“GOOD NIGHT, ZAVULA!”

Elvesdon was seated in his inner office, busied with his ordinary routine work. It was afternoon and hot, and he had thrown off his coat and waistcoat, and sat in his shirt and light duck trousers smoking a pipe of excellent Magaliesberg. Court was over, he had disposed of the few cases, mostly of a trumpery nature, before lunch, and now the office work was not of a particularly engrossing character; wherefore perhaps it was not strange that his thoughts should go back to his Sunday visit, which, of course, spelt Edala Thornhill.

The worst of it was she had been occupying his thoughts of late, and that even when he had seen her but once. Now he had seen her twice had spent a whole day in her society. And she was occupying his thoughts more than ever. Yet why?

He was not in his first youth, nor was she the first of the other sex he had been interested in. He had had experiences, as a fine, well-looking, well set up man of his stamp was bound to have had. Yet the image of this girl had stamped itself upon his mind in a way that the image of no one else had ever been able to do for years; since what he pleasantly liked to term to himself his salad days. And he did not know what to make of this interest. It was not even budding love he told himself only a strong interest in what seemed an interesting character. Yet behind it was an unmistakable longing to see more of her. The feeling rendered him vaguely uncomfortable.

He relit his pipe, and sat back to think. There came a tap at the door and his clerk entered, bringing some official letters to be signed.

“Anything new. Prior?” he asked carelessly, when this process had been accomplished.

“There is, sir. Teliso has come back, and there’s been an infernal rascally Ethiopian preacher stirring up Babatyana’s location. He’s gone on to Nteseni’s.”

“I know. I captured that information from two fellows I was talking with this morning. I’ll see Teliso directly. But what can you do at this stage of affairs? I’m keeping my eyes open, but you mustn’t be too zealous in our Service, Prior, or you’re bound to come out bottom dog. The chap I want particularly looked after is this Manamandhla. He’s a crafty swine and not over here for any good. I had a talk with him the other day and he’s as slippery as the proverbial eel.”

“Did you, sir? Well, I can tell you something about him. He’s gone to squat on old Thornhill’s farm.”

“To squat?”

“Yes, so they say. It seems fishy, to say the least of it.”

“How so?”

“Why he’s a biggish man over on the other side. What should he want to come and squat here for?”

“What do you mean by `squatting,’ Prior? I should say Thornhill was not the sort of man to allow squatters on his place.”

“Well, sir, that’s what I’ve got at through the people. Anyway it simplifies the watching part of the business, for we’ve got Manamandhla bang under our noses.”

Elvesdon sat meditatively, burning his middle finger into the bowl of his lighted pipe. More and more was it brought home to him how anything concerning the house of Thornhill spelt interest to him, even vivid interest, he could not but own to himself. And Thornhill was rather a mysterious personality, and his daughter even more out of the commonplace. What did it all mean what the very deuce did it all mean? Then he said:

“I don’t quite know what to make of it just now, Prior. Things are shaping out. But you keep your ears open. You were born and bred on this frontier, and you know these chaps and their ways a good deal better than I do. You can grip things that I should probably miss entirely. So don’t let anything pass.”

It was just by such frank and hearty appreciation of their capabilities that Elvesdon endeared himself to his subordinates, hence this one’s dictum upon him to Thornhill on a former occasion.

“You may rely upon me, sir,” answered Prior, intensely gratified. “I’ll do my very best all along the line.”

“And that will be a very good kind of best, Prior, judging from my short experience of you. Hullo! Come in.”

This in response to another knock at the door. It was opened and there entered a native constable.

“Nkose! The chief has arrived. The chief, Zavula. He would have a word with Nkose.”

“Admit him,” said Elvesdon, cramming a fresh fill into his pipe.

There was a sound of light footsteps, made by bare feet, outside, and old Zavula appeared in the doorway. His right hand was uplifted, and he poured forth words of sibongo in the liquid Zulu. Elvesdon arose and shook the old man by the hand. He was always especially courteous to men of rank among the natives a fact which they fully appreciated.

“Greeting, my father. I am glad to see you,” he said. “Sit. Here is snuff. It is a good accompaniment for a talk.”

Zavula subsided on to the floor a native of course would be supremely uncomfortable on a chair. Prior, with ready tact, had withdrawn. There were those who said that Elvesdon was too free and easy with natives, that he allowed them too much equality. Well, he had never found his official dignity suffer by the line he took, but that line he knew where to draw, and occasionally did with effect. But Zavula was one of Nature’s gentlemen.

The old chief, having spent two or three minutes filling up his nostrils with snuff, began

“It is good to see Nkose again. I have seen him but once when he first arrived here, and could see that the Government had sent us a man one who could understand us and my heart felt good. Now I see him again.”

“Those who rule over the people are always welcome, my father,” returned Elvesdon. “What is the news?”

“News? Au! I know not, Ntwezi. Is this a time for news? Or a time for quiet? I am old, very old, and my sons are in the land of the Great Unknown. You, who are young, of the age they would be were they still here, to you comes news from all the world.”

The old man’s eyes shone with a kindly twinkle. He had used Elvesdon’s native nickname not in itself an uncomplimentary one instead of the respectful `_Nkose_’ such as he should have used when addressing his magistrate, yet the latter thoroughly appreciated the difference. There was no fear of the old chief encroaching upon his official dignity by this momentary lapse into speaking of him in the same breath as his dead sons.

