第21章 Chapter II.(2)

"I only know this," he said, "I'd teach these fellows a lesson, if any one belonging to me had been among the people they left to be murdered here, while they went gallivanting to the Transvaal. If my mother or sister had been killed here, I'd have taken a pistol and blown out the brains of the great Panjandrum, and the little ones after him. Fine administration of a country, this, to invite people to come in and live here, and then take every fighting man out of the country on a gold hunting marauding expedition to the Transvaal, and leave us to face the bitter end. I look upon every man and woman who was killed here as murdered by the Chartered Company."

"Well, Jameson only did what he was told. He had to obey orders, like the rest of us. He didn't make the plan, and he's got the punishment."

"What business had he to listen? What's all this fine administration they talk of? It's six years since I came to this country, and I've worked like a nigger ever since I came, and what have I, or any men who've worked hard at real, honest farming, got for it? Everything in the land is given away for the benefit of a few big folks over the water or swells out here. If England took over the Chartered Company tomorrow, what would she find?--everything of value in the land given over to private concessionaires--they'll line their pockets if the whole land goes to pot! It'll be the jackals eating all the flesh off the horse's bones, and calling the lion in to lick the bones."

"Oh, you wait a bit and you'll be squared," said the handsome man. "I've been here five years and had lots of promises, though I haven't got anything else yet; but I expect it to come some day, so I keep my mouth shut! If they asked me to sign a paper, that Mr. Over-the-Way"--he nodded towards the bell tent--"never got drunk or didn't know how to swear, I'd sign it, if there was a good dose of squaring to come after it. I could stand a good lot of that sort of thing--squaring--if it would only come my way."

The men laughed in a dreary sort of way, and the third man, who had not spoken yet, rolled round on to his back, and took the pipe from his mouth.

"I tell you what," said the keen man, "those of us up here who have got a bit of land and are trying honestly and fairly to work, are getting pretty sick of this humbugging fighting. If we'd had a few men like the Curries and Bowkers of the old days up here from the first, all this would never have happened. And there's no knowing when a reason won't turn up for keeping the bloody thing on or stopping it off for a time, to break out just when one's settled down to work. It's a damned convenient thing to have a war like this to turn on and off."

Slowly the third man keeled round on to his stomach again: "Let resignation wait. We fight the Matabele again tomorrow," he said, sententiously.

A low titter ran round the group. Even the man under the bushes, though his eyes were still closed and his arm across his face, let his mouth relax a little, and showed his yellow teeth.

"I'm always expecting," said the big handsome man, "to have a paper come round, signed by all the nigger chiefs, saying how much they love the B.S.A. Company, and how glad they are the Panjandrum has got them, and how awfully good he is to them; and they're going to subscribe to the brazen statue. There's nothing a man can't be squared to do."

The third man lay on his back again, lazily examining his hand, which he held above his face. "What's that in the Bible," he said, slowly, "about the statue, whose thighs and belly were of brass, and its feet of mud?"

"I don't know much about the Bible," said the keen man, "I'm going to see if my pot isn't boiling over. Won't yours burn?"

"No, I asked the Captain's boy to keep an eye on it--but I expect he won't.

Do you put the rice in with the mealies?"

"Got to; I've got no other pot. And the fellows don't object. It's a tasty variety, you know!"

The keen-faced man slouched away across the square to where his fire burnt; and presently the other man rose and went, either to look at his own pot or sleep under the carts; and the large Colonial man was left alone. His fire was burning satisfactorily about fifty feet off, and he folded his arms on the ground and rested his forehead on them, and watched lazily the little black ants that ran about in the red sand, just under his nose.

A great stillness settled down on the camp. Now and again a stick cracked in the fires, and the cicadas cried aloud in the tree stems; but except where the solitary paced up and down before the little flat-topped tree in front of the captain's tent, not a creature stirred in the whole camp; and the snores of the trooper under the bushes might be heard half across the camp.

The intense midday heat had settled down.

At last there was the sound of someone breaking through the long grass and bushes which had only been removed for a few feet round the camp, and the figure of a man emerged bearing in one hand a gun, and in the other a bird which he had shot. He was evidently an Englishman, and not long from Europe, by the bloom of the skin, which was perceptible in spite of the superficial tan. His face was at the moment flushed with heat; but the clear blue eyes and delicate features lost none of their sensitive refinement.

He came up to the Colonial, and dropped the bird before him. "That is all I've got," he said.

He threw himself also down on the ground, and put his gun under the loose flap of the tent.

The Colonial raised his head; and without taking his elbows from the ground took up the bird. "I'll put it into the pot; it'll give it the flavour of something except weevily mealies"; he said, and fell to plucking it.

The Englishman took his hat off, and lifted the fine damp hair from his forehead.

"Knocked up, eh?" said the Colonial, glancing kindly up at him. 'I've a few drops in my flask still."