THE RED SIGNAL OR THE WHITE?

“Why it is. It’s old Qubani,” said Driffield.

“And who might old `Click’-ubani be?” asked Clare.

“He’s a thundering big Matabele witch-doctor. Fancy the old boy rolling up to see the fun. Wonder they let him in.”

“It was thanks to you, Driffield,” said a man who was within earshot. “He was asking for you. Told them at the gate that you and Lamont had invited him to come.”

“Then he told a whacking big lie, at any rate as far as I am concerned. Well, I suppose I must go and talk to him, and incidentally stand him something. In my line it’s everything to be well in with influential natives.”

“Can’t you bring him here, Mr Driffield?” asked Clare. “I’d like to talk to a Matabele chief didn’t you say he was a chief?”

“No; a witch-doctor, who, in his way, is often just as big a pot as a chief sometimes a bigger. You’d better come over with me and talk to him, Miss Vidal; then, when you’ve had enough of him, you can go away, whereas if I bring him here he may stick on for ever.”

Old Qubani, who was squatting against the enclosure talking to a roughish-looking white man, rose to his feet as he saw Driffield, and with hand uplifted poured forth lavish sibongo. Then he turned to Clare.

“Nkosazana! Uhle! Amehlo kwezulu! Wou! Sipazi-pazi!”

“What does he say?” she asked.

“He hails you as a princess, says that you are beautiful, and have eyes like the heavens and that you are dazzling. That’s why he put his hand over his eyes and looked down.”

“Silly old man; he’s quite poetical,” she said, looking pleased all the same.

“Indhlovukazi!”

“Now he’s calling you a female elephant.”

“Oh, the horrid old wretch. That is a come down, Mr Driffield.”

“Yes, it sounds so, but it’s a big word of sibongo, or praise, with them.”

“Oh well, then I must forgive him.”

“Intandokazi!”

“What’s that?” said Clare, but Driffield had cut short the old man’s rigmarole and was talking to him about something else. He did not care to tell her that she was being hailed as his Driffield’s principal or rather best-loved wife. Two white men, standing near, and who understood, turned away with a suppressed splutter.

There was the usual request for tobacco, and then, Qubani glancing meaningly in the direction of the bar tent, remarked that he had travelled far, and that the white man made better tywala than the Amandabeli, as, indeed, what could not the white men do.

“A bottle of Bass won’t hurt him,” declared Driffield, sending across for it.

“Why does he wear that great thick cap?” said Clare. “He’d look much better without it.”

“This?” said the old man, putting his hand to the cap of red knitted worsted, surmounted by a tuft, which adorned his head as the remark was translated to him. “Whau! I am old and the nights are not warm.”

“Why, he’s got on two,” said Clare, as the movement, slightly displacing the red cap, showed another underneath made of like material but white. “Goodness! I wonder his head doesn’t split.”

“Native heads don’t split in a hurry, Miss Vidal,” said Orwell, the Resident Magistrate, who had joined them in time to catch the remark.

“I don’t believe I ought to speak to you, Mr Orwell at any rate not just yet. You had no business to win that tent-pegging. I had backed Mr Lamont.”

The Magistrate laughed.

“Let me tell you, Miss Vidal, that you had backed the right man then. In fact it’s inconceivable to me how he missed that last time, unless the sense of his awful responsibility made him nervous. It would have made me so.”

Again, many a true word uttered in jest. The speaker little knew that he had stated what was literally and exactly the case.

“Nonsense. I wonder where Mr Lamont has got to. He hasn’t been near me since.”

“That I can quite believe. He’s afraid. I know I should be.”

“Nonsense again, Mr Orwell.” And talking about other things they turned away, quite forgetting the old witch-doctor. There was one, however, who was not forgetting him no, not by any means.

The while Jim Steele, the latest rejected of Clare, was very drunk in the bar tent. When we say very drunk we don’t mean to convey the idea that he was incapable, or even unsteady on his pins to any appreciable extent but just nasty, quarrelsome, fighting drunk; and as he was a big, powerful fellow, most of those standing about were rather civil to him. Now Jim Steele was at bottom a good fellow rather than otherwise, but his rejection by Clare Vidal he had taken to heart. He had also taken to drink.

