheard, I told him every word that had passed in the interviews I had just had with Dingaan, with Thomas Halstead, and with Pereira.

He heard me out in silence, then said:

“This is a strange and ugly story, Allan, and if it is true, Pereira must be an even bigger scoundrel than I thought him. But I can’t believe that it is true. I think that Dingaan has been lying to you for his own purposes; I mean about the plot to kill you.”

“Perhaps, commandant. I don’t know, and I don’t much care. But I am sure that he was not lying when he said he meant to steal away my wife either for himself or for Pereira.”

“What, then, do you intend to do, Allan?”

“I intend, commandant, with your permission to send Hans, my after-rider, back to the camp with a letter for Marie, telling her to remove herself quietly to the farm I have chosen down on the river, of which I told you, and there to lie hid till I come back.”

“I think it needless, Allan. Still, if it will ease your mind, do so, since I cannot spare you to go yourself. Only you must not send this Hottentot, who would talk and frighten the people. I am despatching a messenger to the camp to tell them of our safe arrival and good reception by Dingaan. He can take your letter, in which I order you to say to your wife that if she and the Prinsloos and the Meyers go to this farm of yours, they are to go without talking, just as though they wanted a change, that is all. Have the letter ready by dawn to-morrow morning, as I trust mine may be,” he added with a groan.

“It shall be ready, commandant; but what about Hernan Pereira and his tricks?”

“This about the accursed Hernan Pereira,” exclaimed Retief, striking the writing-board with his fist. “On the first opportunity I will myself take the evidence of Dingaan and of the English lad, Halstead. If I find they tell me the same story they have told you, I will put Pereira on his trial, as I threatened to do before; and should he be found guilty, by God! I will have him shot. But for the present it is best to do nothing, except keep an eye on him, lest we should cause fear and scandal in the camp, and, after all, not prove the case. Now go and write your letter, and leave me to write mine.”

So I went and wrote, telling Marie something, but by no means all of that I have set down. I bade her, and the Prinsloos and the Meyers, if they would accompany her, as I was sure they would, move themselves off at once to the farm I had beaconed out thirty miles away from the Bushman’s River, under pretence of seeing how the houses that were being built there were getting on. Or if they would not go, I bade her go alone with a few Hottentot servants, or any other companions she could find.

This letter I took to Retief, and read it to him. At my request, also, he scrawled at the foot of it:

“I have seen the above and approve it, knowing all the story, which may be true or false. Do as your husband bids you, but do not talk of it in the camp except to those whom he mentions.—PIETER RETIEF.”

So the messenger departed at dawn, and in due course delivered my letter to Marie.

The next day was Sunday. In the morning I went to call upon the Reverend Mr. Owen, the missionary, who was very glad to see me. He informed me that Dingaan was in good mind towards us, and had been asking him if he would write the treaty ceding the land which the Boers wanted. I stopped for service at the huts of Mr. Owen, and