They talked a little on commonplaces yet not altogether, for both were fencing up to more serious import. Elvesdon, with his knowledge of native ways, did not hurry his visitor. He knew, instinctively, that the latter had come to see him on some subject of more or less importance: how much so he had yet to learn. He noticed, too, that Zavula had brought in with him a bundle an ordinary looking bundle of no size, done up in a dingy rag. His quick, deductive instinct had taken this in, where most white men would have overlooked it completely especially if hide-bound by officialism. A chief of Zavula’s standing did not carry his own loads, however small. Elvesdon’s curiosity was aroused, and grew, with regard to that bundle.

It, now, Zavula proceeded to untie. From the wrapper he produced an ordinary drinking bowl of black, porous clay. It was not a clean bowl either for the inside showed thick smears of dried up tywala. This he placed carefully upon the ground before him. Elvesdon watched this development with growing curiosity.

“Nkose,” said the old man, looking up. “Where is Udokotela?”

This, which was a mere corruption of the English word `doctor,’ referred to the District Surgeon.

“You will have far to go to find him, Zavula. Are you then sick?”

“Whau! My heart is sick, for there are some who think I have lived too long. It may be that they are right. And they are of my children too.”

There was infinite pathos in the tone, as the speaker dropped his glance sorrowfully down to the object before him. Elvesdon’s interest kindled vividly. He began to see through the situation now.

“There is death in this,” went on the old chief touching the bowl. “I would like Udokotela to examine it.”

“Leave it with me, Zavula, and I will take care that he does. It will be safe here.”

He unlocked a cupboard and stowed away the vessel carefully. “Now who is it that thinks their chief has lived too long, Zavula?”

“Au! That will become known. But the time is not yet. What I have shown Nkose is between him and Udokotela.”

Elvesdon promised to respect his confidence and the old man got up to leave. Would he not eat and drink? No. The sun would have dropped before he reached his kraal, and he liked not being abroad in the dark hours. Perhaps he was too old, he added with a whimsical smile. Another day, when he should come over to hear the word of Udokotela as to the hidden muti then he would have more time.

Elvesdon and the clerk stood watching the forms of the old chief and his one scarcely less aged attendant, as they receded up the valley.

“That’s a grand old boy, Prior,” said the former. “A dear old boy. If we had a few more of his sort around here we needn’t have bothered ourselves about the lively times that any fool can see are sticking out ahead of us.”

The two old men held steadily on their way, walking with an ease and elasticity that many a youth might have envied over rough ground and smooth now and again sitting down to take snuff, which is far too serious an operation to be performed during the process of locomotion. As nearly as possible they travelled in a direct line, accomplishing this by taking short cuts through the bush by tracks known to themselves, but to a mounted man quite, impracticable, and so faint that a white man would get hopelessly lost.

Following one of these, they were about to come out upon opener ground. The sun had dropped, and in the black gloom of forest trees it would be night in a very few minutes. In front however showed a temporary lightening where the foliage thinned. Overhanging this opener ground was a tumble of rocks and boulders rising to no great height.

“I would fain have been earlier, brother,” murmured Zavula. “My eyes are over old to see in the dark, and

He did not finish his words; instead he dropped to the earth, felled by the murderous blow which had crashed upon his unsuspecting head from behind. His companion sprang aside just in time to dodge a like blow aimed at him, and raising his stick leaped furiously at the foremost assailant, determined that one should die at any rate. It was a futile resistance, for what could an old man with nothing but an ordinary stick do against half a dozen armed miscreants. These sprang at him at once, yet even then so energetic was his defence that they drew back for a moment.

“Have done!” growled a voice from behind these. “Make an end. No no blood,” as one fiend was poising an assegai for a throw. “Make an end, fools, make an end.”

“It is Nxala who hounds on these cowardly dogs,” jeered this brave old man, recognising the voice out of the darkness. “Whau! Nxala!”

It was his last utterance. A heavy knobstick, hurled with tremendous force, struck him full between the eyes, and he, too, dropped.

The murderers were upon him at once, battering his skull to atoms with their knobsticks, in the fury of their savagery forgetting their instigator’s warning as to the shedding of blood.

While this was happening old Zavula had half raised himself.

“Dog’s son, Nxala,” he exclaimed. “I have found my end. Thine shall be the white man’s rope.”

These were his last words. The murderous fiends, springing upon him, completed their atrocious work this time effectually. A slight quiver, and the old chief’s body lay still and lifeless.

The tumble of rocks and stones contained, from the very nature of its formation, several holes and caves, and to these now were the bodies dragged. To fling them in, and cover the apertures with stones, was the work of a very short time.

“Hlala-gahle, Zavula! Good night, Zavula!” cried Nxala, raising a hand in mockery. “Rest peacefully. Whau! Our father has left us. We will depart and cry the sibongo to Babatyana the new chief.”

“Yeh-bo! Babatyana the new chief.”

And the cowardly murderers departed from the scene of their abominable deed, and the darkness of black night fell suddenly upon the graves of these two old men, thus barbarously and treacherously done to death; heathen savages both, but estimable and useful according to their lights. And it might well be that the mocking aspiration of the cowardly instigator of their destruction was from that moment to be fulfilled.