He had noticed Clare and Lamont together that day, and had more than once scowled savagely at the pair. Moreover, he had heard that Clare had backed Lamont and had made others do so in the tent-pegging, and now he was bursting with rage and jealousy. It follows therefore that this was an unfortunate moment for the object of his hatred to enter the tent, and call for a whisky-and-soda. Upon him he wheeled round.

“You can’t ride a damn!” he shouted.

“I never tried. I prefer to ride a horse,” said Lamont, setting down his glass.

“But you can’t,” jeered Steele. Then roused to the highest pitch of fury by the other’s coolness, he bellowed: “Look here. Can you fight, eh? Can you? Because if so, come on.”

Something akin to intense dismay came into Lamont’s mind at this development. That this drunken, aggressive idiot should have it in his power to dig not only his own grave that would have been a good riddance but all their graves, was a new and startling development in a situation that was already sufficiently complicated. For apart from his horror and repulsion at being perforce a party to a drunken brawl in the bar tent how was he going to impress Qubani, at the crucial moment, with a bunged-up eye, perchance, or a bleeding nose. He would only look ridiculous, not in the least impressive, and it was of vital importance he should look impressive.

“Yes, I can,” he answered shortly, “but I’m not going to now.”

A murmur of disgust arose from among some of the bystanders. Lamont had funked again.

“Then you’re a blanked coward,” yelled Steele, and the murmurs deepened. And yet and yet there was a look in Lamont’s dark face which made some of them pause, for it was not exactly the look of one who was afraid, rather was it that of a man who was trying to restrain himself.

“I’m not going to now,” he said shortly, “but I’ll accommodate you where and when you like, after the gymkhana’s over. We can’t start bruising now, with a lot of ladies on the scene. Now, can we?”

The bystanders, thus appealed to, saw the sense of this. Besides, they were not going to be done out of their fun this time. It was only fun adjourned.

“No, no. That’s quite right and reasonable. Jim, you can’t kick up a row here now. Take it out of him afterwards,” were some of the cries that arose.

“He won’t be there. He’ll scoot.”

“Oh no, I won’t,” answered Lamont. “I’ll be there,” “if any of us are,” he added to himself grimly.

He finished his liquor and went outside. There was a lull in the proceedings, and people were moving about and talking, pending the distribution of the prizes.

“Greeting, Qubani. That is good. Last time we talked was `kwa Zwabeka.’”

“Ou! Lamonti is my father,” answered the old witch-doctor. Then, having fired off a long string of sibongo, he concluded that the sun was very hot, and it was long since he had drunk anything.

“That shall be presently when these are gone,” said Lamont. “But first walk round with me, and I will show you where the horses race. It is good to see the chief of all izanusi again.”

The old ruffian complied, nothing loth. He was thinking that the more exuberant his friendliness the more completely would he lull all suspicion among these fools of whites. He professed himself profoundly interested in everything explained to him.

“I saw you ride, Lamonti,” he said. “Whau! but you did pick up the little bits of wood with the long spear. That was great great. But the other Inkosi was greater.”

“Yes, the other was greater, Qubani, but what made me miss that stroke was joy at seeing my father, the greatest of all izanusi in our midst.”

“Whau!”

“Mr Lamont, do come and help us with the prizes. They balloted for who should distribute them, and Lucy was chosen. Do come and stand by us and help. They are going to begin now.”

“I’m most awfully sorry, Miss Vidal, but I can’t just now.”

“You won’t?” said Clare curtly, for she was not accustomed to be refused.

“I can’t,” he repeated. “Do believe I have a good reason and don’t direct any attention to me just now. Believe me, a great deal hangs upon it.”

“Very well,” she said, and left him, marvelling. It must be as he had said still that he should refuse to do something for her and prefer to talk to this squalid old savage instead why, it was incomprehensible.

“What is covered up on that waggon, Nkose! said the witch-doctor, pointing to a waggon which stood just inside the fence. Its position, perhaps, directly facing the Ehlatini ridge, suggested an inspiration to Lamont. He answered

“Izikwa-kwa.” [Maxim guns.]

“’M ’m! Izikwa-kwa?” hummed the other, wholly unable to suppress a considerable start of surprise. Then, recovering himself, he grinned, in bland incredulity.

“Inkosi is joking,” he said. “There is no war.”

“Nevertheless those are izikwa-kwa, loaded and ready to pour forth a storm of bullets for the rest of the day;” and the speaker devoutly prayed that the bar-keeper might not send his boy to get out another supply of soda-water bottles from beneath the sail and thus expose the fraud.

“Come. We will go and see them receive the rewards, those who have won them. But first I would have something to remember the chief of izanusi by. So sell me that red cap which is on thy head, Qubani,” producing some silver.

“Now nay, my father, now nay, for the nights are cold and this red cap is warm ah! ah! warm. See, here is a fine horn snuff-box, be content with that instead, as a gift.”

“Here I hold the lives of twelve men six on each side,” answered Lamont, showing him the butt of a revolver, in one of his side pockets. “If I receive not that red cap this instant, the first life it shall spill will be that of the chief of all izanusi.”

Qubani grunted, then his hand went slowly to his head. It was a tense, a nerve-racking moment. Would this savage, defying death, hurl the blood-red symbol high in the air, or

The two were alone together now, the whole assembly having gathered round the prize tent. Lamont had drawn a revolver.

“Move not, save to hand me that cap,” he said.

For a moment the savage hesitated. But the ring of steel pointing straight at his chest, perhaps the awful and fell look on this man’s face, from which every drop of blood had vanished, and whose eyes were glittering like those of a wild beast, decided him. His hand came slowly down from his head, and the red cap was in Lamont’s left hand.

Yes, it was a tense moment, and in the excitement of it Lamont had all he could do to keep his nerves steady. With a mind characteristically attuned to trifles at such a moment he found his attention partly shared by such. Apart from the crowd a very pretty girl was rating a man, in voluble English with a foreign accent, apparently for having paid too much attention elsewhere during the day. He heard Jim Steele snarling and cursing in the bar tent, and idly wondered if his language would reach ears for which it was not fit. He felt an interest in Orwell’s dog, running about in search of its master in short, a dozen other trivialities raced through his brain. Then a loud cheer broke the spell. The first prize had been distributed.

“This is not the unarmed gathering you would think, Qubani,” he said, speaking in quick low tones. “Each man and there are nearly two hundred of them has his weapons all ready, and would have them in his hand in far less time than it would take you to run say from here to Ehlatini.”

“Whou!” ejaculated the witch-doctor, bringing his hand to his mouth.

“Moreover, all round Gandela there is laid that which would blow a whole impi into the air did such walk over it. The whites know where it is, but it would be very dangerous for strangers.”

“Ha!”

Another cheer went up, as another prize was given away. Incidentally Lamont thought how fortunate he had been in not winning the tent-pegging competition, for he could not have received his prize by deputy, and it was still important to keep a close watch on Qubani.

“And now, O great isanusi,” he went on, “what would be thy fate did those here know what my muti has told me? No quick and easy death, I fear.”

A troubled and anxious look came into the old man’s face.

“You are my father, Lamonti, but your talk is dark very dark. Ou! Yet though I understand it not, I will do all you wish.”

“That will be wise. Now we will look at them receiving the rewards. Come.”

The prize tent was at the farther end of the enclosure and facing the Ehlatini ridge, towards which the spectators’ backs were, by the position, of necessity turned. But Lamont, as he manoeuvred his prisoner on to the fringe of the crowd, took care that his was not. He noticed, moreover, a thread of smoke arising from the summit of the ridge. Well, there was nothing very extraordinary about that or there might have been.

“Throw up thy cap, Qubani,” he said pleasantly, as another cheer broke forth and some hats were thrown in the air. “Throw up thy cap, and rejoice with us. Thy white cap.”

The witch-doctor dared not refuse. With a broad grin, as though he were entering into the fun of the thing, he threw into the air the white signal.

Again, and again, every time the cheering broke forth, Lamont banteringly bade him throw it higher, promising much tywala when the proceedings were over, till finally many of the spectators turned their attention to him and laughed like anything, cheering him. And one of them remarked that it was worth coming for alone, just to see the old boy flinging up his cap and hooraying like a white man and a brother.

They little knew, those light-hearted ones, that but for one mans nerve and presence of mind the red signal would have gone up, and then